Firebug (Pixie Burster)

[Firebug]

Character Sheet
Player Name: Hendell
Character Name (Firebug)
Rank: Novice Experience: 10 (TDF 10/15/2017) Advances Left: 1 (10/15/2017)
Race: Pixie (Custom)
Iconic Framework: Burster
Attributes: Agility d4, Smarts d12+1, Spirit d6, Strength d4-2, Vigor d4
Charisma: -1; Pace: 2”; Parry: 4 (½ Fighting +3); Toughness: 4 (½ Vigor+2 plus armor); Strain: 0
Skills:

• Fighting d4
• KnPsionics d10
• Notice d12
• Investigation d10
• Psionics d12+1

Hindrances

• Bad Luck (Major): -1 Benny per game
• Heroic (Minor): Always Rescue, little pay
• All Thumbs (Minor): -2 Repair, Break tech on a 1

Edges

• Improved Rapid Recharge (Race): 1 PPE/ 15 minutes
• Rapid Flame Bolt (Hindrance): Rate of Fire 3
• Exceptional Rapid Recharge (Hindrance): 1 PPE/ 5 minutes
• Improved Flame Bolt (Advance): 6d6 damage

Psionics ISP: 80/80

• Armor: +5/10 MDC armor
• Deflection: -4/6 attack penalty
• Boost/Lower Trait: + or -2/4 trait score

Custom Race Features

• Flight (3) - Pace +12, Climb 1
• Tiny But Mighty (5) - -2 to Hit/Notice them; +2 bonus to hit others
• Extra Edge (2) - Rapid Recharge
• Smarts Increase (2) - 1d6-1d12+1 Smarts
• Extra Edge (2) - Improved Rapid Recharge
• Non Standard Physiology (-1) - Double Cost
• Cyber Resistant (-1) - No cybernetics
• Distinctive D-Bee (-2) - No Disguise -4 cha
• Clueless (-2) - -2 common knowledge
• Lack of Concern (-1) - Outsider hindrance ( Big folk)
• Love affair for Candy and Wine (-1) - They love going after candy and wine. Scholars conjecture that the faerie folk are perhaps the only creatures in all the megaverse that truly have such a passion for both things. This is a Habit (minor) and can get on some folks nerves giving them a -1 CHA.
• Minor Wanted (-1) - Splugorth
• Lack of Leverage (-3) - -2 Strength rolls

Iconic Framework

• Everything Burns: 1d10s to ignite stone on a 10
• Fiery Aura: 3d6 touch, +6 armor or 3 ISP for +6 MDC
• Fire Mastery: LBT -2 environmental effect
• Firewalker: Completely immune to fire/heat/plasma, Half electrical
• Flamebolt: +2/4 AP for ½ ISP. Never Brainburn
• Major Psionic: +1/2 Psionics or X2/X10 range for 2/4 ISP
• Enemies: Coalition States
• Pyromaniac: Love to see things burn

[Firebug]

Heroic Journey and Narrative Hook rolls 0

[Venatus Vinco]

Welcome,

Love the idea of a little ball of fire!

20 points is a lot for a custom race.

I recommend scaling back to 12-14.

VV

[Firebug]

Hero’s Journey

• Experience & Wisdom
• Roll result: 19, Choose 16
• Gain Professional Edge: Master Psionic
• Psionics
• Roll result: 4
• More ISP +10 base ISP
• Psionics
• Roll result: 4
• More ISP +10 base ISP
• Psionics
• Roll result: 5
• More ISP +10 base ISP
• Narrative Hooks
• Roll result: 18
• Battle Beyond the rifts (Native to other world)

[Firebug]

Gear (post gear as a reply to character sheet)
Item

• NG-33 Laser Pistol
• NG-S2 Survival Pack
• Credits: 0

[Firebug]

Advances

• Initial Advances: (From Hindrances): Exceptional Rapid Recharge, Rapid Flame Bolt
• Novice 1 Advance: Improved Flame Bolt
• Novice 2 Advance:
• Novice 3 Advance:
• Seasoned 1 Advance:
• Seasoned 2 Advance:
• Seasoned 3 Advance:
• Seasoned 4 Advance:
• Veteran 1 Advance:
• Veteran 2 Advance:
• Veteran 3 Advance:
• Veteran 4 Advance:
• Heroic 1 Advance:
• Heroic 2 Advance:
• Heroic 3 Advance:
• Heroic 4 Advance:
• Legendary 1 Advance:
• Legendary 2 Advance:
• Legendary 3 Advance:
• Legendary 4 Advance:

[Firebug]

Background (post background as a reply to character sheet)
Quite clearly not from around here, even to the untrained eye, the tiny winged woman who uses only the name Firebug for herself is barely one foot tall, and stick figure thin. If that was not enough to prove her other worldly nature she has a set of transparent membrane wings protruding from her back and an obvious distrust of technology. To make matters worse this beautiful little woman is almost always covered in shimmering waves of heat, and the rare occurrences of her landing on something less durable than rock almost always results in at least a little smoke if not flat out open flames. These fires neither harm her nor tend to grow much beyond where she stands, somehow contained to exist only where she wants them to.

Native to another world, some would call even stranger than Rifts Earth Firebug came to this world, as near as anyone can determine, in the midst of a battle her people were fighting against an overpowering army of Splugorth minions. For reasons she has yet to determine, or more likely happenstance, she fell through a rift that did not lead directly back to the Splugorth base of operations. For Firebug this was a stroke of fortune, for her people denied even the opportunity to strike back at their deadly foe it was a death knell. Quite convinced that none of her people survived the onslaught with their freedom intact Firebug fully expects they are serving the equivalent of a life sentence as living batteries in the Splugorths horrible biowizard PPE Batteries.

With the only even remotely competent orginzation in the area that both understands the Splugorth threat and is willing to use D-Bees and or magic to thwart it being the Tomorrow Legion joining up was only a question of when, not if.

[Pender Lumkiss]

Small and Toughness seem at odds. Probably just need to pick one, probably small. It makes sense that they would need rapid recharge prior to the improved version. can you please point to the PR fluff this is coming from?

Overall looks fun! Welcome to the community!

[Firebug]

The Small and Toughness are functionally self annihilating but as the Pixies in Rifts are just naturally as tough as bigger creatures wearing armor (minor MDC creatures) while being quite small they do actually fit with the paradigm of the race and translate to something with at least the same toughness as a human.

The primary purpose behind having both when neither does just about the same thing is the cosmetic requirements of the race, indeed something in the order of 6 points both positive and negative are either self negating or just to get the 'feel' right so it really is more like a 14 point race with an odd paint job.

The most efficient book reference is the flavor text in the Faerie PPE Battery on page 140 of WB 21, other more complete sections can be found on page 133 of WB 3 or pages 99-106 in Conversion Book 1

[Pender Lumkiss]

Hi there firebug. After reading the source material. These would be the racial drawbacks I would assign the Pixie. Anything missing, anything wrong?
( 11 negatives)
Lack of Concern: Outsider hindrance ( Big folk) (-1)
Love affair for Candy and Wine: They love going after candy and wine. Scholars conjecture that the faerie folk are perhaps the only creatures in all the megaverse that truly have such a passion for both things. This is a Habit (minor) and can get on some folks nerves giving them a -1 CHA. (-1)
Mischievous (Quirk Minor): The Faerie folk love playing tricks of all manner. (-1)


Small folk: Fairies are not of your normal height nor stature: small (-2)

Tiny hands and body: Very few items found laying around are perfectly fit for a Fairy. Non standard physiology (-1)

Worth a lot: In general the faerie folks are tasty, useful sought after creatures that need to be put into slavery or someone’s stomach. On the black market faries are coveted and expensive. Almost anyone could be their little enemy. Enemy Minor(-1)

Childlike temperament: Just like any child the Fairy needs instant gratification and if they do not get will throw a temper tantrum of epic proportions and seek their revenge… Their sweet revenge brings out their malicious side… Vengeful minor (-1)
Distinctly a pixie- 12 inches tall and flaming red hair (-1)
Distinctive D-bee (-2)

[Firebug]

They really should have Cyber resistant and some sort of strength penalty as well. There are fairy creatures that specifically have the strength of a full sized human (or more) in a little package but the pixies are not them, and cyber resistant is an actual penalty. I think the clueless is also an important part of their style as well but as it is not quite as important I could see leaving it out.

[Freemage]

I'm going to suggest an alternative build, using the SPC for the size, because frankly, the base system doesn't handle 'tiny' races well at all.


Pixie:

Racial Advantages: (12 points)
Flight (3)
Edge: Rapid Recharge (2) (If you have an IF that already gains a Recharge Edge, you get the next step up.)
Edge: Power Points--works for any Arcane Background (2)
Smarts d6 to start (2)
Tiny But Mighty (5): Pixies are 12" tall, and thus opponents are at a -2 to hit or Notice them; likewise, they gain a +2 bonus to hit others. Despite this diminutive nature, they suffer no penalty to their toughness. (Points breakdown: 2 points for using SPC, 4 points for Shrink, 1 point for Dense, -2 for Limitation: Always On)

Racial Disadvantages:(-10 points)
Non-standard Physiology (-1)
Obvious D-Bee (-1)
Overconfident (-2)
Clueless (-2)
Lack of leverage: -2 to Strength rolls, including Fighting Damage (-2)
Cyber-Resistant (-1)
Wanted: Minor [Spulgorth] (-1)

This lets you build to any sort of arcane background (including psionics).

[Firebug]

I am not familiar enough with SPC to design features like that but it looks like it works well enough.

The only thing I would change is to take the improved rapid recharge edge instead of the extra power points, otherwise it will be recharging all week which does not fit the paradigm.

If that version works for everyone else I don't mind it. If you want to implement it go ahead or I will get to it some time tomorrow when I have more time.

[Pender Lumkiss]

I do not have any issue with what freemage put down( not a real fan of using the spc, and I realize SR delves into it, but tiny and mighty is nice). To me that is a tiny race of some kind, but lacks any feeling of a pixie or fairies. Where is the faire magic puppett power? Their passion for candy and wine? Get them to feel and translate some of the pixie and fairie flavor and I will approve it.

[Freemage]

Pender: I regard the SPC route to be a choice of last resort for certain very specific things--most specifically being innate 'states of being' that can't be properly emulated using the standard creation rules (super tiny, larger than large, naturally invisible or intangible, etc). For everything else, I really do try to go with the standard list, first.

Since I made it a +12/-10 race, the Mischievous and Love Affair with Candy & Wine traits could both be added back in, and then take Improved Rapid Recharge (or, in the case of an IF that starts with Rapid Recharge, you get Improved and Exceptional). That would make it a +14/-12 race, still be within the limits, and give it a fair bit of magical power.

It does lack the Puppet power, but honestly, there's no easy way to get that without going with a LOT of stuff you don't want for flexibility reasons--specifcally, you have to give them an AB, which then limits what builds are allowed since you can't mingle ABs on races that start with one automatically. So it removes Mystic, and any IF that doesn't match the AB you select for the race. Give it magic, and no Bursters or Mind Melters; give it psionics, no LLWs. And neither of those allows for TWs.

I suppose one COULD go with a route that says that instead of Extra Power Points, you get the Edge: New Power [puppet], which only works if you have an AB of some sort. That would be a GM call, but it's probably one I'd consider reasonable at a table I was running.

[Firebug]

I scrounged up a few minutes, split the difference between your suggestions taking the most relevant of each, and updated the sheet. It should be sufficiently 'pixie' now.

[Freemage]

Racial Enemy (-1) - -4 Cha Splugorth

I dislike this one, because Racial Enemies are supposed to be the other playable races in the books (or, at most, another custom playable race). Spulgorth are never going to be in that category, so it doesn't really fit--you're almost never going to be in a situation where the -4 Charisma is going to be a factor.

Instead, it should either be Minor Enemy: Spulgorth or Minor Wanted: Spulgorth. The former is for creatures that the Spulgorth hate with a passion and will target above non-enemies in combat; the latter is for creatures the Spulgorth have active bounties on in order to trade them to various buyers. From what I've seen, Wanted makes the most sense, here. Change that, and I fully approve.

[Radecliffe]

The latter seems a better fit IMO. I could see the Splugorth take a real fancy for capturing burster fairies for their own amusement and profit.

[Firebug]

My understanding was that wanted applied to individuals, not to whole races, but if you want to use it that way I am inclined to agree that makes a better fit and have updated the sheet for it.

[Pender Lumkiss]

Freemage, yeah me too about the spc as a last resort. But seriously tiny but mighty was genius!

Firebug the race is looking real nice.

I do have a general cncern about toss in rapid and imporved rapid recharge. Keep in mind here and now we are essentially creating a fairy folk race template. So many Iconic Frameworks give out at least one of those recharge edges. My thought is ths:

The perfect Battery: The fairy folk are a natural source of power, and many disreputable big folks use them as a magic battery. They gain the rapid and improved rapid recharge edges. If their IF grants such an edge they gain +10 ppts per edge replaced. If fairies are added to a Magic device as a battery the device gains both the ppts increase and the rapid recharge edges. This does irreparable harm to the fairy.

[Freemage]

Freemage, yeah me too about the spc as a last resort. But seriously tiny but mighty was genius!

Firebug the race is looking real nice.

I do have a general cncern about toss in rapid and imporved rapid recharge. Keep in mind here and now we are essentially creating a fairy folk race template. So many Iconic Frameworks give out at least one of those recharge edges. My thought is ths:

The perfect Battery: The fairy folk are a natural source of power, and many disreputable big folks use them as a magic battery. They gain the rapid and improved rapid recharge edges. If their IF grants such an edge they gain +10 ppts per edge replaced. If fairies are added to a Magic device as a battery the device gains both the ppts increase and the rapid recharge edges. This does irreparable harm to the fairy.

That's pretty much the same reason I went with "bump up one Recharge level" for IFs that already have Rapid Recharge (as far as I can tell, the only ones that start with Improved Rapid Recharge are some of our homebrew ARES options, which feels like a niche case). I think simply a House Rule to state that, "in cases where an IF grants the same Edge as a Race, and the Edge is upgradeable one, you move up to the next grade of that Edge". Gives us a nice, even means of advancing things. (Also, +10 PPE is too much--that's two Edges, since it would apply to any AB, and is thus the Power Points Edge in whole, rather than the one-point racial advantage.)

[Firebug]

If you want to make a specifically written house rule to that effect as a clarification of sorts it can hardly hurt but my understanding of the relationship between races and IF edges is that they automatically combine up to the next higher improvement stage anyways. Perhaps that is just such a common methodology it seems like a rule.

In my case they don't conflict but I could see some advantage to not 'over stacking' them in the case of a 2+2 = 3 situation the 1 overflow turns into 10 base power points just like the equivalent cost in custom race points.

I tend to see every custom race character built in Savage Worlds Rifts as a unique construct, even if it sets an approximate precedent for other custom races of the same name and style there are already several versions of Pixies in Palladium, some Rifts, some not, one is even a melee combat specialist from an odd alternate world but still uses the same Pixie name.

In any event just let me know what you decide needs to be done in order to make the character viable for play, and or what the best way of going about finding a game to play in is?

[Pender Lumkiss]

Looks good to me. Although it would be fun to figure out what benefits TW or biowiz items get if you use a pixie to power it. But maybe a discussion for another time and place.

[Firebug]

There are a great deal of benefits biowizards get from using Pixies, those re discussed in some depth in World book 21. Techno wizards are generally not inclined to use living components in their work but some versions have used mentally deficient clones of pixies as the core of what amount to fusion power cells.