Savage Rifts Elemental Fusionists Old Version

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Note that this Savage Rifts archetype is a fusion (heh) of Palladium's "Elemental Fusionist" and "Warlock" classes. The following tweaks are intended to embrace this synergy.

Elemental Fusionist Notes

Damage Trappings

For the purpose of inflicting elemental damage — or avoiding it via Life Sign Harmony — Air attacks do lightning damage (no longer considered a fusion Trapping) and Water attacks do cold/ice damage.

Hero's Journey Rolls

The Fusionist gets two rolls chosen from the following tables: Education, Experience & Wisdom, Magic & Mysticism (see below), Training, or Underworld & Black Ops (reroll results 1-4).

Results from the Magic & Mysticism table are to boost the Fusionist's Arcane Background (Gifted). As such, result 7-9 must be the New Powers Edge and 16-17 grants the Extra Effort Edge instead.

Power Lists

Add blind to the list of Fire powers, and add disguise to the list of Water powers. This results in the following lists, reprinted here for convenience:

All fusionists may learn barrier, blast, bolt, burst, protection, smite, and summon ally.
Air attunement adds deflection, farsight, havoc, and sound/silence.
Earth attunement adds beast friend, burrow, entangle, and wall walker.
Fire attunement adds blind, damage field, darksight, and light/darkness.
Water attunement adds confusion, disguise, intangibility, and warrior's gift.

Updated Fusions

Anyone can have "lightning" and "steam" Trappings — should that really be the pinnacle of elemental fusion? Of course not. After all, fusionists are part elementalist, part warlock . . . and when they warp the elements together, they produce something new, something unique and bizarre!

The list below makes it possible to combine any two elements into your character's fusion. That isn't how it worked in original Rifts, but is arguably more fun — and, again, fits their "half-Elementalist, half-Warlock" feel. Whichever one you choose receives the usual Fusion Synergy benefits.

These are unique Trappings. No one can be immune or resistant to them unless they are protected from both of the underlying elements. Conversely, any vulnerability to either of the underlying elements applies to the fusion! (Vulnerability to both doesn't stack; use the worst one.)

Air + Earth = Unearthly Trebuchet

Massive boulders of alien material, appearing from nowhere and flung through the air at ridiculous speed. The Range modifier is common. Grants control over position along with an understanding of the stars; gain access to these powers: arcane protection, divination, fly and telekinesis.

Air + Fire = Blast Wave

Not a normal explosion, but the raw concussive force that shakes a target to its core, magnified. The Fatigue modifier is common. This can be channeled for subtler effects as well; gain access to these powers: arcane protection, fly, sloth/speed, and stun.

Air + Water = Bubbles!

Spheres of something weird and shiny, that surround the target and then pop with destructive force. The Selective modifier is common. The uses of these bubbles are wildly varied; gain access to these powers: arcane protection, fly, illusion, and relief.

Earth + Fire = Crystal Matrix

Super-dense crystals formed in the heart of the Earth, which can penetrate like uranium rounds or channel arcane might. The Armor Piercing modifier is common. Gain access to these powers: arcane protection, illusion, stun, and telekinesis.

Earth + Water = Dark Ooze

Moving sludge, capable of nigh-instantaneous rot and decay or of harmless obfuscation. The Hinder and Shroud modifiers are common. Its knowledge of when to help or hurt implies a quasi-sentience; gain access to these powers: arcane protection, relief, sloth/speed, and telekinesis.

Fire + Water = Liquid Entropy

Weaponized time, like acid meets napalm, thin enough to flow into tiny cracks yet strong enough to burn at full strength. The Lingering Damage modifier is common. Yet time heals and reveals all; gain access to these powers: arcane protection, divination, relief, and stun.

Click behind-the-scenes notes.

First a quick note on Fire and Water. I disliked that Air and Earth just flatly had more powers than Fire and Water. Pulling a power for each neglected element (from out of the Warlock list) fixes that, and it doesn't really devalue Warlock. It also meant that when I was revamping fusions, I could set the standard at four added powers, as for Air and Earth.

For the new fusions, at first I drew from original Rifts: Air/Earth was "Stone Trebuchet," Fire/Water was "Liquid Fire," and the new fusions were taking similar forms. That's when it hit me that if the Savage Rifts fusionist was part warlock, why not get weird with it?

The tricky part was coming up with added-powers lists that felt unique. The powers available for fusion trappings were Arcane Protection, Divination, Fly, Illusion, Relief, Sloth/Speed, Stun, and Telekinesis. (Well, plus Speak Language and Zombie, but those didn't fit the fusionist.) The rest were all tied up in existing elements or edges like Warlock.

Taking a cute from canon, Arcane Protection became the one power common to them all. That left three power slots per fusion. So I assigned a power to each element: Air got Fly, Earth got Telekinesis, Fire got Stun, and Water got Relief. This wasn't the original line-up, but I kept trying different powers in each slot until I got a mix that I felt worked for each fusion.

The remaining powers -- Divination, Illusion, and Sloth/Speed -- each got assigned to an opposed pair (e.g., Air/Fire and Earth/Water). That ensured that no fusion list felt the same; despite being drawn from a relatively small power list, there's very little overlap among the fusions (except for Arcane Protection, of course).

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