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Hey you crazy kids! I want your brains!

I was thinking about problems I have had when running Palladium games with new players which is mostly my experience since I run at conventions. Here are some ideas for house rules I plan to test out. Give me your thoughts! Brains!

ATTRIBUTE ROLLS
Like skills, all attributes can be rolled as a percentage which is now listed on the character sheet. The percentage is your score x 5%. 96%-100% is a failure / fumble...however if your skill is 100% or more, it acts as a buffer when the GM throws penalties at you. Your skill percentage represents "vs. a normal task" and if the job is tough, the GM could impose a -10%, -20%, etc which is where having a high stats is a benefit (plus high stats still give you their other bonuses). If you ever played CoC or RuneQuest, you've seen how this works.

NEW COMBAT SYSTEM IDEAS
I want faster, less complicated combat, but still keep the Palladium flavor of back-forth action. Here's what I've been thinking in my crazy brain for Initiative, Actions and Criticals.

INITIATIVE
Initiative is rolled for the entire battle. Ties go to PC hero or the higher level or higher Physical Prowess. Anyone can spend one action to "refocus" to re-roll their Initiative.

BONUS ACTIONS PER COMBAT
Everyone now has ONE action per round. The number of Actions per Turn is now called "Bonus Actions Per Combat" and you can use one bonus action per round. This represents how everyone is all hot and energetic at the beginning of the fight, but wear down as the fight progresses and the hero who wisely conserves his strength or chooses to strike at the right moment wins the day. So if your Nightbane has 5 attacks normally, you now have 1 per round and the Nightbane can decide when to start using those bonus actions. Maybe he will attack twice in one round. Maybe he will attack once and use a bonus to dodge. Maybe he will go all defensive and save both for parrying.

Since all creatures get a base 2 actions, I am thinking about reducing the Bonus Actions by 2...at least for NPCs. This would give the PC heroes more breathing room and allow the GM to throw some more dangers at them. As for the Boxing skill, I just cut out that "extra attack" part and keep the stat bonuses.

Also, for those weapons that say they only allow X shots per turn, my thought is to limit that to per combat. Consider that the weapon overheating.

NATURAL 20
Double damage against unarmored foes or vehicles; armored foes take normal damage, but an equal amount slams into their personal SDC as well. This represents the squishy guy in the armor getting some shock to the system when their armor gets whammed.

I would have to play under these rules.

I'm more or less ok with the attributes thing, but I think combat is already simple.

I think it should be 91 to 100% is a fail - it's not worth rolling the dice if it takes around 20 rolls before somethng unexpected (failure) happens.

I don't quite understand your attack system - like parrying costing attacks (normally it doesn't - that's a big change). Or whether I can use all my attacks on my first turn. I know you think 'the wise man' holds onto his attacks - but it might consistantly not work that way.

Personally I've been considering starting a game where you get bonus attacks in addition to each normal attack, but they aren't so skilled so can only be used against low skilled grunts. Eg, you use your attack to blast the boss, then have say four unskilled attacks that you roll off against some grunts. That way you get to do more on your turn. Also I think I'd have the unskilled attacks still available if you dodge, so you still get to do something if you dodge. Could even have the unskilled attacks have a fixed damage, so you only need to do an attack roll.

Noon wrote:I think it should be 91 to 100% is a fail - it's not worth rolling the dice if it takes around 20 rolls before somethng unexpected (failure) happens.

You would need to have a 18 in score to have a 90% rate and only 20+ would have 100% success so these would be relatively rare scores and represent those people of near supernatural ability. The average score of 12 would just be a 60% success / 40% failure.

Noon wrote:I don't quite understand your attack system - like parrying costing attacks (normally it doesn't - that's a big change). Or whether I can use all my attacks on my first turn.

Oops! Parry would be free as normal, I should have said "save both for dodging"

The system would only allow people to use ONE bonus action per round, so the maximum attacks would be TWO and that would mean they would have no opportunity to Dodge. This would mean that if you had 4 bonus actions, you could choose to have 2 actions for the first four rounds of battle or decide to save some for later in the battle.

I like your idea of having extra attacks vs. mooks.

Spinachcat wrote:Hey you crazy kids! I want your brains!

I was thinking about problems I have had when running Palladium games with new players which is mostly my experience since I run at conventions. Here are some ideas for house rules I plan to test out. Give me your thoughts! Brains!

ATTRIBUTE ROLLS
Like skills, all attributes can be rolled as a percentage which is now listed on the character sheet. The percentage is your score x 5%. 96%-100% is a failure / fumble...however if your skill is 100% or more, it acts as a buffer when the GM throws penalties at you. Your skill percentage represents "vs. a normal task" and if the job is tough, the GM could impose a -10%, -20%, etc which is where having a high stats is a benefit (plus high stats still give you their other bonuses). If you ever played CoC or RuneQuest, you've seen how this works.

Works fair enough. not really much of a change.

NEW COMBAT SYSTEM IDEAS
I want faster, less complicated combat, but still keep the Palladium flavor of back-forth action. Here's what I've been thinking in my crazy brain for Initiative, Actions and Criticals.

Allright.

INITIATIVE
Initiative is rolled for the entire battle. Ties go to PC hero or the higher level or higher Physical Prowess. Anyone can spend one action to "refocus" to re-roll their Initiative.

Eh. it makes sense to reroll for each round, but keeping the same init will cut down on rolling without seriously effecting things.

BONUS ACTIONS PER COMBAT
Everyone now has ONE action per round. The number of Actions per Turn is now called "Bonus Actions Per Combat" and you can use one bonus action per round. This represents how everyone is all hot and energetic at the beginning of the fight, but wear down as the fight progresses and the hero who wisely conserves his strength or chooses to strike at the right moment wins the day. So if your Nightbane has 5 attacks normally, you now have 1 per round and the Nightbane can decide when to start using those bonus actions. Maybe he will attack twice in one round. Maybe he will attack once and use a bonus to dodge. Maybe he will go all defensive and save both for parrying.

Several problems. One: you can conserve, but in an even fight, I see both sides going though all their "bonus" attacks without winning. at which point both characters have the same number for a potentially long fight. it does Not make sense to me that a juicer with a hugely faster speed and PP can, after just a few rounds be reduced to being no quicker than a sickly city rat. After so many rounds, each characters bonus attacks should "refresh"

Secondly: this opens up some serious problems for bursting. Just by dint of not having attacked in the past, your gun is suddenly capable of shooting twice the number of bullets in the same amount of time?

Thirdly: how does this fit in with Spellcasters who have spells that require multiple actions to get off?


It's not a bad idea, but needs a bit of refinement.

Since all creatures get a base 2 actions, I am thinking about reducing the Bonus Actions by 2...at least for NPCs. This would give the PC heroes more breathing room and allow the GM to throw some more dangers at them. As for the Boxing skill, I just cut out that "extra attack" part and keep the stat bonuses.

This is no longer true, actually. the rule of 2 for living has offically been cut entirely: all creatues have a base of only 1 attack per round, you only get more by hand to hand and by levels. see RUE.

Also, for those weapons that say they only allow X shots per turn, my thought is to limit that to per combat. Consider that the weapon overheating.

This seriously limits this brand of weapons unncessarly. especially with battles that can potentially drag on a long time.

NATURAL 20
Double damage against unarmored foes or vehicles; armored foes take normal damage, but an equal amount slams into their personal SDC as well. This represents the squishy guy in the armor getting some shock to the system when their armor gets whammed.

Too munchy. With average large attacks this is essentially a death sentance. 1/10 damage in shock is more reaosnable. for characters with low HP and SDC (yes...some people DO not get physical skills) it makes combat more fair.

I think people make their own fairness, by choosing whether they play the game or not. Mind you, if you play in a group where everyone plays together cause everyone simply must play together always or it's like breaking up as friends, gah, making the game fair isn't going to fix the real prob

Personally I think any change which makes them worse off compared to the previous status quo, wont get their vote. What might be fun is if on a crit the target can choose to take double mega damage, or half mega and half personal damage (kind of rolling with it or taking it full on). That way the high SDC guys get to actually be tougher in terms of mega damage, and the wussys with low SDC can rely on their armour. Though really, if they don't have the SDC to take it, I'm suprised they have armour can take it - most dudes seem to end up with 20 points in total, adding up HP and SDC.