That works.

So, I have a basic backstory:

Once upon a time, a promising CS med student.  Fell from grace, largely from interpersonal politics and being a bit too easy-going on the issue of nonhumans.  Washed out, nothing left, wound up drinking in a dive bar and being drunk enough to stand up to bad-news criminals with bionic parts, and tell them what they need to get fixed.  Wound up getting a job fixing up injuries and adding new parts to folks illegally, and now somehow caught up in whatever this mess is.

It's not hard to get caught up in things in games.

Should I just... y'know... get on with the dice-rolling part?

What's your MA going to be? You might be able to make a really strong contribution as party "Face". The rest of us aren't going to be too hot in the interaction department, especially in Coalition territory. (I can just see the dragons agreeing to sell a glitterboy suit for a box full of beads).

Scratch that idea. Just read up on the rules. It's not just ISP that gets halved. Everything else is halved as well ;)


According to the rolls: 12 or 9 or 15 - nothing stellar. The dragons will beat me at any chance :D

But don't mistake me. I really don't mind playing the one with the lowest stats. My first ever Rifts character I just rolled eight stats - none of us knew the game system. I ended up with Crazy being more or less the only character I could play with those stats. My crazy was ... well crazy and ended up dead very shortly afterwards.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:07, Fri 28 July 2017.

Looks like my stats hit "Good enough, if not great."  I'd hoped for the option for more bonuses, but at least I can take enough to not be completely sidelined and helpless in a fight.

Which is good, because this looks like a fight-y crew.

Hey now they were REALLY nice beads. :P

And they will *really* go nice in my lair.  So you may never see them again.  ;)

I'm trying to come to grips with skills.

If a skill is untrained is it unusable at all?  Or just gets assigned a reasonable % by the GM?  (For example if my dragon was kept from flying by sever down draft or having his wings cut off, and was fleeing a horde of somethings for some reason (or even a normal athletic  human)  an came to a cliff, could he climb up without the climb skill?)

Also, in combat do "non combat melee actions" include spells (or just non-offensive spells?) for those not trained in hand-to-hand, or should pretty much every caster take basic hand-to-hand?

My character's coming along nicely; I think I'll roll for random psi.  Why not?  Worst comes to worst, I get nothing.

EDIT:  Can't read.  Yep, no psi.  Oh, well.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:04, Fri 28 July 2017.

Hey, everyone. So, I'm not sure I'm actually joining this game. Thirteen players is a freaking ton, and usually a lot more than I really dig? I'm still trying to make up my mind about what I want to do.

I will say I was considering putting together a symbiote Juicer (which I think are from Atlantis but may actually be JU). But then again, looking at the roster someone above was kind enough to put together, things are pretty murder-focused. A more skill-based character might be on the docket.

Mostly, as far as I can tell, a GM call might let you try an untrained skill, but the general philosophy is "No."  Climbing a cliff is highly unlikely without the skill unless it's a really easy cliff; that's one reason skills like Gymnastics, which gives you at least a tiny amount of Climb and Prowl, are popular.

Everyone should take at least Basic HTH.  As a rule, it's one attack=one action; the rules explicitly state that Lv 1-5 Invocations can be fired off in one Melee Action, and it looks like our GM is letting casters take that further.

So take at least Basic.  And maybe Boxing.  Because Palladium looooooooooves Boxing.

So I think I'm done?  But I want to confirm that "All max rolls for bonuses or something" bit clearly and cleanly.  (I rolled for everything, to play it safe, but if I can get the bigger bonuses, that would be nice.)

Also, when we're done, should we be posting character sheets publicly?  PMing them?

I got the stats done, working on skills now, Hey GM, is Hand to Hand: Dragon acceptable?

Well, as a Hatchling I get Magic knowledge, literacy, math, 2 secondary skills, and one 'specialty skill'... taking my two secondaries to boost my number of attacks would pretty much make my character a murder hobo.  Which, if it's setting (and group) appropriate, I'm willing to do, but I was thinking of having at least 1 actual skill to complement being magical and pretty.

You also get HTH Expert if you don't get HTH Dragon, it looks like.  Add in all those Dragon bonuses and you're in pretty good shape for combat.  But yeah, Dragons get all these huge stat bonuses and powers in exchange for a lack of skills.

Other than the Dragon, do we have anybody going the Magic route?

Tattooed Man is on the list, and maybe you.

We have two possible mages as well and I may end up doing something more psi or magic than tech that depends on how a few questions to the GM and or the trend of other characters go.  I can easily avoid both form and function conflicts but I need to know what to avoid.

Tattooed man may have some neat tricks, I am a big fan of magic tattoos, but that a mage does not make. Need a character that can learn spells, IMO, not just gain them on level.

If you want to see a killing machine put Super Human Agility, Fighting Spirit, and Magical Adrenal Rush on our Dragon Hatchling or Borgs :-)

Well, bear in mind that the more y'all borg out, the more I've got to do in the game.  I think my character won't be totally useless in a fight, but ultimately, I'm a Scholar And Adventurer, not a mainline fighter.

Every group needs some support characters, men-o-war, and specialists. Just make sure you take WP Energy Rifle and you can get in on combat from range in relatively light armor (or pilot a PA, APC, etc). Nobody is suggesting you should wade into a platoon of skelebots with the dragon ;-)

Good lord, no.  Nope, I'm doing the Rifle For Sniping and decent armor thing to contribute, but I'll be staying way and the hell back.  I do have a bonus-worthy PP and a chunk of Physical skills to help out, though.

Physical skills make a huge difference.

There are two dragons so we got yer back!  Until something shiny comes up. LOL

As it looks like I may be the main mage, if there are spells/psionics you'd recommend or would like included in my load-out, let me know.  Currently I've chosen none of my spells and have 3 each in levels 1+2, and have 7 more psionic powers and 2 super-powers to add to the following I was already planning on:

Alter Aura
Healing Touch
Mask ISP & Psionics
Mask PPE
Meditate


Also: where do you see hand to hand expert coming from, and what is hand to hand dragon?   (Found the last part - literacy for the win.)
This message was last edited by the player at 00:49, Sat 29 July 2017.

Before we get to far into the details of our characters have any of you decided on a text format for the sheet itself, one you like from other games, or just something off a list somewhere?

Palladium sheets are complicated; Rifts sheets can be extra-complicated.  I mostly just write stuff down as it's needed in Wordpad.