Defaulting Dodge skill Options

[Chunky_Salsa]

Hey all, I'm kinda scratching my head over this:

If you defend against a ranged attack, everyone simply rolls reaction.
If you defend against a ranged attack in full defense, it's reaction + dodge skill.

But dodge is defaultable. So in full defense, what the hell do you roll? A friend of mine says that if you default a skill you don't get skill + attribute, therefore if you default dodge in full defense, it kills the reaction part of it and you're left subbing dodge with just reaction-1. But wait a second, that's even worse than not using full dodge!

Another opinion I heard was that, if you don't have dodge you can't do full defense because you lack the skill to do it. Wait a second, looking at defaulting the rulebook says "Sometimes a character wants to attempt an action but does not have the necessary skill. A character in this situation can still act, however, she will find it more difficult to succeed than a character who has the needed skill. (p 110)" So that don't make no sense either, it's the whole point of defaulting to play like you have the necessary skill, albeit with a penalty, to pull something off.

So what the drek is the dealio with that?

You should be able to use dodge default to do an action (full defense). But to do it with worse dice than when not using full defense don't make no fraggin' sense.

It seems like defaulting other skills is way clear and easy, like shadowing or palming, but defaulting dodge for full defense looks borked.

And I'm not talking about melee full defense, that's another mess.

So what do you roll? Anyone run into this?

[Garrowolf]

Basically I think that you have to roll reaction. You don't get the benefit of a full defense but there is no reason to try it anyway and take the default penalty. It's an advantage to those who bought the skill.

Besides it is cheap to buy the first few ranks in a skill so what is your player's excuse?

[Chunky_Salsa]

Well here's the dilemma I guess.

It's pretty clear that dodge is a defaultable skill.

Regarding ranged full dodge defense, players with dodge skill roll reaction + dodge.

It seems that it can go 2 ways for players without dodge when defaulting:
1) The player roll reaction-1 only and that's it, which means that the char is rolling even less dice in full dodge defense and also has to forgo their next action phase. This seems kind of counter to the whole idea of putting effort into not getting hit than not putting effort into it (by simply rolling reaction without full dodge against the ranged attack).
2) The players rolls reaction + (reaction-1) subbing out dodge for reaction-1. Problem here is, if the player has a high reaction like say 5, they would be doing better than players that have invested in dodge at 1,2, or 3.

See the dilemma?

[Thanee]

Defaulting doesn't work here, since this is not a normal success test.

It's a resistance test and has different, specific rules.

You roll Reaction + Dodge or Reaction + Gymnastics or just Reaction, whatever is best for you.

Bye
Thanee

[adamu]

Chunky Salsa - I totally see the dilemma in both your posts, and couldn't agree with you more. This contradiction had me flipping pages for literally days when I first got the new BBB - I was in a bit of a panic - If this rule is this broken, what about other rules??? I was desperate to find a RAW fix, but to this day have failed. I even actually turned to the credits page to see if there had actually been playtesters on this edition.

As for my own personal fix, I mostly agree with Thanee and Garrowolf -

my preferred solution is just to rule Dodge a non-Defaultable skill, like Pilot Aircraft is.
The only justification I can otherwise see for the RAW to list it as defaultable to Reaction is that you may let someone default in some sort of non-combat case where the test is something like getting out of the way of a falling boulder or something.

Otherwise, you are are in a rules limbo where, as you say, some player or another gets punished for having the skill either way you slice it.

[Chunky_Salsa]

Thanee, that struck me as a cool answer, but I'm lookin' at the rules and I don't see it.

As far as I can tell, defending against a ranged attack falls under Combat Sequence, step 3, "Make the opposed test" (pg 139). The only reference I see to resistance tests is a couple steps ahead at step 5, "Damage resistance test" where you roll to try to reduce the DV.

So it looks like an opposed test, not a resistence test. (And I couldn't find anything about resistence tests being special anywhere either)

[toturi]

[Thanee]

Well, what I'm trying to say (sorry, no rulebook here currently, so things are maybe a little vague :)) is, that it's not a typical test with attribute+skill. Normally you just roll the attribute when you try to avoid a ranged attack, the skill works kinda like bonus dice when you use full defense. You don't make a normal test with the skill, hence no defaulting.

It's opposed, since you compare hits and count net hits to determine the result.

Bye
Thanee

[Chunky_Salsa]

Adamu, I'm glad you caught what I was trying to get at :) I'm not glad you had to flip pages because I feel for you :(

I sent the question to the info@shadowrunpg.com folks and haven't heard from them about it, probably because it's an embarassing glitch that didn't get looked at lol.

I still think that players that put effort into not getting hit, without being formally trained in dodge, should have some help just by sheer effort when using full defense than not using it, especially at the cost of their next action phase - be it jiggling around like a freak on novacoke or whatever.

But I think your solution is the next best and simplest way to deal with it. Non defaultable for combat purposes but defaultable in other situations.

Thanks man, a breath of fresh air! A lot of people have tried to answer this elsewhere but seem to not just say "the rule is fragged, gotta work around it", they've been trying to say "Here's the rule" and I can't find what they are pointing at.

The rule is fragged.

[Chunky_Salsa]

[Fastball]

It is pretty silly. Dodge is a skill, but it doesn't appear there is anytime that you actually use it as a skill.

The rules are explicit that there is no skill for defending against a ranged attack (it isn't a dodge test). Likewise, full defense isn't a use of the dodge skill, so you can't default.

The interesting question, is in melee combat, where you can parry, block, or dodge. One could argue that is an actual application of the dodge skill, so if you have no weapon, unarmed, or dodge skill, you would default to dodge at Reaction - 1. This would make the ability to default logical, but I doubt it was the intent, especially since you could also parry or block by default at the same Reaction - 1, so there would still be no need for defaulting to dodge.

[Thanee]

The Dodge skill is pretty much a design flaw, anyways. It's almost completely useless. ;)

Bye
Thanee

[Chunky_Salsa]

Just to correct you fastball, I'll post up step 3 from the general combat sequence rules

[Fastball]

In combat generally, (p. 139) the defender rolls defending skill . . . . However, for ranged combat there is no defending skill (142). This isn't a contradiction, it is a general rule followed by an exception.

There is, however, a problem when you carry the general rule through. Since there is no exception to melee combat, the general rule applies and a defending skill is used. Thus, if you default to the skill you should be at reaction - 1. That is what doesn't make sense, because it shouldn't be easier to dodge a ranged attack than it is to dodge a melee attack.

There is a problem, but it is in melee combat, not ranged. Unfortunately, making dodge non-defaultable won't solve this, because then you would default to parry or block. To solve the problem, they need to make an exception to the defaulting rules, allowing a player to default to dodge without suffering a -1 penalty.

Also, Full Defense is the Full Defense Complex Action, not the Use Skill Complex Action.

[Chunky_Salsa]

Fastball,

Yeah, I haven't even -looked- at the melee dodge, and I'm not sure I want to :)

[Thanee]

[adamu]

[Chunky_Salsa]

Hey, whats "RAW" stand for, I thought you guys were talking "raw" like raw fish...

Yeah Thanee, I gotchya, it's coming into focus!

But like I said, -10 karma for FanPro devs for really making it look like a skill test. They should have included a concept of "bonus" dice, and hell, resistance dice, to the beginning chapters of the book to go along with the two main groups they talk about; success tests and opposed tests, and also included a clause about not being able to default a defaultable skill in certain situations. Would'a saved me 3 cans of Alleve...

[Chunky_Salsa]

Just to erase all my confusion and last tidbits of doubt...

Since they say that characters that take full defense "focus all of their energy on dodging, weaving, ducking, and blocking incoming attacks." strike you, as common sensically, using a skill?

That's what kinda gets me. Or should I just throw common sense out of the window here for the sake of sanity.

[Garrowolf]

How about this as a house rule?

For a full defense roll you Reaction + Reaction OR your Reaction + Dodge (or Gymnastics, Melee,etc) whichever is better.

My house rule is also that you can spend a point of edge to to a full defense action without taking the extra time.

[Chunky_Salsa]

[Aaron]

I used to think that Dodge wasn't a skill, or at least one that should be merged with something else, like Gymnastics or something.

Then, just last night, I spent about half an hour being a target for some folks who wanted to become combat archers. I'm no gymnast, but I was able to do a lot of ducking and dodging.

If I was an SR4 character, was that my Dodge skill at work? Probably. It could have been a function of my Reaction. When I was concentrating on dodging (defaulting my actions), it certainly made me a more difficult target.

Maybe there's a better way to simulate it, but I am now a believer in the Dodge skill.

[Ophis]

can you jump well Aaron?

Thats gymnastics in SR4...

Gymnastics is not just poncy shit.

[FriendoftheDork]

Guys, I think you are over analyzing this. Surely it was not intended that characters without dodge should have to default in combat, being even easier to hit when taking full defense. But really, as it is no benefit either to use full defense for someone without dodge, it doesen't really matter.

Is dodge a well written rule? That's another matter entirely. I was kind of disappointed when I saw how dodge works when I made my street samurai and found out I wouln't really benefit much from it.

But it isn't entirely useless. As said, if all you want to do in a combat is to duck for cover, then it doesen't matter if you spend a complex action.

And if you have more initative passes than the enemy and you're fighting multiple foes, it might make sense to use reaction+dodge one phase (getting alot more dice to avoid getting hit potentially).

You don't need to do this in the first phase either, so the "offense is the best defense" idea doesen't work.

Example: Joe the adept walks down the street. He is suddenly being attack by 5 orcs with guns. Winning initative, he takes down 1 orc easily. Then the remaining 4 orcs get to fire. Joe has Reaction 7 and Dodge 5, so instead of just rolling reaction and POSSIBLY negating the orcs hits, he takes full defense instead. 12 dice is enough to dodge shot after shot, even with the -1 per additional attack, but 7 would not have sufficed giving Joe several wound penalties and possibly even killing him.

After dodging the bullets, joe takes his last action to cap another orc. A new round ensues, and joe gets to shoot again :)

[Thanee]