Palladium 2nd Ed. Books rating

Palladium 2nd Ed. (Main Book):  Grade: "D+"     The second edition made some improvements, but also forgot some things.  Why did it only get a D+, here's my opinion:  They just can't let go of Rifts, Rifts is a fine RPG, but I'm sick of seeing some reference to the Rifts books every other page.  Some major things were also left out of the second ed. such as Religions and Multiple O.C.C.'s.  (You can be a priest, but you can't worship anyone)  This of course makes you buy the other books.  (In the 1st Ed. you could get away with one book, and play a fully rounded campaign / character)  Psionics were changed for the worse; I bet if you play tested a level 1 Mind Mage vs. a level 10+ Palladin, and the psionic chose the right "Super" psionics, that the mind mage would win 9 out of 10 times.  In other words I liked the level progression more that they kept with the magic users.  Speaking of psionics, have you looked at some of the psionics that you can choose, I know the first one's I always take are Electrokinesis, Telemechanics, and Sense Dimensional Anamoly.  They tried to make these fit in the Palladium world, but would have been better off just dropping them from the book.  Also, who cares about the Addiction tables, they were just way overblown for my taste.  Physical Skills:  Who needs them, all they do is take away from the racial downfalls that were supposed to occur when you chose a physically weaker race, and so far I don't see intellectual skills to raise your I.Q., M.E., and M.A. and no that's not a suggestion.  Physical skills are just there for the players who want to be way overblown and take each and every one of them, and are only interested in fighting (yeah, that's what roleplaying's about isn't it - hehe).  That also makes it suck for the rest of the group who took "real" skills, and during combat sit there and watch one player rip apart the enemies, while they get beat up because that one player raised the level that the villains have to be to make it a challenge for the group.  Did we really need S.D.C.?  I suppose that's good if your jumping dimensions all the time, but I'll go out on a limb and guess that most "groups" and campaigns stay in the same dimension.  One last thing, the dissociation of hand-to-hands with certain O.C.C.'s.  That's right, one more reason you'll find practitioners of Magic and Psionics are more powerful then Men of Arms on the same level.  OK.. now that I've totally ripped apart the second ed. why don't we point out some of the some of the better attributes of the 2nd Ed.  Kevin Siembieda did a great job in adding "Tips on Role-Playing" If you haven't read them yet, do it.  Most rules were better explained in the second edition.  The magic was done better in the second ed. with more spells to choose from, and you can't forget the Palladium Timeline that's included with frequent passages from the infamous Tristine Chronicles.  The races were better explained and given a better edge over a different race, yet have some downfall in a different area.  Overall the book was easier to use and you were able to find rules not mentioned in the previous ed.

Old Ones (2nd Ed. - Book 2):  Grade "B-"  This book is almost exactly like the original Old Ones, and it's a great source for information, but it's the one 2nd Ed. book I don't even bother to bring to the meeting anymore.  It has great stuff, but only if you're playing an O.C.C. or R.C.C. from it.  Anyway it sports new O.C.C's and the dreaded Minotaur R.C.C.  The book makes great mention of the towns and places you can find in Timero and the Old Kingdom.  Also supporting some great adventures, and the adventure ideas are abundant in this book.  One cannot forget the Old Ones either (hence the name of the book).  Here's a general hint about an adventure in there called "The Place of Magic", be very, very careful.  In our RPG group, 5-7 lower to mid level ,above average guys went into the it, and only 3 came out, and only one player, yes one player came out still playable.  (The other two were insane and let's say physically changed beyond recognition).  This book also gives you the chance to hold the sword that most of us have only dreamed about, the Eternity Sword, pick it up, and lets just say you've got one dead character on your hands (or do you) hehe.  

Adventures on the High Seas (2nd Ed. - Book 3):  Grade "A"  That's right, this book is a must for any Palladium 2nd group.  Especially our group since we a from an island.  This book is host to 11 pages of pure boats from all over.  To go along with the boats it gives rules for ship to ship combat, the necessary boating skills, descriptions of various seas, and the necessary equipment to keep your boat afloat.  It also includes adventures, and some great character sheets that include any and everything you could ever want to write down about a character.  O.C.C.'s are included and the best part of all, they're not overblown like Rifts O.C.C.'s have become.  (What I mean is in Rifts, the next book always has something more powerful than the previous book, remember when the Glitterboy was the most powerful thing?)  The O.C.C.'s include the Gladiator (with his own hand to hand!), Entertainer O.C.C.'s (Just made a Dwarven Minstrel that is going to be loads of fun), some pretty useless (in my opinion) seafarer O.C.C.'s, the Shaman O.C.C. and the dreaded Necromancer (including Necromancy Spells).  They also threw in some awesome skills, unfortunately they also added along with that some downright stupid skills.   A couple of magic spells were added, and they covered up their little mistakes in the main book.  (i.e. Elves do have nightvision of 60 ft.)  They also included my long awaited Multiple O.C.C.'s.  Ok, there must be something wrong with this book, hmm... as far as I can see the only thing they botched up is they didn't say how much P.P.E. a necromancer gets, which is kind of important in my mind.  (We just used what they had for the Rifts necromancer)  And you always know that any book that Erick Wujcik helped write is going to be good.

Dragons & Gods (2nd Ed.- Book 4)  Grade: "A" Once again this book is a must for any roleplaying group.  This book is great for priests because they now know fully what they are getting into when they "select" a god to worship.  The dragons are interesting and have more detail, and this book is fully 2nd Ed. stats!  Along with that is has a number of other additions such as weapons, gods minions, elementals, more priest powers / powers are defined better, and a full section on beliefs of the palladium world.  Oh yeah, it's also compatible with the entire Palladium Megaverse (R),  (just can't let go of rifts - hehe)  If only they had included an adventure with it.  Ah well, can't have everything.

Monsters and Animals (2nd Ed. Book 5)  Grade: "B+"  Great edition to any group.  Monsters & Animals has a horde of creatures of every shape and size to throw at your P.C.'s  This book contains world maps for every creature and is very well organized.  This book is also for the entire Palladium Megaverse.  It can also be a great source for adventure ideas.

Island at the Edge of the World (1st ed. called Book 6) Grade "A" if you're using it in the first Ed, otherwise if you are using this book in the 2nd ed. the book recieves a "C"  This book had thy single most, awesomest adventure I had ever played (Played it in 1st ed.).  By the way, have a priest of the Church of the Scar with you if you have the chance, you won't regret it :) We'll leave it at that for this book.  Why the C for the 2nd Ed., well the obvious reasons come into play here.  You have to transfer stats...That's the big bummer for the G.M.  If you're G.M. has enough time to do so, you won't regret doing so.  This adventure rocked!

Yin - Sloth Jungles (1st ed. called Book 7)  Grade: "D-" for second ed.  B+ for 1st ed.  This book is virtually useless in the second ed., thats why the grade is so low.  Now if you play the first ed. which is virtually impossible, because the mainbook, Old Ones (1st ed.), and High Seas (1st ed.) are out of print.  This book does have some cool O.C.C.'s if you feel you can transfer them fairly to 2nd Ed.  The adventures are pretty cool, but nothing out of the usual.  On the back of "Dragons and Gods" it says first edition rules easily adaptable to second ed.  Hmm... if they were so easy to adapt (which they're not) why didn't Palladium do it for us???  I'm looking for Palladium's new books "Old Kingdom Mountains" and "Old Kingdom Lowlands" to replace this book.

Adventures in the Northern Wilderness (1st Ed.)  Well, I've been G.M.ing this one and fortunately these adventures take little effort to put into the 2nd Ed.  :),  I think the adventures are going great, Btw, the adventures are all mini-adventure style that fit real nicely together.  So far I've come up with a few good "villains" from the book and my group will have the rollercoaster ride of their life...Muhahaha.  Right now we are midway into the book.

Further Adventures in the Northern Wilderness (1st Ed.)  Haven't gotten to this one yet, but will soon.  When we get through it, I'll grade it and so forth :)

The Rifter®: Sourcebook & Player's Guide Series - Issue #1

Shipped as of January 23rd, 1998

Grade: "D" (Thank Erick Wujcik for saving the first issue from an absolute failure)

The Rough Estimates

Rifts	Nightbane	Heroes	BTS	P.Fantasy	Non-Game Specific
35%	22%	15%	7%	0% !!!	21%

I'll the let the percentages speak for themselves.  Absolutely NOTHING on Palladium Fantasy and over a third of the book specifically for Rifts.  As you would expect, some space was used by Kevin to tell us about the Rifter and future issues.  There were also the advertisements for books to come.  However, the article that caught my eye was by Erick Wujcik (of course) and it was all about Naming N.P.C.'s, Artifacts, Magic Items, Cities, you name it.  It was very well written and is a great help, however it's up to you weather the article's worth the $8 that the Rifter costs.  Oh yeah, and the "Knights of the Dinner Table" comic strip was just plain awesome.

The Rifter®: Sourcebook & Player's Guide Series - Issue #2

Shipped as of April 16th, 1998

Grade: "C-"

Rough Estimates

Rifts	Nightbane	Heroes	BTS	P.Fantasy	Non-Game Specific
50%	0%	0%	0%	5%	45%

Well, we're improving...I think.  The highlight of this Rifter was once again brought to us by Erick Wujcik with his great article on "Thinking Big".  I've read through it, and it certainly made me think a little about my G.M.'ing.  A lot of the material was based for all of the RPG's, for instance, there's a article about Hacking, Cyberjacking etc. that you can use for Heroes Unlimited, Nightbane, BTS, and Rifts which explains the 45% for the Non-game specific.  Rifts won over big (as usual) with two Rift's setting stories and a huge Techo-Wizard section.  The 5% for the PFRPG is some pretty swank information about Pirates along with a dozen or so adventure ideas.  There were some other cool articles in there too which didn't even concern the PFRPG but were pretty interesting... We're improving, but it still could even out the percents more throughout the RPG's.

To see what Palladium has in store for the RPG world go check out the Upcoming Palladium Books page.