i dont like the way dodge is in dark heresy. in a world that is dark and dangerous i think it is lame that my players is not so afraid of battle becouse you got your belowed dodge that you can use to avoid bullets? there for in my house rule i am making a dodge more unique and important thing.

the rule is simple: you need to role your dodge before the person shoots. in that way, players cant just wait with using there dodge untill they are hit. they have to chose what they want to have a chance to evoid before they know if they are hit or not.

logical reson: if people shoot after you, you will try to jump away, and you dont know if they hit or not, you ******* jump just to be sure.

i would love to hear some responce

psykohippo

Try sending multiple enemies who know how to focus fire at your players, so that they will run out of reactions to dodge with. Or a few undodgeable attacks, such as AOE and tight terrain.

If that doesn't work, then think about changing the rules.

Indeed, they only get one dodge reaction per round. Or parry. Throw in something that starts to require decent rolls and it creates issues. Full auto or semi auto for example, or swift/lightning attacks in melee.

This can be a quick way to keep people interested in the playing an active part, but I wouldn't be too surprised if they get wary and simply go so cover heavy it could bog down the game.

Remember also, in the case of melee attacks using Swift and Lightning and the TWW talents, each individual attack must be defended against separately. A single Dodge or Parry test will only negate a single attack in such instances, regardless of DoS. This is why the talents Step Aside and Wall of Steel are so important to combatants who find themselves in the thick of things.

Semi- and Full-auto attacks are; barring odd weapon qualities, the only time DoS matter both in the attack and the defensive reaction. Requiring those defensive reactions to be declared prior to knowing they're actually needed is just cruel.

-=Brother Praetus=-

I understand the problem. The Scum in out party has Step Aside and 80 Dodge skill... that combined with fate points means he was basically immune to the best Sniper in the world.

Full auto and alot of minions helps of course, but it does erk my that a very well executed shot with tons of degrees of success is just so conveniantly ignored with a single "challenging" dodge test.

Having to declare dodge even if it misses is cruel, but a possible fix is that a sniper or whatever could choose to use his DoS to increase the difficulty of dodging the shot/strike, in return for giving them up for any potential damage boost from say an Accurate weapon.

Friend of the Dork said:

Have sniper fire from a position of surprise to negate dodge?

But ****, he really pumped that AGI to get a 80 dodge o.O

I have always ruled, you can't dodge what you can't see....

Friend of the Dork said:

Dodge requires the target to be aware of the attack if they want to make an attempt (DH core rulebook, page 193). So if target doesn't know the sniper is there, they can consider their first shot to be undodgeable.

For the second shot, you need to decide if knowing that there is a sniper around is enough to count as the player being aware of the snipers attack.

60 ag, +20 dodge skill. Rapid Reaction allow you to react to any ambush as long as you succeed an agility test (60% chance). So he is essentially immune to snipers.

The only way it could have worked is if there were 3 snipers all firing 3 times in a single round... but how many Sons of Dispater with angelus carbine can you use before it gets silly? Also, if it did hit it would almost certainly been a one-shot kill.

Friend of the Dork said:

Would rapid reaction count if the character is already in a battle and an unknown sniper joins the battle by shooting him ?

Bilateralrope said:

I can't remember the actual wording atm, but if he can mystically "my sniper-sense is tingling" when completely unaware then yeah he should be able to get his agility test against the sniper also during combat. However if he had already spent his reactions for that turn.. it would be something else. In fact I did that to the assassin in our group, a certain Slaugh Overseer with a Disintegrator popped out of a cabinet and shot him dead. The player was not amused.

Having lots of goons purposedly shooting a specific target just so that the BBEG can take an undodgeable shot seems cheesy and gamey. If it "naturally" pops up as a result of focused firing it is one thing.. but he could choose not to dodge the other attacks of course, but that could be dangerous especially in the case of auofire.

What bugs me is really that single shot are so easy to avoid despite the skill of the shooter.

Friend of the Dork said:

I think it would depend on interpretation of each of the rules. Dodge says you can only dodge if you're aware of the attack. Rapid reaction negates "surprise or ambush." The surprise rule specifically states that when a character is surprised they lose the ability to act in the first round and the first round only. An Ambush really isn't defined as far as I know. A sniper, even if he's known to be in the fight, might still be ruled as impossible to dodge if the player can't identify where the shots are coming from even if the player is 'aware' that there is a sniper aiming and shooting at him.

But also remember these are also reasonably high level skills. For an Assassin you're looking at level 6 to get what you're talking about (Rapid Reaction and Dodge +20 at level 5, Step Aside at level 6), and for a Scum you're looking at level 7 (level 4 for rapid reaction, 6 for dodge +20, and 7 for step aside). There are only 8 levels in the core DH system, so comparing to other games you're looking at a D&D character at level 15, a WoD character with 4s in most of the super powers, or a (god forbid) a Palladium character with auto-dodges and 98%s in most skills.

How you run it, I think, depends on the feel you're going for in your particular game- are there ninjas with spider senses in your 40k or not? Are the folks with spider senses relegated to the likes of Ascended Death Cult or Vindicare assasins or can more human folks get things like that?

Either way, I do agree that a non-scaling dodge and parry rules always feel odd to me, but a house rule of having attacker's successes to hit take away successes to doge is a kind of reasonable workaround. Be aware though that as a GM if you're not careful you'll end up with a lot more dead players.

Requiring players to dodge before they know they need to... is like requiring players to spend or burn Fate Points before knowing why as well. Good Luck with that. If you were my GM, I'd be out of your game and looking for another.

Denmar1701 said:

I don't know that anyone was suggesting that we would have a player roll a dodge before they know what for. As I read it most of the argument concerning Rapid Reaction, Step Aside, and a high dodge is that the player would be arguing that they get to roll dodge from hidden attacks, regardless of the skill of the attacker.

Though I will note the dodge rule says a player has to declare if they're attempting to doge a successful hit before damage is calculated, so you area always kind of asking a player to make a dodge roll before they know what for.

My personal point was that whether or not the player being shot at, who in the prior argument was asking for an opportunity to dodge (who wouldn't, really). I was saying there was a solid case to tell the player they did not get an opportunity to dodge, because despite knowing they were being shot, they had no idea where the shot was coming from (say they failed to identify the location of the shooter) and thus was unaware of the attack. YMMV, and the extent to which something like Rapid Reaction let's you have spider senses and detect the undetectible is totally up to the flavor of the game you're running (as I said, they're relatively high level abilities anyhow and having a character or two in a troupe that has a 6th sense doesn't seem out of line to me).

I also think the main undertone of the thread is that because the dodge/parry rolls are unopposed, it can be frustrating or feel odd because the skill of the attacker has little to no impact (barring combat manuvers like feint) on whether or not their hit actually lands.

You seem to get my gist, Charmander.

I just reread Rapid Reaction and the fluff seems to contradict the rules a bit. According to the text it allows you to "have a hair trigger and react to changes instantly." This is NOT the same as a sixth sense but rather extreme reaction time. You still have to react to something, in other words a concealed sniper should get off his first shot anyway and you should not be able to interupt and act BEFORE him in initative and dodge an attack you had no way of knowing was coming.

In my game I let the players with RR dodge in the first round, but not act before the sniper. In essence, the sniper got a "go first" ability in the suprise round. This made the players annoyed and claim they should be able to act before the attackers, both the ones starting it and those with readied actions who were waiting for the shot.

As I see it there are two kinds of surprises, obvious and hidden.

The obvious one is where a certain group of enemies lies in wait and are ready to open fire (maybe with a Overwatch action) or react to a certain trigger while the party is unaware. Once the ambush springs however, the enemy is openly out there and simply takes advantage of the human reaction time and it's limits. For instance, a man waiting around a corner for an enemy he hears will almost certainly be able to react to him quicker than one one strolling around oblivious, even if he would automatically see the enemy once he crosses the corner.

Here Rapid Reaction should work 100% as reaction is extremely fast.

The hidden example is the sniper shooting from behind, or the invisible attacker attacking at will an oblivious group. There is simply no way the defender can react before the enemy as the enemy is acting rather than reacting. If the initial Awareness test to spot the ambush fails, Rapid Reaction should not help that much. Once the enemy shows itself, and the first shots are fired, the ones with Rapid Reaction should be able to react with lightening speed, if still alive while their teammates are still staring dumbfoundedly in shock. This get tricky tho a a Suprise round is a complete round and not just a single shot, burst of fire or similar.

Rapid Reaction should not work based on it's description but still works per RAW, and the description could be changed to "a mystical sixth sense or maybe the Emperor's protection allows you to react even before the ambush starts."

What do you think?

I think the trick is probably in phrasing what an 'ambush' is to your players .

Your extended description of the completely hidden attacker makes sense to me provided extenuating circumstances. Is the weapon they're using silenced and firing subsonic? Does it have a flash suppresor? Anything that would tip off someone with super reaction time that they're about to get killed such as sound, light, the front edge of a sound barrier in front of a bullet? I'd look to see that the RR character had some kind of edge over his non RR bretheren, but sometimes the only notification of an attack is the bullet entering your body. I think those attacks, in large, would be quite rare.

Personally I find the talents to be high enough level to let them be more of a 6th sense, a reaction time bordering on the inhuman. To me it's essentially a 200xp or so talent that simply lets you re-roll your failed ambush detection because you're so jacked up. Maybe it's just nerves, maybe it's super senses of hearing, feeling air movement on your skin, smell of autgun primer, the heat and crack of a las-discharge, are all potentially detectable to this guy (or gal).

One final tip- if going against what some may consider RAW (especially your group), just make sure not to let the NPCs abuse such a rule, especially if players purchased it with a certain interpretation in mind. It can be very frustrating for a player when a GM changes how a rule like that works in the middle of a campaign.

Charmander said:

Yeah I know. Hmm well I still think it's a matter of interpretation. In this case even after the first shot the Scum could not see the attacker, only have a notion of which direction the attack came from. Also, since it was 300 meters away and from an invisible sniper it complicated matters even more.

Now don't get me wrong I also think RR should have SOME benefit in the worst case scenario, but maybe not being able to preemt the attacker he knows nothing about.

There is still a matter of wether you can actually interrupt an ambush that has not yet started - the rules never say you are able to detect enemies after failing an Awareness test, just that you can "act normally."

So.. "scum take an agility test. *scum succeeds* Ok, your Talent-sense is tingling, roll initative. *Rolls 15.* Ok you're up, what do you do? -Errhh... can I see anything? No, you can try an Awareness test as a half action. *fails again.* Uhm ok .

This example reminds me of "I think I just failed a Spot check" from OotS . It is also how Suprise actually works in Shadowrun when you have people with wired reflexes almost shooting before the enemy draws.

I kind of like the idea of the OP, that you must choose if you dodge or not before you know if the enemy will hit, at least in theory.

In practice I see two problems with it. First of all I doubt DH is balanced for that, it might make combat alot more deadly. That is not always a bad thing, just something to be prepared for. Secondly it slows things down. It means that every time you attack someone, before you roll, you have to stop and at least give the person a second to say "i dodge" or stay quiet. Yes, that is a tiny interupption, but I have used systems before that have similar tiny pauses and it gets really annoying really fast.

So for the second reason alone I would not do it.

i usually tend to apply every rule according to "reality":

for ex. i rule that you can't dodge any ranged attack performed by weapons with high velocity projectiles (everything in practice besides maybe low tech bows)

to this rule i add 2 exceptions:

1) you can dodge ballistic attacks if you have a nearby cover (2m at most from your position) by using your dodge reaction to jump behind the cover (moving your character if successfull). If you succeed at your dodge check you reduce normally attacker's rises by your rises, if the attacker still wins you get hit normally according to your position, this means that you can still reduce some hits because being "half in cover" some locations will be behind cover while others will be still elegilble for being shot at.

ex. character A attacks npc B with a burst, A rolls 3 rises of success, B is close to a cover and uses his reaction to dodge the attack, he rolls 2 rises of success, so the rises of A are reduced by the rises of B leaving the attack of A with 1 rise that means 1 hit, A rolled a lucky head shot with his attack roll but unfortunatly B dived into cover and his head and his arms are now behind cover so A hits the cover with great relief from B. If A attack roll was scored on the torso he would have hit B because his torso was still out of cover (being attack and reaction simultaneus). next round starts with B prone behind cover.

2) you can attempt to dodge point-blank range ballistic attacks because you can actually dodge the weapon not the bullets, by removing your body from the trajectory of the barrel you actually dodge the bullets, this is obviusly only possible when you are in close combat.

in case of long range engagements, for ex. a marksman firing from 250m or a sniper from 800m, targets are usually sitting ducks, if they are aware of the enemy they can try to run for cover to reduce the chance of being hit as usual, but they cannot dodge or do anything else to avoid being hit, just like in real world if a sniper is good enough to place a good shot you are dead or seriously wounded and there's nothing that you can do to avoid that, it all depends on how good is the sniper. If a character can act during the 1st round of an ambush he still cannot dodge or use his reaction in anyway to prevent an attack that he cannot see, he may be on guard with his "spider senses" but he will not know what will hit him and when, this means that a not surprised character can run for cover (if appropriate) or only stay on guard, when the sniper shoots than those not surprised will be able to act, if they hadn't acted yet, while the others will simply skip this round normally. Must be said that in no circumstance a character not able to see the attacker (long range, fog, darkness and so on) can use a reaction to dodge an incoming attack, if you get shot at and want to run in cover you have to use your normal action during your turn.

with this rule i find the game very balanced and deadly XD as it should be. my players are always trying to be in cover and never mess around knowing that guns are pretty much dengerous and being very aware of their mortality. Then this rule pretty well suits ascension where a vindicare can actually dodge bullets making him actually do something that others can't.

Friend of the Dork said:

You know what might work? Having DoS up the difficulty of the Dodge test? It makes single shots useful, for hitting one hard to hit target. What do you guys think?

PS

sorry if someone has already brought this up, I was glancing through the post and I'm not at the end yet.

Couple ideas for house ruling dodge issues:

1: Implement a feint like attack for ranged standard attack, like there is for melee

2: Give -10 on dodge for each degree of success on the attack, there could be required that the shot is aimed and/or using telescope sight

3: Implement multiple attack talents for ranged single shot, like there is for melee

There is a charm with ranged and melee being a two different systems, so be careful about doing too much.

In the book, i'm pretty sure it said you can't dodge ranged attacks that are anything outside of primitive? So, ranged attacks you just can't dodge at all. Or at least that's how I've always run my games. It's a bullet, you're not fast enough.

Also, if you don't have the dodge skill your test is made at half your agility (round down) and then add situational modifiers.

So, dodging has never been a problem in my games.

There is a lot of wondering whether or not Rapid Reaction consists "spider sense". I always thought that's what "Paranoia" talent was for. Secret GM awerness tests to spot or otherwise 'sense' hidden threats. Depending on how much info can a character get from his GM on seccess ("something's wrong here" or "this place smells like a trap") this talent can be used as a base to avoid sniper atacks.

Grunty McGrunt said:

That's a house rule. It's never been part of the official rules. Broadly speaking, you're not dodging the bullet anyway, you're dodging the guy with the gun (by observing him and getting out of the way of his aim).

Grunty McGrunt said:

That is the normal rules, though that doesn't much influence matters once everyone is trained in Dodge.

For a while I've been using the suggested rules that essentially makes a Dodge and Attack roll into an opposed test. It has seemed a more accurate representation of the actions. I have even allowed exceptional dodge rolls to "carry over" their DoS to the second attack for the round, though this is rarely a major problem. We use a similar system for melee, and so far its been functional.

However, I've also been considering a more "realistic" approach since this game is not the Matrix. Rather then an active skill, Dodging becomes a defensive mode similar to All Out Defense for melee. In essence, it reduces a character to Half Actions while active (similar to being pinned), however the character's dodge score (its still a skill, as the character's ability to take full advantage of his cover can be a factor) counts as a negative modifier against all ranged attacks as he ducks and weaves. Additionally, the character counts as being in cover so long as cover is nearby to simulate that the character is only sticking out hands and weapons for brief, defensive fire. I already allow characters to use Semi-Auto as a Half Action but if I didn't, I would probably still let characters do so while Dodging.

It isn't much different from voluntarily pinning yourself, but I think that's a pretty accurate representation of ranged combat. It becomes a tactical choice where players exchange mobility and offensive power in exchange for a considerable defensive advantage. It also makes grenades and flamers far more relevant as their abilities to circumvent cover rather then just AoE becomes relevant. I'll be play testing this with my group going forward and see how they feel about it.

If it goes well, I might turn Parry into something similar, having it replace All Out Defense and making Parry an actual skill. Defensive Stance is already in the game, but I think I like having the option of a higher level character choosing between his multi-attack melee offense and a more conservative stance that doesn't completely neuter his offense. It might make shield users a bit absurd though.