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I was looking through a couple of books at skills and one of the newer H2H definitions (AtB) and then 2 things jumped right out at me and annoyed me immensely.

1) You are better off without Archery / Targetting (since without it you get 1 ranged attack per H2H attack) so most characters start out with 4. But if you buy archery and targeting you start with only 2... huh???!

2) You are often going to be better off getting hit with a death blow than rolling with it. (let's say someone with +5 damage punches you for 1D4, an AtB death blow would do double damage to HP (IIRC) so assuming a max roll that's 18 HP. If you save against it you lose HALF your remaining SDC or HP. so anyone with more than 36 HP or lots and lots of SDC is likely going to want to get hit rather than roll with the death blow.

Have I missed something or screwed this up somehow?

Everytime I get excited about running Rifts or a palladium game I crack a book and rapidly lose all that excitemement to the awful cut and paste monsters and nonsensical rule goblins.

Tigermuppetcut wrote:I was looking through a couple of books at skills and one of the newer H2H definitions (AtB) and then 2 things jumped right out at me and annoyed me immensely.

1) You are better off without Archery / Targetting (since without it you get 1 ranged attack per H2H attack) so most characters start out with 4. But if you buy archery and targeting you start with only 2... ***!

That is still true. Keep in mind that the # of attacks archery gives increases with level, and generally will increase faster than your regular HTH attacks. So after a few levels you'll actually have more attacks a round with teh Archery skill than without. Also, without the WP you have no bonuses to strike.

Tigermuppetcut wrote:2) You are often going to be better off getting hit with a death blow than rolling with it. (let's say someone with +5 damage punches you for 1D4, an AtB death blow would do double damage to HP (IIRC) so assuming a max roll that's 18 HP. If you save against it you lose HALF your remaining SDC or HP. so anyone with more than 36 HP or lots and lots of SDC is likely going to want to get hit rather than roll with the death blow.

I don't have the rules handy but I thought being successfully hit with a death blow automatically put you into a coma and you had to roll against coma recovery to survive.

Tigermuppetcut wrote:I was looking through a couple of books at skills and one of the newer H2H definitions (AtB) and then 2 things jumped right out at me and annoyed me immensely.

1) You are better off without Archery / Targetting (since without it you get 1 ranged attack per H2H attack) so most characters start out with 4. But if you buy archery and targeting you start with only 2... ***!

....plus two for living....

2) You are often going to be better off getting hit with a death blow than rolling with it. (let's say someone with +5 damage punches you for 1D4, an AtB death blow would do double damage to HP (IIRC) so assuming a max roll that's 18 HP. If you save against it you lose HALF your remaining SDC or HP. so anyone with more than 36 HP or lots and lots of SDC is likely going to want to get hit rather than roll with the death blow.

if you fail your roll with punch, you take damage direct to HP.

if you suceed, you take normal damage.

it USED to be if you fail your roll with punch you die, period, and if you pass you loose half HP/SDC.