Character Generation:

There are eight character attributes in the Palladium RPG system. All attributes are rolled on a d6 instead of a different dice by character class. Attributes are determined by rolling 3d6. If a character scores a 16, 17, or 18, the GM may opt to allow them the roll of an additional d6 boosting their score higher. Attributes at 16 and higher have attribute bonuses associated with them which will be explained later.

The 8 attributes are:

IQ (Intelligence)
MA (Mental Affinity)
ME (Mental Endurance)
PS (Physical Strength | Strength)
PE (Physical Endurance)
PP (Physical Prowess | Dexterity)
PB (Physical beauty | Commliness)
SPD (Speed, just the raw ability to run)

IQ: the usefulness of this attribute depends on your class or what type of character you want to play. This attribute offers bonuses to skills, the amount of spells a character can learn and maintain; the ability to create new spells, or figure out complex problems. For example if you come across a difficult puzzle that the players out of character can’t seem to figure out, a person can roll against their intelligence and have a flash of insight.

Mental Affinity: This is your ability to charm and impress or cause fear and intimidate people. This can be useful if you are interrogating the villain’s minions, or trying the win the trust of the local ruler.

Mental Endurance: This is the amount of mental stress a character can take. This attribute affords characters saves against horror factors, mental attacks, etc...

Physical Strength: is raw physical power. In this game, characters can have up to a 24. This ability affords players pluses to damage in hand to hand combat or even weapon combat.

Physical Endurance: This is the character’s ability to take physical punishment. This is the source of your hit points. Your base level hit points are 3d6* + 1/level. So, if you were fortunate enough to roll 18 and then an addition 6 for a total of 24, that’s a lot better than some game systems where you start out with 1. It gives a first level character a better chance of surviving the first adventure. This is also the attribute that affords you saves against magic, poison, and system shock from coma and death.

Physical Prowess: This is your manual dexterity. This adds to your number of attacks and your ability to strike, parry and dodge opponent’s attacks.

Physical Beauty: This is how beautiful, handsome, or homely your character is. These also have charm and impress factors and reaction bonuses.

Speed: just the raw ability to run. This can be extremely helpful if involved in a foot chase with another character or NPC. Who gets to the book of incredible power first? Does the bad guy escape if he outruns you?



Why Palladium of Character generation?

We chose the Palladium RPG system because of its ease of use and flexibility. We have experienced other role playing systems and found that artificially limiting player characters was unfair. Seriously, how many times have you played a magic user that started off a campaign with only 1 hit point at 1st level? It’s not really a lot of fun hanging in the back of the party with one spell and one hit point, while the fighter racks up the experience. Magic users are “supposed to be thinkers and ‘weak’ because they study all the time”. This thinking is flawed. I’ve played magic users for most of my role playing life. It always struck me as odd that a person who channeled such incredible power would be so frail, not only should such a character have mental endurance and intellectual capacity, but they should also have a certain amount of physical endurance to channel that level of power. When one stops and thinks about it, such a limitation is not “realistic” even for a fantasy game. It’s something of a stereo-type that smart people can’t also be physical people and that brawn equals ‘less than an 80 IQ’.

As you read more about this particular campaign, you will find that real world laws of physics apply. That means that if you want to try something particularly daring, you will be allowed to with modifiers that increase with levels of experience. We also think it’s more fulfilling a gaming experience to have a chance that something ‘might’ go wrong or the thrill of success when your characters “wild scheme” saves the party.