China 2 and pg 141... huh??? PB!!!!??? and Japan mystic arts

[Nether]

Ok so this book is pretty damn cool, but i have to say, huh??? PB???

Why would you make us do conversions for a Rifts book to play in the reg Rifts world that this book is a part of? And it isn't just simple conversion, it is the very annoying kind that doesn't work out to clean numbers, makes you have to change all sorts on your character and ya, did i say i find this extremely annoying?


This also goes to mention chi to isp, which has always make perfect sense to what chi should convert to to me. So i have to ask then, what about Japan? It is in PPE and again why is it so hard for a little bit of uniformity in the power (PPE, ISP, Chi ext) sources instead of having them all do different things? If it is a mystic martial art akin to coming from ninja's and superspies or mystic china, then all of those abilities should just convert to ISP.

It convolutes the overall system and if they would have edited both this and Japan properly, then they could have saved all the "crap all over the place in need of conversion", which is just like the rules atm.

I REAALLLY want a 2.0 system that cleans all of this up. You are already screwing us on the revisions that are barely revisions and just adding to the giant mess of how everything works. Clean it up guys, come on already.

But come on, anyone else find this el stupido of a design?

[Nekira Sudacne]

Your a bit late to the party in thinking the Chi to ISP thing is utter garbage. This forums already pretty much bashed it to death.

Not to discourage new posters, but don't expect too much responce. It's just one of those things that's already a dead horse.

[Nether]

Your a bit late to the party in thinking the Chi to ISP thing is utter garbage. This forums already pretty much bashed it to death.

Not to discourage new posters, but don't expect too much responce. It's just one of those things that's already a dead horse.

Are people for the Chi to ISP for Rifts or against it?

At the moment going over China 2 as i've had it for ages but didn't realize it had the Geofront, and alot of mystic martial arts stuff in there.

Atm i like the Chi to ISP as they have always been described and function very simular and they have never really had Chi in Rifts without conversion.
Has it been discussed about China 2 conversions needing to be done to play in the rest of Rifts?
I always thought the PPE idea was bad as it never struck me as Chi like, but then the Chi mages are wierd for being ISP casters. So ya, they really F'd it up.

Sorry for beating the dead horse but if this bloody site had a search funtion for threads would be nice. (if it does pls show)

I just can't fathom for the life of me how the big wig of the show just can't understand how the Rifts system needs a overhall to fix all of these issues.

[Nekira Sudacne]

It mostly falls into two groups: Those who played Ninjas and Supers & Mystic China and know how well Chi works, and those who never played or sometimes heard of those games who don't have a basis for comparison.

[Shark_Force]

on a side note, if consistency is an important thing to you in your RPGs, you have chosen the wrong company to buy from (unless you happen to also enjoy converting settings over to other systems, i suppose)

[drewkitty ~..~]

The rifts china books are their own setting as much as HU is another setting. Everything there (is broken in my opinion) needs conversion to the 'normal' parts of rifts earth.

[RoadWarriorFWaNK]

what exactly is the problem here?
Rifts China characters use I.S.P. to fuel their powers.
Rifts Japan characters use P.P.E. to fuel their powers.
Ninjas & Superspies characters use Chi to fuel their powers.
what does it matter if its called ISP, PPE, Chi, or pepperjack cheese?

[Nightmask]

what exactly is the problem here?
Rifts China characters use I.S.P. to fuel their powers.
Rifts Japan characters use P.P.E. to fuel their powers.
Ninjas & Superspies characters use Chi to fuel their powers.
what does it matter if its called ISP, PPE, Chi, or pepperjack cheese?

Because each is a different kind of energy and it gets confusing if you're expecting the across-platform consistency only to find out that's not the case.

[Nether]

Well i absolutely love the Rifts world!

That being said, i also like uniformity and i like it to make sense overall instead of mismatch rules and mechanics. I KNOW Rifts and all PB systems are very seriously screwed up but it doesn't stop me from really loving the world. It just sucks that the big wigs in charge can't see the obvious flaws the rest of us do and are living thru just to play a great world setting.

As they are doing it, i might as well just use my PB number to act as chi to, sinse there isn't any standard that you have to use the chi stat for chi. it has properties that should not change.

Then you have copies of the exact same powers between rifts japan and china but yet they function differently. For one they didn't need to reprint existing materiel, and then on top make it so they have multiple versions of the same powers but function differently and then also use different power sources that they all treat like chi. ISP has always made the most sense to be like chi. If they want multiple functionality, then they just needed one printing of the powers for rifts and then put all three power source costs like TW devices.

So many things wrong with this.

[Shark_Force]

actually, reprinting material in Japan and China makes sense. nobody wants to buy an expansion only to find it won't work unless they have another expansion.

[drewkitty ~..~]

what exactly is the problem here?
Rifts China characters use I.S.P. to fuel their powers.
Rifts Japan characters use P.P.E. to fuel their powers.
Ninjas & Superspies characters use Chi to fuel their powers.
what does it matter if its called ISP, PPE, Chi, or pepperjack cheese?

the name problem....
is gasoline wood?
is wood sunlight?
Is sunlight gasoline?

No they are not. While a rose is a rose no matter what name you put to it, naming three different things the same dose not make them the same.
------------------
However, like NS said. This topic of Rifts China being broken is an old one that most of the old PB hacks have bashed to death.
If you treat Rifts china as another PB setting with it's own set of idiocentric rules then you can neatly isolate it so it does not mess up the already messed up rifts setting anymore.
The problems for RC mostly reside in redefining chi as ISP. If they had left chi as chi and worked with it that way there would be not as great a problem.
The problem resides the MAF in RC that give the MA's about 6 times more ISP then in the rest of the PB settings, and replenish that ISP at a rate faster then a Mage can siphon off PPE from a LLN.

Even I, a high powered char player, saw how it would break the system. Giving Munchkins a way to brake the system, w/o actually technically braking the rules. [note: munchkins are players, not any chars.]

If they had just kept chi as chi, then the number in the MAF powers would not be breaking the system because in the system 6 chi is about 1 PPE. And the MAF that gives 100's of power points would not be breaking the system. Since those 100's of points would be divided by 6, leveling them out to about the same levels of points mages and Master Psi's get. Even then they would still get more chi then most chars because to get into triple digits of chi, to twist and turn the existing rules into a pretzel looking for loopholes. [I know cause I've done it.] But there is no way outside of RC to get access to the equivalent of 1000's of chi in low levels. In fact, there is no way to get 1000's of chi without breaking any rules. [Again I know because I've done that too, because I use to make chars for fun. Each with a different goal or char concept in mind.]

The only part that save the RC books from the literal trash bin is the internally they can be played. Even if taking any RC class out of china breaks the system as a whole.

I would not have been able to say all of this till now, because while I knew the MAF in RC were broken, all I could communicate then, was that they were "F***ing broken!!!"

[Nether]

actually, reprinting material in Japan and China makes sense. nobody wants to buy an expansion only to find it won't work unless they have another expansion.

I can understand that, though really for me the reprinting doesn't really matter.

It is that they just made a far bigger mess of it than ever needed to be.

[Nether]

The rifts china books are their own setting as much as HU is another setting. Everything there (is broken in my opinion) needs conversion to the 'normal' parts of rifts earth.

That i disagree with as they are labeled Rifts world books, which means there should be no conversion involved. If it was created for NaSS setting then sure, but the conversions aren't even added in the book either which is just very silly to me.

[drewkitty ~..~]

The rifts china books are their own setting as much as HU is another setting. Everything there (is broken in my opinion) needs conversion to the 'normal' parts of rifts earth.

That i disagree with as they are labeled Rifts world books, which means there should be no conversion involved. If it was created for NaSS setting then sure, but the conversions aren't even added in the book either which is just very silly to me.

HOOOOOoooooo "the book be labels a rifts book so it is a rifts book."
Scrapers was tagged rifts so rifts nuts....eeerrr fans would buy it, but it was a HU soucebook (well it was more a HU dimensions book.)
Manhunter was tagged a rifts book, but it was just a (very bad) conversion of another system's setting to the PB system.[I know this cause I got the original Manhunter books.]
*end of sarcasm*

However, my previous post was an incomplete enumeration of what is wrong with the rifts china books. Not saying they should be N&S books.

KS's and EW's whole concept for the china books was to make something so different from the other rifts book as to stand alone from them. They provided conversion rules in RWB 25: China 2 page 141 & 142.
Even the creators of the RC books knew that you'd need nerf what was in the rift china books to make them somewhat compatible with the other rifts books.

My suggestion would be to drop the whole topic, till you have read the conversion rules.

[Nether]

The rifts china books are their own setting as much as HU is another setting. Everything there (is broken in my opinion) needs conversion to the 'normal' parts of rifts earth.

That i disagree with as they are labeled Rifts world books, which means there should be no conversion involved. If it was created for NaSS setting then sure, but the conversions aren't even added in the book either which is just very silly to me.

HOOOOOoooooo "the book be labels a rifts book so it is a rifts book."
Scrapers was tagged rifts so rifts nuts....eeerrr fans would buy it, but it was a HU soucebook (well it was more a HU dimensions book.)
Manhunter was tagged a rifts book, but it was just a (very bad) conversion of another system's setting to the PB system.[I know this cause I got the original Manhunter books.]
*end of sarcasm*

However, my previous post was an incomplete enumeration of what is wrong with the rifts china books. Not saying they should be N&S books.

KS's and EW's whole concept for the china books was to make something so different from the other rifts book as to stand alone from them. They provided conversion rules in RWB 25: China 2 page 141 & 142.
Even the creators of the RC books knew that you'd need nerf what was in the rift china books to make them somewhat compatible with the other rifts books.

My suggestion would be to drop the whole topic, till you have read the conversion rules.

Are you talking about reading the conversions listed on mentioned pages of china 2 or somewhere else?
Otherwise i have read that conversion rule which most of is reduced by 50%. I just don't see the need for them to put that in there, they could have kept it as a Rifts book by just making the weapons/powers/tech represent in Rifts, and when creating the minions/monsters ext should have given them the adjustments to make the weapons/powers/tech to affect them how they want them to represent.

I also agree about skrapers being HU and not a actual rifts title, and to bad someone can't give PB a slap for that as you buy the book only to find it is not really designed for Rifts.

PB has done alot of messing up the Rifts system and some may just be to the point of accepting it as ok now due to it being common practice, but i am definately don't agree with that as they should be trying to improve thier product by learning from mistakes and offering better format / product as they go.

[Balabanto]

The conversion rules, however, lead to this:

1) Ridiculous home field advantage compared to...

2) Away field helplessness.

In China, Rifts China characters are too powerful.

Outside of China, they're too weak.

[Nether]

The conversion rules, however, lead to this:

1) Ridiculous home field advantage compared to...

2) Away field helplessness.

In China, Rifts China characters are too powerful.

Outside of China, they're too weak.

See Balabanto, that is exactly how i am feeling about the whole situation, and as we rarely have our games stick to just one continent or zone it either overpowers the china character or underpowers them.

None of this would be an issue if they would have originally edited the books without any conversions needed. I don't understand why PB has chosen to make this such an issue. PB had to know this was going to be a very obvious issue when they pub'd it.

[drewkitty ~..~]

None of this would be an issue if they would have originally edited the books without any conversions needed. I don't understand why PB has chosen to make this such an issue.

KS's and EW's whole concept for the china books was to make something so different from the other rifts book as to stand alone from them.

Answered that question already. Those of us that were on the boards here at that time knew about it.

[Nether]

None of this would be an issue if they would have originally edited the books without any conversions needed. I don't understand why PB has chosen to make this such an issue.

KS's and EW's whole concept for the china books was to make something so different from the other rifts book as to stand alone from them.

Answered that question already. Those of us that were on the boards here at that time knew about it.

I understood your answer, but the reason isn't really a logical reason. How does making the book have to have conversions for most of the stuff in it really make it stand apart in uniqueness? All that does is cause game issues and disrupts the ability of players/gm's to utilize the books contents without need of extra time and house rules depending where they stand on it.
Just saying the only thing this accomplishes is causing more debate, confusion and messing up the current power mechanics system.

[CyCo]

Sorry for beating the dead horse but if this bloody site had a search funtion for threads would be nice. (if it does pls show) would be nice. (if it does pls show)

One can find it here. Or simply look at the top of each page on the right side, above the date, in between "FAQ" and "Members".

8]

[drewkitty ~..~]

I understood your answer, but the reason isn't really a logical reason. How does making the book have to have conversions for most of the stuff in it really make it stand apart in uniqueness? All that does is cause game issues and disrupts the ability of players/gm's to utilize the books contents without need of extra time and house rules depending where they stand on it.
Just saying the only thing this accomplishes is causing more debate, confusion and messing up the current power mechanics system.

Whoever said humans were logical?
You have the reason the Writers gave. They wanted it to be different.
[I'm not being a politician, ignoring the question asked and giving the sound bite I want to make. ]

I do not disagree with this.

[Nether]

Sorry for beating the dead horse but if this bloody site had a search funtion for threads would be nice. (if it does pls show) would be nice. (if it does pls show)

One can find it here. Or simply look at the top of each page on the right side, above the date, in between "FAQ" and "Members".

8]

Ty CyCo

[CyCo]

Sorry for beating the dead horse but if this bloody site had a search funtion for threads would be nice. (if it does pls show) would be nice. (if it does pls show)

One can find it here. Or simply look at the top of each page on the right side, above the date, in between "FAQ" and "Members".

8]

Ty CyCo

My pleasure!

8]

[TechnoGothic]

Do What I do...

Leave the China2 ISP numbers alone and keep them whereever you go.
They are not "Too Powerful" at all. Heck, the best of the bunch is the Monk of Internal Energy OCC, and he is not that powerful, i should know i have played them. They are roughly equal to a Mind melter in power, but somewhat limited in powers.

what exactly is the problem here?
Rifts China characters use I.S.P. to fuel their powers.
Rifts Japan characters use P.P.E. to fuel their powers.
Ninjas & Superspies characters use Chi to fuel their powers.
what does it matter if its called ISP, PPE, Chi, or pepperjack cheese?

ISP = PSYCHIC Powers
PPE = MAGICAL Powers
CHI = BOTH at once, both psychic and magic, either, or...

I just wish Rifts used CHI for both sources. One is Internal, the other is External, Chi is Both.

[drewkitty ~..~]

ISP = PSYCHIC Powers
PPE = MAGICAL Powers
CHI = BOTH at once, both psychic and magic, either, or...

This is how I see them as.

ISP: the power of the Mind
PPE: the power of the Body and Soul
Chi: the power of the Body and Spirit

Developed the above from the way chi and ppe are readily interchangeable w/o loss and linked to the body through the PE stat.
While isp is not interchangeable with the other two and linked to the mind through the ME stat.
And what powers the energies are used for.

[Nether]

Do What I do...

Leave the China2 ISP numbers alone and keep them whereever you go.
They are not "Too Powerful" at all. Heck, the best of the bunch is the Monk of Internal Energy OCC, and he is not that powerful, i should know i have played them. They are roughly equal to a Mind melter in power, but somewhat limited in powers.

what exactly is the problem here?
Rifts China characters use I.S.P. to fuel their powers.
Rifts Japan characters use P.P.E. to fuel their powers.
Ninjas & Superspies characters use Chi to fuel their powers.
what does it matter if its called ISP, PPE, Chi, or pepperjack cheese?

ISP = PSYCHIC Powers
PPE = MAGICAL Powers
CHI = BOTH at once, both psychic and magic, either, or...

I just wish Rifts used CHI for both sources. One is Internal, the other is External, Chi is Both.

I have come to the same conclusion, just use the book as is in reg Rifts worlds and ignore the conversions. They aren~t that bad overall and any Rifts gm worth thier salt can handle the power differences appropriately.

[Nether]

ISP = PSYCHIC Powers
PPE = MAGICAL Powers
CHI = BOTH at once, both psychic and magic, either, or...

This is how I see them as.

ISP: the power of the Mind
PPE: the power of the Body and Soul
Chi: the power of the Body and Spirit

Developed the above from the way chi and ppe are readily interchangeable w/o loss.
While isp is not interchangeable with the other two.
And what powers the energies are used for.

I see it slightly different myself.

ISP: is the power of the soul. The definition of psychic is more inline to describing it as the soul or stemming from.
PPE: The external mystic power of the world/universe. Your ability to use this is based on your ability to harness and manipulate it. You can store what you can harness.
Chi: Is a mix of both ISP and PPE. All internal Chi effects are ISP. All external Chi effects are external manipulation of the PPE power that is already there.

So in essense, in our games it is pretty easy to determine what is what and not much need to have a actual Chi stat as the first two already represent it aspects.

Also as far a description goes, i did like alot that they actually defined Chi in Rifts as ISP, as they are so simular already. Only exception is the manipulation of external Chi flows which also made sense to us that it would be PPE.

[drewkitty ~..~]

For to have chi and ppe are readily interchangeable w/o loss (which they do), it is not possible for chi to have anything to do with ISP. Since ISP and PPE do not covert readily, and when they do there is an overall loss of energy. And there is the fact that Chi is linked to the PE stat (Body) just as PPE is. Unlike how ISP is linked to the ME stat (Mind).

[dark brandon]

what exactly is the problem here?
Rifts China characters use I.S.P. to fuel their powers.
Rifts Japan characters use P.P.E. to fuel their powers.
Ninjas & Superspies characters use Chi to fuel their powers.
what does it matter if its called ISP, PPE, Chi, or pepperjack cheese?

the name problem....
is gasoline wood?
is wood sunlight?
Is sunlight gasoline?

No they are not. While a rose is a rose no matter what name you put to it, naming three different things the same dose not make them the same.

You all are putting too much thought into something someone didn't put that much thought in. You're trying to find definition in something that's undefineable.

To really get to see this, as it should be, it needs to be viewed in it's own element, if only because that's how the writers wrote it. Any attempt to mesh them only simply makes baby jesus cry.

[drewkitty ~..~]

Every thing should have a conversion due to the fact that it is RIfts which was originally thought to cross multiple dimensions and spaces... So why not have both stats for both types of worlds for consideration.

The conversion notes for the rifts china to normal rifts are in the Rifts China 2 book.

As to the rest, the Dragons and Gods book is set up with the conversions embedded in each dragon type and god. As they are in the RCB2 if I'm remembering correctly.

-----------

I was trying to make a RC char and ran into another <descriptive adverb>'ing annoying thing about the RC books. That Martial Art Powers are limited to individual h2h types. Not just you get a MA power (of a type) which you choose from the list of that MA power type.

And that it seams that every Geo-Front soldier type is a Dedicated MA but also gets a OCC's worth of skills to go with the h2h's.
For this the only way I can see to have a DMA, is for the DMA to have two sets of RC h2h's.
Your ideas on this? (If you are not familiar with the DMA class then familiarize yourself with it before commenting.)

[Kagashi]

ISP = PSYCHIC Powers
PPE = MAGICAL Powers
CHI = BOTH at once, both psychic and magic, either, or...

This is how I see them as.

ISP: the power of the Mind
PPE: the power of the Body and Soul
Chi: the power of the Body and Spirit

Developed the above from the way chi and ppe are readily interchangeable w/o loss.
While isp is not interchangeable with the other two.
And what powers the energies are used for.

I see it slightly different myself.

ISP: is the power of the soul. The definition of psychic is more inline to describing it as the soul or stemming from.
PPE: The external mystic power of the world/universe. Your ability to use this is based on your ability to harness and manipulate it. You can store what you can harness.
Chi: Is a mix of both ISP and PPE. All internal Chi effects are ISP. All external Chi effects are external manipulation of the PPE power that is already there.

So in essense, in our games it is pretty easy to determine what is what and not much need to have a actual Chi stat as the first two already represent it aspects.

Also as far a description goes, i did like alot that they actually defined Chi in Rifts as ISP, as they are so simular already. Only exception is the manipulation of external Chi flows which also made sense to us that it would be PPE.

As far as Martial Arts in Palladium are concerned, I see the mystic energies simply as three different energies that fuel powers that have similar effects to one another. Its that simple. I really dont see a problem with it. As a matter of a fact, i find it quite interesting. Imagine the surprise of the chi artist who attacks the ISP artists chi reserves thinking thats what he is using to fuel his mystic arts, then the ISP artist unleashes another attack....or the PPE artist who doesnt understand why he cannot heal since his chi has been infected by negative chi. Really makes things interesting for me.

For the other topic of this thread, conversions within the same game...I agree...dumb, dumb, dumb. I agree with Techno Gothic...no conversions outside china at all. KISS.