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explain multiclassing to me

Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2020 3:06 pm
by Kinghawke
the optional OCCs in palladium fantasy say they can have multiple occs. I don't understand how that works. I looked through the forums & found multiple links to the cutting room floor, but it gives me a 404 error when I click on it. so...how does Multiclassing work? experience wise, skill wise, abilities wise, etc.

Re: explain multiclassing to me

Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2020 3:55 pm
by Prysus
Greetings and Salutations. Multiple O.C.C. in Palladium can be a bit clunky (in my opinion) and I'd generally recommend not doing it, if it can be helped. I've never used it personally, but if I understand correctly ...

You've had to advance at least one level in your current class (so at least level 2). Then, your current class is frozen (you no longer advance, no bonuses, no skills, nothing). At this point, basically erase all your experience points (XP) and start at 0. You know have to get enough XP to earn level 2 (or 3, depending on the class) as an apprenticeship/training. Once you've earned that, you're now level 1 in your new class. Erase all your XP again and start at 0. You can now advance as normal in that new class. Your old skills and abilities are still there, but forever frozen and never improve.

The site had a fsce lift, and with it I think the links changed. Here's a link to the Cutting Room Floor that should work: https://palladiumbooks.com/questions-re ... -dual-occs

Hope that helps. Farewell and safe journeys.

Re: explain multiclassing to me

Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2020 7:21 pm
by drewkitty ~..~
The basic idea is that the char changes careares. Stopping gaining exp in the old class and only getting exp for the new class.
The the published canon text is in the PF High Seas book.
RUE specificly says to use the text in the PF High Seas book.

Re: explain multiclassing to me

Posted: Sat Feb 29, 2020 2:56 am
by glitterboy2098
yeah. it isn't "multiclassing" in the sense D&D uses the term. it is a career retraining type deal. you are giving up your old life and skillset in favor if a new one.

a few classes in rifts (borgs, city rats and IIRC juicers?) each have a customized version of it they use when certain conditions get met. (city rats when they decide to leave the city and focus on a career in something else, borgs when a non-borg character ends up being turned into a full conversion borg. juicers if they detox completely to no longer be a juicer)


no matter how it is used, it is a major change for the character and will massively effect the future of the character.

Re: explain multiclassing to me

Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2020 1:12 pm
by Axelmania
drewkitty ~..~ wrote:The basic idea is that the char changes careares. Stopping gaining exp in the old class and only getting exp for the new class.
The the published canon text is in the PF High Seas book.
RUE specificly says to use the text in the PF High Seas book.

with perhaps some exceptions for Borgs and Juicers?

guessing CBR removed the line-jumping for 3rd level wiz/diab who want to go TW

Re: explain multiclassing to me

Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2020 7:41 pm
by drewkitty ~..~
Axelmania wrote:
drewkitty ~..~ wrote:The basic idea is that the char changes careares. Stopping gaining exp in the old class and only getting exp for the new class.
The the published canon text is in the PF High Seas book.
RUE specificly says to use the text in the PF High Seas book.

with perhaps some exceptions for Borgs and Juicers?

guessing CBR removed the line-jumping for 3rd level wiz/diab who want to go TW

Expanding the text from informal to saying out the whole idea.

--The the published canon text for generalized changing class rules are in the PF High Seas book.
Note: That the PF rules only officially can be applied to the PFRPG2nd ed game and to the Rifts game. Even thou players and GMs use them in their house rules with most of the games in the catalog.

Re: explain multiclassing to me

Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2020 2:00 pm
by Axelmania
drewkitty ~..~ wrote:--The the published canon text for generalized changing class rules are in the PF High Seas book.

Paper-published that you pay money for, you mean?

https://www.palladiumbooks.com/question ... -dual-occs is digital publishing and it's free.

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:Note: That the PF rules only officially can be applied to the PFRPG2nd ed game and to the Rifts game. Even thou players and GMs use them in their house rules with most of the games in the catalog.

Since it's listed undead "Palladium Fantasy 2nd Edition" at https://www.palladiumbooks.com/question ... room-floor I guess you could use that as grounds to say it's not allowed for changing OCCs in Nightbane, but I don't really see why. PF2 has "compatible with the entire" on the back, and there are PF elements utilized in Nightbane, like Modeus being mentioned in Nightlands.

"Compatible" is official, not a house rule.

Re: explain multiclassing to me

Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2020 5:22 pm
by drewkitty ~..~
There is a topic in the Q&A forum for GMs to post their house rules. Part of it is how they incorporate the optional posted rules into their own games.

Re: explain multiclassing to me

Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2020 3:32 am
by Zer0 Kay
Little known fact. HU:R has the possibility to MULTICLASS. Toward the end of each hardware class there is a section called "Other Stuff:" In the section it talks about Alignment, Other Skills, Attacks per Melee, Weapons and Armor SDC, Other Options and Hand to Hand Combat. To me that is somewhat important stuff and not "Other Stuff:" to be placed at the end of the class description. But even more criminal is that after a bolded "Attacks per Melee (Hand to Hand):" section there is slipped in another paragraph that starts "The Hardware character may trade..." and lists what the class can do in order to gain an additional Hardware character class. In the case of the Weapons Expert they give up four of their nine W.P.s and drop half of their skill bonuses. The rub is that you can't get what you sacrificed back (I take this to mean the skills, so if you give up W.P. Revolver you can never get it back.) Going from the others is a lot more painful as you have to give up 2-3 attacks per melee so after a HtH skill they start out with 1-2 attacks per melee. But technically the only thing stopping you from having four Hardware classes is you can't have less than 1 attack.

Weapons Expert to Electrical Genius -4 W.P. half the classes skill bonuses
Electrical Genius to Mechanical Genius -3 Attacks per turn and half that classes skill bonuses
Three classes TONS of skills 3 less attacks than a character of comparable level with the same HtH

UNLESS Your an Alien with Hardware as your power catagory, with an extra pair of arms, prehensile feet OR a prehensile tail, have any HtH except none or Assassin and have boxing.

HU being alive A/T +2
extra pair of arms, prehensile feet OR a prehensile tail (each give +1, but assume only one gets selected.) +1
HtH except none or assassin +2
boxing +1
for a total of 6 A/T
Weapons Expert -4 W.P.
Analytical Genius -2 A/T
Electrical Genius or Mechanical Genius -3 A/T
Mechanical Genius or Electrical Genius
All four Hardware classes for -4 W.P. and -5 A/T leaving your alien with 1 attack per turn.

Re: explain multiclassing to me

Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2020 7:53 pm
by drewkitty ~..~
Yup I know about E-publishing. PB has Drive-Through RPG handle theirs.

Yep, just like in HU2 you can build two hardware specialties into the one power cat the char. *yawn* This is not changing power cats...it is adding another hardware specialty into the power cat of the character during char creation.

The text you referenced 0K is not multi-classing, nor is it changing classes. (I explained what the text means in the above paragraph.)
Please stop misrepresenting text that has nothing to do with being talked about. This does not reflect well on you. I don't care if it is intentional to muddy up the waters or if it just a case of poor critical reading.

Re: explain multiclassing to me

Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2020 8:17 pm
by Curbludgeon
drewkitty ~..~ wrote:RUE specificly[sic] says to use the text in the PF High Seas book.
And on what page is that?

Re: explain multiclassing to me

Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2020 11:53 pm
by Zer0 Kay
drewkitty ~..~ wrote:Yup I know about E-publishing. PB has Drive-Through RPG handle theirs.

Yep, just like in HU2 you can build two hardware specialties into the one power cat the char. *yawn* This is not changing power cats...it is adding another hardware specialty into the power cat of the character during char creation.

The text you referenced 0K is not multi-classing, nor is it changing classes. (I explained what the text means in the above paragraph.)
Please stop misrepresenting text that has nothing to do with being talked about. This does not reflect well on you. I don't care if it is intentional to muddy up the waters or if it just a case of poor critical reading.


Are you responding to me Dk? Nevermind it is right there 0k. What the heck is up your butt?
1. I never said change.
2. I know it adds on at the beginning.
3. It is the closest thing to actual multiclassing.
4. What the heck does e-publishing have to do with anything I said?
5. No other power cat allows anything like that. You can't be an alien mutant and an alien super. You can't be a two different classes of mega hero. You cant be a 22 and a 75 on the hero table just for dropping a couple powers.
6. Chill out.

Re: explain multiclassing to me

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2020 6:27 pm
by drewkitty ~..~
Zer0 Kay wrote:
drewkitty ~..~ wrote:Yup I know about E-publishing. PB has Drive-Through RPG handle theirs.

Yep, just like in HU2 you can build two hardware specialties into the one power cat the char. *yawn* This is not changing power cats...it is adding another hardware specialty into the power cat of the character during char creation.

The text you referenced 0K is not multi-classing, nor is it changing classes. (I explained what the text means in the above paragraph.)
Please stop misrepresenting text that has nothing to do with being talked about. This does not reflect well on you. I don't care if it is intentional to muddy up the waters or if it just a case of poor critical reading.


Are you responding to me Dk? Nevermind it is right there 0k. What the heck is up your butt?
1. I never said change.
2. I know it adds on at the beginning.
3. It is the closest thing to actual multi-classing.
4. What the heck does e-publishing have to do with anything I said?
5. No other power cat allows anything like that. You can't be an alien mutant and an alien super. You can't be a two different classes of mega hero. You cant be a 22 and a 75 on the hero table just for dropping a couple powers.
6. Chill out.

Zer0 Kay wrote:Little known fact. HU:R has the possibility to MULTI-CLASS. ...snip

1) In the PB system the term multi-classing means to change the char's class. The question comes to mind (to me) if you did it intentionally to drive my blood pressure up. :roll: Because you know I would respond to it, the way I did.
2) Why the Frack even bring it up when the text has NOTHING to do with what is being discussed? (chars changing classes) Really you should of started a new topic.
2.2) maybe instead of leading with the MULTI_CLASS statement, you could of put that as a conclusion. As it is it is deliberate kick. Then you could of said something like ..."stepping away from all of that...here is something interesting....." giving room to breath before presenting a kicker of an post.
3) Having a 2nd specialty in a hardware char is nothing like multi-classing. There is no exp penalties. (besides it being a power cat. and not a class.)
4) that is where PB does it's e-publishing.
5) having a 2nd specialty is not having a two power cats.
6) *no comment*

Everybody has their own stressers.
And I have a couple potentially large ones in the background right now.

Re: explain multiclassing to me

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2020 7:40 pm
by Prysus
Curbludgeon wrote:
drewkitty ~..~ wrote:RUE specificly[sic] says to use the text in the PF High Seas book.
And on what page is that?

Greetings and Salutations. As far as I'm aware, this isn't the first request for the reference, and thus far no actual page number has ever been provided.

On a personal note: I did a PDF search of Rifts Ultimate Edition (using the official and legal version from DriveThruRPG) using the words 1: "fantasy" and then 2: "high seas". The fantasy search returned various results (mostly in the common usage) as well as references to Palladium Fantasy Dragons & Gods sourcebook and Palladium Fantasy Monsters & Animals sourcebook. Then again, of course, in the catalog section*, as well as on the back cover. The high seas search returned only one reference, and that was in the catalog section*. I tried to give the benefit of the doubt that the PDF may have screwed up a word during the conversion (so reads it as "famtasy" or something), which is why I wanted to be more thorough and try both searches. While the PDF may have screwed up one, I'm doubtful it would have screwed up both search parameters in the exact same section.

* The catalog section is in the PDF version, but this is NOT found in the printed book. This is additional sales/advertisement for the electronic version.

If a legitimate page is ever provided, I will acknowledge my oversight and do my best to reference the page number for others in the future. Farewell and safe journeys.

Re: explain multiclassing to me

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2020 8:41 pm
by Curbludgeon
Thanks for that. I made sure to verify the pdf version of the book I own says nothing of that sort before asking in my post, having done a similar search beforehand for the terms "seas", "dual", "multi", "multiple", "changing", "fantasy" and a couple of others before washing my hands in the middle of "O.C.C.". It's possible the above statement was made in error due to conflating the response to question 26 in the non-combat rules errata with RUE, but insofar as that response immediately paraphrases the dual O.C.C. rules found on the cutting room floor page to which that errata links, it is confusing as to how many levels of confusion are involved.

As for Hardware characters with multiple areas of expertise:
Spoiler:
I had never noticed that, so thanks! Given the amount of skill overlap Electric and Mechanical share with the Analytical sub-category I don't know to what degree players would choose more than two to three fields save to perhaps exploit the Mechanical Genius' budget, nor am sure how multiple expertise selection order affects the reduction in Educational skill program selections. The Weapon Expert largely offsets a potential loss of attacks with two extra attacks and paired weapons with pistols, and an Alien Hardware character that can natively grant extra attacks such as the Nattereri compliments that. For even more fun, a Nattereri Hardware Genius can choose 8 N&SS abilities, which for an aquatic species is really dipping into multi. class ability pools. :P

Re: explain multiclassing to me

Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2020 10:35 pm
by drewkitty ~..~
Curbludgeon wrote:
drewkitty ~..~ wrote:RUE specificly[sic] says to use the text in the PF High Seas book.
And on what page is that?

It was shown to me by another player sometime in 2015...(looked through the board archives to get this year, and even this is a guess because this is when I started using this phrasing in my posts. I was looking in the places where I thought it would be written down.)...I don't remember who or where. But I would not of used it if I had not seen it myself somewhere. *shrugs*

I've been searching for it but I can't find it. It must be somewhere not in the usual places for something like this to appear.

Sorry it took so long to answer this.

I even checked the official Q&As in the rifters to see if it was in one of them.

Re: explain multiclassing to me

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2020 3:05 am
by Zer0 Kay
drewkitty ~..~ wrote:
Zer0 Kay wrote:
drewkitty ~..~ wrote:Yup I know about E-publishing. PB has Drive-Through RPG handle theirs.

Yep, just like in HU2 you can build two hardware specialties into the one power cat the char. *yawn* This is not changing power cats...it is adding another hardware specialty into the power cat of the character during char creation.

The text you referenced 0K is not multi-classing, nor is it changing classes. (I explained what the text means in the above paragraph.)
Please stop misrepresenting text that has nothing to do with being talked about. This does not reflect well on you. I don't care if it is intentional to muddy up the waters or if it just a case of poor critical reading.


Are you responding to me Dk? Nevermind it is right there 0k. What the heck is up your butt?
1. I never said change.
2. I know it adds on at the beginning.
3. It is the closest thing to actual multi-classing.
4. What the heck does e-publishing have to do with anything I said?
5. No other power cat allows anything like that. You can't be an alien mutant and an alien super. You can't be a two different classes of mega hero. You cant be a 22 and a 75 on the hero table just for dropping a couple powers.
6. Chill out.

Zer0 Kay wrote:Little known fact. HU:R has the possibility to MULTI-CLASS. ...snip

1) In the PB system the term multi-classing means to change the char's class. The question comes to mind (to me) if you did it intentionally to drive my blood pressure up. :roll: Because you know I would respond to it, the way I did.
2) Why the Frack even bring it up when the text has NOTHING to do with what is being discussed? (chars changing classes) Really you should of started a new topic.
2.2) maybe instead of leading with the MULTI_CLASS statement, you could of put that as a conclusion. As it is it is deliberate kick. Then you could of said something like ..."stepping away from all of that...here is something interesting....." giving room to breath before presenting a kicker of an post.
3) Having a 2nd specialty in a hardware char is nothing like multi-classing. There is no exp penalties. (besides it being a power cat. and not a class.)
4) that is where PB does it's e-publishing.
5) having a 2nd specialty is not having a two power cats.
6) *no comment*

Everybody has their own stressers.
And I have a couple potentially large ones in the background right now.


1) And maybe the OP would like to know if PB can MC like D&D. I wasn't considering you in my post at all. YOU DK do not form the center or even the ort clouds of my thoughts.
2) Again, he asked about multi classing. Yes he is asking PB but what if he is asking because he wants to emulate D&D MC?
2.2) Jawohl herr grammatik Führer! I have no idea why your so pissed of. Instead of telling me how I should exercise my freedom of speach so it configures to your desires please just put me on your for list. Again, comment was made for OP and at no point did I have any interest in you or your sensibilities.
3)having a multiple specialties in hardware is pretty dang close to being a Rogue/Thief/Ninja/Swashbuckler in D&D 3.x.
4)So I respond to the OP and don't say anything about e-publishing then in a response to me you start with. "Yup I know about E-publishing. PB has Drive-Through RPG handle theirs." Which has NOTHING to do with my post and then your response to "What the heck does e-publishing have to do with anything I said?" Is "that is where PB does it's e-publishing." Talk about non sequitur. BTW PB does not do their e-publishing in "anything I said."
5)Fine I'll concede that but it is as close to a character in D&D that has multiple archetypes within one class.
6)At least chill out isn't as rediculous as "No... your wrong and if you arent wrong you should write it like blahs blahs blah." So don't chill out. Have an aneurism. It was never my problem to begin with since... I WASN'T ADDRESSING YOU.

Re: explain multiclassing to me

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2020 6:01 pm
by drewkitty ~..~
In this case, maybe you should of added the words 'dnd style' before the word 'multi-classing' so people would know exactly what you mean when you say that. That would not of got a 'no, that is not what the text says.' with a correction in response.