RIFTFINDER

// Class family

Federation Military

Classes in this family: Grunt RPA Elite Military Specialist Technical Officer

Overview

The Federation States is the dominant human power of post-Rifts North America: a militarized, isolationist, anti-magic, anti-Outworlder nation built around a vast professional army. Its soldiers fight as a unit, not as lone heroes. The Rifts core book gives the FS four occupations, and Riftfinder builds them as a single class family — a shared FS doctrine behind four roles that fight together:

Rather than four standalone classes that each reinvent "FS soldier," they share a common doctrine chassis and differ by role — so a party of all four reads as one Federation squad. These are the project's first faction-locked classes; a GM running a different professional army (a mercenary company, the New German Republic, Free Quebec) can reskin the flavor while keeping the mechanics.

Shared doctrine — Federation Military Training

Every class in the family carries this at level 1:

  • FS Indoctrination. Anti-magic, anti-Outworlder conditioning: a +1 status bonus to saving throws against magic and psionic effects, training in Intimidation and Federation Warfare Lore, and the ability to recognize an enemy's "sorcery."
  • Reaper Armor Training. Proficiency with Federation CA-series body armor (and, for the RPA Elite, FS power armor).
  • Standard-Issue Arms. Proficiency with Federation energy weapons.
  • No magic, no psionics. Mundane military classes — no spellcasting, no focus pool. Multiclassing into a caster or psionic class is permitted but is desertion/heresy in FS eyes (a campaign matter, not a hard lock).
  • Will Expert. Indoctrination is mental armor — the family is disciplined and hard to cow or mind-control.
  • The federation trait on the class and its features (a faction tag, and the reskin hook).

The Chain of Command

Federation troops fight on Orders, and that is the family's connective tissue:

  • The Technical Officer issues Field Orders (carrying the order trait) that grant squad allies actions and bonuses.
  • The other three are trained to act on Orders — each gains a role-specific rider when targeted by one: the Grunt snaps into position (a +attack rider and a free Step), the RPA Elite gets a burst of speed and a free Fly, the Specialist turns the command into a free Recall Knowledge or Seek.
  • Even without an Officer present, each class stands on its own — but an all–Federation Military squad doesn't just add up, it multiplies.

Non-Federation allies still benefit from an Order's base effect; the riders are the family's reward for fighting as a drilled FS unit.

Coordinated Tactics — shared squad feats

Beyond each class's own feat list, the family shares a small pool of Coordinated Tactics feats built on the Tac-Net — the Federation's helmet-comms, IFF, and targeting data-link. The FS's real edge over the wasteland isn't individual heroism; it's networked fire control. Any Federation Military class may select these in place of a class feat at or above the listed level. They are the mechanical payoff for fielding a FS squad: the more of the family in a party, the more they compound.

Squad (for these feats). Your squad is any ally with the federation trait (a Federation Military class — the Tac-Net) and any ally within a Federation Standard you can perceive. An Officer's Standard extends the Tac-Net to attached non-FS allies.

The reaction is the currency. The family has no focus pool and no magic, so these can't be gated with a resource. They're gated by the one-reaction-per-round cap, by triggers, and by action cost — so a squad can't do all of this at once, and the reaction economy self-limits the action inflation that would otherwise break SF2e math.

The pool at a glance (earliest level you can select each; taken in place of a class feat):

  • L2 — Tac-Net Link — squad intel-sharing + silent comms (the recommended first pick).
  • L4 — Lase the Target — 1 action; paint a target off-guard to squad ranged Strikes.
  • L4 — Bounding Overwatch — reaction; Stride when a squad ally Strides (fire-and-maneuver).
  • L4 — Comm Discipline — reaction; talk a squad ally out of a fear/mental effect.
  • L6 — Covering Aid — reaction; Aid a squad ally's Strike without setting it up first.
  • L6 — Focus Volley — reaction; when a squad ally damages a target, fire on it too.
  • L8 — Net-Linked Sensors — 1 action; feed your sensor picture so the squad can target what only you can see.
  • L8 — Avenge the Fallen — reaction; flag the foe that downed an ally for converging fire.
  • L10 — Fire-Team Synergy — a mixed-class fire-team wears the target down (combined arms).

Tac-Net Link — federation

Level 2. (No action — passive.) You're wired into the squad's tactical network. Whenever a squad ally successfully Recalls Knowledge about a creature — or learns one of its weaknesses, resistances, or immunities by any means (Designate Target, Combat Assessment, etc.) — you learn the same information. You also always know the position of every squad ally on the Tac-Net (helmet IFF), even out of sight, and can speak to them silently over comms at any range you have a signal. The recommended first Coordinated Tactics pick: it's the wiring the rest of the pool assumes.

Lase the Target — federation, concentrate

Level 4. Requirements: a creature in your line of sight.

You paint a target for the squad's fire control over the Tac-Net. Until the start of your next turn, that creature is off-guard to ranged Strikes from you and any squad ally who can see it. You can keep only one creature Lased at a time; Lasing a new target ends the effect on the previous one. (Off-guard from Lase applies only to ranged Strikes — it's fire-control for the gunline, not a melee setup, and there's no friendly-fire geometry: shooters can stand anywhere with line of sight.)

  • Spend an action, get squad-wide ranged off-guard for a round. The action cost is what keeps a squad-wide −2-to-AC honest — it sits in the same band as Demoralize or Trip, just applied at range and to the whole gunline.
  • Specialist supersession. A Military Specialist's Designate Target already does everything Lase does and more (it adds a +1 attack bonus and precision damage, and at L13 Total Intel makes the mark off-guard to the whole squad). A Specialist with Designate Target has no reason to take Lase; Lase is how a squad gets ranged off-guard without a Specialist.
  • Officer stacking. Lase's off-guard (a circumstance penalty to the target's AC) stacks with the Officer's Focus Fire! Order (a status bonus to the squad's attacks) — different math, same target.

Bounding Overwatch — federation

Level 4. Trigger: a squad ally within 30 feet ends a Stride. Effect: You Stride up to half your Speed, ending within 30 feet of that ally (you advance in formation). This movement doesn't trigger reactions from any creature the triggering ally also moved away from. Fire-and-maneuver — the fire-team bounds as one, no Strike attached. (Distinct from the Officer's Advance! / Fall Back! Order, which grants a full Stride but costs the Officer an action; Bounding Overwatch triggers off your squad's own movement with no Order needed.)

Comm Discipline — federation, auditory

Level 4. Trigger: a squad ally who can hear you fails a save against a fear, emotion, or mental effect, or gains the frightened, fascinated, or controlled condition. Effect: You bark them back into discipline — the ally reduces the value of the triggering condition by 1 (to a minimum of 0). FS indoctrination is mental armor, and over the Tac-Net you can lend it to a buddy. (A reaction you spend, distinct from the Officer's Steady! Order and Inspiring Presence — any FS soldier can steady a squadmate, not just the commander.)

Covering Aid — federation

Level 6. Trigger: a squad ally makes a Strike against a creature within your reach or within the first range increment of a loaded ranged weapon you're wielding. Effect: Attempt to Aid that Strike (resolve it as the Aid reaction) — but unlike normal Aid, you did not have to prepare on your previous turn; the Tac-Net lets you call the support on the fly. Attempt the usual flat check (DC 15, adjusted per the Aid rules); on a success the ally gains a +1 circumstance bonus to the Strike (+2 on a critical success). The squad's accuracy multiplier, available reactively.

Focus Volley — federation

Level 6. Trigger: a squad ally damages a creature with a Strike or with an area attack (Area Fire, missiles, a thrown explosive). Requirements: you're wielding a loaded ranged weapon, and the triggering creature is within your weapon's first range increment and in your line of sight.

Effect: Make a ranged Strike against the triggering creature. This Strike uses your current multiple attack penalty — which is normally 0 on another creature's turn, so the volley hits hard.

This is the family's marquee payoff: when one soldier connects, the rest of the squad pours fire into the same target. There is no cap on how many squad members can Focus Volley a given target in a round — a fully-online FS squad concentrates withering fire on a priority target, which is the entire reason to build an all-FS party. The only limiter is the standard reaction economy: each soldier has one reaction per round, and (by the rules as written) a soldier can't react before their first turn of the encounter — so the volley spins up across round 1 (each squaddie's first turn brings their reaction online) and reaches full force from round 2.

Focus Volley by role (what each brings to the volley):

  • Grunt — best at it. Its Squad Tactics focus-fire bonus already triggers on "a target an ally damaged this round," which is exactly the volley's trigger, so the Grunt's volley Strike also gets its focus-fire damage. Focus Fire Doctrine (L12 feat) spreads that bonus to the squad.
  • RPA Elite — a volley with the C-40R rail gun (Penetrating) turns the squad's reactions into anti-armor fire; brutal against a single heavy target.
  • Military Specialist — a volley against its Designated target adds precision damage; the Specialist both sets up the off-guard and cashes in on the volley.
  • Technical Officer — backline and lighter-armed, but it starts volleys: a Focus Fire! Order or Combat Assessment softens a target and the squad's volleys finish it; Coordinated Assault (L13) makes the focused target a kill box.

At the table. Two things keep the volley exciting rather than oppressive. First, the trigger needs an ally to actually deal damage, and Hardness subtracts from each individual shot — so a hail of small reaction-Strikes shreds soft targets but only chips the high-Hardness threats that matter most in Rifts (power armor, Full-Conversion Cyborgs, dragon hide). Second, the volley belongs to enemies too: an opposing FS unit can concentrate fire on a single character the same way, so it's a lethal, symmetric tool — a GM should decide up front whether hostile squads use it.

Net-Linked Sensors — federation, concentrate

Level 8. Requirement: a creature you can see (including through cyber-eyes, a drone, or an aerial vantage). Effect: You feed the squad your sensor picture. Until the start of your next turn, squad allies treat the chosen creature as no worse than hidden to them (rather than undetected) even with no line of sight of their own — they're firing on your targeting data (a DC 5 flat check to target, instead of being unable to). If an ally already perceives the creature, this does nothing for them. The aerial/recon spotter that lets the gunline shoot what only it can see; pairs naturally with Lase the Target and Focus Volley (spot it, lase it, volley it).

Avenge the Fallen — federation

Level 8. Trigger: a squad ally in your line of sight is reduced to 0 HP by a creature. Effect: The Tac-Net flags the killer. Until the end of your next turn, that creature is off-guard to your squad's ranged Strikes (as Lase the Target) and squad allies deal +2 circumstance damage to it (increasing to +4 at 14th level). Grim FS doctrine: concentrate fire on the threat that just dropped one of your own.

Fire-Team Synergy — federation

Level 10. (No action — passive.) When a creature has been damaged this round by two or more squad allies of different Federation Military classes (for instance a Grunt and an RPA Elite, or a Specialist and an Officer), it takes a −1 status penalty to AC and saving throws until the start of your next turn. The combined-arms payoff — overlapping disciplines and fields of fire wear a target down. The penalty doesn't stack with itself (one source at a time), and it's designed to reward a mixed FS squad over four of the same class.