I am sure this has been answered many times over but I cannot find where :/



SO....Okay.


On page 156 of the SR4 20th anniversary edition in the Defending against melee attacks it says "Melee defenders can also choose to go on full defense (p. 160),and add Dodge skill dice to their defense roll." So from that I get that whatever type of full defense you choose (be it gymnastics/parry/dodge) you add your dodge skill to that. So for full dodge(against melee) it would be dodge + dodge + dodge + reaction. That just does not seem right, it should be only dodge + dodge+ reaction right?


Then! If I have not yet demolished the question I am trying to ask, for a melee full gymnastics dodge is it gymnastics + gymnastics + reaction (If the page 156 rule is just wonky and not correct)

*Cringes in preparation for the posts*

dodge+dodge+reactions. Or dodge+unarmed+reactions you can replace unarmed with other suitable skills.




Gymnastics is only available only available on full defence so it's unarmed+gymnastics+reaction.

An important point to remember is that dodge is not worth taking for most characters, as gymnastics has more utility and unarmed with specialisation in block is as good for melee. Full dodge is rarely used by PCs in my experience anyway.

Hm weird... i found dodge to be a VERY useful and often utilized skill. The point is: often someone WILL get the drop on you, but seldom they have more IP's. For example we had this scenario:

Group is at a meeting when trouble shows up, and some dudes in a car start shooting, AND an elemental materializes: All people dodged quickly somewhere, but the magician (who wasn't prepared for combat hadn't cast his reflexes) cast a spell somehwere (don't remember what).

Elemental has its second IP: and: FLAMETHROWER at the magician. The choice is clear: either burn up or use your next IP (in next CT even) to dodge that. Character had no dodge learned... Well... lucky he had edge and didn't die...

Point is: Dodge is awlways useful to draw fire and live, which you can barely do otherwise (edge or excessive armor). You cannot decide who will get shot by the foes or juggle "aggro" like in a bad video-game. If people concentrate fire on someone, he better declares full defense, so he can survives that till his friends can retaliate.

Also it helps against getting run over by a car...

And some bonus-dice can only be used in dodge-rolls, like the awesome Move-By-Wire systems (and gymnastic dodge CAN be disallowed by the GM in some circumstances like fighting in close quarters... you know, where MANY fights take plce in urban environment).

unless the wording changed in SR4A, i would say its gymnastics+dodge+reaction, as its defined as a gymnastics dodge, not a gymnastics parry/black. Only when its a parry or block is when one can use unarmed or a weapon skill as part of the defense.

Don't have 4a so can't comment on that but Gymnastic dodge just says that if a character spends the action flipping etc to avoid danger they may add Gymnastics skill to their dice pool for ranged or melee defence. It's actually a separate type of action to full defence but since defence pool for melee can be reaction+unarmed it still seems to count.

My players believe in winning surprise tests (mmm edge) and tend to return fire as they don't need to dodge if there are no enemies. They rely on reactions for situations like the above. The problem is in most circumstance gymnastics fills in for dodge very nicely.

Mostly my players invest in things that mean they don't need to dodge, high Perception pools to spot threats and so on.

rereading the text, i see that you may be right.

the problem is that both melee and ranged combat have a chart showing the full defense pool in their section, but the general writeup of full defense in the section of collected defense modifiers do not have such a pool chart. And its is the only place that mentions the option for a gymnastic dodge.

crap, should have checked the faq!
http://www.shadowrun4.com/resources/faq.shtml#3
bottom of the combat section there specifically mentions gymnastic dodge, and it appears to replace the extra dodge dice when used (ranged: reaction + gymnastics, melee: reaction + weapon/unarmed/dodge + gymnastics).

I find the Dodge Skill very useful.
-Kovu has 3 Passes
Pass-1: A quick aim and fire at one of the gangers
Somewhere down the line a Ganger fire an Automatic Weapon at him, so I dodge using Pass #2
Pass-2: I already used
There is no Pass #2 for most of the Gangers
Pass-3: I can Shoot another one.

Rinse, Repeat

Thanks for the input everyone!!

Especially the link to the FAQ, never noticed that before!

Thinking you "don't need to dodge" is a good way to wind up as a grease spot. Nobody is ever going to be able to get the drop on their enemies in every situation.

The suggestions that you should always take Gymnastics over Dodge and the idea that you don't need it if you just spend Edge to go first breaches into the realm of metagaming in my opinion, something I try to avoid at all costs.

My character goes on Full Defense all the time. Not because the dice say it's the best thing to do, but because people are shooting at him.

Not that this adds to the thread in any way, but I hate advice like this. There is no arguing that gymnastics has more utility than dodge, but the x is always better than y mentality is such a killer of variety and character concept. I can't take seriously the "street" gangsta that starts flipping around like Mary-Lou Retton when a gun fight breaks out when he could just as easily dive for cover. If your concept is Neo or Tony Jaa, flipping around makes sense. Let the concept decide what skills to take... unless the concept is Arch-typical Vanilla Professional Shadowrunner ™.

Funny... I have been playing SR4 since it came out, and have NEVER used a Gymnastics dodge... it just seems so cheesy... I mean really... when is the last time you saw a gunfight where one of the targets is flipping around like Yoda on Crack?

Keep the Faith

Why are people always asuming some over the top flipped out moves for a gymnastics dodge?
You guys do realize, that a regular Dive Roll is a gynmastics move, don't you? (and yes, the I realize the vid is actually a martial arts one, because that was the first hit on the search. The principle remains.)

In the time I've been running SR4 I have seen very few full defences and they came from melee combats (so double unarmed/weapon skill). I stand by dodge being usually worthless, on surprise it doesn't help (no defence), in combat I feel it's always better to return fire. Most of the mele full defences were for too reasons - overwhelming numbers or a set up for counterstrike.

I also support rolling as a gymnastic dodge, its not just flipping out.

I've also never had a player complain that dodge was needed for their concept.

To be honest I suspect the mistake in the rules is that gymnastics (a useful skill with out the dodging) was giving the abilities of another skill (which only does that). Only allow full dodges with dodge may have been better, but I'd rather there was no dodge skill, if you can't do a gymnastic move is there really room to dodge?

Agreed. Always seems to be this idea that gymnastics dodge is some sort of full on Olympic gymnastic routine and the dodge skill is the matrix 'I twitch my shoulders a bit and the bullets miss me' sort of thing. The fact is that the dodge skill is the ability to quickly adjust your course many times without any noticeable pattern so that a person leading you will have trouble keeping the lead as she'll have to keep adjusting her aim. It is also the occasional dive behind cover.

The fact is that stuff like flips and cartwheels and all that stuff (as seen in the big matrix fight scene) are completely useless for dodging because their center of mass doesn't change trajectory (and being airborn is the ultimate suck in being unable to make a quick change of direction to avoid someone leading you). And so I can only imagine gymnastic dodge as being very similar to regular dodge, taking advantage of agility and limberness training and such to be able to change directions quickly just like you would with dodge.

The real problem, as Ophis pointed out, is that the devs took a skill that was on its own useful and said "Okay, now we'll make it also do the same thing as another skill." The only real reason you would ever take dodge over gymnastics is 1) if there is some very compelling reason for your character to not know gymnastics or 2) if you have a MbW system as that gives a nice bonus to dodge or 3) if for some reason you utterly lack melee skills in which case dodge does pull double duty as ranged and melee defense.

Edit: Personally I think that they should have just not added in gymnastic dodge, because the truth is that gymnastics isn't the sort of thing that is going to help you avoid bullets. The devs watched too much Matrix and other shows where someone dancing made them impossible to hit.

Drones and Vehicles being controlled directly are listed as using Dodge for full defense actions. (SR4A, 247)

And keep in mind that Gymnastics is even better than Dodge, because it's a Physical Skill instead of a Combat Skill, so it's way easier and cheaper to raise by ware or adept powers.

I've got a Parkour Adept in my group. In the last fight they had there wasn't a lot of cover to be had, so he went out in front and used Full Defense to draw fire. He has great Agility and Gymnastics, so he literally did do flips all over the place avoiding hails of automatic weapons fire. Long enough for the rest of the group to get to what little cover there was and return fire. Worked out quite nicely.

I'll throw in that I house-ruled that you don't get Dodge added to Reaction for defending normally against melee attacks. My group and I decided that it was, mechanics-wise, we didn't like gimping melee compared to firearms. It works both ways, obviously, but we've had no problems so far.

Wierd. When I'm playing laser tag + paintball, if there isn't cover, people shoot me (generally). Yet when I practice medieval combat + kendo, it's fairly easy to stay out of the opponents reach (or move) when they swing at me. Seems to me that Dodge is legit.

As an aside, has anyone banned Gymnastics Dodge in their games? I'm going to be running a game soon and part of me think that Gymnastics is still useful - at least as useful as skills like diving - so that it doesn't need to take away from Dodge. I mean, I concede that Gymnastics Dodge makes sense, but this is one place where I'm willing to sacrifice realism for some balance.

No, but I go by the mentality that there needs to be about 2 meters or so of movement at least to use a gymnastic dodge, where as dodge can be used for almost all dodging situations. Doesn't mean the character is doing flips or crazy acrobatics or whatnot, but they do need some room to move and have to use their free action to move. I found that balances it pretty nicely. Doesn't gimp the gymnastic dodge since lots move while full defending anyhow and makes regular dodge a little more appealing if you think you'll be in close quarters, have to stay in the same place, or need the free action for something else.

Like dropping low for a second and popping back up, not really a gymnastics thing.

We more or less scrapped regular Dodge, instead. Full defense is vaguely and situationally useful, but mostly not that important. Shooting back is almost always more advantageous. Having a whole skill just for that seems excessive.
If you think that the people in your game would buy dodge, just because you scrapped the alternative, go ahead. Banning one of the two is certainly a good choice.

I'll agree that my ruling is not precisely realistic, but that's not why we made the change. We decided that we wanted to make a melee specialist character more useful. Melee characters already have the disadvantage of needing to use a Complex Action to attack compared to two SA shots or two Bursts with a firearm. We decided that automatically giving melee defenders extra dice was just adding insult to injury, from a game balance perspective. If I hadn't a player that wanted to specialize in melee, I likely wouldn't have made the change. I want him to have fun, and the change isn't taking away from anyone else's fun.

I put my house-rule out there for consideration for the sole purpose of representing the game-fun* motivated rules change.




*fully cognizant of our game fun perhaps being very different from your game fun.

While "skill overloading" is a problem, I think there's also the issue of what's meant by a gymnastic dodge. Is it dodging, or is it just moving to where the shooter didn't plan want to shoot at? I figure the later.
Vaulting, tumbling, and handsprings don't make you harder to hit, per se, but they DO allow you to move quickly and in ways and into locations that a person not using acrobatics could not move. That means the shooter / attacker is suddenly dealing with an unexpected situation they likely haven't trained for; in other words, they are less likely to hit you as successfully.
Granted, the more "accurate" solution (based on this logic) would be to impose situational modifiers on the attacker for being in inferior position / target having cover / target moving rapidly, based on how well the defender does on a Gymnastics test. But the mechanics of the dodge work better, and have largely the same effect.

It could also be interpreted as a regular Dodge move as well... after all, you are Dodging...



I think that a great many infnatrymen in the military would argue that they would use "Dodge" vs. "Gymnastics dodge" anyday of the the week. Please refer to the descriptive of what a gymnastic Dodge is... Page 160 of SR4A...

"...Flipping, rolling, cartwheeling, etc. out of danger..."

where as a Dodge implies none of that in its descriptives at all... therefore, you would need some fair amount of room to do that Gymnastics Dodge, and you would need to be relatively unencumbered... Try a cartwheel sometime when you are carrying a combat loadout that weighs anywhere from 40 to 100 pounds... I would really like to see how effective you are REALLY going to be... whereas Dodge will work just fine... (and for the record, My Combat load in the Gulf was ~50 pounds for the Radio and Crypto gear, an additional ~40 pounds for the Deuce Gear and Flak Jacket with weapon, ammunition, 2 mortar rounds, and 2 anti-tank rockets... so I do know something about this particular subject)

Just Sayin'

Keep the Faith

But then the question is: "What is a regular dodge?" My guess would be 'rolling, diving, jumping out of danger' which isn't going to be all that much easier than the gymnastic variant. As I said in my post, a 'dodging' skill of any kind is about making it hard to get and keep a lead on a person and/or predict their movements, and that will always require alot of movement, regardless of if you gain this ability from being a gymnast and being very apt at changing direction quickly due to good control of your body, or from specialized dodging training that includes extra things like changing up how often you change direction and which direction you change to and such.

Both are going to require a good amount of space, both are going to require alot of physical movement, both are going to be difficult with large weights, and both will require alot of room to use properly.

The fact is that the fluff provided about doing flips is about the worse thing you could possibly do to dodge a bullet aside from standing still. In a flip your center of mass doesn't move, and you can't change direction while you're airborn. Same thing with a cartwheel, your center of mass doesn't really move any (In any way different from just walking I mean) and once again is very difficult to change direction in, so you're once again basically just begging to be shot.

Now a roll I could see because it changes where your center of mass is, puts it lower to the ground, and, if you're a good gymnast, you can shift it very quickly back up via a handspring into standing or just standing with the roll.

I agree with Karoline

In the gymnastics skill it gives some example specializations. Balance, breakfall, dance, jumping, parkour, and tumbling.

Well...I think dodge would include breakfall, jumping, and tumbling fit into the skills specilizations as well. Plus, for gymnastic dodge it says "...Flipping, rolling, cartwheeling, etc. out of danger..."

I would assume etc. does not -just- mean you have to do a backflip into a roll cartwheel with a hand stand at the end.

Why couldn't a gymnastics dodge just be a simple roll out of the way, just like what you would probably do for a dodge full defense maneuver.

Because at least in my mind, that would be an application of Dodge... NOT Gymnastics... Honestly, I see the basic Dodge skill as applicable far more often than the Gymnastic Dodge variation... especially since Gymnastics Dodge is a FULL DEFENSE only maneuver... where Dodge is not... Just because you can augment that Gymnastics Dodge fairly easily does not change that...

Keep the Faith

Well, the point made earlier though was that as long as you have gymnastics and a melee skill, there is never a time when you would need to use the dodge skill.

For melee combat you would use Rea + Combat and for ranged you use Rea. To get the dodge skill on either of those you need to use a full defense, which would also allow you to use gymnastics instead.

Crunch wise there is little reason to get dodge over gymnastics for defensive reason. Fluff wise there is some stuff about gymnastic dodge having you do stuff that makes you an easier to hit target, but all you have to do is use the gymnastic elements that are common to regular dodging, like rolling and jumping out of the way and such.

Which reduces the argument to G>D which I do not subscribe to... the choice should be from the character background perspective, and always choosing Gymnastics over Dodge because "it is a no brainer" is a really poor reason to do so... it becomes a metagame choice, rather than a choice made through the needs of the character... I would be willing to bet that if you were to map the 2 skills to real world usage (Hard to do I know) you would find that far more individuals would have the Dodge skill over the Gymnastics skill... Why? Because Gymnastics requires a certain degree of coordinated motor skill that Dodge does not... I would say that Few Gymnasts would make good combat monkeys... the skill sets are completely different.

And Please remember, Visually, dodge is not the acrobatic descriptives that many here use, it is the ability to turn, twist, and "Dodge" out of the way without having to do stuff like actually fall to the ground, or "Tumble, cartwheel and flip," as is descriptive for the Gymnastics skill... they are 2 different skills for a reason, and choosing Gymnastics JUST BECAUSE I CAN GET BETTER AT IT than DODGE is a bit disigenuous...

Interesting to see other's ponts of view on this though... Though I do tend to disagree...

Keep the Faith

And yet, that is the point. Rules wise G >> D. Thus the only reason to get D over G is for purely roleplay reasons. And while I subscribe to getting things for roleplay reasons, it seems a shame to pay out 16 extra BP so that you have the ability to jump and dodge well. Remember that a good skill in gymnastics doesn't mean you're a gymnast. Just like a good skill in artistry doesn't necessarily mean that you can sing, dance, play the flue, piano, chello, and trumpet as well as paint, draw and sculpt, even though the skill says that it includes all of these things.

So yeah, I can imagine alot of people having a good gymnastics skill even though they can't do a cartwheel to save their life (like long jumpers and such). And similarly I can imagine that these skills would allow you to get out of the way quite nicely without doing backflips.

So yeah, someone with gymnastics is more likely to roll out of the way of an attack while someone with dodge is more likely to just be changing which direction they move often. Both still require a fair bit of room and movement.

And yet, this is where we disagree... I do not see an issue for buying another skill with either Build Points or Karma... each skill will have its niche that it would be preferrable to use over the other one... without any movement room, you CANNOT use Gymnastics Dodge... while you COULD use DODGE... which in my book makes it a wise purchase... all skills are situational (an honestly, I see more actual use out of Dodge thatn the Gymnastic variant in most situations)... for the Parkour Specialist, Gymnastics will be more applicable in a greater array of circumstances, but he could not discount that he MIGHT not be in a position to actually use that Gymnastics to avoid a blow of some sort, at which point he has 2 options... No active defense or Dodge... Guess which one I am going to use...

In truth, Gymnastics is a truly bad choice for such endeavors (as you have pointed out in the Fluff)... Your example of long jumpers is a very bad one indeed... it takes a lot of room to set something up like that, and as you have so eloquently stated previously, jumping makes you an easier target rather than not (which has been my experience)... as you cannot change your momentum... once you have left the ground, you are at the whim of physics, and can take no real actions to alter that; an alert opponent just has to target your landing point and you are essentially done... kind of sucks to land on top of that grenade at the completion of your maneuver doesn't it...

Different Styles...

I tend to the theory that gymnastics dodge supercedes dodge.
However, my GM in one game pointed out that as I was carrying a lot of stuff, I would be at -2 for gymnatics (but no penalty for dodge.
Similarly, even if I were not carrying so much weight, I have a slung Ares Alpha. Trying to do cartwheels, etc while it is in its normal slung state (or worse, in my arms, as I try to fire it, seems somewhat unreasonable.
Yours,
Joel

That's not true about using Dodge in melee.

Honestly, I think both skills have their place. Gymnastics is good for a character who has a melee skill to defend with in close combat - and that's about it. Dodge is good for characters who are not as combat-oriented (lacking melee skills), or who need a relatively cheap defensive boost (since dodge has a ranged specialization). Dodge is also good for any rigger (or any other character who needs to perform defensive maneuvers with a vehicle), or for any street sam who goes the move-by-wire route.

Right, my point was that if you have the melee skill then you don't need dodge. I never said it couldn't be used, just that it is unnecessary.


Except that is never stated anywhere in the rules. Dodge doesn't let you magically slow down time so you can twist your body a bit and dodge bullets. It requires space just like gymnastic dodge would.

No, it is a very good example of a character that would have the gymnastic skill (because jumping is based off gymnastics) but would have no knowledge of flips or cartwheels, which is exactly what I intended it as.


Yeah, those are actually some good reasons to go after dodge.

You may deem it unecessary for character Builds that you originate, but may of us do not think it is so...

And, you are not magically slowing down time to Dodge, and you do not need what I would call excessive space to Dodge either (from personal experience), whereas you would need substantial space for your gymnastics routine (also from personal experience, ever actually watched one? The name heavily implies the use of expanded area...) you would be using to Dodge... and as for your Jumping... that is not avoding an attack... it is JUMPING... which is why I said it was a bad example...

And those reasons given by Glyph are just a few that wold be useful in my opinion...

Whatever works though...

Keep the Faith

So what exactly does the dodge skill encompass that it takes so little space? If you're in a hallway that is too small to roll around in, you're in a hallway that is too small for changing direction quickly to matter in. In fact, to be honest, if a flip was actually a good way to avoid bullets, you could do it in substantially less space than you could hope to dodge in any conventional way. I know plenty of people who can do a flip standing still and land right where they were standing. They need like an extra foot around them front and back to make sure they don't kick anyone, but otherwise they could about do it in a phone booth.

So, unless you're Neo dodging bullets, it isn't going to take significantly less room than a gymnastics dodge.


I never said it had anything to do with avoiding an attack. It was purely to demonstrate that someone can have a skill without knowing all the parts that that skill should cover. This is why I keep saying that 'gymnastic dodge' doesn't have to be a full gymnastic routine, because someone with the gymnastics skill might not know the first thing about gymnastics.

First... A flip is NOT a good way to avoid a bullet... when you do a standing flip, your target profile hardly changes at all... in fact, a good portion of your body just rotates in place... so you would still be hit by the bullet targeting center mass in most, if not all, circumstances...

I have watched a master of martial arts actually "Dodge" multiple attacks over many minutes in a space no bigger than about 6 feet across, of which he is in the middle, so 3 feet to each side... he never left his feet (He stayed grounded) and was capable of avoiding all attacks... now, many people would say that it is just a good descriptive of his martial skills, but I would disagree... he never "Blocked" or "Parryed" any attacks (as the Unarmed Combat/Weapon skills are used for performing both the Block and Parry options; in fact, his hands were kept behind his back the entire time), just moved out of the way, a step here, a turn there, etc... easily done in the confines of a hallway... again, not possible in the common language useage of the word "Gymnastics"... Gymnastics is ALL about the movement... hard to do a Gymnastics routine in 3 feet of floor space (to each side) don't you think...

I can understand if you do not like that definition, but there it is... Dodge does not REQUIRE the large amounts of movement that Gymnastics does... in an area of restricted space, I would not allow Gymnastic Dodge to even work... whereas Dodge would work just fine...

Keep the Faith

And he was dodging bullets was he? The fact is dodging something moves slowly enough for you to react to (a punch, kick, or even an arrow) is exceedingly easier than dodging something that moves faster than you can react. Yes, I fully admit that dodging anything besides a bullet can be done without moving your feet, but dodging a bullet is going to require you to move, regardless of what skill you're using.

So yeah, if you're talking melee combat, gymnastics is likely to require more space than dodge, but if you're talking ranged combat, they are both going to take similar amounts of space.

Oh, and if you think gymnastics absolutely requires a huge amount of space, go watch a balance beam performance. 3" by about 10'.

Again... the granularity of the system does not care if you are dodging bullets or a sword... it DOES NOT MATTER... and if you prefer a Movie Visual... I refer you to Remo Williams (Cheesy but makes my point)

As for the Balance Beam... you would not use that space to fight on, and if you did, you would probably get very hurt indeed... again Gymnastics is NOT COMBAT... I fully agree that there are gymnastics routines that would use the gymnastics skill, but would be completely inappropriate for an actual combat scenario... in fact, I cannot even really ever see the utility of Gymnastic Dodge in real world combat, it will get you killed... and it strains beleiveability (Neo and the Lobby Scene (or many of the other Combat Scenes) Notwithstanding)...

The Descriptive used for the Gymnastics Dodge implies plenty of space to move... it does not say you are on a balance beam, or holding the rings, or are on the parralel or uneven bars... it specifically refers to the types of actions performed upon the floor in a floor routine... as such, it is wholly inappropriate for MOST combat scenarios...

This may be an opinion that you disagree with, but I stand by it, based upon my past experiences...

And another point that I think needs to be made... Movement is not Gymnastics... it is Movement... Dropping to the ground is in no way Gymnastics, but does fit in with the idea of Dodging... (Thought that I would point it out... You can move and Dodge without it becomeing Gymnastics, which is what I would say is generally the case in most circumstances)

Keep the Faith

You're entire argument is based on the fact that fluff seems to indicate that it takes more space to do a gymnastics dodge than a regular dodge, and now you point out that ranged/melee has no difference under the rules of the system... well, gymnastics dodge/regular dodge has no difference under the rules of the system in regard to a normal dodge.



Besides perhaps rolls, there is nothing mentioned in the fluff description of what one does during a gymnastic dodge that cannot be done on a balance beam.


Dropping to the ground quickly is in fact very common in gymnastics routines, and I don't see why it couldn't be part of a gymnastics dodge. And I've never said anything at all about movement being gymnastics, so I don't know what you're overall point is all about.

Now, I'm going to step back a moment and agree that the gymnastics skill likely shouldn't get to replace a dodge skill because for the most part the things they describe as being used for a gymnastics dodge are going to be utterly useless for actually dodging a bullet. What I'm doing is trying to rationalize the RAW of being able to use gymnastics to dodge. I think you're rationalization of doing a floor routine is fairly silly (As well as the fact that gymnasts require alot of space to do anything, as I keep bringing up plenty of things that are the sorts of maneuvers you mention that can be done in a very tight space.), while a gymnasts limberness and speed on their feet making them able to roll/jump/duck out of the way makes alot of sense.

We're not dodging bullets here, we're getting out of the way before the bullets fly.

Ever been in a swordfight with a gymnast? I have, and I know more than a couple of people who have done likewise. Bastards are stupidly hard to hit. I can't imagine it would be different in hand-to-hand. Hell that's nearly the entire point of Capoeira, really.

As far as shooting goes... well, an erratically moving target is hard as Hell to shoot. Even in a relatively small space. Before you start saying that's not gymnastics, take a look at a male's floor routine. (Check this out if you aren't familiar.) You'll notice some of it is done in a pretty small area, with a fair amount of up and down and side-to-side motion. Someone doing that in short bursts with rolls, ducks, and weaves is going to be damnably hard to shoot. I call Gymnastics Dodge at least as realistic as any other Dodge in the game against bullets.

Considering that the Dodge skill has only one purpose (to dodge attacks) and Gymnastics has many purposes (none of which are generally to dodge attacks), how do you expect Gymnastics to help with dodging?

Dodge has a very specific regimen (though split between melee and ranged). Watch where that gun is pointed. Where is that grenade going to land? Where is cover? How do people swing swords? What are your vulnerabilities, and how do you protect them?

Now tell me what edge a trained gymnast has against attacks? They have the training to move their body, but it's all focused inward. It's agility, pure and simple (and dodging is a REA based skill). There's no understanding of combat, and no observation involved.

I would prefer to disallow Gymnastics in dodge tests, but it's somewhat of a supplemental skill (at least in melee), since you can only do it on full defense, and you can't do REA+Gymn+Gymn (which is one aspect where it's inferior to Dodge).

Nice to have two fresh people to interject their ideas. I think Tym and I were likely getting very repetitive.

No comment. I was having trouble with your discussion, because you both had very good points. After a while, I just couldn't read any more.

Hasn't been a problem in my game, but it gives me an idea for a foe... Mr. Flippy! A melee specialist who Gymnastic Full Dodges his way into melee range, and then whacks the crap out of the ranged specialist! Muhahahahahaha!!!

P.S. My players now wince when I read Dumpshock, you guys have been excellent fodder for my (evil) imagination!

Agreed...

Keep the Faith