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Robbie73
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New to PF

Unread post by Robbie73 »

Hi all,

New to the forums and new to Palladium Fantasy. My gaming group and I have recently decided to give PF a try after many years of AD&D, D&D, and Warhammer. We're going to be playing 1st Ed. with certain elements plucked from 2nd Ed, specifically the 15 second combat round.

I've been perusing these forums in an attempt to answer the many questions I have as I try to learn this new system. While reading a thread about wizards casting in melee hoping to answer that question for me, the conversation led to combat movement in general and I wound up with more questions and no answer to my original question, so I'm hoping you guys can help me with a few questions I have.

First question is how exactly combat movement works in 1st Ed? There's absolutely no mention of it that I could find in my rulebook. We play using mini's on a dry erase mat with 1" squares, 1 squarer = 5' so for movement in a round, I've been multiplying a characters Speed by 3 for total squares moved in a round. So far so good.

Now let's say PlayerA has a Speed of 10 and can move 30 squares in a combat round. He squares off against an Ogre 20 squares away. PlayerA wins initiative and moves the 20 squares and is now adjacent to the Ogre. Is he now allowed to attack, or did the act of moving use his attack for the round, and only having 1 attack a round at first level his turn is now over? It seems clear from reading that other thread that movement in 2nd Ed uses an "attack/action", however it's not so clear in 1st Ed, and since nobody gets multiattacks at 1st level in 1st Ed, moving costing an attack seems like a lot of people will be moving around and not being able to swing.

If he is allowed to immediately attack, his turn is over after the attack is resolved with 10 squares of movement left over. Is he allowed to move those 10 squares after the Ogre counterattacks, or is the remaining movement lost since he attacked?

Next question concerns order of operations, so to speak.

2 groups of 2 enemies square off at a distance of 6 squares (30 feet). All 4 roll initiative and the initiative order goes PlayerA, PlayerB, MonsterA, Monster B.

Player A goes first and moves adjacent to MonsterA and swings. The attack is resolved and PlayerA's turn is over. My question is, does MonsterA get to retaliate immediately following PlayerA's attack, or do we follow inititative order, making it PlayerB's turn, and MonsterA has to wait until his turn to counterattack? My gut says to follow initiative order, but I need clarification.

And my final (for now) question is regards what lead me to the forums in the first place. Casters in melee.

The book says casters can't cast while in melee. Okay, makes sense I reckon. So what recourse does a wizard has who loses initiative and winds up with a meleer swinging at him? Is he automatically considered to be "in melee" just because somebody walked up and swung at him? Does he have to try to parry to be considered "in melee"? If he doesn't parry and decides to take it on the chin, will he be allowed to cast on his turn? If not, can he move away from his assailant on his turn, out of melee range and cast? If so, will he face any repercussions for leaving his attackers threatened space? There doesn't seem to be an "Attack of Opportunity" in PF.

Thanks for reading this long post, and thank you in advance taking the time to answer my questions.

Cheers!
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Library Ogre
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Re: New to PF

Unread post by Library Ogre »

Robbie73 wrote:First question is how exactly combat movement works in 1st Ed? There's absolutely no mention of it that I could find in my rulebook. We play using mini's on a dry erase mat with 1" squares, 1 squarer = 5' so for movement in a round, I've been multiplying a characters Speed by 3 for total squares moved in a round. So far so good.


This is never really addressed.

My rule of thumb is you can move a number of feet equal to your speed as part of an action... so, with a speed of 10, you can move 10' and still make your attack.

You can move a number of yards equal to your speed as an action without sacrificing safety. So, if you have a speed of 10, you can move 30' on your action, getting to where you want.

Now, RAW is that you can run Speed * 20 yards in a minute, so Speed * 5 per melee. My version is a bit faster than that, but it's easy to figure and map.

So, in your scenario, it would depend on the distance. Player A could move and attack, if they're close enough. Or, he could move to a better position.
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Kraynic
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Re: New to PF

Unread post by Kraynic »

As Mark said, movement is a definitely not written for use on a grid in 1E. I use a hex grid and allow people to move 1 hex per point of speed per turn. That does require you to come up with decent sized maps, though, if you have a bunch of characters with high speed scores. Well, that or have interesting obstacles and enemy formations to work around.

I do allow that movement to be broken up between attacks, and can be used at any time they get an action in the initiative order.

I do follow initiative order. This is partly due to the response to your next question.

If you follow the book recommendation of redoing initiative each combat round, people should be saying what they intend to do before rolling initiative. That is the gamble of a wizard casting within the potential movement reach of a melee opponent. Do you hope to get the spell off before they can react? Are there melee allies that can screen the caster from attack (though an enemy with a bow can still seriously hamper spell casting at range), though that may still rely on their initiative rolls to get into position? While this may seem to be rough for your players, I always take the view that it gives the players options against enemy casters as well. If the choice is made before initiative is rolled, it gives your players chances to interrupt enemy casters as well, instead of their enemies always knowing when it is safe to cast. While there isn't an "attack of opportunity" in the rules, I have always (going back into the early 90's) allowed an uncontested roll against anyone that tried to run past (though an adjacent hex) a ready melee combatant that didn't count against that character's attacks per turn, just because that made sense to me. But that is just me.

Probably the main thing to keep in mind here is that this is not a game system with a rule for everything like Pathfinder. It is a framework that you tweak to run games in a way that works for you and your group. For some people that is a horrible thing, and for some it is a reason to play it. Play around with it and make it yours.
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kiralon
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Re: New to PF

Unread post by kiralon »

The others have covered it fairly well
However I have a lot of house rules for PF1, and these have often might have been influenced by other games.

Speed
Combat speed is spd/4 squares per action. That is the maximum distance you can move and not have movement use all your actions.

Non-combat speed. This is not recommended in combat, it is any speed above combat speed to max speed.
Running through combat has the following negatives
Going through a square that an opponent can reach, and see the opponent gets an attack of opportunity on you only, if the attack effects anyone else it cant be done (This is negated by moving at 4x the opponents PP).
The negative to your strike, parry and dodge is your current spd/2 until the end of the round after you stop or the end of the round that something else stops you.
If the enemy is set to receive a charge and hit you, its still a free action for them, you stop and go prone (Prone can be negated by a tumble, backflip or the like skill) and the opponent also get a + to damage of spd/4.


Full Speed Charge attack
This is the only attack you can use at full combat speed. The normal negatives apply except from the opponent being charged. The full speed charge uses all your attacks for the round and you have to move a minimum of 30ft for it to 'activate' (If your speed is too slow it doesn't count, slow speed attacks aren't charges). They also can't be done if you have already used any actions (except free actions).
The charge attack gives +2 strike and armour penetration, and spd/4 + to damage. Note if your speed 4x faster than your PS then the weapon gets torn out of your hand and left behind.

When movement ends it takes another action to move again, and the full speed charge is 1 action in total.

The only difference is if the ogre was set to receive a charge, if so the person with the longest reach (generally height/length + weapon length) goes first, and if its within about half a foot of each other they hit each other simultaneously (as in simultaneous strike).


The initiative for the 2 groups would follow initiative, unless a special move has been done. so human human ogre ogre.


Mysteries of magic for second ed expanded the mage a bit. 9 pts of damage to interrupt the casting, but I find not casting in hth limiting.

In my (heavily modified first ed) version magic users do not get automatic parry, that is for the men at arms classes as they have trained to perfection whilst the wizard was reading books.
However wizards who have taken hth non men at arms do not give opportunities of attack when casting, those without a hth style (excluding those that don't get one) do give attacks of opportunity.
Spells have a casting time of 2x the level of the spell, if this number goes over 20 it takes 2 rounds to cast. If you hit a caster in this time you can interrupt him by doing damage, damage/2 is the negative to his ME roll.
Spell interruption roll
Each lvl the spell is below caster +1 modifier
Each level the spell is above the caster -3 modifier
Roll 1d20. add bonuses and negatives. If 11 or higher spell continues, If 10 or lower spell has been interrupted.
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Re: New to PF

Unread post by Veknironth »

Well, let me address the groups of enemies. By rule, it's just going down the initiative one by one. If it were 2nd edition with the rounds being 15 seconds, I'd recommend pairing people off as much as possible. If PC1 is against NPC1, do their entire back and forth, then move to the next match up. It's much faster. But for the round lasting an entire minute, that's more difficult. What are the characters who aren't involved in that particular battle doing for a full minute? Are they just watching?

Then again, what are the two combatants doing for a full minute with only one strike? The idea is that those two people are engaged in a melee battle and the one strike roll represents them finding a gap in the defense and it's the one good shot to do some damage. That would imply that the two combatants are engaged in some level of struggle and when in that minute does the opportunity arise? Why wouldn't someone not engaged in the fight be able to walk up behind someone and club them several times?

Combat can take a long time. Anything you can do to trim it down, I encourage. Pairing people off is one option. It also prevents one combat geared PC from zipping around and killing everyone while the rest of the group never gets any glory or has any fun.

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Re: New to PF

Unread post by Hotrod »

Robbie73 wrote:Hi all,

New to the forums and new to Palladium Fantasy. My gaming group and I have recently decided to give PF a try after many years of AD&D, D&D, and Warhammer. We're going to be playing 1st Ed. with certain elements plucked from 2nd Ed, specifically the 15 second combat round.

Welcome! I think you'll find the Palladium Fantasy setting quite compelling. A few useful tools to help you and your group get started and minimize prep time:
+The Excel-based character sheets (available on the website) are a fantastic resource that I highly recommend.
+I've done up a lot of regional maps for the setting that you may find useful in your campaigns (link in my sig below).
+I have some other tools like Palladium Fantasy instant NPC Generators, a rapid spell reference sheet, and Palladium Fantasy heraldry art on my (shameless plug!) Patreon Page. While some of it is backer-exclusive, a lot of it is free for anyone to see and use.

Robbie73 wrote:First question is how exactly combat movement works in 1st Ed?

Given your background with Warhammer, you're probably used to using miniatures to keep track of where everyone is through combat. Most Palladium Fantasy combat tends to be done in a more narrative style using descriptions and imagination, but there's nothing wrong with using minis, and Kevin has even started offering some excellent and cheap paper minis made by MadManMike that work well.

The short answer is that there is no hard set of rules governing movement in combat, so if that's how you and your group like to to do things, then I suggest you adapt a method or system that works for you. I've always used more of a narrative style myself, so I'll defer to others for suggestions.

Robbie73 wrote:Next question concerns order of operations, so to speak.

2 groups of 2 enemies square off at a distance of 6 squares (30 feet). All 4 roll initiative and the initiative order goes PlayerA, PlayerB, MonsterA, Monster B.

Player A goes first and moves adjacent to MonsterA and swings. The attack is resolved and PlayerA's turn is over. My question is, does MonsterA get to retaliate immediately following PlayerA's attack, or do we follow inititative order, making it PlayerB's turn, and MonsterA has to wait until his turn to counterattack? My gut says to follow initiative order, but I need clarification.

I'd follow the initiative order unless someone getting attacked opts to ignore initiative and launch simultaneous counterattacks.

Robbie73 wrote:And my final (for now) question is regards what lead me to the forums in the first place. Casters in melee.

The book says casters can't cast while in melee. Okay, makes sense I reckon. So what recourse does a wizard has who loses initiative and winds up with a meleer swinging at him? Is he automatically considered to be "in melee" just because somebody walked up and swung at him? Does he have to try to parry to be considered "in melee"? If he doesn't parry and decides to take it on the chin, will he be allowed to cast on his turn? If not, can he move away from his assailant on his turn, out of melee range and cast? If so, will he face any repercussions for leaving his attackers threatened space? There doesn't seem to be an "Attack of Opportunity" in PF.


In Mysteries of Magic, spells of level 1 & 2 can be cast with a single melee action, which I would generally allow to happen as long as the caster has an attack available. Level 2-8 spells require half a melee to cast, which opens up the possibility of interrupting the caster by attacking him or her but might be reasonable to use if the caster simply backs up a couple of steps and lets the rest of the party do the melee fighting. Higher-level spells and rituals require someone or something to keep foes at bay during the casting.

Robbie73 wrote:Thanks for reading this long post, and thank you in advance taking the time to answer my questions.

Cheers!

My pleasure, and welcome to the boards! Out of curiosity, what is it that drew you to Palladium Fantasy?
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Re: New to PF

Unread post by Borast »

It's been a while...but I always used (and so have my GMs) a rule indicating you can move up to HALF your move and attack.
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