Hi,

I just wanted to aks how you "feel" (or rather analyze) about allowing dodging in Terminator Armor.

I get that they are large and heavy and whatnot, but they already get a large penalty to Agility, and combined with the even more improved strength of it, it does not seem "fair" to deny them dodging outright. wouldn't the penalty to Agility alone suffice? Dodging is almost the only way to avoid hits in ranged combat. I understand they get a "forcefield", but between shields, rosarius and iron halo, so does almost everyone else who wants one, and these combined with artificer armor just seems plain better.

Your thoughts?

br,

Steel

You have a point there.

It is even allowed for a Vehicle to dodge with similar ramifications to the target number.

A moderate penalty seems more reasonable than pure inapplicability.

From my point of view SM in terminator armour may be able to dodge when they are targeted by firearms without penality when shooted from long range, -10% when at normal range, -20% when short range and unable to move fast enough when in melee or at less than 3 meters. When in melee SM is still able to parry someone shooting at him in the same combat.

Part of it, I think is they are trying to emphasize that you a re slow, lumbering behemoth. Termies are supposed to be stable weapons platforms, more than agile dodgers. If they could dodge, it just wouldn't fit, unless they had some weight-suppressor, or thruster setup. If they fell down, they might not be able to get up, and no one wants to be stuck on the ground. I personally feel it is fair; they can't run, they can't dodge, and that's why they get heavy armor, and a field bonus. They can also carry ridiculous weapons that they are firing one-handed. Since they are usually side-heavy (whichever side has their heavier weapon), they need to be stable, to not tip, and would always have to dodge away from that side, or tip. It's also a lot of extra mass to try and move quickly, assuming you could even notice an incoming ranged attack, realize it was coming at you, and attempt to dodge it, before it pinged you.

Likely, I am being to simple here, but it's the easiest way to explain my point. Vehicles can dodge because they aren't likely to roll doing it, and if Terminators were quadrapeds, I'd likely give them the benefit of the doubt, too, but they are a lot of mass on a bipod, more or less, and so I'd say no summersaults, cartwheels, or the like from a Termie; you're the best of your kind, and it's your obligation to show it by taking a direct hit from the best the enemy has, and laughing it off, as you hold that objective.

venkelos said:

Ive read too many books from the Black library where terminators dodge death by inches so I truly cant say they cant dodge at all and a terminator can falll and get back up, not with total ease but they can .

So i feel if they dodge it should be only used when blast is involved or monstrous creature is attacking and about to cleave you in half. If its a sniper or small arms fire i cant see why the terminator cant shrug the rounds off and laugh.

Also make sure too let your assault marine know that "leap up" dose not work in terminator armor.

But as always, its up to the GM

I've considered this myself and terminators have been seen to dodge in the background, if with greater difficulty. My suggestion:

Characters in terminator armour can dodge, but after the standard -20 Agility penalty, they count Dodge as an untrained basic skill.

The background idea behind this is to have dodging in Terminator armour really, really difficult but possible. The character's normal range of movement is severely restricted and slowed beyond what they are used to.

Any thoughts?

The way I've been ruling it in my game is that a Terminator cannot dodge, in the regular sense. What they CAN do is attempt to deflect more off the insane armour plates than usual. I let people make a dodge roll (to emphasise maximising the armour deflection capacity) or just take the shot and hope the armour deflects it (using the rules for the 'force field' built into the terminator armour). THey can choose one, but not both.

Decessor said:

Let's say you have a Blood Angel Assault Marine who's optimized and has bought every Agility advance, he's sitting at Agi 75 (50 + 20 + 5) in Terminator Armor. At most, before bonuses/penalties, his TN for Dodge would have been 95 if he had Dodge +20.

Halve it for untrained; this also means that any Dodge advances do not apply. TN is now 37.

Reduce by 20. TN is now 17.

Seems a little too hard to me. Especially since this is optimized. A lot of specialties will be at like...TN 6.

I think saying it's flat -40 or -50 is easier. Only problem with this is that Dodge advances then can offset part of the penalty. Can always just make it -60.

Kshatriya said:

I have a quibble with your maths in that agility itself is already reduced by -20 from wearing terminator armour, as do other bonuses and penalties to agility (as distinct from changes to agility tests). So that -20 would come in before agility is halved for the 'untrained' skill. So the example blood angel in terminator armour would have an effective agility of 55 and dodge of 28 which I don't think is awful considering how clunky the armour is. An "ordinary" veteran with an original agility of 50 and dodge trained would see their dodge of 50 drop to 15 in terminator armour.

The reason I didn't just go for a flat modifier is the difference between the most and least agile would become very pronounced, which doesn't chime well with the sheer bulk and awkwardness of terminator armour. The previous examples with a flat -50 penalty would then have dodge scores of 45 and 0 respectively, an enormous difference. IMHO if a marine wants to take full advantage of their natural agility and honed dodging skills, they will need less bulky armour, which is well represented already by artificier.

I believe bonuses and penalties come in after halving the Characteristic for untrained Basic Skills, not before halving.

Kshatriya said:

For bonuses and penalties to the test, sure. But the penalty from terminator armour is to the characteristic itself. So if the battlebrother has an effective agility of X, it would have X-20 in terminator armour. If that armour had "a fury like lightning" history it would be X-15.

I'll send an inquiry to FFG to clarify (on characteristics, not the house rule).

No-dodge is a balance rule, it has nothing to do with realism, or what was in the books, or what you think should happen. There is supposed to be a downside to picking the much more powerful armor. On top of that, Terminator armor comes with a built in "dodge" mechanic, there is no need to add another.

DJSunhammer said:

With my players only one of them has taken termy armor and well seeing how as the -30 agil has put him at a 10 agil I really don't think that dodging would be that good of an idea to begin with. Also go play DoW2 Terminators wear tactical dread armor not wraithbone. Also we all know that writers write whatever they want and as far as terminators dodging a kill shot in a book assume he burned a fate point or tripped on a dead ork.

Also dodging in terminator armor is called falling with style.

Gamibash said:

The penalty is only -20. Also, nothing you just said makes any sense at all. Wraithbone?

Wraithbone is congealed, hardened psychic energy. It's what most Eldar equipment is made out of, including some of their vehicles and starships.

Kshatriya said:

I'm aware of that. I just don't see what it has to do with terminator armor. I'm also aware of the fact that you weren't necessarily talking to me.

To be more on topic, dodge is unnecessary for terminators.