there are some important differences regarding bad rolls, though.

1) bad rolls happen a lot less often against TN 2 than against TN 4.
2) related to the above, a roll that would be bad against TN 4 can be excellent against TN 2.
3) in your example, you don't need "not a bad roll" for it to be a good idea. you need it to be a *perfect* roll.

if i roll 1, 3, 2, 3, 2, 5, 3... that's a lousy roll against TN 4, but not a bad roll at all against TN 2.

and no, the odds don't say you'll end up in the same place if you don't completely dodge in your example, unless i'm remembering wrong; as i recall, you need two successes to stage the damage in either direction. a dodge with 2 hits means you need 3 successes on your 2 body dice to reduce the damage by one level (there's one level left over to reduce, then two more to reduce damage to serious). even if one success is enough, the soak is *vastly* more likely to avoid deadly damage, and is much more likely to stage down to moderate than the dodge is to reduce damage down to serious.

the only way you can reasonably expect better results from dodging consistently is if your dice are loaded.

there are times where it is better to dodge, and there are times when it is better to soak. anyone following the mantra that they should always dodge is going to be taking a lot more damage than they need to, unless they are cheating.

soaking does not have to reduce damage to 0 to be worthwhile. it merely has to produce better results than dodging could.

Not true. Based on your last example (which is part of why they're not working, we're using too many of them-- all of us) you'd score two successes with a dodge roll, on average. Versus 3 successes, that takes you one net, which would likely result in a Serious. Since that's the likely result in your example, they come out about the same.

Edit: Technically, the successes cancel each other out. So, with three successes on the attack, two on the dodge move the attacker to one net. Any remaining soak successes first reduce the attacker's roll, then stage things in the defender's favor. Dodge and soak work basically the same way, with the exception that Dodge has the chance of avoiding the attack entirely versus soak reducing the damage.

Granted, with all the examples floating around, it's getting hard to keep track of them.

I could come up with a bunch of counter-examples (getting hit by a Panther Assault Cannon, for example) but we're already getting all the examples mixed up. Let's try looking at principles.

1) Body of target: unless the body score is super high, troll high, you're better off dodging. That's because soaking requires more dice than dodging to work, especially if your body is low.
2) CP remaining: kind of irrelevant, if an attack is bad enough that you need to spend CP on defense, successes on dodge work just as well as soaking.
3) TN to dodge: This doesn't matter as much as you might think. Sometimes it's worth the gamble.
4) TN to soak: This also doesn't matter as much as you might think, although it can vary.
5) Base damage of weapon: This also doesn't matter as much as you might think. Twelve successes with a light pistol is deadlier than one with a Panther.
6) Total number of successes: This is the big one, although it also isn't that big of a deal. If someone gets tons of successes, you're not likely to dodge or soak it.

What you see is, no one factor works in isolation. Overall, though, dodging is clearly better. Sure, there's random edge cases when it might not be-- how common are trolls, anyway?-- but the rule is to dodge. Since dodge tests come first, if you succeed at a dodge, you're fine. If you don't fully succeed, you can transfer the successes to the soak test. And if you critically fail, well, then you're me.

Ok - last post on this, and then we can agree to disagree if you still don't see what I'm saying.

Your statement is that it is always preferable to Dodge than to Soak, unless you have a 15 (or some other absurdly high) body.

I give several examples where it is better to soak than dodge (again, not with a super high body) and make the statement that sometimes it is better to soak than dodge.

Your answer is that since you can give some examples where it is better to dodge than soak, that I am incorrect, and it is always better to dodge than soak - even though in my own post I provided such examples, since it is my assertion that sometimes dodge is preferable.

I'll make this as simple as possible:

Body 4, Ballistic 7 (Armor Jacket and FFBA), CP of 8. Attacked by an SMG firing 6 bullets. 13D damage, +2 TN to dodge, getting 1 hit.

Clearly it is the better option to Dodge, since rolling 8 dice needing 6's, I can get 2 hits on a fairly consistent basis, and if I didn't, then that 1 hit transfers over to the soak, and my 4 dice is only going to get me one more hit or so, so it is worth the risk to dodge.

Body 4, Ballistic 7 (Armor Jacket and FFBA), CP of 8. Attacked by a Heavy Pistol, 9M damage, 5 hits.

Here it is clearly better to soak, not dodge. Why? Because while any hits on the Dodge transfer over to the soak, I am only getting hits on a 4+, and since I am very unlikely to get 6 hits on 8 dice, then it is a waste of time to try and do that, when I can simply add the dice over to my 4 body and roll 12 dice needing 2s. If I dodge first, then on average I get 4 hits, and then with my 4 body I get 2 more, meaning that I take damage. If I simply rolled all 12 dice to soak, I can easily get 10 hits, meaning that I negate the 5 hits on the attack test, and then get the requisite 4 more hits to stage the damage down to nothing.

Again - and this is the important bit. I just gave two examples of the same character getting hit with two different weapons - the character is not atypical, the weapons and hits are not atypical, they are not outliers or outlandish examples - and what those two examples show is that sometimes it IS better to Dodge, and SOMETIMES it is better to Soak - which is my assertion.

What it doesn't show is that it is ALWAYS better to Dodge, unless you are a troll with a 15 body (which is your assertion.)

The fact that you can come up with examples where it is better to dodge does not change anything - it supports my position that sometimes it IS better to dodge.

The only way to support your position would be for you to demonstrate that in every single case, barring weird outliers, it is better to dodge than soak - and you just can't do that mathematically, it isn't the way the system works.

In SR3? They were pretty common at our table.
And Lobo0705 really does have the right of it.

Mine tended to be roughly equal. Physical types tended to neglect willpower a little, and magical types didn't always max out quickness, but I never ran into many runners that didn't pump up their intelligence.

Trolls were common in SR3 because they were awesome, if your team otherwise lacked combat power.
Only teams in which everybody could hold their own in a battle reasonably well you would usually not see any.

Trolls were my second favorite race. In one game, I played the only troll in a party of humans. They didn't realize how awesome trolls were until I charged a machine gun nest, took a few direct hits, but didn't get hurt at all. Or the time I charged a cybered piasma on crack, and took it down with my bare hands. (The roleplay had my troll a little pissed off, so he became overly aggressive. ) But what I meant was, in game, aren't trolls only 1% of the population? Granted, I probably phrased the question wrong. So, they're pretty rare, as rare as mages.

Anyway, here's the thing: I could counter with a hundred examples of how it's better to dodge. What neither of us can do is show how common our examples really are. We can't prove if his examples aren't random edge cases, or as rare as being a troll. That's why it's still better to dodge: both of us can come up with specific cases, but the more detailed you get, the less applicable the situation is. In the generic, it's better to dodge. In the specifics, it's still a good idea to dodge, except in rare cases.

yeah, i'm done trying to discuss this with you now. first, you're telling me that the attack being at just under -1 success (regular damage) on average is the same as -2 success average (staged down by one level) (alternately, it's possible you've lost track of the various conversations and forgot that in the given example, the damage was starting at deadly - but if that's the case, then you should be staging down both examples from the same starting point, which still leaves it equally confusing).

now you're saying that since neither you nor lobo can prove something, that must mean that you're right.

you clearly are not using the same kind of logic i am using. if an inability of either side to prove which is more common means that you're somehow magically right, as if your lack of proof is somehow superior to his lack of proof, i call BS.

Even then, they're still awesome.

What's not to love about eight feet of shit-kicking goodness?

I may be biased, given that I tend to play a lot of Trolls.

Honestly, at this point, I can't keep track of which example people are using. Including my own, I admit.

But: in general, it's better to dodge. It's always better to dodge in the general case. You can argue that certain specific cases, it might be better, but those are probably edge cases at best-- like troll tanks, they're not the everyday runner. Unless you can prove the specific cases are common enough to be significant, the stance that it's always better to dodge stands.

How's your number crunching smartassery related to the basic idea of this thread?

Mate, the general consensus seems to be that the burden of proof is on you, not on everyone else who plays Shadowrun globally and easily understands that "sometimes it's better to Dodge, sometimes it isn't"...

Everyone else participating in the debate appears to agree that all the examples given, of why soak is often the sensible option, are not at all borderline and pretty much occur on an "every session" basis.
In everyone else's minds your argument that "dodge is ALWAYS better" sounds a lot like "Panther Cannons are ALWAYS the best weapon", and I'm sure you can easily discern why that affirmation is patently false. And I'm also sure you can understand why someone arguing for it by downplaying every argument that mentions stealth or low resources or even shadows etiquette as "borderline", when these are actually staples of the genre that are more likely present than not, why that someone would come across as stubbornly oblivious to the reality of the game (and even simple math, really, as amply demonstrated).
Now, given your status at DumpShock and the quality of your previous interventions, I refuse to believe this to be a case of ignorance of the reality of a Shadowrun table. So, being really really honest, can you sincerely say that, at this point in the debate, you're not just insisting on turning a simple exercise of logic into a borderline autistic marathon of self-indulgent stubbornness?
(No offense, please, I just thought it was a funny thing to write).

On the original topic: yeah, trolls are dermal-armored-balls-to-the-wall awesome in SR3!
But I'm actually the douchey type of player who sometimes enjoys playing counter-stereotype, arguably counter-productive Troll Shamans (the sheer presence, unflinching stare, silent type) and Troll Faces (skinny for a troll, with the joker smile, Lennon glasses and received pronounciation). Waiting to testdrive this troll parazoologist/forensic investigator/classic lab nerd I've got on standby. Love it!

My usual troll, Murphy, is a Face. Ex-Mafia, heavy south Boston accent, and charming as hell. Still built like a brick shithouse, though, and one heck of a talented boxer in a tight spot. Titanium bone lacing these days, too. When he hits someone (or their car for that matter), they stay down if they know what's good for 'em.

Haven't played him in forever, though, as he doesn't translate well to 4e. I'll have to try and build him out in 5th.

It's only 'douchey' or counter-productive if you consider it a betrayal of your gaming group to not have the absolutely most twinked-out dice pools humanly possible on every character. This is, to my way of thinking, an absurdist position to take and counter to the primary goal of any RPG, which is for the players to have fun.

Spot on!

In my group we do have a couple of (very mild) min-maxers, but they know better than to "demand" the same character building guidelines from other players.
The GM doesn't indulge them either, not by skewing the campaign towards their power-level expectations, nor by fixing the spotlight on them every single time their one-trick-pony expertise potentially comes up. You may be the best face there is, but you don't get to reply for the other players when an NPC directs a question at them. And you may be a combat monster, but everyone else still gets to shoot at least once every turn. Or lob grenades! Grenades truly are idiot-proof.

Actually I still see them as another flaw within the combat rules of SR3 ... due to the absurd scatter rules.

I think SR3's are about the best so far. SR5 has made grenades only useful as a way to make people expend their movement. The scatter's a bit wide, I admit.

Well, first of all, I am fully autistic. So at worst, this isn't an exercise in stubbornness, it's really how I am. I'm not offended, but I do think you should be careful when you use the word "autistic" as an insult. Yes, i do see everything differently than you, and I don't see any consensus (although I almost never do, it's something that may literally be unable to register in my brain).

That said: I've outlined one condition under which soak is the more sensible option. It's simply that, according to all the evidence I see, conditions under which soaking is better than dodging are few and far between. It's better to always dodge, and watch out for the rare exception, than try and figure a special case to every situation that will probably either end with the same outcome, or slightly favor dodging anyway. If you always dodge first, you'll be able to handle just about every situation that comes your way; and even if there's a rare exception, you'll still likely do fine.

That was one of the fun parts about SR3. While it was harder for a troll to get high social skills, they weren't crippled in that arena, like they are in SR4+. Because there was only a soft link between skills and attributes, a troll with Etiquette 6 was just as effective as an elf with Etiquette 6. A low charisma max didn't hold you back in the same way.

And high Body, STR, Armor and Weapon count actually had set modifiers that helped with things like Intimidation as well.
So in that Department, there was little as scary(quite literally) as a fully armored and armed battleTroll.

Sadly, just after had completed my latest masterwork of SR3 Troll-Design, life went different ways for my group <.<

I do miss 3rd Ed Trolls, because you know....


Trolling is half the battle.

Cain: I was unaware of your condition, or I certainly would have never used the term 'autistic' in such light tone.
I meant it as a literal qualifier for that very specific type of stubbornness which, like you yourself put it, can only be displayed by people with an inability to perceive reality as the rest of us do, and thus simply unable to draw the same conclusions from the same raw data. Meaning that I meant 'autistic' as a precise descriptive, not as a generic insult.
Nonetheless, I apologise.

Still on grenades: did I tell you about the Queen Euphoria session when one of my players rolled a 23 on a magical grenade?

(spoiler alert)
The team had just gotten the a visit from Vernon the wageslave carrying half their payslip, and they felt that they had to relocate. They checked into this decent hotel in Tacoma, set up a little surveillance perimeter, and just stood there watching their last babysitting hours tick by.
Later that afternoon, their surveillance efforts pay off as they witness as Pride and his corp-sec entourage deploy into the floor hall at the end of which their room was located. Jimmy Wong the yakuza mage thinks OH SHIT, and projects to astral just in time to manabolt a little spirit into oblivion. A second after, the rest of the team see on the screen that Pride is signalling his men in the direction of the team's door. They run halfway up the corridor, then take a knee and wait. Then the door to the room gets blown to smithereens by a fireball, taking with it their carefully constructed surveillance system and most of the furnishings closer to the door. The runners barely have time to move into defensive positions before thick grenade smoke covers the entrance, and suppressing fire blasts through. It is on, mofos!

Smoke the elf decker had lost the use of his right arm last week, due to a pistol shot right in the spine. Waiting for funds to clear so he could get a cyber-replacement, his arm just hung limply on his side while he lined a revolver on his off-hand, hoping to get lucky on the first guy coming through the door. But after a couple of silent passes, it became apparent that their opposition had a different plan. Smoke the elf decker was entrenched deep inside the bathroom which was deep inside the room, which itself was 90 degrees from the at least 80-meter-long corridor at the far end of which Pride the lion shaman was doing his thing, but not really wanting to give the opposition time to think, our hero decides to throw a grenade at Pride...

...at this point the immersion breaks and I tell the player that it would be physically impossible for that to happen. He tells me that he wants to move up to the bathroom door, from where he can only see the first two meters of the opposing corridor wall. That's 10 meters altogether, so far. He then wants to throw the grenade as hard as he can against said wall, but with effect, so that it bounces off all the way down the corridor. Me: "That's mental!" Him: "Can I at least try?" Me, noticing it's almost 6AM and the session really needs to end soon: "You're looking at a target number of 20, at the very least, and if you fail I'm giving it a very good chance that it scatters back into the room threatening everyone else in your team." Him: *determinedly rolls his Throwing + ALL combat pool. Only one 6. Shit is looking grim. Re-rolls and it's a 6 again. And another 6 after that. And he tops it all off with a 5, for a grand total of 23!

The whole table (myself included) is just standing there mouth agape, as Smoke the recently one-armed elf decker goes "Fuck this gay Earth!" as he throws his Ruger over his shoulder like it's a good luck charm, grabs a frag from his jacket lining, bites the pin off, and awkwardly throws it with his off-hand through the smoke barrier seeping into the room. The fucking thing disappears down the corridor, bouncing from wall to wall at first then later just rolling down increasingly slow, losing momentum with every meter, until it just came to rest at the feet of one of the security mooks to either side of the shaman. BOOM! He pinched the shaman with a Moderate, dropped the first two goons immediately, and clipped one of the second two with a Light. Then Jade the ork razorgal takes the confusion to rush through the smoke and finish off the shaman and another corpsec with a couple lucky SPAS bursts. The other three corpsec get broken and run away. The team lets them. Yay! Even Euphoria is cheering them... because they convinced her that they were a special bodyguard unit commissioned by Carrone to keep her hidden away due to some made up threat, which she ended up believing was Pride and his team.

No worries. Like I said, I'm not actually offended. And yes, I do see reality differently, and so I draw different conclusions.

In this case? Everyone else seems to see only the expected value. Which is fine for math class, but in actual play, expected values don't really show up. You can't actually roll 1.33 successes, no matter what the statistics say. That's why expected value is less useful in this case.

What's useful to examine is the outcome, or to put it another way, risk versus reward. What you are risking is combat pool dice, and the reward is damage avoided. TN's and expected values can alter the risk somewhat, but they're not the only factor, or even the biggest factor. What matters is how much dice you need to get the desired outcome, and the risks of failing to reach that outcome. No matter how you cut it, dodging carries less risk for better reward: it takes fewer dice to dodge fully than soak fully, and even if you don't dodge fully, you still have a soak coming. If your dodge fails, you have a second chance. That's not true for a soak, so there's more risk in putting everything into it.

If you look at the outcomes, you'll see what I mean. Frequently, on a soak, even with a good roll (all successes), you won't be able to avoid all the damage. You just won't have the dice to get that many successes, especially if your Body is low. TN doesn't matter so much as being able to get that many successes. On a moderate roll, you're still taking damage, and on a bad roll, you may be down, possibly even bleeding out. On a dodge, on a bad roll, you're just as bad off as a bad soak roll. On a moderate roll, you reduce the damage some, and you still have a soak coming to reduce it further. You'll usually end up about the same. And on a good roll, you take no damage at all. It may be a bigger risk, but it's also a bigger reward, which is what makes it worthwhile.

There are exceptions, but they're rare. Trolls can have so much body, they're likely to soak without spending any combat pool, so they're better off with the soak-- they're not risking any pool dice. Getting hit with a lot more successes than you have combat pool, when combined with a significantly higher dodge TN, might be one as well-- but again, that's decently rare, and you're not likely to avoid that much damage regardless if you soak or dodge. The exceptions are rare enough that you should always think dodge first, and if you mess up and dodge in the rare circumstance that you probably shouldn't, you're likely to come out close anyway.


Grenades? Oh, I have a story for you....

I'm GMing again, and the mission is to take out a heavily-secured facility. Now, they're getting paid to cause heavy damage and carnage, so they go in packing heavy, knowing the opposition will be just as well-armed. Since they need to raze the place, they even brought satchel charges; research has revealed the walls are all heavily reinforced, so extras are packed.

Things are rough, but they're still going well, up until this point, when the opposition barricaded a hallway.

Let me skip ahead to the punchline:

Me: (to mage) Let me get this straight. You're in a two-meter wide, ten-meter long hallway. The barricade is about 7 meters in front of you. You're sustaining a Levitate Self and Improved Invisibility spell, you have a moderate Physical and a Serious Stun wound, lighting is bad and you have no vision enhancements, and you want to do what?

Mage: I want to fly over them and throw a grenade. I got a frag left, it'll mess them up.

Me: *pause* Ohhhhkay. You're only dropping it, so I'll go against base TN of 2....(calculates modifiers) Target number 17. You do have Thrown Weapon, don't you?

Mage: Yup. Lessee... I got one die in it

Everyone: *pause*

Me: Are you really sure about this?

Mage: Yup. I'll drop it, and fly right past. I can spare one from my combat pool.

Me: Ohhhhkay.

Mage (rolls): oh.

Sammie: What??

Mage: I rolled all ones.

Sammie: Spend some karma pool, doofus!

Mage: I'm out of Karma pool. I spent it to resist drain.

Me: Well then. (I start pantomiming) You grasp the grenade in your left hand, pull the pin, and throw. An object goes flying. Then you look down at your left hand, and have a second to yelp.

Surprisingly enough, the mage managed to survive this; the sammie, some distance away, did so as well.

It's not just scatter width but scatter directions as well ...

To gracefully drop out of dodge argument, I'll just say that I personally also tend to dodge 99% of the time, except maybe when playing a pure tank, or when heavily wounded. But that is mostly for roleplaying reasons. It breaks immersion to be factoring in all the little details every time a bullets whizzes by, and let's face it, it's a purely mechanical argument to be made. No one, not even a troll, will credibly choose to get shot rather than not, unless he's proving a point or going for intimidation or something like that.


That's hysterical!

Oh, how I wish my players fumbled more. They're too cautious, the bastards!
I love high risk/high reward gameplay with high variability both in favour and in detriment of the players. And I appreciate a table that can take this in sport and manage to tie their own character development in with these events of pure whim of the dice. If you get a Deadly and roll poorly on the permanent damage table, and turns out you lose a limb, I see this as a cue for a character to justify the acquisition of cyber, as a possible step in a violent highly-competitive career with low survival rates. So the guy who willingly chopped off his legs to install a steamboat cyber-version of them is now reluctant to indulge in further essence loss so he wants to vat-grow an eye? These vanilla-ass essence-loss-free cloned bits are really just a cop-out, to allow character build to remain hermetically in the hand of the player, impervious to the world itself. Some willingness to compromise our projected character development (and perhaps a tad effectiveness) in order to give back to the shared story being told is, in my opinion, a good thing.

Trolls are indeed...... Awesome.
Converted my 3rd Edition Troll to 4th Edition. He was still Awesome (11'6" and 1200 pounds of Awesome - he was big for his race ), but had to be a bit more careful as he could no longer bounce Panther Assault Cannons as effectively. But when all is said and done, he was still Awesome. Eventually retired him to the Shadows of Hong Kong, where he trains martial artists under the tender auspices of Wu Jen's House of Pain.

cain, the problem is that by not factoring TN into the equation, you're ignoring an important part of the risk-reward equation. if you have half the chance to gain a reward, that's effectively halving the reward as well.

if you have only 1/16 to get the reward you're shooting for (ie 4 successes required on 4 dice at TN 4), you should not be counting the reward as if it's a sure thing. yes, it's possible, but no, it isn't probable.

in the example you gave, soaking will fairly reliably reduce the damage to serious, while dodging will fairly reliably leave it at deadly with only a 1/16 chance to avoid damage entirely. admittedly, you can't always expect average rolls, but it's much more likely than getting perfect rolls consistently.

As of SR4, Trolls suddenly become above Olympic Level Athletes with stuff like being able to Climb faster than most anything can run and able to run/swim faster than some vehicles can move.
And yet they still will probably throw a disc or two when trying to lift stuff like a Motorcycle <.<

Eh, most bikes are only about 400lbs. Current world record deadlift is over double that at 1010 pounds, and that's raw. Even in 4e, Trolls have a minimum Strength and Body of 5, meaning the weakest Troll is naturally as strong as elite athletes, and even moderately strong Trolls are superhuman in their strength. They also average at 9'2" and 500 lbs.

So a Troll who can do a pullup should be easily able to throw a motorcycle for distance.

Have you looked at the lifting rules in SR?
They have always been bloody stupid.
If a Human today can lift 1010 pounds, let us say he is at STR7 and Skill 7(SR4 measurements), then a Troll could lift that from STR14 alone.
With Skill of 7 in addition to that he should be able to dead lift 1505 pounds then . .
But no, if you take a look at the weight/lifting rules, technically, a troll should not be able to do pullups because he weights in at more than his maximum dead lift weight.
And technically, that also applies to his legs so he would actually not be able to walk because his own muscles are too weak to carry his immense weight . .

unless of course they spend edge and get very lucky

(although, for the record, larger creatures being comparatively weaker is actually pretty normal. you know that whole "ants are so strong they can lift 50 times their own weight" thingy? well, if they were human sized, they wouldn't be able to do that).

That may be so in reality/nature, but we are talking a specifically magical race so i get to call bulldrek on that reasoning.
I get to call even more bulldrek on that reasoning when i get to combine this magical race with cybernetical and biotechnical enhancements.
Why do i get to call bulldrek on this reasoning?
Because of magic and unobtanion and handwavium technologies making it so that it simply does not apply anymore.

Same reason Western Dragons can fly without tearing themselves into pieces from the strain, and the Ram spell ever worked. Magic does whacky things to physics.

I did factor in TN. It's part of the risk assessment, it's just not the only part of the risk assessment. And you're still stuck on expected values.

What you're describing works if you're looking for overall patterns. However, real situations don't work that way. Over time, double the risk should work out to half the reward, but dice don't know that. Individual rolls can go differently, and every roll is individual. Dice don't have memories, after all. So, on a single roll, you're not halving the reward.

And you're right, you shouldn't consider the best outcome as a sure thing, regardless of TN. I've lost count of the fumbles I've rolled in Shadowrun, my 3e record was a botch on 13 dice. I don't remember what the TN was on that roll, but I know I've botched countless TN2 rolls over the years. But you should consider if the risk is worth the reward, as well as the penalties for failing. Dodging has a greater reward, since you'll escape all damage if you succeed. If you fail, you still reduced the damage some, and have a soak to fall back on. So, there's less risk-- two chances to avoid damage is always better than just one.



Shadowrun has always been less on the "But Maaaagic" excuse than other games. And for the most part, by the time SR3 hit, they had worked out the sweet spot between realism and playability. SR4.0 was a totally new system, so it basically ran like a beta test-- or more charitably, like SR1. Good ideas, too many bugs to actually sustain a game. At the rate they're going now, I expect Shadowrun will return to minimum playability levels somewhere around SR6.5.

you don't have two chances to avoid damage instead of one. you have a really bad chance to avoid all damage coupled with a really high chance of taking more damage, vs a very good chance to take less damage.

certainly, the average outcome won't always happen, but it's much more reliable to follow the average outcome than to expect extreme outliers all the time.

You're still only seeing expected outcomes. Look at the risk vs reward.

Examples get confusing, so I'll try an analogy. Let's say you're at the corner store, and notice that the lottery jackpot is especially large. Not just "set for life" large, but "Sweet Jebus it's large!" large. As you reach into your pocket to pull out money to get a candy bar, you find a wadded up dollar. You can get another candy bar, or a lottery ticket. Is the lottery ticket a bad idea?

Clearly, no. Even though the odds of winning are laughable, the risk is only a dollar, so it's worth it. You could compute the exact ratio, but it doesn't affect the outcome of the one ticket.

Now, let's say you find an opportunity online that's legitimate-- someone is offering you 10,000 lottery tickets for only $1000. The odds are clearly much better here, and you get a lot more for your money. But again-- is this a good idea?

I don't know about you, but a thousand dollars is a huge amount for me. I can't afford to simply risk that much money, even if the odds were better. So, it's actually a horrible idea, because the risks are too high. If you're so rich that you can afford to waste a thousand dollars, then it's different.

What this illustrates is that risk vs reward comprises more than just the odds. It's about putting the minimum in for the most out. If the risk is that much lower, and the reward is that much better, it's worth going for, even if the odds are horrible.

the one dollar is still a bad idea as an investment. your expected return is not sufficient to warrant the investment. if you want to get more money, save up your dollars and put them into something that actually has a reasonable chance of getting you money. you will come out richer with the dollar than you will by spending that dollar on a lottery ticket the majority of the time - in fact, the entire system is designed to ensure that people come out worse off with the lottery tickets than they would be with that dollar.

which is not to say that buying a lottery ticket is inherently a bad idea - you may derive enjoyment from having the lottery ticket which is worth a dollar to you. in which case, go ahead and buy that ticket - but don't buy it because your reward is good... buy it because you're enjoying anticipating the possibility that the reward is good.

yes, it's a small investment, but small investments add up over time. i understand there's a chance to get something really nice. but it isn't as good as having a good chance of making a reasonable return on your investment. but if it was actually that good, nobody would ever be advising anyone to broaden their portfolio; they'd be telling you to invest exclusively in things that have the highest reward regardless of risk, on the off chance that you suddenly get fabulously wealthy.

i'm focusing on the expected value because it's expected. it's the most likely route to avoid death. it's risk vs reward, not "screw the risk, focus exclusively on the reward".

Admittedly, there is a difference between buying a lottery ticket because there's a remote chance of a payoff, and it's fun to think about; and investing your entire savings into lottery tickets as a retirement strategy. But that gets back into risk versus reward. A single lottery ticket has very minimal risk, it only costs you a buck. Now, if it's your last dollar, and you need it to buy enough ramen to feed yourself, that changes the risk. If you risk more than you can afford to lose, then it's a bad idea.

However, the point is that risk is not dependent on odds. There's a lot to consider, and the odds of failure are only one of them. Here's another story: back in the early 80's, junk bonds flooded the market. Normal bonds were very safe, they had a low rate of failure, and coverage in case they did fail. Junk bonds had nothing backing them, and the failure rate was insane. However, they had a huge rate of return.

People rapidly discovered that, even though junk bonds had terrible odds, they could make a smaller investment and get a bigger return. If it failed, they'd be out less money; and if it succeeded, they'd be rich. To further hedge their bets, people would buy into a hundred or so different junk bonds--even if most of them failed, the few that succeeded would more than cover their losses.

To bring this back to Shadowrun: dodging requires less dice, and can mean you avoid all damage. So, the reward is much greater. Even if the odds against you are somewhat higher, the lower risk and increased reward makes it worth considering every time. If you failed, you still had your soak to fall back on; if you had tried to save combat pool, you could then spend it on soaking as well. If you hadn't, most of the time you came out about the same. Cases where that wasn't true were rare, so concentrating on dodging was the rule, not the exception.

You're missing the opportunity cost of not having those combat pool dice available for offense, aren't you?

Actually, I'm not. The risk is in the number of combat pool dice you have to spend on defense. Dodging has a lower cost in that regard, so you can save more for later. Of course, that assumes you succeed, which doesn't always happen. In that case, you spend more on soaking, which could easily total the same amount you would have spent on a soak anyway. As a result, you spent the same amount of dice on defense, and had the additional possibility of avoiding all the damage.

Dodging costs you less dice. That means you have more for offense, and defenses later in the turn. That's another factor to consider in why dodging is better.

and yet, if you could buy 100s of different junk bonds and a few of them succeeding made you rich, that simply means the risk was low enough to be worth the reward, not that the reward was good. if you made 50 times your investment on the ones that succeed, and only 1% succeed (with the other 99% failing miserably), those junk bonds would be a terrible investment... not because the reward isn't good enough, but simply because the risk was greater than it.

with dodging and soaking, you're seldom investing "one dollar" into the mix... you're investing combat pool, which is a very limited resource, and more importantly, the risk is measured in damage boxes, which you only have ten of. what's more, a single success can easily make a 3-4 point difference in damage.

there is no "low risk" as a result. you're always risking something worth a lot - even if you don't care about your combat pool, your (character's) life is on the line.

We're getting into a lot of suppositions, but basically: if a junk bond offered 200% return, even if 99% failed, the 1% that made it was worth it. Also, you're not considering the risk: the buy in was lower, so if you did lose, you weren't out as much. Investing $1 for a return of $100 is a safer bet that $1000 for $100,000, even though the return rates are the same.

Going back to the lottery ticket analogy, even I can afford $1 here and there, and I'm on a fixed income. The odds are ludicrous, but the risk is basically nonexistent, even for me. But on the flip side, even if lottery tickets were only 10 cents, and the jackpot was doubled, if the buy in was $1000, it'd be way too risky for me. The odds are clearly much better this time, but the odds don't really change the risk that much.

In Shadowrun? Every time you roll dice, it's a gamble. There's no guarantee of any given outcome. So, you shouldn't be looking at the odds first, just like in other risk assessment situations. Yes, you're risking combat pool dice, which is a limited resource. So, the first thing you need to look at is what is the lowest cost for the best reward?

In this case, dodging offers the lowest cost (fewest dice) for the best reward (no damage). The next thing you need to look at is affordability: can you afford to spend those dice? Well, if you have a lot of combat pool, dodging is better, because if you make the roll you save those dice for later. If you fail the roll, you can spend them on a soak, and still get the best outcome-- it just costs you more. If you don't have a lot of combat pool, you're still better off dodging, because you have a shot at avoiding all damage. Calculating the odds does factor into risk, but as you can see, it doesn't happen until further down the line.

In contrast, soaking requires more dice for lower reward-- depending on the situation, you may not have enough dice to fully soak, so you spend more and get less (take some damage). That's bad enough, but if you're low on combat pool, you might not be able to afford that many dice. One thing that was really common was the double-tap: two shots in two simple actions. If you blew your entire combat pool defending against the first shot, the second would take you out. As a result you could seldom afford to spend a lot of dice, even for a safer result-- you knew the next shot was coming.

~sigh~ Final comment on the soak vs. dodge issue from my side:

There simply is no "generalized" pattern to dodge vs. soak that could be reduced to anything like "always dodge". When it comes to damage avoidance / mitigation with regards to CP usage there are two priorities that come in the following order:

1. Try to suffer the least amount of damage with the highest possible probability in order to both survive and to stay at least somewhat "combat ready" with lowest possible TN modifiers due to sustained damage during subsequent combat phases / combat turns.
2. Try to conserve as much of limited resources - here CP - as possible without compromising priority No. 1.

These two priorities create TN dependant decision trees with different priority sublists of their own for three distinct TN comparison states on dodge vs. soak.

TN dodge < TN soak:

1. Unless you have a sufficiently high Body attribute to completely negate all incomming damage in a soak attempt with a sufficiently high probability despite higher TN for soak go for dodge instead - regardless of whether or not it's possible to completely dodge. The lower your Body attribute is and/or the higher the TN difference is the better any dodge attempt will be.
2. Advanced considerations: If possible try to reduce CP expenditure to a degree that you create enough successes on dodge to manage any remaining damage potentials after dodge attempt just with Body with sufficiently high probability despite higher TN on soak. The higher your Body is the more likely you can make such considerations.

TN dodge = TN soak

1. If CP is large enough to allow for complete dodge go for dodge first. If CP is not large enough to allow for complete dodge you can go for either dodge or soak with identical outcomes.
2. Advanced considerations: If possible try to reduce CP expenditure to a degree that you create enough successes on either dodge or soak with Body and a fraction of availible CP dice to manage all damage potentials with a sufficiently high probability. Particularly if required CP expenditure on soak becomes lower than CP requirement for full dodge. The higher your Body stat is the more likely you can make such considerations.

TN dodge > TN soak

1. Prefer soak over dodge unless your CP is high enough to allow for complete dodge and with a sufficiently high enough probability despite higher TN. The higher the TN difference and/or the higher your Body stat is the better soak attempts will be.
2. Advanced considerations: If possible try to reduce CP expenditure to a degree that you create enough successes on soak with Body and a fraction of available CP dice to manage all damage potentials with a sufficiently high probability. Particularly if number of necessary CP dice added to body is lower than the number of CP dice needed for complete dodge. The higher your Body stat is the more likely you can make such considerations.

All of the previous examples can be evaluated according to these three decision trees and will produce results along the two defined priorities ... even if the example is chosen in a manner that "best case" cannot be distinguished from "worst case" (i.e. your character is dead no matter what you're doing). The only part that is "uncertain" is the player's individual willingness to push his "luck" when making a personal evaluation of "sufficiently high probability". But that's where "expected values" vs. "edge case probabilities" come into play as a guidance. Let's just say that we obviously do have people who - for whatever reasons - make different assessments there ... which represents their own way of "metagaming the system" (the latter being the part that initially was commented on).

The problem with your example is you're not considering successes required.

In order to dodge, you only need to beat the attackers successes by one. In order to soak, you not only need to beat his successes, you then need to get two more successes to stage it down by one level. Unless you have enough body + combat pool dice to roll, you simply can't succeed.

I used an exaggerated example earlier, but it's worth mentioning again. Suppose a heavily armored, Body 1 mage and a naked body 15 troll are both shot with a Panther Assault Cannon. They're caught by surprise, so they can't dodge. The mage, through a combination of worn armor, armor spell, and whatever handwavium you care to add, is capable of reducing his soak TN to 2. The troll is naked, and has to soak against the full power. Who's better off?

Well, even though the mage has a substantially lower TN, he's dead. With only one die, no matter what he rolls, he can't reduce the damage. It's just not possible. The troll has a huge TN to face, but he's got enough dice that he might pull it off. The odds aren't good, but they're a lot better than the mage.

This situation doesn't change a whole lot if we add combat pool. No matter how many successes the attacker gets, you need to beat them in order to reduce the damage. Soaking or dodging doesn't matter; but if you beat the attacker's successes by one success with a dodge, you take no damage. If you do the same thing on a soak, you take the base weapon damage-- you can't reduce it from there unless you get two net successes.

Looking at it again: if they're aware of the attacker, and can spend combat pool, the mage is definitely better off dodging. Even though the dodge TN is higher, it costs him less dice. He'd need to spend too many dice to even have a chance at soaking. This is true regardless of how many attack successes were rolled.

So, before you consider TN, you need to consider if you have enough dice to pull it off. Frequently, you will have enough if you dodge, but not enough if you soak, at least not with the same expenditure. If your body is low, you need to dodge, because it takes too many dice to soak. You could argue it if your body is somewhat high, but even then, dodging has a lot of advantages, so it's worth the risk. If you can reliably soak everything without spending combat pool, then that becomes the better choice-- you're not risking any combat pool dice. However, that mostly only happens with troll tanks.

~sigh~ off topic

Sorry Cain, but at this point I will have to assume a distinct lack of reading comprehension and understanding on your end ... most likely heavily influenced by the mental disability you admitted yourself.

There simply is no lack in my last "examples" because there actually aren't any in there to begin with. My last comment only talks about decision trees for three different cases and those actually do account for required successes by the overall priority for trying to sustain the least possible amount of damage and the probabilities involved. There's simply no need for an explicit reference to system inherent properties like needing more successes on soak vs. dodge - provided that a full dodge is even possible (which is a specific condition of its own and we have seen more than enough examples where that condition wasn't met by the example character).

Since I don't want to continue with the soak vs. dodge argument I can only opt for one thing: I will simply ignore what you write on the issue from now on ... and going by this overall experience and some of the suggestions I received in private I have to conclude that this will be a "generalized pattern" from this point on.

Cochise is right, there is no such problem in his exemple and I don't see any flaw in what he says. It's pure logic.

Over-arguing doesn't serve anything.

Drop that part of the discussion. Final notice. Otherwise the thread will be locked.

See, I feel that SR4A plays far better than its processors, especially for longer term play. As long as one adjusts their mindset a bit. No more unlimited advancement of skills (for example) is a good thing, in my opinion. UMT is also a Good thing. The Matrix System was finally playable at meat speeds, even if resolution was still a bit too fast for my tastes (Moving from Cyberpunk towards GitS style Posthumanism). Not everyone agrees, to be sure, but I find it to be the most enjoyable Shadowrun System to date (Yes, even including SR5).

New editions can usually be classified into two big categories which are rules refinement and profund changes

Rule Refinement exemples: SR3, Deadlands 2, Earthdawn Classics, Pathfinder

Profund changes: SR4, Deadlands Savage World, DD Next, Vampire Requiem.

Everygame usually goes within those 2 phases. I don't know if SR 5 is a rule refinement one or a profund change one.


But to me, SR3 could well have been refinded a lot more. Matrix doesn't work well, nor does Riggers rule work well and loads of weak things were left here and there.

There's one thing I must say I feel like Cain:



I agree and I really like it this way. To me, magic should add this extra-flavor to a cyberpunk/transhumanist setting rather than the contrary.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree, as I'm very much of the opinion that UMT was one of the worst ideas they've ever come up with as far as worldbuilding and game design. The fact that the magical traditions were manifestly different was a major positive as far as making shaman and hermetic mages feel distinct and unique. Removing that, both on a rules level and an in-world level took a lot of the flavor out and replaced it with ho-hum D&D style Magic A is Magic A blandness.

I can agree to disagree, but I want to say this. Having the mechanics for magic be the same is a good idea. There is nothing worse than having 30 different subsystems all uniwque from each other. I really, REALLY hate that particular design space, and was really one of the most disruptive things about SR3, at least for me and many of those I played with.

There is absolutely NOTHING stopping the traditions from being different. But it takes work to do so, as you have to have more than just 5 Spirits and a Drain Stat. You NEED Rituals, practices and theory in the fluff to make them stand out from each other. When you take that time to do so, the Traditions will come alive (They have at our table for those who put in the time) and will not only FEEL different, but will BE Different. There will be no confusion.