You are correct. It is usually better to just use the called shot to increase the damage by +4. The AP he is talking about, though, is from a sniper rifle and (presumably) APDS or AV armor. Actually, a sniper rifle and APDS would be -7 AP.

I was thinking that the AP of the gun/Ammo would come out before the Armor is counted, quite possibly I misjudged, but regardless, thats still 15 pool that is adding onto the base of the weapon

If we go straight adding damage then an Adept Sniper with Adept Centering could in theory take a single shot take a +4 (which reduces his pool by 4) then center as a free action to negate some of that penalty they took to increase the pool back up (a typical Way of Warrior Sniper with an IG of 3 can negate the entire penalty)

so then we have a 25 pool with a base of 14p, & now we can fully ensure we have the Armor Penetration (I'll base the gun off my gun, a modified Barret 121 using Ex Explosive Ammo) -5AP so the troll is rolling 25 total dice vs my 25 & I have a14p base damage code, even if we assume he makes all of his dice & I make all of mine (extremely unlikely) he's still taking 14 boxes of damage.

If I were using APDS I'd have 8 penetration leaving him 22 dice total & I'd be at 13p base pool, which means against my 25 I'm even more likely to do damage if we both maxed hits I'd do 15 boxes.

You should also (most likely) surprise the target so we could assume no test for dodge. We also assume he is stationary.

Also:
Large Target (BOD 8+): +1D6

well I think he would not try to dodge anyway, the idea behind it was that bullets don't do enough damage to harm him so he never has to really worry about dodging.

Dodging is always mechanically superiour to not dodging, because you're getting less DV for less net hits on attack test.

No it is not. If you had said rolling Reaction against ranged attacks is better than not, you would be correct since rolling reaction is a non-action. However, dodging itself has an action cost tantamount to a Complex action and dodging against ranged attacks prohibits you from expending those actions on other tasks. Thus it is not always mechanically superior since if you have the soak pool to negate high damage values or even reduce it to a trivial amount of stun damage then you're more advantaged by rolling just reaction and then keeping your actions for some other task.

like killing that which shot at you in the first place...or at least incapacitating them.

Full defense can be combined with movement, so while it is not always a good idea, it is definitely a good idea when you are being shot at, either by someone you have not spotted, or by someone outside of your range for return fire. Go full defense, find cover.

The trouble with snipers is that they usually strike by surprise, meaning you don't even get passive dodge. A decent sniper can take out just about anyone, which is why they are often considered GM fiat even when their use is justified.

Equating dodging with full dodging is the lamest RAWfag trick I've seen in a while.

Say whatever you want, but the term dodge in the book is always linked to using the Dodge skill. Except for Gymnastic dodge but that's not dodge. That means that if you use the term dodge in the context of ranged combat then the only reasonable interpretation is full defense.

I think you're all mixing up your terminology.

That is, dodge and defense. Full Defense and Not Bothering To Go On Full Defense(lets call this Passive Defense) aren't the same as Dodging.

Dodging is a passive, non-action, option of defense everyone gets against melee attacks. instead of parrying or blocking.

You have defense. That is the pool used to oppose the attack and is always applicable.
You have full defense which requires a complex action and gives additional bonuses over the standard defense pool.
You have dodge which is a method of defense that uses the dodge skill and is Reaction + Dodge and only usable for melee attacks.
You have full dodge which is a method of full defense that uses the dodge skill and is Reaction + Dodge + Dodge for melee attacks and Reaction + Dodge for ranged attacks.

Regardless, rolling reaction on a defense test for ranged actions can't be a superior option since there is no other replacement. The only time you can't do that is when you're surprised.

You can willingly skip it. "I am bullet-proof" and all that.

but we proved he's not bulletproof...didn't we?

Reaction is not dodging. It's as simple as that.

When under ranged attack you have 3 options. Do nothing (roll Reaction). Spend a complex action and roll full dodge (roll Reaction + Dodge), or spend a complex action and roll gymnastic dodge (roll Reaction + Gymnastics).

Being willfully stupid and ignorant and electing to not roll what you are entitled to is not a defense of your statement.

Rolling Reaction is not dodging? What do you think that test represents then?

An unconscious act called reflexes? You may call it dodging but the reality is that in function due to it being a non-action as part of an opposed test it represents an element of randomness due to attempting to strike a living and moving target as opposed to a stationary target. Most accurately, it represents the character responding to events that have long since passed (such as bullets passing by) that causes trouble for later actions. That is the only reasonable interpretation unless you take the silly position that all combat occurs in serial rather than parallel.

Dodging is inclusive in defense as a form of defense that equates specific dice pools and not the other way around. Dodging is a conscious or trained/semi-conscious action to willfully evade a blow.

Going back to the first page.

Yes going to 1(7) reaction is quite viable. Depending on your character concept... 10karma and then 15karma for the raises will max you out. Obviously magical/techno might not want to devote karma like this, but a street sam... no problem.

7 is better than most... if you didn't dump stat body as well you'll have plenty of armor to make up the difference initially... and it will cost you a lot less to raise reaction from 1->2 than body from 3->4 or 5->6....

So from a min/max point of view... yes very viable and not a death wish.

Another stat you can dump early on is agility... You can start with agility 1(3) still pop out reasonable amount of dice with a good weapons skill + tech (smartlink). Very very quickly buy to 1(5) (only about 64k for alpha grade rating 4 toner). Toss on suprathyroid and you're golden...

Reflexes are not an act.
But I understand that you never read fluff, so the whole issue must be meaningless to you.

While the second part of the post was uncalled for the first part is important.

Reaction is not JUST your reflexes, after all, all driving skills are linked to reaction, and if you have no skill in piloting, you default to reaction. Is that just reflexes driving? I don't think so. Reaction is your ability to respond quickly to a stimuli, in the case of ranged combat, hearing/seeing a gunshot headed for you and moving to not be hit. This would be more like taking a sideways stance or ducking slightly as opposed to a full dodge where it seems like you'd be actively bobbing and weaving to avoid being an easy target.

Your GM is unusually generous with rewards if you can spend 65k on implants early on.

The second part comes from a previous thread and claims that in "high-powered ammo imposes -2 to attacks with it due to recoil" the bit on recoil is meaningless and doesn't mean it can be recoil-compensated. But that's beyond the point.

When talking about Reaction and Reaction alone you are talking about reflexes. When you combine a skill with it you're talking about training and honing your reflexes in a more controlled reaction. Also not that simply driving a car does not necessitate rolling dice. It requires some situation above and beyond to necessitate the test. The same thing with piloting a boat. However other vehicles which have much higher speeds and complexity (aircraft) that without that skill to hone your reflexes your reflexes are simply incapable of coping with even a basic situation.

You cannot dodge a bullet after hearing it fire. That is physically impossible, unless you're using subsonic rounds.

Emphasis added. The combat section uses "dodging" as an English language verb, but when it comes to defining a keyword (page 160 SR4A), the term you describe is Full Dodge. That's as close as Shadowrun gets to D&D's keyword dictionary. Dodging is the act of avoiding an attack. Full Dodging is the act of using an interrupt action to not get crap shot out of you.

I won't comment about the wisdom of not dodging, full, partial, or impartial ...

The plain term dodge is used under defending against melee attacks.

Actually it can be advantageous to "not roll reaction" (for lack of a better term ) IF this is possible (which is arguable indeed). Imagine being attacked by a bunch of low-bobs wielding Holdouts and one competent shooter with a big gun (in that order). If you are confident you can soak the hold-out damage of the gangers reliably, it would be best to not roll reaction for the gangers in order to not get your pool get reduced for each roll. That way, you would still have all your reaction dice left when mister big gun attacks, which means a higher chance of dodging and avoiding taking any damage.

Xenefungus

At which point the mooks start making called shots which you're not dodging... holdout with +4 damage starts to hurt. Two can metagame badly.

This strikes me as one of the worst meta-gamey bits people try to pull. The way you handle it is to enforce the initiative order and rules. Or actually make use of full defense *gasp*... they're focus firing me... oh no... I'm going to metagame and intentionally let them hit me... each one of those bullets hits like a punch or a kick. Just because your armor can stop you from taking damage doesn't stop you from getting knocked off balance or on your ass. Getting knocked off balance from dodging or getting hit... doesn't make much difference in my book.

The rulebook makes no provision whatsoever that you're allowed to not dodge. Which reflects this neatly. While you're free to declare it like superman, don't expect to get any benefit out of it besides style points.

As well as in regards to avoiding explosions. I'm away from my book so I can't see what your point is?

Falconer, i said that it is not clear if you are by RAW allowed to stand still while being shot at. My point is just that IF that is possible it can indeed be of use at certain times. If it is intended that way is another matter completely Same goes for taking off armor to take physical instead of stun, which has been discussed often around here already.

Well, as far as I can see the only reference is that there is no skill test to defend against range but a reaction test.

The DECISION to act in a defensive manner must still be the characters choice. The character decides to use reaction to MOVE out of the line of fire.

So yes, you can decide to stand still.

The problem arises in the fact that within that 1,5 second long Simple Action that perhaps 3 enemies use the player/character somehow knows which one enemy will shoot and in which order.

And that is damn silly because if I see 3 people opening fire on me I will throw myself to the side and hope I don't get hurt. It would be up to the GM to say that 3 people are shooting at me and giving me 3 random dodges where he has allocated one enemy to each choice beforehand.

If Im lucky i will have dodged the more powerful weapon.

Actually, everyone acting in an IP is doing so simultaneously.
So when you defend against "consecutive" attacks, the heightened difficulty represents the fact that it's harder to move in such a way so as to be covered/out of field of fire/moving too rapidly to reliably hit/whatever against multiple attacks coming from different sources located at a few different places all at once.
If you decide to only defend against one of the attacks, that just represents your character singling out the most dangerous enemy and acting to only defend against him, hoping the rest won't hurt him as much.
Calling that"metagaming" means fundamental lack of understanding both of the ruleset representation of events and the concepts of roleplaying (of which one of the basic is "you can still do it even if it's not explicitly in the rules").

I think its all about how the player goes about it, if he plays the scene out right, I can understand him singling out the bigger gun, but if his demeanor to the GM is simply "I know the rules enough to know that your peashooter boys cannot hurt me, so I'm going to only try to dodge the big gun" that's not thinking "in character", that's thinking "In the Rules". Now...to some there is no difference in these 2 aspects, but to others who are heavy into the roleplay the character might brace himself to take the first shots, singling out the bigger gunner, & prepare to spring out of the way of his shot as he watches him. Roleplay vs Ruleplay can IMO make the difference.

Not a problem, the problem is that there should be an action for the character to, spot, prepare for, and actually KNOW which target will shoot first in that action.

As you say. It all happens at the same time so either the character dodges ALL attacks at that same moment. He will not know in which simultaneous order they will shoot, the player might, the gm might but the character wont.

If your player only offers RAW explanations for his actions with no consideration for representing the character's point of view, it's not him deciding to skip a few defense rolls you should be worried about.

There is no "simultaneous order". They all shoot in the 6/maxIP seconds an IP lasts; the order in which they declare their actions is only a ruleset convention.
Again, what is "actually happening" in those few seconds is a character trying to dodge multiple simultaneous attacks, and thus having a difficult time doing that. As opposed to relatively easier dodging of a single attack and flat out ignoring the rest.

Actually according to the initiative rules and combat sequence rules everyone is NOT acting simultaneously.

Only if two people have exactly the same initiative (or one delayed his action to go at the same time) are they happening simultaneously.

Otherwise there's little point to the super high initiative street sam gunning down punks before they can shoot back wild west high noon style.

Imagine you have a few IP count 3 sammies in a firefight. How long do their actions in each of the IPs take? I mean, each IP is 2 seconds, how long is it taking each of the sammies to take their Free Action and two Simple Actions? The obvious answer seems to be "2 seconds as well", since otherwise you'd have to presume jerky movements when running, for example. Which necessitates them acting in that IP simultaneously.

Actually, in your scenario, each IP is 1 Second (A turn is 3 Seconds Long).

Even better.

Indeed...

Yeah and each street sam has how much 'ware allowing him to treat that 1s as if it were 3s for a normal person.

Remember it's a sci-fi game with a lot of time compression toys.

So do they run in chronological order in your version of events? Moving their part of the second, and then stopping abruptly for the rest of it, for the others to act?
Shooting at each other in initiative order? All in one second? All fifty of them? With 1/50 a second left for each to take his turn?

Fatum, each action phase, actions are declared.

People know what happened in the one prior before declaring their own. The only bit which you're not supposed to do is delcare I fire twice... fire once into one guy kill him then change targets, you're supposed to announce in advance one round into each of them (and if that one round isn't good enough... you just didn't have the time).


But initiative is pretty pointless if all actions are always simultaneous. And yes you're dealing with an abstract system... break the movement for everyone into four phases like you're supposed to... if they semi-teleport that's one of the problems in any system. (though again delayed actions can catch someone out in the open... as well as things like suppressing fire).

The way I play it everyone decides what they are gonna do in that IP, and then these actions are resolved in order according to initiative. Then I take stock of what has happened, and summarise it to the players to help those acting in the next IP decide what to do. So the PC who shot the mook once will not know if that was enough to take him down the instant he hits, but at the end of the IP.

My players were surprised when I asked them to write down which mook they were targeting the first time they ever got into combat. Because they hadn't predecided, two of them ended up shooting the same mook. Now they have subvocal mikes and a standard aiming policy, of course, but they were green once. ...

As for ignoring the peashooters and waiting to dodge the big gun, I don't see this as metagamery at all, in fact for some builds I might see this as common sense. Of course, if the PC does decide to wait to dodge the big gun he stands the risk of the shooter aiming for a different target altogether.