Making Vagabonds viable

[HarleeKnight]

No magic. No psionics. No superpowers. Just starting gear and skills and whatever else you may find along the way. How have you done it? Is it even possible in a mid to high level campaign?

[Killer Cyborg]

Vagabonds are fine.
They even start with armor these days.

[Soldier of Od]

I agree. Lots of O.C.C.s start with no magic, no psionics and no superpowers. They get a vehicle as well! I think vagabonds can do just fine.

[Orin J.]

rifts is not a setting about statistical equality, it's a system about developing a character through personality. vagabonds are those people wit no business going adventuring beyond pluck and desire to make something of themselves and that's better than a lot of classes that so have magic, psionics and/or superpowers.

[Warshield73]

In Rifts balance is really up to the GM. Whatever skills and abilities your Vagabond has it is up to the GM to make those relevant and give you an opportunity to use those skills and talents. That being said the Vagabond is, in my experience, one of the hardest OCCs to both play and GM.

Vagabonds have no abilities to speak of and if the group has any size at all the Vagabond's skills are likely to be covered by others with higher percentages, this means the GM really has to be prepared to give the opportunities for the player and the player has to on the ball to take advantage of those opportunities.

I have only had one player ever run a Vagabond but he had super powers from Conversion Book 1.

[Killer Cyborg]

Back in the days of original Rifts, my gaming group had a massive problem with characters dying.
NOBODY lived past 2nd level in roughly our first year of playing Rifts.

Glitter Boys were huge, shiny, hard-to-repair targets that drew so much enemy fire out of fear, they tended to die.
Full Conversion Borgs were smaller, less shiny hard-to-repair targets that drew so much enemy fire, they tended to die.
Juicers were fearless superhuman badasses, who died because they were fearless and they overestimated their own abilities.
Dragons were likewise powerful but high priority targets, and they were actively hunted by the biggest power in North America.
Right on down the list, no matter what we made, the character would die.
The original burst/spray rules helped significantly with the turnover rate, especially combined with the poorly-written C-12, which we interpreted as being able to unload a clip for 4d6x10 MD twice before reloading.

SO we were surprised when the first character to make it to 3rd level was a vagabond character I'd rolled up based on myself. He started off with a Wilk's 320 pistol, no armor, and the usual Vagabond soap & candy type gear.
The reason why he survived was because he was weaker than any other character we'd played.
I knew I was vulnerable.
I knew I was one hit from death.
So I made it my priority to NOT get shot.

And that changed the way we played Rifts over the long term.

We'd come to Rifts from D&D 2E, where our play style was mostly "just run in and start stabbing, and hope you stab them to death before you get stabbed to death, then heal up after!"
But in Rifts, that was a failure because:
-The burst/spray rules made the game a LOT more deadly than D&D.
-Healing up afterward was only a viable option for dragons; everybody else lived and died on their armor... and armor repair places were few and far between, not to mention expensive.
-Because of the reliance on armor/vehicles, and the difficulty getting them repaired, we found ourselves constantly misjudging threats and encounters.
We'd think, "Hey, I've only lost 20 MDC off of my 80 MDC armor; that's not bad at all!"
Then 2-3 fights later, we'd die, because we hadn't gotten a chance to repair that armor, so it just got whittled away from us by "easy" encounters."

Anyway, my Vagabond initially survived by avoiding combat if he could,
and hiding behind any cover available if he couldn't avoid combat.
He started acting like a real person would, when it comes to real-world violence and gunfights; he started doing everything he could to avoid getting shot, and everything he could to shoot the enemies with impunity.
He'd hide behind the party Glitter Boy, or behind the Dragon, or he'd hide behind a boulder or whatever he could.
And he'd dodge more often, simultaneous attack less often.
He lived to be 4th level, but by then I'd gotten some decent gear so I grew cocky enough to get gunned down by a Brodkil demon with a railgun.
We all kind of learned from that pattern, and started playing more wisely, using strategy constantly to keep our characters alive.
(It also probably helped as our GMs grew more familiar with the game, and got a better feel for what would or would not be a TPK)

I really liked the old-school Vagabond, because they were actually pretty nice if you played them right.
They started off without many skills, BUT they got more skills than other classes as they leveled up, and that could sometimes provide an advantage. With character classes that get front-loaded with skills, you're less able to adapt to the unpredictable nature of a campaign.
One of the strengths of the Vagabond was always its ability to grow and change.
So if your party runs into some gear that nobody else has the skills to use, that's where the Vagabond can come in.
They'd get 4 new skills at 2nd level. So if the party found a suit of power armor somewhere while they were 1st level, and either nobody knew how to use it or they already had their own armor?
The Vagabond could--as soon as he reached 2nd--pick up to 4 skills that would work well with that particular suit of power armor.
Pilot: Robots & Power Armor
Weapons Systems
Robot Combat: Basic
Robot Combat: Elite

If, on the other hand, the party finds a war ship?
The Vagabond can reach level 2, and learn skills like:
Pilot: Boats: Ships
Navigation
Weapon Systems
Read Sensory Equipment
Literacy or Math (prerequisites for Navigation)

If the party finds a Rune Whip or other item, the Vagabond was more likely than anybody else to acquire WP Whip (or whatever the unusual weapon is),
because Vagabonds are better than most (or all?) other classes when it comes to adapting skills to new situations, since they didn't get all their skills up front, and had a pretty wide variety to choose from.

Now, they changed or fixed some of the Vagabond skill limitations as of RUE, so Vagabonds can't pilot Power Armor, Robots, or Military Vehicles any more, which I think is a shame.
But Vagabonds now get bonuses to attributes, perception, SDC, saving throws, and horror factor that they didn't get before, AND they get the unique ability of Eyeball A Fella, which might not be a game-changing powerhouse of a power, but that CAN be very useful, and can serve a pretty unique role in game play.

But what it comes down to mostly IMO is that Rifts is still a game where the bulk of the meat of it is going to be "guys in body armor, armed with pistols or rifles, facing off against other guys in body armor, armed with pistols or rifles."
And Vagabonds do that about as well as most other classes, especially since they now start with MDC body armor as part of their gear, and even start with HTH Basic.

Vagabonds in RUE still get the equivalent of 30 skills to start, with another 10 skills as they level up by the time they're level 15. Their skill acquisition is more evenly distributed across levels, and probably is a bit more frontloaded than before, but 40 skills is pretty respectable as far as total potential skills go, better than many or most other classes.
You can use the same weapons and armor most other classes can use.
You can use magic, including TW stuff if it's modified for mundanes, or if you're psychic.
You can get cybernetics/bionics.

Now, if you're gaming is all about min-maxing characters, and you only ever build for sheer power, then the only reason to ever get a Vagabond would probably be if you wanted to change OCCs later, and/or if you were playing a Super Powered character, taking advantage of the Vagabond's bonus minor ability.
The main reasons to play a Vagabond are about role-playing and character, not any kind of unique powerhouse ability or area of expertise.
(Unpowered) Vagabonds can hold up their end in most adventures/campaigns, and they can fight as well as scholars and many mages. They can compete with most other classes in various ways to various degrees.
But if you're looking for a way to get a Vagabond to dominate other classes and characters, you'll probably be out of luck.

[Giant2005]

When a character is weaker than the other players, there are a few options I'll use to close the gap depending on how large that gap is and what suits the character.
Usually some combination of having been through Boot Camp (Merc Adventures), upgrading from Human to Mutant Human (After the Bomb 2e), using the Human Special Abilities from Lonestar, being a Native American, or having him be a Nexus Born from Rifter 73.

There are plenty of other things you can do, but most of them will close the power gap too much. The whole point of playing a human is to be on the low end of the power scale. Using the above can make him a bit more interesting while still keeping him on the weaker side.

[Warshield73]

When a character is weaker than the other players, there are a few options I'll use to close the gap depending on how large that gap is and what suits the character.
Usually some combination of having been through Boot Camp (Merc Adventures), upgrading from Human to Mutant Human (After the Bomb 2e), using the Human Special Abilities from Lonestar, being a Native American, or having him be a Nexus Born from Rifter 73.

All of these are great options for any Scholar or Adventurer or any base line human to spice them up a little. I took the Human Special Abilities from Lonestar and the special aptitude bonuses from 2e Robotech and created a new chart for people to choose from.

There are plenty of other things you can do, but most of them will close the power gap too much. The whole point of playing a human is to be on the low end of the power scale. Using the above can make him a bit more interesting while still keeping him on the weaker side.

Being a human doesn't necessarily mean low end of power level. You are on par with many of the classic races like elves and even wolfen but have the added advantage of being any OCC and access to lots of technology or magic depending on that OCC. To me power level is most heavily determined by OCC/RCC. A Wolfen vagabond is going to be weaker than a human robot pilot in a giant Triax bot.

[thorr-kan]

Overall, I think I'd prefer the original Vagabond to the RUE Vagabond. The Vagabond is a skill monkey. While the RUE version gets more skills over the course of advancement, I prefer the original's breadth of skill choices.

The AtB2 Human Mutant's a fun way to introduce a little variety. If you want wackier mutant fun, Mutants in Orbit's got you covered.

I like the Lone Star Special Abilities table as well.

I prefer the Special Aptitude bonuses from the Nightbane Survival Guide to the Robotech ones, but both are fun.

Another option for the Vagabond is for the DM to expand *where* skills can come from. PFRPG, Nightbane, N&SS/MC, and the Rifter all have a host of skills that can give your Vagabond some unique diversity.

[Mack]

I always figured the Vagabond of the party is more the team's business/support lead. Yes, when shooting starts, he's hiding out in the back and taking some safe potshots while the combat classes do their thing. But when in town, he's the guy who can find the best place to sell loot, get good (and inexpensive) repairs, can figure out lodging for the whole team, or knows to who to approach during an investigation, etc.

In short, he's the guy who actually knows how to get things done.

[thorr-kan]

I always figured the Vagabond of the party is more the team's business/support lead. Yes, when shooting starts, he's hiding out in the back and taking some safe potshots while the combat classes do their thing. But when in town, he's the guy who can find the best place to sell loot, get good (and inexpensive) repairs, can figure out lodging for the whole team, or knows to who to approach during an investigation, etc.

In short, he's the guy who actually knows how to get things done.

No, that's the Illuminati RCC. What, you don't know about the Illuminati RCC? Please report to the Orbital Mind Control Lasers for reprogramming.

Joking aside, that's a valid niche for a Vagabond to fill. A typical use of the rogue-type character, to channel my 2E AD&D programming.

[Warshield73]

I always figured the Vagabond of the party is more the team's business/support lead. Yes, when shooting starts, he's hiding out in the back and taking some safe potshots while the combat classes do their thing. But when in town, he's the guy who can find the best place to sell loot, get good (and inexpensive) repairs, can figure out lodging for the whole team, or knows to who to approach during an investigation, etc.

In short, he's the guy who actually knows how to get things done.

This is kind of a cool concept but I'm not sure where, in the RMB or RUE description you get this from? Don't get me wrong this would be a good niche for one if they took the skills for it, but a city rat or wilderness scouts or even an operator or scholar could do it at well.

Truthfully the Vagabond was one of the MANY OCCs that I just never thought was necessary.

[Killer Cyborg]

I always figured the Vagabond of the party is more the team's business/support lead. Yes, when shooting starts, he's hiding out in the back and taking some safe potshots while the combat classes do their thing. But when in town, he's the guy who can find the best place to sell loot, get good (and inexpensive) repairs, can figure out lodging for the whole team, or knows to who to approach during an investigation, etc.

In short, he's the guy who actually knows how to get things done.

No, that's the Illuminati RCC. What, you don't know about the Illuminati RCC? Please report to the Orbital Mind Control Lasers for reprogramming.

Joking aside, that's a valid niche for a Vagabond to fill. A typical use of the rogue-type character, to channel my 2E AD&D programming.

I don't see Vagabonds that way myself, but I can see how others would, because Vagbonds are a bit of everything. Like the book says, IIRC, they're "jacks of all trades."
What that means is that they're never going to be the BEST at anything (other than Eyeballing Fellas), but they're a decent potential backup for any other niche, and they can fill in the gaps and cracks in the party pretty well.
He's not going to out-City-Rat a City Rat, but if he's made right, he can out-City-Rat most other classes.
He's not going to out-combat a Juicer, but if he's made right, he can out-combat a Body Fixer, LLW, or other classes.
Vagabonds got nerfed a bit by RUE, but the jack-of-all-trades thing still seems to apply pretty well, so they can still function to cover a decent variety of roles pretty well.

[Orin J.]

vagabond covers everything not already in the rules. which if you really think about it covers huge ground. fortune tellers, carpenters, farmhands, judicial processors- the class is for everyone that wants to plan out a character first and sort out the stats once they have the idea solidified in their head later. sure your buddy the land surveyor who took to adventuring because of his hobby of collecting pre-rifts period dramas isn't great in a fight, but when you need someone to figure out where a devastated city used to sit precisely and recover a pre-rifts cache of valuable equipment and knowledge what a great guy.

[Axelmania]

Finally finished the show Detentionaire and I gotta say, remembering how Vagabonds start with candy is making me think of the character "Art Wurst" and how he constantly offers people candy. There should be a cult of vagabonds going around constantly doing this.