Percentage Skills Fantasy

Rolemaster FRP and Palladium FRPG are my two 1990's percentage skill fantasy systems. The difference between these two? Palladium is a lot more rules-light and has a lot fewer charts and cascading tables of modifiers. Rolemaster (and its sister game HARP) brings a ton of detailed crit charts, and navigating the charts is a part of the game.

AD&D 2e hopped on board the skills in fantasy games bandwagon during the 1990s as well with non-weapon proficiencies, though those were d20 based on attributes and were not an improbable skill system like a traditional percentage fantasy system. This system was in early AD&D books (Dungeoneers Survival and Wilderness Guides) and was added as an option to the core 2e game. The AD&D 2e skills felt like add-ons to us that never changed in skill level, so we never really used them. They did not feel like a "real" skill system like we were used to, since they were just a way to say, "oh you can make an ability roll for swimming because you picked that as a skill."

Before proficiencies? We just used ability score rolls in B/X, if they made sense. Does a wizard know runes? Likely, INT roll, please. Does a fighter? No. These non-weapon proficiencies felt like they limited our home-grown system so we never used them.

We likely need some honorable mentions to the percentage skills category such as HARP, Basic Roleplaying, Barebones Fantasy, Warhammer FRP, Zweihander, and a few others. Some of these are more modern entries in the genre (Barebones Fantasy is one I want to get to), so the percentage skill fantasy game is alive and well.

Our game in this category was Palladium FRPG, and we played Spacemaster so the fantasy game we collected.

Rolemaster FRP

If you are an archer and are wearing heavy armor on your arms you get a penalty to hit anywhere from -5% to -40%, did you know that (p215, RMFRP rulebook)? These sorts of rules weigh this system down heavily in my feeling, that with every action you need to stop, check a section of the book for special rules, and modify your action and chance of success. You do it enough and you become an expert.

In a way, this game reminds me of Pathfinder 2. The wargame-style of modifiers in this game feels like the action modifiers in PF 2. Pathfinder 2 is way easier to learn and play, since that game is mostly an "if X then Y" sort of rules reference, whereas RM FRP is more of an "if X then math" sort of check a table and modify the chance. If you don't know about the table or can't find it, you are out of luck and not playing the game right.

Same in Pathfinder 2, but in that game, if you are not applying the tags of actions and spells correctly you are not playing the game right. A tag is a lot easier to use than a chart you never knew existed, and you learn them pretty quick. I do like PF2 a lot better than RM FRP also, so a slight bias here.

We liked Spacemaster better than the fantasy version of the same rules set, and that game seemed to have fewer charts to reference for personal action and combat. Once you got into space the charts exploded like a supernova, but the ground game for Spacemaster seemed to play easier for us since you weren't simulating things like archers and armor covering arms and a lot of "makes sense in the real world - let's make a chart!" sort of minutiae. A blaster was a blaster and battle armor was battle armor, no charts were needed except for crits, so let's just play.

Palladium FRPG

We played Rifts and TNMT, so we knew Palladium FRPG. The game and experience were in our Rifts multiverse, so it came up from time to time. Of course, AD&D had the lion's share of attention with Grayhawk, the Forgotten Realms, and Mystara, so we never got to play in the PFRPG world, something I regret since it always looked so cool.

So these days I have banned myself from buying and collecting Rifts books and I am focusing on the other games of the Palladium universe, which means PFRPG is the fantasy world I am looking at. I am sort of purposefully keeping Rifts out of my universe since it is the 300-ton set of powered armor MDC psionic magic-using elephant in the room with particle cannon firing tusks that can shoot into low orbit.

Rifts, I love you, but you have a problem.

For now, my Palladium universe is one only a heretic would imagine and excludes Rifts.

For now.

That elephant is so cool. I may want to play him.

Palladium FRPG is an old-school percentage fantasy system done right. It keeps the basic combat resolution system and damage system simple. The skills are your class powers. Improving your skills is how you level up. The combat system feels right since it is on a roll-high d20. Skills feel different since they are on roll-under d100, and I like them that way since it makes action resolution feel different and special. I don't get hung up the task resolution system is not unified in dice or directionality.

Combat should feel different than skills used for task resolution. You put everything on a d20 and it feels like you are piling the french fries inside the hamburger bun and eating it all at once. I find myself with a unified d20 task and combat resolution system I start to min-max, especially in attribute bonuses.

Of course, I need an 18 STR! Why not? Everyone else is doing it for the modifier!

I like the separation in the systems between combat and tasks. They thematically feel different. You stop and think a moment before rolling those percentage dice. Can I bump this chance up by doing it differently? Do I even need to roll since the task is simple, like the survival skill and building a basic shelter and fire with enough time and resources present?

With a d20 I am typically rolling that again before the GM even asks for it. Survival, rolled a 17 with a +12, a total of 29, do I build the shelter and fire? It is so easy to roll! I am trained to roll it for anything I want to do! Is my margin of success high enough I build an actual log cabin? Because that would be cool too, even though I wasn't building one!

I exaggerate a little here, but you get the point. With task resolution on another die roll system, there is a speed-bump here I appreciate having since it breaks up my thinking and makes life-and-death combat feel different than longer-term action resolution.

When you pick up that d20 you better worry, this is life or death combat, and I like that feeling.

With skills, it could be life-and-death, but the d100 means something different. This is an action that takes time to complete. Something bigger with a bigger die roll. Maybe you don't even need to roll them due to a trivial task or no consequences of failure. I like how this feels, and it supports the "deadly d20" feeling by staying out of the way of that die's purpose.

This shouldn't make sense from a modern "unified game mechanics" point of design view, but honestly, I like how this works and feels so much thematically.

You pick up that d20, and it is getting serious.

PFRPG Skills as Class Abilities

In Palladium FRPG, classes have special non-skill abilities, such as the warlock's 'summon elementals' ability. I like to think of skills as a form of class ability, there is cross-over between classes, and those skills are a part of the class' core set of competencies. For example, if you choose the prowl skill (as a part of an OCC skill or a related OCC), that is 25% plus 5% per level. Imagine that skill as a column on a chart somewhere and raise that by 5% per level, just like a rogue skill in AD&D.

For every skill you choose, that is like adding a column.

Wait, aren't I just describing how skills work normally? Well, in PFRPG, some of these skills start at a significant bonus depending on the class (a ranger's wilderness survival skill of +20%), so those imaginary columns differ. They do not feel like straight skills, such as a +2 skill in Traveller, since some skills have no percentage and just modify ability scores. Some provide damage modifiers. Others are weapon proficiencies and provide bonuses to attack and parry. Some, like the forced march skill, increase the distance traveled and allow special formation maneuvers in battles such as shield walls.

Not all PFRPG skills are skills. It is way better in a game design and as a player to think of them as class abilities, some of which cross across different classes. This also makes character creation much easier when you adopt this frame of mind, and it carries over into play and refereeing and makes those much easier as well.

This is also part of the genius of the game's design, and one that really makes PFRPG different from every other game. The game doesn't express it as well as it should, but really, this design element is really innovative and cool.

And you see again another "this works differently" sort of design decision like the d20 and d100 uses, and this is not a "design mistake" as modern game design may paint this as. You can make a game so efficient and streamlined that it loses those designer choices that make it work the way the designer intended the game to work, and everything becomes the same, and the game loses something important.

The french fries are back on the hamburger again and it becomes bulk food instead of the burger and fries you expect it to be.