So I sat down this weekend to run through a few sample combats using the NPCs from the Palladium Fantasy Game Masters' Kit, and of course, I was sitting there with my "expert bias" and saying, "I know how this is going to go. I have been playing these games long enough to know how this plays, and I won't be surprised."
Well, I was surprised.
So on one side was the pre-gen character Haloric, a 3rd level thief with two daggers and soft leather armor. On the other side, we have Tramon Dess, a 3rd level assassin with many weapons (military fork, sword, daggers) and studded leader armor. The assassin has the advantage here in a few ways; first off, HTH combat assassin versus the thief's basic. The assassin has far better weapons and armor, along with a +4 bonus to strike with most weapons.
This is going to be so one-sided.
I doubt that thief is going to get one hit in.
Now, I house-ruled in a fumble on a roll of a 1, and the assassin kept dropping his weapons. He had to spend an action to pick them up (or change to a new one), so the thief had a little breathing room. But wow, the tension and drama of this fight kept me engaged all the way to the end. The thief actually knocked 30 hit points of SDC and hp from the assassin (with a 1d6 dagger), and the fight was close. Even at times when I thought, "at this point, it is over," the thief's staying power and damage - with a basic HTH skill - surprised me.
At the end of the battle, the thief was reduced to 1 hp, and I had him surrender, so he did lose, but it did not go the way I expected it to. And the parries, dodges, and back and forth with the action economy surprised me.
My Assumptions Were Wrong
I did not remember much about the flow of combat, and the game humbled me, which is good stuff and makes me a fan again. I forgot how cool this system was and why we played it back in the day. It does call back to older systems where combat was more back-and-forth and detailed, and the system was a reaction to D&D combat feeling too basic for many.
A lot of us back in the day "wanted more" from a combat system, and that is why we played this. I forgot totally and fell back on what I read online about how others felt, so I should feel that way.
Well, yeah, I liked it back in the day, but it is a bit clunky, as many have pointed out...
Not exactly. This is one of the more elegant and easy combat systems that still retains defensive reactions to attacks. The fact we have a defensive step adds to the complexity over a B/X, but how the system handles all this is about the fastest and most straightforward system I have seen in a fantasy game.
I think because I got drawn in by Rifts I missed a lot of the SDC melee fun that makes a fantasy game like this so great. You can get so distracted by giant particle cannons and missile launchers that when you remove that and go back to basics, you rediscover why the original system was such a genius creation and got the attention it did.
Now I am going from "liking the system despite flaws" to "super-fan."
Versus B/X and D&D
It is hard to go back to the D&D style of melee after this. What I like is the combat is not so one-sided after that to-hit roll is made. I hit, I do damage, done, move on! Not really. Yes, I know in D&D, the to-hit versus AC roll simulated parries, dodges, and a lot of "action" hidden in that dice roll, but at times it can feel like a videogame where "I roll, I do damage, next!"
And it feels flat and boring.
Just get this fight done!
Whiff, whiff, hit, 1 hp damage, whiff, whiff, hit 3 hp damage, whiff...come on!
At least if I play a caster, I can do different things.
In Palladium FRPG? Your defenses matter. You can build a defensive build. You can focus on offense. You can do unarmed. You can do a mix. You can do shields. You can mix a little ranged in there. You can do speed versus slow. You manage a pile of attacks and use them for special attacks and defenses. Your armor deteriorates, and you can "take a hit" or roll with a punch to reduce damage (at the cost of an action).
The "fighter game" in Palladium FRPG is incredible and worth the price of admission.
And another thing I love is the game isn't so selfishly one-sided on the attacker's side, like how I feel D&D can be at times. I hit I do damage; you have no chance to mitigate or stop! Come on! Stop slowing the game down! What rule gives you the right to defend or say no? I am guaranteed my damage roll!
Well, no, a defender's skill matters. Combat isn't just an "attack bonus." You get a skilled swordfighter on the other side, and they are parrying blow after blow with ease, and you are sitting there frustrated why your five hits didn't do 5d8 damage to the other side by now. They didn't land. The other side's skill contributes to defense. There isn't a good way to factor in defensive skill in D&D to AC since if you raised AC, the combat would get more whiff and less satisfying.
Thief Fight!
Let's have a battle between a first-level thief (3hp, +0 attack, AC 7[12]) and a sixth (15hp, +2 attack, AC 7[12]) in B/X, given normal weapons and armor (each with a dagger, d4 damage). The higher level thief has a better chance to hit, so overall higher DPS by 10%. The only real deciding factor in this battle will be wearing down hit points, and that hit bonus. There is no skill difference factor in AC (DEX may modify AC, but that would be the same for both given similar abilities and is not skill).
In Palladium, the higher-level thief will have defensive skills that will likely prevent a lot of damage from happening, or deal with the lower-level thief in different ways, like entangling, disarming, or other less-stabby methods. But as I noted in my sample combat, being less skilled does not make this one-sided, and smart play really matters.
Smart play matters. The choices you make in a combat round matter.
That is what I want in a game.
Longer Combats, More Interesting
Downsides? The combats are longer but way more interesting. You have to be careful designing adventures like your typical D&D dungeon crawl, where you can stick 12 orcs in a room and expect the party to clean them up in a turn or two. D&D always had this feeling of playing like a videogame where you could cleave through crowds of enemies quickly, and while that is satisfying on one level, it leaves me feeling I want more if I feel enemies should be treated with a little respect.
One-on-one battles are interesting here. I could see a fight with two orcs holding a bridge behind a tipped-over cart and two giving fire support from the opposite riverbank with bows as a cool climactic battle for a party. Throw a caster in there for some extra spice. The battle will take a little longer, but this will be a detailed and complex challenge for a party to pick apart and defeat.
Solo Play
Better yet? This game feels great to solo in. Since the characters are more detailed, you could just play one and have this great, detailed, and gritty adventure as the story of one hero against the odds. Leveling up means something, and you get varied and different bonuses as you gain power. I tried soloing in B/X and it felt flat, the whiff game came up and I just wasn't interested. I couldn't do enough, there weren't great character build options, and I needed a little more expressiveness and detail in combat.
Here, there is a second level to resource tracking as armor SDC needs to be tracked and repaired. You need to rest up and recover SDC, but losing hp is serious and takes downtime to heal. The build options create choices in combat, and I get this epic Street Fighter feeling when a battle begins. I can build an offensive, damage-forward berserker. I can build a shield fighter. I can build a nimble, parry rogue. I can build a gladiator with varied weapons. I can build an unarmed specialist.
Rules Light with Moderate Builds
I feel a tendency to put rules-light games on such a high pedestal that we lose sight of why we like a little more detail and crunch to our games. The options here are fantastic, and solo play feels really attractive just because of the options and unpredictability of combat. And for solo play, I want characters I can customize, build, and have a moderate level of complexity to the character build system.
The combat rules here are still rules-light, but the characters are of moderate design complexity. Compared to a B/X game where it is light in rules and light with builds, the extra complexity in characters combined with a combat system that leverages build choices creates a fascinating level of depth that I can't pull myself away from.
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