Quote from: Razor 007;1099033Dice Mechanics, Combat, Skills, Magic, etc.

Simmilar. Yet... Different.

8 attributes. Some map to D&D, some do not. 3d6 in order. Some races roll more or less dice. If a 3d6 stat roll is 16-18 then roll an additional die and add that in. And if it is a 6, then they get to roll again one more time. So stats were normally 3-18. But could go as high as 30. But rarely did.
Somewhat like AD&D, stats over 16 got increasing bonuses. Either a + or a %.

HP is the PCs CON equivalent, Physical Endurance for Palladium, +1d6.
SDC is 3d6 for fighter types and 1d6 for everyone else. You take HP damage once all your SDC are gone. For living things its exhaustion, dazed, shaken, whatever and wears off with rest. HP damage takes longer. Also once you take HP damage you bleed out 1 HP/Round and pass out or enter a coma at 0. And can go to their PE in negative damage before death.

Classes are rather different from D&D and is very skills driven. Magic and psi powers are case from PPE points or equivalents.

As for rolling. Attack rolls use a d20, skills are percentile.

Combat rounds are 15 seconds. Combat itself is different from D&D. Roll a d10 and you hit on a 5 or better. Any armour worn will absord damage up to its SDC. If the attack roll is better than the armours AC then the attack bypasses the armour and damages the character directly. Otherwise the armour soaks the damage till destroyed. Combatants can also try to parry or dodge as allowed. And can try to roll with the blow even.

Say what you will of Palladum systems but their combats were very dynamic!

Skills are as noted, percentile based and there is a very broad selection.

Magic as noted is point based to cast usually. Characters with spell powers usually start out knowing and able to cast a few spells of levels 1-3 or equivalents. Also TWO spells of level 1-8 can be cast in a single round! Higher level spells will take 1 or more rounds to cast. There are also runes and magic circles on top of everything else.

Theres more but that is the general gist of it.

1st Ed, which is what I have was not changed too much really. Mostly spellcasting moving from spells per day to ISP points.

Overall it is the same, with some notable differences. I honestly prefer it over 2nd ed which one of my players has. Mainly because 1e feels more complete somehow.

Notable differences are. No SDC except on armour. Combat works pretty much as in 2e now.

No PPE/ISP for most of the caster classes. Healers seem to be the only ones using ISP to power spells. So essentially no psi classes except for the Healer. Caster classes have a total number of spells they can cast per day. But can cast those from any spells they know. Even higher level spells.

Alot more races to choose from! The land, gods, races, etc feel a little better detailed. YMMV on that.

SDC for people has annoyed me since the first edition of Heroes Unlimited.  Seriously, why would it be a sin to call them "stun points" or "fortunate mischance" points or something and keep SDC for structures?

Quote from: David Johansen;1099311SDC for people has annoyed me since the first edition of Heroes Unlimited.  Seriously, why would it be a sin to call them "stun points" or "fortunate mischance" points or something and keep SDC for structures?

Especially when SDC means two different things. For a person or creature it is mostly stamina, being worn down, whatever. But for items it is the objects HP.

As a system add-on to 2e it works. But for non-objects it should have been called something else. Or folded into HP as STUN or whatever.

SDC works okay for modern games where you want a difference between "flesh wounds" and "bloody wounds".

In RIFTS, I find it useless. MDC is really all that matters. Once you're out of MDC, you're toast.

SDC just adds too many extra hit points to everyone causing combat to drag to a stand still. House rule I've often used when I had to run 2nd ed was if you hit and rolled over the foes Natural AR (remember if not listed it is a default of 5) then you do damage direct to HP. If below damage goes to SDC. This helped keep the toughness of dragons and such (they were a bit to squishy in 1e) while helping to avoid the 1st level troll merc with 100+ "hit points" issue.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1099588SDC works okay for modern games where you want a difference between "flesh wounds" and "bloody wounds".

In RIFTS, I find it useless. MDC is really all that matters. Once you're out of MDC, you're toast.

This. Once you have full-auto fire weapons, 100 SDC melts like ice in the sun. I wrote a homebrew version for RIFTS that converted the MDC of armor into a a threshold for attacks to punch through the armor. Then I added a random damage table you roll on whenever MDC damage gets through and affects your MDC body. In short, 1 point MDC damage didnt translate into 100 SC damage anymore but varied between... I don't remember.... 5 SDC per MDC point up to full 100 SDC points (the idea being that there might be grazing hits, etc). Not exactly up to canon but it made SDC matter if you had enough and it created scenes in which SDC creatures were bleeding or having other serious wounds underneath their armor but still fighting on.

It all just made for more dramatic fighting and imagery. Oh, and armor started with high anti-penetration values but decreased with each hit, depending on the size of the area being hit.
That was fun.


As for Fantasy, I only played 2E two times, ages ago, and it was kinda alright. It has active defenses, which is a substantial plus for me. I think skills had, as usual, fairly arbitrary probabilities assigned but even those work better imho than D&D 3.x or D&D 5E. It doesn't have Vanican magic. It has pretty nifty alignments. It isn't up to modern standards anymore though, regarding clear, unified rules (if that matters to you).
I'd probably play it rather than any D&D edition but I'm not the biggest D&D fan anyway. Or maybe I have too many fond memories in the Palladium system. (I wish I had played more Beyond the Supernatural though.)

Quote from: lordmalachdrim;1100062SDC just adds too many extra hit points to everyone causing combat to drag to a stand still.

Welcome aboard Lord Malachdrim!!

You're right about the SDC inflation slowing down combat. Same issue with MDC inflation in Splicers and Chaos Earth.

My solution is usually to hack NPC's SDC or MDC by half and often double the number of monsters. I prefer glass cannons to lengthy combats.

Own both of those but never ran them.

My preferred palladium games to run are Palladium Fantasy 1st, Robotech (first time they had the license), Macross II, and of course a mix of Heroes Unlimited/Nightspawn(bane)/Ninja's & Superspies.

I got to say Palladium 1E sounds amazing. I'm having trouble finding the books online though. Could someone maybe post a list of Palladium Fantasy 1E books? This thread has honestly got me hooked and now I want to track this stuff down.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1100203Welcome aboard Lord Malachdrim!!

You're right about the SDC inflation slowing down combat. Same issue with MDC inflation in Splicers and Chaos Earth.

My solution is usually to hack NPC's SDC or MDC by half and often double the number of monsters. I prefer glass cannons to lengthy combats.

I usually halve MDC/SDC and double damage.

If you play RAW with the original auto-fire rules a Jucier JA-11 (among others) does 3d6 x10 or x7 for a full clip, depending on which version of full-auto you use. I don't think you need to half MDC under these circumstances, as there are several full-auto energy weapons which dominate the game underneath the heavy MDC weapons.

Quote from: Alamar;1100257I got to say Palladium 1E sounds amazing. I'm having trouble finding the books online though.

eBay is your friend. I saw two corebooks in good condition last week for $25 each.

They are available as PDFs from Drivethrurpg

Books:
Book 1 - Core Book https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/60661/The-Palladium-FantasyR-RolePlaying-Game-Revised-Edition--1st-Edition-Rules?cPath=4816_5192
Book 2 - Old Ones https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/60660/Palladium-RPG-Book-II-Old-Ones--1st-Edition-Rules?cPath=4816_5192
Book 3 - Adventures on the High Seas https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/60659/Palladium-RPG-Book-III-Adventures-on-the-High-Seas--1st-Edition-Rules?cPath=4816_5192
Book 4 - Adventures in the Northern Wilderness https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/60658/Palladium-RPG-Book-IV-Adventures-in-the-Northern-Wilderness--1st-Edition-Rules?cPath=4816_5192
Book 5 - Further Adventures in the Northern Wilderness https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/60677/Palladium-RPG-Book-V-Further-Adventures-in-the-Northern-Wilderness--1st-Edition-Rules?cPath=4816_5192
Book 6 - Island at the Edge of the World https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/60657/Palladium-RPG-Book-VI-Island-at-the-Edge-of-the-World--1st-Edition-Rules?cPath=4816_5192
Book 7 - Yin Sloth Jungles https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/60656/Palladium-RPG-Book-VII-YinSloth-Jungles--1st-Edition-Rules?cPath=4816_5192
Monsters & Animals
The Arms of Nargash-Tor https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/60667/The-Arms-of-NargashTor--1st-Edition-Rules?cPath=4816_5192

Quote from: Spinachcat;1100352eBay is your friend. I saw two core books in good condition last week for $25 each.

That's more then the original cover price of $19.95. The only good thing about PDF copies of Palladium's book is since they are all black & white interiors they're pretty easy to just print and put in a binder for those of us who prefer hard copies.