Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness, Black, White, & Red Redux Edition, by Palladium Books, originally by Eric Wujcik, updated by Sean Owen Roberson.
Magnificent.
I was worried, can't lie. Usually when a game gets modernized, it loses its edge and becomes soft and glittery. Just look at all the latest versions of all the classic games. Can Palladium modernize their books and still be Palladium?
Yes.
At least for now...
So, two books, reprinting six...
Other Strangeness contains:
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness
- Turtles Go Hollywood
- Truckin' Turtles
Transdimensional Adventures contains:
- Transdimensional Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
- The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Guide To The Universe
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures
It's the same basic Palladium layout, just cleaner. Black and white art with a red tinge... incredible! There is a full color version and alternate covers too, but damn, I made the right choice by going for red in the Kickstarter. Look at that art...
If Palladium plans to go full color, this is how they should do it. Stylize it. They already have decades of great and iconic art to work with. Stylize it.
Oh yes... The classic Palladium weapons chart!
Original Laird/Eastman art with a touch of red. Really pops.
Original covers included...
Nice paper, minimum gloss if any, extremely readable.
Character creation is nice and smooth.
And it's not just the appearance... it's also the rules.
Things are cleaner, tidier, simpler. Gone are the multitude of punches and kicks doing various damage. Now there is only unarmed doing 1d4 + strength bonus. Gone are redundant maneuvers, plenty still exist, but they're clarified.
The combat styles, Basic, Expert (sometimes referred to as Elite, typos I'm sure), Martial Arts, Assassin, Ninja, and Feral, are all redone, stating clearly what you start out knowing and what you gain as you level up. Expert is clearly better than basic, and martial arts is clearly better than expert. Simply put, these charts make sense now.
Combat is cleaner. You start with 2 actions. Skills can give you more and more are gained at higher levels. It's basically the same; just explained better.
Skills are listed with starting percentages right next to them and they simply improve by 5% per level. There are Professional skills and amateur skills. Depending on your origin, you get a combo of both. Professional skills allow an IQ bonus. And note: IQ is no longer I.Q., the periods have been removed from the abbreviated attributes.
All weapon proficiencies improve at the same rate: +1 at level 1, and levels 4,7,10, and 13. That's it.
Everyone starts knowing three basic skills:
- Basic Academics: The general info you know.
- Basic Athletics: Climb ,prowl, swim, etc., but at a basic level, actual skills will supersede this.
- Perception: Self explanatory.
Character creation is nice and smooth.
This one's a winner.
Seriously, well done Palladium!
