Dodge

[Gnarsh]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

I did this becuase frogspawner didn't like the idea of opposed rolls for Dodging and commented on how much easier/better parrying worked.

Having a Dodge reduce the damage is one way to accomplish that.

Ah... Yeah. Somewhere as I was following the conversation, I lost track of where/why it started. Hah! Imagine that...

It's certainly a workable solution I suppose. I guess I just don't get why someone would want to avoid using an opposed system in this case. It's not like it's actually very difficult at all, and as I observed, it gives you two defensive combat options that are actually "different" in terms of how they operate. Applying the equivalent of AP to dodge just makes it another parry, and it opens up a whole range of additional balance problems:

1. If it parries as much as a shield, then why would anyone carry a shield around?

2. If it parries less then a shield, then it's not going to be useful in the very situations you'd usually want to dodge (ie: Giant swinging a tree at your head).

3. If you go the other way and give it tons of AP in order to avoid problem number 2, then you've made dodge the "uber skill" since merely making the skill makes you virtually invulnerable to damage. It's the same problem with 1, except multiplied.


There is one way around this, but it's a very very bad one IMO. We had a GM for awhile who for some reason liked dodge as a mechanic. I have my suspicions as to why, but basically he made a successful dodge simply avoid all damage. Period. Didn't matter if the opponent criticalled or not (which is essentially identical to the "tons of AP" option above).

It certainly avoids any sense of using an opposed roll, but becomes overpowered. Here's how he balanced it though. He would decide based on the environment whether you had minuses to your dodge, were at some reduced multiple (half, quarter, etc), or whether you could dodge at all. He'd say things like: "You could try a dodge, but you might slip if you do", or "You can attempt a dodge, but you're fighting right next to that guy waving a greatsword around, so you might get hit....".

Basically, he could control when the players could use their skill or not. Which was one of the most annoying things you can do to players as a GM. It's much much better to come up with systemic methods to balance out the utility of skills on the character sheet, then to use arbitrary seeming GM fiat after the fact to do so. I've seen it first hand and it's painful. I know that some GMs *love* to do this sort of thing, but trust me, players hate it. They want to know that if they have a skill level with something written on their sheet that pretty much any time they want to try to use that skill, that will be their chance. While the occasional modification is acceptable, counting on using them as the primary means to balance out an overpowered skill is a horribly bad idea...


We very quickly switched to using the "levels subtract" method and have never had any problems with it.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by Gnarsh

Ah... Yeah. Somewhere as I was following the conversation, I lost track of where/why it started. Hah! Imagine that...

It's certainly a workable solution I suppose. I guess I just don't get why someone would want to avoid using an opposed system in this case.

There are some people who don't like the opposed mechanic. Personally, I would rather not use D100 for opposed mechanics but use more degrees of success. Basically, with opposed resolution there is really no reason to use D100. IMO it is better to go with a smaller die and modify the results by the Margin of Success.

Originally Posted by Gnarsh

It's not like it's actually very difficult at all, and as I observed, it gives you two defensive combat options that are actually "different" in terms of how they operate. Applying the equivalent of AP to dodge just makes it another parry, and it opens up a whole range of additional balance problems:

1. If it parries as much as a shield, then why would anyone carry a shield around?

2. If it parries less then a shield, then it's not going to be useful in the very situations you'd usually want to dodge (ie: Giant swinging a tree at your head).

3. If you go the other way and give it tons of AP in order to avoid problem number 2, then you've made dodge the "uber skill" since merely making the skill makes you virtually invulnerable to damage. It's the same problem with 1, except multiplied.


There is one way around this, but it's a very very bad one IMO. We had a GM for awhile who for some reason liked dodge as a mechanic. I have my suspicions as to why, but basically he made a successful dodge simply avoid all damage. Period. Didn't matter if the opponent criticalled or not (which is essentially identical to the "tons of AP" option above).

A good point. But the , half/minimum/none version balances this off just as well as a limit and balanced out with the always taking some damage (except on a crtical) where a parry can block all the damage most of the time.

Dodge might still be better for 40 and 50 point hits or better, but at that point the difference is minimal.

Another method that would work would be to give the attacker the win on ties, unless the defender retreats. Then the attacker could try to back the defender into a corner.

[Merak Gren]

I haven't read the whole thread, so my apologies if this has been mentioned earlier.

The is a discussion on rpg.net discussing the Dodge v Parry argument.

May be usdful.

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=377530