Rifts Archetypes #2: Juicers, Revised

After some back and forth, and a desire to clean some things up, here are the updated rules for Juicers.

You’ve chosen to trade your life for a few years of god-like power. Maybe you’ve made an arrangement with a local lord to protect his kingdom in exchange for wealth, fame, and the Bio-Comp Augmentation System.  Maybe you’re down on your luck, and need something to get you through this horrific world.  Or maybe you think it’s better to go out in a blaze of glory with the strength of twenty men, the speed of a cheetah, and the reflexes of a cobra.

Path of Enhancement (Juicer): You begin play with a Bio-Comp  Chemical Augmentation system installed in your body.  The drugs grant you great speed, stamina, and strength. 

Uppers: Your Class bonus to your Reflex defense increases by +1.  If you are trained in the Initiative Skill, you gain Skill Focus: Initiative as a bonus feat. 

Injection Hero: You start with a number of Juicer abilities equal to your Constitution Bonus plus your Wisdom bonus. 

You may not choose talents from the Cyborg or Crazy talent trees.

The drawback to this path is that you’re killing yourself for a few years of power.  For each character level, you recalculate your race’s age categories, reducing the upper end of each age category by 10% per 2 character levels (rounded down).  So a 10th level human Juicer is considered Middle Aged at 20, Old at 30, and Venerable at 40.  You only get the age penalties for this, the age benefits are still calculated based on your actual age.

       After 7 years (or level 20, whichever comes first), your Juicer’s time is up.  He’s only got a few weeks left, by this time, to get his affairs in order and go out in a blaze of glory, instead of keeling over dead due to a massive drug induced coronary or embolism, caused by years of constant drug use and an adrenaline-filled life.

 No real changes here.

JUICER AUGMENTATION Talent Tree

You must have the Juicer archetype to take Talents from this tree

Additional Juicer Abilities: You gain two additional Juicer abilities.  This talent may be taken up to five times.

Chemical Boost: Once per Encounter as a swift action you may move +2 steps along the condition track.

Combat Ready: During the Surprise round, you may make a full set of actions instead of only one Standard action, Move action, or Swift action.  In addition, you may “Take 10” on an Endurance check to Sleep in your Armor.
Pre-requisites: Uncanny Dodge I

Scrapper: Opponents attempting to target you with ranged attacks take an additional –5 penalty to their attack rolls while you are engaged in melee with their allies.  This penalty is in addition any other penalties for firing into melee, making the normal penalty to hit you –10.

Steroid Giant: Your size increases to Large.  Your Reflex Defense decreases by 1, your Stealth skill receives a –5 penalty, your Damage Threshold increases by +5, your carrying capacity doubles, you gain Damage Reduction 5/-, and all your unarmed attack dice increase by one step.
Pre-Requisite: Increased Strength (2), Super Endurance

I fixed Steroid Giant to require 2 purchases of the Increased Strength Juicer ability.  Brett pointed out a horrible cyclical typo that actually prevented anyone from taking Steroid Giant or Increased Strength 3 or more.

JUICER ABILITIES
Bio-Regeneration:  When you use Second-Wind, you heal an additional number of hit points equal to your character level. 
Pre-Requisite: Enhanced Healing

Enhanced Healing: When resting, you heal 2 times the normal amount of hit points per hour.
Enhanced Senses: You gain a +2 Equipment bonus to Perception checks, and gain low-light vision.  
Enhanced Stamina: Add your Constitution Bonus to your Damage Threshold.  You may also re-roll any Endurance check, but you must accept the second roll even if it’s worse. 
Heightened Reflexes: You gain Uncanny Dodge I, as per the Scout Talent.  This ability counts as having the Uncanny Dodge I talent for the purposes of meeting any pre-requisites.
Heightened Agility: You gain a +1 Equipment bonus to Dexterity checks, Dexterity-based Skills, Reflex Defense, and Ranged Attack Rolls.  This ability may be taken multiple times, increasing the bonus by +1 per time it’s taken.
Pre-Requisite: Heightened Reflexes  
Increased Speed: You gain a 2-square Equipment bonus to your Movement.  This ability may be taken multiple times; increasing the movement bonus by 2 squares per time it’s taken.
Increased Strength: You gain a +1 equipment bonus to Strength checks, Strength-based skills, Melee Attack rolls, and melee damage rolls.  This ability may be taken multiple times, increasing the bonus by +1 per time it’s taken.
Pre-Requisite: To take Increased Strength (3) or higher, you must have the Steroid Giant talent.
Super Endurance: You gain a +1 Equipment bonus to Constitution checks, Endurance checks, and Fortitude Defense.  This ability may be taken three times, increasing the Equipment bonus by +1 per time it’s taken. 
Pre-Requisite: Enhanced Stamina

 You'll notice that I changed everything from equipment bonuses to the Attribute score to to adding to things affected by that attribute.  This is rather key for qualifying for certain talents and feats, as well as odd powers that add to or subtract from equipment bonuses.

Finally, here are the rules for Detox as a Juicer.  It's not something that's done lightly, but dependent on your character, you may want to take this way out of a short life.

DETOX: A CHANCE FOR SURVIVAL

A Juicer can elect to remove their bio-comp harness at any time.  The GM will make an attack roll against the Juicer’s Fortitude Defense, ignoring any Equipment bonuses.  This attack roll is d20 + 1 per Class Level of the Juicer +1 per time the Additional Juicer Abilities talent was taken.  If the roll fails to beat your Fortitude Defense, you immediately lose all Equipment bonuses from Juicer Abilities, and use of your Juicer Augmentation Talents.  The character is considered to be one age category higher for the purposes of determining age penalties (but not age bonuses).  You also spend a Destiny point to complete the Detox.

     You may spend a second Destiny Point anytime after completing your Detox and choose a new Archetype from the following list: Cyborg, Crazy, Headhunter, Robot Pilot, or Juicer (becoming a Juicer again).
     If the character ever decides to become a Juicer again, they regain access to their previous abilities and talents.  They also may not attempt to go through Detox again; the body can’t handle the stress and fails (you die).

 I have a hunch the Detox rules will need some work, but the intent is there.