questions about palladium fantasy
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questions about palladium fantasy
Hello all, I have been playing rifts for a bit now but never played or previously been interested in palladium fantasy. Also I have no other background in rpgs other than video games. I have been thinking about buying the main book and trying out palladium fantasy.
My question is really more of just wondering what it is all about? I mean rifts is our world that stuff happened to way in the future. Rifts has a very sci-fi almost cyberpunk kind of feel to it. Does palladium fantasy have a main this is the world and what happened or any kind of close association with popular media? Does it have kind of like king Arthur or Merlin with fantasy creatures put in or more like lord of the rings movies?
Also I read something about wearing armor restricting magic use? How does that work?
I guess I'm really just asking about palladium fantasy in general and the differences between the two games.
My question is really more of just wondering what it is all about? I mean rifts is our world that stuff happened to way in the future. Rifts has a very sci-fi almost cyberpunk kind of feel to it. Does palladium fantasy have a main this is the world and what happened or any kind of close association with popular media? Does it have kind of like king Arthur or Merlin with fantasy creatures put in or more like lord of the rings movies?
Also I read something about wearing armor restricting magic use? How does that work?
I guess I'm really just asking about palladium fantasy in general and the differences between the two games.
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Re: questions about palladium fantasy
The PF world has it's own history much like Middle Earth has its own history.
Mages that wear more then just light armor they get a penalty to casting and to the amount of PPE they need to cast the spell. Basically no metal armor.
Mages that wear more then just light armor they get a penalty to casting and to the amount of PPE they need to cast the spell. Basically no metal armor.
May you be blessed with the ability to change course when you are off the mark.
Each question should be give the canon answer 1st, then you can proclaim your house rules.
Reading and writing (literacy) is how people on BBS interact.
Each question should be give the canon answer 1st, then you can proclaim your house rules.
Reading and writing (literacy) is how people on BBS interact.
Re: questions about palladium fantasy
Thom001 wrote:Hello all, I have been playing rifts for a bit now but never played or previously been interested in palladium fantasy. Also I have no other background in rpgs other than video games. I have been thinking about buying the main book and trying out palladium fantasy.
My question is really more of just wondering what it is all about?
Greetings and Salutations. Okay, I'll try to help you out the best I can. First, I'll address your questions, then might add some additional comments.
Thom001 wrote:I mean rifts is our world that stuff happened to way in the future. Rifts has a very sci-fi almost cyberpunk kind of feel to it. Does palladium fantasy have a main this is the world and what happened or any kind of close association with popular media? Does it have kind of like king Arthur or Merlin with fantasy creatures put in or more like lord of the rings movies?
Closer to Lord of the Rings movies. This is not Earth, but a different world. The main book includes at least 10 pages of history (including a timeline) and regional overviews (including map). This helps gives you a better feel of the world.
There are also 27 O.C.C. and 14 playable races (from a quick count of both) included in the main book, plus Demons and Deevils stats. There are also lists and stats for various equipment (weapons and armor among them), food, magic items, drugs, etc. With only the main book, I think you can run games for a long time to come. The additional world/sourcebooks only help to add to the world and flesh it out, providing additional options and such. However, I do not believe they are required (just useful) as the main book really covers all your basics.
Thom001 wrote:Also I read something about wearing armor restricting magic use? How does that work?
Metal hampers their magic. They can wear it, but they have magic casting penalties (kind of like how wearing EBA in Rifts can cause problems with magic, just different specifics).
Thom001 wrote:I guess I'm really just asking about palladium fantasy in general and the differences between the two games.
Being familiar with Rifts, you should already have a good handle on the rules, character creation, combat, O.C.C. selection, magic and psionics, etc. However, being a fantasy setting, take out the guns (for the most part) and M.D.C. Power level also tends to be lower than Rifts (less skills, for example). There are other differences as well, but that's the main difference you'll see if you're already familiar with Rifts.
Another difference (and this can be important, but doesn't really hurt the setting itself) is that PF doesn't see much support. A new book is coming out, and there are a few writers on these forums (including myself) working on more source material, but new material for PF has been pretty much non-existent for a while now (basically since the departure of Bill Coffin from the company). So if you're the type who needs lots of new books to support your ability to play, this will become a problem. PF basically has 18 books (more or less, depending on 1st/2nd Edition preferences and your level of completionism), with the last one coming out in 2009 and the one before that 2002. We may be getting a new one in 2014 (fingers crossed, though it may slide into 2015?), and unsure when any future ones will come out (if ever). This lack of support has caused some to leave and head to other companies with more support (and/or rules systems they like better). This is not meant to discourage you, merely inform you so you're aware.
I personally think it's a great setting and love it. I hope this helps some. If you have any additional questions, or would like to know something more specific, I'll be happy to help to the best of my abilities (as I'm sure many of the other wonderful fans on these forums will do as well). Farewell and safe journeys for now.
P.S. Just for a basic review of additional books in the PF line and their level of priority/use, I'll include my standard review in a Spoiler tag. Enjoy.
Spoiler:
Living the Fantasy (fan website)
Rifter #45; Of Bows & Arrows (Archery; expanding rules and abilities)
Rifter #52; From Ruins to Runes (Living Rune Weapons; playable characters and NPC)
Rifter #55; Home Away From Home (Quorian Culture; expanded from PF Book 9: Baalgor Wastelands)
Official PDF versions of Rifter #45, #52, and #55 can be found at DriveThruRPG.
Rifter #45; Of Bows & Arrows (Archery; expanding rules and abilities)
Rifter #52; From Ruins to Runes (Living Rune Weapons; playable characters and NPC)
Rifter #55; Home Away From Home (Quorian Culture; expanded from PF Book 9: Baalgor Wastelands)
Official PDF versions of Rifter #45, #52, and #55 can be found at DriveThruRPG.
Re: questions about palladium fantasy
Thanks. The responses helped a lot. I guess my next question then is that Prysus mentioned a few times having to convert because this item or that item is first edition, what would I be converting?
Also the adventures on the high seas book sounds fun and useful, even in my rifts games. I definitely love water/coastal games. Lemuria is on my list as next to get for rifts. Do you recommend any other water or underwater reference material for either setting?
Also I noticed you said that there is A.I. in palladium fantasy? and guns? How does that play in there?
Also the adventures on the high seas book sounds fun and useful, even in my rifts games. I definitely love water/coastal games. Lemuria is on my list as next to get for rifts. Do you recommend any other water or underwater reference material for either setting?
Also I noticed you said that there is A.I. in palladium fantasy? and guns? How does that play in there?
Re: questions about palladium fantasy
Thom001 wrote:Thanks. The responses helped a lot. I guess my next question then is that Prysus mentioned a few times having to convert because this item or that item is first edition, what would I be converting?
Greetings and Salutations. Well, I've never played 1st Edition, but the main differences are ...
1st Edition had no S.D.C. (and I think had slightly higher H.P.?)
1st Edition had no P.P.E./I.S.P. (for magic/psionics)
1st Edition didn't have the O.C.C. system you're familiar with (still had O.C.C., but more or less a different system and you'd need to make adjustments to make them compatable with a 2nd Edition stuff).
Thom001 wrote:Also the adventures on the high seas book sounds fun and useful, even in my rifts games. I definitely love water/coastal games. Lemuria is on my list as next to get for rifts. Do you recommend any other water or underwater reference material for either setting?
Nothing comes to mind, but I don't know Rifts very well. Um ... CS Navy or something like that (Sourcebook 4 I think it was), maybe? I don't know. Underseas and Lemuria for Rifts, AotHS for PF ... can't think of much more than that.
Thom001 wrote:Also I noticed you said that there is A.I. in palladium fantasy?
A.I. as in Alien Intelligences (not Artificial Intelligences), for note. However, they play out much the same as they would in Rifts, just everything else tends to be a bit weaker. If you've played enough Rifts you may have read something about Splugorth (and I think maybe A.I. and V.I. in general) being like lesser/weaker cousins of the Old Ones. Well, Old Ones are part of the PF mythology. So really, stuff from PF made it into Rifts, just that people don't tend to realize it started in PF. Mind you, I wouldn't recommend player characters going up against an A.I., but the stats are there all the same.
Thom001 wrote:and guns? How does that play in there?
Guns are in PF, but in a very minor capacity. The same way rifts open up to Rifts Earth and bring people from various dimensions, rifts can open up on the Palladium World as well, bringing all sorts of things (including guns). The general rule though is that M.D.C. stuff doesn't exist in PF, so if you bring M.D.C. armor and a M.D. gun with you, they become S.D.C. with a 1 to 1 conversion (kind of gimps the M.D. stuff, but there you have it). Even having the gun though, you probably won't be able to reload (unless you happen to have spare clips). So once you're out of ammo, you have a big paperweight on your hands.
Hope some of that helps. Thank you for your time and patience, please have a nice day. Farewell and safe journeys once again.
Living the Fantasy (fan website)
Rifter #45; Of Bows & Arrows (Archery; expanding rules and abilities)
Rifter #52; From Ruins to Runes (Living Rune Weapons; playable characters and NPC)
Rifter #55; Home Away From Home (Quorian Culture; expanded from PF Book 9: Baalgor Wastelands)
Official PDF versions of Rifter #45, #52, and #55 can be found at DriveThruRPG.
Rifter #45; Of Bows & Arrows (Archery; expanding rules and abilities)
Rifter #52; From Ruins to Runes (Living Rune Weapons; playable characters and NPC)
Rifter #55; Home Away From Home (Quorian Culture; expanded from PF Book 9: Baalgor Wastelands)
Official PDF versions of Rifter #45, #52, and #55 can be found at DriveThruRPG.
Re: questions about palladium fantasy
Prysus wrote: Greetings and Salutations. Well, I've never played 1st Edition, but the main differences are ...
1st Edition had no S.D.C. (and I think had slightly higher H.P.?)
1st Edition had no P.P.E./I.S.P. (for magic/psionics)
1st Edition didn't have the O.C.C. system you're familiar with (still had O.C.C., but more or less a different system and you'd need to make adjustments to make them compatable with a 2nd Edition stuff).
1st ed has sdc for armour and items, but not people
HP are the same as second ed
Spells are casts per day but Psionics has ISP
OCC's still had occ, primary and secondary skills, but the secondary skill list was a different list of skills to the primary (elective skills). OCC skills could come from either elective and secondary but are set by the OCC you choose.
1st ed has a different type of hand to hand for each of the major classes (i.e. hth Merc, hth soldier, knight, paladin, thief, ranger, gladiator, non men at arms etc) rather than just basic, expert, martial arts and assassin.
the different hth styles is one of the things that attracted me to palladium in the first place.
Re: questions about palladium fantasy
Okay. Well I think I'll stick to 2nd edition then.
Also my group has gotten the idea to go hopping dimensions after a ley line rifter and one of the stops will be pf. We were just going to do a 5 to 1 ratio for md gear but after reading the comments here and someone on another thread said md stuff brought to an sdc world might not work we are currently revisiting that topic.
Also my group has gotten the idea to go hopping dimensions after a ley line rifter and one of the stops will be pf. We were just going to do a 5 to 1 ratio for md gear but after reading the comments here and someone on another thread said md stuff brought to an sdc world might not work we are currently revisiting that topic.
Re: questions about palladium fantasy
The way I play tech in palladium is
Normal weapons do no damage to MDC items
Magic/magic items/psionics/magic creatures etc does MDC damage to the mdc armour/items even though it does sdc damage normally.
Really high tech devices have a %10 chance cumulative of failure (plasma rifles, anti grav belts, vibroblades etc) per use/activation.
standard weapons (ak47's p90's etc) that use ammo are fine, but if the wielder gets hit by magic fire the ammo has a %50 of autoigniting (going off), this includes grenades and missiles.
I had an adventure that skipped through many worlds, from w40k (the druid tamed a genestealer, and called it fluffy), to rifts to aliens, to forgotten realms, deverry, middle earth, nightbane, bts (1920's earth, the animated t-rex skeleton was awesome), earthsea, osten ard and otherland, chaos wars, krynn, midkemia, spelljammer, Camelot, Shannara, RandLand (wheel of time) and lots of others.
Normal weapons do no damage to MDC items
Magic/magic items/psionics/magic creatures etc does MDC damage to the mdc armour/items even though it does sdc damage normally.
Really high tech devices have a %10 chance cumulative of failure (plasma rifles, anti grav belts, vibroblades etc) per use/activation.
standard weapons (ak47's p90's etc) that use ammo are fine, but if the wielder gets hit by magic fire the ammo has a %50 of autoigniting (going off), this includes grenades and missiles.
I had an adventure that skipped through many worlds, from w40k (the druid tamed a genestealer, and called it fluffy), to rifts to aliens, to forgotten realms, deverry, middle earth, nightbane, bts (1920's earth, the animated t-rex skeleton was awesome), earthsea, osten ard and otherland, chaos wars, krynn, midkemia, spelljammer, Camelot, Shannara, RandLand (wheel of time) and lots of others.
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Re: questions about palladium fantasy
Thom001 wrote:Okay. Well I think I'll stick to 2nd edition then.
Also my group has gotten the idea to go hopping dimensions after a ley line rifter and one of the stops will be pf. We were just going to do a 5 to 1 ratio for md gear but after reading the comments here and someone on another thread said md stuff brought to an sdc world might not work we are currently revisiting that topic.
You can also just say that the universe/atmosphere/magic energy makes all of the MDC weapons SDC- or just magically change them- that rifle becomes a long bow....
Re: questions about palladium fantasy
kiralon wrote:The way I play tech in palladium is
Normal weapons do no damage to MDC items
Magic/magic items/psionics/magic creatures etc does MDC damage to the mdc armour/items even though it does sdc damage normally.
Really high tech devices have a %10 chance cumulative of failure (plasma rifles, anti grav belts, vibroblades etc) per use/activation.
standard weapons (ak47's p90's etc) that use ammo are fine, but if the wielder gets hit by magic fire the ammo has a %50 of autoigniting (going off), this includes grenades and missiles.
I had an adventure that skipped through many worlds, from w40k (the druid tamed a genestealer, and called it fluffy), to rifts to aliens, to forgotten realms, deverry, middle earth, nightbane, bts (1920's earth, the animated t-rex skeleton was awesome), earthsea, osten ard and otherland, chaos wars, krynn, midkemia, spelljammer, Camelot, Shannara, RandLand (wheel of time) and lots of others.
The ammo setting on fire is definitely something we never thought of. The idea that seems to be winning out is having the sdc weapons and armor work but of course the characters are going to have to figure out there is no reloading them. If we end up with any kind of tradesman/smuggler type character he is going to try to stock up on the alchemical objects, mystical potions, etc to bring to the next world.
zyanitevp wrote:Thom001 wrote:Okay. Well I think I'll stick to 2nd edition then.
Also my group has gotten the idea to go hopping dimensions after a ley line rifter and one of the stops will be pf. We were just going to do a 5 to 1 ratio for md gear but after reading the comments here and someone on another thread said md stuff brought to an sdc world might not work we are currently revisiting that topic.
You can also just say that the universe/atmosphere/magic energy makes all of the MDC weapons SDC- or just magically change them- that rifle becomes a long bow....
And as for the MD weapons and armor we are tossing around the idea you suggested of transforming it or doing some kind of techno wizard type thing where only the characters can operate their md weapons, just with no md damage. Also if there is an md creature the idea has been thrown out that they will be transformed into some other creature from pf that is in the conversion book.
Hopefully when or if we get back to rifts we will have a much more seasoned team with some real unique gear and/or knowledge.