So, first time Palladium Fantasy player here

[Silus]

So this Friday (11/6), I'll be playing in my first Palladium Fantasy game. Aaaaand I feel a little underprepped for going in. General advice would be wonderful, but here's some issues I'm having that I could use assistance with:

1) Saves and combat stats. Where can I locate the...stuff to calculate these?
2) Are there any skills that are..."godly" or required to excel?
3) Any nasty little tips for making money that are totally legal?

Current character is a hunter from a currently unspecified tribe somewhere between the Baalgor Wastelands and the Yin-Sloth jungles that, assuming everything goes well, will basically play like a character out of Monster Hunter. That being "Oh we killed this big monster, I'm gonna turn it into armor and weapons". Skills are as appropriate, gonna pick up horseback riding at lvl 3 (lvl 3 Mercenary Warrior currently).

So far, I think, the game will be taking place in the Eastern Territories and we'll be migrating towards the Old Kingdom for dungeon diving.

[LibraryOgre]

So this Friday (11/6), I'll be playing in my first Palladium Fantasy game. Aaaaand I feel a little underprepped for going in. General advice would be wonderful, but here's some issues I'm having that I could use assistance with:

1) Saves and combat stats. Where can I locate the...stuff to calculate these?
2) Are there any skills that are..."godly" or required to excel?
3) Any nasty little tips for making money that are totally legal?


Part of this depends on the edition; I am going to assume 2nd edition, because it is the most current one, but 1e has it's own peculiarities.

1) Saves are usually in he combat section in some sort of chart; I don't have my book handy to tell you what page they're likely to be on. The most common saves are saves v. magic and psionics. The base save vs. spell is 12 if it is cast as an incantation (i.e. fast, normal spellcasting), and 16 if it is a ritual. Circles are a base of 16, wards are, IIRC, 14 (it's been a few years since I looked at PF, but I have a bit of experience with the magic system (http://www.amazon.com/Mysteries-Magic-Book-One-Heart/dp/1574571494/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1386124759&sr=8-8&keywords=mysteries+of+magic+hall).)

Psionic saves are based on the strength of the target; a master psychic has a base save of 10, major and minor psychics of 12, non-psychics of 16.

Other saves you can usually wing; pick a number between 12 and 16 and you're not too far off.

Most combat stats come from two sources: Your Hand to Hand skills and your Attributes. In 2e, there are 4 different hand to hand skills... Basic, Expert, Martial Arts, and Assassin. Basic, Expert, and Martial Arts are pretty much the same, just with slowly increasing bonuses; assassin hand to hand is different. You will also get a few hand to hand skill bonuses from other skills (like Athletics, Gymnastic, and Boxing), and situationally applicable bonuses from Weapon Proficiencies. Read weapon proficiencies carefully; the apply in some weird ways, to a variety of different weapons. You are likely to have several different combat profiles, depending on your weapon of choice. IIRC, this can even result in different numbers of attacks per melee depending on whether you are fighting by hand, using a bow, or casting a spell.

2) For skills? EVERYONE should have at least Basic Hand to Hand; the bonus 2 attacks per round and automatic parry are too valuable not to spend a skill selection or two on. Going higher is not necessary, though; if you get Expert for free, it's not bad, but the relative increases are seldom important compared to more skills. Other skills are a lot more negotiable. As always, I suggest coordinating party languages, and it's a good idea to have Dragonese\Elven... it's usually regarded as something of a lingua franca of the world (and the Multiverse).

3) Money tips? Not too many. Your idea to loot corpses has merit, but you'll want to develop relationships with Summoners and Alchemists, who generally need weird components. Lore: Magic can be very helpful in knowing what is valuable, and I think there's a Streetwise skill that specifically deals with contraband; like I said, it's been a while.

General rule of Palladium? Fights to the death take too long. Your big damage dealer will probably be the Warlock, especially if they're Fire warlocks.

My suggestion? Play Hackmaster. Basic is free (http://www.kenzerco.com/hackmaster/). The system has a lot in common with Palladium but is, IMO, done better (that it mimics many of the things I had been thinking of to "fix" Palladium contributes to that). There is a definite "tone" problem... it's "This is the best game ever" subtext grates. But the game is solid, and with some decent conversions for Summoners and Diabolists, it would be awesome to play.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

I am a player in the same game, in the same boat, except I have a thief. I think Men-At-Arms automatically get basic hand-to-hand, mine has it. I'm just confused about how that interacts with combat proficiencies; my thief has Knife proficiency and Weapon Targeting; VERY confused about how ranged combat works.

[Delwugor]

Welcome to the confusion that is Palladium Fantasy. My group at the time stopped playing it because we just got tired of the unstructured inconsistencies.

1. The basic saving throws are not in on location (if I remember correctly) but where fairly easy to track down. And they added some new ones in other books, we rofld when the GM found an obscure saving throw for spoiling meat.
Combat stats can be very difficult to track down, many come from skills (such as the number of attacks).

2. As Mark said, look to boxing, athletics and so forth, they give the biggest bang for the buck. There is a skill for repairing armor, that is a must for at least one person in the party.
Avoid extra hand to hand skills beyond expert, the benefits are very small. Oh and don't go around kicking anything, lots of cool kicks that do minimal damage.
Unless your running a bakery on the side, don't take cooking. ha

3. Money was also a problem for us. At one part we stopped adventuring and took up special jobs to get enough to go out again. Not fun.

As Mark said, combat is very long and can get boring. Often it consists of everyone wailing on the opponents armor. If you have a good and flexible GM, then use the environment around you, it can add alot of spice to combat.
Get Kobold or even better Dwarven weapons, and good armor with lots of sdc is a must.

Final piece of advice Palladium Fantasy works better the more you avoid using the crap system. A good GM that is not afraid of making rulings all the time is a must.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Our GM is that way, fortunately, and is skilled with the system. And, with our starting money I started with a pair of dwarf-made daggers, one for parrying and one for striking.

[LibraryOgre]

As Mark said, combat is very long and can get boring. Often it consists of everyone wailing on the opponents armor. If you have a good and flexible GM, then use the environment around you, it can add alot of spice to combat.
Get Kobold or even better Dwarven weapons, and good armor with lots of sdc is a must.


I'll argue with this a little. Armor in PF is seldom wailed upon, unless it is very top quality.

Basically, AR works like a "minimum parry". If you have an AR of 9, any hit over your AR avoids your armor entirely; any hit under your AR hits the armor, until the SDC of the armor is gone.

Because pretty much everyone has automatic parry, lower AR armors tend to be less useful; they are more "oh crap" responses that protect you in case of an ambush, or when you roll really bad on a parry. This is especially true if you've got a high parry skill... if you have a +9 to parry, then AR 9 armor only protects you if you roll a 1 or if you're ambushed and denied a parry.

Now, heavy armor can have a higher AR, but that also means it degrades quickly AND tends to carry penalties to defense and movement, even when you know how to use it.

[Elriconan]

Palladium Fantasy isn't so much an RPG as a set of house rules for AD&D 1e (AD&D bearing the same relationship to D&D). It's confusing and sometimes pure nonsense, largely because Siembeda is the worst editor in the world of RPGs. That said it ia by far the best of Palladium. I would suggest playing OSRIC and replacing anything you like with the Palladium version. This frees you from the nosebleed inducing nonsense that is Palladium's combat system. Just be glad it's not RIFTS, which is an incoherent mess of CopyPasta from random books, because Siembeda was too lazy to rewrite it into something comprehensible.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

We played last night, and it went well. Silus had an embarrassing incident at the beginning that could have been resolved with a bit more system mastery, but otherwise it went well. Most of the other characters are skilled with the system, so the pacing isn't so bad, except when we have to look up the draconian rules, like the cost for a square yard of silk/leather or repairing armor.

[Delwugor]

I'll argue with this a little. Armor in PF is seldom wailed upon, unless it is very top quality.
Actually that might explain part of what we ran into. One character was a Paladin of Rigga with very good plate armor, his armor and personal SDC was around the 150 range. My namesake character had reinforced chain, something like a total SDC of 100+ and a parry such that I would roll it first and often just say "missed".

The numbers in Paladium Fantasy tended to get out of hand for both campaigns I played in. Though the real breaking point for my group was the GM became tired of "pulling things out of his ...", and we all agreed there where much better systems for Fantasy.


except when we have to look up the draconian rules, like the cost for a square yard of silk/leather or repairing armor.
Yeah draconian rules where it didn't matter, and the important ones where too open ended for good play. But I'm biased, PF comes second in the worst system to play, right after d20 Modern/Future.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Also, when I say 'we', I mean 'me or the GM'. All in all, it went fairly fast, and even in the parts where the spellcasters/mind mage were hogging the combat, I didn't feel too underlaid, even with the thief.

[Silus]

Also, when I say 'we', I mean 'me or the GM'. All in all, it went fairly fast, and even in the parts where the spellcasters/mind mage were hogging the combat, I didn't feel too underlaid, even with the thief.

Eh, speak for yourself. Like...10 turns/actions at least slogging through the underbrush, and my blood-raging-against-Coyles-tribal didn't even get a kill. At least you got to shank one.

But that'll all change when I get me a wolf pack :smallamused:

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Well, once the ambush started, my thief started running. The high speed helped, though.