D&D vs. FantasyHERO vs. Palladium

[Shakram]

~ALL OUT WAR~

 

D&D VS HERO FANTASY VS PALLADIUM

 

ITS A FREE FOR ALL NO HOLDS BARRED WAR BETWEEN D&D, HERO FANTASY GAMES, & PALLADIUM FANTASY...... WHO WINS? AND WHY?(please state reasons)

 

May the best game win!

[L. Marcus]

Re: ~ All Out War~d&d Vs Hero Vs Palladium

 

Fantasy Hero. Duh.

[Crypt]

Re: ~ All Out War~d&d Vs Hero Vs Palladium

 

~ALL OUT WAR~

 

D&D VS HERO FANTASY VS PALLADIUM

 

ITS A FREE FOR ALL NO HOLDS BARRED WAR BETWEEN D&D, HERO FANTASY GAMES, & PALLADIUM FANTASY...... WHO WINS? AND WHY?(please state reasons)

 

May the best game win!

 

 

You'd better compare FH to good games (Rolemaster 2, HARP, Hârnmaster, Ars Magica, Chivalry & Sorcery 4 , etc....) instead of ugly ones (D&D and Palladium are amongst the worst...so this is an easy win for FH.)

 

 

D&D white box & AD&D 1st were mythical.

but, face it, D&D is simply a very bad rpg system. D&D3 adds skills and a bit more homogeneity than previous editions but it also keeps stupid rules (eg: your bonus to hit increases with levels but your defense value stay the same. But in fact hit points are the real defense value which increases with levels. This means that healing potions heals your dodge/parry capacity and you automaticaly dodge/parry when you sleep. Feats are fixes to a deficient system and this actually leads to a munchkinized boardgame without inner consistency. D&D4 seems to be even more boardgame oriented.)

 

If you're looking for an "old-school" FRP, you'd better play Tunnels & Trolls, Mythweaver (which is free) or the like.

 

But if you want an "old-school" D&D-clone FRP, have a look to Castles & Crusades. C&C has the same inner stupid rules as any editions of D&D but without the feats/boardgame issue of D&D3+. C&C is not a good system, just a light coffee break version of the old D&D.

 

 

....but if you really want a good FRP there are a lot of possibilities => Fantasy Hero, Rolemaster Classic, HARP, Hârnmaster and several others.

 

 

IMHO, to compare D&D/Palladium and Fantasy Hero leads nowhere.

[incrdbil]

Re: ~ All Out War~d&d Vs Hero Vs Palladium

 

Round one: hilarity breaks out as everyone looks at Palladium Fantasy "Umm, you aren't actually expecting to fight are you?".

 

Palladium Fantasy is sent to the 6 and under Karate class, where it receives a vicious beating.

 

Seriously, palladium is a bad copy of old D&D, and D&D is not much of an RPG anymore--more of a detailed skirmish level wargame with badly made pre-fab constructs for character creation. With poor defense, damage, and magic resolution systems.

 

Fantasy Hero is a gourmet meal. D&D is McDonalds. Palladium Fantasy is a out of date, recalled due to E Coli problems TV dinner that was in a freezer that had a power loss and de-thawed everything a week ago, that was then overcooked in an oven with the plastic cover melted to the food.

[shadowcat1313]

Re: ~ All Out War~d&d Vs Hero Vs Palladium

 

I would rather go back to the old 3 book Arduin set than use palladium, or even first edition rolemaster. at least old Arduin was more coherent.

[Blue Jogger]

Re: ~ All Out War~d&d Vs Hero Vs Palladium

 

Ok, I'll pull out my 1d4 Megadamage pistol from Palladium.

 

I think I win, as long as I don't fumble, that would be... messy.

 

1 point of megadamage = 100 points of damage (even though mega is suppose to mean one million).

[Guest voodoo54]

Re: ~ All Out War~d&d Vs Hero Vs Palladium

 

Round one: hilarity breaks out as everyone looks at Palladium Fantasy "Umm, you aren't actually expecting to fight are you?".

 

Palladium Fantasy is sent to the 6 and under Karate class, where it receives a vicious beating.

 

Seriously, palladium is a bad copy of old D&D, and D&D is not much of an RPG anymore--more of a detailed skirmish level wargame with badly made pre-fab constructs for character creation. With poor defense, damage, and magic resolution systems.

 

Fantasy Hero is a gourmet meal. D&D is McDonalds. Palladium Fantasy is a out of date, recalled due to E Coli propblems TV dinner that was in a freezer that had a power loss and dethawed everythign a week ago, that was then overcooked in an over with the plastic cover melted to the food.

 

That's the best definition of D&D and Palladium I've ever read!

[Vestnik]

Re: ~ All Out War~d&d Vs Hero Vs Palladium

 

Runequest, baby.

[The Main Man]

Re: ~ All Out War~d&d Vs Hero Vs Palladium

 

Ok' date=' I'll pull out my 1d4 [b']Megadamage[/b] pistol from Palladium.

 

I think I win, as long as I don't fumble, that would be... messy.

 

1 point of megadamage = 100 points of damage (even though mega is suppose to mean one million).

 

To be fair, though, Palladium FRPG is not a Mega-Damage system but you raise an excellent point.

 

Heck, if a D&D character takes more than 50 damage in a single attack they die instantly!

[Blue Jogger]

Re: ~ All Out War~d&d Vs Hero Vs Palladium

 

You're right, that's from Palladium RIFTS and that's about as fair as pulling some of the weapons from Star Hero and claiming Fantasy Hero is flawed because of it. However, since RIFTS all about crossovers, it's not completely without merit.

 

However, I guess it depends on what one would do to "win" .

[Zeropoint]

Re: ~ All Out War~d&d Vs Hero Vs Palladium

 

There's no contest! 5ER is MUCH bigger than the other two books!

[Spence]

Re: ~ All Out War~d&d Vs Hero Vs Palladium

 

 

Fantasy Hero is a gourmet meal. D&D is McDonalds. Palladium Fantasy is a out of date, recalled due to E Coli propblems TV dinner that was in a freezer that had a power loss and dethawed everythign a week ago, that was then overcooked in an over with the plastic cover melted to the food.

 

[tkdguy]

Re: ~ All Out War~d&d Vs Hero Vs Palladium

 

For customizing characters and campaign worlds, FH wins hands down. You can do high fantasy, low fantasy, and everything in between.

 

For an impromptu game and getting non-gamers to play, I give the edge to D&D. Keep in mind I play the older versions (Basic, 1E, 2E) rather than the current edition.

 

I never played Palladium. One of my firends has a bunch of the books. I remember being unimpressed by the fantasy game.

[Markdoc]

Re: ~ All Out War~d&d Vs Hero Vs Palladium

 

I never played Palladium. One of my firends has a bunch of the books. I remember being unimpressed by the fantasy game.

 

Actually we played it a bit. Compared to AD&D which came out not long before, it wasn't a bad game at all for the early 80's. When I look at it today, I think it's not a bad game - for the early 80's.

 

cheers, Mark

[Hyper-Man]

Re: ~ All Out War~d&d Vs Hero Vs Palladium

 

... Fantasy Hero is a gourmet meal....

 

Does that make Steve Long the Alton Brown of RPG's?

[Susano]

Re: ~ All Out War~d&d Vs Hero Vs Palladium

 

Chivalry and Sorcery.

[Heimdallsgothi]

Re: ~ All Out War~d&d Vs Hero Vs Palladium

 

Well it depends on what criteria youd use to determine the winner

 

By sheer number of books sold..

Dnd by far

 

If you add the "rules systems youre *required* to have a passing familiarity with"

DnD again

 

Shall we mention retail space?

Most of my local is mini/wargame space

D20 takes up over 60% of the book shelf

Hero is tossed in the corner with palladium, mechwarrior and some startrek game

 

To be fair I did see a copy of PA Hero on the new books rack, behind 4 rows of D20 et al...

 

I can look at the gamer board at my local shop

last saturday

12 D20 variants

5 minis

2 ccg

1 supers.. palladium version

 

Under the players seeking games

Hero got a mention twice as alternate systems ppl are willing to play

 

as for me

RM2/RMSS is my preferred system, still trying to make sense of hero

[Shaft]

Re: ~ All Out War~d&d Vs Hero Vs Palladium

 

Round one: hilarity breaks out as everyone looks at Palladium Fantasy "Umm, you aren't actually expecting to fight are you?"...

Palladium Fantasy is a out of date, recalled due to E Coli problems TV dinner that was in a freezer that had a power loss and de-thawed everything a week ago, that was then overcooked in an over with the plastic cover melted to the food.

 

Don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel.

 

I gotta agree- the Palladium/Rifts/Heroes Unlimited system is in dire need of a revision.

 

Their sourcebooks have good ideas though (well, I'm talking Rifts, Beyond the Supernatural and Heroes Unlimited here- I'm less familiar with their Fantasy stuff). I've converted many concepts for use in my various HERO games, so give them credit for that. In fact, I susepct that it's the quality of their ideas that blinds the die-hard Palladium fans to the shotcomings of the mechanics.

 

Oh, and "Mega"Damage is less broken if you just convert it to SDC x10 instead of SDC x 100. It's still broken, but it's less broken...

[Susano]

Re: ~ All Out War~d&d Vs Hero Vs Palladium

 

Palladium Mystic China is crammed with neat ideas. But the layout is terrible.

[CTaylor]

Re: ~ All Out War~d&d Vs Hero Vs Palladium

 

Palladium is a pretty poor system with fantastic support material. GURPS is a better system but still inferior to FH, with good support material although less useful for other GMs than Palladium.

[runescience]

Re: ~ All Out War~d&d Vs Hero Vs Palladium

 

In ascending order from most dispised to most blessed.

 

dnd 3.5 is a curse. It's so mottled in its classes, and skill systems that it is really only worth playing by people who's parents are also their siblings.

 

World of darkness games. a step above dnd 3.5, and thats not saying much.

 

dnd regular sets produced thru out the early 80's. the one with the wax crayons and the blue geomorphs.

 

dnd 3.0 was a step in the right direction.

 

ad&d second edition with the options books... skill trash. ugh. insufferable.

 

I would have played Paladium if I could afford the books back in the day. It was a really colorful version of ADND 2nd edition. They rivaled. Eachother. DND white box I never could get my hands on as I was late for the trip.

 

Gurps. all versions.

 

Dragonquest or something like that something put out by spi? I cant remember, theres is a picture of a guy holding a dragons head. It was enjoyable I played it at

 

DND hard cover, the one with efrit city of brass on the back.

 

Tunnels and troll was very good for home grown campaigning. Runequest.

 

Hero 5th edition with fantasy hero 5th edition Sorry I dont like it as much as the older versions... too complicated.

 

The fantasy trip. yes, dont laff. its very good, flexible and simple.

 

And finally, the top 2. Hero 3rd and 4th edition with regen etc using FH from circa 1990... second edition FH?

[Shaft]

Re: ~ All Out War~d&d Vs Hero Vs Palladium

 

Palladium Mystic China is crammed with neat ideas. But the layout is terrible.

 

Yeah. It's inspired, but the inspired ideas were never proofread. It's like somebody just took the text directly from the back of the napkins that they wrote on when they had the ideas and nothing else was at hand.

[CTaylor]

Re: ~ All Out War~d&d Vs Hero Vs Palladium

 

I liked The Fantasy Trip and Tunnels and Trolls, that was a blast.

 

And yeah, Dragonquest was pretty solid as a system, too bad it died out without being followed up. It had a prototype xp system like hero: you bought skills and stats with xps.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: ~ All Out War~d&d Vs Hero Vs Palladium

 

These happen to be the only 3 systems I've actually played Fantasy games of in the last 5-10 years, and my opinion is as follows...

 

D&D3+ is a mediocre attempt at a current era RPG, but is playable, if far to easily gamed and way, way too mauled by immense available quantity of unbalanced options. Monte Cook brought a lot of his HERO experience along and it shows.

 

Palladium was the bar-none hands down worst gaming experience of my life. Part of it was the horrible group of players my roommate played with, but.. my gods does that system stink. It was a lousy half arsed D&D rip off system when I bought the original Mechanoid Invasion at Dundracon back in the late 70's or early 80's, and I was flabbergasted to learn that the intervening decades did almost NOTHING to make the system any less suck-tastic.

 

I wasn't super impressed with the original playtest edition of FH, but 1st edition solved the glaring problems (which is, after all, why you send out playtest editions ), and it's been my all time favorite system ever since. I can make it do ANYTHING. I've used it to set games in various authors' settings (Newhon/Lanhkmar, Draegeria, & Barsoom, to name a few) and can easily tweak the ground rules and magic system to get just exactly the feel I want.

 

 

They're not combatants...they're the weapons.

If they were swords, Palladium would be the one you bought at a thrift store as part of a wall hanging involving a pair of swords and a shield all wired to a hunk of wood that you took apart to have a sword. It's sword shaped and probably better than nothing....but just barely.

 

D&D is a fancy movie replica bought from a catalog for $60 that claims to be "Battle ready". It works, but it's more flash than function and I wouldn't want to push it hard or it'll probably break.

 

FH is a hunk of high quality steel, a forge, anvil, hammers, and a big pile of coal. If you know what you're doing you can build something that'll be so far above the other two they're incomparable. If you let someone else forge it for you, what you get depends on their skill, but if they actually know how to use the tools they'll PROBABLY turn out something that'll beat either of the other two, tho likely it won't be as pretty.

[csyphrett]

Re: ~ All Out War~d&d Vs Hero Vs Palladium

 

I've always liked Palladium better than hero even if it has some flaws. I admit I haven't played DND in like 15 years so I don't know how it is today compared to what it was. Hero is okay but its not my favorite.

 

CES