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To me the most versatile warrior would be a power armor pilot with Psionics and access to techno-wizardry.

For instance I had a Cyber knight who piloted a light suit of modular power armor in the first game I played, he had dozens of different ways to effect an opponent.

Put a Mind Melter on a CS Windjammer Sky cycle and he's got twice the firepower of a normal SAMAS. Any normal human can develop psionics and I find psionics more powerful in many ways than magic. If you want a less powerful character cut the I.S.P. by 33% and give him special training.

runebeo wrote:Put a Mind Melter on a CS Windjammer Sky cycle and he's got twice the firepower of a normal SAMAS. Any normal human can develop psionics and I find psionics more powerful in many ways than magic. If you want a less powerful character cut the I.S.P. by 33% and give him special training.

you have a powerful character so long as your opponent is with about 200 ft of you...

Any of the Headhunter variants fro Rifts: Canada.

When used corectly they really cause alot of hurt.

dnjscott wrote:I don't like psionics that much... seems like you run out of ISP too fast.

..my original post was pretty unclear, but I meant more of the swimming/bomb-laying/sneaking/sniping/some doctoring and repairing stuff than cool powers. I find skill monkeys are an interesting challenge in RIFTS...

WEll, unless you play a high tech natural Genius. But that's cheating.

The Special Forces OCC out of Rifts Mercenaries is your best bet. With an absolute TON of skills to select (and little to no restrictions on choices), you can build a very versitile character that has bonuses to all the right things.

Temporal Warrior.

Can mop the floor with all mentioned previous. Especially with max servitude.

I "shudder" had the same thought as Von Doom, Temporal Warriors can be nasty. Anything like a CK who has a good spread of skills plus some kind of edge from magic, or psychics helps. A few others that you might not have thought about are the Russian Smoke Soldier ( I don't remember the actual class name) for a purely human without magic or psychics, Ronin Samurai (somewhat limited in skills), Mystic Ninja, or Tech Ninja (more spy, but with lots of fun things), or the old Mercs Super Spy. I tend to think there are classes, like the Temporal Warrior, who beat the Super Spy for limited magic. What about some of the China classes?

How close do you have your background and personality pinned down? What fits better, ex CS deserter? Upper Michigan trained Merc? Someone who had to find new living arrangements after ticking off the wrong Warlord? A lot of picking the right Occ has to do with what you want the character to do off the field. Believe it or not the old Rogue Scientist can be made to fit as a commando type. They can take almost any skiils, and have a huge number of slots. I used to use them back when the only Spec was in Mercs as the electronics experts, mechanics, medics, and so on. They can specialize while still being worth bringing along to a fight.

The reason they are frozen is because the Super Spy was suppose to be a mage, psychic, or super, or alien who refocused as a spy. This of it as they reclassed as a spy after the fact. The skills should be frozen. I always took it as an in-game way to have a double class. The trade off is the stuck skills. I don't have the books here to directly compare, but a Temporal Wizard would be stuck because he doesn't have access to the Temporal spells once he leaves service right? He was wanting Spec Ops, and I mentioned the Super Spy because they mix magic with espionage/rogue skills, so it seemed to fit.

In another note, my typing is horrible.

Paratrooper or special forces from mercenaries. The temporal warrior is a good one too.

gadrin wrote:Not sure about that since the T-Warrior only gets spells every other level and doesn't have all the fancy OCC abilities. Can't purchase magic either. The Super-Spy mage can purchase spells/learn on own.>

A Temporal Warrior can learn/purchase spells at any time. They are not Mystics.

RockJock wrote:but a Temporal Wizard would be stuck because he doesn't have access to the Temporal spells once he leaves service right?

Wrong.

I was thinking that a Temporal Wizard Super Spy would have difficulty finding someone to teach them new T-Spells, not that it would be impossible for them to learn.

The Super Spy being stuck at lvl 2 is because he basically reclassed from a magic Occ to something else. Your Shifter can be lvl 10, but he is a lvl 10 Shifter, not a barely trained Shifter who switched to espionage. For a lvl 1 character the Super Spy can be fairly powerful, but they lose that as they go up. I always took it as a built in trade off.

Good to see you a gain Doom.

gadrin wrote:

Dr. Doom III wrote:A Temporal Warrior can learn/purchase spells at any time. They are not Mystics.

doesn't say that in my books. unless it's a revision in the new books.

they seem to have left that out of the OCC, unless it's one of those Palladium: we wrote the rules in another part
of the RPG.

I noticed Temporal Wizards can Ley Line Phase, but not the T-Warrior.

"The temporal warrior is also a lesser practicioner of magic" that's the first line on p69 of England -- not sure if "also" means the Temporal Wizard is too or just "oh btw". It's the PB style to be confusing.

In fact if I remember correctly the Temporal Wizard can't purchase spells either. It's simply left out of their OCC
abilities.

Any spell casters except for mystics can learn/be taught spells at any time. This is a penalty for Mystics and their variants and no others.

Hey, I'm working with no books, 2 concussions, and half a dozen surgeries in the last year, so I'm not going to discuss book details with anybody. I just remember the Super Spy being a good jack of all trades Spy/Assassin while the Temporal Warrior had access to magic most people can't get which works well for the fore mentioned jobs as well as Spec Ops, which is what this discussion started as.

In my game being stuck at lvl 2 would be one of the consequences of the Super Spy class. The reason could be anything from the Temporal Warrior's Raider was dead, or he left, which is why he switched to the S-S, or just he got bored, and didn't stay as dedicated to the art. In most cases, unless you wanted a powerful low level player the S-S option tended to be weaker then most Mages when you build them with espionage and stealth in mind. A S-S LLW vs a standard LLW who looks toward rogue and spy type skills as an example.

I'll PM you Gadrin.

I always went on the thought that Temporal Magic was one of the most rare magic classes around, and when you saw it, you usually couldn't talk the practitioner into teaching it to you, without a contract.

I have used the T classes several times in HU games. They make great evil mages, or just more worldly ones.

gadrin wrote:

Dr. Doom III wrote:Any spell casters except for mystics can learn/be taught spells at any time. This is a penalty for Mystics and their variants and no others.

Is that opinion or written down someplace ?

It's fact.

gadrin wrote:Well when you get something specific, let us know.

By us you mean you and no. Try reading your own books.

Ahh, the good old days return. I really missed this lol.

My vote goes to the Special Forces from Mercenaries for versatility. With that said I do agree that Mercenaries need a RUE update.

I meant more Doom's one word answers, and the dog pile then eventually ensues. All fun and games until someone gets a finger in the eye.

gadrin wrote:

RockJock wrote:Ahh, the good old days return. I really missed this lol.

Hey I don't know everything, but when I put together a Temporal Warrior during the last year I sat down and
re-read the entire Temporal section, because I thought they could do that stuff and found out the OCCs
didn't list it.

I don't think they can unless RUE has it someplace, which I still haven't completely read.



>

Dude the difference between Mystics and regular spell casters, of which the Temporal classes are, is pretty basic. Normal spell casters can lean spells anytime and even of any level but mystics don't. Mystics learn magic intuitively and cannot learn spells any other way but by level.
As I said it pretty basic Rifts main book stuff. If you don't know it by now I can't help you.

Guys, if you're going to argue that the Temporal Warrior can't learn spells at will, then the wording more or less leaves you saying Temporal Wizard or Temporal Raider can't learn them at will.

I don't mean to speak for Doom, but the way I take it is that a Mystic, including Mystic Knight, isn't a normal spellcaster, since they learn from within, and can't ever learn from another source. I took the limited mentioned with the T-Warrior as not their only focus, similar to a Techno-Wizard is a limited spell caster. When I said it would be hard for the T-Warrior-SS to learn more then starting spells I was thinking new T-Spells. If they could find a teacher they could learn. This is all from memory, so I could be way off.

RockJock wrote:I don't mean to speak for Doom, but the way I take it is that a Mystic, including Mystic Knight, isn't a normal spellcaster, since they learn from within, and can't ever learn from another source. I took the limited mentioned with the T-Warrior as not their only focus, similar to a Techno-Wizard is a limited spell caster.

Yep exactly.
The "lesser practitioner of magic" is just that and was reasoning behind the amount of spells they could cast per melee (now apparently defunct) and not being able to figure out at level up new spells beyond 8th level I believe (not including temporal spells).

gadrin wrote:I thought T-Warrior only got spells every other level ?

Hardly an all-purpose mage.

Just because the "three actions per melee" is no longer around, that doesn't mean they now get all sorts of new OCC abilities they never possessed in the first place.

Apples and oranges.

Learning spells from other people isn't an OCC ability. It's an ability shared by all non-Mystic spellcasters.

Palladium: "You can learn new spells every other level, but you can purchase them at any time." < buzzer >

Yes. If you're not a Mystic and a spell caster (also not Priests or Warlocks who also lean spells differently) that is exactly how it works.

I would have to say that unless the class description says that you can't learn magic from other sources, then you can. Notice that the Temporal Wizard also does not state that they can purchase additional spells at any time. Same with the Temporal Raider. And under the Pursuit of Magic in RUE (pg. 190), is specifically excludes the Mystic. It states: "Practitioners of magic, except the Mystic, can learn and cast spells far above their actual experience level." I would say that with the Temporal Warrior, they cannot learn spells over level 4-6 (depending on servitude) because they can't grasp the more complicated spells due to them being "lesser magic users".

gadrin wrote:

Dr. Doom III wrote:Yes. If you're not a Mystic and a spell caster (also not Priests or Warlocks who also lean spells differently) that is exactly how it works.

Makes no sense for the Temporal Warrior class. But this is Palladium were talking about.

Why does it make no sense that they can learn other spells by buying them?


Daniel Stoker

But there are other classes like the shifter that always were like that. They couldn't learn new spells on their own, but they could always go out and buy more.


Daniel Stoker

gadrin wrote:I guess my logic should be: don't take any of this too seriously.

bingo. This should be inscribed in stone at the gates to the internet.

Anyway, I have to go with the classic Special Forces O.C.C. from Mercenaries. One of the best things about them is that they start with power armor, right? But see if I'm playing a commando-type then i'm probably not going to use power armor. Too flashy. Too obvious. Too EXPENSIVE. But you still start with it, so the first thing I do is dump it on the BLack Market for a couple million credits, buy a nice low-key vehicle, and a **** of spy gadgets.

On a related note, that was my favorite thing about the New West Gunslinger. They start with a robot horse, right? A robot horse is worth like 6 million credits. I sell it off, buy me a Naruni Super-Heavy Force Field, some more pistols, and maybe a Juicer Augmentation or bionics just for kicks.

Anyway, second place goes to the Tech-Ninja from Japan. I'm also a big fan of the Mystic Ninja, but the mystic powers eliminate my chances of sneaking into a CS installation. And really, that's where the big money is. So when looking for spy classes I look for pure humans. no magic, no psionics, no obvious cybernetic or bionic systems. It makes you harder to track and detect.

sennin wrote:I would have to say that unless the class description says that you can't learn magic from other sources, then you can. Notice that the Temporal Wizard also does not state that they can purchase additional spells at any time. Same with the Temporal Raider. And under the Pursuit of Magic in RUE (pg. 190), is specifically excludes the Mystic. It states: "Practitioners of magic, except the Mystic, can learn and cast spells far above their actual experience level." I would say that with the Temporal Warrior, they cannot learn spells over level 4-6 (depending on servitude) because they can't grasp the more complicated spells due to them being "lesser magic users".

Well that would make sense except for the fact that temporal spells are all considered high level spells (I think 10th level is the lowest one). How are they able to learn and cast them? The answer is they are taught how (and eventually learn temporal spells on their own). Therefore they can cast higher level spells if someone teaches them.

gadrin wrote:Right they had to clear that up in RUE.

I think before that, they had to mention it specifically because ??? (they needed filler ? they were trying to be precise ? they felt like it ?) God knows with Palladium, or at least the old Palladium.

Almost every magical class out there has what it can and can't do pre-RUE. RUE has some good points, but they also did an about-face for whatever reason on things. As confusing as ever.

I didn't need it cleared up. I knew it all along. I didn't need RUE to tell me. I don't even have RUE.

Dr. Doom III wrote:

sennin wrote:I would have to say that unless the class description says that you can't learn magic from other sources, then you can. Notice that the Temporal Wizard also does not state that they can purchase additional spells at any time. Same with the Temporal Raider. And under the Pursuit of Magic in RUE (pg. 190), is specifically excludes the Mystic. It states: "Practitioners of magic, except the Mystic, can learn and cast spells far above their actual experience level." I would say that with the Temporal Warrior, they cannot learn spells over level 4-6 (depending on servitude) because they can't grasp the more complicated spells due to them being "lesser magic users".

Well that would make sense except for the fact that temporal spells are all considered high level spells (I think 10th level is the lowest one). How are they able to learn and cast them? The answer is they are taught how (and eventually learn temporal spells on their own). Therefore they can cast higher level spells if someone teaches them.

IIRC, it actually states that temporal spells count as higher level spells for non temporal casters. It is a similar premise to some spells costing less PPE to certain types of casters. Temporal Warriors are not limited with Temporal Magic because that is their bread and butter. They can't learn higher level conventional spells because the mechanics are different enough that to learn higher level spells would cut into their combat training.

sennin wrote:IIRC, it actually states that temporal spells count as higher level spells for non temporal casters. It is a similar premise to some spells costing less PPE to certain types of casters. Temporal Warriors are not limited with Temporal Magic because that is their bread and butter. They can't learn higher level conventional spells because the mechanics are different enough that to learn higher level spells would cut into their combat training.

Correction. They can't figure out on level up higher level conventional spells. There is no limit on what they can be taught except for artificial limits placed by GM's (AKA House Rules).

Dr. Doom III wrote:

sennin wrote:IIRC, it actually states that temporal spells count as higher level spells for non temporal casters. It is a similar premise to some spells costing less PPE to certain types of casters. Temporal Warriors are not limited with Temporal Magic because that is their bread and butter. They can't learn higher level conventional spells because the mechanics are different enough that to learn higher level spells would cut into their combat training.

Correction. They can't figure out on level up higher level conventional spells. There is no limit on what they can be taught except for artificial limits placed by GM's (AKA House Rules).

I can agree with you on that. The book does not specifically say one way or the other, so it is up to GM ruling.

Oh, and on topic I would recommend either the Temporal Warrior, Special Forces from Mercenaries, or the Headhunter Assassin from Canada.

my most versatile Commando style chara is an REF military specialist that has PW modified Cyclone he's a blast

dnjscott wrote:

sennin wrote:I can agree with you on that. The book does not specifically say one way or the other, so it is up to GM ruling.

Oh, and on topic I would recommend either the Temporal Warrior, Special Forces from Mercenaries, or the Headhunter Assassin from Canada.

Is the Temporal Warrior just that awesome? I'll check it out already. LOL.

Headhunter Assassin doesn't have prowl, I think. Which I always found very, very, very, very odd.

I think the Temporal Warrior makes a great commando type character. Many Temporal Magic spells are great for infiltration.

K20A2_S wrote:

RoadWarriorFWaNK wrote:So when looking for spy classes I look for pure humans. no magic, no psionics, no obvious cybernetic or bionic systems. It makes you harder to track and detect.

Psi-Nullifier null void ability.................nuff said. They can't sense you at all.

In theory, that's nice, but in practice it's never that easy. There are range limitations, time durations, I.S.P. caps. I've see people play the Psi-Nullifier and it's not as invincible as they think it is.
For commando or espionage characters i simply prefer humans with lots of skills and high skill bonuses. Hell I even forgo the more superior hand-to-hand skills in lieu of more rogue and espionage skills. Who needs HtH Assassin when you can get Computer Hacking, amirite?

gadrin wrote:Well the only problem with your logic is that Palladium is also saying "The Temporal Warrior is a lesser practicioner of magic" which certainly implies quite a bit.

Of course you've got: "But Palladium is telling me I can do anything."

And it becomes: which do you believe ? I mean NO PLACE in the game does it say "a lesser practicioner of magic is the same as a regular practicioner of magic". In fact no where in the game does it mention what a "lesser" POM is either. It's one of those: HUH ?

My take is that the restrictions placed on the OCC in the writeup are significant, enough for me to conclude: Nope, these guys ain't like a Ley Line Walker or Shifter.

>

Well there's where you and I differ I assumed "a lesser practitioner of magic" meant just what was in the characters description.
i.e. Only being able to lean on level up spells below a certain level and being able to cast only one spell per melee.
I do not assume stuff not mentioned.

Another good commando type character is the Raider from Australia.

gadrin wrote:I remember asking once: Can Psychic Diagnosis give me "Cause of Death" (like an autopsy) and getting NO, NO and **** NO as answers. Then I happened to read the Dimensional Ghoul description in CB1 one day.

What really surprised me is that no one came back with: But only the Dimensional Ghoul can do that, because it doesn't say so in the power!!!


>

Apparently you asked the wrong person.

gadrin wrote:

Dr. Doom III wrote:
Apparently you asked the wrong person.

Oh yeah, it's my fault

No I put to the boards and got those answers. I could probably find the thread on a search, unless the new BBS upgrade put the kai-bosh on it.


>

Yeah the rest of the boards.