Dodging Difficulty

[benz72]

So I'm walking to dinner tonight and I think to myself... hmmm... are all attacks equally tough to dodge?

Are thrown baseballs, thrown axes, sword blows, crossbow bolts, rifle fire and laserbeams all equally as tough to move out of the way of.

I realized I could make a reasonable case that they aren't.

Slow moving stuff is easier to see coming. It is easier to react to. Perhaps it should get a bonus. to dodge. If you have sufficient levels of ATR or even ETS (to see it coming) maybe you should be able to more easily dodge fast things too (maybe only for the first one for ETS, I don't know).

If a guy with a laser pistol with some kind of mind controlled trigger is drawing a bead on me... should I get to dodge as easily? probably not in my mind. It's impossible to tell when he's going to fire, and I certainly can't 'see it coming and get out of the way'.
I know we aren't representing actually dodging rounds, but it seems like there might be good reason why some attacks would get bonuses or penalties to dodge.

Any opinoins?

Is this already a well established rule and I am totally brain dumping it?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by benz72

So I'm walking to dinner tonight and I think to myself... hmmm... are all attacks equally tough to dodge?

Are thrown baseballs, thrown axes, sword blows, crossbow bolts, rifle fire and laserbeams all equally as tough to move out of the way of.

I realized I could make a reasonable case that they aren't.

If you only started dodging when the attack had already been launched, you left it until too late.

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

If you only started dodging when the attack had already been launched, you left it until too late.

There's still a massive difference between the ease of getting out of the way of a swung stick and a bullet, in real life.

[Tyneras]

With human reaction speeds, dodging is less reactive "I see where that arrow is going, now I move." and more proactive "I'm guessing he's gonna shoot there, so I'm gonna go this way." making the speed or size of the projectile fall below GURPS resolution until it is really fast (lasers! pew pew!) or really slow (that rock will hit me in a second or two). At least, that's how I see it.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

There's still a massive difference between the ease of getting out of the way of a swung stick and a bullet, in real life.

Since only an idiot (or a comic book character) would bring a stick to a gun fight, and parrying works better than dodging against such attacks anyway, I don't think it much matters.

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Since only an idiot (or a comic book character) would bring a stick to a gun fight, and parrying works better than dodging against such attacks anyway, I don't think it much matters.

Good to know no one ever attacks someone with a gun with a melee weapon in the real world. I'm sure every police officer that's ever been stabbed will be relieved to hear that.

More importantly, even if your assertion were true that such situations never arise, this doesn't mean if we have the same characters operating under the same rule system and it is realistically harder to do one thing compared to another, that those things should be the same difficulty according to the rule system.

[sir_pudding]

Dan Daly got his first MoH, in the Boxer Rebellion, when his lightly defended position was attacked by hundreds of mostly unarmed guys. By the end of it, he too was fighting in hand to hand combat. He probably killed about 200 people that day.

Dan Daly.

That is all.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

Good to know no one ever attacks someone with a gun with a melee weapon in the real world. I'm sure every police officer that's ever been stabbed will be relieved to hear that.

More importantly, even if your assertion were true that such situations never arise, .

I did not make that assertion. To clarify, the disadvantages of being armed with a stick or any other melee weapon in a gunfight are so gigantic under the normal rules, that I don't much care if the miniscule chance of dodging a stick is even more miniscule when you are dodging a gun. Which would only be actually true at certain engagement ranges anyway. Of course technically with dodge and retreat, your chances of dodging a stick really are better under the rules.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by benz72

Is this already a well established rule and I am totally brain dumping it?

Isn't this the point of the Dodge nerfing optional rule that first appeared in Martial Arts and was refined somewhat in Tactical Shooting?

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by benz72

So I'm walking to dinner tonight and I think to myself... hmmm... are all attacks equally tough to dodge?

The issue would soon become one of playability.

Take a simple reach 2 weapon, a swing coming in at an angle can often be dodged or side-stepped, on the other hand, a long center mass sweeping horizontal swing, which is easily blocked/parried, is impossible to dodge/step out of the way of, unless you dive/drop, or go all matrix acrobatic like.

Or take a stream of fire sweeping across horizontally at center mass height, other than dive/drop, or matrix acrobatics, no dodge should ever work.