Palladium ATB

calendar Mar 2, 2024 · 8 min read  ·
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“Active” Combat Melee

I can honestly say that I did not develop this system, I picked it up somewhere in the late 90s. It may have been from a mailing list…

This is a relatively simple way to make combat more reactive in the various table-top role playing games published by Palladium Books.

The Original Rules

In a nut shell, participants roll 1d20 and add their initiative bonus to determine who goes when. Each participant gets a set number of attacks per melee round and they go in initiative order (from highest to lowest) until no one has any attacks. It’s very back and forth, but characters with more melee attacks get them all in a row at the end.

The Addendum

The basic tenants are the same, but this system includes some math and a chart in an attempt to have actions more evenly distributed within a melee round. Characters with more attacks are performing multiple actions in a clump, but other characters actions are interspersed between the clumps.

Attacks or Actions

For the most part these two terms are interchangable. Palladium calls them attacks, but it can make more sense to think of them as actions. I’ll mostly call them actions unless a participant is explicitly attacking.

The Chart

This is the chart for tracking whose turn is when:

Character r 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Sabin
Edgar
Banon
Ultros

The numbers along the top are the initiative values. It starts with r for remainder and goes up to 30 (just in case someone manages a +10 to initiative). The names down the left are the characters. When filling in the chart, put the player characters first so that they go first in case of a tie (this assumes that the game master LIKES the players).

These particular characters are taken from a scene in Final Fantasy IV; Sabin and Edgar are player characters, Banon is an non-player character, and Ultros is an enemy.

Let’s assign a number of actions to everybody:

  • Sabin: 4 (He’s a martial artist)
  • Edgar: 3 (He’s actually a King… but we’ll assume he was taught Hand to Hand: Assassin)
  • Banon: 5 (He’s an experienced martial artist)
  • Ultros: 8 (He’s Octopus Royalty)

Now imagine everybody rolls initiative (we’ll put an x on what they roll)

Character r 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Sabin x
Edgar x
Banon x
Ultros x

The Math

Edgar “wins” the initiative and will get to go first; but then what happens? We take everybody’s initiative and divide it by their number of actions:

  • Sabin: 4 / 4 = 1
  • Edgar: 19 / 3 = 6.3
  • Banon: 7 / 5 = 1.4
  • Ultros: 5 / 8 = 0.6

These are the steps between actions for these characters. Banon was close enough to a half step that he can go 1, 3, 1, 3. If that seems like too much work, then just round the step down to a 1. If you are doing this and want to give your players an advantage, then round player character steps down and enemy character steps up (makes the math simpler too).

Now we count down from their initiative by the steps we determined above:

  • Sabin: 4, 3, 2, 1
  • Edgar: 19, 13, 7
  • Banon: 7, 6, 4, 3, 1
  • Ultros: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0 , -1, -2

Ultros had more actions than initiative! That’s why we put the r on the chart. You can put the remaining actions there:

Character r 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Sabin x x x x
Edgar x x x
Banon x x x x x
Ultros 3 x x x x x

When the melee round gets down to r, you go old school and simply go down the line allowing each character to use an action until everybody has used all of their actions. In my experience this is rare.

Action Order

So we start at the top right and work down each column as we proceed to the left:

Order of Actions
  1. Edgar
  2. Edgar
  3. Edgar
  4. Banon
  5. Ultros
  6. Banon
  7. Ultros
  8. Ultros
  9. Sabin
  10. Banon
  11. Ultros
  12. Sabin
  13. Banon
  14. Ultros
  15. Sabin
  16. Ultros
  17. Sabin
  18. Banon
  19. Ultros
  20. Ultros

All of the players will see the GM ticking off actions as the happen and calling out who gets to act next. It is usually quite effective.

More Examples

High Rolls
Character r 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Sabin x x x x
Edgar x x x
Banon x x x x x
Ultros x x x x x x x x
  1. Banon
  2. Sabin
  3. Ultros
  4. Edgar
  5. Banon
  6. Sabin
  7. Ultros
  8. Ultros
  9. Banon
  10. Edgar
  11. Ultros
  12. Sabin
  13. Ultros
  14. Banon
  15. Ultros
  16. Sabin
  17. Edgar
  18. Ultros
  19. Banon
  20. Ultros
Everybody Rolls 12
Character r 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Sabin x x x x
Edgar x x x
Banon x x x x x
Ultros x x x x x x x x
  1. Sabin
  2. Edgar
  3. Banon
  4. Ultros
  5. Ultros
  6. Banon
  7. Sabin
  8. Ultros
  9. Edgar
  10. Ultros
  11. Banon
  12. Sabin
  13. Ultros
  14. Banon
  15. Ultros
  16. Edgar
  17. Sabin
  18. Ultros
  19. Banon
  20. Ultros
  21. Ultros
Low Rolls
Character r 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Sabin x x x x
Edgar x x x
Banon x x x x
Ultros x x x x x x x x
  1. Edgar
  2. Ultros
  3. Sabin
  4. Ultros
  5. Ultros
  6. Sabin
  7. Edgar
  8. Ultros
  9. Ultros
  10. Sabin
  11. Banon
  12. Ultros
  13. Edgar
  14. Banon
  15. Ultros
  16. Sabin
  17. Banon
  18. Ultros
  19. Banon

Combat Example

Let’s say that Sabin and Edgar are “sparring”, how could that play out?

Let’s also assume that both have combat training (remember Sabin is a martial artist and Edgar knows hand-to-hand assassin).

Round 1
Character r 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Sabin x x x x
Edgar x x x
  1. (17) Edgar attacks with a sword, but Sabin parries.
  2. (16) Sabin fires an AuraBolt (a type of chi blast), but Edgar dodges (this uses his action at 11).
  3. (12) Sabin fires another AuraBolt, but Edgar dodges again (using up his action at 5).
  4. (8) Sabin punches Edgar, but Edgar parries.
  5. (4) Sabin punches Edgar again.

Remember that the separation of melee rounds provides a dramatic moment for participants to regroup, gather themselves, and change tactics.

Round 2
Character r 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Sabin x x x x
Edgar x x x
  1. (18) Edgar fires a crossbow at Sabin, but Sabin dodges (using his action at 11).
  2. (12) Edgar fires a crossbow at Sabin, but Sabin dodges (using his action at 8).
  3. (6) Edgar fires a crossbow at Sabin, but Sabin takes the damage (he’s tough).
  4. (5) Sabin hits Edgar with AuraBolt (he can’t dodge, he’s out of actions).
  5. (4) Sabin hits Edgar with AuraBolt again (he still can’t dodge, he’s out of actions).

The Set Up

  1. Create the basic chart in your spreadsheet software of choice (I did it in Google Sheets).
  2. Print it.
  3. Place it in a document protector (avaialable at Staples, Target, Walmart, et al.)
  4. Grab a dry erase marker (again Staples, Target, Walmart, et al.)
  5. Write combatants names along the left side (I put player characters first to give them a small advantage).
  6. Roll initiative and mark actions as above.
  7. Erase actions as they are used.

Edge Cases

One on One

If there are only two participants and they have the same number of actions, then you can skip the chart and just get into the melee. The characters alternate actions, but that can be more engaging.

Losing Initiative

This system changes the purpose of initiative and makes the concept of losing it nonsensical.

One solution would be to move one action to the end of the round when initiative is lost.

Another solution would be to reset that characters remaining actions as to one initiative below the character that caused the loss’s next action.

I.E. if a character has 3 actions remaining and loses the initiative to an enemy whose next action is on 10, then that character’s actions now fall on 9, 6, and 3.

A third solution would be to simply treat “losing initiative” as losing the next action.

The solution you choose depends on what makes narrative sense at your table.

Using multiple actions

Performing some actions consumes more than one action. For these it is important to consider how the action plays out before deciding how to adapt it to this system.

Actions such as power punches, power kicks, or Muay Thai’s Lightning Form Kata work by expending multiple actions up front. When a character takes these actions erase the appropriate number of actions from their row.

Lining up an aimed shot takes two actions but there is an argument that the first action is spent preparing and the second action is the actual attack. As such, declared an aimed shot is the first action and taking the shot is the second. This also gives an opportunity to roleplau disrupting the characters aim (or not depending on how cool the character is).

Reactions

Parrying, dodging, and simultaneous actions are all actions taken as a response to other actions. Characters who cannot do these automatcially will expend their next action (erase it as per step 7 above).