Please note that using this method requires actual role-play, imagination, conversation and materials must be invested in each attempt and discussion. Alternatively it can be done behind the scenes within a time span of 2 months, 4 months and 8 months respectively with a SINGLE roll to determine if the student has successfully learned the skill. The percentage of difficulty is determined by adding the M.A. of the teacher with the I.Q. of the student and creating an average by dividing the total by 2 and then multiplying it by 5 to obtain a percentage. (Any student I.Q. percentage bonuses may be applied to this final number as well.) If successful after that period of time has passed the student will obtain the new skill. If the student fails however they just are not quite there yet and education must continue for an additional 2 months allowing another roll.)

      Material costs are entirely left to the Game Master's discretion. Some may require little more than a few picture books or maps and subsequent forays into the wilderness. Others will cost money for E-Clip charging. Still others will require the rental, purchase or borrowing of vehicles and others will require tools and raw materials that can cost hundreds of thousands of credits. Use common sense and try to be fair but not overly permissive.

      In regards to non-canon skills, the RRVGG has created quite a number of new skills which would have appeared in the pages of the book lost to a hard drive crash tentatively named RIFTS® World Book A: Wa-Daisho (The Republic of the Misty Isles now,) these included a significant number of missing skills regarding agriculture, aquaculture, water purification and many many more that are not coming to me at this moment. To the best of my recollection there were twenty or thirty new skills included but few that the average player might have selected. Lore: Dimension was one that was created but was seldom used. According to tradition it started at a mere 1%+1% per level of experience. This accounts for the fact that there are countless different dimensions and the character is seldom going to know but a few of the most closely linked dimensions to the one they originated or live in. One could also argue that one could never possibly even know 20% of the traits of different dimensions. Thus its a skill that has fallen into disuse. Most of the skills displayed in The Rifter® have been integrated into our game however. Specific hobby related skills have also been permitted to replace more broad skills like Art or Whittling and Sculpting. There are a number of other skills we have thrown out over time as well, things that are duplicates of others especially. For instance Read Sensory Equipment Sonar; That's already covered under Read Sensory Equipment. Same is true of W.P. Grenade Launcher - it's a duplicate of W.P. Heavy Weapons. The bonuses and percentages may be different but it's all the same stuff basically. It's not so much that these skills are not permitted but they are without a doubt what we consider useless filler. Like the soy in a McDonald's Hamburger - Palladium Books® seems to insist on some measure of the metaphorical soy in their product.

Equipment Note

      We're pretty straight forward in regards to this stuff. We seldom allow player-characters to start off with the best equipment available even to the region they are from. Pretty much anything from the original RIFTS® Main Book is available to North American characters, for example, but nobody is going to start out with a Wilk's™ 457 as their long rifle or top of the line body armor like Bushman Trooper, New Coalition States™ body armor or a Naruni™ Super-Heavy Force Field. This is a beginning level character who either inherited their equipment as a hand-me-down after Mom or Pop sold off their best gear to put them through school or it was whatever they could cobble together from buying/salvaging parts and getting a Psi-Tech™ his fix of Psi-Pop in exchange for bashing it together. Conversely a character in South America would not be able to get anything from Wilk's™ at all. In times past we were not very rigid about rules like this. Thus characters almost always started with the best of the best, be it Naruni™, Wilk's™ or Phase World® stuff. Power Armor for most characters is restricted in the sense that I NEVER allow a character to start with Avenger Power Armor or a Glitterboy™, unless you are in fact of a Glitterboy™ O.C.C.™ - it has to be something that is reasonably commonly available and generally fairly cheap by comparison to other types.

      Furthermore maintenance in our game is a serious issue. If you have a military vehicle it had better be either of a common type or you'd better plan to stay real near to someone whom can get replacement parts. Despite the skills of Psi-Tech® and Operator character classes those they need components to work with and without something they can put in the place of something too seriously damaged to repair you will obviously need something new. Take for example our famous Skies Over Tolkeen™ campaign. We had more trouble in that game keeping our aircraft aloft due to a lack of spare parts and a regular supply of ordnance than I care to remember. We also had characters who insisted on using their own personal aircraft in the war and they suffered far worse than those of us whom used the Tolkeenite™ supplied aircraft often having to wait weeks or even months before their aircraft could be operational again. Also repair of damage must be done in 10% increments by our homebrew rules regarding armor/structural repair. If the mechanic fails on his or her roll for Mechanical Engineer/Aircraft Mechanics/Armorer/etc. for one 10% increment it means that 10% of the M.D.C.™ is gone; Barring a complete and total overhaul. Some of our aircraft in the same campaign that were as tough as a SAMAS® when they were first issued were later flimsy as a suit of certain types of body armor.

      The same can be said about high tech weapons. In today's world everyone who has ever handled a rifle knows that there is a certain amount of maintenance necessary to keep it in good working order. On the field of battle this is even more important - and these are very simple slug-throwers without electronic components, lenses, mirrored components, high capacity batteries and so on - thats just generalizing a laser weapon. The simple reality about technology is this: The higher the technology level is the more care and maintenance it will require. Mega- Damage® weapons are by nature made up of mega-damage® parts, at least those intended to protect the inner workings of the weapon. If you parry a Xiticix™ blade with the barrel of an energy rifle there's a possibility that it will cut into the barrel assembly. The problem with that would be that the barrel is a series of lenses intended to narrow and focus the beam to its precision but this takes place in a vacuum. Otherwise the atmosphere between the lenses would fluoresce, expand and accumulate heat - with the damaged barrel it will likely cause damage to the lenses in the barrel assembly at the least - at worst causing the weapon to catastrophically malfunction destroying the weapon entirely. Similarly with the high capacity batteries we call "Energy Clips," it requires an adapter circuit to channel that energy into the working components of the weapon. That's a lot of juice to continually pump through an electronic device and it will accumulate heat which in turn will eventually cause wear/tear, oxidation, etc. Most energy weapons prominently display cooling ducts which are critical for keeping an energy weapon cool enough for sustained use. These need to be checked and cleared of debris routinely. If the end of a barrel assembly of a laser weapon gets clogged up with dirt, it won't backfire like a slug-thrower but instead will generally atomize the substance. However as quickly as it is atomized it will rapidly cool and stick to everything around it - including the lense and inside the end of the barrel assembly. It will appear as a discolored glossy area. This can cause all sorts of problems from accumulating heat in the focal or delivery lense, whichever you wish to call it, leading to a crack or shattered lense to simply causing the beam to deviate ever so slightly and perhaps ruining a perfect opportunity to snipe that CS renegade you've been tracking for weeks. To think; It could have been avoided just by inspecting your' weapon and cleaning it carefully. As a Game Master I keep track of what characters are up to, the environment they are in and whether they bother to take time to work with their equipment. I had planned to write an entire LARGE article for The Rifter® at one point on RIFTS® maintenance & modifications of weapons but all of my notes were destroyed in the same hard drive meltdown that destroyed the books I was nearly finished with.

      A note towards modern weapons in our game; no energy weapons can fire bursts unless the weapon is described as being able to fire a burst like a Pulse-Laser Rifle, Rail Gun or specifically states in its description that it can be used to fire in an Aimed, Burst or Wild manner.

      The only other note I have to add about equipment, is that if it doesn't specify how many clips you get for a weapon we permit players to roll 1D6+1 and that is the number of clips the player-character will start with for that weapon.

Changing a Character's O.C.C.™

      Although not exactly part of character creation it's a related topic. We're pretty straight forward about changing a character's O.C.C.™. If a character is of one O.C.C.™ and joins some organization where they will receive training to fit within their ranks the new O.C.C.™ is quite explicable and perfectly permissible regardless of the character's previous level of experience. IF the player decides to have his/her character change their O.C.C.™ unilaterally then it's a little different. First, the character must have a mentor, trainer or other source for education. It's immaterial as to who or what it just needs to be someone somewhere that can teach them the skills and ropes of the trade in question. If it is a mentor, such as a fellow player character (with an I.Q., M.E. & M.A. of 12 or higher,) the training can take place during game play either through an established period of time in game world continuity or with an experience point quota - such as what it would take to achieve level 4 in their new O.C.C.™ for example to actually reach level 1. Alternately the player may opt to have their character take time out of active play to seek out a mentor or formal education. The only catch we draw to this sort of occupation change is that NO character can simply choose to change their occupation before level 8. In all cases when training is complete the character will possess all of the O.C.C.™ Abilities, all of the O.C.C.™ Skills and HALF of the O.C.C.™ Related Skills. NO new secondary skills will be obtained however but will obtain one at level 3, 6, 9, 12 & 15 unless described otherwise under the O.C.C.™. In real life terms this is actually fairly realistic as most people change occupations 5 or more times in a lifetime. Skills that are doubled through the new occupation will receive the +10% one time bonus as mentioned above and whatever percentage is obtained from a skill advancing one level. As is typical all the character's previous skills are frozen at their prior level UNLESS using our Skill Advancement system in which case skills never truly freeze.

      There are of course common sense exceptions to changing one's O.C.C.™. A player cannot select any occupation that stipulates psychic abilities if their character either does not/cannot possess such abilities. (The Mystic or Mystic Knight are two examples.) A 'Borg cannot choose to become a Ley Line Walker™ BUT a Ley Line Walker™ can choose to change to the 'Borg O.C.C.™ at the expense of all of their previous O.C.C.™ abilities and spells. A player cannot simply choose to become an Apok™, Cosmo-Knight™, Sea Inquisitor™ and so on where generally speaking the character is selected by an outside power and not visa versa.