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I've been looking over the 1e fantasy books I got in the bundle of hope a little ways back and I've been thinking of running a game for my group, but before I do that I've got some question to ask.

1. What are the main books outside the corerules would you recomenned I look at. And I'm talking about 1e, 2e or even not fantasy palladium books I'm willing to check them all. More magical items are what I'm looking for the most (especially rune weapons). Just to mostly get inspiration.

2. I have some questions about how combat works. The big thing is whether or not people who are not directly fighting in melee but are also part of the combat say an archer do they roll initative? Also when moving in combat does a character use only their speed or is it their speed x 20.

3. Is there any notable homebrew rules that you would suggest? You know just keep to maybe make the process a little more streamlined.

Now it could be entirly possible that some of my questions are in the book and I've just skipped past them. I have done that before especially smaller text.
Any ways thanks for anyhelp.

Well, this is a lot to answer. Obviously, since this is the forum for the Palladium Books company, I'm going to recommend any and all of the Fantasy books published by Palladium Books. They are quite good. My two favorites are the Eastern Territories and Western Empire books. The most complete mapping of a kindgom is the Timiro Kingdom in the Old Ones book.

2. Yes, everyone rolls initiative. Some people do round robin, with each person doing attack 1, followed by each person doing their second attack, etc. Others might try to silo off individual hand to hand combatants for speed.

3. The home rules are legion. Everyone has their own.

-Vek
"1st edition with 2nd edition psionics and magic requires the least home brewing."

I play 1st ed with 2nd ed things added in (plus others stuff from other games)
if you pm me your email address ill send the core stuff through to you.

For powerful items, I would recommend you look at Book 12: Library of Bletherad, Book 6: Island at the Edge of the World, and Book 3: The High Seas. Book 6 has crystal magic, which is mostly psionics focused, but you could adapt some elements of that to "regular" rune items without too much difficulty. Book 3 has some rune items (not just weapons) in the adventures, and Book 12 has a decent sized list. Book 3 also has more regular magic items, poisons, faerie foods, etc. What I would recommend is to look over their rules in the main book on rune weapons, and then realize that they throw those rules out the window for just about every one of the rune items in the books. Basically, just about anything goes...

Everyone rolls initiative. In 1E, ranged weapon proficiencies provide a rate of fire, which basically is your attacks per melee for that weapon. I find that nice, due to being able to make characters/npcs that are totally untrained in hand to hand, but quite competent with a ranged weapon, since hand to hand is optional for most non-man of arms OCCs.

To be honest, I do have quite a few houserules, but most of them are small and affect specific abilities (like toning down the damage of the Agony and Burning Pain wards to that it isn't an automatic death sentence if someone misses a saving throw). Probably the largest ones in my games are that I only use the OCCs from the core and 3rd book, but I give the "animal clergy" type abilities of the Beastmaster out of Book 7: Yin-Sloth Jungles to Druids. Like (nearly?) everyone, I have made changes to how changing OCC works, but I think that is one of those things that everyone has a different take on how it should work.

For the most part, I think that 1E was a fairly solid game once you manage to navigate the rules that aren't always laid out in a way that make any sense. You did expect to find shields, their weight, damage if used as a weapon, and stuff like that on the same page as the Shield W.P. instead of with all the weapons and armor, right?

For book 12 do mean use the 2e version?

As for the suggestion about ignoring most of what the main books yeah I can see that. I think it's a bit funny that how the book gives these rules on rune weapons and then in the adventure the rune sword treasure already kind of plays a bit loose with the rules.

I'm guessing it's one of those things that along as it's balance it's alright.

Yes, most of the items and their abilities don't have edition specific mechanics. If you don't have that book and don't want to get it, that is fine. There are a few that are repeats or a renamed/updated version of something from earlier books.

The only other thing I would say for 1E is that you might want to keep an eye on Ebay for a copy of the 1E Monsters & Animals book. Unfortunately, there hasn't been a pdf produced of it as far as I know.

I actually own that book, asked about how to get it a couple months ago and was able to snag a copy off ebay.
Quite a useful book in my opinion. Kind of surprised a pdf was never produced.

Actually I have one other question. How fast should a character be able to move in one melee round? Is this one of things that everyone homebrews or am I just missing it.

Reading the book my guess is just to use the characters speed, but is there any other option?

The speed conversion is in monsters and animals from memory, and the modifiers from encumbrance is in the main book

My house rule is
Combat speed is 10ft per 4 points per round (my rounds are also 6 seconds), at this speed you can dodge, parry, strike shoot etc.
or
You can run at maximum speed (which you can figure out) but no dodging or parrying and only 1 attack (a charge effectively) is possible in the round.

I use mini's quite often (or roll20) and this makes it pretty easy.

When you say points I assume you mean points in the speed attribute. Am I correct?

yes indeed, so a speed of 16 is 40 ft or 4 squares

That's a pretty good homebrew. Might use it myself.

There is a Speed chart on p18 of the 2nd edition main book. I don't have my 1st edition hard copy with me so I don't know if it's in there as well. The description of the Spd attribute says spd attribute number x 20 is the number of yards/meters a PC can run in a minute. So, divide that by 4 (or just multiply by 5) and you have your maximum distance per melee. Divide that by the number of attacks per round and that's how far you can run in an attack.

For in combat, I recommend you have the PC decide what he or she wants to do and then determine how long it will take. Don't allow them to determine the success of an action before they try it. So, "Can I run over there and hit that guy this attack?" would be answered by, "you can try". Once they commit to that course of action you can figure out if they make it in time.

-Vek
"In general, don't let the PC's know if something will work before they try it."

Regarding your first question - others often mention Palladium Fantasy "High Seas" as a good addition to PFRPG 1st edition because it adds duel wielding and physical skills. 1st edition PFRPG is more work to convert material from other Paladium product lines but Rifts Dimension Wormwood and the Beyond the Supernatural core book would be two other suggestions.

As for house rules, I never liked the randomly rolled attrubutes for humans in PFRPG 1st edition. If I started a new campaign today I would probably have players pick from the Optional Quick Creation templates in the more modern core books (like Dead Reign) were players can be guarrenteed certain high stats by picking "Brainy", "Physically Strong", "Pretty-Boy", or "Fast as Lighnting".