This was one of my favorite games as a teen. We played it for years in high school alongside Heroes Unlimited.
With the Kickstarter rerelease I have decided I want to run a new campaign. I always wanted to use the Terror Bears from the books in a campaign, but never worked them into what I was doing.
I recently found my original book (12th printing, from 1991), plus an original printing, but less used copy.
What are some memorable animals that have been played in your games over the years?
My favorite is land sharks. They’re my home brew.
They’re basically a modified version of a shark from the MM. They were created by a powerful but reclusive wizard ages ago, and set loose in the valley he called his home. A few have escaped, but they’re mostly confined to that valley still
They can swim through any soil, but can’t get through solid rock. They hunt by sensing even the lightest tremors on the ground, then breaching from beneath their prey. They are, obviously, damn near impossible to actually fight. They don’t stay above ground long, and don’t disturb the ground as they swim through it. They don’t even swim at the surface when hunting, so you don’t get the warning of a fin cutting through it.
When I had it written down, it was a template that could be applied to any shark, though my favorite one to terrify players was a megalodon. The first encounter anyone had with them, their pack mule got swallowed, and it was just this spray of dirt as it breached, grabbed the mule and was back below in seconds. It was not the only shark in the area, so it got worse as they scrambled to try and figure out what was going on and how to deal with it. They ended up losing two horses before they figured out what was attacking; the Wizard made a good knowledge check to recall having heard about them, and they found a way to get into trees with their remaining mounts being driven into the woods that the sharks couldn’t breach through.
I don’t break them out often, but it is so fun when I get to use them with someone new :)
Interesting, are they mutant sharks using BIO-E points? Or simply sharks that swim in dirt/sand?
You know, I didn’t notice what community this was, I just saw the instance.
This was in d&d, not a tmnt system. Sorry about that.
This was actually the first RPG that I owned and ‘played’, at least one friend and I did some combats and part of one of the example missions/stories. Mostly just did character creation for fun. Eventually got a group together to play RIFTS, since most people were too ‘cool’ for TMNT in the 90s due to the cartoon.
What I remember was the BIO-E system seemed to be inconsistently scaled between species, which makes sense as a complete lack of balance is one of the things Palladium Books is known for! If I remember correctly, weasels ended up ahead overall.
The whole concept was great and I dearly miss having the rulebook as it was a fun read. Plus the fun and evocative art!
I found a slip of paper I took notes on different species and adjusted BIO-E.
And yes, Paladium has always been bad with balance, I am looking at you OG Glitterboys.
My first RIFTS campaign had a Glitterboy and a Crazy! Trying to find ways to make combat feel exciting without being deadly sure was a learning experience on coming up with reasons why the stuff with MDC didn’t target stuff with SDC.
Took a lot of inspiration from movies and shows, and to be honest it was a great lesson on how individual enemy motivation and behaviors can make combat more fun than just having them focus down the weakest players first.
