RiftsConversion Book Review

A very old review of conversion book I…
Rifts Conversion Book One

Another one of the old standbys, the conversion book has been around for what seems like forever. This book was written in response to the need at the time for many rules clarifications, and to release a plethora of new creatures and things into the world of Rifts.
One of the main aspects of the Conversion Books is, amazingly, conversions. Palladium has written information on how to bring characters from nearly all of it’s previous games into Rifts earth. Plus, there are many races and monsters that are taken directly from the Palladium Fantasy game, and Beyond the Supernatural. Does any of it actually fit into Rifts? Well, that depends. I am inclined to say most of the older games’ stuff doesn’t usually work to well in Rifts, it’s just to out of it’s environment. Some of the monsters and d-bee races would work, but Super Heroes, Martial Artists, and Null-Psychics? They just seem WAY out of their genre in the Rifts world. But Palladium seems to think that they do work (note the many “Converted” NPC’s that are from other worlds). I guess Rifts is a big inter-dimensional melting pot, but even then, I don’t imagine spandexed heroes and ninjas running around in the battle-torn continent of North America. It just wouldn’t seem very realistic, I mean I envision Rifts as being all gritty and hard-core, not full of smiling superheroes and crap.

But anyway, the book does include quite a few worth while things, some of my favorite include the warlocks, werebeasts, and the listings of haunting entities. Most of the demons are either WAY to powerful, or just pitifully weak. I mean, take a close look at the Balrog demon’s stats, they really are pretty crappy.

The rule clarifications are needed, but by now most people already know them anyway. The conversions of older games’ stuff usually just turns the characters into walking guns/suits of armor, unless the character has powers or something else that will be on par with Rifts stuff. I always have wondered if there are Nightbane conversions somewhere, but I have never found them.

Overall, the conversion book is definitely worth the money. At the time, it was really needed, and like many of the older books, it is usually regarded as and old-standby. No serious gamer doesn’t have this book, there’s just too much good info in here to go with out.

Noticable Interesting Picture, Quote, or Stat:

Can we say GREATER EARTH ELEMENTAL? And warlocks get a chance to summon these things! Now this is what the Coalition is afraid of, not some crappy Ley Line walker’s magic! The Greater Earth Elemental has 3d6×1000MDC!!!! It’s power punch does 4d6×10MD!!! It has 8 hand to hand attacks, or 6 Earth Elemental magic attacks! Earthquakes away! Just one of these mothers could take out an entire Coalition Heavy Mechanized Search and Destroy squad! Think they can’t have ranged attacks? Well they can throw stones 6000ft doing 1d4×10MD!!! Everything about these creatures kicks ass, plus the thing can summon many other elementals to it’s aide. Scary.

Noticable Lame Picture, Quote, or Stat:

Well, this book is full of wacky races and such, but I feel that one of the most annoying things in the book is the picture of the Cyber-horseman on page 112. The thing has a cyber-schlong!!! Was this really necessary Mr. Gustovich? Plus the picture has things like the never before released “Cyber-Tree RCC”, and “Cyber-Grass RCC”. Why is EVERYTHING in the picture cybernetic?