A Combat Primer

With our first meeting coming up and the extreme likelihood of combat in the near future, I thought I would take this opportunity to go over how combat works. I'll point out now that there is no such thing as a perfect or realistic combat system. Every system has its strengths and weaknesses. In general, the Palladium/Rifts system, although somewhat modified as presented here, is less forgiving than some: on average, 5 or 6 solid hits by any opponent with a long sword would kill most human characters even with armor on, but you really only need one critical strike.

There is a basic over all flow that looks something like this:

1. Determine Initiative

2. Attacker rolls for Strike

3. Defender rolls for Parry/Dodge/Entangle

4. If Defender fails, Attacker rolls for damage

5. Repeat Step 2 thru 5 until combat is over.

Now let's break it down.

Step 1 – Determine Initiative

Many times it will be clear from the context of the confrontation who has the initiative, or upper hand. Sneak attacks and ambushes obviously afford the attackers the initiative, but attackers whose experience is vastly greater will also have the advantage. When two combatants of roughly equal ability meet under normal conditions, each combatant will roll a 20-sided die; the higher roll always wins and ties must be re-rolled until there is a clear winner. Whoever wins initiative retains it for the duration of the battle.

The combatant with the initiative rolls first as the attacker. To be more precise, the person with initiative gets to decide what to do, but there is very little reason not to strike first. The order of combat then follows the Timing Chart, with each combatant taking turns as the attacker according to the number of attacks they may use each Melee Round (MR).

The Timing Chart shows at what point during each 15 second MR a combatant is allowed to strike. You will notice that someone who has three attacks per MR will strike at different times from someone who has two attacks per MR.

Step 2 – Attacker rolls for Strike

The attacker rolls a 20-sided die for the strike roll, adding any strike bonuses from combat skill, stats or magic. Any adjusted value above a four will hit unless the original or natural roll of the die was a 1. In this case, it is a Critical Miss and will not hit no matter what the adjusted value is. On the other hand, if a natural 20 is rolled, it is a Critical Hit and will do at least double* damage unless the defender can make a miraculous save. Sometimes a person's Hand-to-Hand combat skill will allow Critical Hits to occur from sneak attacks or on natural die rolls of 18, 19, or 20!

Step 3 – Defender Rolls for Parry/Dodge/Entangle

Before the defender rolls, they must decide what their course of action is going to be: they can either Parry (block the strike), Dodge (move out of the way of the strike), or Entangle (attempt to snag the opponents weapon, or grapple and pin a limb). Although a dodge will always grant you a better chance of avoiding an attack, and is the only way to avoid something like a dragon's breath attack, there is a time penalty for dodging which may cause a low level character to lose his next attack. Entangling is difficult and dangerous, but if successful might disarm or pin an opponent. Parrying is the safe, middle of the road defense that costs you no penalty. In any case the defender rolls a 20-sided die and must, with all modifiers and bonuses for the chosen type of defense, at least equal the attacker's adjusted strike roll in order to successfully defend against that attack.

Step 4 – Roll for Damage

If the defender failed to somehow avoid the attack, then the attacker rolls for damage according to weapon type, PS bonuses, weapon bonuses, and magic bonuses or damage. If the adjusted original Strike Roll was greater than the defender's AR (armor rating), then the damage is applied directly to SDC, or HP if SDC are gone. However, an adjusted Strike Roll lower than the AR results in damage being done to ASDC. The defender has one last chance to attempt to roll with impact to reduce the damage taken. This only applies to physical attacks, of course. Again the defender must equal or better the strike roll on a 20-sided die. You cannot roll with impact when cornered or in tight quarters.

Step 5 – Rinse and Repeat

Combat continues until one side is dead or has run away.

Critical Rolls - Critical Strikes, Critical Misses and Critical Saves

A natural roll of 20 is always a Critical Strike and will do extra damage. It also bypasses any armor the defender may have. “Double” is defined like this: if you get a Critical Strike using a long sword that normally does 3d6 damage, you will do 3d6+18 points of damage. I felt that this was better than simply doubling 3d6, which could result in your spectacular hit doing a whole 6 points of damage on the low end. Some highly advanced hand-to-hand combatants get a Critical strike on rolls lower than a natural 20, but the roll must always be natural.

Critical Saves – When your attacker has just rolled a critical strike against you, you must match that roll with a natural 20 or feel the full force of the attack. Even if you do roll a natural 20, you must then match or better the attacker's adjusted roll with your adjusted roll or you will take full normal damage (not double) from the attacker on your ASDC.

Critical Miss – If you roll a natural 1 on your attack, then this is a Critical Miss and you will not hit your opponent regardless of your adjusted roll. You also lose seconds in your MR, just as if you had dodged, and may as a result lose your next attack. This is because a Critical Miss indicates that you have over extended yourself and are off-balance for a certain period of time, equal to your dodge time.

Calling an Attack

You are allowed to “call” an attack before you roll if you wish to target a specific part of your foe. Broad targets, like swinging for the legs of a humanoid opponent, are relatively easy to hit and only require that your adjusted roll is successful in order to hit the desired target. On the other hand, trying to jab a dragon in the eye with your spear or shoot an arrow into its mouth are very difficult targets to hit, not only because of relative size, but also because they are moving targets. As such, you must roll a Critical Strike to hit the intended target, and failure to do so will result in a miss, no matter what the adjusted roll may be. There is an exception to this when you are trying to hit a small target within a larger field, for example you wish to fire an arrow into the center of a an emblem in the middle of a chest plate. In this instance a Critical Strike roll will hit exactly where intended, but any adjusted roll that is not defended against will at least hit the opponent somewhere.