When a PC fights a NPC during combat is the attack and dodge a opposed test, or is it that if the PC succeeds on the hit and then the NPC succeeds on the dodge, the NPC wins and is there a way to speed up combat.

PC rolls for his attack - WS or BS, +/- modifiers.

If he fails, he either Fates a reroll or that's that.

If he succeeds you have at least one hit. The enemy can attempt to Dodge or Parry. They roll vs WS (for Parry) or Agility (for Dodge), +/- modifiers,

If he fails, he can either Fate to reroll (typically only certain enemies) or take the hit.

If he succeeds, he negates one melee attack (if Parry or Dodging melee) or one ranged hit per DoS on the Dodge roll (Dodge only).

TL;DR: it's not an opposed Test.

Thank you for the help

Hmm ya I was looking at that too. Seems like an opposed test would have meshed better. Going to be a lot of parrying ands dodging going on

The problem is opposed tests can get kind of mired down in the nitty gritty of comparing DoS's.

The fact the DH/RT/DW (but not BC) rules don't handle a notion of Unnatural Ballistic/Weapon Skill causes Unnatural Agility to become a bit too effective.

Also, if it was an opposed test, the defender would have to choose to roll the dodge before the attack landed, thus possibly wasting a reaction on something that was going to miss anyway. Allowing them to always defend breaks the system in favor of those with high agility, and allowing them to choose to defend after the roll also breaks things.

Simply put, its a nice idea, but would require a fairly significant rework of the existing rules to pull off. Defensive actions would need a serious reworking, which then affects all those talents that give a second reaction, etc.