Rifts-Tomorrow Squadron

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I've been buying up lots of Savage Worlds (SWADE) books. I have very little experience with Savage Worlds, just a couple of one shots in Explorer edition and a short lived Rifts campaign.

I want to learn the system, but don't really have a way to do that in real life games. Any interest in a campaign here. I have resources to run Rifts (which seems really complicated and maybe not the best choice for a trial campaign, but a great game and setting), Shadowrun (via Sprawlrunners). Always loved Shadowrun setting but don't love the current rules.

I also have Trailer Park Shark attack as an introduction to the game.

So I guess I'm looking for interested players and/or experienced Savage Worlds players willing to tutor a GM in the system? Any interest out there?

I am quite willing to play Savage worlds. Its fun.

I'm willing to play in any setting in Savage Worlds. Altho you're right, RIFTS is SO over-the-top that it probably isn't the best setting to start in. Neither is Necessary Evil (a Supers campaign).

I have been playing and GM'ing it for 6 years, altho I know the "older" system (SWD) much better than the latest system (SWADE). I'd be willing to help you out with the GM'ing part.

Give me that sweet, sweet Savage Worlds goodness. I've been running Savage Worlds for about 7-8 years now, starting with Deadlands, Necessary Evil, 50 Fathoms, and a few different homebrew settings. I'm still relatively fresh on SWADE's updates but having played with it for a bit, it isn't a huge shift honestly.

I think it really depends on what kind of genre are you looking to run/play in. There are loads of settings to delve into.

I think it is best to run something with published adventures. I have a harder time running PbP without at least a rough plot to keep me on track.

I have most of the SWADE Rifts books and several adventures, so that is a vote in favor of that.

I'm also interested in a Shadowrun/Cyberpunk/Magipunk setting. Maybe just straight Shadowrun setting. (Sprawlrunners is mostly resembles 2nd and 3rd edition if that means anything to anyone.)

I've played a small amount in Explorer edition and none of SWADE, but I'd be running SWADE. I'm glad to hear people willing to help me out with the rules.

Either of those settings appeal? I've been looking through the Rifts books, and I think given the slow pace of PbP, I'd have time to look over things.

Feel free to look through my other campaigns. You will find that they are slow and steady, but usually pretty consistent.

What are you folks interested in?

I love Rifts and I do enjoy the setup that they have with the Tomorrow Legion. It allows for an easy start to bring a bunch of the weirdos all together. That is what has my vote.

While I love the RIFTS concept, I have played in two RIFTS games, and discovered it is *very* hard to get characters of even approximately equal overall power levels. The archetypes in SW RIFTS vary from way over-the-top to well below average. And in RIFTS, if you're not at least well above average, you won't contribute to the combats, and feel left out. This has happened to me and another player.

And, for a relatively new GM to SW, RIFTS has so many things to keep track of it might not be the best setting to start with.

Also, even tho the Glitterboy is arguably THE most powerful archetype, after I created my GB character, the first thing the GM did was put us in a city where high-tech armor was disallowed, so I was basically just an ordinary character. That also happened to another player with her high-tech power armor in the other game. If we do end up in RIFTS, please do not take our armor away from us!

If you're interested in Shadowrun, I cannot recommend Interface Zero highly enough. I've played in it before, and while it is not trying to simulate Shadowrun, all the main elements are there : detailed hacking, cyberware & strain, drones & rigging, androids, cyborgs, DNA-modified crossbreeds, robots & power armors, various other gear & vehicles, even psionics too. From what I understand, just add magic from the core rules and you'd have a pretty good approximation to Shadowrun.

But again, for a new GM, there's *so many* details to keep track of, it might be overwhelming.

I might recommend using just the core rules (SWD or SWADE), and trying playing some one-shots in a fantasy world or modern-day world just to get the basics of running the game down first. A good source is HERE (a long list to chose from) or HERE (a single one-shot set in modern-day, with pre-gen'd PC's).

The reason to use SWD instead of the newer SWADE is that most of the current highly-detailed settings (like Interface Zero) were written for SWD, and they haven't been converted to SWADE yet. RIFTS has been converted, but I suspect the books you have were written for SWD, so unless you want to pay for all new books...

Truth. Interface Zero is an excellent cyberpunk game. More in line with Cyberpunk than Shadowrun, truth be told, but excellent nonetheless.

Necessary Evil, another setting, has some complications but not as much as Rifts or Interface Zero.

Hellfrost has a lot of support as a fantasy setting as well. If we want sci-fi, we could also do The Last Parsec.

Responding to some different concerns:

I only have a little bit of Savage Rifts experience, but with that and with Rifts in general I think you have to narrow down the genre. If I were trying to run a superhero game, I would definitely further narrow that down to whether it is a cosmic/galactic sort of thing, urban vigilantes, world defending heroes (Avengers or JLA), villains redeemed, etc. The same is true for Rifts. We would need to decide what kind of team we want to make and what kind of adventures to send them on.

Two of my guiding principles as a GM are that 1. character's builds tell you what kind of adventures they want to play. If someone plays a Glitterboy, they probably want to blast some things with their rail gun and fight off some laser attacks. Of course, at some point they might have to crawl out of their armor, but I wouldn't be out there trying to take their class abilities away from them.

and 2. Every character should have a chance to shine every session. (Sure, what a session is in PbP is tough).

I've looked into Interface Zero and Sprawlrunners. Sprawlrunners looks a little more conceptual and less crunchy than Interface Zero, and also includes magic and Chi, which is appealing to me.

For sure! If we were to do Rifts, I would love to be associated with the Tomorrow Legion that they describe in the Savage Rifts book. Their whole situation (good guys in between two really bad guys, trying to make allies and confederations to stand against the two of them, etc.) really appeals to me.

I haven't read through sprawlrunners but if we went with that, I'd be more than happy with it. I enjoy my cyberpunk goodness.

So, I was just making suggestions to "ease" you into GM'ing SW. You've said that you've had a "little" experience with SW, was that as a player or a GM?

If it was as a GM, it's up to you decide whether you're ready for a full-blown RIFTS game. I also wanted to point out the imbalance between the archetypes because some players may not be happy with their PC after a couple of encounters, and want to change some things about their PC's.

If you've never GM'd a SW game before, I'd suggest a couple of simple one-shots just to get used to GM'ing the basic rules.

But it sounds like we're down to RIFTS or possibly Sprawlrunners. If I had to vote, I'd probably pick RIFTS (just because I'm more familiar with it), but if everyone else wants to do Sprawlrunners I'm fine with that.

Also, we need to decide SWD vs. SWADE. I made my arguments for SWD in my previous post, so I won't repeat them here.

Only played a few sessions of Savage Worlds, and played a short lived campaign play by post.

Sounds like we have strong interest from ZenFox42 and KingHotTrash, with Helikon popping in for an initial post of interest.

And both of you have a preference for Savage Rifts, so let's go with that. The Tomorrow Legion provides a built in "why are we adventuring together" hook, so we could do that. If there are only two or three of you, it should be easy to balance. There would also be an easy explanation for swapping out characters if something wasn't working.

Alternately, we could have the two of you on your own out in the wilderness and you are eventually encounter the Tomorrow Legion if we wanted to start smaller.

I do have all of the new books for SWADE that I picked up in a Bundle of Holding. I have some of the stuff from SWD, but probably not as much. I would like to use SWADE.

Is the new edition of Savage Rifts out already? It not, we can just throw things together and do whatever we need to do to make it work out well enough :D

down for shadowrun, love a mesh of 4e and 5e rules. I love throwing d6s

Rorek55, we will be using Savage Worlds, whatever setting we land on, but we are leaning pretty heavily toward Savage Worlds Rifts.

KingHotTrash, there is a Bundle of Holding charity bundle with lots of SWADE Rifts stuff right now. That is where I got my stuff.

Savage Rifts Bundle

Put me down as another "love Savage Worlds, but have not been at all enamored with the balance of the RIFTS subsystems". The concept is good but I can't wrap my head around the numbers involved/what you should be shooting for when building a character, as ZenFox can attest.

There's a certain minimum power threshold each character needs to meet for combat, and it's a much higher one than the base game. I've played two Tomorrow Legion games and both times been absolutely flabbergasted by how tough standard RIFTS enemies tend to be; you need to consistently be able to hit at least 12 damage at the start of the game from what I've seen (and able to tank similar numbers), and scale up from there, so somewhere along the lines of being about three times as badass as a standard SWADE character; you roughly need to consider building your character to fight threats a normal SWADE character would as a Seasoned or even Veteran character, right from session 1.

Not necessarily a flaw in RIFTS, precisely, but something that both the players and the GM need to be aware of when going in as far as I can tell. It is not very "slap together a character that sounds fun and it will probably work perfectly"-friendly like base SWADE.

On the upside of RIFTS though, because it has quite a lot of upsides, the classes are really cool overall, and I love the Hero's Journey tables, to give a little extra spice to each character. Making a character for RIFTS is a joy, even if sometimes the results aren't as spectacular as they seem on paper. The versatility of being able to make a character from ANY setting is interesting as well.

SuperTumbler - the Bundle website calls them "ebooks", are they PDF's, or something else?

Regarding what Storm Dragon said, yeah, you need a personal Toughness+Armor of at least 12 to survive (which can be difficult to get), and if an enemy has a Toughness of 12 (maybe typical of RIFTS? I don't know...), damages like 3d6, 2d8 and even 2d10 only Shaken them half the time, and inflict a Wound only 25% of the time.

Those damages are from things like normal weapons and non-mega Powers.

And if the Toughness increases by only 2, then you have only a 34% chance of Shaking them, and a 16% chance of inflicting a Wound.

Taking the Mega version of Powers is some help - against Toughness 12, for 8 PP(!) Blast does 3d10 damage (83% Shaken, 60% Wound), for 4 PP, Bolt can do 6d6 (99% Shaken, 91% Wound), and for 4 PP, Burst does 3d12 (90% Shaken, 74% Wound), all of which are pretty good. BUT, that can drain your PP really quickly! I've seen an Edge which grants Psionics double PP, but not one for Magic, so for damage-dealing, Psionics seems the way to go.

A typical Cyber-Knight can do d8+2d10 damage with their psionic sword (79% Shaken, 54% Wound). Worse than the Mega-Powers, but it costs no PP. Altho I have heard of starting builds that can do d8+3d10+12!!!

Then you have damage like a Burster (improved Bolts doing 6d8, ROF 3, at no cost) or a Boom gun (4d12+6) which would obliterate Toughness 12 or 14 opponents well over 95% of the time.

I'm not familiar enough with the other archetypes to know what typical damage they can do, but it's clear there's a big range in damage-dealing in RIFTS.

They are PDFs. You get a zipped download of the files (2 if you do the bonus package) and they will add them to your drivethrurpg account if you want.

I've got 2 archetypes in mind for my PC right now, but I don't know how much the SWADE version of RIFTS changes things.... Once we definitely commit to RIFTS, I'll buy the package.

My understanding is that if you own the old books, you can get PDFs of the SWADE versions for free, but there are some new books in that bundle.

I’m going to hope KingHotTrash swings by the thread with an opinion.

Definitely interested for Savage Rifts!

And I would be glad to help anyone convert an archetype/concept etc. from the previous version to SWADE...

I am definitely in for it. I get paid relatively soon so it may take a few days for me to grab the PDFs of the updated material.

I am definitely down for some amazing RIFTS shenanigans!

Hey, I didn't know I could get a free upgrade, neato. Just downloaded them. Was pleasantly surprised to see that I preordered SWADE last September, just never downloaded it. Love not needing to spend money.

I think I read that on reddit. I have both versions, but SWADE sounds appealing to me.

There are some good articles that explain what is changed, which don't mean much to me but might be useful for ZenFox42.

I need to read up on the system before I can even write up a decent recruitment post. I'll aim to start a real recruitment on Sunday or Monday, but we can start talking here if you guys want. I'd like to hash out what power level we are wanting as people are developing characters. ZenFox42 said they had 2 archetypes in mind. What are they?

What are other people feeling? I'd rather run a game that isn't purely "robots spewing megadamage at each other" but has some survival elements. The Tomorrow Legion stuff feels to me like a cross of feudalism and a Western, so I'll probably lean on some Western tropes.

I might play a Cyber-Knight from some alternate history where the Japanese feudal system never ended, could be neat.

Edit: Does anybody know what exactly the Code of Chivalry text is? I can't find it anywhere. It says it's in Savage Foes of North America but I can't find it, only the Mystic Knight Code.

I have been hankering to play a Crazy since I read about them. I also adore my Ley-Line Walkers or a Mind-Melter as well. If we need a big, bad combat boy; I'll proudly play a full-conversion borg.

Storm Dragon beat me to it, but I was eyeing a Cyber-Knight as well. Any problems with having 2 of the same archetype? The other option is based on another player's D-Bee PC from another RIFTS game I'm playing in, a mix of a non-human race with both Magic and Psionics.

KingHotTrash, I started out with a very high-PP Mind Melter in another game, and still was not very happy with it, in terms of damage-dealing ability. Just FYI.

If I went with mind-melter, I'd go more with the support and battlefield control then actual damage dealing. Puppet, mind reading, so on and so forth. I'd accept that there are some enemies I am not meant to engage with.

I got the impression Storm Dragon's Cyber Knight is a D-Bee from a parallel reality. Maybe we have two Cyber Knights who are parallel versions of each other.

But no, I have no problems with having 2 of the same archetype.

GM ST - ok, so I downloaded the SWADE RIFTS, and under the "Improved Psi-sword" Edge, it says "cannot be taken at character creation", unlike in the SWD version.

This is THE Edge that makes CyberKnights moderately powerful damage-dealers! Since it is Seasoned, and I can't take it at creation (via Born a Hero), I won't be able to take it until I reach Seasoned. Until then my damage-dealing will be...meh.

This just totally nerfs the Cyber-Knight, and ruins it for me. Would you be willing to over-ride that rule?

I'm certainly willing to look at it and adjust it as necessary to balance the party. I don't know enough yet to say an unequivocal yes.

Hey Tumbler! Got a taste of the Rifts bug, did you? Can I join up!

As a side note, I agree with what Zen says about the Cyber-knight. SWADE totally nerfs it. Did you notice that the default damage was changed from 2xSpirit+Strength to just Spirit plus Strength? A Burster can still get 6d8 damage fireballs at creation, but the Cyber-Knight is now stuck to 2dx at best. I don't know if it needed a nerf, but the double nerf of forbidding Improved Psi-sword is adding insult to injury.

Edit: Ok, Burster got a nerf too, but a lesser one. They can only do 5d6 RoF 3 with two edges at creation.

As for a character concept, I'm thinking of a Pilot-Borg with a small ship acquired via the Filthy Rich edge. He'd fly something along the lines of a small dropship, like an Avengers quinjet or a Halo Pelican.

From what I was looking at, it's Strength plus 2x Spirit, which seems breddy gud.

From what I was looking at, it's Strength plus 2x Spirit, which seems breddy gud.

Hmm, you're right. Could of sworn I read it the other way. My mistake.

Improved Psi-Sword changes from the Str+3xSpirit of the original to 2xStr+2xSpirit, which is probably a means to stop characters from just pumping Spirit for awesome damage. The AP is noticeably improved though, changing from +6|+2/2, to a +2xPsionics for a single blade, and straight Psionics skill with two. AP is extremely useful in Rifts, where everything is armoured. This is a big boon for dual wielders as you can get a good AP on two blades! Have trouble penetrating AP and you can just concentrate on a single blade and your AP doubles. So, on close examination, this might not be as bad a nerf as it appears on first glance.

You guys are vastly overestimating my system knowledge with your questions. Remember this thread started with me saying I didn't know Savage Worlds.

Which is not to forestall your conversations. You guys just have much more to contribute to those conversations than I do. I have a big pile of work tomorrow, but then I'll be able to dig into this stuff.

I'm still wondering if anybody knows where I can find the Cyber-Knight Code.

You guys are vastly overestimating my system knowledge with your questions. Remember this thread started with me saying I didn't know Savage Worlds.

In that case, go with the Open Source mantra of ruling; if half your players have Gm'd Savage Rifts and the others have all played it, chances are the group wisdom will let you know if a request is reasonable or not.

I'm still wondering if anybody knows where I can find the Cyber-Knight Code.

I remember seeing it in one of the old Palladium Rifts books; I'll dig them out when I get the chance and see if I can find it for you.

Edit: Got lucky and found it in he first place I looked.

The Code of Chivalry

1. To Live
Live one's life so that it is worthy of respect and honor.
Live for freedom, justice, and all that is good.
2. Fair Play
Never attack an unarmed foe.
Never use a Psi-Sword on an opponent not equal to the attack.
Never charge an unhorsed opponent.
Never attack from behind.
Avoid cheating.
Avoid torture.
3. Nobility
Exhibit self control.
Show respect to authority.
Obey the laws if they do not supersede the rights of life.
Administer justice.
Administer mercy.
Protect the innocent.
Respect women.
4. Valor
Exhibit courage in word and deed.
Defend the weak and innocent.
Fight for an ideal, like freedom.
Fight with honor.
Avenge the wronged.
Never abandon a friend, ally, or noble cause.
5. Honor
Always keep one's word of honor.
Always maintain one's principles.
Never betray a confidence or comrade.
Avoid deception.
Respect life. Honor all life.
Respect all views of life.

6. Courtesy
Exhibit manners.
Be polite and attentive.
Be respectful of host, women, and honor.
7. Loyalty
To one's principles and heart.
To one's friends and those who lay their trust in thee.
To the code of chivalry.

Please note that the Cyber-Knight Code is referenced in SW RIFTS merely as a means for the GM to determine how much the Cyber-Knight has strayed from his "vows" *of his order*. I wouldn't expect a Cyber-Knight to have to follow *everything* in that list. I would hope that the player could pick which "vows" to follow.

GM ST said : You guys are vastly overestimating my system knowledge with your questions. Remember this thread started with me saying I didn't know Savage Worlds.

So, are you sure you wouldn't want to run one or two simple one-shots first, just to get the core rules down, before we get into the gonzo world of RIFTS?

It doesn't even have to be a "game" - my first attempt at GM'ing SW was just a shootout in an alley. That taught me LOADS of stuff that I thought I understood, but it didn't really sink in until I played it.

Seems like lots of love for Cyber-Knights in this thread. I have a couple of other ideas so that's not a problem for me. :)

As long as we get some SWADE-goodness, I'm game for anything. :)

Seems like lots of love for Cyber-Knights in this thread. I have a couple of other ideas so that's not a problem for me. :)

As long as we get some SWADE-goodness, I'm game for anything. :)

Clearly we should play a full order of Cyber-knights on a quest.

Man, apropos of nothing, but browsing the Peginc website I saw that there's a release of one of my favorite lesser known 3rd party Pathfinder books: Thunderscape, World of Aden. That's rad.

GM ST said : You guys are vastly overestimating my system knowledge with your questions. Remember this thread started with me saying I didn't know Savage Worlds.

So, are you sure you wouldn't want to run one or two simple one-shots first, just to get the core rules down, before we get into the gonzo world of RIFTS?

It doesn't even have to be a "game" - my first attempt at GM'ing SW was just a shootout in an alley. That taught me LOADS of stuff that I thought I understood, but it didn't really sink in until I played it.

I'm believing that if I provide the story, you folks can provide the system knowledge. Based on what I'm seeing so far, that is true. I'm in the process of getting up to speed, so I'm confident I'll be good by the time we are running.

If we are working within the Tomorrow Legion setup, we could reasonably engage in some war games to practice the combat rules. Surely the Legion has some combat training exercises.

When would you like us to start stating up our submissions? Should we do it here, or will you create a new thread for that?

Also, I need to know how you feel about the Cyber-Knight's "Improved Psi-sword" Edge before I proceed any further with that character. If you allow it at character creation, I'll do a Cyber-Knight. If not, I'll definitely do something else. The "something else" is just as interesting, so I don't really care which way you decide, I just need you to decide so I know how to proceed.

But please note, Rigor Rictus and Storm Dragon were debating the potential nerfing of the qualities of the Edge, while I am complaining that not making it available at character creation is the main nerf!

Starting with an in-game training combat sounds ideal!

ZenFox42, help me understand what the numbers are likely to be here.

Psi-Sword is Strength+Spirix2, with an AP equal to Psionics.

Improved is Strength x2+Spiritx2 with an AP of Psionics x2

(I'm sure you know that, just putting it here for me). So the delta is an extra strength die to damage and double AP. That AP seems really good.

What are those stats going to be? If you have a Psionics of 6 or 8, those seem like pretty good AP compared to other weapons. I don't see any other weapons with AP of 12 or 16 except for vehicle weapons.

Just trying to compare it to what other characters will be putting out.

I like the idea of the psi sword being lightsaber like in penetrating armor.

I'm a little behind in my reading. Ended up with more work than I expected for the last two days. Am now on break for two weeks.

I don't think we need to recruit anyone else, so I won't make a new thread. Go ahead and get to work on characters.

So what have we got? I think there have been two cyberknights so far right?

And I'm thinking borg of some type. I'm actually thinking of a lighter variation than the Combat Borg listed in the book, with a specialty in piloting and repair.