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Ok... So, our resident Mexican Pilot is dead near a cuban POW camp and currently building his next character. Which obviously leads to some questions and not so glorious discoveries about the books themselves. Namely, that the core book of Robotech, even in its glorious special edition... is not a core book. Or at least not a complete one for the franchise itself. Including the need for RUE; to know what a back-flip is, for the uncommon Martial artist.

After a bit of searching and consulting the FAQs on here, I've finally managed (or think I did) to un-mix Strike Ranged and Strike Missile. (Maybe it is because I'm not a native English speaker, maybe it is because the terminology is an incredible mess...)
Despite Ninja & Superspies listing the bows, crossbows and slings, as "Missile Weapons"... it would appears this no longer stands true for RUE and RT2. Rather, what we find here is that HtH bonuses includes mentions of thrown weapons and *gasp* guns!
According to W.P. Targeting; "Missile Weapons" would be anything that its W.P. indicate as built for throwing. Thus, I guess that "Missile Weapons" comes with the "Strike Missile" and concerns things such as lances, knives, hatchets, etc... No longer related to N&S missile weapons, now under the W.P. Archery with harpoon guns, and as such dependable on "Strike Ranged".

So correct me if I'm wrong but... This would mean that a bunch of W.P.s leads to Targeting, specifically "Missiles weapons" according to that same W.P., that should be related to the "Strike Missile" column on the character sheet HtH's table, itself referred to as "bonus to strike with thrown weapons" in HtH. Furthermore, W.P. targeting needs another W.P. as a "requires" section, and thus cannot be a skill on its own.
Meaning that these weapons would use the bonus to P.P., but not P.S., and the "bonus to strike with thrown Weapons" (Strike Missile) in addition to their own W.P. AND Targeting if available, when being used. (???)

With on the other hand W.P. Archery, useful for ALL Ranged once missiles weapons, not leading to W.P. targeting, that should be related to the Strike Ranged column on the character sheet. Said weapons containing some "guns", or at least frames using a rail above a trigger, would also benefit from "bonuses to strike with guns".
These not benefiting from P.S., P.P. only for bows and crossbows, and such Strike Ranged Bonus (HtH guns) additive to their own W.P. (???)

First Question : Is the above correct?

Assuming that it is... and I hope it is because it sounds confusing enough... (Why not use the same terminology from one part of a rule to another?)
Then this leads us to the...

Second Question : Why isn't there any Weapon Proficiencies for Slings or Archery in Robotech?

In the extreme, i kinda can understand why the sling isn't there. It mostly makes the thing harder to learn, and maybe the GM assuming that targeting is enough might solve this. Though Targeting is clearly stated to be a following up on the training of another W.P., and as such asks for a skill that isn't there. So a GM might want to create it. Which wouldn't change much considering RUE offers it as a simple line referencing Targeting.

The really frustrating part is the Archery. That must somehow be equated with guns (Strike Ranged)... or would be apparently potentially less accurate than throwing knives and hatchets. Especially since real guns aren't normally receptive to physical bonuses, but archery would be one of the rare links to the Strike Ranged bonus called guns in HtH.
And since this isn't in RT2, we kinda not really know if the bonus to guns, from HtH Assassins, is related to anything on the character sheet.

But it gets worse.

Third Question (S... SSSSSSSssssss):

A Praxian Warrior R.C.C. is built in with the W.P. Targeting as per the UEEF source-book. It also receives, as a cultural specific weapon, a BOW!
But no mentions of a W.P. Archery. The W.P. Targetting might be used to throw the blade staff, which is apparently only used for "missile strikes".
But then, if one gets to the staff to know this, one also finds the only stats for the loneliest bow of robotech.
Which, as a rate of fire, indicates : As per archery and targeting skill, otherwise each shots takes two attacks per melee for unskilled users, and range is half.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN???? Where did I go terribly wrong?
What am I not getting between Targeting prohibiting Bows and Arrows, and yet being proposed as a source of a non-existing ROF stat,
for an alien weapon that could, for all intent and purposes, work differently than all other bows?
Is the lack of archery a joke subtly indicating that no Praxian knows how to shoot, despite being gifted with it at birth?

I guessed that the reference to the Targeting skill was so that we'd know ancient weapons do use the P.P. bonus to hit.
But from there on out, it really does nothing to help. Even ignoring that Targeting is prohibited to boost the Archery skill,
it would only give +4 to strike at maximum, and would offer a ROF of one melee action per attack, shooting faster than a bow from RUE can.
Comparing to RUE's Archery giving a whooping +8 at maximum, a bonus to parry with the thing, and a starting ROF of 2 per round until the levels comes home.
Ah... and a trained archer increase it's range per 50%. The maluses being otherwise the same for the bow and targeting.

How am I supposed then, to read that the Praxian bow, of which the specificity seems to palliate for the lack of Archery,
and which refers me to a prohibited use of a skill and a non-existing one?
Should I import Archery from RUE to correct the missing piece? And if I do so, would my Praxian bow gain 50% range above its 150 or so meters?
Would it stop being so slow to fire eventually? Should it, in the face of game balance?
It is an Alien Bow after all... Or are these descriptions here to palliate to the absence of the W.P. Archery???
Meaning that the Praxian Bow would have such a range to the initiated BECAUSE it factors the 50% range in?
And that the sourcebook is contempt to send us toward W.P. targeting, BECAUSE the slower rate of fire at the beginning IS to the uninitiated?

What does a W.P. Targeting mentions does into the description of a Bow? Is that bow a Missile Weapon in the sense of N&S?
Why not just offer the Archery thing in the UEEF manual, if it was important to do so by this point?
Why does a cultural weapon do not see it's W.P. given, in the same R.C.C. that pushes the weapon on an unsuspecting player,
soon to go play "fetch" all over his library?

Am I missing anything here?

The most likely reason is that no one actually uses slings or archery in the RT story, so likely they thought the skill wouldn't be needed in 2E (note its in 1E RT RPG for the NG/Sent era). It likely should have been added in with the Praxians in Marines due to their inventory.


Palladium Weapon Proficiencies over the years tend to fluctuate in terms of name and what they cover, unfortunately. At one point in time the more recent versions of Archery and Targeting WP Skills where actually one skill and it wasn't caught in editing (or known by the writer it would seem).

answering for the RT2 Game
1st Q: All ancient weapons use the PP bonus to strike.
part two 1st Q: Bows and Crossbows have a set damage rating for each type of bow and crossbow type. This set damage excludes any and all PS bonuses.

2nd Q: ShadowLogen has it right. Most ancent weapons play no pert in the RT stories.

3rd Q: Welcome to the Palladium books gaming system. There are aways odd typos, mis wordings, and omitted rules through out all the PB game books.
Ask your GM to make a ruling and then play with that ruling.

What I would do as a GM: Go to the RUE core book and import the archery skill from there. I say the RUE core book because that is the core book that is most like the RT2 core book rules.

Well, maybe they considered it. That might explain the weird void in that sourcebook. (Compared to all other RT product filled to the margin with text.) At least we agree that it would have been a great place to correct this lack of the skill in the "Core" book.



That certainly would explain it. Though I haven't been made aware before of a manual mixing these two skills as one.
But considering they didn't bother to check if the core had W.P. Archery; even a fix proposing an alternative Archery and Targeting would have been nice.
Oh well. More than a bit late for that.



I wager this need for multiple supplements is actually a marketing tactic by this point. I wonder how functional it is for them. Our group did buy more books to cover grey areas, but there must be some that would prefer not to take the risk? In any case, asking our GM to make a ruling is a big part of why I asked all this here. To be fair, he has the (bad?) luck to have players who are more knowledgeable / comfortable about the system than he is. So for something like this, we kinda have taken the habit to do the legwork to propose solutions. (This forum is a great help for it.)
Since we have at least one player that prefers definite sources from errata or stuff like this, and myself which tries to keep as true to the published material as I can, I thought having the opinion from more experienced fans of the system would help moving the discussion faster. (Which it did, thanks!!!)



Actually the decision I had originally proposed to my own group, nice to see it confirmed here.
Clearly, if the Bow's reference was to a variant of the skill that no longer exists, it is the best solution indeed.

Books that I know use the designation "WP: Archery & Targeting" from a Master Skill list we use:
-Macross II pg28 (WP Ancient)
-Nightbane pg57 (WP Ancient)
-Heroes Unlimited 2E pg61 (WP Ancient)
-Rifts Main Book pg32 (WP Ancient, note this is NOT the Ultimate Edition version)

Robotech 1E actually split the skill and included Archery but not Targeting, my bad, but put it in an odd place (Wilderness category). Rifts would later break the skill down into two skills, though off hand I couldn't tell you when. 2E Palladium Fantasy and Dead Reign both have it split in the main book, and oddly enough HU 2E actually has both "WP Archery & Targeting" and a separate "WP: Targeting" skill. N&SS doesn't have "targeting but they break Archery down into bow and crossbow skills, and TMNT (revised ed.?) has bow and targeting.