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In the Compendium of Contemporary Weapons, pages 15-16, there's some very cool rules on the impact of blood loss from a gunshot wound (1-2 points of damage per minute/4 melee rounds, per wound) and shock (basically, getting shot really f*ing hurts! And this causes your character to at best miss an action while they go "ow!" and at worst can remove all their actions for the next two melee rounds and potentially knock them unconscious!)

In a couple of places it mentions melee weapons, basically saying that getting stabbed by a knife or shot with an arrow is the kind of thing that would cause "minor shock". Do you think it would be practical, fun and fair to apply the rules of shock and blood loss to melee weapons (from the Compendium of Weapons, Armour and Castles)? I can't help but think it would make combat in general much, much more vicious, if even a relatively small wound opens up a chance to follow up and do even more damage while your opponent reels in pain. It'd certainly make that knight clad in plate armour with a two-handed Dane Axe utterly HORRIFYING for anyone who has to go against them in melee combat. Which, to be fair, I think they should be!

I used the rules back in the early days.

Be prepared to have fights decided by the first hit as the target is more or less disabled and then it becomes a matter of doing enough damage to finish them off.

The rules are also not built to cope with inhuman levels of toughness, so you'll have to make some decisions about them before it comes up.

There are the optional rules on pg20 of the 2E Main Book you could roll on as damage is accumulated.

Rifts does have the Save vs Pain mechanic that might also be useful to look at here. I found a full description in Rifts Conversion Book 1 Revised (pg20-1, next 2 pages might also have stuff), though it might be in other books in some form or another (I know the Cyber-Doc in RUE gets a bonus to save vs Pain, and Rifts Canada has a short description on pg27, plus 2 OCCs get save vs Pain).

the Rifts GMG has rules for bloodloss on page 36. (ir does not have rules for shock.. but it does have rules for bleeding characters suffering medical difficulties when their Hit points get too low. this is described as internal bleeding ,but could be used for shock as well)
they also have rules for pain from injuries, and the penalties that accumulate from it. (same page)

the GMG bloodloss rules are pretty simple. hits that are deemed by the Gm to cause bloodloss make the character take a few points of damage a minute. comes from the SDC first, then HP.
it wouldn't really effect most combats directly, unless it is something like a full on battle, but it would be an important roleplay elements for after a battle and make healing skills, powers, and items much more important.
the pain penalty rules would have more effect on combat, since taking hits is going to gradually increase those.

PalladiumBrony wrote:In the Compendium of Contemporary Weapons, pages 15-16, there's some very cool rules on the impact of blood loss from a gunshot wound (1-2 points of damage per minute/4 melee rounds, per wound) and shock (basically, getting shot really f*ing hurts! And this causes your character to at best miss an action while they go "ow!" and at worst can remove all their actions for the next two melee rounds and potentially knock them unconscious!)

Additional rules like these make a game much more tense and gritty. If both the G.M. and players like this and can handle the additional book-keeping it can really change the flavor of combat.

The group I started playing Palladium games with in the 90s loved rules like knockback and special penalties for taking a critcal hit. Most players I game with these days believe their character should be functioning at 100% even when knocked down to 1 hit pont remaining,

Definately let the players test the rules with cannon fodder before throwing their prized player characters into a combat system with upgraded lethality