[Varyon]

Originally Posted by kenclary

Declared defenses, as usually implemented, isn't "bad design" because it's more complicated. It's bad design because the extra complexity is unnecessary. The same level of realism can be achieved without it.

Having players choose to defend without knowing if an attack hit honestly adds a lot to the game. It makes suppressive fire more effective (and allows it to be used with even a single-shot weapon - rather than using the Suppressive Fire rules, you simply attack at/near the target, and hope that even if you miss they don't roll well enough to avoid spoiling their aim). It gives the GM an opening to not make it obvious when a foe makes a Feint. It allows for situations like what the thread was created for. It allows for a Critical Miss to become a normal Failure if the defender also has suffers a Critical Failure (treat as a wash; whether this wastes the defender's defense or not is up to the GM, I'd be inclined to say it does), or for a Critical Hit to be negated if the defender also has a Critical Success (treat as a normal hit - or a successfully defended attack, if you want to throw the defender a bone). And, for those of us who don't think being a trained combatant gives you flawless and complete information of the trajectory of every attack that comes your way (at least so long as you are able to detect it in the first place), this is more realistic than the alternative.

Of course, this improvement isn't free, and we have to pay for it with added complexity. There's also, as you've noted, the fact that this does disadvantage the defender, as there's the risk of wasting a defense. For some groups, it's not worth the cost - for others, it may well be.

I also think you're overselling how much complexity it adds. Currently, the order of operations is as follows (P1 is the player for the attacking character, P2 is the player for the defending character; note one of these would be the GM in the case of PC vs NPC):

1) P1 decides on and declares an attack.
2) P1 rolls.
3) P1 checks the roll against skill; on a Critical Failure, go to the appropriate Critical Miss Table; on a Failure, sequence ends; on a Success, go to step 4; on a Critical Success, roll on the Critical Hit Table and skip to step 7.
4) P2 decides on and declares a defense.
5) P2 rolls.
6) P2 checks the roll against defense; on a Critical Failure, roll on the Critical Hit Table and then go to step 7; on a Failure, go to step 7; on a Success, sequence ends; on a Critical Success, P1 rolls on the Critical Miss Table.
7) P1 rolls damage.
8) Damage is assessed (subtract DR, apply WM, check for Major Wound, deduct from HP, apply Shock Penalty, check if HP passed a threshold and apply appropriate effect, etc). Sequence ends.

My suggestion - going with the more lenient version where any success on the defense means no defense is needed, and Failure by P1's MoF/2 counts as a success here - would look like this:

1) P1 decides on and declares an attack.
2) P2 decides on and declares a defense.
3-4) Both roll.
5-6) Both check their rolls against skill/defense. If both had Critical Failures, it's a wash, but P2 wastes their defense; if P1 has a Critical Failure and P2 does not, roll on the Critical Miss Table. If P1 has a Failure and P2 has a Critical Failure, P2 wastes a defense and go to Step 7 (P2's error resulted in what should have been a miss actually hitting). If P1 has a Failure and P2 has a Failure, check MoF - if P1's MoF is less than P2's MoF*2, P2 wastes a defense, otherwise P2 does not; either way, end sequence. If P1 has a Success and P2 has a Critical Failure, roll on the Critical Hit Table and go to step 7. If P1 has a Success and P2 has a normal Failure, go to step 7. If P1 has a Success and P2 has a Success, end sequence. If P1 has a Success and P2 has a Critical Success, roll on the Critical Miss Table. If P1 has a Critical Success and P2 does not, roll on the Critical Hit Table and go to step 7. If both have Critical Successes, the result is a normal Success for P1 - go to step 7 without a roll on the Critical Hit Table.
7) P1 rolls damage.
8) Damage is assessed (subtract DR, apply WM, check for Major Wound, deduct from HP, apply Shock Penalty, check if HP passed a threshold and apply appropriate effect, etc). Sequence ends.

So, same overall number of steps, and depending on your setup this may actually go faster by being able to do some of the steps at the same time - for example, if P1's rolls are concealed from P2, P1 can roll while P2 is deciding on what defense (if any - in all cases, "Don't Do Something - Just Stand There!" is an option for the defender) to use; if they don't have to share a rolling surface (say, each has their own dice tower) they can roll at the same time, and the results of P1's roll need not be assessed prior to P2 rolling (so P1 could determine what their roll's result - CritFail, Fail, Success, Crit - was while P2 is rolling and/or determining their roll's result). The added complexity is mostly just in step 5-6 (which replaces step 3 and step 6 above), where a few other possibilities now exist (Critical Miss getting downgraded to a miss and P2 wasting a defense; Miss causing P2 to waste a defense; Miss getting upgraded to a hit; Critical Hit getting downgraded to a hit) and the fact that the sequence will always reach step 6 rather than sometimes ending at step 3 (but outside of low-skill P1, this won't be terribly common) or skipping to step 7 (which isn't terribly common even with high-skill P1). Step 2 may sometimes take a bit longer, simply because not defending is now a more worthwhile option than in RAW, but probably not enough to make a real impact.