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First and foremost...

Hail and well met one and all! Yeah this is my first post but I have been playing Palladium games pretty much since day one.

I am working on my first Chaos Earth campaign and it occurs to me that the OCC list is pretty light. I realize in part that is to keep a lot of the "power creep" out but even still it seems light to me.

Following is a list of my proposed allowed OCC list, keep in mind this game will be very North America centric. I am accepting BTS as the pre-rifts earth. I realize there has been some debate on this issue but the BTS "stuff" is largely in the shadows so it sorta fits as far as I'm concerned.

CE Basebook (all)
CE RoM (all)
Rifter(s) (all)
BTS (all)
Rifts Basebook - Combat Cyborg, Crazie, Headhunter, Juicer, Merc Soldier, Mystic, Wild Psi-Stalker
Rifts Mercenaries - Bounty Hunter, Forger, Freelance Spy, Master Assassin, Safecracker, Smuggler, Special Forces, Super-Spy, Professional Thief.

Some OCC notes: I am including both the wild psi-stalker and the mystic for the same reason, they both come about their abilities "naturally" or through their own instrospections. The inclusion of the Super Spy brings super powers to the table, but I plan on keep the list short and restricting them heavily.

I am posting because I am looking for feedback, suggestions and anything I might have missed.

Psi-stalkers wouldn't be a thing in Chaos Earth. too early. they are supposed to be mutations that emerged during the 200 year dark age between CE and the start of the rifts PA calendar.
Headhunters are problematic in the CE setting.. they have no role in the golden age, and there isn't enough time for their unique post-apoc aspects to develop. players wanting to run something like them would be better off using a NEMA OCC and getting a partial conversion by GM fiat.
Mystics would probably be rare. while innate magic is certainly a thing, the forms of magic is still settling down, so invocations would not always be the standard type of spells that innate magic manifests as. Chaos mages are largely innate magic as it is, so use sparingly.
the MOM tech of the crazies was a restricted technology due to its mental health effects (per SB3), so any crazies probably are not going ot be common, and if present, are likely to be on the shadier side of society, such as organized crime. it is liekly NEMA would be wary of putting much trust in Crazies due to the mental health issues.
the Merc Soldier would be very rare in north america ('soldiers of fortune' being more of a third world thing, and legit private military corporations in the USA would range from 'rent a police' on par with the NEMA volunteer level, to stuff on par with NEMA itself in training)
Juicers are a restricted tech.. unliek MOM tech it wasn't illegal, but it was officially only used by the military, probably for special forces. so might need a few skill tweaks to reflect the golden age origins instead of post-apoc society. (note that while there are mentions of golden age novels with a juicer spy, it is unliekly that intelligence agencies used juicers. to conspicuous. juciers make good james bond style characters, but that is about as accurate to intelligence work as the game Operation is to actual surgery)

Bounty Hunters in the rifts vein would not really be a thing (in the golden age 'bounty hunters" would be more on par with the NEMA volunteer.. civilians with some weapon skills. think "rally vincent" rather than 'boba fett')
Super Spies would be unlikely, since that OCC relies on both training and special powers together. supernatural stuff like magic or 'superpowers' are too news for the training to have included it. and while psi is known during the golden age due to MOM tech, powerful Psi generally would not have been.

Smugglers, Safecrackers, Forger, Freelance Spy, Master Assassin, Safecracker, Smuggler, and Professional Thief will likely need some adjustment to reflect the future technological society of the golden age and not the post-apoc society of rifts.

ditto the special forces, though that might not require quite as many changes to skills and such.

a few suggestions for viable OCC's from other books..

World Book 7 has OCC's for the US navy and US Marine Corps. as well as their armor, weapons, vehicles, and gear. the equipment is Pre-rifts, and the OCC's have rather few skills that might need adapting, so you can drop them right in. while the US navy has little direct involvement with the american midwest where official CE is set currently, they would have Recruitment centers, and there is always the option of retired or "on vacation" personnel. note that in all three cases the amount of actual Navy hardware might be limited. Retired and on vacation troops would basically have little to no navy gear, but could easily be assigned NEMA hardware. recruitment centers may have a few suits of armor and some pistols and rifles, for defense, but probably not much.

US marines have a larger presence. in addition to recruitment centers, they have the 2nd battalion, 24th Marine Reserve Regiment stationed there. which would be a potential source of skileld combat troops as well as people with valuable disaster relief skills, as well as a source of additional armor, infantry weapons, and supplies. (would be the WB7 weaponry)

World Book 20 has the "Tundra Rangers", aka the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. while a lot of them bunkered down in their northern facilities (and got time-shifted forward 200 years), it seems likely that those in the more settled southerly parts of canada would still be active. since the RCMP would logically be a subset or at least adjunct to NEMA, some of them would likely have responded to the call for NEMA to congregate on Chicago.

the tundra rangers gear is basically the early CS gear in WB20, like the CA-1, CA-2, C-10, C-12, C-18, etc. this gear was fluffed as being derived from pre-rifts plans for "the united state military", though we now know that NEMA was using a variation on it. this fluff has not been changed as of RUE, so this means you can use the CA-1 and 2 armors, the C-18, the C-10, C-12, and the CR-1 as additional hardware in your games, used by the US army and other such entities. note that the USA SAMAS from World Book 15 is also from this period, and probably represented the "regular" variant the Silver Eagle was developed from. the USA SAMAS could be easily be fluffed as being used by the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force easily, so NEMA being able to obtain a few from nearby military bases would work great.

Mercops has a number of Pre-rifts items in their GAW section, like the M-21 assualt rifle, and some early MDC armors, that might be found as US Army reserve armories in the region as well.

Heroes Unlimited Experiment and Mutant.
Combat Cyborg.
Cyborg Shock Troopers.(several are prerifts designs)
NGR all occs.

super heroes are very very very not part of the rifts/CE golden age, and rifted in ones would be heavily GM call.

the rifts Cyborg OCC would need some heavy mods but might be workable.

the warlords of russia shocktroopers are both the totally wrong continent and also don't exist yet.. none of them are prerifts designs.

the NGR OCC's are, again, totally the wrong continent, and represent a military that exists 300 years later. they would require extensive modificatiosn to work as Chaos Earth classes.

I don't find Super Powers unbalanced at all in Rifts/Chaos Earth.
Most things fold quickly under the mighty Boomgun.

i didn't say that it was unbalanced, i said that it wasn't part of the setting.
the Golden Age of chaos Earth and Rifts was not a time of superheroes and super powers, magic, or aliens. any superheroes that appear in Chaos Earth would have been rifted in, or manifested in previously normal people much like Chaos Magic did. in the former, the GM has to approve it, in the latter, the GM not only has to approve it, but the the better mechanic would be to use the Rifts Conversion Book 1 "super powered adventurer" option, giving a small number of powers to non-military characters.


(It is worth noting that the Megaversal builder sourcebook establishes Heroes Unlimited Earth as a seperate universe from CE/Rifts Earth, and HU earth has a different flow of time and a slightly different set of dimensional traits compared to riffts earth, such as having a universal power matrix.)

Some OCCs that might exist in some form:
WB7 Underseas: Tritonia Mutants (possible to be visiting NA), generic Sailor (which also exists in some form in SB4 and WB6 IINM, on shore leave or operating in the harbor/lakes,rivers)

WB8 Japan: Tech Ninja (corporate spies, IIRC general history mentions people travelling to Japan from elsewhere during the GC, so there could be 21st Century Tech Ninja overseas), though sub-types (TW, Juicer, Crazy are out). Some of the Republic OCCs might also be valid as is or with tweaking.

WB14 New West: some of the OCCs should still be valid (Sherif, Deputy, Saloon Bum & Girl, Cowboy), and some obviously not so valid, and some that are in a gray area (like Gunslinger/Fighters, they might exist in the form of entertainers more than MoA).

WB30 DoNA: with Rifts opening up, you could have D-Bee characters (and their assorted OCCS), some date to this time period IIRC


IINM some of the vehicles in Mercenaries are also said to be Pre-Rifts.

the Iron Heart Tanks i beleive were called such. which in my opinion should be what the mainstream military was using when the cataclysm hit, alongside those CA-1/CA-2 Armors and C-12/C-18/CR-1 weapons. (easy way to relabel them is to put an "M" in place of the "C")

National Guard would be using those MD refit M-1 abrams and M-2 Bradley's found in the GAW section of Mercops.

i'd honestly give the Army a smattering of Chrome Guardsmen/Glitterboy's as well, it's battlefield role is very well suited to supporting infantry. NEMA i'd just say got them first, and uses a lot more of them relative to the size of their total forces. (with NEMA they are the main combat force alongside the giant robots. in the US Army they'd just be support units to the infantry, with main battle tanks carrying the heavy combat role.

i'd also honestly give the US Army the USA SAMAS from WB15. while technically a fixed wing vehicle (and thus Airforce by how things stand IRL) the SAMAS makes a good alternative/supplement to Scout and Attack Helicopters. it has similar speed, has the same VTOL and loitering ability, and many of the same sensors. it lacks the firepower of say an Apache, but it would make a good replacement for a OH-58 Kiowa Warrior in the scouting/light support role. if you need a full attack helicopter, i'd suggest using the one the new navy has in WB7. (the sea striker IIRC?) the Marines usually purchase and use the same attack helicopter's the army does, just with modifications to make them more suited to ship use (like anti-corrosion coatings to handle salt air/spray)

if you want some additional powered armor for the Army, i'd honestly suggest something liek the Sampson. while the NG Sampson Mk.I isn't said to be pre-rifts, it is a good "trooper" design, and you could easily handwave that a similar PA existed, and NG was inspired by it to make the Sampson.

as far as Army OCC's go, the original CS soldier, Military Specialist, and RPA fit fairly well, just replace anything pertaining ot the study of monsters/demons/magic with suitable lore and history skills for pre-rifts society. (so instead of "lore: demons" for example, you get "History: golden age" or something similar)

Thanks everyone for the advice and feedback. Here is my list 2.0

CE Basebook (all)
CE RoM (all)
Rifter(s) (all CE sources)
BTS (all)
Rifts Basebook - Combat Cyborg, Crazie, Juicer, Merc Soldier, Mystic
Rifts Mercenaries - Forger, Freelance Spy, Master Assassin, Safecracker, Smuggler, Special Forces, "Super Soldier", Professional Thief.
Rifts Underseas - Navy Seaman, Marine
Rifts Canada - Tundra Ranger, Tundra Ranger Scout, Tundra Ranger Calvary

The Super Soldier is something I made up myself and will have super abilitiles but from a very restricted list. The reason for including this one can be found on page 9 in the Lasts days of the golden age section. That reads to me they are making super soldiers, ala Captain America-ish types.

The list is by no means exhaustive but those are the ones that will be allowed automatically, anything else will have to be run by me first. I want to keep this game very Chaos Earth-centric and shy away from standard Rifts fare and/or settings.

You might want to take a look at WB8: Japan for tech classes as mentioned earlier, but specially for the Cyberoid. They make up a big chuck of the population from the Pre-Rifts Japanese cities, and aren't that overpowered. I see them, or the lowly City Rat being fairly common as urban citizens.