I have a question which has popped out in play a few times.

How does Dodge affect hits from FA when Cover is involved? Looking at FA the default effect is that the first shot hits where the dice say it does (reversed to find hit location), the second in the same location, and then it moves to adjascent body part according to a certain table. No called shots are allowed when firing FA.

Now normally when you Dodge against FA you dodge one extra hit per DoS.

So the question is: Does the "hit" dodge means bullets striking you directly only, or also bullets striking Cover?

Example: Scum is behind a Bar, exposing head and arms only. The Bar has say Armor Value 8 (heavy wood). He also has xeno mesh armor covering arms, body, legs and TB 4. Total soak is thus 8+4+4=16, thus even Manstopper rounds will not hurt him (although they will eat through the Cover eventually).

The player's rationale is that since he is using Cover actively he doesen't Dodge hits on the Cover but only hits on his exposed part (dodging behind the cover). I'm beginning to think that is wrong though, as you don't really know which hits are going to hit what, you just dodge the burst in general. Also there is the fact that all Cover is not equal and some will be insufficient.

So can an acolyte simply choose to Dodge only hits hitting his unprotected body? Or on a similar line of thought, can an armored individual choose only to dodge those that hits an unprotected head? When do you declare to dodge or not? The rules say "once a hit is scored, but before damage is rolled" thus it could be assumed that you know which body part it hits, and thus if you get cover there or not.

In this case, I would have to say that as per RAW you must dodge the Burst as a whole. Since you can only dodge once per attack, not once per hit, this seems necessary to me. After all, the question you're essentially asking is "can a character choose which hits he avoids amidst a Full Auto burst?"

Consider, for example, a character wearing armor on only his chest who was attacked with a Full Auto Burst. I would certainly not allow a character's Dodge roll, nor his Degrees of Success, to apply only to those bullets which would strike unarmored portions like the legs and head.

A character could, however, wait until after the hits had been tallied up before deciding to dodge. For example, if an FA burst is aimed at his head but scores only one additional DoS, thus a second hit targets his body, the character could then weigh whether to use his Dodge on the burst as a whole or just soak the hit to the head (knowing the body hit will be effectively negated).

In other words, you Dodge the Burst not the hits. The "Full Auto Burst" is the attack that has "hit" as per the rules, and the character may choose to dodge it in whole or not at all, gaining additional bullets avoided based on their skill. Any Degrees of Success are applied directly after the first, and may not be selected individually. This seems inevitable to me following the rules.

TL:DR The player can most certainly know which locations the hits will arrive at, and in what order, before declaring his Dodge. However, he may not "pick and choose" which hits to dodge in any way, and must follow the rules sequentially.

Yep, for me after scoring for example 4 hits from FA you check the locations. Lets say first bullet is a head, then right arm, left arm and right leg. The player can now choose to doodge this attack or not. He can not choose to dodge specific locations. If he chooses to dodge and get let say DoS=1 so he dodges 2 bullets. He dodges first 2 hits so head and right arm.

On a similar note, the way I've been playing is that if a FA / SA attack is not completely negated the last hits are negated first. Essentially (and TBH to ease the resolutions) you reduce the number of successes obtained.

For example, if a FA attack hits with 4 bullets (which would hit arm, arm, body, head (likely to be wrong)) but a successful dodge negates 2 the remaining two bullets both hit the arm.

Is that how you've been playing it?

I would rule that the last bullets dont hit.

I'd go with the last bullets not hitting for the sake of convenience - you just look at the location table and count down the number of hits that haven't been dodged.

Cherry-picking hits is definitely not the idea behind the dodge rules.

You dodge an attack, not a hit. The little blurb under "Dodging Auto-fire and Area Effect Attacks" says that some attacks are more difficult to avoid then others. In fact, if you wanted to really be a bastard to your players, you'd be justified in ruling that dodge attempts get a -10 for every half action spent aiming the attack, and an additional -10 against Accurate weaponry, to represent give the single-shot weapons some balance vs Full Auto weapons.

I've always done it as: you reduce the total number of hits by the dodge success. This is before determining hit locations. Effectivly the same as removing from the last shots first.

I think I can safely say the consensus is : You cannot cherry-pick hits. Thanks for contributing everyone.

The second question, which hits are negated is also interesting, and it seems both the "standard" of first hit, first dodge as well as Elohim's interesting alternative are both legitimate interpretations. I'm not sure which one I like best, both are fairly simple. The other question which one makes more sense?

Well, since the hit location for autofire etc. are always random (no called shots), it is mostly a matter of luck anyway. The first shot is less likely to hit the head than the body, thus a FA burst that hits head (which goes head, head, arms, body etc.) is a particularily lucky one and should thus be rewarded. By simply subtracting dodges from hits the shots still hit the location and thus rewards the attacked. The other way rewards the defender for getting dodges at all, as the dodges removes the most dangerous hits first. There could be wacky situations where you could dodge body hits first just to get hit in the head.. so nothing is certain there.

Any viewpoints on this?

Friend of the Dork said:

After hit is scored player has to choose to dodge or not at all, cause he doesn't know how many succeses he will have on dodge test, so he can't tell which bullets he will dodge. You said corectly, you dodge whole burst not particular bullet. If you have unprotected head and enemy hit you with FA in the head you must choose to dodge whole burst or not ( you should dodge it ). So after scoring hit you check the dices, reverse them and you get a place where the bullets start to hit.

Lets say after reversing dices you got 05 - the head. Lets say 4 bullets hit. So 2 bullets hit head 1 arm and 1 body. Then defender declare to dodge or not. If yes and he gets for example 2 succeses so he can dodge 3 first bullets (1 plus 1 for every degree of succes). Then you check on the table where the last bullet hits - body.

We actually dont use this table. Its slowing the game. When you get the head after reversing dices all 4 bullets hit there. Its more deadly when you hit in the head, but for the rest places on your body it doesn't matter. Its not important if 1 bullets hit right arm, second bullet body or left arm. Especially when my player have this same armor value on all locactions

raffalin said:

I'm guessing you didn't read my last post. No matter, it seems you support option 1 although I don't see any reason why.

As for the allocation table... with my GM screen it takes me about 4-5 seconds to look up the hits. For me, your choice to not use the table makes Full Auto strangely accurate as 5 aimed single shots can hit random places while 5 hits on a FA all hit the exact same spot.. too unrealistic for me. Also, it makes luck even matter more when the enemy has cover as you could easily risk every hit striking the cover or hitting the head popping out from cover with every shot fired.

The few seconds it takes to use the table makes it well worth it IMO - I suppose you could just copy or write down the hit locations yourself if you lack the screen, or even make your own. The table is extremely simple and quick to use compared to say the critical tables.

Imagine you have armor 5 on all locations, so what is the diffrence if 2 bullets hit body or 1 bullet body and 1 arm? If you are behind cover (legs and body) we play as I told you, if enemy hit legs you have cover, if arms, you don't count cover. All bullets hit in this place. It's simple and much faster.

raffalin said:

If there is equal armor on all location, they don't matter until critical hits are inflicted. If there is cover and/or different armor locations, then it matters a alot, quite literally the matter of life or death.

I still don't see how looking at this table takes so much more time, but if your players like it you can do whatever you want.

Well its quite simple: if you get hit by 5 bullets and 2 in the head 1 in body 1 in right arm 1 in leg and you have armor: head 3, body 5, arms 4, legs 2 then do the math. You have to count dammage for every bullet. The way we play is just 1 location after reversing dices and 1 armor value so it's pretty fast. So its not just about table it's faster in general this way. And you still has element of uknown cause enemy can hit you in better protected part of body or worse.

I would handle it like most here that the dodge negates the last hits.

One exeption: If the player explicitly stated that he tried to protect his head with his arms as part of the dodge and his dodge would be successfull I would treat every head hit as having hit one of the arms.
Raising your arms over the head to protect it should not be that difficult.