Initiative Is Rolled, Then We Fight

Initiative is rolled.

You roll a d20. Four or less misses; full stop. Five up through the target’s AR (Armor Rating, the thing people keep calling AC because they just came from D&D) hits the armor and damages it. The other guy can parry, dodge, or try to entangle. If they actually know how to fight, the parry is just part of standing there. If they don’t, it costs them an attack. Dodge always costs one. Entangle is there if somebody wants to turn this into a wrestling match instead of a cutting contest.

Higher than AR and you hit the person. Damage goes into SDC first, then hit points. Somebody swings a club or a fist, and you can try to roll with the impact, spend an attack, and stay on your feet instead of folding.

If you have more attacks than the other side, those leftover swings happen at the end of the melee. Fifteen seconds of mess, then the faster one is still swinging after everyone else is done.

That is most of the combat system, and it is the same system if you picked up Palladium Fantasy, Heroes Unlimited, Nightbane, Dead Reign, Beyond the Supernatural, or Ninjas & Superspies. Rifts Ultimate is the global rules update if you want that book on the table. Megaversal, for once, is not a marketing word; it is system familiarity.

I already know how this fight works.

Coming off 5E, people expect a menu. Action, bonus action, reaction, object interaction, five-foot squares, and a paragraph explaining why you cannot kick the chair because kicking the chair is not an action type. I have sat at that table. Somebody wants to shove the furniture, and the room stops so we can figure out whether furniture is an object interaction, an improvised weapon, or a shove that still needs the right feat, sitting on the sheet. Palladium does not give you that menu. You have attacks per melee, and you spend them. You hit somebody. You duck. You grab. You kick the chair into his knees and roll strike like you meant it. Spend the attack, move on.

There are numbers: strike, parry, dodge, damage, SDC, hit points, the occasional called shot, martial arts extras if you are in Ninjas, MDC if you flipped to Rifts. They sit on that same loop. They are not a second game stacked on top of the first.

What still surprises 5E players is the armor. AR is not a wall that says you missed. A mid roll means you connected with the suit. The plate takes the hit. The mail takes the hit. Eventually the suit is junk, and the next one is going through. A knight in Palladium Fantasy has a reason to care about his armor that is not, "This is my +2 until the long rest." Same for a Coalition grunt and the dead-boy plate. The gear is in the fight and can fail. That is closer to how a person actually thinks about a breastplate than AC ever was. Palladium is one of the few games still sitting on the shelf where armor can get beat up and destroyed.

Dodge costing an attack is the other thing people trip on, and then they get it. You are not collecting a free reaction out of a sidebar. You are deciding whether getting out of the way is worth a swing you will not get back this melee. Roll with impact is the same kind of choice. Eat the club and roll with it, or save the attack and hope you did not need it. None of that is locked behind a feat tree. If you want to try it, you can.

The extra attacks at the end of the round are not Action Surge, and they are not a bonus action puzzle. It is just speed. Four attacks against two means that after the other guy is done, you are not. Easier than Action Surge. About one fight before nobody at the table is confused anymore.

I keep seeing people call Palladium combat crunchy, like that is the same thing as 5E combat. It isn’t. 5E combat is an action economy with exceptions piled on exceptions until the table is arguing about whether drawing the sword or drinking a potion ate an action. Palladium combat is a loop you can teach while the first d20 is still on the table. The numbers are there if you want them. The special cases in Ninjas or Rifts are there if that is the book you opened. The loop does not change.

What you can and cannot do in a fight is mostly a ruling. Can I kick the table into him? Can I fire while I dive? Can I parry a laser with a sword? Sometimes the book has a rule, and sometimes it doesn’t. Then the referee says yes, no, or roll this. That used to be how games worked, and it is how Palladium still does. The book does not have a named action type for every stupid thing a person might do with a chair. The 5E table is still looking for the action type. The Palladium table already rolled a strike.

Does the game fight you here? Only if you walked in assuming combat is the entire game and the rest of the night is fluff. This system resolves a fight so you can get back to the room, the lie, the ritual, the room full of dead things, whatever you actually sat down to play. You do not have to be good at the loop for the character to matter. You just have to not treat the loop like the campaign. With good enough skills, you do not have to fight.

Same rules in a Western Empire tavern, on a Heroes Unlimited rooftop, in a dead-boy hallway, in a ninja duel, on a Dead Reign porch.

Once I know one game, I know them all.