[Plane]

Originally Posted by kenclary

I think it's one of two cases:

1) it was supposed to be multiple seconds of aiming (this would explain the long delay), and in turn 2 or 3 of aiming, they noticed the attacker readying a ranged attack, and changed to AOD or somesuch.

The attack happens in less than one second though, it doesn't seem like a Springing Attack or Decreased Time Rate which would give you that sort of "choose a new maneuver" sort of response.

Originally Posted by kenclary

In which case, the tactical shooting rule is the easiest option. The posture is just what the (possibly failed) dodge looked like.

You don't get the opportunity to dodge a miss, nor an attack which an ally successfully intercedes for.

Do you mean applying T-Bone's declaring a defense prior to the attack roll?

Even if this were a failed dodge it does seem like it would have some partial success of switching a more vulnerable area (face/vitals) to behind the cover of a less vulnerable area (arm/leg)

Originally Posted by kenclary

2) the lightning/ice interaction caused a little explosion (clearly, in the cartoon)

Not sure what you mean, it looks like the lightning lingers a bit in the center of the ... "ice flower" I guess I'll call it, then fizzles out, but didn't actually get through.

However it seems like there was a RISK of that (maybe it could have burst the ice) and that risk makes it seem like a good idea to turtle-up to protect the face.

Originally Posted by kenclary

and the interruption was a flinch. Meaning the GM decided (fiat) to make a Will roll to avoid flinching (as if it was a "liquid to the face" dirty trick, Campaigns 405), and they failed.

Hm, reading this "if he fails to defend" clause it seems unclear to me whether they mean in all cases of succesfully hitting the face (at -5 to hit) or only in the "on a critical hit" situation where it gets in the eyes.

Since critical hits can't be defended, it seems impossible to defend hits to the eyes, so there's no 'if' so maybe it does mean any liquid on the face even if it doesn't hit the eyes?

The weird thing about this, for someone with High Pain Threshold (immune to shock) is it actually becomes more distracting to have a cup of water flung at your cheek that it does to get stabbed in the cheek =/

I imagine a big part of flinching is "I am concenr I will be blinded" (even for attacks which hit only face and not eyes) so maybe someone with No Eyes ought to be immune to this sort of flinching?

Also for comparison MA72's "go for the eyes" only gives -1 to attack/defense on flinching when you fail a defense against eye attacks. This is when someone actually hits the eyes too... yet it's only half the penalty of the -2 DX -2 defenses that B405 gives for liquids that don't even hit the eye... seems strange.