Why so anti-Palladium

[PJ-Mason]

If I may jump in for Gundark, I think what he's trying to say is that a level in Rifts means far, far less than it does in D&D, since Rifts characters come so front-loaded. He's using combat as an illustration.

I don't argue about the front loaded nature of Rifts palladium. Thats was apparent from the get go. But all of them are that way. Non-fighters get most of their bonuses and skills at first level, too. Although leveling up is more useful to them than the war-monger classes. I always thought it was weird to even have a Level system when you give most characters the bulk of their abilities at first level. Just have a system where you create your characters at full strength and don't need to "level up". But i guess you can't have a D&D clone without classes and levels.

 

[PJ-Mason]

I loved, and still do love, the world created for the Palladium Fantasy RPG, and used to run the game as an alternative to AD&D2.

But man, I loved that setting, such as it was. It was surprisingly dark. The Land of the Damned, which was literally Hell on Earth, was a great idea. The overriding theme of the game, though it was never spelled out as such, was ignorance and oppression. Forgotten magics, widespread slavery, races that hated each other for no good reason, people making pacts with Things That Must Not Be Named, and all the while, the rising wolfen threat to the north... that was great stuff.

Every time I start flipping through my PFRPG books, I am filled with the urge to convert all those great races, classes and gods to d20. I guess I could, as long as I didn't share it with anybody else, but I would feel a lot better about putting in all that effort if I could at least post it online for other people to use.

I loved the fantasy version as well. I've sold most of my palladium books, but i still have a lot of the fantasy books. I love that setting. Since they've started expanding on the setting again, i've picked up the new ones. Great stuff for the most part. Bill Coffin and the others that wrote for the newer stuff did some great work.

I've actually toyed with using Arcana Unearthed for a Palladium campaign. It fits surprisingly well, if you think about it. Litorians in Ophid's Grasslands, Sibbecai in the great northern wilderness(the perfect rules for wolven), Giants in the middle, etc. It fits so smooth that very little needs to be changed at all.

 

[PJ-Mason]

Unless, of course, someone decides to shoot them, at which point they die pretty much instantly. And that gun they're using? What damage does that do? 2d6? And a glitterboy is doing what, 3d4x10?

Unlike, say, D&D, where it's quite common for a bard or rogue to be in the front lines, to matter and make a difference.

I don't think there is any occ or rcc race in Rifts that doesn't give mdc weapons or armor as character equipment. So its not that lopsided. Not any more lopsided than a fighter being able to kills bards or rogues in one swipe at low levels.

This is the type of stuff that made me post in the first place. People using the extremes of the system or half-truths to dump on it. The extremes of D&D are just as silly. Each system has bad and good. The real problem is where most other systems get revised at least once (sometimes a lot like D&D or Hero), where Palladium doesn't (with their two NON-rifts revisions not getting it done).

 

[PJ-Mason]

That may well be. If you want to run PCs of differing levels of power, that's up to you. I've done so on various occasion.

But to have a mechanism that pretends, on some level, to represent PC power but totally fails to do so, it makes the mechanism useless. Less than useless, actually, since the GM may be laboring under the delusion that XP and levels in Palladium (RIFTS in particular) are a meaningful method of assessing character power. And the GM may run his game assuming this is true, which is a recipe for a disatrous game session and feelings of jealousy amongst players when someone out-spotlights them.

I guess someone only familiar with D&D 3.0/3.5, playing palladium could be a bit of a shock, or any other system not set up like D&D for that matter.

As for representing power, that all depends on the definition of power. I don't think the City Rat is less powerful than the Glitterboy, in terms of overall character power. One has a combat focus, one has a roguish, sneak thief type focus. They both do their thing well. I don't think they need different exp tables. But Kevin must have thought they needed a little something, so they went with the xp tables.
The times my old group played palladium, a couple would gripe momentarily about the xp charts being off, but after we played for a while it was forgotten and we just had fun. So they weren't that much of a problem after all. Of the many problems that has surfaced over the years of playing palladium, the xp charts rank low or not at all. Most of those problems that do rank, lie within the general clunkiness of the stat and skill system. Though a lot of little things need tweaking. Like any other old system.

If you are going to run games with a scattered power level, you are far better off, at least, with a gauge of where the respective PCs stand.

I never had any problem gauging character strengths and weaknesses in Palladium. I really don't see anyone having all that much of a problem either. Gamers are a pretty smart bunch.

 

[Saeviomagy]

This is the type of stuff that made me post in the first place. People using the extremes of the system or half-truths to dump on it. The extremes of D&D are just as silly.

IIRC, MDC body armour has, what? 50 points of damage soaking ability?

A glitterboy does 3d6x10 damage in a hit. And if he takes boxing (and why would he not?) he hits twice a round.

Meanwhile the poor >any cc that's not MDC or a power armour pilot< shoots back at the glitterboy with a weapon that does 2d6. How much armour does the glitterboy have again? 100+?

A small first level rogue with a strength penalty does 2d6 damage. With a terrible con, he would have two hitpoints.

A raging medium barbarian half-orc with maximum strength does 2d6+10. With a maximum con, he might have 16 hitpoints.

On average, the halfling won't actually die to a single thrust. If he hits his target twice (and remember - he's shooting from range), he could down the barbarian before combat is joined.

Now tell me that D&D's extremes are just as silly as rifts again. Please.

 

[Gundark]

IIRC, MDC body armour has, what? 50 points of damage soaking ability?

A glitterboy does 3d6x10 damage in a hit. And if he takes boxing (and why would he not?) he hits twice a round.

Meanwhile the poor >any cc that's not MDC or a power armour pilot< shoots back at the glitterboy with a weapon that does 2d6. How much armour does the glitterboy have again? 100+?

A small first level rogue with a strength penalty does 2d6 damage. With a terrible con, he would have two hitpoints.

A raging medium barbarian half-orc with maximum strength does 2d6+10. With a maximum con, he might have 16 hitpoints.

On average, the halfling won't actually die to a single thrust. If he hits his target twice (and remember - he's shooting from range), he could down the barbarian before combat is joined.

Now tell me that D&D's extremes are just as silly as rifts again. Please.

Well say you've got Dead Boy armour on (80-100 MDC). Gilter Boy blast does on average 100 points of damage (10.5 x10). Gilter Boys had 700 MDC and I think lasers did half damage. A gilter boy could desimate a party by himself pretty easily. I think that PJ mason's original point was that balance shouldn't be all based on combat. I agree with the basic idea. The problem with Rifts was that the setting was pretty comabt focused. Thus the combat monster shined while the poor rogue scholar sat around hiding until his turn came to "shine".

 

[Saeviomagy]

Well say you've got Dead Boy armour on (80-100 MDC). Gilter Boy blast does on average 100 points of damage (10.5 x10). Gilter Boys had 700 MDC and I think lasers did half damage. A gilter boy could desimate a party by himself pretty easily.

Which kind of puts paid to PJ's earlier post that rifts combat was

...Not any more lopsided than a fighter being able to kills bards or rogues in one swipe at low levels.

This is the type of stuff that made me post in the first place. People using the extremes of the system or half-truths to dump on it. The extremes of D&D are just as silly. Each system has bad and good. The real problem is where most other systems get revised at least once (sometimes a lot like D&D or Hero), where Palladium doesn't (with their two NON-rifts revisions not getting it done).

I think this still applies even when you talk about the non-MDC games, just not perhaps to as much of a degree. From what I recall, a fighter-type has some 1d6x10 SDC, plus his PE in hitpoints, while a non-fighter-type (rogue, bard, psion) has 2d6 SDC plus his PE in hitpoints.

I think that PJ mason's original point was that balance shouldn't be all based on combat. I agree with the basic idea. The problem with Rifts was that the setting was pretty comabt focused. Thus the combat monster shined while the poor rogue scholar sat around hiding until his turn came to "shine".

I'd agree, but I think there's a difference between one party member "shining" and one party member being "so good everyone else should do their best to not be present and therefore dead".

 

[Omote]

I just have to say that I love the Palladium System for FANTASY GAMES. That system with it's dodges and parries is very cinematic, and once you get the hang of it, flows fast and works well... at least IMO.

We all know RIFTS is unbalanced to hell, but the idea is for a GM to work around that with role-playing. YES, that can be difficult, however the setting is very, very cool. Which can make up for a lot of system indescretions.

NINJA'S & SUPERSPIES by iteslef I thought was worked very well. Same thing with TMNT. Oh well, I understand that there are better systems out there for balance, but Palladium is still quite fun.

.................................Omote
FPQ

 

[Gundark]

BTW I think that d20 future would make a pretty good rifts conversion. While I admit that SDC games are better than rifts. combat takes way tooo long in palladium.