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Hi there and welcome to Rifts!

Yes a Battle Magus, as his name would imply, is a martially orientated mage who's magical talent is honed to making him a more effective fighter. His spells are generally combat (offensive and defensive) orientated and they, as a class, form the bulk of Dweomer's defence force.

Are they a good starter OCC? Well, that will depend on the game your GM is running. If it is action-packed, then the Battle Magus should easily be able to hold his own along side his team mates, be they PA pilots, Juicers, head hunters or other men at arms. A more cerebral campaign would also suit as their magi connections would make them a valuable asset, allowing them access to the wise and learned of Dweomer.

Really it will all boil down to the character you create, how detailed and interesting you make him and how well you role-play him.

Most importantly, this is Rifts and with a cool OCC like the Battle Magus you should be in for a blast!

tbone271 wrote:Hey iam a new player. Iam planning on making a battle magus, iam just curious about how good they are. Are they more combat like, or do they do more magic?

More for combat.
Stupidly enough, they're better at combat than most combat classes.

Or is it split in half?

Before the RUE rule changes, they could not effectively cast magic in combat, so it was about 90% guns/swords and 10% spellcasting.
After RUE, they can effectively cast spells in combat, so it's a lot closer.
Still probably more guns/swords than spells, though.

And our they a good starter O.C.C

No.

tbone271 wrote:Hey iam a new player. Iam planning on making a battle magus, iam just curious about how good they are. Are they more combat like, or do they do more magic? Or is it split in half? And our they a good starter O.C.C

The problem I have about the Battle Magus class is that its is a battle class, call me crazy but I like to figure things out, often combat in rifts bores me. I would rather play a Ley Line walker, Shifter or Techno Wizard than a Battle Magus because at the end of the day a Battle Magus is a one trick pony.

A ley line walker can basically learn nearly any spell magic e is exposed to, the shifter can go anywhere and get fascinating and often powerful familiars (my favorite is whisker coyote) and Techno Wizards are fun in and of themselves.

rat_bastard wrote:A ley line walker can basically learn nearly any spell magic e is exposed to, the shifter can go anywhere and get fascinating and often powerful familiars (my favorite is whisker coyote) and Techno Wizards are fun in and of themselves.

Agreed there - Shifters are by far the most entertaining and interesting magical class to play IMO.

Killer Cyborg wrote:

And our they a good starter O.C.C

No.

I would say they not the best one to start out with, but its not all that bad either.

I think if you are unsure if you want to play a Mage or a Man at arms style class, then playing around with this OCC could help you get the feel for which way you want to go. But they are kinda combat oriented which could lead to a character that is rather flat or 2D with the lack of some of the more rounded skill sets.

But thats just my view... I would say it would be a fun one to start out with just for the heck of it. Seeing this is a whole new thing for you, most likely there will be some insane combats. Thats the way I first started out.. all i wanted to do was fight stuff. Overtime thou, i became more interested in plots and subplots. And started to pick OCCs based on how i wanted to roleplay.

Regards

tbone271 wrote:now why arnt they a good starting o.c.c and should i start with something more basic then?

Basically, I'm an old-school Rifts player.
I'm of the view that :

1. Power should come with a price.
A Juicer gives up his life to be superhuman. A Crazy gives up his sanity.
A Battle Mage is on par with either of them, but he gives nothing up in exchange for this power.

2. Each category should be the best at what it does.
A Battle Mage is a mage that out-fights the Men-At-Arms classes and soldiers.
That's just screwy.
It's like having a Borg who's better at psionics than a Mind Melter is.

Personally, I don't think that a Battle Mage is a good class for anyone, but with somebody relatively new to the game I think that it will give them a skewed perspective of what the game should be like.

Killer Cyborg wrote:

tbone271 wrote:now why arnt they a good starting o.c.c and should i start with something more basic then?

Basically, I'm an old-school Rifts player.
I'm of the view that :

1. Power should come with a price.
A Juicer gives up his life to be superhuman. A Crazy gives up his sanity.
A Battle Mage is on par with either of them, but he gives nothing up in exchange for this power.

2. Each category should be the best at what it does.
A Battle Mage is a mage that out-fights the Men-At-Arms classes and soldiers.
That's just screwy.
It's like having a Borg who's better at psionics than a Mind Melter is.

Personally, I don't think that a Battle Mage is a good class for anyone, but with somebody relatively new to the game I think that it will give them a skewed perspective of what the game should be like.

I agree, but just to play devils advocate, there IS the fact that Battle Magus's essentically gain their power though training and service to a God (basically).

Napalm wrote:... the bonuses far outweigh the negatives for this OCC.

Yes,

I cant agree more with this.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Personally, I don't think that a Battle Mage is a good class for anyone, but with somebody relatively new to the game I think that it will give them a skewed perspective of what the game should be like.

But I dont see how a particular OCC could skew someones view of the game? Now, I am not disagreeing with you, I just don't see how it could, based on my own perspective. With every other thing you said I understand and agree with.

But let me try to explain how I am looking at it. It is by far one of the most (for lack of a better word) uber Occ's a player could start out with. But as for a starting character for a Newbie, I would think that it would be a rather straight forward role. A battle mage battles things, using magic and non magic items. It will allow a beginner to focus on what aspect of the role he wants to choose. He can focus on magic and get the hang for the rules on casting, and when he feels the need to try a different aspect he can just move on into the the other aspects. But, the battle mage is really kind of flat in its ability to do really anything else but fight stuff.

Now the Battle Mage OCC may have lots of bonuses and power with little drawbacks. But that will allow for a little more forgiveness for when the player decides to tackle somthing he shouldnt, and it will allow new players to dive deep into the action right off the bat. Like i said before, its not the best one to start out with. But I wouldnt say it would skew someones view of the Rifts World/ or Game aspect of it.. Sure, he could start out as a Dragon or a T-Man if he wanted too.

And I feel that I can guess as soon as a first timer who plays a battle mage and then decides to switch to another character, he is going to get the feel and the perspective for that charater. I dont think it would skew anything..

But like I said, thats just my view on it. Hope I make sense..

Regards

my problem with the battle magus is that they only learn combat and combat spells, which makes them pretty much good for one thing. I don't lose sleep over it because its rifts, there is no real attempt to be balanced. Another problem you may have is that since you get most of your power from a specific world government and a trio of gods you have random people telling you what to do all of the time.

Shotgun_Jolly wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:Personally, I don't think that a Battle Mage is a good class for anyone, but with somebody relatively new to the game I think that it will give them a skewed perspective of what the game should be like.

But I dont see how a particular OCC could skew someones view of the game? Now, I am not disagreeing with you, I just don't see how it could, based on my own perspective. With every other thing you said I understand and agree with.

"You never get a second chance to make a first impression."

My first impression of Rifts Earth was that it was a dangerous, gritty place where power had a price.
Humans are out-powered by their enemies.
In order to compete, humans have to make sacrifices.
They have to sacrifice their morality by joining up with the CS, for example.
They have to sacrifice their humanity by becoming a Borg.
They have to sacrifice their sanity by becoming a Crazy.
They have to sacrifice their lives by becoming a Juicer.
At least, they have to do that if they want to play in the big leagues.

(Yes, there are also Glitterboys and other non-CS robot pilots, but there are plenty of downsides to playing a robot pilot. You're only a God part of the time, when you're in your bot. The rest of the time, you're average at best. And, of course, bots are almost always high-priority targets)

Players should (IMHO) start off with the notion that the original Rifts Vagabond is the average person on Rifts Earth (not the RUE version that starts off with MDC armor). Heck, even the main book vagabonds are a bit above average.
A notch above that are the average adventurers (Ciry Rats, RUE Vagabonds, Wilderness Scouts, Line Walkers, CS Grunts, Original Cyberknights, etc.)
A notch above that are the Above Average Adventurers (Juicers, Crazies, Dragons, and so forth).

Battle Mages are even a notch beyond than the Above Average Adventurers.

When a player starts off a game, they generally base their view of the game off of their early experiences. The more powerful the character they play, the more skewed their perspective they will have.
-If you start off playing a main book Vagabond, then you will see anybody Plastic Man armor and a Wilk's 320 as a deadly threat.
If you live long enough to get some really good armor and weapons of your own, then your perspective will change a bit, and you will stop considering those to be as deadly as you first saw them... but you will still retain some of that initial respect for those weapons.
-If you start off as a standard man-at-arms character, then you'll see that guy in Plastic Man with a Wilk's 320 as a minor threat. One isn't much of a problem, but if there are 3-4 of them they pose significant danger if you're by yourself (actually, if you play by the original rules then even one can be deadly to your average man-at-arms, because of the full-clip burst possibility)
-If you start off playing an above average character, like a dragon, juicer, or borg, then you won't be very impressed by that guy with Plastic Man and a Wilk's 320 (although, again, if you use the original burst rules that might not be entirely true). You'll consider them a nusance at best. Only a real threat if there are a lot of them. For the most part, they'll be cannon fodder.
But you'll be aware that you're paying a price for the level of power that you have. That the guy in Plastic Man isn't necessarily that weak, but that you're character is THAT powerful.
-If you start off with a character of any of the later tiers of power, you will have a pretty skewed vision of things. With a Battle Mage you have the skewed vision of the above average character, but it's not tempered as much with the knowledge of how incredibly bad-ass your character is, because you haven't paid for your power. There's no downside, and there's no real compromise that has to be made.

No matter what character you play, you will tend to see it as the average power level that characters should be. The more powerful the character, the more skewed your view will be.
Instead of looking at a CS Grunt and thinking, "I'm so tough that I can take this guy out without much effort", you'll be much more likely to think, "These guys are so weak that I can take them out easy!"

Most players will not then decide that they want to play a weaker character class.
They'll look at a Juicer and think, "They're kind of cool, but it's stupid that they die in 5 years".
They'll look at a Crazy and think, "They're kind of neat, but why would I want a character who goes insane?"
In short, they won't have same respect for things if they start off big than if they start off small and work up later.

Hey,

I see what you are meaining now, very valid points on the occ comparision aspect.

Thanks

Killer Cyborg wrote:1. Power should come with a price.

So... what about them-there demigods, dragons, godlings, and other such nasties?

The Last Darkness wrote:Cause if your playing a Battle Magus to be a melee fighter who can us emagic your missing the whole point of Magic in the Rifts game system.

The uses for magic should be and are diverse.

To even learn magic the beleif and mind set that magic is important and better then technology is so deep in mages that as a personal GM rule that I penalise mages for going aginst it.

So you require mages to be delusional?

(You wanna do all your fights with energy weapons, guess what your spells are half power cause you dont belive in them anymore)

If you wanna be a combat expert, any sort of magic user is not for you.

The Battle Magus fills that role quite nicely or rather... it would were it not overpowered. A better example of a combat-oriented mage would be the Smoker from Rifts Manhunter.

Warwolf wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:1. Power should come with a price.

So... what about them-there demigods, dragons, godlings, and other such nasties?

Demigods should not typically be player characters (especially not with a new player).
Dragons have plenty of downsides that balance them out.
Godlings should not typically be player characters (especially not with a new player).

I love your power tier exsample there KC

But even going with your main book you didn't really explain what was at hand: Where do mystics/LLWs/TWs/Shifters fit in? or Dog boys/bursters/psi-stalkers/mind melters (ignoring the more muchkin ones presented in Psyscape such as the Psi-slayer)

I was doing some more thinking about this topic, and I feel that there is one thing we may be overlooking.

Taking the valid points stated above about the price of power with the OCC's. I still do not think, that its a bad OCC to start out with. And this is my point of view for that. I believe it should be based on the level and the caliber of the role playing that is going to be held.

Really, if I am just starting out with role-playing I am going to want to pick something that sounds fun and exciting. Chances are I am going to want to pick something that looks and feels real cool. Also based on if the GM is new as well. He maybe starting off his first few games with what ever he read in any of his books that sounds wicked and fun. The players may just be wanting something with action and hack and slash. Something that could allow them to laugh and talk about it around a table a few years later. "the good ole days"

I do not know for sure, what the OP may be like in his ideas of playing rifts. But if he and the GM are really new to the game, then encourage them to pick what they want and just have fun with it.

Some of us have been role-playing for years and may know exactly what we want to expect out of a RPG. People write detailed write ups, study background information about their roles they are playing. People want their games to be super detailed and as realistic as possible.

Myself, I like designing characters that are fun and challenging to role-play. Something that’s different then everyone else’s. Something that is really going to make me think and allow me to act if fun ways.

Others, may not give a hoot about balance, realism, strengths and weakness and just want to have fun with the game.

And over time, anyone who keeps playing RPG's will develop their own styles of playing. And I am sure we can all agree, every ones style doesn’t not always get along with another.

My reasoning for saying a Battle Magus is a good occ to start with for a new person? Cause it sounds fun, it has a good mixture of rules to use that can/may help you learn the game of rifts. Let the players themselves over time get their own feel of balance and power, good and bad, fun and not fun OCC/RCC's

And really, if some player wants to choose a Dragon, Burster, Mystic Knight, T Man, 30th generation Glitterboy Pilot or Battle Mage.. who cares.. as long as they have fun with in their own level and style of role playing.

The Last Darkness wrote:Read the Rifts Magic book sometime or just about any of the actual writeups about magic in the Rifts systems.
Im getting sick and tired of Mages who use energy weapons so much more then their magic. In the book of magic is actualy suggests to penalise mages experince gain if they do this and reward their gain if they play more like a mage.

The Book of Magic is absurd in several places.
You have stumbled onto one of them.

Nekira Sudacne wrote:I love your power tier exsample there KC

But even going with your main book you didn't really explain what was at hand: Where do mystics/LLWs/TWs/Shifters fit in? or Dog boys/bursters/psi-stalkers/mind melters (ignoring the more muchkin ones presented in Psyscape such as the Psi-slayer)

At low levels, mystics/LLWs/TWs/Shifters are all about on par with the other standard classes such as Wilderness Scouts, Grunts, etc.
At high levels, they're more on par with Power Armor & Bot pilots and Borgs (or more), but at that point they have theoretically put in enough time that they appreciate the power.

Dogboys are on par with other average adventurers, as are psi-stalkers.
Mind Melters are tricky, but generally they're on par with an average character at low levels, and at higher levels (depending on gear and powers) can be on par with Above Average Adventurers.

The power level of bursters varies too much from group to group to really say for certain where they fall, depending on how the GM interprets the Super Fuel Flame power.
But generally they're also in the Average Adventurer range.

Shotgun Jolly wrote:And really, if some player wants to choose a Dragon, Burster, Mystic Knight, T Man, 30th generation Glitterboy Pilot or Battle Mage.. who cares.. as long as they have fun with in their own level and style of role playing.

I won't bore you with another rendition of my "It's Not All About the Fun" speech.
Suffice to say that I disagree with you.

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Shotgun Jolly wrote:And really, if some player wants to choose a Dragon, Burster, Mystic Knight, T Man, 30th generation Glitterboy Pilot or Battle Mage.. who cares.. as long as they have fun with in their own level and style of role playing.

I won't bore you with another rendition of my "It's Not All About the Fun" speech.
Suffice to say that I disagree with you.

That's cool with me, you have every right to do so.

But everyone's style and caliber of role-playing is different, therefore what people see as balanced and unbalanced are different. Yes, go by stats and what not.. you can see which can be more powerful then another. But I don't think a person can go by stats alone, seeing that role-playing is not an exact science by a long shot.

Regards

The Last Darkness wrote:
Though I have to say the characters that ive played one class stands out abouve the rest. Wilderness Scouts, some of the best times ive played rifts were with them. Of course they all died horrible deaths but it was still fun and challenging.

This I agree with 100%. Its a good role to play, and yes, they do seem to die in some very remarkable ways

Shotgun Jolly wrote:

The Last Darkness wrote:
Though I have to say the characters that ive played one class stands out abouve the rest. Wilderness Scouts, some of the best times ive played rifts were with them. Of course they all died horrible deaths but it was still fun and challenging.

This I agree with 100%. Its a good role to play, and yes, they do seem to die in some very remarkable ways

Reminds me of a post rifts game my friend GMed once (Before CE came out). Set maybe a month after the apocalypse.

Though in this instance my character was using that demo expert OCC out of CSW.

He was just about eaten to death by 20 compies that did 2 SDC an attack.

It didnt help that my team mates though it was an excelent idea to shoot at them while they were crawing all over me tearing me to bits. (I think they did at least as much damage as the compies)

Fortunately my armor (whcih was SDC) stoped a good lot of it. But oh boy. An hour previous I'd been attacked by some SDC deamon thing, and 2hrs after that incident I fell down a pit.

Then again, everytime I play SDC characters I get horribly beaten up/by on by the most random things. I've yet to actually have a character die in a Rifts game though.

I don tknow if thats why I prefer lower leveled games myself or not.

On the subject of magic users using Energy weapons and such.. ehh.. Whats the problem with that exactly? PPE is (especially with low level characters) quite limited, so is the repitoire of spells that may be useful in a given sitaution.

I've never, however seen a mage character that didnt play a mage as it were. Sure they ran around with much the same gear we did. But it's only because it made pefect sense to do so. Magic just enhanced their abilities to do various things.

On the subject of a Battle Magus specifically... they are definately among some of the more really high powered characters in Rifts in my opinion. That isnt necessarily a bad thing if your going for a high powered game mind you. But I think if it's your first time playing rifts, or even if your still relatively new, it's abit of a bad choice.

Mostly because you loose out on alot of what makes Rifts such an awesome setting, though you can represent alot of that in a higher powered game too.

It also leads to situations, as mentioned earlier, where you severely underestimate the abliities of something that appears weak.

I'll give you one example. You will (if you dont know about them allready) Likely eventually become familar with Chipwell. Good ol' Chipwell is the really el chepo of el chepos for gear. Specifically, the Warmonger combat robot.

It's one of the only techncially MDC robots, that, not only has very little MDC... but isnt really MDC at all. Its' SDC. It just has 40 MDC worth of SDC if I recall to the main body.

They also have very poor bonuses, and crappy weaponry.

So here one time there was a player who was used to playing with characters that used power armor. Allways in things like CS SAMAS and other equally relatively tough powersuits and such.

So I pitted his SAMAS against 6 Warmongers armed with .50 cals firing ramjet rounds.

His main gun at the time did 1d6X10
He also had some AP mini missiles that did 1d4X10
And being in a SAMAS his MDC was 250.

So when he found himself up against robots that:
Had 40 MDC
Had guns that only did 5d6 MD on a burst
And had a small capacity missile launcher that fired HE mini missiles

He laughed and thought he'd have it easy.

He killed 4 before he had to flee in terror because he almost got himself killed. All those 5d6s realy added up quickly and he soon found his 250 MDC reduced to 100 or so. If I recall he even wound up with a wing shot off and had to run home

To anyone things like the Warmonger are generally very low to null threats. Yet often players who never have played the lower end of the RIfts spectrum overestimate things like those very badly. Because they dont realize how quickly even a small bit of damage can add up. ANd honestly I think you cut yourself out of alot some of the better stories you can come across.

I dont know, I suppose if you start off with a basic non uber SDC character you get abit more of a feel of being this ultimately very vulnerable character. To me it just makes even a hard battle seem almost epic at times.

It's not that you cant later go on to do the really crazy stuff like battle gods and their minions later. It's easy enough to inflate power in Rifts to that point, but I think you miss abit if you dont get that inital feel of your character being actually mortal.

Or something. I dont think I've realy gotten what I was trying to say across properly, but oh well.

Hey Keslsan,

No, you make perfect sense in what you are saying. And I agree with pretty much all the vaild issues that has came up. Now lets see if i can explaine my view..

I guess I may be looking at it in a different light perhaps. I am kinda looking at it in the way of learning the game of Rifts. Not the acutal settings and feel and flavor of Rifts.

I am looking at it as being a rather straight forward OCC. It really is. Its geared to combat and can do both combat and cast magic. And like you said.. lower level mages are not a really big threat unless a person really knows how to think and use the spells available. *But thats like any class really i would guess?*

Rifts, is as diverse as it is riddled with house rules.. Just look at the the other post we are involved with, when it comes to PE and a Cyborg Sure, before I got R:UE I had a pretty good handle on Bionics, but I went out got the Bionic SB *which it recomends* and It has caused me nothing but grief! and many hours shifting through newer and older rule sets! And I pitty the person just starting out with roleplaying and trying to figure out everything with that.. its wicked.

Hence, I look at a battle magus, and its straight forward.. He cast magic.. *rules are pretty straight forward for that* He can fight hand to hand pretty good *rules are also pretty straight forward for this too.* Which I think is a good thing to get a handle on, he can learn the core mechanics of the Ruleset, and start to develop his own style of roleplaying. Its a very simple OCC to start out with if you want to try and learn the game. I would go so far to even recomend it as a good one to start out as a solo game with just the GM to help learn the rules, if the GM is new.

Gosh.. trying to type out a explanation of this is brutal. But I hope you see what I am trying to say. I am not trying to change anyones view just to fully explain mine..

Kesslan wrote:It also leads to situations, as mentioned earlier, where you severely underestimate the abliities of something that appears weak.

But isnt that a good learning experience? People learn really fast that even the smallest threat can be a big problem. *both from a GM and a Players point of view*

Shotgun Jolly wrote:

Kesslan wrote:It also leads to situations, as mentioned earlier, where you severely underestimate the abliities of something that appears weak.

But isnt that a good learning experience? People learn really fast that even the smallest threat can be a big problem. *both from a GM and a Players point of view*

Well what doesnt kill you makes you stronger as the saying goes...

In the end go with what you like. But you'll likely have to gear the game up a few notches to take into account the power of such an OCC. There are times for example when in Rifts I had what I felt was a nifty character idea that turned out -vastly- more powerful than I had intended.

I think the best example was i wanted at one point to play a CS Mutant. But we werent playing a CS game. At the same time I wanted something that made him abit more 'different' than normal. So I went with a Panther species Battlecat that was a BK Assassin (You may have seen me mention this before).

That turned out to be (By level 4) a really strong character. ALot more than I'd intitially thought. Now compared to the fact that there was a hatchling dragon running around along with a werecreature in the game and so on he wasnt totaly out of balance with the rest of the gameworld but still, most of the players were just say.. a regular dogboy, an oracle cat, human mechanic, couple of psi stalkers, juicers etc. He was actually fairly high up there.

I mean with just a pair of swords he was -almost- on par with an equal level juicer. Partially because I'd made some really crazy rolls in CG (that were further boosted by physical skills) but also just because of the bonus combo from race, OCC and HTH Assassin.

Now in this instance this wasnt my first character by far. My first actually was an FCB. And I must say it really did skew my vision of rifts for a while. Because even at level 1 an FCB is actually pretty powerful. It wasnt untill I started getting into SDC characters that I actually started getting a better grasp of the game in general.

Of course I also found I much prefer the SDC system VS MDC. But thats mostly because SDC allows for things like actually shooting right through body armor (While leaving it mostly intact) thanks to AR etc. Which is why I sometimes use SDC rules, though I make MDC items 'vehicle armor' or something like that. Basically the way it works is if it's over the AR it damages the armor, if it's under the AR it does no damage to the armor.

And I think a few things will bypass that rule (If not it's easy enough to HR it as AP ammo) and thus will go through the armor if its over the AR ratiing and do damage if it's under.

It's not that your ideas are not valid. I think it's more that people want to caution you that it's very easy to be overpowered with the OCC in question. You can compensate for that however.

With my previously mentioned character I often sat back and let other players have the spotlight. Though as abit of an OOC decision I'd 'twink out' when people were actually in danger. In one instance some guy got swarmed by 4 NPCs and was about to die. So I found some excuse or other to jump in and save him.

I litterally jumped in swords in hand and cut them to pieces and only used up about 5 of my 10 or so attacks. It was some times handy, but othertimes abit of a handicap because not all characters had been in the game as long as mine so were lower level and they'd also reduced the powerlevels in an attempt to rebalance the game (leaving older characters untouched).

Which ment that I didnt allways have as much fun as I could have, since there was alot of stuff that simply... didnt challenge me. Even sometimes when I purposely 'gimped' my character. It only got worse when powercreep showed up again and I wound up getting into TW items and mods and (very expensive) customized Exo-suits.

Its the main reason why I never (even though I actually could have in the game) got the character into powerarmor. Since most tend to add 2-4 attacks at base and then thigns would have just gotten totally silly. As it was with swords I think I was throwing around something like up to +20 to strike/dodge by level 9.

The only thing that could have broken it even more is if I'd been a spellcaster. Basically this is the sort of scenario you -may- be looking at. Thus the sorta warning against it.

Of course, even with all this twinky goodness the fact that I was still an ultimately SDC character was something I never forgot. And I did in a few cases bite off more than I could chew and just about got myself killed. Especially against magic users, which I had very little in way of a defence against. Honestly that was the characters one glaring weakness. I was allways screwed when I was up against a magic user. But it was only glaring because I couldnt also use magic beyond a few simple TW trinkets and weapons.

Of course I suppose if the game had stayed at it's powerlevel i"d have been challenged abit more (As upposed to eventualy being scaled back again). And I did enjoy the character immensely though that was more from social RP than anything.

Anyway go with what you feel is right, just make sure the other players are on the level with you and you should be ok.

Kesslan wrote:Anyway go with what you feel is right, just make sure the other players are on the level with you and you should be ok.

I dont have to worry about that.. I'm the GM...
They will never be on the same level.. Muhahaha *evil laugh*

Shotgun Jolly wrote:

Kesslan wrote:Anyway go with what you feel is right, just make sure the other players are on the level with you and you should be ok.

I dont have to worry about that.. I'm the GM...
They will never be on the same level.. Muhahaha *evil laugh*

GM PC? Or is some NPC villan? In which case it's an excellent choice

I really dont like the Magic/Tech complaints from people on magic users....thats why I love TW's =) We can mix both, use one or the other, and not bring up suspicion about where our loyalties lie

NovenTheHero wrote:I really dont like the Magic/Tech complaints from people on magic users....thats why I love TW's =) We can mix both, use one or the other, and not bring up suspicion about where our loyalties lie

LIES! Your a munchie magic using techlover! Admit it!

psychics are the best way to go for any player of any experience level

if you want the all-in-one-package you can get it with a variety of choices between RCCs and magic OCCs. The Combat Mage spells in the Merc Adv book opens up a few things more to mages. You should be able to find a hunky-MDC race and pair it with a magic OCC to get something fairly brassy. Dragonhatchlings come to mind, same with the Demon Dragonmage (lots of PPE + master psionics too). Then there's the demi-god/godlings as others have alluded to.

that doesnt work for the battle mage (or any of the magi classes from FOM) as the 3 lords of magic only allow mortal sdc beings into their schools, though it does work for the majority of the rest like the combat mage from merc. adventures or the super spy magic option from mercenaries or just about any other type of mage.

carpet of adhesion and life drain

CS John wrote:psychics are the best way to go for any player of any experience level

I would have to check, but aren't Psychic powers pretty short range, even bore so than some of the better spells (which are, in turn, shorter range than many technology weapons)? Don't get me wrong, I like Psychics, but they are not suited for an "every player in the party" game really (though they can come close with the classes in Psyscape). Magical classes, with all the varieties in all the books, can come closer (byt watch out for Anti Magic Clouds).

tbone271 wrote:Hey iam a new player. Iam planning on making a battle magus, iam just curious about how good they are. Are they more combat like, or do they do more magic? Or is it split in half? And our they a good starter O.C.C

I would say they do ether or when fighting/magic is called for.

Rogue_Scientist wrote:

Nekira Sudacne wrote:I love your power tier exsample there KC

But even going with your main book you didn't really explain what was at hand: Where do mystics/LLWs/TWs/Shifters fit in? or Dog boys/bursters/psi-stalkers/mind melters (ignoring the more muchkin ones presented in Psyscape such as the Psi-slayer)

He forgot the biggest one, Cyber-Knights. "I just became a **** Jedi, and all I had to do was agree to follow this silly code? Oh, and if I don't...wow, nothing happens? I just run around as a 'rogue knight'? ****' A, man!"

If the penalty for being a rogue knight is that they're called a rogue knight, you're right, that's not much.

If the penalty is that a more experienced cyber-knight, and his crew, come and end the stain on the Order, it's a bit bigger of a deal.

Rogue_Scientist wrote: Psychic powers and OCCs in this game are a joke, imo. It's the result of a system that was mostly copy-and-pasted, then tweeked slightly for Rifts, then only mildly expanded in Psyscape.

Imo, Psyscape qualifies as one of the worst books ever. It was constantly delayed and re-written, but the finished product still feels hollow and rushed. I'd love to see a Psyscape II that includes a re-write and re-balancing of many of the main PCCs and psychic abilities.

Infrequently, I work on home-brew rules for Psychics, but I wish there was some official notice taken of how craptacular the current situation is. I'd rather play a mage any day than a psychic. I'd play two on Sundays.

If you think they are so bad, why not write something better and submit it to the Rifter? Most of the ideas in the world books probably got their start that way.