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When I say gimmick character, I mean a character designed to be very good for a particular purpose.

My most successful gimmick characters are what I call "platform characters". Their abilities are chosen to allow them to get close to their target, preferably undetected. I call them a "platform character" because they are the weapons platform for whatever weapon they've been given for their particular mission (typically spells to be cast via talisman or scroll, but could be weapons or explosives or whatever).

One such character that I've mentioned here on the forums was a Wilderness Scout named Escher with the following super abilites: Sonic Flight, Cloaking, Chameleon, Bend Light, and EE:Light.

Cloaking made him undetectable by technological means (radar, IR/UV optics, etc). Bend Light allowed him to be undetectable to the Mark I Eyeball and psychics with see invisible wouldn't have any special ability to see him since he wasn't actually invisible. Chameleon was just some extra insurance against detection (and the Adhesion ability is super useful). I played him in a fast moving, high powered campaign where he would often get close to particular targets and cast spells on them or destroy them with more mundane weaponry.

But more often than not, the payload he was delivering was another platform character that I've mentioned before (although I do not remember all of her powers...no idea where that sheet went). She was a super powered Vagabond with Shrink, Vibration, APS:Ice, Wingless Flight, Adhesion, and ??? (I don't remember what the last minor power was). She was called Super Gnat and the idea behind her design was to shrink down to a speck, fly up to someone or something, vibrate through their armor, and then destroy the SDC target inside with a MD attack from the Vibration super power. But she turned out to be far more flexible than intended, especially once we figured out how to make Talismans that she could use even when shrunk down to a speck (tiny lengths of thread that she tied around her body).

Anyways, characters like these allowed our party to surgically decapitate enemy forces without ever having to engage the bulk of their troops.

So what kinds of gimmick character have worked well for you and your players?

--flatline

My only gimmick character was a Crazy who wasn't wearing armor. I didn't specifically point out this fact until he was shot and killed in the first combat.

Mission accomplished.

I did a TW tanker all of his skills where geared to using and modding tanks.

Worked our really well he would pilot the tank and focus on keeping protective spells up in combat while the two other PC in the tank shot the weapons.

We where able to tank on some really nasty stuff do to the shear survivability the tank had when used like that.

Made a character that had something like Sonic Flight, APS: Fire, and Multiple Selves, with the idea that he could fly in, duplicate, and go nova several times at once.

Satan Lord of Hell wrote:My only gimmick character was a Crazy who wasn't wearing armor. I didn't specifically point out this fact until he was shot and killed in the first combat.

Mission accomplished.

Nice.


Back to the OP; the highest level attaining character I ever had in Rifts was a Rahu Man Nega Psychic (11th level) who believed he was on a holy crusade to bring groovy vibes to the megaverse. He planted seeds everywhere and smoked magic cigars the size of rolled up newspapers. He was a four armed, angry, evil smiting hippie, with the munchies.

As GM, I made a major NPC with multiple personalities, each personality with a physical manifestation ala Multiple Selves. The main personality was the friend/adopted brother of one of the PCs, so that until the final confrontation, the PCs thought they were dealing with a single psychotic villain, not seven of them.

I just remembered another gimmicked charter I had. A tw Ninja archer with a bunch of trick arrows not just the exploding and gas there was CoA, magic net, blinding flash, globe of daylight ect.

A player commented he reminded him of the guy from thief. Basically a stealth guy who would shoot you with and arrow that could do owe so much. Guess he was a stealth Hawkeye charter.