Due to the alternate rules the character creation process needs to be adjusted as well.
The alternate character creation follows these steps:
Choose the race
Choose the character class
Determine the attributes
Determine powers and special traits
Determine skills
Determine equipment and credit balance
I don't distinguish anymore between occupational or racial character classes since I like the idea of combining races freely with occupations - like it is encouraged in the original rules albeit with very little help.
I haven't worked on races much for now but I certainly will in the future. Since this will get deep into the original rules which I am not allowed to publish here in detail I will use a very generic approach. The same applies to the single character classes. Although I have worked out some classes in detail I will just explain my approach here.
The alternate rules do not necessarily need to use alternate ways to determine the attributes. Nevertheless I like to use 2d10 here as well and roll for eight numbers. In case of a rating of 16 or more I roll another d10 (only once, even if it is a 10).
Instead of using attribute requirements for the character classes I use a system to swap rolled numbers with a so called primary and secondary attribute given to each class. The most important attribute (which would be the one with the highest requirements in the original rules) becomes the primary attribute and the next highest requirement becomes the secondary attribute. Many character classes have some more requirements but I'll ignore those for the alternate rules.
The primary attribute gets automatically a rating of 18 and the secondary one a rating of 15. So you may choose to swap your lowest numbers to these or you can use higher numbers if you want. I always had my trouble with rolled attributes. Sometimes a player wanted to build a character but the attributes just didn't match or he rolled completely below a rating of 8. So we had very early a house rule to use 4d6 and skip the lowest number or keep it, if the others have a total of 16 or more.
With this new approach you can play whatever class you like easily.
This is one of the most important aspects of the Rifts® Character. Nearly every character class has some specialities and these are determined here. Whether it is the full cyborg conversion, the Glitter Boy™ armor or magic and psionics. You have to determine for each of these traits as to how they need to be adjusted to fit into the alternate rules. You will have to raise the P.S. adjustments for the combat cyborg for example since this is a robot level strength and these have a rating of 200 now.
Also, all ratings to powers regarding "per level of experience" now have to be determined another way. I introduced certain skills to my campaign reflecting these. For example, I use a healing psionics skill with specializations that refer to the single powers (and you can not use a base skill for a power you have not specialization skill for). So "level of experience" now refers to the level of the base skill. Super psionics would require a single base skill for each power. Magic would be another skill (with lore, spellcrafting, rituals or invocations as specializations).
This is another hard part with the alternate rules. Each character classes uses an individual set of skills assigned to it. The alternate skills and specialization system doesn't quite fit here so I use a different system.
Each character class has two primary skills (or occupational skills), one starts with a rating of 10, one with a rating of 8 and two secondary skills at a rating of 6 and 4. You will have to choose which skills fit the most to a certain character class and during character creation you may distribute a number of points to specializations equal to the base skill rating. So for a Combat Cyborg the skill Combat will probably be the primary choice at a rating of 10 and you can spend ten points in specializations like railguns or energy rifles and the like. During character creation you may not assign more than half the current base skill level to a single specialization (so you will have a maximum skill total of 15).
I am not there yet but I plan to have some free experience points for a character at character generation as a final step to buy individual skills and the like.
A character starts - unless otherwise noted in the character class description - with P.E. +1d10 HP.
There is a set of things each character has at character creation like clothes and a backpack a lot of other things a traveller needs. Apart from that each character starts with a light M.D.C. armor.
For each primary skill specialization a character gets another piece of equipment regarding that skill. So for a computer hacking specialization you may get a portable computer and for a climbing specialization special climbing gear. However you may only acquire one vehicle this way, even if you have more than one pilot specialization - as long as there is nothing else noted in the character class description. Also, only certain character classes have access to power armors and robots.
If you choose weapons for combat specializations you also get 1d10/2 ammo clips for each weapon.
Instead of choosing different weapons with the combat skill specializations you may change the light M.D.C. armor to a medium or even heavy armor with the cost of one combat equipment choice. Your may also choose to have more ammo to weapons you already chose at a rate of 1d10 clips. I can not imagine what equipment would suit a dodge specialization so this may naturally be an armor or ammo upgrade.
For each secondary skill specialization a character gets another piece of equipment regarding that skill - if he succeeds in an unmodified skill roll.
For simplicity all characters start with I.Q.x 10x 1d10 credits and black market items with a value of I.Q.x 100x 1d10. To the rolled d10 may be added another one (each) for each equipment choice assigned to a credit upgrade. And you still have to make that skill test to see if you get another d10 out of a secondary skill specialization. So your Hero can start quite rich (but with lesser equipment) and may on the other hand spend these credits for cybernetics or equipment you would otherwise not have started with (at your gamemasters discretion).
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