[Palladium] Exceptional Attributes House Rule

I've been in the mood to play some Palladium Fantasy lately.  Like many of you, the first thing I'm doing is looking at potential house rules for any game I'm going to play. I'm not opposed to the use of exceptional attributes in the game, but I've always wanted to tweak the rule.  Instead of a roll of 16-18 granting a guaranteed D6 bonus to the attribute score, I've always wanted to change it to a possibility of a bonus. I've tinkered with several different ways to do this but until I recently posted at The Ruins of Murkhill about it I hadn't been happy with the ideas I previously attempted to use.  Thanks to The Perilous Dreamer for suggesting the modification to my original idea.  The house rule is detailed below.

Exceptional Attributes: A roll of 16-18 during attribute generation grants the possibility of an exceptional attribute.  A roll of 16 gives a 10% chance, a roll of 17 gives a 25% chance, and a roll of 18 gives a 50% chance of an exceptional attribute.  If the exceptional attribute roll is successful, you roll another D6 and add the score to the previously generated score.  

I think that will work.  It's easy to implement and it makes the exceptional attributes more rare and truly exceptional.  I haven't tested it out in play yet, but it sounds reasonable.  I may look at the attribute table in general to see if it needs to be modified as well.  Have you done anything like this with Palladium? Did it work? Any suggestions?

[Miniature Monday] DIY Gelatinous Cube

I'm still painting miniatures to help scratch the old gaming itch; maybe I'll be fortunate enough to get a group together sometime in the near future.  As I continue to learn new methods and try out new tips, I have dipped my toe into crafting a miniature as well.  To avoid any confusion, I am absolutely not casting a metal miniature or anything similar because that is outside of my skill set and my artistic ability.  My miniatures are painted for tabletop use only and will definitely not win any sort of competition.  

I didn't set out to craft a Gelatinous Cube or any sort of miniature at all - it just happened.  I was picking up some groceries and remembered that I needed to buy some new ink pens.  On my way to that particular aisle, I passed by a shelf with some crayons, markers, and related stuff.   For some unknown reason, the package for the Crayola Model Magic caught my attention.

  

I stopped and picked up the package to read the instructions and see what it contained.  The box contained four small pieces of the modeling clay for a price of just under $5.  I imagined that I could probably craft a few easy things such as boxes, sandbags, boulders, etc. to potentially use in a game.  Again, my miniatures are for effect rather than display or competition so $5 would be a small price to pay if it didn't work out as well as I hoped.

I got home and put the Crayola Model Magic with my other supplies and then it occurred to me that a Gelatinous Cube is basically a box, so why not give it a try?  I formed the clay into a cube and let it sit for a while and noticed it still had some flexibility.  I recalled that I had a few spare bits laying around, so I added a sword, a helm, and a boot to the clay to show parts of unfortunate adventurers caught by the creature but not yet fully dissolved. Finally, I put a coat of slime green on the cube and then some blood around the pieces not yet dissolved. 

I'm pretty happy with the results.  Granted, it doesn't look as nice as a professionally produced miniature, but it cost me very little to make myself.  I still have the rest of the clay left so I will try to make some miniatures in the future.  I have plans for the slimes from the DragonQuest video game series and some oversized mushrooms as seen in the module In Search of the Unknown.  If it works out, there is a bucket of the clay available that costs twice as much but has 3 or more times the amount of the box.  

Have you crafted anything to use in your games?

 

Posting Again...

 

It's been a few months since I last posted. It hasn't been from a lack of willingness, but we have worked an extremely large amount of overtime this year.  I've got the itch to start blogging again on a (at least) somewhat regular basis. I've got some new ideas for posts, I have some posts already scheduled in the queue, and maybe even a surprise here and there.  Who knows?  I still have a secret project I am working on but it's not yet ready for extra eyes.  Stay tuned for more information...