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whats the ruling on taking 2 or more hand to hand combats
just curious

You can't. Only in Ninjas and Superspies can more than one combat style be taken, and then only by on specific class - and that class is penalized by having very, very few skills available to choose.

cool good to know
thanks

Glistam wrote:You can't.

Source?

Even if one takes the '1 hth per OCC' stance, I don't see what prohibits multi-OCC characters from advancing their HtH separately.

Heck in the original PRPG, I'm pretty sure you could even use your HtHs simultaneously and stack the bonuses. Unlike N&SS there was no exclusivity clause.

Glistam wrote:Only in Ninjas and Superspies can more than one combat style be taken, and then only by on specific class - and that class is penalized by having very, very few skills available to choose.

Mystic China also has one that can select 2.

Also if you opt to play un-revised N&SS you can select up to 3 HtHs.

HU2 rules allow you to substitute these.

Glistam is correct, that for anything outside of N&S/MC a char can only have one H2H. Several places in the online FAQ, Rifter Q&A, FAQ in published books, the published rules in gamebooks. Take your pick.

Even with N&S and MC the char can only use one MAF at one time for a full melee.

It is hard to get multiple H2H's in PF1 cause your class determines what h2h you get. At least that is my understanding. (I'm not a mxpert in PF1, I have never had a reason to make any chars from it)

The "" two h2h Tor mention are not two forms really. They are more like 1/2 & 1/2 forms with one half being the physical side and the other being the mystical side.
Also Since its RChina, anything said in those two books only applies in RChina, as if it were another setting, unless otherwise specified in the text.

Most people only have access to N&S revised. But even then a char can take time out to learn a new MAF and get three or more.

The Ancient Master text in N&Sr is so not written well it can be read to mean that the AM will have one, two, or three MAFs.

Some classes in PF1 have a couple HtH options (like the priest) but usually it's just one, yeah, there's functionally a 1-per-class limit so you'd need to multi-class to get them there.

Mystic China is a N&SS sourcebook, not talking about the two China WBs for Rifts.

erp my bad.....

quertas wrote:whats the ruling on taking 2 or more hand to hand combats
just curious

As a regular skill selection you can only select one Hand to Hand: ______ Skill. So you cant spend skills to pick up both H2H Martial Arts and H2H Assassin. (I recall reading this explicitly laid out in a rule book, but I can't recall where) There ARE some "exceptions that prove the rule" where various odd classes/races/whatnot end up with two (or more) hand to hand skills. HOWEVER even if you do have multiple skills they do not stack. So if skill 1 has +3 to strike and skill 2 has +3 to strike, you do not have +6 to strike, you just have +3 to strike. Also, you can only use one skill at a time. You have to pick if your using skill 1 or skill 2 at any given point. This will determine, among other things. What you can do such as: your attacks, your defenses, your bonuses, etc.
Does this help?

Nightbane are a neat example since they have MA in morphus and whatever they know otherwise in Facade. HU Mystic Bestowed can also shift like that. Form-specific HtH are pretty clean.

HU2 main book page 48 wrote:How many hand to hand skills can be selected?
Only One.

Disclaimer: While there is more text in the section of text that followed the question, only the 1st sentence (the one presented) is actually the answer to the question.

That statement is discredited since Mystic Bestowed can select two, like Nightbane. One in their normal human form which they learn per standard, and a second that is bestowed to them by supernatural means.

Since HU mentions being able to use N&SS, it's also clear that this would operate as an exception to it.

Since HU doesn't have multi-classing built into it, when multi-classing IS used via importing other games' rules, I'd just operate by the '1 per OCC' thing.

Tor wrote:That statement is discredited since Mystic Bestowed can select two, like Nightbane. One in their normal human form which they learn per standard, and a second that is bestowed to them by supernatural means.

Since HU mentions being able to use N&SS, it's also clear that this would operate as an exception to it.

Since HU doesn't have multi-classing built into it, when multi-classing IS used via importing other games' rules, I'd just operate by the '1 per OCC' thing.

Errrr they are still only selecting one skill.
They just replace that with a different one in some circumstances. But they still only SELECT one.

Tor wrote:Since HU mentions being able to use N&SS, it's also clear that this would operate as an exception to it.

The combat styles in N&SS are martial arts forms; they use their own rules.

eliakon wrote:they are still only selecting one skill.
They just replace that with a different one in some circumstances.
But they still only SELECT one.

Page 156 Mystic Bestowed table says "either select one of the following or roll for a random determination", so by selecting a table option with HtH, you may select Expert or MA.

Glistam wrote:The combat styles in N&SS are martial arts forms; they use their own rules.

Some of those are Hand to Hand skills. N&SSp83 lists "basic hand to hand" as well as expert/assassin/martial arts all being martial arts forms.

Tor wrote:

Glistam wrote:The combat styles in N&SS are martial arts forms; they use their own rules.

Some of those are Hand to Hand skills. N&SSp83 lists "basic hand to hand" as well as expert/assassin/martial arts all being martial arts forms.

That's what I said...

Tor wrote:

eliakon wrote:they are still only selecting one skill.
They just replace that with a different one in some circumstances.
But they still only SELECT one.

Page 156 Mystic Bestowed table says "either select one of the following or roll for a random determination", so by selecting a table option with HtH, you may select Expert or MA.

Glistam wrote:The combat styles in N&SS are martial arts forms; they use their own rules.

Some of those are Hand to Hand skills. N&SSp83 lists "basic hand to hand" as well as expert/assassin/martial arts all being martial arts forms.

What Tor is not directly saying is that the Mystic Bestowed character has two forms. Their mudane form and their hero form.
And, as with NB, the h2h in their transformed form is not learned. It is a part of the from.

quertas wrote:whats the ruling on taking 2 or more hand to hand combats
just curious

In addition to what's already been posted, if you do use N&S and take two HtH forms, the overwhelming majority of them can't be mixed-n-matched in order to take the best bonuses from each. So if you start off the round with a HtH form that gives good offensive bonuses, but poor defensive ones, and then realize your opponent hits way harder than you, you'd have to wait until the start of the next round to switch to a form that has better defensive bonuses.

Glistam wrote:That's what I said...

You said they use their own rules, but since 4 of the forms are 'hand to hand' they would follow HtH rules too.

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:What Tor is not directly saying is that the Mystic Bestowed character has two forms.
as with NB, the h2h in their transformed form is not learned. It is a part of the from

I directly said it the first time I brought them up:

Tor wrote:Nightbane are a neat example since they have MA in morphus and whatever they know otherwise in Facade.
HU Mystic Bestowed can also shift like that.
Form-specific HtH are pretty clean.

I figured people would remember me saying that so there would no need to repeat it.

I never said the MB/NB skills were 'learned', rather I said MB's HtH is selectable, because the player can select those options from the table.

Tor wrote:

Glistam wrote:That's what I said...

You said they use their own rules, but since 4 of the forms are 'hand to hand' they would follow HtH rules too.

The Hand to Hand forms (all the combat styles in Ninjas & Superspies and Mystic China) follow different rules than the Hand to Hand combat skills presented in the other Palladium books. They are not the same thing, despite four of the Hand to Hand forms having similar names to the typical Palladium Hand to Hand combat skills.

I never said martial art form and hand to hand are the same, just some are both.

Since the agent HtH combats clearly are not policed by the 1-cap some systems introduce, it shows the cap on HtHs is flexible.

Tor wrote:I never said martial art form and hand to hand are the same, just some are both.

Since the agent HtH combats clearly are not policed by the 1-cap some systems introduce, it shows the cap on HtHs is flexible.

The various Agent H2Hs are Martial Art Forms. Note that they are not Physicals skills in N&SS, which means that the rules that apply to Physical skill H2H do not apply to them, only the rules about Martial Art Forms apply.
The fact that many Game Masters choose to house rule them as being equivalent does not make it so. It just makes it a common house rule, often based on a misunderstanding of the rules.

Fun blurb from N&SS page 81 under "martial art terms: Form" I noticed while flipping around on the loo:

"The forms in previous Palladium RPGs are Hand to Hand: Basic, Expert, Martial Arts and Assassin. There are 37 new forms in Ninjas & Superspies."

I now believe this segment supports Form/HtH being same, interchangeable and equivalent terms.

Tor wrote:Fun blurb from N&SS page 81 under "martial art terms: Form" I noticed while flipping around on the loo:

"The forms in previous Palladium RPGs are Hand to Hand: Basic, Expert, Martial Arts and Assassin. There are 37 new forms in Ninjas & Superspies."

I now believe this segment supports Form/HtH being same, interchangeable and equivalent terms.

Except of course for the minor trivial fact that Forms stated out differently, and have special rules (like Weapon Katas)
Or we can just assume that no one can use weapons at all since no one has weapon katas.....

So in conclusion: No, a Char can not have more then one type of h2h, but a DMA can have more then one MAF.

Yes, I am using specific designators for what I am talking about.

eliakon wrote:Except of course for the minor trivial fact that Forms stated out differently, and have special rules (like Weapon Katas)

Those are not different rules for forms. Wujcik made it clear that the HtH skills in other games ARE forms. This is simply different rules for N&SS.

eliakon wrote:we can just assume that no one can use weapons at all since no one has weapon katas.....

Weapon katas are not required to use weapons, they just allow you to add HtH bonuses when using them in the N&SS rules/world.

Forms and HtH skills do not use different rules, because HtH skills are Forms, we just have different rules in different settings.

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:a Char can not have more then one type of h2h
a Char can have more then one MAF.

H2H types are all MAFs, therefore you can have multiple HtH types. Settings that state only 1 due to those settings only having classes which can select 1. Selecting multiple Forms with the same class is a unique situation, they're simply stating you can't do it with the classes in those books just because you have free physical skills.

Tor wrote:

eliakon wrote:Except of course for the minor trivial fact that Forms stated out differently, and have special rules (like Weapon Katas)

Those are not different rules for forms. Wujcik made it clear that the HtH skills in other games ARE forms. This is simply different rules for N&SS.

Or the in N&SS H2H skills are Forms..... If we are changing rules it could change either way....

Tor wrote:

eliakon wrote:we can just assume that no one can use weapons at all since no one has weapon katas.....

Weapon katas are not required to use weapons, they just allow you to add HtH bonuses when using them in the N&SS rules/world.
Forms and HtH skills do not use different rules, because HtH skills are Forms, we just have different rules in different settings.

Actually I was pretty sure you had to have them to use weapons with a form at all. So no one could use weapons with a form...unless they change the rules...and saying that the rules are changed for N&SS is the same as saying as Forms and Skills are different everywhere BUT N&SS.....
It has no effect since all since it just says "when the rules are changed sufficiently, the rules will be different"

hand to hand's/H2H's/h2hs: are combat skills. These are used in Rifts, HU, NB, RT, PF, .....basically All of the PB megaverse setting except N&S and MC. Having rules saying a char can only have one.

Martial Art Form's/MAF's: are fighting styles. These are learned over years of training and are like skills program or MOS skills program instead of being a single skill. And have rules about how a martial artist chars can learn more then one.

Since someone didn't get that I was differentiating (iow saying they are two different things even if they sort of look the same if you squint your eyes.) between the two.

I get that you were attempting to differentiate, you just failed at it.

N&SS clearly states forms and HtHs are synonyms, in the glossary I gave the page for. There's no trumping this.

Tor wrote:I get that you were attempting to differentiate, you just failed at it.

N&SS clearly states forms and HtHs are synonyms, in the glossary I gave the page for. There's no trumping this.

For that game line its conditionally true yes.
Edit I am changing this. I will agree that all H2H skills are forms, but not all forms are H2H skills. (All apples are fruits, but not all fruits are apples). At least in N&SS

I'm not seeing any declarations in other books contradicting this N*SS stance of parity. There are even options for these H2Hs being used for HU Pcategories.

Tor wrote:I'm not seeing any declarations in other books contradicting this N*SS stance of parity. There are even options for these H2Hs being used for HU Categories.

Lets see...N&S page 81 under "Form" says that the h2h's are a sub-set of the forms of Martial arts. That does not say that the MAF presented in the N&S book are h2h's. So while h2h's are MAF, abet simplified and truncated forms of full MAF's, the same can not be said in the reverse direction. However, I can see how someone could misread the text if they were already disposed to calling all combat skills with the label they are familiar with.

As to support h2h's being just a sub-set of MAF's, there are the four h2h's right there in the beginning of the stating out of the MAFs Page 83&84 listing them as h2h's....which none of the other MAF are listed as.

How does this affect the answer about how many h2h's a char can have....none for chars that are not DMA. They still can only have one h2h.

Now since DMA can have multiple MAF and h2h's are MAF then yes a DMA can have multiple h2h's.

And since this exclution that Tor was seaking is in fact changes nothing, I would apprisiate it if you would stop trying to take the text out of context to try to bend the RAW to mean what your house rules say.

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:N&S page 81 under "Form" says that the h2h's are a sub-set of the forms of Martial arts. That does not say that the MAF presented in the N&S book are h2h's.

Cool paraphrasing bro but let's look at the actual text...

N&SS page 81 wrote:Martial Art Terms
Form
The forms in previous Palladium RPGs are Hand to Hand: Basic, Expert, Martial Arts and Assassin.
There are 37 new forms in Ninjas & Superspies.

So other RPG hand to hands are forms. We seem to agree on that but the implications you draw...

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:h2h's are MAF, abet simplified and truncated forms of full MAF's
the same can not be said in the reverse direction.

So you argument is essentially that even though people can have 2 martial art forms and hand to hand combat skills ARE martial art forms, and you can clearly design a Dedicated MA who selects 2 hand to hand skills, this is prevented?

Does being simplified and truncated prevent someone from learning 2 whereas being complex allows you to learn many? I would think it would be the reverse.

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:However, I can see how someone could misread the text if they were already disposed to calling all combat skills with the label they are familiar with.

Who's misreading what now? You mention "sub-set" above. Where did this word come from?

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:to support h2h's being just a sub-set of MAF's, there are the four h2h's right there in the beginning of the stating out of the MAFs Page 83&84 listing them as h2h's....which none of the other MAF are listed as.

Sharing a name element doesn't mean they are a distinct category with different rules.

HwarangDo and TaeKwonDo both end in Do for example. Doesn't mean all the -do- arts get special rules.

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:How does this affect the answer about how many h2h's a char can have....none for chars that are not DMA. They still can only have one h2h.

DMA is the only way I know how to get 2 HtHs for a single OCC (the empty-hand guy in Mystic China can get 2 forms but HtHs are not in the options) but multi-classing can also be used to get 2 forms.

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:this exclution that Tor was seaking is in fact changes nothing
I would apprisiate it if you would stop trying to take the text out of context to try to bend the RAW to mean what your house rules say.

No house rules are involved here. If you use multi-classing rules to change to a new OCC which allows buying a martial art then you can get that new one.

How else do you think a Chi Hsuan Men user can utilize their year discount for Tien Hsueh Touch Mastery?

Tor wrote:

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:h2h's are MAF, abet simplified and truncated forms of full MAF's
the same can not be said in the reverse direction.

So you argument is essentially that even though people can have 2 martial art forms and hand to hand combat skills ARE martial art forms, and you can clearly design a Dedicated MA who selects 2 hand to hand skills, this is prevented?

Does being simplified and truncated prevent someone from learning 2 whereas being complex allows you to learn many? I would think it would be the reverse.

~It takes a Class ability to have more then one MAF. This is spelled out clearly in N&S.
~It is also Clearly spelled out that only one h2h can be acquired by most character classes.
~And it is clearly spelled out in the text that if a Char gets a high level h2h it just "upgrades"the one they have to that higher one.

I don't know why you keep trying to debate away to bend what is clear, to your house rules.

Tor wrote:

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:However, I can see how someone could misread the text if they were already disposed to calling all combat skills with the label they are familiar with.

Who's misreading what now? You mention "sub-set" above. Where did this word come from?

Basic High School Algebra. (When I learned it.) However, Now days this is elementary school math. (the higher elementary school math grades.)

Example: (in a sports example) The Angles are a sub-set of the Western Division. Which is itself a sub-set of the American League. Which is a sub-set of the Major League Baseball is a professional baseball organization.

Since the wording in the N&S book, which you quoted, only says that H2H's are a type of MAF and does not have any text saying the opposite, one can only read the text RAW as to mean that h2h's are a sub-set of MAFs.
And reading the brief Descriptions listing the h2h's in the N&S book you find that they say that they are abbreviated forms of MAFs.

Tor wrote:

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:to support h2h's being just a sub-set of MAF's, there are the four h2h's right there in the beginning of the stating out of the MAFs Page 83&84 listing them as h2h's....which none of the other MAF are listed as.

Sharing a name element doesn't mean they are a distinct category with different rules.

I was only providing OBVIOUS supporting text that sets apart the few simple from the many complex. Since it is obvious I thought you would get it.

Tor wrote:HwarangDo and TaeKwonDo both end in Do for example. Doesn't mean all the -do- arts get special rules.

Each of the non-h2h MAF have special rules attached to them.They are written into the MAF texts.
It is the h2h's that go by the bland rules.

Tor wrote:

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:How does this affect the answer about how many h2h's a char can have....none for chars that are not DMA. They still can only have one h2h.

DMA is the only way I know how to get 2 HtHs for a single OCC (the empty-hand guy in Mystic China can get 2 forms but HtHs are not in the options) but multi-classing can also be used to get 2 forms.

As I pointed out before that the ""martial art forms"" in rifts china are Half forms which combine to form a whole form.

Tor wrote:

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:this exclusion that Tor was seeking is in fact changes nothing
I would appreciate it if you would stop trying to take the text out of context to try to bend the RAW to mean what your house rules say.

No house rules are involved here. If you use multi-classing rules to change to a new OCC which allows buying a martial art then you can get that new one.

How else do you think a Chi Hsuan Men user can utilize their year discount for Tien Hsueh Touch Mastery?

By spending those years in game learning said MAF..... Yes this would mean ......Not Playing the Char while he learned said MAF. Yes, the GM needs to let this happen and if he is nice will skip over those 'in game learning years'.


Yes, I call your house rules correctly when they run counter to the canon text.