Combat Dodge after actions taken in round

[shnar]

I'm still trying to get used to the 2nd edition rules, and Reaction skills are an iffy topic for me. The way the rules are written, it sounds like you don't have to declare a Combat Dodge at the beginning of the round, you can wait until someone actually tries to attack you, and then you can do a Combat Dodge. If you haven't gone yet this round, this Combat Dodge either acts as your action for the round, or it's an extra action that round and all actions have the extra -1D for taking multiple actions.

But what happens if you've already acted that round? Do you get to do the dodge anyways (at a -1D or more for taking multple actions)? So none of your actions except the dodge really suffered from dodging. And if that's the case, why would *anyone* declare a Combat Dodge? Instead they'd just wait until maybe they needed it in the round?

Am I reading this right?

-shnar

[garhkal]

Cause if you do it that way, your dodge is lessened, making it more likely you will get hit.
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[shnar]

Well, yeah, of course, but if you do it the "proper" way, i.e. as part of your declaration, then your dodge is weakened AND your other actions too. If you wait until further down the round, then as long as you got to act first, you don't get a penalty to your blaster shot (or whatever skill you're using), just your dodge.

Just want to make sure I'm playing this right...

-shnar

[Gry Sarth]

You're 100% correct, and that's one of the things that used to annoy me the most in my games, and I'm pretty sure I'vre brought it up here before. Calling for the "reaction dodge" after you've already taken your penalty-less action looks a lot like cheating or bending the rules to me. What my group ended up deciding is that any reaction rolls added after your alotted actions for that round suffer an extra -1D, on top of any MAPs. So if someone declared two actions, performed them with the -1D MAP and then called for a reaction dodge, it would be rolled at -3D (2D for taking 3 actions, plus 1D for adding one after the fact). That seemed to work pretty well.
_________________
"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."

[shnar]

That's not a bad house-rule. I'll propose it to the guys and see what they think. They systems they're used to playing are D&D 3, Traveller, and Rolemaster. I think we'll alter Star Wars to be an initiative per person PER roll (sorta like 1st Ed) and then as people act before you, you can do Reaction rolls. On your turn, you then have the normal MAP for whatever actions you want to do.

Hrm, this is a slight alteration of rules though, isn't it? If players are doing multiple actions, don't all players do 1 action, then all players do a second, etc? You don't have the first character do all their actions, then the second character do all their actions, etc.?

-shnar

[Gry Sarth]

In my game at least we go around the table, everyone performs their first action (in order of Initiative), then evryone performs their 2nd action and so forth. Having the 1st person draw his blaster fire and then drive away before the 2nd one hasn't even had the chance to take a step would be ridiculous.
_________________
"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."

[ifurin]

in our games we start combat by declaring actions, and then we go around and do our first action ect. this is all very normal. the tweak we added id that you cannot preform more actions than what you declare. if you wanted to be safe and you reached your last action you could preform a just in case dodge. it worked fairly well for us.

[garhkal]

For me it is

1) Declare how many actions you are doing
2) roll init
3) everyone takes first action in init order
4) those with second actions take theirs
5) and so on.
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Ankhanu]

In terms of reaction skills, I never updated to the R&E rule. I, like you, find that a lot of players use the fact that they don't need to declare a dodge to gain a benefit from using it later (without taking the penalty for it earlier) to be close to cheating, and power-gamey.

I've stuck to having to declare your parries and dodges as regular actions, incurring MAPs along the way. If you don't declare it and take the penalty, you're not doing it.

Yeah, that means that a character may try to dodge or parry when they don't have to, simply gaining a penalty to their other actions for the useless effort... but it may also simply be the thing that saves their lives, or ends it if they don't declare. The way I see it, you don't always know when you're going to be targeted, especially by ranged weapons, so you'd better be on the ball. If not, you're probably going to get shot, as you're an easy target.
_________________
Hotaru no Hishou; a messageboard about games, friends and nothing at all.

Donate to Ankhanu Press

[Zarash]

I like this I think I will use it after I figure out everything I need to know to play.

[ccatkins]

My group handles this by imposing a penalty on actions taken in the next round. So if you run out of actions in this round but have to perform a dodge, all actions next round are reduced by -1D. It seems to work?

[shnar]

We're going to try this:

- Everyone rolls PER as their initiative
- Everyone declares how many actions they are going to take (not what they are) to get a MAP
- In order of Initiative, everyone takes ONE action.
- Repeat until everyone is out of actions.

If a REACTION skill is used, the player has two options:
- Either use a remaining action for the reaction (if has one) or
- Add an additional action at the cost of x2 MAP

In other words, it is an action to add an action, so to add a dodge, the player is at an addition -2D MAP (-1D for the dodge, -1D to add an action) for the rest of the round. This way, if a player declares 3 actions and wanted to use all 3 actions but still needs to dodge, he can keep his declared 3 actions and just add a dodge with an additional penalty.

-shnar

[Delkarnu]

The games I play in we declare "I'm going to shoot at the stormtrooper and save a D for dodge" If you don't save that D, you don't dodge and you have to take any hits that make the range difficulty.