started out a RIFTS campaign as a scholar. She was so consistantly gimpy in combat eventually the GM had her get "left behind" after a botched raid on a mysterious lab.
Six months game time later, the PCs started running into this killer cyborg and her private borg army. At the end of the arc, after the climactic boss fight, the GM revealed the cyborg was in fact my old character, at which point the PCs figured out how to undo her brainwashing and control of the now considerably more powerful character was returned to me.
An entire story arc becuase our GM was frustrated at how gimpy my character was in fights.
Awsome story! Our players were wise enough not to pick the weak archtypes. I did have an NPC rogue scholar that became somewhat famous, Norbert and his plastic man armor everyone laughed at.
RIFTS worked okay if A) If everyone played one of the "decent archtypes. For example, Juicers, Crazies, and Glitterboys. I loved playing Crazies. B) It kind of broke things if you allowed some the sourcebook stuff. I recall Rahumen in particular, because I remember steaming when one of my friends played one.
The rogue scientist only worked if the GM really worked at it. RIFTS skill system wasn't that great and if you are playing RIFTS in the first place it's likely to be a Pink Mohawk game.
Oh, another wonky thing was skills like boxing, that every character had to have, as it gave extra attacks in all forms of combat. So, for example all our squadron of Robotech pilots all had to be former boxers or lose an extra attack in our mechs, the main combat in the game. I guess it was a required course at the military academy.
