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So we all love Palladium, and to be honest it's complexity is one of it's main draws, but it's also what makes it quite in accessable to a lot of modern RPGers.



I know they've done it a bit with Savage Rifts, but I don't like the Savage system!



So if you were to simplify the Palladium mechanics, not necessarily by a lot, what would you do? Do you have any hacks that you use for home games for example?



To get started here three of my thoughts:-

Universal +5% on all skills for level increase. It's very annoying that some skills go up at 3 or 4%. Having +5% for EVERYTHING makes life a lot simpler.

Simplify combat. Ok this is a cop out one but there must be a way to keep the good things about the combat sysetm but make it easier for new players.

Introduce 'power bands' for character creation. It gets very hard trying to GM groups if there is a lot of disparity between the power level of characters. Having clear 'bands' of power, maybe only 4 would do, would make running a group a lot easier.

EDIT: Lots of really cool ideas here. I wouldn't want a TOTAL rewrite of the system as that would invalidate 30 years of material, and when I've seen games do this they have died quite quickly as fans lose all their inbuilt knowledge.

BUT the main thing it seems is the combat. If you could have a much simplified version without all the bonuses / combat options, that would go a long way I think.

1. PP bonuses count for guns and unguided missiles just like any other attack.
Unaimed shot don't get PP bonuses, but Aimed does. Apply this to ALL ranged attacks; thrown weapons, archery, etc.
2. Get rid of ROF and just go with melee attacks when determining how many shots you get.
3. Called Shots apply the same in melee and ranged attacks.
4. Simultaneous Attacks apply in melee and ranged (I believe this is already how things work, but some people disagree)
5. Actions/attacks that take more than one "Attack" to perform still take only 1 action's worth of time. So if a character with 4 attacks makes a Power Punch on his first attack, he still gets to go on his next init, and the one after, but he's used that 4th attack he'd normally have on his power punch. If he does 2 power punches, then he's out of attacks on the second round of melee attacks.
6. Roll initiative at the start of combat only, NOT at the start of each melee round. Initiative remains the same until something changes it.
7. Burst/spray rules apply to all weapons as a default, including melee weapons (though this would be called a Flurry). Bursts/Flurries get only 1/2 of PP bonus, use 3 units of ammunition/charges/whatever, and inflict x2 damage. Long Bursts/Flurries only get 1/3 of PP bonus, use 6 units of ammunition/charges/whatever, take up 2 attacks/actions, and inflict x5 damage.
Certain special attacks like Jump Kick, Leap Attack, Flip/throw, body block/tackle, and so forth, cannot be used to flurry.
8. Cut the mage armor rules.
9. PP bonuses apply to all melee attacks/actions as a default, not just strike/parry/dodge. So defensive flips, entangles, etc. all use PP bonus as base.
10. All bonuses to strike from HTH skills, physical skills, etc., also apply to offensive entangles, flips, etc. All bonuses to parry apply to all melee defensive maneuvers, such as defensive flips, entangles, etc.
11. All bonuses to Dodge apply to Auto-Dodge as well.
12. Any character that has auto-dodge and/or auto-parry also has auto-roll-with-impact.
13. Only TWO kind of Physical Strength: Normal Strength and Mega Strength. Mega Strength = (what the normal PS would be after all bonuses from skills, etc.) x 100.
14. Instead of a flat PS bonus for normal punches, there would be a table listing how many and what dice to use for attacks, similar to the current tables for Supernatural and Robotic PS.
This same table would be used for Mega Strength, but the damage would be Mega-Damage.
16. Similar deal with all other attributes: Normal Endurance, and Mega-Endurance, with Mega-Endurance simply meaning that the character a) is effectively tireless, and b) has MDC instead of HP. For other attributes like IQ, MA, ME, etc., bonuses are doubled.
17. Scrap SDC for all living creatures. All SDC bonuses from skills, OCCs, etc., turns into HP or MDC, depending on what kind of endurance the character has.
18. Charm/impress/intimidate/etc. are swapped from percentile die abilities to a kind of mental attack: roll d20, add MA/PB bonuses to charm/impress if applicable (Any character can TRY to charm/impress anybody, not just super beautiful/charismatic people). This roll is opposed by the defender rolling a D20 and adding ME bonus.
MA/PB bonuses are now equal to the same number as if they were PP attributes.
19. Horror Factor is defended against the same way as other mental attacks like Charm/Impress/Intimidate/etc.: roll a d20, add your ME bonus and any applicable horror bonus.
Horror Factor is a flat attack: just use the unmodified number, without rolling dice.
20. Any character can spend 2 attacks to Take A Ten on any attack or defense, meaning that instead of rolling a die, they just use 10 plus applicable bonuses.
21. Skills are assumed to automatically succeed under most conditions. The only time a skill needs to be rolled is when it's being actively opposed by another skill (Prowl vs Detect Ambush), or when the situation is unusually difficult.
A surgeon in an Operating Room with the right tools, a support staff, etc., would never need to make a skill check unless he/she/it/they is/are attempting an unusually difficult procedure.
A surgeon outside of an operating room, without a full complement of tools, full staff, etc., would probably need to make a skill check.
Piloting a vehicle would be automatically successful unless something unusual happened, like a potential collision with another vehicle, unusually difficult terrain/weather, etc.
(All of this is actually how skills are intended to work, as per an old explanation for TMNT, but most people--including a number of writers--don't understand/agree, so I'm adding it. A lot of game time is wasted on not only unnecessary dice rolling, but also on the negative consequences when the dice rolls go bad and what should be a simple action ends up getting overly complicated)
22. All spells get spell strength equal to the level of the mage.

That's all I've got off the top of my head.

For my own house-rules, I've already done this.

Combat was streamlined with Jaymz's 3-phase combat and movement systems. I'm never willingly going back, the flow of combat is so much smoother now. The guy's a freaking genius and deserves money.

I've revamped the skills to make a more unified list, and changed some to have flexible subtypes. (Performance covers a user-specified subtype such as Acting, Improv, Poetry Recital, Musical Instrument, Singing, Miming, reading sheet music, or any other form of performance a player might invent) This makes the physical list smaller, but simultaneously allows unlimited expansion. And let's face it, there are HUNDREDS of musical instrument skills, writing out individual skills would consume an encyclopedia. Same for history and lore skills, I consolidated them into user-definable sub-types.

I usually play modern game settings such as Ninjas and Superspies and Heroes Unlimited. So, I've ditched OCC other and secondary skills, and use a custom list of skill programs so players have more freedom to pick what they want faster, but even that list has flexible options so a veteran can really dial in their ideal hacker, for example. (And using an existing OCC still isn't difficult, but that part DOES need more playtesting)

The result? Character creation took 25 minutes for someone who barely knew how to play D&D, and had never heard of Palladium. And unless you memorized all of Palladium's skills, you'd probably never notice the changes from seeing the character sheet.

I would love to see a simplified explanation of certain things like the Telekinesis powers, there has to be a way of getting it done in fewer paragraphs.

I'd consolodate to one strength type. Augmented would just become maybe a +4 or +5, Superhuman would be +6 or so, Supernatural PS would become a flat +20ish modifier.

there's a ton of changes that could be made, I think its more important to ask 'what feels like Palladium?' if we remove active defense from the game, does it still feel like Palladium to you? How about if we lump dodge and parry into a single defense roll, how about now? What if we lower the attacks per round to one or two total?

I think you gotta start there, get everyone on the same page before you throw a dozen house rules out there.

Massive combat overhaul. This right here, folks.

Keeping the "feel" of Palladium will be up to the story and color text folks. Those of us who've played PB games for the last few decades can tell you the main feeling of PB combat is frustration and hand cramping from notetaking. What does hour three of a 15 second fight with a trio of bandits "feel" like?
Ask me how calling out "OK, end of attack round 7, melee round 1, who still has actions?" feels like.
Question for the GMs, what percentage of fights end with you thinking "OK, this has gone on long enough, I have actual story to get to." and then declaring "rocks fall, the monsters all die"?

Drop APM to ONE for everyone, and put in a bonus action mechanic for super-fast classes, but even juicers would only get one extra APM.

Condense combat into Strike and Defense rolls, and limit bonus stacking. Move Disarm, body flip, and all the odd maneuvers into one category and set a single combat roll for them, in a vein similar to CMB for D&D3/pathfinder.

Combat often takes several real hours, but only covers 15-30 seconds game time. I'd be OK with a MASSIVE simplification in a hypothetical "Palladium 2.0" if it cut down combat time.



As far as skills? PB skills are Crunchy. Hundreds of choices for few slots, but many of those are must-takes. Languages, literacy, basic math, survival and basic tech skills compete with weapon proficiencies and combat skills. The net effect is most characters have the same basic loadout, but a handful of unique skills per character. The player also has a hand cramp from writing all those skills down, and has blown an hour of character creation time.

I'd reduce skills a LOT. Maybe down to "science skill, engineering skill, medical skill" level, and give in-class bonuses to skill specializations.

Such as: Anyone can choose the science skill, but rogue scientists get a +20%(+4) on all science rolls, and can choose a specialization at lvls 1,3,5,8,11,15 that applies an additional +10%(+2) to a specific field (Geology, biology, genetics). Similarly, a spy could get +20%/+4 to "Tradecraft skill", a combined pick locks, pick pockets, intelligence, streetwise skill.

And in my perfect world, skills also drop the percentages and become D20 with modifiers. That makes opposed skill rolls so much easier. Rolling a D100 Prowl followed by a D20 perception roll and then deciding whose unrelated roll was more successful kind of SUCKS, am I right?


Simplification for 2.0, that's what I would like, hypothetically.

Percentages remain one thing I love about Palladium. Percentages have always made sense to me. The phrase "this has about a 50% chance of working" feels natural to say, and I actually hear real people use similar vernacular.

I've never heard anyone say "Oh, getting this machine installed? yeah, that's about a 34" When I started, I wondered why the heck AD&D 2nd Edition had such intuitive thief skills, and used d20 rolls for the non-weapon proficiencies.

1. Active combat. Anything else feels like I'm helpless
2. Armor degradation
3. P.P.E.

everything else is negligible to me, in terms of mechanics. Yes I like SDC, and percentile skills, but those three are my necessities.

I think I can do without
Five hundred frickin skills
A dozen attacks per round, especially with like, boom guns or whatever.
fifteen spells that all accomplish the same thing
sourcebooks that are half 'these are the same weapons you saw in every other book, except this one! look it does slightly more damage!'
more SAMAS and glitterboys
and abilities that are all but useless, 'detect waterfalls within twenty feet' oh good, I'd never know without that! (Yes I realize its an exaggeration, but some water warlock and psionic powers are just so useless)

Okay, the BIGGEST and MOST IMPORTANT thing to simply the system and speed up game play just occurred to me:
Come out (finally) with at Palladium Core Rules Book, with coherent and well-described rules that work with each other.
Each game setting can have a specific list of rules that apply in that setting.

Most of the problem with Palladium's rules are:
-They're scattered not only across various books
-Not all rules are included in all games, but we're left in the dark if this is deliberate or not.
-The rules have been updated randomly, scattered in obscure places.
-The writers often don't seem to know or agree what the rules are.
-The rules are very often vague enough to cause arguments, and some of these argument have lasted 30 years with no official clarification.

Ultimately, when it comes to bringing in new players, I think it might matter less what the rules ARE, and more whether they're CLEAR and EASY TO LOCATE.

Like when the -10 rule came out, it showed up in Rifts Japan, IIRC.
So a core game mechanism was changed in a World Book that took place on the opposite side of the planet from the core setting, and it took a long time for that rule to be added to the core game book where new people could find it.
Every time my game group tried to get new players, we'd have to teach them how to play the complex set of rules based on our memorization of obscure rule locations, AND based on our own personal house interpretations that resulted from a lot of arguing.
Yes, GMs can always just say "I'm the GM, so we're doing it this way" to settle arguments during a game session, BUT this often happened when a player had a key plan or character design or whatever that hinged on one specific interpretation of the rules. When that interpretation was overruled, hours of game play or character-making could be rendered moot.
Which isn't the best way to get new people into the game.

The rules should be clear and easy to find.
AND they should remain the same until a new edition of the game comes out.

Agreed, 100%!!!

yeah I do agree that you shouldn't just throw in new rules in a supplement. If you do at least errata the main books. Heck do what Jolly Blackburn did, print out the updated/fixed rule in its new place, and let players paste the addendum into their rulebook. it was really novel

Genius? Hardly. Honestly when I sorted it out I was kind of surprised to see no on else had done it in quite that way. I knew of people who did "phases" but 5 phases or 15 phases but not 3 phases and not mate movement to the phase as opposed to attacks per melee.

Obviously that is my big change and it still lets those with more "attacks" HAVE more attacks.

Another big one is how skills work....I've kept percentages BUT it's now a high roll to be similar to d20 rolls in combat. In addition skills now have a set "difficulty". This attained by converting the current base skill percentage into a difficulty percentage by subtracting it from 100. IE if the base % is currently 45% it is now a difficulty of 55%. Any and all bonuses are literally bonuses to the percentile roll. So now much like you have +5 to strike but -3 to strike a small target you can have +40% to your skill but -15% for not having the right tools to perform the skill. I have found in some home testing this makes head to head skill tests WAY easier as well. Literally higher margin of success wins.

Now those are my big two changes. I have a number of changes (I'll list a coles notes below) I have made over the years and am incorporating them into what I call my Palladium 2.0 (which I'd gladly discuss elsewhere as to not write an essay here) but those two alone to me would go a long way to getting the Palladium ruleset back on track.

Core, specialization, and focus tiers for skills
Using a modified class system from Ninja's and Superspies (picking skill programs instead of individual skills etc)
Changes to the core attributes and introducing some secondary attributes (7 and 3 respectively for 10 attributes total)
Modified MDC to 10-1
A revamped AR/Armour system
Modified combat rules (range brackets for ranged weapons, using the Ranged Combat Training for example from the Rifter and disassociating actions/attacks from HTH Training altogether and now start based on class category)
Using a modified PPE channeling system along with magic foci from the Rifters


Now granted I also have a significant interested in making Rifts specifically more easily used in a "wargame" environment as well so it can be argued some of my changes are in an effort to more closely tie the two together in some ways (That said DnD has done amazing in easily using maps and tabletop miniatures in their games from damn near day one).

Anyway that's my take on this.

That's kind of what genius IS; seeing something nobody else sees, and being surprised that nobody's done "the obvious."

Honestly in the end I am not sure anything I've done has "simplified" the system rather then made the system more cohesive and integrated as a whole to me.

THAT in and of itself would make running it SEEM more simplified I suppose as cohesiveness and integration can and will make a games rules perform more simply in practice.

I actually was meaning to look into the phase style combat. Can I get a link?

PM sent

Anyways, those are some of my methods for trying to make Palladium simpler to learn and use. Hope some of that helps. Farewell and safe journeys.

Turns Variant – 5thE xcellent Method


With this method a round is now 8 seconds to reflect the shortened action economy.

Number of Actions
Characters have a number of actions per turn as determined below based on the number of ‘melee attack actions’ the character has obtained through normal character creation and leveling methods. 3 Non-Combat actions equate to 1 melee attack for the below conversion purposes.

Characters with exra attacks reserved for specific actions, may add them to the below calculation, but at least one of the revised actions must be spent on that type of action. For example, a character with 1-2 psychic attacks per round, add these attacks as melee attacks, but must use one of the actions as a psychic attack. A character with 3-4 psychic actions must use 2 revised action as psychic actions.

Base Melee Attacks per Round / Revised No. of Actions
1 melee attack / 1 Action
2-3 melee attacks / 1 Action, 1 Defensive Action
4-5 melee attacks / 2 Actions, 1 Defensive Action
6-7 melee attacks / 3 Actions, 1 Defensive Action
8-10 melee attacks / 3 Actions, 2 Defensive Actions
11+ melee attacks / 4 Actions, 2 Defensive Actions

Except for defensive actions or reserved actions, all actions must be spent within the turn. Certain activities such as spell casting, psionic and other multi-turn/round activities may provide an exception.

Action
The character may perform any standard combat attacks and maneuvers, or other actions such as reloading a weapon, using a device or disarming a trap, or otherwise interacting with the environment around them.

Aiming and Called Shots can be used by a character with only one action left per turn. The first turn’s action is used for aiming. Then they may fire on the following turn as long as the aiming has not been interrupted. Walking is allowed.

Defensive Action
Characters may have a reactionary defensive action that can be used for defensive counter moves such as dodging, parrying, roll with punch or other defensive maneuvers. This defensive action is available to use until the beginning of the characters next turn.

Reserve Action
The characters may reserve one action to perform later in the turn. You may reserve a defensive counter move, or another action/attack that is based on a triggering event.

If a defensive action is specified, the character has until the beginning of their next turn to use the action, or it is lost. You do not have to declare which defensive maneuver you will use, just that you are preparing defensively.

If an attack or other activity is specified, the character must clearly specify the condition under which the attack/activity will happen. For example,”I will attack something” is too broad. “I will attack the next enemy to come through the door”, or “I will attack the next enemy to move within attacking distance of an ally”, or “I will light the signal fire if I hear a shout from the commander” are allowable. You have until the beginning of your next turn to use the reserved action, if the trigger does not occur the reserved action is lost.

Extra Actions
Some classes and races may get special 'extra' actions, usually an attack from a bite or tail. The player may take one extra action per turn(or otherwise to the limit of the ability). This action does not use a normal action.

Simple Actions
The characters may perform one or more simple activities at no cost at the GM’s discretion. Such actions include opening a door, shouting a short command, picking up or dropping an item.

Movement
A character may ‘walk’ up to 1/3 of their base SPD rating in a turn without incurring an action spend.

A character may ‘run’ at their full speed (SPD rating) without spending an action, however the character is now considered to be running and will incurr any running modifiers to rolls.

A character may ‘sprint’ extra distance of 1/2 speed by expending one action. This may be done multiple times.

Sprinting and running must be declared at the begining of the turn to ensure movement modifiers are applied.

The movement may be distributed before, after or even between any actions.

Next Melee Attack Actions
The standard rules specify certain attack and defensive maneuvers use “next melee attack”. This buying of actions from the next turn is not supported. Use the defensive action or reserve an action for defensive maneuvers.

Change the book layouts to make learning the rules coherent and intuative, then get a proper table of contents done. new players shouldn't need to play scavanger hunt.

I'd argue the first step would be to produce an SRD whose language is stripped of all the casual authorial asides found in each game's main book.

This.


An SRD would make my life so much easier. D20pfsrd is my best friend playing Pathfinder, I let my players us the books and I keep tabs running.

And if anyone wonders, I've never hesitated buying a book whose rules were on the SRD. I submit that having the rules available online would encourage players to actually play Palladium games, and may well drive book sales.

Interesting how similar our games are if this is how you run yours.

I can't agree with the skills. Yes it would make it easier but some skills are harder to learn over time and the initial starting score doesn't simulate that. Advancing ones knowledge in astrophysics is far more difficult than it is for someone to advance their knowledge in basic mathematics. Likewise it is more difficult to master interstellar travel than it is to master bicycling.
Maybe if every level in order to receive the +5 you have to make a successful unmodified (no I.Q. or level bonus) skill roll to add the +5. This way the harder skills are harder to learn and all characters who have had the skill for x levels with the same bonuses aren't always the same. Hmm... I kinda like that. Kind of mixes in a little Call of Cthulu (1e) style skill growth.

So what your saying is you would like PB to be AD&D before D&D even had skills or Macho Women with Guns with skills like:
Shoot Things (Reducing W.P. Modern)
Blow Things Up
Hit Things With Other Things (Reducing W.P. Ancient)
Do Technical Stuff (Reducing... most other tech skills)
Dodge Responsibility
Drive Things (Reducing most pilot skills)
Fly Things (Reducing the other piloting skills)
Gambling
Grab Stuff

WHAT?!?! Next your going to tell me that Rifts Auto Dodge doesn't work the same as N&S Auto Dodge.

Don't forget "Look Good at All Times" "Swing Nasty Pointy Thing" and "Swing Nasty Pointy Thing With Panache."

In all seriousness, I would like some redundancies reduced. Do we really need a Science skill section seventeen (17) entries long? Why is there a very specific skill for every possible case use?
How about the FOUR Boat skills, plus subs, and water scooters. How about WP: Forked and WP: Trident? How many spacecraft skills will be enough? We're up to six, plus EVA, which requires Zero-G movement physical skill..

I can see a need for a consolidation.

GO is a skill. The game of Go. My mind-melter gets 6 OCC-R skills and 6 SSs. Will I ever, ever have a slot for Go? What if I built a Chinese MM Go-master, now what do I cut? Literacy? Lore-Monster? Prowl?

Thank god all I wanted to do was play Go. If I wanted to be a poker playing mind-melter, a psychic gambler, if you will, I need...

Cardsharp, TWO Gambling skills, and Palming, that's 4 OCC skills from that MMs 6. All of these are required for a functional gambler, along with a smattering of other rogue skills plus literacy. Can I build a gambler mind-melter? sure, maybe, but woe onto my party as I'll have spent almost all my skills on backstory, and now I can't perform as an adventurer. I guarantee, being the only player without "Prowl" at the table will get you some RL groans.

With the skill selection rules on some classes you really will run out of skills before you have a functional toon, but with so many choices and so few skill slots character creation is both tedious and frustrating.

How many times have you slapped out a character only to need to go back and cut skills to pick up must-haves like hand to hand, weapon proficiencies, or even literacy?

....people take prowl?

I do but I also play with a house rule that allows you to attempt the things from "Art of Stealth" in Ninjas & Superspies as part of the skill not just being able to "tip toe around quietly"

As there is no other mechanic for stealth, and any toon without the skill automatically fails stealth checks, yeah.

I guess your party just walks up to the enemy guns blazing and first to zero MDC loses?

In my games, if you can win a straight up fight in an open field, there's a plot point you're probably missing that will bite you later.

Yeah, Prowl was always one of THE skills that everybody would take in my group, along with Climbing and Swimming.

Yeah, way back when I first started playing the fantasy game, my palladin had prowl. I didn't use it while all armored up, but if I ever wanted to go scouting I'd leave the armor behind and get sneaky. It is always nice to have the option.

FREE ROLL WITH PUNCHES with no cost to players number of attacks. Aside from the free roll with punch, they can spend an attack to more actively roll with the punch, just to half the damage or half it again if their free roll was successful as well.

NUMBERS: after factoring bonuses and penalties to the strike number: 1-5 misses, 6-10 hits, but is half damage, 11-18 hits normally, 19 or twenty hits for double damage, natural twenty is x3 damage. Note: just for fun! if the strike number and dodge or roll-with-punch tie, I make the damage go to a piece of the target's equipment.

Prowl's been a pretty consistent pick in most of my games too.


Daniel Stoker

There are only two things off the top of my head that I'd change.(has avoided reading nearly all of the above.)

1 The Regular AR rules 'as is' are just wonky. Make the AR score to be added to the minimum target number is my idea.

2 Make the PP bonus apply to all combat rolls. (Since they already give a bonus to init at high PP scores...just follow the canon rules for the init as they are without change or addition.)
[I've been creating chars this way since before covid. the rational being that S/P/D was meant to be/should of been just a short hand for all the combat rolls. And PB just got a bit lazy in their getting to saying this outright because they would of had to change their C&P sections of the basic combat rules & atribute tables. IMO]

17.5 All other Palladium games are supplements for Rifts.



I'm not sure you understood the premise of this thread.



"All spells get spell strength equal to the level of the caster" is a heck of a lot simpler than "different classes have different spell strengths at different levels, and many casters like Rune Weapons and various monsters are left out in the cold when it comes to spell strength."
1 rule that's easy to remember is much simpler than multiple charts and various voids of information.

I took it to be the spell strength that gets applied on top of the base 12. By that formula, it would take a 22 to save vs a spell from a level 10 caster. That seems unbalanced in the other direction to me, because I can't imagine most mundane characters have enough bonuses to have much of a hope of resisting anything by that time. Even casters don't get enough progression in save bonuses to deal with that sort of incoming power.

So, we both took it a different direction... Maybe something entirely different is intended?

Yeah, I was misremembering Spell Strength as a bonus, not just the base save.
So I should have said: All spells get a spell strength bonus equal to the level of the caster.

For a 1st level caster people would need to roll a 13+ to save against spell magic, and a 17+ to save against ritual using the current base spell strengths in the books.
That might need to be adjusted; this was just a quick thought that would probably need some refinement.

The root issue I was trying to address is that it's VERY easy for various characters to get bonuses to save vs magic, to the point that a 15th level LLW (+4 to spell strength) will not infrequently be up against somebody with a +8 or better to save vs spell magic, netting out a -4 loss.
So to beat a 15th level mage's spell, the target will often need to roll an 8 or better, making a better than 50% chance that the spell is just wasted with no effect.
Given the long casting times of a lot of the spells, that pretty sad.

Most mages in most Palladium games I've played avoid casting most spells with a savings throw in most situations because of this, leaving a huge part of their magical arsenal unused.
At least with spells that require a dodge, you use up one of the target's attacks if you miss; with spells that are simply save or fail the net result is often the same as if you'd spent 2-3 attacks picking your nose.

Now, if I were seriously designing this as a rule that would be added to the game system, I'd need to put a lot more thought and research into exactly various factors.
The base spell strength might need to be adjusted, for example, maybe even replacing the flat base with a dynamic base, rolling a d20+caster level for the base save instead, making magic more closely resemble the rest of the combat system, or something.

I don't know. That sounds like someone that very seriously invested in protecting against that particular thing. Either that or it is common for people to have a 30+ P.E. score in games you play. I don't mind having someone heavily invest in a particular defense and have it be of benefit. IF a PC invested in defenses like that, would they complain that an NPC spell caster only had a 35% chance to get a specific spell to get through their saving throws? One of the things I prefer about the system is that I can treat NPCs and PCs exactly the same, unlike D&D or Pathfinder where there are totally different rules between PC and NPC.

Honestly, this sounds like things that are problems in Rifts and games/editions that were updated to be more compatible with Rifts, but not at all in the Fantasy 1E game which is my main focus. I think trying to turn every setting into Rifts hasn't done the various settings (fantasy in particular) any favors.

I'd probity have the base Spell Str at 10 rather than 12 for the above bonuses, since when the magic users would have a rapid growth of their spell str.

Palladium likes to give out little bonuses, and they add up. This is fine, great even, BUT sometimes they add up too much.
Yeah, it was never uncommon for people to have PE of 30+ in my group. There's no shortage of PE-boosting spells, enhancements, powers, skills, and so forth.



I don't mind it either; I prefer it.
The problem is that as front-loaded as Palladium's system is, levels should still count for something, especially when it comes to magic.
So having it be rather common for a level 1-3 character to have high enough bonuses to neuter many/most of the spells of a 15th level mage, or an ancient dragon, or a demon lord, or a god.

I just recently posted a few suggestions:

https://www.scholarlyadventures.com/post/the-bazaar-19-suggested-changes-to-rifts

tldr: Character Generation updates, OCC and Skills rationalization, Combat Rules refreshed, tweak MDC, refresh World Books.

TLDR all the posts but IMHO the rules dont need simplifying. They need better clarification. And some things are obsolete and others missing. They defo need a rehaul.

Another thing I would do would to eliminate the confusion/stupidity would have them to use the OCC/PCC/RCC labels correctly. Job classes getting the OCC label, Psionic classes getting the PCC label, and racially restricted classes (both way of racial life CC's and all chars of this race has to have this CC) use the RCC label. And I would eliminate the use of the RCC label when talking about the Races (elves, dwarves, Phantoms etc...etc...etc....) and just call them Races. Along with this for RCCs, including a note about weather or not it is a 'lifestyle' RCC or a 'must have' RCC.
In Other Words...Limit the CC labels to what the words of their acronyms mean. This so no-one is confused by a mis match between the late and what the Text of the Class/Race says it is.

Also keep the racial powers/psionics that are 'suppose' to be Unique to that race.... like Mind Bleeder powers.