Greetings, Salutations, and Hi! I am a bit new to the forum and Rifts in general so bear with me. I was digging through a friends copy of Rifter 24 and found stats for the meta-juicer R.C.C, and kinda love it. Brief run down, it does alot of what the juicer does but through psychic powers and gives you permanent drawbacks for having said powers...oh yeah and the powers kill you in 25-37 years after you are born, its like lethal ADHD. Anyway, I mention all that in hopes of getting consensus on some rules. The R.C.C. has no starting equipment listed, focuses mostly on weird powers and origin. It does mention the uncivilized ones 'live as vagabonds or unskilled workers'. With vagabond being an O.C.C. I was thinking about using its starting gear, seems appropriate given the meta-juicers description. Next they outline adding another O.C.C's skills and bonus, at penalty of half the your meta-juicer abilities or half the O.C.C's skills and severely limits which ones you can use. The way it reads it sounds like you get the bonuses and skills but nothing else. I couldn't find a rules section on the forum but, I'm guessing posting material from the books is frowned upon so I apologies if the description is less than helpful. I'm sure there was something else but it is 4am and my brain fails me, will of course clarify the many vague spots in this post. Thanks for any input
This may not be helpful, but what I would rule/allow are the 3 optional Juicer OCCs in Juicer Uprising. The Juicer Assassin, Juicer Gladiator, and Juicer Wilderness Scout, all of which can be subbed in for the skills & equipment of most any other Juicer type (some have specific lists of juicer types they are compatible with). I would simply offer one of those 3 without penalty.
13eowulf wrote:This may not be helpful, but what I would rule/allow are the 3 optional Juicer OCCs in Juicer Uprising. The Juicer Assassin, Juicer Gladiator, and Juicer Wilderness Scout, all of which can be subbed in for the skills & equipment of most any other Juicer type (some have specific lists of juicer types they are compatible with). I would simply offer one of those 3 without penalty.
That's how they have it in the article actually. Its those three, the juicer wannabe and the non-military men at arms OCCs. I dont like adding an OCC to an RCC. myself, we have enough power creep as is, I just need to explain it to my GM before I can use it. I assume the Juicer optional OCCs use the starting gear from the class, I have that book but doesn't really say. I assumed the lack of an entry meant use the base OCC's gear.
After checking out the article (Rifter 24 pg 74), I can give opinions on your questions!
For Metabolic Juicers that don't take an OCC, I'd go with starting equipment anywhere between Vagabond and Wilderness Scout. Given the M-J RCC's large number of starting W.P.s, and the propensity for lots of classes beginning with one weapon per W.P., just adding a weapon or two to the Vagabond would probably be the best fit. Some posters don't see the Vagabond candy thing as being a long-dead horse, inexplicably, so I'll go with a range instead.
Those Meta Juicers that take an O.C.C. get the whole kaboodle, with a couple of exceptions. If in your game you want there to be a M-J Cyber Knight they would get a full psi-sword/zen combat and all that noise.
Restrictions on taking an O.C.C.: 1. The character gives up half of their choice of either ....a. O.C.C. Related and Secondary Skill choices ....b. Percentage bonus to any O.C.C. skills (physical excluded), or ....c. Metabolic and psionic power selections Note that 1. does not apply to Juicer O.C.C.s, where presumably the Metabolic powers serve as a substitute for the chemical Juicer bonuses.
2. Every bonus the O.C.C. grants is compared to the list on pg 74, and only the larger one is applied. As an example, an M-J CK would take the 1d6 bonus to speed from the M-J, but the 1d4x10 to S.D.C. of the CK
3. Available O.C.C.s are limited to Juicer specialties, Bounty Hunter, Headhunter, and "most other, non-military, Men-at-Arms".
As far as edge cases for this, I'd rule out the martial artists in China 2, and think Cyber Knights and arguably Robot Pilots don't strike the right tone. A full Juicer/M-J's heart would explode, but a Euro-Juicer JAEP might work, with a bio-comp modified to dispense the preventative drugs the M-J should be already taking. Crazy might be pushing it, while Full Bionic Conversion's replacement of the adrenal cortex and gonads cures the condition at the cost of any bonuses (while penalities accrued remain in place), as does the Cold-Blooded procedure.
The M-j does get a butt ton of wps considering the lack of equipment list, I personally would have traded one or two for a few more relater or secondary skills, subject for another post I suppose. I personally think taking the juicer and possibly the crazy occ should just replace the M-j rcc altogether just to discourage power creep and while I can't think of a logical reason to restrict cyber-knight, it does feel very off.
Sorry for requiring homework in order to assist, I just don't want to get banned day one for posting too much of an article. Thanks for the help though guys.
