Running some Nightbane with friends. Looking for tips

[Bencard]

Hey everyone, I am new to the Palladium Universe and all of their glory. I have played as a player in a Nightbane campaign years ago and I have had a not-stop interest in it ever since. Last Christmas I got the Core Book and one of the world books. Since then I have begun a game with a few of my friends and It has gone well so far.

Since I am new to the system is there anything I should know? Are some of the rules misprinted or better altered another way?

What are some Ideas I could throw at my players in this world? The setting is in Columbus Ohio and they are all in the College, so far they have all went through the becoming and are together and that was their first challenge. They have run into some hounds and have been pretty much on the run. They have ran into a few members of the Underground railroad and are currently in a safe house. That is pretty much all that has happened to them.

A few questions me and my group have is how are you supposed to do combat in this system. We have all played D&D 3.5/5E, Pathfinder, and some of us have played Shadowrun. but none of those have this kind of combat system.

Thanks for taking the time to look at this post Reply in any way you wish. I will give more info on what has happened so far or anything else.

[Glistam]

Welcome! Nightbane is a great game with a lot of potential. It's great to hear that you and your players are enjoying it.

In my experiences, combat needs to stay high level and conceptual in order to work. If you try to drill down to a detailed, grid-based movement system then the limitations of the system become quickly apparent and cause extra frustration. Also, for a lot of questions or situations there are no right answers, only rulings and patches which make sense to you and that you're comfortable with.

In that vein, here's a high-level breakdown of how I make Palladium combat work:

1. Determine initiative. Everyone rolls 1D20, adds their initiative modifier(s) (if they have any), ties are re-rolled, and the highest number goes first.
   
2. Highest initiative uses their first "Action/Attack." (Note: I will use the terms "Action" and "Attack" here interchangeably). Think of an "Attack" as a "Standard Action" in D&D 3.5. What can you do with a Standard Action? That's more or less the idea of what you can do with an Attack. That means you need to make hard decisions sometimes, like "Do I stand here and draw my gun, or do I run for the relative safety of cover?" Frustrations like that are how you know the system is working as designed. Don't shy from that - force players to make those choices. (Note: sometimes you can do more than one thing, but those are exceptions).
   
   
   1. If the Action the player chose was to attack someone or something, then they roll 1D20, add their strike bonus(es) (if they have any), and try to beat a target number to see if they succeed. These targets are listed in the combat section, as Range and intent can change the requirement.
      
   2. Who or Whatever was attacked has a chance to react and defend themselves. Think of this as a "Reaction" or a "Held Action" in D&D 3.5. Typically the options when a character is attacked are: Do Nothing, Parry, Dodge, Entangle, or Simultaneous Attack. The book discusses in the combat section how each of these options work.
      
      
      1. Do Nothing means exactly as it sounds. If the target number was reached or exceeded then the character is hit. Roll damage and/or apply the move's effect, then move on. Things that can't react default to this.
         
      2. Parry is an response any character can do, but only those trained in a form of Hand to Hand combat can do it as a free "Reaction." (most characters are trained, but see below if the character isn't trained in a form of Hand to Hand). To Parry the defender rolls 1D20, adds their parry bonus(es) (if they have any), applies any penalties, and compares the number against the attack roll. If the Parry roll is greater than or equal to the attack roll then the attack was parried and does not affect the character.
         
      3. Dodge, Entangle, or Simultaneous Attack could all be considered from a D&D 3.5 standpoint as "Held Actions." If you chose to use one of these Actions, you basically take your next action now by doing this and will not get act when your initiative would otherwise have indicated. You essentially trade your future action for an action now. The rules for each of these options are in the combat section.
3. The next person in initiative order takes their "Action." Repeat step 2 above for each person in their initiative order until the round resets back to the top. Anyone who used a defense which cost an action is skipped, but keeps their initiative number for the next time around.
   
4. That now completes everyone's first "Attack/Action" of the Melee Round. Starting back at the top of initiative order, it's now "Attack/Action" number two. Repeat steps 2 and 3 above. This keeps going until everyone is out of "Attacks/Actions."
   
   
   1. When a person runs out of "Attacks/Actions" they can no longer act on their initiative order, nor can they use a defense which requires an action (unless you allow them to take their action from future melee rounds). Defenses which do not require an action are allowed.
      
   2. This means someone out of "Attack/Actions" can be pretty much at the mercy of an opponent who still has "Attacks/Actions." This is another frustration which lets you know the system is working as designed. The players should endeavor to use tactics in their fights to avoid these situations.
5. Once everyone is out of "Attacks/Actions," the 15 second melee round has ended. Start over from Step 1 and repeat until combat has ended.

A quick note about the 15 second melee round: All that time just spent in combat going through all their actions, and when everyone's out only 15 seconds of game time has passed! This is an important idea that people can sometimes have trouble understanding, and that's why it's crucial to make sure players do not try to do too much with each of their Actions. Each Action is an inexact span of time but all actions fit together to encompass a 15 second time frame.

Another quick note: Some "Attack" or "Actions" require more two or more in order to use them. In such cases I have the first action to be declaring their intent and the move actually occurs on the final action. If the character uses a defense which requires using their action, or a move is performed successfully on them which causes them to lose their next action, then the multi-action move fails.

I hope that helps!

[Bencard]

Thank you so much for your reply! I have been looking through the internet for anything on Palladium or Nightbane and all of them were years ago. I then found this site with active people and recent posts about Nightbane. I am quite excited and we will be playing tonight. I am still trying to figure out what I can throw at them or how to push them to progress in any direction.

Thank you for giving more life into the combat rules. How does speed translate to moves? Nightbane have ridicules movement. I also just see somethings are just dont add up in my mind. Someone having one action and another having two somethings can be extremely restricting and me and my players cant wrap our minds around some of them. What we did was have a move and standard action in their melee turns (attacks?) and went from there but that let them do a lot and they were able to dodge trouble fairly easily.

Thanks again for your reply I feel like it will help greatly!

[Glistam]

How does speed translate to moves?

Ah, the eternal question. Here's how I do it:

1. A character can move their Spd score in an attack/action and still make an attack. Ranged attacks in such cases are considered "Wild shots" and those rules apply.
2. A character who does nothing but run on their attack will be able to move a distance in feet based on this formula: (Spd × 15)/(# of attacks the character has).
   
   1. So a character with a Spd of 30 and 6 attacks can move (30 × 15)/(6) = 75 feet on their action.

This of course does not line up nicely with D&D, where a Human character can move 30 feet and attack, or move between 60 and 120 feet without making another action. But it works well enough for my games as long as I keep all the characters in a combat within a couple attacks per melee of each other.

By this math it's possible to have a character with less actions move farther on their attack than a faster character with more attacks can move per action. The balance here is that the faster character will get more attacks so that overall during the 15 second melee round they were faster, but on an individual attack it can be frustrating. Other people on the boards have broken down other house rules to address this and if it's something that bothers you and your players you'd be well served to search for some of those topics.

Lastly, what I just described above only works if the characters have less than 15 attacks a melee. With a gratuitous selection of powers, abilities, spells, levels, and even other books it can be possible to get 15 attacks per melee or more. The game really wasn't designed for combat on that scale and I typically try to manage the players to avoid the situation in the first place. Again though, there's some other great house rules on this forum that allow for alternative combat and movement systems which may be worth looking at.

I also just see somethings are just dont add up in my mind. Someone having one action and another having two somethings can be extremely restricting and me and my players cant wrap our minds around some of them. What we did was have a move and standard action in their melee turns (attacks?) and went from there but that let them do a lot and they were able to dodge trouble fairly easily.

If you really want to compare Palladium to D&D you'll want to cast that net back all the way back to First Edition, which is in many ways what these rules were inspired by.