Rolling up a fresh PC, no house rolls

[Razzinold]

OK my friend is starting a new campaign, introducing 3 new people to the world of rifts, he's using me as a consultant because he has never GM'd before. Now when rolling up a character he is trying to figure out the starting number attacks. Our long time GM always said 2 attacks just for being alive another 2 if you take a hand to hand, giving you 4 then the other attacks come from race, occ, skills, etc. The problem is I can't remember if this is cannon or his house rule,
Also he thinks everyone starts off with a +1 initiative, but I told him I don't think so because that is what gives people the edge and it would seem weird if everyone had a init bonus.
Thanks!

[dragon_blaze_99]

OK my friend is starting a new campaign, introducing 3 new people to the world of rifts, he's using me as a consultant because he has never GM'd before. Now when rolling up a character he is trying to figure out the starting number attacks. Our long time GM always said 2 attacks just for being alive another 2 if you take a hand to hand, giving you 4 then the other attacks come from race, occ, skills, etc. The problem is I can't remember if this is cannon or his house rule,
Also he thinks everyone starts off with a +1 initiative, but I told him I don't think so because that is what gives people the edge and it would seem weird if everyone had a init bonus.
Thanks!

it's cannon in HU but not Ninjas I think it's cannon in rifts also, one initiative is a house rule.

Dragon_blaze

[DhAkael]

Just one word.
No.
House Rulze

[Razzinold]

I knew the init bonus was wrong, even our GM never did that, but then how do you determine the starting number of attacks ? is it only what your hand to hand gives you plus skills ?

[dragon_blaze_99]

I knew the init bonus was wrong, even our GM never did that, but then how do you determine the starting number of attacks ? is it only what your hand to hand gives you plus skills ?

yes and no in the GMG Basic gives 4 attacks at first level in Rifts main book only 2 on page 44 of the Rifts GMG is the write up explaining it all if you have it check it out

[Razzinold]

neither of us have the GMG only the Main Book (plus world and dimension books), thanks for the help.

[Killer Cyborg]

I knew the init bonus was wrong, even our GM never did that, but then how do you determine the starting number of attacks ? is it only what your hand to hand gives you plus skills ?

When Rifts was first printed, PCs only got one base attack.
If they took a HTH skill (other than assassin), this would increase the number of base attacks to two (which is why the skills say "two attacks to start", not "+2 attacks", in the first level section of the HTH skill descriptions).

This was later changed, because Kevin found it unrealistic for even low-level character to only be able to get 1-3 attacks off in 15 seconds.
The problems with this are:
1. Palladium never officially announced the change in the rules, not until CB1 Revised, and later the RGMG, which were printed years after the change.
2. Because it isn't clear when exactly the change took place, or if it happened all at once, or scattered here and there, certain classes got screwed over. Bots, for example, in SB1 had 6 attacks per melee.
IF the Two Attacks For Living (TAFL) were included, then this made bots about as fast as normal humans.
IF the TAFL wasn't included, then Bots were supposed to be as fast as Juicers.
3. Certain classes got screwed over anyway.
Mages could still only cast 2 spells per melee, but the average number of HTH attack jumped up to 4. This resulted not only in mages being outgunned speed-wise when facing combat oriented foes, it also caused the notion that a mage's spells took at least two attacks to cast, with the spell only going off at the end of the 7.5 seconds, which meant that mages could now be interrupted.
Juicers got screwed, although not majory, because they went from being 2x faster than a normal human to being only 50% faster than a normal human.
Vampires went from being 2.5x faster than a normal human, to being only 1/5 faster than a normal human. If the human had boxing, then vamps were just as fast. If the human had boxing and was high level, then vamps were actually slower, since their number of attacks per melee never increased.
4. Representatives of Palladium (and a large number of the online community) apparently misunderstood the original rules in the first place, and argued for years that a change had never taken place; that those extra two attacks had always been there.
This resulted in bitterness in some of the people who had got the rules right the first time, because they felt that the Palladium reps were lying to them.
5. Palladium never addressed the change, nor provided errata for the NPCs, classes, and races that were affected by this change.
(At least, as far as I know, they never did. It's possible that Erin Tarn finally has more than 3 attacks in newer printings of the books, but for a LONG time after the rule-change, she didn't).

But that's all in the past now; let it lie there.

Long story short, YES, characters now get start off with two extra attacks in addition to the base number listed for their HTH skill, IF you're going by the skills in the older books, not in the RGMG (and later books?) that list the number of attacks at first level as 3-4.

[Razzinold]

I think that is the most technical, and thorough, answer I've ever had to one of my posts, thanks KC.
Question answered, thread over.

[Razzinold]

Rifts: Main Book, he doesn't have Ultimate, and neither do I

[The ineffible GM]

It's responses like these, KC, that make me think that you should be doing a daily/weekly/regular series of posts on the 'Ongoing History of Palladium's Rules'

[verdilak]

I knew the init bonus was wrong, even our GM never did that, but then how do you determine the starting number of attacks ? is it only what your hand to hand gives you plus skills ?

When Rifts was first printed, PCs only got one base attack.
If they took a HTH skill (other than assassin), this would increase the number of base attacks to two (which is why the skills say "two attacks to start", not "+2 attacks", in the first level section of the HTH skill descriptions).

This was later changed, because Kevin found it unrealistic for even low-level character to only be able to get 1-3 attacks off in 15 seconds.
The problems with this are:
1. Palladium never officially announced the change in the rules, not until CB1 Revised, and later the RGMG, which were printed years after the change.
2. Because it isn't clear when exactly the change took place, or if it happened all at once, or scattered here and there, certain classes got screwed over. Bots, for example, in SB1 had 6 attacks per melee.
IF the Two Attacks For Living (TAFL) were included, then this made bots about as fast as normal humans.
IF the TAFL wasn't included, then Bots were supposed to be as fast as Juicers.
3. Certain classes got screwed over anyway.
Mages could still only cast 2 spells per melee, but the average number of HTH attack jumped up to 4. This resulted not only in mages being outgunned speed-wise when facing combat oriented foes, it also caused the notion that a mage's spells took at least two attacks to cast, with the spell only going off at the end of the 7.5 seconds, which meant that mages could now be interrupted.
Juicers got screwed, although not majory, because they went from being 2x faster than a normal human to being only 50% faster than a normal human.
Vampires went from being 2.5x faster than a normal human, to being only 1/5 faster than a normal human. If the human had boxing, then vamps were just as fast. If the human had boxing and was high level, then vamps were actually slower, since their number of attacks per melee never increased.
4. Representatives of Palladium (and a large number of the online community) apparently misunderstood the original rules in the first place, and argued for years that a change had never taken place; that those extra two attacks had always been there.
This resulted in bitterness in some of the people who had got the rules right the first time, because they felt that the Palladium reps were lying to them.
5. Palladium never addressed the change, nor provided errata for the NPCs, classes, and races that were affected by this change.
(At least, as far as I know, they never did. It's possible that Erin Tarn finally has more than 3 attacks in newer printings of the books, but for a LONG time after the rule-change, she didn't).

But that's all in the past now; let it lie there.

Long story short, YES, characters now get start off with two extra attacks in addition to the base number listed for their HTH skill, IF you're going by the skills in the older books, not in the RGMG (and later books?) that list the number of attacks at first level as 3-4.

This really should get Stickied. Please NMI, Sticky KC reply and even the question.

[AllMightyRCB]

In the Rifts China Book with all the newer martial arts, in that section, it says that all characters have two attacks without any hand to hand training. So with hand to hand expert you would have a total of four. Check the Rifts China book for the specifics.