Settembrini, at some point you'd mentioned something about some kind of quick-start character rules that you and someone (zachary?) had done for RIFTS... what the fuck were you talking about? Where is it?

RPGPundit

Sett's no fool.  He probably doesn't have it posted anywhere for general download.  This is Palladium we're talking about, after all.

But just for the remote possibility that some unnamed forum members are sending some private messages around:

V jnag va, gbb!

Huh what? Quick start? Me too, please!

PM jgants, he has these files.  I have a copy I'd be happy to share, but it's not on this comp.

EDIT:  There's also a page of templates here, suitable for mook & NPC use.

If those are what this is about then I concur--jgants's pdfs are ideal intros for Rifts noobs.

Yep, they're quite useful. I still need more crunchy bits

Quote from: SosthenesYep, they're quite useful. I still need more crunchy bits

What do you want, bud?  Perhaps I can help when I get back from taking the kid to tumbling tonight.

Well, even though Rifts has moved further back in the queue, I still have to work on a few tiny rules issues, so if someone has already done this...

As has been suggested many times before, the skill rules aren't totally perfect.. Changing them to a more RuneQuest-like system (independent from level, increases through use) seems like the best way to go. I'll probably have to go through the skill list, though. Sett and other guys said they changed it to something similar already.

Also, HtH skills (Expert, Assassin etc.) seem a bit wacky. And full-fledged combat dudes aren't that much better than the magic guys. Come on, one or two languages sacrificed (or other nigh-useless skills) and they seem to be almost as good as.

Wow - my intro to Rifts docs are becoming world-famous.  

Like Zach said, anyone who wants them can just send me a PM with their email address and I'll get them out to you right away.

I'm not sure that's what Pundit is talking about, though.  My docs are just a Wikipedia-esque overview for newbies.  Not so much a "quick start" as a "how/where to start".

Hadn´t seen the thread.
I´m cooking something up.

EDIT: OK, Pundit. I can supply the following: I made tables for the weapon bonuses & numbers of attacks. I also made a basic spreadsheet for calculating weapon and armour efficiency. With this minor tool, you can quickly estimate how powerful Rifts equipment is compared to the stuff in the main books. I also made a master skill list. It´s all stuff I made for myself, so it doesn´t look nice. If there´s more than you who´s interested, I might nicen it up.

Apart from that, I use following houserules:

Stats generate boni as in some well known other game. That is, I left the byzantine table that is an AD&D 1st derivate, and went for the straight: +1/2 Attribute points. It´s especially handy for quickly calculating supernatural stuff.

The boni are applied following the logic of that well known game, with the following exception:

You have to decide how you you split your DEX bonus!
Any bonus or malus you have in it must be split between Dodge/Save and Ranged Combat.
Th effects and reasons for this should be obvious.

The biggest time saver is revising the skill allotment:

Use a point pool [Men of Arms: 400; Practicioners of Magic: 400; Adventurers: 600; throw in INT x 10 for skills of player´s choice ], and let the players buy whatever they want from their list and that makes sense to the character. Don´t allow physical skills, as they are more akin to "special feature-powers" than skills. You can ignore them, or allow them on a two for Men of Arms,  everybody else gets one basis. For more variety, I allowed "special feature-powers" from other well known games.

The skill system is pretty nice this way, and it balances quite well. The 200 extra points for Adventurers really make a difference, along with their higher INT.

Ah, ok, some offhand comment Sett had made a while back (when I'd mentioned my interest in an eventual campaign of RIFTS) had led me to believe there were some kind of streamlined character-creation rules out there or something.

Though I don't know what needs streamlining, frankly, other than the desperate need to find some way to regularize the skills (ie. shortening the process of skill selection, and ideally making them all start at the same percentage and progress at the same rate, rather than the idiotic craziness of the current "every skill starts different and progresses different" situation).

RIFTS character creation would be impressively fast if you didn't have to spend ages picking out all the plethora of skills and then figuring out your starting values for them.  And advancement would be much easier if you didn't have to advance each skill at a different rate.

RPGPundit

Don't forget that each class has its own level progression! Years of research and playtesting are behind what only looks like the totally arbitrary determination that the City Rat levels up at 1,876 but the Body Fixer at a whopping 1,926.

QuoteRIFTS character creation would be impressively fast if you didn't have to spend ages picking out all the plethora of skills and then figuring out your starting values for them. And advancement would be much easier if you didn't have to advance each skill at a different rate.

Yepp, that´s why you should do it "my" way.

Although: adding up save and attack boni only from the books is fiddlesome.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityDon't forget that each class has its own level progression! Years of research and playtesting are behind what only looks like the totally arbitrary determination that the City Rat levels up at 1,876 but the Body Fixer at a whopping 1,926.

At least the XP charts are sort-of consistent in that the more knowledge/goodies a class has, the higher the XP requirements.

The arbitrary values of skills are much worse.  There's no rhyme or reason at all for the starting percentages or the per level bonus.  They appear to have nothing to do with the difficulty of performing the skill, the usefulness of the skill, or the amount of training to learn the skill.  I would love to hear Kevin explain his reasoning behind the skill percentages (though I'm positive he just makes random numbers up).