Dodging and combat questions

[bcd]

Forcing the use of active defences against attacks that miss would seem to generally reduce the usefulness of affected active defences relative to other means of defence. That is, the points I spent on increasing Parry or Block used to be 100% effective in that their abilities never got expended against something that would have missed anyway; but now they are less than 100% effective in that sometimes I waste a Block on something that would miss. Depending on the sort of enemy you are up against we are realistically talking down to about 50% effectiveness (skill 10 mooks etc.).

Unless this reduction in effectiveness is somehow countered the long term tendency should be for players who want to build effective characters to spend fewer character points on boosting Parry and Block, and more on DR, Dodge and other types of defence that have retained their effectiveness. It specifically makes Shield skill markedly less attractive than it used to be since a shield is mostly a once-a-round defence.

It should also make Defensive Attack with axe/mace and other U-parry weapons less desirable since parries are less effective than usual so there is less incentive for sacrificing offensive capacity to buy into them.