Blast states that you cannot parry it or block it, but that you can dodge it. When you dodge, you add one soak for each die you would add for dodge.

This mechanic is fine with the Dodge basic action; Dodge will provide one misfortune die, or two if trained in coordination, which will translate to one or two soak. It doesn't seem to work right with the Improved Dodge action, though; Improved Dodge provides only one challenge die, which would translate to only one soak. It seems to me that Improved Dodge should be better against blast than the basic Dodge, but in the RAW it is not.

I know that I could rule that a challenge die counts as two or three or possibly four soak in this instance, but I'm not sure exactly how to weight that decision. The misfortune and challenge do not have a set exchange ratio, so I feel kind of like I'm shooting in the dark here.

Maybe I am missing something. Thoughts?

-Thorvid

I don't think you are missing anything...

A possible idea is to allow characters with improved dodge to "downgrade" one critical wound from a blast attack in addition to the 2 soak, rather than adding further soak. It may not be possible to entirely get out of the way of the blast but you know how to protect yourself from serious damage.

A challenge dice is statisically worse than 2 misfortune dice but i think not quite as bad as 3 misfortune dice.

I would simply add 3 for using improved dodge against blast to keep it "more or less" comparable to improved dodge vs. dodge in its more usual incarnation (adding to the dice pool).