I share the common foul taste the dodge rule left among many 'testers' of DH

Dodging a bullet is just ridiculous idea for me and thus I needed to fix it somehow. BUT! I understand a mechanic concept that should resemble a battle-situation in which people stay in cover and pop out just to shoot and in another second seeing enemy aiming at them they hide. That's how I understand this rule really, as a hide and attack shootout between people in covers, in which dodging is reacting to noticed enemy aiming at us, and ducking before he pulls the trigger, rather than seeing an upcomming bullet and jumping like ninja... what is a bit silly.

That's why I allow PCs to dodge only if they are behind cover and the 'barricade' covers at least half of their body(standing behind the corner of the building, standing behind medium-sized vehicle, or crouching behind the crate) and the attack must come from the protected side.

I do however think there are people agile enaugh to jump away from the attacks of types compleetly incompetent at their ballistic skill:

In open space you can dodge a ranged attack if first digit of enemie's ballistic skill x2 matches or is lower than your Agility Bonus - a very skilled 'bladedancer' assasin(Agi 5 6) can outrun an ork boy shootin hiz slugga(Bs 2 5 x2 = 4) , right?

However for every degree of success the attacker has you apply a -10 penalty to your dodge roll.

I tend not to like dodging of bullets, either. Removing it makes combat both faster and more lethal.

I only allow dodges if the character dedicates their round to hurling themselves into cover and it's thematically appropriate, such as against suppressive fire.

I just removed dodging when it comes to bullets all together... I've had no problems thus far. I do, however, give a negative to shooting at someone who ran in their previous turn (thus indicating that they are a difficult target to hit, etc). This is based on Ag bonus (every point higher than BS bonus gives a -10 to enemy shooting).

Running already gives -20 to the shooter, doesn't it?

As I remember, yes.

Stormast said:

yes, but thats if the shooter himself moves, not the target...I'm pretty sure

Blasterdude3 said:

No, because you can't shoot on the turn you run - Running's a full action.

Running gives enemies a -20 to hit you with shooting (because you're moving a lot more quickly than normal) and a +20 to hit you in melee (because you're not concentrating so much on defending yourself from such attacks, given that you're running)

Ah got a suplement rule for that... couldn't edit my original post,so am writing here. Provided that character is shot at with missile(rocket launcher) or some other slower-velocity ranged weapon. He can try to make a dodge while being in open space, but only with Agi bonus 4+

I don't really know where thinking of a rocket as a relativly slow moving thing came from. Meaby video games and movies, bur it is entirely wrong.
For example RPG-2 - the anti-tank rocket/grenade launcher had a muzzle velocity of 84m/sec what gives around 300km/h. I wouldnt exactly call it slow and it was a weapon which was developed 65 years ago.

And ranged dodging isn't exactly "dodging the bullet" but rather moving out of it's way before the schooter pulls the trigger. I thing that it's shouldn't be based on agility, rather on perception, as it suits what is actually happening (you try not to be where your opponent is aiming rather then dodge an actual attack).

ShadowRay said:

1)And that's exactly why it IS slow Not like a slime on a pavement of course, but 300km/h means it goes at you at slower velocity than the noise it generates at the launch. Unlike a bullet, or a laser beam, which hits you before you hear anything. That, gives you quite a clue even if you don't look in that exact direction. 84m/sec on distance of 200 meters, gies you about 5 seconds for any reaction. So you don't need any games to tell you it's a 'slow' weapon, basic math is enaugh

2)That's what I said in the first post, I see it like gun fight behind covers where the actual 'dodge' is in fact ducking in time before your enemy manages to squeeze the trigger.

But doing same thing in open field is in my opinion just crazy. Exactly something you can see on old action-movies from 90's and 80's like Delta force, where dudes run over the empty road, everyone shoots at them and everyone hits the ground just few centimeters behind them >.>

You need to remember that combat is fluid. It isn't supposed to be like playing a turn based strategy game. I see dodge not as avoiding one particular bullet but as making yourself as hard a target to hit as possible. Now, that could indeed mean cover, but if you look in any military manual it will tell you the importance of being a difficult target to track when moving through an open area. This might mean moving in a serpentine motion or staying low, but when it comes to getting shot at it would be the equivalent of "hitting the deck" I can totally justify dodging a ballistics attack because I just think that the players are trying to make it hard for the opponent to hit them rather than going into some bullet time cinematic.

At the same time, I like using the alternate rule with single shot (As opposed to burst or full auto) that a dodge is an opposed degrees of success deal with the player's shot, rather than a catch all get out of damage free card. I figure if someone is just making a single shot they will have less difficulty aiming so the dodge will be less effective.

Alright, so to reflect the fact that they are dodging the attacker rather then the bullets why not have them make their roll before any attack roll is made? Each DoS imposes a -5 penalty to the shooter. This would translate into about half the number of shots being dodged, but also means you have to designate what you are dodging before you know if it is going to hit.

I think there was somewhere in the rule book something about how GM want to treat dodge after hit, there were 3 ways:

- atacker declaresatack, you have to declare dodge before any test is roller

- atacker declares atack and hits, you declare dodge and roll dodge

- atacker declares atack and hits, damage is rolled, you delare and roll dodge

1-st one gives higher mortality rate against multiple opponents as you may waste perfectly good dodge on atack that would've missed anyway (it's also the most realistic way because unless opponent is so unskilled that he hits himself, you'll never really know how accurate the atack will be)
2-nd is what it's generally is played (at least in any game I've played)

3-rd one is the most survival friendly but it's just plain stupid

So the declare atack and hit in both ranged and melee is used as the middle ground (also it's the one in which you roll the least from these three)
It's really the matter of choice how you deal with dodging projectives but I like the way where DoS in dodge decrease DoS in BS (so people doesn't automatically dodge all shoots from assault rifle)

Whenever I see a post like this... wherein someone sees a rule in a game, and wants to change it because of 'realism' or some other idiotic notion, I tend to cringe. Remember please, this is a game. More fantasy than reality.

The Dodge ability is in the game as is for the allowance of character to do cool stuff at higher levels. Removing it for SP or Bolt weapons will drastically reduce a higher level character's survivability. So it will allow low level characters to compete with higher level ones for the sake of realism. While this might seem like a good idea now, players will dislike the lethality of your combat situations, and end up burning FPs a lot more often, and die before they get to higher levels. Which means, if you're playing things correctly, by your rules, you won't get a lot of people to survive to get to Ascension, let alone a single game session.

This is a form of being a rules lawyer. Any time you bring in the real world to a fantasy game, for the sake of realism, you lose something in the playability.

Honestly, I wouldn't waste my time playing the game. I have enough 'reality' in the real world.

Denmar1701 said:

Whenever I see a post like this... wherein someone wants to convert a game into must-be arcade action game whereas maybe people look for someething more, I laugh at idiotic notion. I tend to cringe. Remember please, as in all kinds of games you got all kinds of generes and types. Take a flying games for instance. Some like arcades cause they are simple, some like simulators because they are difficult, more complexed and force you to take longer and harder way thinking through all the detail, even such as usage of covers to approach an enemy. Some people just like using all kinds of rules, like to sswitch every little switch and look how a tiny change appears. Some people like enforcing the realism. Deal with it.

Actualy you only endangere your character, even high level one when you don't think about what you do and how you act. We have no problem with that, our assasins instead of running like roadrunner through corridor, stalks his enemies and taunts them, using all kinds of tricks to gain his goal instead of running against a shooting ,machinegun.

That's what makes this game so playable for me and whole lot of people I play with, cause instead of huge mass of ridiculous pulp this sysytem tries to simulate realism, it's not final fantasy and it's not matrix, and good for god sake. We simple represent two compleetly different ways of thinking and gaming. We are the planers and careful executers, who likes to design whole structure of action, plan a lot and we feel joy see the whole machine work turning odds for our sake. And as same rules apply to our enemies we can use those just same.

Does anyone force you to use realism? No... you like 'cool stuff' , all sort of monkey acrobatics that we don't find even remotely amusing and what ruins the fun for us. So please accept it in your narrow perspective that as in case of video games people enjoy different type of gameplay and some may find yours just as boring as watching every next action movie released currently by holywood, with all fancy gimmicks filmed with cgi.

In our group we have agreed that a dodge should be an action declared before the attack is rolled. Basically, you are trying to make yourself a hard target. In addition, instead of completely negating the attack with a success, each degree of success would increase the difficulty of the attack.

I should also mention that we are using modified rules for single, semi and full auto attacks, as they are in black crusade (+10 for single, +0 for semi, and -10 for full-auto, all half actions)

As an example, we have Joebob the assassin who is quite nimble with an agility of 43. McGuillicutty the guardsman, who has a ballistic skill of 39, takes aim and opens up on him with a semi-auto burst of his autogun. Joebob rolls a dodge because he doesn't like bullets. He rolls a 22. That gives him two degrees of success! Now, with the aim, McGuillicutty needs to roll under a 29 in order to hit that quick little bugger (+10 half action aim, -20 for dodge). The emperor is with him, and he rolls a 7. This means that two slugs slam into Joebob's chest (two DoS means an extra hit). Take that, you shifty assassin!

This method really seems to work out well and goes a long way to balancing things out. It makes it so that dodge is reasonable and not overpowered (It's sad when a goon can dodge a master marksman with a lucky roll), and yet still a viable way to avoid damage. I do recommend monitoring things, though. This can make the game lethal.

Also, this system can make the game drag a little bit when you first implement it while the players get used to when they need to dodge. I just gave a moment to pause and told them that if they didn't announce that they were going to try and avoid damage, their character was caught in a moment of indecision and would have to just take the hits. They figured it out quickly and started calling out dodges the moment I mentioned that a baddie was aiming in their direction.

@Rhetoric: How often may your Chars dodge? just the one time they are normally allowed (two with step aside)?

That dramatically decreases surviability. If your group likes it that way...

i could maybe see the calling dodges before the attacker hits if the dodger gets to keep any extra DoS for use later that round before his turn come up or that he gets his/her dodge chance back if the attack misses anyway.

In my group we run it like this. The way we run it is close to how Rhetoric runs it. I make my players make a dodge before the attack happens. This however can only happen if they are looking at the one shooting at them. This details the character in the middle of combat noticing a gun swing towards them and reacting before anything happens. This means they only get a half action on their next turn. Of course due to shock of fear their agility role is at a -10. That is the way my group does it and it works out, cheers everyone.