I was agreeing with you.

I guess I've just never felt pinched enough for points to consider giving up Dodge or Gymnastics. Most skills, after all, do not perform very well in a vacuum. Having 4 ranks of Etiquette you couldn't afford before isn't enough to make you a face; it likely won't be enough to convince you to change your tactics nor will it likely be enough to keep you out of trouble without the Charisma to back it up. On the other hand, 4 Dodge can make the difference between enemies hitting you with narrow bursts or missing and realizing they have to switch to wide; considering the way burst fire works (and remembering that drones don't suffer from recoil and thus always should be using narrow provided they can hit in the first place) and suddenly Dodge seems fairly valuable to me. I'm also biased here by the simple fact that I pretty much always run through my full 250k resources yet still have bps to spare when finishing up the rest of my sheet. Oh well, at this point in the thread we're all clearly talking about apples to oranges comparisons anyway, so whatever.

My last character (drake adept) was pinched for points quite tight. I started 12 to 21 BP lower than I would have liked to.

If your desired character consept just doesn't fit the points, you have two options that work sensibly:

Change the character concept or use more points.
Ob course, using Karma-Gen usually helps, too.

You can also try to persuade the GM to give you a few more BPs.

I recognize that. But just because a question is asked sarcastically, does not mean it shouldn't be answered.

I disagree, I think dropping one of them is the better option. One less person shooting at you is better than a few dice extra in dodging. Dodging might be the better choice if you don't think dropping a foe is a likely option or if you think you can turn the shot at you into a total miss. But in most cases you will get more bang out of your buck my making sure someone else just does not get the change to shoot again.

It wasn't a question it was a statement.

And thats assuming you only drop one. Grenades, suppressive fire and so on. Hec, A mage can drop groups with indirect spells. Ohh yeah, drain. I'll be happy to take 5 boxes phyiscal if I wind up dishing out 11 Boxes to each of N badguys. If its 5 or more, man thats a good economy.
And if I only dish out 7 or 8 boxes, well thats still 2 dice off of most of them. (This discounts all the cool elemental effects in the game...mmm Lightning ball)
Yo, medic, hit me. Only 4 boxes back? Oh well chummer, some days ain't perfect.

However, I can imagine a messenger type character maxing dodge. Not necessarily for combat but for the streets of the city. Give him a baseball bat, and a shotgun revolver, then you have something.

Okay, I read it wrong then. I read the even if that.. part as a question.

The other night, I had to run from one piece of cover to another, to gain a strategic position. Two goons were firing SMGs at me. They had held actions waiting for me to pop up, so they got to fire first. I had no option against their first volley except full-defense. This would have been a great time to have some extra dice to use against their four three-round bursts. Too bad I didn't have them. I'm not sure, however, if this happens often enough to make Dodge worth having.

But now I have a question. Page 112 says Dodge can be defaulted. How?

o.O
Good question.

Evading an attack uses Reaction (the associated Attribute to Dodge). On Full Defense, one uses Reaction +Dodge. If one doesn't have Dodge as a skill, then only Reaction is used. This is sort of a default, but the Reaction is not reduced by one as in a normal default.

That's the best I've got.

Or maybe you use reaction*2-1 on full defence.

If that were the case, I'd default instead

Anyways, I have to say, I live and breath by dodge. The other week we were in a run gone bad. We didn't get the surprise round we were expecting. What ended up happening is me being attacked by 7 (yes 7) mooks with automatic weapons firing burst. Wide burst. Full defense? Hell YEA! Do I use it every time I'm getting shot at? No. Has it saved my life? Oh yea. Are those points well spent? At the time, Yes. Now that I'm down the road? Perhaps moving the entire athletics pool up to be even would save me the points.. there are few skills I've increased that have saved my life as much when I need it. And as was pointed out, full dodge, get behind cover. Those extra dice might have meant that you were able to soak, or completely miss, all the damage. And when you're getting attacked by 7 guys (2 attacks each) those extra dodge dice means you get to make attempts you couldn't make before. And I can't tell you the number of times I've tied or beat the GM's attacks by 1. Thank you dodge.

That said, as our groups resident sniper... I will certainly take those extra dice as raises for my attack. You just died in one shot instead of two ^_^

Those of you saying dodge is useless: Do you ever run away?

If you're outnumbered and/or outgunned, in the interest of your character sheet, don't stick around and try and push the odds. Now, if you want to get clear of a combat zone and you're being fired upon, do you want a few extra dice to not get tagged on your way out? I sure as hell do. Most of my characters have a dodge of 2 (non-combat chars) to 4 (combat chars) with a specialisation in Ranged Combat (melee dodge gets so many dice who needs those extra two?). A reaction of 6 (not inconceivable with wired reflexes/synaptic booster/MBW/reaction enhancers) and a dodge of 4 (+2) gives you 12 dice, which is pretty competitive dicepool, and the less hits you have to soak, the less damage you take, and the less negative modifiers you're taking.

Sure, by RAW, gymnastics could replace dodge in some situations. I personally view gymnastics dodge as being GM discretionary, and I personally would not allow it in all circumstances, so I see dodge as a more reliable skill.

Thank you, Sir. My players never tactically retreat (sell it baby, sell it). Thus for them, its about standing and killing everyone. No need to dodge when your dead...

Tactical retreat can be incredibly powerful in SR, even used offensively. If you can get some space between you and the enemy, you can re-engage on your own terms, and that can mean making more surprise tests. Guerilla tactics.

Tactics on the offense? You psycho.

It is very viable to have whoever is the main target of the opposition go on full defense, and retaliate with everyone else on the team. It is of course simply never needed if the GM decides to put all enemies within LOS at once, and proceeds to distribute the attacks evenly. It is even less needed if your teammates are dumb enough to stand in front of you.

Military, tactical and mini wargaming, along with a few other hobbies make me nasty a doing stuff to "I stand and shoot" types.

If your PCs never use tactics or tactical retreat, then use it against them with any skilled/semi-skilled badguys. My NPCs never stand out in the open and trade shots, since that is just so stupid that even the dumbest ganger would know cover is your friend.

Try this, in the next fight have the NPCs do a tactical retreat. Actually have them pull back the middle pretty far, while the sides move a little further out to the side. If PCs chase them, they rush into an L or U, with the possiblitly of overhead weapons fire, mines, boobie traps, etc.

My players, even the monster streetsam and gun-adept, avoid a straight up fight like the plague. Surprise, sniping, ambush, bushwhacking, backstabbing, and cross-fires are the rule of the day.

By the way, anyone ever hear of the cornhole from hell? If you want to kill a lot of people having a meeting without a whole lot of collateral damage, don't shoot the place up or use a big bomb. Plant a bunch of little shaped charges to the chairs and once the meeting starts, set off all the ones that have people sitting in them you want to kill. Instant explovie cornholing!

I've done all kinds of stuff. Our play (probably not the game JUST US) suffers from two problems:
* Overcast Indirect spells wiping out 6 meter radius area. If not dead, suffering from some nasty elemental side effect. (cast from 2 mages)
* The GM (me) being incapable of finding the right balance. Now that I am reading up in Bad Moon Rising I know that I have to beef my goon squads up. Though I don't think having them all Agility 9 will be how I go.

Because of the two above, and probably a flawed interpretation of the rules... combat never last more than 3 rounds. One side or the other is completely wiped out, or puking their guts out waiting to be executed.

I should also note that most of our combat is player initiated during scenes where I do not expect it. My guys kinda just blow up on people....

sometimes literally.

Once. But we ran away before the guns came out, hid in a run down building, and ambushed our attackers (after weeding out their numbers a bit with some Chaotic World).

Currently its not necessary as we have a Force 6 fire spirit bound. 12 hardened armor? Hell yeah, here comes the cavalry.

Sure but we are using magic to cover the escape(I'd like some smoke and stuff from the sammies but well yeah..not in my group) or flat out running like mad men and not complex action dodging. We'd rather get to our get away van a few passes quicker and therefore have a few combat passes less of the shooting at us than dodge our way there taking more rounds of shooting but with more dice to dodge.

Never. Tactical withdrawals, using smoke and/or magic for cover, occasionally with some suppressive fire thrown in for good measure. This isn't the real world, where running is the intelligent thing to do. Withdraw and shoot, force them to take cover penalties.


That's nice, but as you put it, that's not RAW. By canon, gymnastics is just as reliable as dodge, and does more to boot.

And it skill-group'd

Thank you, yes. Gymnastics is easier and cheaper to get a hold of than dodge, and it does all the same things plus a lot more. Dodge is basically useless outside of a few corner cases that require a gimped character.

I'll also add that while this one blows a few gaskets, it's technically legal to take a specialization in Dodging for Gymnastics. A bit munchy, I'll grant you, but it's allowable.

While you can cartwheel, your car cannot. No. Gymnastic does not more than Dodge. Also, it doesn't block fists or parry swords.

I do not see a Dodging specialisation for Gymnastics.

There isn't one. And most GMs will tear up your character as a muchkin for even asking.


And that is why Riggers take it. It is also the GMs call if you have room to use Gymnastics dodge.

But one can use Reaction + Melee Skill + Gymnastics Dodge in full defense in melee(in response to blocking/parrying.) In RAW, it seems to be a way to use it(saying you can add Gymnastics Dice to defense). It's either Melee Skill + Reaction + Gymnastics or Dodge for full, or Rea/Melee skill or Rea/Dodge(regular.)

What it comes down to is that more active characters stick with the Gymnastics, since unless you're using Karmagen, points are tight as it is, and as a GM I don't want to force people to squeeze them even more out. I'd rather them take that Negotiation(Bargain) 2(+2) skill that they really wanted than to have to take a Dodge(Whatever) skill instead. If they *want* both(say a go-ganger who fights both on foot and his motorcycle, using the Gymnastics of his Athletics Group on foot and Dodge while he's on his bike), then of course, go for it, but I would never force them to take both by screwing someone who took Gymnastics over it. Yes, there might indeed be some situations where Gymnastics is a bit rough to use, and I'll make sure they know it beforehand, but I won't go out of my way to stick them in just to screw over the Gymnastics dodgers.

Sure, never questioned that. But you can use Reaction+Dodge without going on full defense, which Gymnastics cannot be used for. That was my point, which "surprisingly" was missed.

Actually, it is. The additional described movements are more extensive for Gymnastic Dodge than they are for general Full Defense, so the GM is free to add additional situational modifiers.

The listed specializations are not the only allowable ones. To top that off, if you want to be munchier, you can just take "Tumbling" as a spec, which essentially does the same thing, only more.


Sorry, can you point me to a chart that lists situational modifiers for gymnastics dodge?

Oh, it's a good point-but again, this leads to people who have melee skills, and people who don't. If you do NOT have a melee skill-oh yeah, Dodge is the way to go. People with a melee skill can replace the Dodge with a Block or Parry, as most folks know, instead, on regular defense.

But you're correct-Gymnastics is only good on Full defense, and is best utilized with someone who already has a Melee skill.

Only after you quote the passage from the BBB that allows tumbling spec to be used for Gymnastics Dodge.

So in other words, you don't have one, and you're going to be an ass about it.

Got it.

Use of Dodge?
Open Door, Get In, Start Engine, Drive into Obstacle
Dodge used up

That's an interesting take...you seem to be saying that:


1) the GM can add whatever he wants.

and

2) the GM shouldn't add anything that isn't in the book.

Presumably they are referring to:



I can think of more situations where a problem might arise with use of gymnastic style "dodging" than a non-gymnastic style. But this is my own personal judgment and I'd err on the side of not giving situational modifiers for dodging except in extreme cases where it would most likely apply to both types of avoidance. But as you can see the book allows situational modifiers in the GMs discretion and some GMs might reasonably feel that there are limits on "flipping, rolling, cartwheeling., etc." where there would not be the same modifiers for dodging in a more traditional manner.



Perhaps this would help:



I assume by "etc" that they mean any form of gymnastics that might aid in avoiding being hit. Tumbling, a skill associated (and thereby a specialization) of gymnastics, could be used to avoid being hit by something (or taking less damage from being hit akin to "blocking" or "parrying"). It certainly doesn't seem to be something explicitly *not* allowed and I see no reason why you wouldn't let someone to "tumble" to avoid damage given this rule.

You can't, however, specialize a skill in a skill group that has been purchased as a group.

While the book never explicitly states that the specializations given are only examples and not meant to be all inclusive, it could easily be implied. To support this implication you can reference the "Technomancer" sample character who has a specialization in "light pistols", which is not an option in the Skill section under Pistols. Either interpretation has its strengths and depending on your game either would be a perfectly acceptable ruling.

Technically I think "light pistols" is to broad by the way I understand gun specialties, but I've never looked too closely. Not like my characters are going to be switching weapons in the same weapon class very much (I buy a gun at chargen, I expect to have this gun forever).

The sample characters did and do contain various errors, so the shouldn't really be used as a reference.

The Pistol specializations listed are: Hold-Outs, Revolvers, Semi-Automatics, Tasers
As an example of another Firearm skill specialization list, those listed for Longarms are: Shotguns, Sniper Rifles, Sporting Rifles

"Light Pistols" seem perfectly in line with both of these lists if you allow specializations not specifically listed in the book. But this discussion is straying a bit off-topic from the original "dodge vs. gymnastics" issue so it'd be better to continue in another thread if necessary.

I stand corrected.

I'm sorry, but this stance, in light of extensive errata on the sample characters in question, is simply ridiculous. What, exactly, are sample characters used for then, if not as references and examples of character creation?

Amusement?

The Troll Bounty Hunter still has Ultrasound as a cybereye upgrade while it's headware, the street samurai lacks the perception skill and the smuggler any kind of stealth skills - those are used for vehicles, too.

Originally? How to do things wrong.

Many of the sample archetypes, as originally written, simply aren't very good at what they do. There's a sample character archive we put together that made the archetypes much better. For example, a disgusting number of the sample characters have "Uncouth", when multiple Incompetences in social skills would achieve the same thing for less cost and more BP gain.

However, in this case, you are right. I don't recall seeing an errata fixing the "Light pistol" specialization, so it stands that you can have specs outside of the listed ones.

True, but trivial: You can even have skills not listed anywhere in the books - as a house-rule.

No, it stands that you can use that particular specialisation if you choose to use that pregenerated PC. For whatever reason, the writers seemed to have deemed that in the case of the technomancer, Light Pistols is a legitimate specialisation and have printed it; hence for the technomancer pregen character, that specialisation is RAW.