Palladium Combat in a nutshell

In my Palladium rules rant post I gave a very simple rundown of combat. I got a few messages about it asking me to expand it to make a resource for new players.


Palladium Combat Cheat Sheet :
I find Palladium armor rules to be simple and elegant. When dealing with SDC armor:
Roll less than 5 you miss. roll less that AR, armor takes the damage to its SDC. Roll over AR, then the character takes the damage. Damage either goes to armor or character SDC, after character SDC is depleted damage goes to hit points. That is all there is to SDC combat.


Natural SDC armor is like worn SDC armor, but simpler. Rolls below 5 are a miss, rolls below its AR hit but do no damage. Rolls above AR do damage to SDC of the character.


Maga Damage is even simpler, all damage from a successful hit roll goes to armor first, only after all MDC is depleted does a character take any damage.
SDC weapons can't hurt MDC  objects. MD weapons do 100 damage per point of damage (x100) rolled to SDC objects.


Targets of an attack (defender) can use an action to make defensive actions. Defensive rolls try to beat the attack roll. Highest wins with defender winning on a tie.

Beyond the Supernatural, Magic

Been looking closer at Beyond the Supernatural. I know a lot of people howl about BtS being woefully incomplete because of the lack of magic. I guess if all I owned was the BtS core I might be a bit more concerned.
But, since I own 35+ Palladium books I think I can make it work just fine. Looking through Palladium fantasy there is so many great ways to use magic. Wards, Runes, magic wards, and summoning circles. If you think about the show Supernatural, Constantine, or most urban fantasy/horror this all fits in really well.
As far as spell casting is concerned I find a lot of the basic wizard spells to be just fine for a modern setting. Yes there are some spells I would eliminate, but most are not so out of place to me. There are at least a few from specialty lists I would allow as well. If I wanted an even simpler solution I could just use the magic and spells from the magic system from Heroes Unlimited.
Magic in my games will be a tool of the common person. While psychics are an inborn "gift", Magic is a learned skill. Both the Ordinary people p.c.c. and Parapsychologist p.c.c. will have access to magic.
In my opinion the Parapsychologist is the closest to a "Wizard" class as BtS should have. Magic can and is often best as a plot device. Pouring over dusty old books, looking for that one spell to deal with the unspeakable horror.