The Power of Dodge?

[patweb]

Hey all,

Had a situation where my character is a marksman firing from range. Hits a bear in hand to hand combat with another character. GM rules the bear gets a dodge action. Despite a well placed 'hit' it was ruled as a 'miss'. :(

Just wondering how others handle dodge and if it was meant to be so powerful and all encompassing. Of course, I immediately started pouring points into dodge after this ruling.

[ericthered]

Yes, dodge is your primary defense against shots. In High-tech games you should either ensure your dodge is high, make liberal use of cover, aquire a countermeasure to bullets, or stay out of combat. And possible more than those.



A successful "Hit" roll doesn't mean that you hit them. It means you WOULD have hit them if they hadn't of taken an action. In my games I'd guess that about a third or less of them actually result in hits.



Things you can do to counter dodge:

• shoot with and hit with multiple projectiles. they only dodge their margin of success+1 in bullets, so you can lower their effective dodge by hitting them with multiple shots.
• Catch them unawares. If they don't know you're shooting at them, they don't get active defenses. So its like target practice. There is a case to be made that the bear shouldn't have got a dodge there under this clause, but I don't know that I'd rule in its favor. Not unless the guy fighting the bear in melee intentionally made a tactics or some other roll to get the bear to stand still for a shot. (a tactic I'd frankly expect to see out of a pair of hounds, not a warrior meleeing a bear).
• Close to melee and use deceptive attack to lower the defense score. Deceptive attacks are a key aspect of gurps combat, and you should get used to using them on a lot of melee attacks.
• Use an area attack. Area of Effect spells and explosions are great ways to deprive an opponent of the chance to dodge.

As a note, buying up dodge too high without a corresponding increase in skill results in really long and usually boring fights. And most of the time you can't really buy it up that effectively.

[Varyon]

There are a lot of optional rules to limit Dodge. Martial Arts and Tactical Shooting have some of them (particularly ones that lessen its effectiveness against firearms), and another good one is in the aptly-named "Dodge This" article (Pyramid #3/57) by Douglas Cole. Without those in play, however, so long as you are aware of the attack, you can dodge it. The idea is more that you're dodging the attacker's point of aim (try to use a sniper rifle on an Elite who's aware of you in Halo: Combat Evolved to get a good visual of this) or using generally-evasive movement to make it harder to hit you, rather than literally dodging bullets.

Do note increasing Dodge costs at least [15] per +1 (as opposed to increasing, say, your Broadsword Parry, which either costs [5] as Parry-only, or [8] if increasing skill by +2); it's the most useful defense, but it's also the most expensive.

[Boge]

Also have the GM consider limiting the number of dodges allowed in a round of combat.

[Maz]

Originally Posted by patweb

Hey all,

Had a situation where my character is a marksman firing from range. Hits a bear in hand to hand combat with another character. GM rules the bear gets a dodge action. Despite a well placed 'hit' it was ruled as a 'miss'. :(

Just wondering how others handle dodge and if it was meant to be so powerful and all encompassing. Of course, I immediately started pouring points into dodge after this ruling.

Beware of wanting limitation on dodge, lest you become the target of ranged attacks. ;)

[Say, it isn't that bad!]

Originally Posted by ericthered

[LIST][*]Catch them unawares. If they don't know you're shooting at them, they don't get active defenses. So its like target practice. There is a case to be made that the bear shouldn't have got a dodge there under this clause, but I don't know that I'd rule in its favor. Not unless the guy fighting the bear in melee intentionally made a tactics or some other roll to get the bear to stand still for a shot. (a tactic I'd frankly expect to see out of a pair of hounds, not a warrior meleeing a bear).

As per Basic Set: Combat Lite, page 326, "No active defense is available if the PC is unaware of the attack.", and dodging is an active defence. Granted, this still technically allows NPCs an active defence if they are unaware of the attack, but GURPS runs more off RAI than RAW. ;)

Of course, this is just the baseline, and entirely subject to whatever optional rules and house rules are in play. And I agree that dodge should perhaps be something of an exception to this; perhaps at a penalty for "unaware, but in combat."

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad!

this still technically allows NPCs an active defence if they are unaware of the attack

The actual rule (in Campaigns) doesn't use that wording.

[Say, it isn't that bad!]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

The actual rule (in Campaigns) doesn't use that wording.

"It’s only possible if the defender is aware of the possibility of an attack from his assailant and is free to react..."

The defender must:

1) Be aware that someone is behind them.
2) Be aware that someone is an enemy.
3) Be free to react to that potential attack.

Also, the actual rules are whatever is in play for the campaign you are in right now, and it is entirely possible to just use Combat Lite from GURPS: Characters.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad!

The defender must:

Yes. "Defender" is not equivalent to "PC".

It's a fairly obvious editorial oversight in the Lite section.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Yes. "Defender" is not equivalent to "PC".

It's a fairly obvious editorial oversight in the Lite section.

Eh, I wouldn't really say it was an oversight. Note Combat Lite is in Characters, and is thus geared more toward the players than the GM; I regard it more as a primer for players on how to fight, so emphasizing the rules as they apply to the PC's makes sense.