#227 – Acrobatics and Gymnastics (Physical Skills)

Breakfast puppies?

This podcast contains adult language and content and is meant for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised. You're listening to the Glitter Boys.

So unfortunately, Camp WagonCon was canceled last weekend because we didn't have the right number of players. Camp WagonCon is something that I am a part of and have running. It's the off event that the WagonCon gaming convention does in The Dalles, Oregon. Instead of doing that, I invited 3 of my high school gamer buddies. These are people I've known. Well, our relationships could start applying for, you know, special benefits things for because it's so old, quite literally. So We all showed up at my house. All of our wives and spouses were not there. There were 4 dudes sitting at a table throwing dice, acting like we were 15-year-olds and 16-year-olds on a weekend from high school. And then we woke up and the next morning it hurt just because we were at a table and throwing dice and we're like, oh my God, we're old. I pointed out one night that it was 11, it was 12 o'clock and everyone's like, oh my God, it's 12 o'clock. I haven't been up at 12 o'clock. In 10 years because they all get up early and I'm nocturnal. It was the most fun I'd had gaming in a really, really long time. Uh, and it was amazing. And none of us, none of us performed a single gymnastics or acrobatics check the entire night.

Those were not very well optimized characters.

They were definitely not optimized very well. Uh, and so what we're going to talk about today is gymnastics and acrobatics. In this weird way, 2 skills that are really cool but cause so much weird strife during character creation. Which one's better? Which one isn't? Uh, can I take both of them? Why can't I take them as secondary skills? Because you can't, by the way, in Rifts. Ultimate Edition or Butts Edition, you cannot take them as secondary skills, hands down. They're also one of those skills, 2 skills that give you other things that may never come up in gaming ever. Parallel bars. I don't know the last time it never, it doesn't happen. I'm sorry.

I really want to counter that, but I can't. I can't think of it. It's tightrope. I've seen it. Backflip, seen it. But parallel bars is so specific, unless we're literally playing an Olympics campaign.

I've had it happen 3 times in games I run, and all 3 times it was because they were on a walkway and they went parallel bars on the handrails.

But

they, they had to have been trying to use it that way though.

Uh, it didn't hurt that 2 of the 3 people were former gymnasts. Okay, see, okay.

But out of the 3 of us, we have probably over 100 years of gaming experience and you've come up with 3 examples where it was a little niche.

It was 100% niche. Yeah.

But these 2 skills, they are almost— I will say these are the skills you're stupid not to take at least one of them if you have the ability and you're playing that type of character, which always makes me not like certain skills. Both of them give you climb and prowl. Now, depending on how you interpret it, It's at a very low skill, but you get Climb and Prowl, right? And it theoretically doesn't ever change. Both of them give you a host of other abilities that are fairly niche. Some come up more often than others. They off— both of them give you some really nice physical attribute bonuses and some, uh, SDC bonuses. Both of them give you very similar bonuses, but not the same. That's the thing. They are not the same skill.

They're so close though. They really just should take them and merge them into a single skill. It's because at this point we're splitting hairs.

Oh, absolutely. The skill lists are different, like the, that you get from them, except for Climb and Prowl. One gives you, I think, an automatic kick attack. Um, the other, uh, which is acrobatics and gymnastics doesn't. Acrobatics is much more the way it's flavored is more of your floor, uh, all-around type of tumbling and maybe like clowning, you know, professional clowning type of things. Whereas gymnastics is your classic gymnast, your Gymkhana character.

So acrobatics has higher skill bonuses. But gymnastics has higher physical bonuses.

Yep. And there are a lot of classes that can take one or the other, but not both.

Yeah.

There are a few that you can take both. In that world where you can take both, you're in— if you take them, you get a plus total of +3 to physical strength, physical prowess, and physical endurance. That's pretty freaking impressive for 2 skill selections. And then you get some extra SDC. I think it ends up being like 3d6 SDC. Uh, you get climb and prowl twice. Uh, it, they're really powerful skills.

Yeah.

And it's, if I had to choose one, I'm probably going with gymnastics.

Higher bonuses.

Yeah. And, and I'm forgetting acrobatics is there. I'm probably going to pick up climbing and prowl anyway, or at least prowl. Cause I think everyone needs prowl.

Remind me, do they, if you take Climbing and Prowl, does it give you a bonus to that skill instead of—

They do.

Okay.

It's a base like 30% or 25% or 40% or 30%. And then it goes, or adds +5 or +15 or whatever. Uh, which means if you took both of them, I think you end up with like a +10 to Prowl and a +20 to Climb or something incredible. Right. So it's, I agree with you, NPC. I think there's a strong case to be made that it should just be the same skill.

Also, the numbers are strange. Gymnastics gives you— no, let's start Acrobatics. Acrobatics gives you the backflip sub skill, and it gives it to you at 60% base plus 5% per level. Now Gymnastics also gives you the backflip sub skill at 70% base plus 2% per level. Okay.

Why?

Yeah, these, these are so nitpicky on their differences.

The Sense of Balance, which is another skill that I don't think I've ever seen used.

Oh no, no, no. Sense of Balance, I think gets used so well. Okay. I apologize. I've seen it used a lot, but only as like a saving throw.

Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Like, like you're about to fall into a moving platform of doom. Or like the merry-go-round. Okay. But it's again, in acrobatics, it's a 60 and a 5, but in gymnastics it's 50 and 3. Right? Okay.

Yeah. And the fact that the backflip is higher under gymnastics rather than acrobatics just blows my mind.

I do like the acrobatics gives you no fear of heights, which throws out my entire thought process of what acrobatics is. Well,

okay. To be a little bit of a pendant, um, the difference between gymnastics and acrobatics is gymnastics is an athletic sport form. Acrobatics is an artistic, uh, form that's usually done on stages or with aerial contraptions. Okay. That's the difference. Like, I've seen a bunch of players who Again, were professional gymnasts or amateur acrobats, and they'd actually sub in their acrobatics feat to entertain people because there's more sport. Okay.

I can see that.

It's the difference between—

Circus trained and classic collegiate gymnastics trained.

Exactly. That is the perfect encapsulation. One is a sport, the other one is an art form.

Although honestly, yeah, I think they should be the same skill. I think it's silly that there's 2 of them. I— that's a question we should throw on the list. Like, why did you develop these 2 separate skills that are almost the same but not quite the same? Is there really a big enough difference mechanically? I don't know. It's a weird one.

I can totally see that.

Fun story, acrobatics may actually have been the first physical skill. As of Palladium Fantasy Book 3, Adventures on the High Seas.

Oh, interesting.

It was a skill exclusive to the Acrobat/Tumbler OCC. 2 different skills, mind you, Acrobatics and Tumbling. The Acrobat could take Acrobatics and the Tumbler could take Tumbling, but no other classes could take either one.

Okay. 1st Edition Palladium Fantasy. All right. I don't think there's a lot more we can say about these 2.

They are like physical skills. If you are making a physical character, many people consider them to be crucial. We've talked about this before. You don't have to take them.

If you're gonna take them though, look for spots you can use them because they're very fun skills to throw in to use your environment completely differently.

But as Buckley said, if you have a choice between the two, I agree, gymnastics. If you're depending upon your reasons for taking these skills, if you're just looking down the list of skills for the bonuses, gymnastics is gonna work in your favor longer. The skills it gives you aren't as high, but it gives you a +2 to PS instead of a +1 and a +2 to PE instead of a +1. So that's an additional hit point and an additional point of damage. So there you go.

And if you're on the game master side of the table on this one, consider putting spots in stories where those skills will actually come into play. And also, when you're— if you're one of those GMs who narratively describes what's happening in combat, pay attention to which ones of the characters have those skills and which form of those skills and Try to pull them in for how combat works, because how a gymnast or acrobat might dodge something could be completely different than how someone who's just a skilled fighter does.

Those backflip dodges.

See, I like gymnastics just because the automatic kick attack does 2d4, not 1d8. So I have a chance of rolling a little bit higher on average.

Which again, why is that one with gymnastics, not acrobatics?

I know it's very weird.

I mean, acrobatics has it as well, but it's a 1d8, not 2d4.

Yeah. It's like that. There's a methodology. Someone thought this for some reason, but anyway,

it is very nitpicky. But yeah, I'm not sure what else we can say about these.

So gymnastics, acrobatics, it's just one of those things that everyone talks about when it comes to Palladium.

So. Yeah. It's been on the skill list of many characters of mine throughout the years that, you know, you have the checklist. When it comes time to do your physical skills, you go for boxing, acrobatics, gymnastics, wrestling. And if you can fit it in, bodybuilding and athletics, but you can usually take those as secondary skills.

I like running.

I was going to say running.

Running, that 44 bonus to speed.

Yeah. And, uh, yeah.

So thank you for listening, everyone. Please reach out to us on the Discord channel, help us build our community. And if you want to throw us a few bucks on the Ko-fi page, Or check us out on Redbubble and get some stickers and some other merch. Uh, maybe even some sort of a picture that you would wear on your derriere, perhaps. And as always, thank you very much and keep on listening.

We'll catch you next time.

Starships, magic, mystic martial arts, romance, All of these can be found in A Cloak of Blades by Isaac Sher. You might have heard my name before. I've done a lot of voiceover work for Breakfast Puppies, and I've recently released my first novel. It's available on Amazon as an ebook and paperback, and you can get it for free if you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription. I do hope you'll support my work as you're supporting Breakfast Puppies. And it's been a pleasure talking with you today. Have a good one.

You've been listening to the Glitter Boys, a Palladium Books fan podcast. Glitter Boys: Rifts The Megaverse and all other such topics are the property of Kevin Sambita and Palladium Books. Please buy all their stuff and help keep them in print and making more games. You can order directly at palladiumbooks.com, and their entire catalog is available digitally at DriveThruRPG as well. Our opening music is 8-Bit Bass and Lead by Furbyguy from freesound.org. This closing music is Caravana by Philip Gross, available at freemusicarchive.org. All sound effects used are self-made or acquired via Creative Commons Zero license. If you like what you have heard, find us on Twitter and Facebook as The Glitter Boys— that's B-O-I-S— and check us out online at breakfastpuppies.com/glitterboys, and also join us on the Breakfast Puppies Network Discord at breakfastpuppies.com/discord. And if you want to help us out, please spread the word and help us build a community. Thanks again for listening. We'll catch you next time. We'll catch you next time.