Question about shock penalties.

[Boge]

Basic P419:

"Whenever you suffer injury,
reduce your DX and IQ by the number
of HP you lost – to a maximum
penalty of -4, regardless of your
injuries – on your next turn only. This
effect, called “shock,” is temporary;
your attributes return to normal on
the turn after that.

Shock affects DX- and IQ-based
skills, but not active defenses or other
defensive reactions; see Temporary
Attribute Penalties (p. 421). Therefore,
on the turn after you are badly hurt, it
is often a good idea to try flight or All-
Out Defense instead of an immediate
counterattack!"

If it doesn't affect your defense, why does it say you should All-Out Defend? Also, it says ON YOUR NEXT TURN ONLY. Does this mean from the second you are shocked until a full round has gone by (including opponents turns), or specifically just for your turn only?

[Bengt]

It recommends fleeing or defending since your attacks will be less effective, but you don't have to.

The penalty only applies to stuff you do during your next turn.

[GWJ]

It means "from the very moment you are injured, to end of your next turn".

You should do AODefense to have much better chances not being injured again, and not taking another Shock penalty. If you are injured by "normal hit" (not just lucky shot of your foe or your own crappy defense roll), there is good chance you will be injured also from his next hit. And probably ditto in the next turns. You easily could become training bag for your opponent (because of your big penalties to attack etc.). And if you do AODefense you can just wait behind double guard, and launch full (without penalties) counterattack in the following turn.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Boge

If it doesn't affect your defense, why does it say you should All-Out Defend?

The main drawback to AoD is that you give up your attack to get those defensive benefits. If your attack is already spoiled because it's got an extra -4 penalty, so you'd be wasting your time to attack, might as well AoD, because you've effectively lost your attack anyway. If, on the other hand, you're so awesome and your opponents are so unskilled that you can soak a -4 penalty and still have a good chance to hit them, then you might not choose AoD.

[Ultraviolet]

Also, if the foe hits you for a large Shock penalty, your next attack is likely to fail, so he might as well declare AoA himself, because he believes he won't get hit anyway, in order to make a finishing blow.
Declaring an AoD should give you a better chance to avoid further damage.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Ultraviolet

Also, if the foe hits you for a large Shock penalty, your next attack is likely to fail, so he might as well declare AoA himself, because he believes he won't get hit anyway, in order to make a finishing blow.
Declaring an AoD should give you a better chance to avoid further damage.

That doesn't make any sense. The attack that the shock penalty would interfere with is the one before they could declare the AoA, not the one after it.

(It still wouldn't make much sense if that weren't true, because you Telegraphic Attack somebody who made an AoA, picking up +4 to hit to cancel out the shock penalty.)