[HoE] more questions

[Draxus@aol.com]

Thanks to eveyone who took the time to answer my "tough enough?" questions.
Now for some more :)

Am I correct that the only thing you get for raises on your shootin' or
fightin'
roll is an adjustment to the hit location chart? Which means if you're up
against something that does not use the chart (giant worm or some such)
raises give you no benefit?

I'm also a bit confused about armor. I get the distinction between armor 3 and
-3,
but have trouble where hand-to-hand attacks are concerned. I think. Allow me
to ramble a bit and see if it makes sense.

Dutch Durgan finds himself in a dark alley facing an automaton (its been one
of those days). Said automaton has Armor 3. Dutch, who's never seen an
automaton before, first tries whipping out his trusty sidearm (3d6) and blasts
away. Armor 1 reduces that to 3d4, armor 2 to 2d4, and armor 1 to 1d4. Since
the automaton is Size 8, the bullets ping off with no effect.

As the automaton moves in, Dutch pulls out his trusty Big Knife and tries to
fend the critter off. The BK does STR+1d6. Dutch has STR of 3d10. The first
level
of armor drops the knife to 1d4, the second level to 0. 

Now, the rules say that where "a critter has no additional damage dice besides
its Srength, it simply cannot penetrate anything with an Armor value of 1 or
more."
So Dutch can't hurt the automaton since he has no weapon dice left after the
armor is figured in? What if Dutch had a super-enhanced BK which did 3d10?
Then it is reduced to 3d4 and he now gets his full strength damage as well?
Or if the armor reduced the weapon to just 1d4. Is that enough to get full
strength
damage?

Inquiring minds and all that . . . 

Andrew Ross