Topic: The Dungeon and Dragons Thread

@Themagusx1 Like most Palladium books, the mechanics could be complicated and there was a level of power creep. They tried to differentiate it better with the idea of Street Level, Powered and Mega-Powered Heroes; but if you attempted to make The Justice League, for example, you got to find out just how useless and underpowered Batman could be.

Combat was done in melee rounds and you had a number of actions per melee round. Those could be used for Strike, Parry, Dodge, Roll with Fall and if you bought some of the other expansions a multitude of other options. If you were combat trained you got Auto Parry (didn't use an attack) and some skills gave you Auto Dodge (although at a lower percentage). So every round you rolled initiative and then played out turns. When someone ran out of actions all they could do was auto defend (if they had one).

There were some things I found interesting. Skills were based on education level in Heroes Unlimited for the most part and gave you a percentage of success. This could be modified by various things impossing bonus or penalties. If you played a magic user, you had to manage P.P.E. points instead of spell slots and psionic characters used I.S.P. points. This meant that you could burn through your power quickly with a lot of flashy high level spells, or fire off weaker stuff for a long time.

As for their original RPG, a lot of it is very similar to D&D with the addition of SDC for objects (doors, etc.) and skills (percentage based) that were lacking in the first few editions of D&D. They also changed the magic system to be based on P.P.E. points instead of spell slots at some point. I only have a few digital 1st edition sourcebooks as my core rulebook was based on the revised Second Edition. They also changed the combat to be more like what I described above.

@Darknyht Those are interesting mechanics. It sounds it may not be worth doing the Justice League, or do it with out a Batman type. And the differentiation between mega and street level heroes sounds pretty nifty. You can do a campaign based off of preference for those styles.

Using the auto mechanics added a nice level to combat it seems. Did those auto techniques carry through other Palladium Games?

Interesting that they used points for the magic and psionics. There are a lot of interesting ideas in this game.

That’s the beauty of D&D that you can modify the game you wish and it’s cool Palladium was able to build their own line of games from D&D. Table top rpgs rock for that reason alone.

@Themagusx1 it did in various forms. It is just a lot of mechanics to wrap your head around. Like I said, the world building was great but there is a flavor to their books. It was worlds better than the original edition I owned that didn’t differentiate as well. HU also depended on you wanting to be a Superhero and not Anti-Heroes as things went sideways fast with most normal people being very squishy. Century City and another expansion added things like super brawl rules and other interesting ideas.

@Darknyht I think I learned a bit more about Palladium from these threads so thank you for explaining a lot of this stuff. Interesting that the books had a flare to them, and that in HU it encouraged superheroing not anti heroing. Good stuff. I am though curious about the Robotech stuff, mostly cause I love Macross, and that would be the closest to a Macross rpg I can get to. Maybe I will track down the Robotech book since you said you did not play it.

@Themagusx1 No problem. You can still find the books used, and after checking they got the license again for Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles Role-Playing Game which is on ebay for about $40. A new company currently has the license and has an RPG based on it, but I know very little about it other than their name, Strange Machine Games.

Back to DND, it seems like our unlucky summer continues for our group. Different obligations and unexpected events seems to continue to derail our attempts to finish Strahd. Anyone else pick up the DND x Minecraft and Baldur's Gate freebies on DND Beyond?

@Darknyht I will look into the new Robotech rpg, and even the older one and compare rules and what not. Thanks for the information.

I don’t use DND Beyond I am old fashioned lol. Everything is pen and paper, but what are the freebies they are offering?

The links are below, but they had made DND stats for Minecraft monsters and creatures. The Gazetteer is a rundown of the Baldur's Gate city location, and covers the culture and layout of the city.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/claim/source/minecraft-creatures-mo...

https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/bgg/baldurs-gate-gazetteer

@Darknyht Thanks I will check them out.

@Themagusx1 I don't know a lot about 4th edition, but I've heard it was indeed rougher. As for classes, I'd really like to try out some others I haven't yet. A Fighter, Barbarian, or Artificer being towards the top of the list.

On the trap: you're welcome!

@Tyranexx I remember you saying an artificer. I wish I had the book that class is in though. Do you know which book the artificer is in? And are you guys meeting this weekend?

@Themagusx1 Tasha's Cauldron of Everything has the newest version, but there is a version in the Eberron campaign book.

@Darknyht I will probably pick up the Tasha book then down the line. Is there a major difference between the two versions? Thanks by the way.

@Themagusx1 I don't think there's a difference. I think all Tasha's did was take a bunch of stuff like classes and spells.and what not from a bunch of different books and just complied them in one book.

@Tasuki Gotcha that makes sense. I think I will get Tasha’s here in the next month or so.

@Themagusx1 Tasha's was the next revision of general rules and comes with sub-classes for all classes, new spells and sidekick rules. As for the Artificer, it added the Armorer subclass, some spells and adjusted the infusions.

@Darknyht Gotcha so there were some changes then. It sounds like a book I need to get for some of those rules revisions and such.

We finally met up this weekend for roughly a 3 hour session. Another RP session, mostly more reconnaissance of the floating storm giant castle. We went to explore the lower levels covered in ice. We went towards a brighter lit area and found a frozen pile of treasure, some frozen livestock, and kobolds and ogres encased in ice. Those of us who passed perception checks saw a sleeping white dragon in the other direction. We noped out of there, went a different direction, and found one of the exits to the upper courtyard above where the giant room was located that we spent the night in. But then some of our number had the bright idea to slide back down. Well... this didn't work out so well. We slid right past the direction we wanted and right smack into the sleeping dragon.

"What did you bring me?" He said sleepily. Thankfully, some of us had treasure on hand and gave some of it to him. He remarked it was less than usual but let us live since we gave him something. He didn't believe some of the (failed) deception checks that we were contracted with Reznir however. A little more exploration, then we went to the tower where the storm giant who owns the ship lives to see if we could get more information. Answer: not much. We did learn another tower nearby was locked. The ogres didn't know what they were guarding, only that nobody was allowed in. The bard and warlock got into contact with the storm giant's deceased spirit wife who helms the ship. From her, we learned it went down to her tomb And decided to leave it alone.

Satisfied with our reconnaissance for now, ed decided to retire to our assigned room for a long rest. None of the cult knows we're on board. Now to determine how to sabotage Reznir's side of the operation while leaving the neutral parties on the ship alone (including the currently appeased white dragon, who isn't involved with the Cult's operations...though he definitely reveres Tiamat as well).

@Themagusx1 I had thought it was in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, didn't realize Artificers were in other books too. I don't have that book, so I'll have to rely on the Internet in the meantime.

@Themagusx1 I picked up a bunch of the books during a sale on DND Beyond when I started playing. Back then there were fewer books in the Player's Bundle. Tasha's Cauldron of Everything I picked up right before our group started playing D&D because the Artificer sounded fun.

I spent a lot of time reading up on Eberron because I debated getting that for the Warforged Race as they and the setting sounded interesting, but then I saw the revisions to the Artificer was put into Tasha's. So I ended up just buying the Eberron races for $5 and the Tasha's book.

Honestly, if I had a way to privately share a campaign invite with the two of you I would just create a campaign so you two could access the book on DND Beyond, make a test character, and look over it. That would let you guys make an informed decision whether you want to pick it up or not.

@Tyranexx Your session sounds like it was fun, so you guys are still just doing the reconnaissance work for the time being? I wonder what else you will find in the floating castle. You are in the castle right?

And yep it looks like it’s in Tasha’s

@Darknyht That would be cool if you could show us the beyond stuff you got. I think I may still get book. What other things you like from Tasha’s?

@Themagusx1 Besides Artificers, it brought more fighting styles and gave some example Battle Master Builds to create a fighter in a specialized role. Basically helping you understand ways to have Fighting Style, Battle Maneuvers and Feats work together to create an archetype fighter. I think it was intended to help people see what Wizards originally intended for the Battle Master Class.

I also love the Sidekick concept and have used it in the campaign I ran because we only had two players. The version I used was from the Expansion Set and Tasha's fleshes out the concept to make it applicable to any NPC that group may adopt.

They also helped the Ranger with optional class features and reworking the Beastmaster subclass. The changes make keep the Ranger from being completely useless as a class. Some of the changes are the option to focus on Druidic magic as a Fighting Style, additional spells to pick, updating the Favorite Enemy to become Favorite Foe which lets you basically put a Hunter's Mark on a target without a spell slot as many times as proficiency/long rest.

The Circle of Wildfire Druid, Soulknife Rouge, Twilight Domain Cleric, and the Order of Scribes Wizard all have concepts I find interesting. So overall I think it is a book worth owning.

As for the idea I shared, the biggest barrier is how to send you the invite link without everyone that sees the post joining the campaign. I dropped X-Twitter when Musk started going stupid with it, and I don't use any other social media other than Discord.