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Hey all,

What are the official rules for dodging and parrying thrown weapons?

RUE is pretty clear about dodging bullets and energy blasts: -10 to dodge within 10 feet, and -5 to dodge within 50 feet. And the dodge only benefits from the PP bonus and any OCC bonus to dodge. However, I couldn’t find anything specific about dodging a thrown weapon (or arrows, for that matter).

As for parrying, it specifically says in RUE (under the definition for “Parry” on p. 346) that “Bullets and energy attacks cannot (as a rule) be parried!” It doesn’t say “ranged attacks,” but rather, specifically calls out bullets and energy attacks, so I’m assuming that thrown weapons follow a different rule. I know that a few OCCs (Cyber-Knights, Ninjas, etc.) and races are able to parry bullets/energy blasts at a penalty. Which means those classes or races should be able to parry thrown weapons, too. Yet those classes only show modifiers for dodging or parrying gunfire, energy blasts, and arrows.

Under the entry for WP Shield (p. 327), it says that a shield can be used to parry arrows and thrown attacks with an unmodified roll at -3. But what about without a shield? Is it not possible at all?

The only reference I can find for this is in Palladium Fantasy, under the Long Bowman OCC, which says all thrown weapons are -10 to dodge or parry (obviously a different game, though).

The only reference I can find for this is in Palladium Fantasy, under the Long Bowman OCC, which says all thrown weapons are -10 to dodge or parry (obviously a different game, though).

Palladium Fantasy is a different game line, and using an older rule set. That is one issue with the Palladium's Megaversal Engine, it is evolving over time and can see things change depending on where/when one looks. The one in RUE is different than it was in the GM Guide/RCB1r which was different than RMB-era. PF2E was written after RMB but before GM Guide/RCB1r.

For simplicity I would advise just treating the thrown weapons as equal to bullets as they are all projectiles.

I'd treat them like melee weapons, simply because the whole idea behind the -10/-5 penalty is due to the speed of the incoming attacks vs. your reaction time. Bullets and energy blasts travel a lot faster than a thrown dagger or spear.

ShadowLogan wrote:

The only reference I can find for this is in Palladium Fantasy, under the Long Bowman OCC, which says all thrown weapons are -10 to dodge or parry (obviously a different game, though).

Palladium Fantasy is a different game line, and using an older rule set. That is one issue with the Palladium's Megaversal Engine, it is evolving over time and can see things change depending on where/when one looks. The one in RUE is different than it was in the GM Guide/RCB1r which was different than RMB-era. PF2E was written after RMB but before GM Guide/RCB1r.

For simplicity I would advise just treating the thrown weapons as equal to bullets as they are all projectiles.

I believe that the rule for arrows and thrown knives etc. in palladium fantasy is essentially the same for rifts guns. since the rule for guns/bullets is essentially the same, I would actually make bows and thrown projectiles either 1/2 the penalty to block/parry, or essentially no penalty (IE treat them like melee attacks) or some combination

like:
thrown no penalty to block/dodge/parry
sling and bow some penalty

There is no rule for dodging or parrying thrown or ancient weapons in the core Gaming System that PB uses for its games. In other words....just plan d20 rolls in the core rules. It is only PF2 that has specific rules about this specific rule question.

If you want to import the PF2 rule into rifts, you need to modify them to fit the Rifts rules set, or Modify the Rifts Rules to fit the newly imported rules. (I'm going to pretend most of y'all understand the WHY I said this. If you need a clue...look at the numbers involved for what they are for, in relation to each other.)

If there is a problem, as I see it, is people thinking that/treating all of PB games are one game, when they are multiple games.
YES....it is easy to think that way because of how easy it is to bring characters from one game to another...even from one edition to another.
And Yes...this has caused a few bad arguments between posters here.

As to comment on the ' ' 'ongoing changes' ' ' to the system....Really/Literally....it is only Rifts' rules that changes. Not the base gaming system. This is true PB doesn't do Official Updates to their other games. There are ninja/stealth updates when they reprint a book sometimes. But not like a PF GMG that changes some of the core rules like the Rifts GMG did. As such none of the none Rifts games rules change even though the rifts rules change.

HU2 modern weapons WPs still are the +3 aimed strike & +1 burst strike, +1 to both for every third level gained... even though PB went and changed the Rifts MWP rules so they are ""more realistic"" so you can't hit anything with them.