Transformative Character Moments in Palladium Fantasy

[Hotrod]

I've been thinking about some of the interesting ways in which characters in Rifts can undergo dramatic and profound changes that take them in radically different directions, such as becoming a T-man or bio borg in Atlantis, becoming a Sea Inquisitor in Underseas, or undergoing augmentation as a juicer, crazy, or borg. These changes bring major new capabilities and often redefine and reshape the personality, motivations, and goals of the character.

Character augmentation is not a major theme of Palladium Fantasy, though there seems to be some precedent for doing so, such as transferring one's soul into a golem, and there are some NPCs who've been made in ways that aren't defined in the books, such as the dwarf monk who's permanently turned into living jade in Land of the Damned 1 and the Emperor of the Western Empire who has far more psionic power than is legal due to some sort of mutation.

Radical changes in character in Palladium Fantasy seem to be primarily driven by story development, and these changes serve to drive story development. Changes in character empowerment don't seem to drive significant changes in other aspects of the character, and even when they do, they mostly feel like tacked-on negative consequences in the form of items with random curses on them. I find myself feeling strangely ambivalent about this.

On one hand, the relative lack of radical character augmentation helps Palladium Fantasy feel grounded, with somewhat more relatable characters than most of what I see in Rifts. On the other, I wonder if the opportunity to take a character and playstyle in a radically new direction might serve to keep a long campaign and its participants fresh and interesting.

Of course, there's always the kind of approach we see in Game of Thrones, where radical character change is often driven by irrevocable maiming, forcing the character to develop in other ways. Does the warrior with a severed sword-hand learn to fight with the other, or does he try his hand (no pun intended) at becoming a priest? I've never tried playing or GMing a campaign with a broken character.

Have you had characters undergo radical change in your games? How did that play out?

[kiralon]

Usually turned out fairly well, as I use the story line to change the characters and put them in fun situations, the pc's dimension jumped, and in that dimension their abilities were greatly magnified to the point of overkill, the healer ran around with a supernatural strength of 50 for example, its hard to healing touch someone when touching them usually means you push them through a wall, or if you dodge you accidently jump 3/4's of a mile out of the way, but my favourites were.
The bounty hunter who lost an arm, got it grown back, then got a magic silver one, lost that and got a magic crystal one, lost that and then got a magic wooden arm. I think he preferred the wooden arm because he liked going around touching people with his woody (his words not mine)
A longbowman who accidently broke a good aligned magical weapon by accidently killing a good person with it, so then became a priest of that god to atone (and remove the curse hehe, and yes he knew not to kill good people with it.)
A druid who had the bad habit of animating runes in her sleep. One night in a waystation she saw a little rune running around on the ground so she captured it in a glass, and it went off at her in a squeaky voice and then disappeared, and suddenly every thing that could hold water was suddenly holding icy cold water, or when the dwarves introduced her to the rune forge all the runes animated and literally ran off the rune forge and hid, and had to be coaxed back onto the forge before it worked again.

I like molding characters in interesting ways, and the weaker the character is to begin with, the more he will be changed.
My current party has
A 1st ed healer, with some second ed powers who then without my prompting decided to renew the greek pantheon and chose hermes because he mistook the caduceus for the rod of Asclepius (thank you Hollywood), and liked the idea of a fast running healer, so changed to a priest of hermes. So to make it even more different he is casting 2nd ed dnd priest spells.
A rogue, who from day 1 has wanted to be a master collector, and amusingly has picked up all the skills a master collector uses (including the magic based ones), but still isn't the actual OCC, so she keeps wanting to go to the eastern territories to learn to be a collector even though she is one except for the certificate, so every time the party goes there things get really busy and they leave in a hurry.
A human ranger who actually isn't a ranger but an experiment done from the flesh of brgg and beastla, who changes into a yin lord when she gets angry or minions of brgg and beastla are around. Also has a killer badger the size of a small horse.
A Scathach druid rather than a standard druid with an iron tree as a familiar. Works well with iron. His old master died, and made him eat his heart.
A longbowman - stock standard. GM character.

[Veknironth]

Well, these aren't the most drastic changes a character can undergo, but these are some changes we had in our old campaign. There was a guy who shelved his Paladin for something like an entire year, while that character trained to become an undead hunter. This didn't change the PC that much, as the player was just a Paladin with spells now, but it did give the GM opportunities for adventures.

We had the PC's come into possession of a boat. That turned the campaign into a more maritime angle.

Perhaps the biggest change was an assassin character accepting a hit on another PC. He just ran along with the group and waited until he had a chance to strike. Then, he decided to stick around with the group after turning in the head.

-Vek
"And anytime a rune weapon is introduced."