Rifts Mercenaries: A Giant Sourcebook for Rifts [Illustrated] [Paperback]

C. J. Carella (Author), Kevin Siembieda (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Palladium Books; illustrated edition edition (September 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0916211703
• ISBN-13: 978-0916211707
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #128,267 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A solid sourcebook with good potential, October 20, 2001

By 

Gerald J. Nora - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rifts Mercenaries: A Giant Sourcebook for Rifts (Paperback)

Mercenaries gives the GM an outline of what merc companies are like in Rifts North America and gives you some new OCCs and (of course!) a lot of new hardware, including some pretty new things, like ships, retrofitted SDC weapons, and ultra-cheap power armor. It's not just new Wilk's, Triax, and NG product lines.

The character classes fill out the basic set pretty well: we now have forgers, spies, and bounty hunters, to name a couple, and while I have yet to put one of those OCCs through a campaign, I think they look pretty good. The Coalition military OCCs in the original Rifts book were very limited, and this gives you some needed depth.

My biggest gripe is the big mercenary companies that they profile. As they did with Carnivals in World Book I, or with spy organizations in Ninjas and Superspies, Palladium presents a point-based system for designing mercenary companies. They also give you about 5 of the chief mercenary companies in North America as example units. I think that some of them get pretty cheesy, especially when some of the chief NPCs for those merc companies cross-over from other Palladium games, such as a couple super-heroes from Heroes Unlimited, and a ninja (who is a mega-damage creature!) from Ninjas and Superspies. Yes, the nature of Rifts lets you blend many things into your campaigns, and that's cool, but if you abuse it, the system is no longer a tight story but a random pastiche of leftovers from other campaigns.

But a GM is not forced to use those things, and I would definitely edit the merc companies before placing one in one of my campaigns. Otherwise, this sourcebook is a good return to the atmosphere of the first few Rifts books, with dusty adventurers and gritty frontier towns. I like it a lot.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Rifts Mercenaries-A Good Guide to Soldiers of Fortune, May 12, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Rifts Mercenaries: A Giant Sourcebook for Rifts (Paperback)

I liked the book Rifts Mercenaries. It had lots of good weaponry and a great guide to making up fictional mercenary companies. I LOVED the new Coalition vehicles which were added in. However, I thought that there were too many descriptions of non-player character mercenaries, which don't do much except fill up space. However, for the most part, this sourcebook was informative and useful.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good if you like mercenry group descriptions, August 31, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Rifts Mercenaries: A Giant Sourcebook for Rifts (Paperback)

Firstly let me say I disagree totally with the first review. If he can write better mercenery group description then work for an RPG company. You can't expect worldbook info on a book about mercenerys. I really liked the optional point system for making mercenerie groups and the weapons were cool.