Forums of the Megaverse®

Would a jungle elf who chose the Mystic OCC combine the PPE and ISP of the OCC with the racial PPE and ISP he gets?
Also, would the racial psionic powers and Biomancy powers be added to those gained from the OCC or would the OCC supersede those of the race?

Re: Biomancy Powers
Per the text in WB6 pg58 "Of the OCCs listed above, only the Warlock, Mind Melter, and hifter/Summoner do NOT posses any biomancy powers."

Since Mystic OCC is not on that list, and the class itself doesn't automatically meet the "rely on technology and machines and/or live in tech cities" requirement to lose those powers. Yes they would retain Biomancy Powers.

Re: ISP/PPE and racial powers.
ISP/PPE unless otherwise indicated would be superseded by the OCC as on rare occasion they state to add them together in the race entry, suggesting the default is to NOT add them together (otherwise why state it).

Racial Powers, I would say would be retained. Though in this case it might be appropriate to have one or the other supersede for balance (Mystics get specific psychic powers, the Jungle Elf does not so to be a "Mystic" would IMHO require those specific powers).

My interpretation would be:
*normal elves add their racial PPE to OCC PPE as a single pool, as specified
*other races keep their racial PPE and OCC PPE in separate pools

So if you had a Jungle Elf Mystic, they could use their racial PPE pool to fuel Biomancy and their Mystic OCC pool to fuel normal magic.

Jungle Elf Biomancers have such a low PPE score when compared with Lemurian ones that I'd say racial PPE should stack in the same fashion as other elves. This would extend to the Mystic. I can't think offhand of any racial ISP stacking examples, but the amounts involved are again low enough that I don't have a strong opinion either way. Psionic power selected should maybe just be that of the Mystic, although since their racial psionics allow Physical selections I'd be cool with swapping out a couple of Healing/Sensitive. Generally speaking, instinctive spell users get such a kick in the pants by casters that can learn spells that I'm inclined to give those characters the benefit of the doubt.

Axlemania, would you mind please helping me think of an example of a character required to maintain multiple PPE pools which are each used to fuel different abilities? Nothing is coming to mind, except maybe something that uses PPE batteries like a TW borg from a Rifter.

HarleeKnight wrote:Would a jungle elf who chose the Mystic OCC combine the PPE and ISP of the OCC with the racial PPE and ISP he gets?
Also, would the racial psionic powers and Biomancy powers be added to those gained from the OCC or would the OCC supersede those of the race?

It's a GM call on combining PPE and ISP where not stated (my personal opinion is to combine for Jungle elf; they are a variant elf, after all).

Powers would definitely be added to the OCC unless it is one of the ones cited to not have any or relies on tech.

A mystic jungle elf would add the racial psi and spells to their normal totals.
Adding ISP would be logical since you are adding two separate psionic power sources, but I am not sure if there is a canon precedent.
I believe you add the PPE, the reason for that is that I believe there is a statement to that effect someplace. I can't recall it off hand, but I recall being shown it by a player trying to justify a specific build.

Honeslty... since Lemuria has made the Jungle Elves go form "Masters of Biomancy" to "dabbling hacks" I don't see how letting them stack will be a problem at all.

eliakon wrote:Honestly... since Lemuria has made the Jungle Elves go from "Masters of Biomancy" to "dabbling hacks"...

My thoughts exactly... Biomancy was interesting before, but now it's downright sexy.

HarleeKnight wrote:

eliakon wrote:Honestly... since Lemuria has made the Jungle Elves go from "Masters of Biomancy" to "dabbling hacks"...

My thoughts exactly... Biomancy was interesting before, but now it's downright sexy.

And has turned into the exact opposite of what it was
The Lemurians practice Biowizardry not Biomancy

Gone is the "protect nature" and in comes "bind all of creation to be your slaves, twist life to do as you will and disrupt the ecosystem freely"

Its pretty sickening. There is a reason that when I run My lemurians are biowizards who sold out to the Dark Side for power (and cookies)

Eh, I don't think being a bio-wizard means you intend to bind ALL of creation to be your slaves, it might be only 20% of it.

Axelmania wrote:Eh, I don't think being a bio-wizard means you intend to bind ALL of creation to be your slaves, it might be only 20% of it.

He was clearing using a peotic licence, to emphisise the difrence.

I take back my opinion on racial psionics perhaps not stacking with Mystic psionics as being ill-considered. After looking at the OCC distribution chart on WB6pg58, I'm a little surprised by how casters like LLW and Temporal Wizards don't lose Biomancy access. Given the sorts of caster classes from then-published books which were available to Jungle Elves, I'd posit Plant/Animal/Elemental Shamans would have also been represented had they existed. I'd consider an argument based on poetic license that since OCCs which emphasize pacts with spirits (like warlock and summoner) lose Biomancy access, having a difference of loyalties than those dedicated to the Memory Trees is the reason that happens. This would help make the human Jungle Shamans/Totem Warriors of the Amazon not strictly inferior to their Maga Island equivalents, for example, but doesn't really explain Mind Melters.

Curbludgeon wrote:Jungle Elf Biomancers have such a low PPE score when compared with Lemurian ones that I'd say racial PPE should stack in the same fashion as other elves. This would extend to the Mystic. I can't think offhand of any racial ISP stacking examples, but the amounts involved are again low enough that I don't have a strong opinion either way. Psionic power selected should maybe just be that of the Mystic, although since their racial psionics allow Physical selections I'd be cool with swapping out a couple of Healing/Sensitive. Generally speaking, instinctive spell users get such a kick in the pants by casters that can learn spells that I'm inclined to give those characters the benefit of the doubt.

Axlemania, would you mind please helping me think of an example of a character required to maintain multiple PPE pools which are each used to fuel different abilities? Nothing is coming to mind, except maybe something that uses PPE batteries like a TW borg from a Rifter.

I have never seen a charter sheet with more than 1 PPE pool, so that does make it seam unlikely a mage would have racial PPE and mage PPE. Most races have a set base PPE pool and magical classes typically have a set based PPE pool. My understanding is normally the mages PPE pool replaces his races natural PPE. The elves are special that they add their racial PPE to magical, we are told they do this making doing implying that it is not normal special.

eliakon wrote:

HarleeKnight wrote:

eliakon wrote:Honestly... since Lemuria has made the Jungle Elves go from "Masters of Biomancy" to "dabbling hacks"...

My thoughts exactly... Biomancy was interesting before, but now it's downright sexy.

And has turned into the exact opposite of what it was
The Lemurians practice Biowizardry not Biomancy

Gone is the "protect nature" and in comes "bind all of creation to be your slaves, twist life to do as you will and disrupt the ecosystem freely"

Its pretty sickening. There is a reason that when I run My lemurians are biowizards who sold out to the Dark Side for power (and cookies)

actually i could see it being a result of how the Lemurians spent a few centuries in another dimension. they fled into the pocket realm the lord of the deep had been in. odds are said realm was rather sparse in terms of life. it may well have been that the only life was what they brought with them. so they would have had to adapt their lifestyle to the conditions.. and engineering lifeforms into tools became a survival necessity, and their views about nature evolved accordingly. prior to the decline of magic they may have been closer to the Jungle Elves in how they used Biomancy.

glitterboy2098 wrote:

eliakon wrote:

HarleeKnight wrote:

eliakon wrote:Honestly... since Lemuria has made the Jungle Elves go from "Masters of Biomancy" to "dabbling hacks"...

My thoughts exactly... Biomancy was interesting before, but now it's downright sexy.

And has turned into the exact opposite of what it was
The Lemurians practice Biowizardry not Biomancy

Gone is the "protect nature" and in comes "bind all of creation to be your slaves, twist life to do as you will and disrupt the ecosystem freely"

Its pretty sickening. There is a reason that when I run My lemurians are biowizards who sold out to the Dark Side for power (and cookies)

actually i could see it being a result of how the Lemurians spent a few centuries in another dimension. they fled into the pocket realm the lord of the deep had been in. odds are said realm was rather sparse in terms of life. it may well have been that the only life was what they brought with them. so they would have had to adapt their lifestyle to the conditions.. and engineering lifeforms into tools became a survival necessity, and their views about nature evolved accordingly. prior to the decline of magic they may have been closer to the Jungle Elves in how they used Biomancy.

Doesn't fly sorry
Alignment is not relative, nor is the supposed manditory code of ethics for biomancy.
And the Lemurians are breaking both the code and blatantly evil. They just get a pass on both because they are Mary Sues who are being used to bring in Splicers material (when frankly they should have gone all the way and just brought in the splicers stuff and said "yes, the Lemurians have Gene-Tech". Honeslty if I run another Rifts game that is probably what I will do... simply make "house Lemuria" and remove all the absurd magic junk.)

Now that is a good way for them to fall from Biomancy to Biowizardry though... THAT I will buy.
But not a way for them to still be using Biomancy. As written they litterally can NOT be using Biomancy as they are violating virtually every precipt of the art on a daily basis.