RIFTS coming to Savage Worlds

I'm so shocked I'm speechless.

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.

Heroes Unlimited (palladium Books)

Heroes Unlimited

I have been looking through the Heroes Unlimited book by Palladium books. Its pretty amazing in so many ways. For one it is classless. Instead it has archetypes. The book is 352 pages and is nothing but character creation info. It is chock full of options for characters. It covers a ton of ground. Just about any kind of hero you can imagine. From super training, psioncs, Magic, cyborgs, Mutants, and even robot characters. As well as many many other archetypes.

This version of the book is revised second edition. The whole layout of the book is cleaned up and rearranged from the previous edition. Its got to be the easiest and cleanest main book of any Palladium game.

I would say this could easily be a main book for a lot of other styles of games. You could make cyberpunk characters with this book. You could make any form of modern fantasy characters with this book.

This book could also be a book of options for any other Palladium games. Since the setting is an SDC setting its easily compatible with all of them. It could also be used for your own conversion, from MDC to SDC since a lot of the cyberware and magic is SDC version of Rifts ones.

This could easily be one of the most useful Palladium books for character creation options. As well as an amazing book for making super heroes.

Palladium RPG, Exceptionaly Attributes.

I have seen it posted a few times in different places that people dislike the exceptional attribute rule from Palladium books.

The rule is if you roll a 16-18 you roll an additional d6 and add it to the attribute. If you roll a 6, roll the d6 again. and add it again.

The supportive problem is that you can never get a 16 as an attribute. Since 16 is the lowest attribute that gets any bonuses I have trouble seeing players complaining about this.

My easy fix for this is roll a d6, But count 6 as a 0. So you are rolling a d5 with a 0 on it. If you roll a 5 roll the die again and add it. If you roll a 0 the attribute stays as is. That is it.

Game on. Going to run some Nightbane.

Last night my brothers came over and after picking through all my gaming books they chose Nightbane for our next game. Instead on making out their entire character they just make out their human facade. then I had them turn the character sheet over and randomly roll on their morphus. And note it down but didn't tell them what they got. On a separate page I plan to write up their morphus.

We are going to play their "becoming". They will not know what their morphus is till they change. I think this is going to be a lot of fun. One day your average Joe, Next your a monster, And not just that you suddenly find out the world is full of monsters. You just never noticed before.

Cyberpunk using Palladium rpgs (Rifts and Heroes Unlimited)

I was reading through the Rifts bionics source book. The section on city rat O.O.C.s got me thinking about more gaming in an urban sprawl. Using the city rat O.O.C.s and a few from Rifts, like man hunter could make for some great cyberpunk gaming. Great for very street level games. With O.O.C.s like the juicers and Borgs as higher power level game play.

I think using the O.O.C.s from rifts and cybernetics and bionics from Heroes Unlimited Could make a very sweet baseline S.D.C. based rules. Heroes Unlimited could also be tapped for magic or psionics (for some shadowrun) If you wanted as well.

I personally would not use Maga-Damage for small arms. I would only use Maga-Damage for vehicle or large scale weapons. If at all.

Palladium Back @ Gen con

Good to see Palladium back at Gen con this year. I love this video.

Dead Reign (Palladium Zombies)

You know me you know I love my zombies. And I love Palladium rpgs.
Like this game was made just for me.

A palladium channel on Youtube!!!!

This is great. I love the resurgence in interest in palladium books! Bring it on.

Palladium RPGs. D20 skill system.

Here again with another Optional rule for Palladium Games. While I have no problem with the percentile skill system in palladium. I know some that don't like it. And this option is just too simple to not throw it out.

The simplest conversion I have come up with it is converting it to a d20 roll under system. Since every digit on a d20 is a 5% chance in a roll under system its pretty easy to do the math.

Divide your skill by 5 and you have your new skill level. A skill roll is made on a D20 by rolling under the new skill level.

Palladium Fantasy Armor option.

I love optional rules. Even ones I don't use. But this is one I really like.

Some people don't like the idea of subtracting SDC from armor. Finding it tedious to keep track of armor SDC, character SDC and hit point just too much book keeping.

So to eliminate one of those sets of numbers I propose to turn Armor SDC into Damage reduction.
For example:

Soft leather (full) AR 10 SDC 20 becomes Soft leather (full) AR10 DR2.

If an attack hits but rolls less than the armor rating than subtract the DR from the damage rolled. If the damage roll goes over the AR apply damage to the characters SDC as normal.

I'm looking at dividing the SDC of the armor by 10 rounded down to get the damage reduction value. Not sure if that is going to come out right. I'm going to play with the numbers and try it out.

Palladium: Rifts and MagaDamage part. 2

A new Maga-Damage (MD) options just came to my attention.

The first is all MD weapons get the Maga-Damage trait. But now do damage as SDC weapons do.

If a MD weapon hits an SDC target the damage is doubled.

If the MD weapon hits an MDC armor target apply damage as normal.

If an SDC weapon hits a MDC target subtract 10 from the damage rolled and applied as normal.

Palladium: Rifts and MagaDamage part. 1

So I have decided to run some Rifts. Over the years I have seen a fair amount of criticism of the palladium system. I don't believe any system is perfect. And I find a lot of criticism of palladium is very nit-picky. But one area that has always sat weird with me and a lot of palladium GMs is how it handles MagaDamage (or MD) in Rifts.

Over the years I have seen a lot of house rules when dealing with MagaDamage. I want to go over some of the most common ones I have seen, And how I plan to use MagaDamage.

By the book: In my early days days I simply ran Rifts as written. Most situations this is no problem. 1 MagaDamage is equal to 100 S.D.C. (Structural damage points) This can lead to some odd situations with a 1d6MD weapon "vaporizing" a person in a single shot. Something that shoots a laser the size of a pencil yet it does 100 points of damage.

Converted: Some GMs just covert all MagaDamage to S.D.C. some just keep the die the same but make it S.D.C. The only problem with this is it makes expensive MagaDamage weapons barely as good as, and some times worse than cheap S.D.C. weapons.

Converted & Changed: In this option MagaDamage is converted to S.D.C. but all M.D. weapons are reworked and rescaled to make them more powerful S.D.C. weapons.

Rescaled: This is a very popular option. Instead of 1 MDC to 100 SDC. The conversion is scaled 1 M.D. to 10 MD. This still throws off a few damage values off when compared to some S.D.C. weapons.

My personal way of doing M.D. in the past was by the book but with rules for blow through for personal weapons. Basically how it works is I use M.D. as is but any time a S.D.C. structure or body is hit with M.D. there is a limit to the amount of damage it can do in a single shot.  Any time a M.D. weapon hits a S.D.C. body or object damage is rolled at the rate of 1M.D. to 10 S.D.C. This rule applies to only personal weapons. That way a hand laser or M.D. bullet doesn't "vaporizing" a whole body but instead passes through. This of course doesn't apply to large and vehicle mounded weapon. And doesn't apply to explosives.

Any one else have a favorite way of using MagaDamage? Or do you use one of the examples above?

Time to get back to gaming. And some retrospect.

Been a while. Time to start up a game again. What I'm reading right now, And planing to run is palladium. I'm really digging palladium fantasy. I ran Rifts for a few years back in the day. Really liked the system. I really didn't run it for the right group back then. Instead of running it for my close friends I could trust I ran it open with any one and every one who showed up at the shop/club he hung out at.

A game like Rifts is not the most balanced of games. By that I mean not all the classes are equal in power. Now imagine the group you are running for is a large group made up of more than one group of friends. Who are not really friends with each other.At some point the group splits into two cliques and turn on each other.

Up to this point the game was a lot of fun. And I ran things very loose with very little restrictions. Allowing players to play anything they wanted. So after almost two years of running Rifts (as well as some TMNT, Robotech and Heroes unlimited.) we had all out PC vs PC war.

After a few weeks of the fighting and infighting out of game I had enough of it. I traded in all the books for shadowrun (which was my other game at the time.)

This lead me to two conclusions. One I thought every game needed to be balanced. Thinking characters being some how balanced in power would curb character on character violence.

Second I realized I didn't have time for dealing with people I didn't enjoy running games for. From that point on I didn't run games in clubs or shops for just any one but only for close friends and family.

Now I realize that all I really needed was number two. If I run for just people I can trust my games don't need character balance.

I'm really looking forward to giving Palladium system another shot. And giving my players a lot of freedom and seeing where they take it.

Palladium system is old school part. 2

 What are some of the things about Palladium system that I contribute to it being old school or even just old school flavor?

Palladium doesn't not have a rule for every possible action by a player. That is up to the GM to come up with.
Maybe this is not to your taste and you like more rules. But palladium is what it is.

Palladium uses alignment, Its not the good/evil, Law/chaos axis from AD&D. But its not so removed any D&D player cant find a parallel to D&D.

Palladium has hit point. Sure it also has structural points, no matter how you split it thought its hit points.

Palladium has saving throws. while all editions of D&D have saving throws. Palladium's saving throws are way closer to AD&D saves than 3E saves, that is old school flavor to me.

Palladium's system is not obsessed with balance is classes. While this is a turn off to some. I think its great. For a good group it just fine. For a bad group you can always restrict what you don't want. As a GM I would rather have the freedom to choose than have the design of the game choose what is acceptable for a player character. To me this is also old school.

I could go on and on. But the funny thing is I don't think any one else thinks of Palladium as an old school system. Because its still in print. Still the same old system. There is no new palladium system, so I cant go to the forums of the new game and post about how the new edition raped my child hood. There is no out of print edition for me to retro clone.

Can a game be old school if it has not weathered at least one edition war? do you think an in print game be old school?

Palladium system is old school

I was flipping through stars with out numbers and it got me thinking. With so many new nostalgia and retro clones games being written and played based on older edition of D&D and AD&D. This is an excellent time for palladium books to make a resurgence. After all it started as a set of house rules to expand and customize 1e AD&D.

Despite all the internet rumblings about Palladium books, they really have put out a lot of really fun products in the last few years. System failure, Chaos earth, and Splicers, just to name a few.

Despite being known for power gaming paradise the whole character creation processes really is story driven. With a lot of work going into characters background and info.

Palladium system has been in print in one form or another since '83. Very few old school games have gone so long and still using the same system. While some don't like that fact and feel it needs to be updated. Personally I think its great that I just picked up 11 palladium books and as I started flipping through them I'm looking at the exact game I used to run near 15 years ago.  Does it get more nostalgia than that.

It also seems that Palladium books made a recovery from almost going under back in 2005 and was only saved because of its fans. Which is a testament in and of its self as to its fan base. Palladium was at Gen Con this year, first time in a long time. Palladium books is back on track reprinting a lot of its older books and bringing out not just new products but also its in house magazine "The Rifter". Seems Palladium is making its way back on to the gaming market. Maybe its not as big as it once was, But to its fans its a company worth sticking with and fighting for.

Balence of classes in Rifts.

I think one of the big complaints in Rifts is that the OCCs/RCCs are not balanced to each other. While I don't see this as a huge problem myself I guess I can understand how some people look at it. As the GM I usually let the players know what kind of game I'm about to run. I don't feel bad one bit restricting an OOC or RCC if I feel its not with in the power level of the game I want to run. You dont have to allow it just because its in the book.

As a matter of a fact I've been thinking about running a street level game set in chi town. With all street level characters. Imagine a group of bounty hunters ducking coalition patrols. Taking on clandestine missions for one group or another.

I recently picked up chaos earth. Its basically the prequel to Rifts. Set at the beginning of the end of the world. While a lot of the same tech is available the power level of the whole game is a lot lower. Its really a great way to run lower powered games. A lot of OOCs from bionics source book and other books that are considered underpowered for Rifts would be great for Chaos earth. I think a fun game would be to start players as SDC only characters. Sure military gear is out there...but you don't get to just start with it.

RIFTS skill system.

While I have made it clear I don't see the RIFTS system as broken, I do see them ripe for house ruling. One things I don't like is percentile skill systems. I really would like to make it an attribute roll system. Giving attributes a bigger role in the system. I would love going to a 3d6 roll under attribute system for skills. Until then though I think I got a quick fix.

I'm simply going to convert the percentile system into a d20 system. Every 5% is equal to 1 in 20 on a d20. Simply divide the total skill by 5 and round down.

So if a character has a total value in a skill of 45% then he would have a 9 in that skill. A d20 roll is made trying to roll under the skill just like with the percentile system.

My other Idea I'm still toying with is to tun it around and make it a positive modifier and rolling against a target difficulty set by the GM. This one I need to put some more thought and go over the numbers a few times.

RIFTS ~Giving it a closer look~

On the surface it seems kind of silly after all this time getting back into Palladium games. Mainly because I have gone to mostly rules lite systems. And Palladium games have a reputation for being complex. But tell you the truth I just reread the rules in Rifts, Chaos earth, Nightbane, System failure and Palladium Fantasy. And I actually find the system rather elegant. And not complex in the slightest.

Here is the basics to combat. Any roll (if you have the weapon proficiency) over 4 is a hit.

Defenders can roll to parry, Dodge or roll with punch/blast.

If its a maga-damage (This is very high tech armor) world, damage is removed from available Maga-damage then strutural damage capacity and next hit points.

If damage is against SDC (structural damage capacity) armor, This is anything from a bullet proof vest to plate mail. It has an armor rating (AR). A roll over 4 but under the AR number the damage goes to armor. If its above the AR number the wearer take the damage.

If the damage is against Natural SDC Like a turtle shell or dragon scale. Rolls below AR do not penetrate the armor. Rolls above AR penetrate and do damage to the armor first. Then to the targets hit points.

I really like this. I like that I can have more than one type of armor. Fighting a dragon with a sword is not the same as firing on a hover tank with a laser rifle. And I know how to resolve a hover tank firing on a dragon.

I'm really digging the fantasy magic systems too. Great to see different flavors of magic.

And yes its a class and level based system. But its doesn't feel like one. There is no real bloat from level to level. Sure you get a few more hit points, Get some hand to hand combat bonuses and your skills get better. But a level one juicer is not really weak compared to a level 10 juicer.

Besides my Unisystem Dresden game I'm really looking forward to some palladium gaming.