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So I have seen a few posts about tattoo magic but have been unable to find a definitive answer on a few things. Under the undead slayer it lists marks of heritage, then goes on to state a flaming weapon and anti vampire tats as part of the starting abilities (after already saying marks of heritage). Is this infact a typo/misprint? If so what should be the total starting number of tattoos for the class. Additionally it has a bow and arrows listed that are flaming and have wings. How does the community feel they should be priced for PPE? I can see it being either 30 or 32 depending on how you read it. Finally is there an official errata for the Rifts books available? I know there is the cutting room floor plus this forum, but a more consolidated list of eratta would be more user friendly.

Undead Slayers start with two: The flaming sword and anti-undead tats are the marks of heritage. it simply notes they have them in more than one location redundantly.

Stacking tattoo modifiers stacks PPE costs. You pay the cost of a flaming sword with wings added togeather.

And you already found the offical Errata. the stuff on the cutting room floor are all the official errata there are, plus scattered about the Rifters are bits of Offical errata and offical Q&A.

Also, no answers on this forum can be considered offical, not even the ones in the Q&A archives. They're questions asked by fans, answered by fans, and archived by moderators who are fans who were volenteers to moderate the forum, but there is no oversight or stamp of approval on any of it, and no palladium staffers look over it, and nothing stops wrong answers from being archived. Yes it's on Palladium's offical forum, but the Q&A is not offically endorsed by palladium.

Makes total sense for the starting tattoos.

As far as the adding abilities I understand that you add the PPE costs together, But my question was more specifically the bow and arrow tattoo mentioned in the class. It specifically states that the four arrows are flaming and have wings. One could argue that the bow and arrow is a simple weaapon plus the arrows flaming with wings. That would give a different PPE cost than Having the tattoo start off as a magic one because of the flaming and then add the wings cost to the overall total.

Additionally as I continued reading I noticed that under the nomad class there is a subset referred to as a paladin. It is well lists a flaming weapon just below the marks of heritage. Has anyone played one and if so have they house rolled it to be a power of choice as they already have a flaming weapon?

I would make the Paladin "flaming weapon" a second weapon. A sword as the mark of heritage, then a shield, spear, or even a different kind of sword as the second Flaming Weapon.

"Bow and four arrows" is a single tattoo. "Flaming" is a nother. 2 total.

Flaming is a base not an add-on, "Flaming Bow and Arrows" I thought was one tattoo in most cases, though I remember I think smoething in Pantheons counting it differently.

I disagree with Nekira on this one.

A Flaming Bow and Arrows is one tattoo, just as a Flaming Axe is a single tattoo. And if the Wings is part of the original tattoo (as opposed to being added later) it's still a single tattoo (SoA p155).

So to interpret the first interesting NPC, England 110 describes 30 tats, if you subtract the 12 power and 4 summoning (14 left) and 5 simple weapons (one of which is "four ordinary wooden arrows") you're left with 9 slots to account for the magic ones. Galahad's "Flaming Shield" is clearly 1, so the remaining 3 must count as 8 tats.

We are explicitly told "counts as three tattos" for two:
*Flaming broadsword with wings and encoiled by a serpent
*A pair of crossed, flaming, battle axes dripping blood

The latter being an interesting precursor to the flaming/blood SOTA verified but which was a bit of an ambiguous issue since no PPE combo was listed.

The last must by process of elimination cost 2:
*"Bow and arrow. Two sets of tattoos with four flaming arrows in flames (8 arrows total), all have wings"

So in his case, rather than being "counts as 1 tattoo, must be activated together" it looks like he got additions to a tat and as such can activate them separately for various PPE combos?

I figure the base/addons would go...

flaming broadsword > MAY add serpent and/or wings
flaming battle axes > MAY add blood and/or crossing
flaming bow and arrow > may add wings and/or additional arrows

The last one is pretty confusing though, particularly with hisd simple weapons have arrows existing on their own...

Then let me counter with a question:

Weapon with wings has for PPE Cost: 5 if a simple weapon, 10 if dripping blood, 20 if flame covered, and 30 if serpent covered. This clearly indicates that they are selected A La Carte. A T-Man (Classic) can get one Major Tattoo ((Magic Weapon, Power, or Monster tattoo) per level, or two simple weapons.

So after character creation while leveling up...how exactly would them all being one work?

if you want to get a simple weapon tattoo with Magic wings...oops, you can't do that. You can get one simple weapon tattoo plus another or an Animal tattoo, but Wings is magic, so it's impossible to get a simple tattoo with wings at once. You get one, then next level you get the other. right away they take up 2 slots so that's 2 choices.

When they introduced tattoo enhancements in SotA they broke the paradigm of simple vs major tattoos. The book never defines which category enhancements (animal or weapon) fall into, or even if they fall into one of those categories at all. For that matter, Dimension tattoos are not assigned a category either (but we can easily infer they are a major).

I believe the intent is:
-- Simple = SDC (be it animals or weapons)
-- Major = MDC

I find it simplest to say that an enhancement to a SDC weapon (or animal) counts as a simple tattoo if it's being added. Or if both the weapon and the enhancement are being acquired at the same time, then follow the rule on p155 that says they count as one (and I could consider the combo to be a simple tattoo).

To say it anothe way: the base tattoo should dictate whether the enhancement is simple or major.

So a T-man levels up and wants a simple weapon with Wings. Both are acquired at once, count as 1 tattoo (per p155), costs 7 PPE to activate, and the T-man could still get another simple tattoo at that time.

There's some room for interpretation there, but that's how I read the intent.


----EDIT----
I re-read the Electric Arc, Flaming Gout, and Thorn tattoos, and realized another adjustment would be needed. Either:
1) Limit those three enhancements to only work with Flaming Weapon tattoos, or
2) Make their damage only SDC when paired with a simple weapon, or
3) Allow them to inflict MDC even when paired with a simple weapon, but count the combo as a major tattoo

It shouldn't be this hard.

One thing I just realized... does "Two Weapons Crossed" being classified as an enhancement mean you can no longer have it as a stand-alone tattoo for 5 PPE that you could use to enhance skill with non-tattoo weapons?

I realize it still says you get a bonus for non-tat weapons, but being +5 instead of 5 sounds like you'd at least need to pay 2 PPE to activate one simple weapon too, to get the bonus?

I could see that being a problem if you wanted to be subtle and use an existing weapon and not have weapons appear out of thin air giving away you are a T-man. Also if you're already wielding some kinda 2-handed rune weapon you probably don't need another 2-handed weapon...

It also mentions "applies whether the T-Man is using one or both of the weapons in the tattoo" ... does that mean it creates 2 weapons? The Kevin Long illustration on Atlantis 87 had what looked like 2 flaming swords crossed on his right forearm (lower left of image) so I think the intent to combine was always there, but it seems to have changed. Prior to this the only actual "add PPE" was the wings.

A 2nd thing that seems a bit wrong, is when you look at the maximum of 2 enhancements... dripping blood is an enhancement for SDC weapons, but "flaming dripping blood" is simply a base type, so it basically has an enhancement built into it...



Wait a minute... *takes a close look at SOTA 152-153* did Flaming Shield get demoted from a Magic Weapon to a Simple Weapon? Sorta looks that way...

152 also interestingly specifies a damage bonus for an "iron" staff, reiterating clues we've had in previous books that you can specify the material component of the weapon (Galahad's "wood" arrows, the "silver" weapons some vampire hunter had...) makes me wonder if you could say "I make a gold sword" or something.

153 also verifies "Anybody can pick up and use weapons created by a magic tat­too as long as the T-Man allows it." which I don't think had been clarified prior to then. Awesome!


"Can be combined with a W eapon Covered in Flames to make the weapon inflict M.D. in all modes of attack" is an interesting note... normally Flaming Weapons do SDC against SDC opponents. "Covered in Electrical Arcs" says that too normally...

Does the combination mean that flames+arcs do MD against SDC opponents like how Flaming weapons used to?

Yes these changes were the typical Palladium inconsistent rules. Just ignore the weapon enhancement category tattoo listing. Go with something simple like no more than three effects that add or multiple the base tattoo damage. If you want to honor what I believe was the intent of the new category it would be 4 effects to allow for Dripping Blood being part of the base tattoo.