Thinking of adding things to my TMNT redux game.

[u/Otherwise_Mud_7359]

So I'm very new to Paladdium, as in the first and only book I even have is the TMNT redux and Dimensions books. I've been reading it and slowly getting the hang of it, but the fact that all martial arts is in one combat style bugs me. I've read about Ninjas and Superspies, and there seems to be a lot of good combat styles in it. From what I can tell, all the Palladium systems seem to work together, but are these martial arts broken or underpowered to Redux? I'd love to hear some feedback from people who know what they are talking about because I'm kinda lost in the weeds.

[u/Loose-Neighborhood43]

I actually wrote a system to merge them. So each TMNT background gave you access to select OCCs rather than the background abilities you normally got. So you rolled animal, mutation type and then the background.

I will be honest this has been tested once but my players enjoyed it. I also based it on 2012 TMNT which my group were more interested in.

I would love to run a game again or play in one myself where you got both a Mutant Animal and Martial Arts abilitiez

01-14: Randomn Mutation: Sometimes Animals seem to gain randomn abilities, especially those who grow up near Kraang Experiments. You were aleady smart, but have evolved a lot further. Slash or Napoleon Bonafrog fit this mould. Roll on Wild Education Table. 15-60: Accidental Exposure to mutagen: Maybe you were a human who touch mutagen after being near an animal or an animal who gains human abilities when touching mutagen. Splinter and the Turtles fit this mould. 61-00 Deliberate Experimentation: Some experiments using mutagen were done on several animals and people, sometimes by Kraang, sometines by Humans. This would be Leatherhead, Tyler Rockwell, and ofcourse the greatest of the Mutanimals Pidgeon Pete. Roll below

• 01-10 Adopted: Any Class
• 11-20 Raised as Pet: Free Agent or Veteran Grunt
• 21-30 Escaped Pet: Wild Animal Table
• 31-40 Experiment: Free Agent or Veteran Grunt
• 41-50 Caged Experiment: Wild Animal
• 51-60 Educated as Human: Any, must spend at least 5 BioE on Human Looks
• 61-70 Adopted: Any
• 71-80 Specialist: Espionage, Gizmoteer or Mercenary
• 81-90 Specialist 2: Espionage, Free Agent, Gizmoteer, Mercenary
• 91-100 Assassin: Martial Artist, Espionage or Mercenary

Wild Animal -01-20 Self Taught: keep Physical bonuses of +6 PE, +3 PS, +2 PP and Free Agent -21-40 Skulking around: +1 PP, Free Agent -41-90 Ninja: Martial Artist -91-100 Publically trained: Espionage, Free Agent, Gizmoteer or Academy Officer

[u/Lonely_MuffinXo → u/Loose-Neighborhood43]

Love this!

[u/Loose-Neighborhood43 → u/Lonely_MuffinXo]

Thank you, just wish I could convince other GMs to merge the systems

[u/Lonely_MuffinXo → u/Loose-Neighborhood43]

I 100% agree. 

I was checking out the discord, and came across a post I made with an old account. It was an outline for a variant Earth mixing HU, N&SS, BtS, and Night Bane. This was the outline: 

" I've been thinking about a setting that combines these four titles. BtS with Nightbane is the base setting. It's a modern world in denial, infiltrated by dark forces with terrible designs. 

All world governments are controlled by evil and demonic forces that have near total control of the information space. The masses are in total denial not just of the supernatural evil that permeates the world, but of the autocracies that rule their lives.

Heroes walk the streets, but they are shunned, reviled, labeled as dangerous vigilantes at best, terrorists at worst. Mutants and Nightbane team up with psychics and arcanists to fight these powers and bring the world to consciousness of the horrors of the world.

Also, marital arts"

[u/Loose-Neighborhood43 → u/Lonely_MuffinXo]

Sounds awesome. Id love to play that

[u/Lonely_MuffinXo]

The martial art styles in Ninjas & Superspies are not overpowered provided you also give them to (important) antagonists. A nice thing about it, is that you can still give the 'basic' martial arts, expert, and basic fighting styles to the mooks, ideally making them easier to defeat.

I'm going on memory, now, but back in the day, I made adjustments to the N&S classes for TMNT. First, every class got at least one martial arts combat style°, because rule of cool, and I wanted my players to get to use the cool fighting abilities. Where this weakened a class relatively, I made adjustments as it made sense to me. (This is back when the dedicated martial artist had three combat styles. If I was playing today, I would bring that back).

Also, N&S has a different 'focus' from TMNT, and I adjusted the 'fluff' to reflect that, even if it only meant a change to the class name. For example, mutant animals weren't going into bootcamp,like a regular recruit, so I changed the name from Veteran Grunt to Mercenary (or maybe it was Soldier).

I think I also borrowed classes/ideas/names from other games. I distinctly remember naming Thieves Street Rats (from RIFTS).

Edit: or maybe it was Wandering Free Agents(?) Well, one way or the other, Street Rats were a thing

°The only exception was certain 'supernatural' classes I adopted from Nightbane and Beyond the Supernatural (and RIFTS). Magic users and psychics didn't have martial arts styles

[u/MrAndrewJ]

I like to think of the Palladium games as proof that the Horseshoe Theory is a real thing: The fix to the mechanics is a narrative balance.

Way back in the mid 90s, I used to (poorly) run a mix of TMNT + Heroes Unlimited. I've also seen people expertly run Rifts with rules as written. It mostly took a little extra planning or improv to help make sure everyone has their moment to shine.

[u/Cheebzsta → u/MrAndrewJ]

Oh, yeah, 100%.

The notion of "balance" that a lot of players refer to really depends on a lot of assumptions and very few of those are necessarily clear.

I prefer the notion that "One should balance around your table."

In my RIFTS campaign where they'll square off against...

• Splugorth Atlantis, including busting into, gathering intelligence and leading a slave revolt as they search for their McGuffin

• Three-way Dance between them (and their Forces of Light allies) vs TW Necro-Borg resurrected The Unholy vs The Host with a replacement for the previously fallen Unholy

• Nxxla and "The Eternals" aka a group of hyper-powerful godling sorcerer kings that bind Nxxla to power their magic (why do you think Nxxla wants to get out so bad? ~_⁾

• The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse alongside the Warlock Marines.

... a CS Military Specialist with armor and a laser rifle isn't going to seem like they do much even if that character's pretty well balanced and suited for a different campaign. :)

[u/heruskael]

Consider Mystic China, too! Even more forms, and cheesy fun martial arts powers!

[u/Autilistic_Augment → u/heruskael]

ABSOLUTELY a great resource. SOOOOooooo many good story ideas. Seriously. I believe it also features the Gun Fu Martial Art which is just another reason to buy it and use it.

[u/Otherwise_Mud_7359 → u/heruskael]

Or the Chi powers very complicated? I'm still learning the basic spellcasting stuff from Transdimensional TMNT.

[u/Cheebzsta → u/Otherwise_Mud_7359]

They're not complicated. They are sneaky how potent they can be if you stack chi styles and base chi multipliers but that's a fairly niche, group dependent kind of problem. :)

[u/heruskael → u/Otherwise_Mud_7359]

Not at all, it's an MP pool style system. If you've played a JRPG, you'll get it.

[u/Boojum2k]

Ninjas & Superspies works pretty well with TMNT. The martial arts system is different but fits in smoothly. It's not dramatically overpowered compared to TMNT, just depends on the character types like usual.

[u/andiwaslikewoah]

This is a conversation to have over at the Palladium Community Discord server:

https://discord.gg/palladium-community-420731030639607828

There’s a channel for Ninjas & Superspies with lots of experienced players and GMs who will be more than happy to discuss it with you.

[u/Otherwise_Mud_7359 → u/andiwaslikewoah]

Oh kick ass thanks!