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Message no. 1
From: Helge Diernaes <ecocide@***.CBS.DK>
Subject: Combat Pool and Defending vs. Attacks
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 00:50:33 +0100
A week ago, one of my gamers and the previous GM of our group, and the
one that truly knows the rules the best, told me that when using Combat
Pool to avoid being hit, one rolled against a TN of the Attacking weapons
Power and subtracted the armour the target wore - if any.
For example, with a predator 9M unmodified, and a secuity jacket of 5/3,
one rolled against TN = 9-5 = 4
^
I told him, that this seemed wrong to me as the armor did not help you to
avoid getting hit by the bullet - though it ofcourse did help when
rolling Body checks when determining the actual damage caused by the weapon.
His counterargument was that in such cases, any combat pool dice
allocated to defence would mostly be wasted because of the high TN.

Was he right? He did not die because of that, but he was close.

--
Silhouette



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Helge Diernaes | "I'm going slightly mad..."
ecocide@***.cbs.dk | Frank Mercury, Queen
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Message no. 2
From: Craig S Dohmen <dohmen@*******.CSE.PSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Combat Pool and Defending vs. Attacks
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 1995 19:55:00 -0400
On Wed, 4 Oct 1995, Helge Diernaes wrote:

> A week ago, one of my gamers and the previous GM of our group, and the
> one that truly knows the rules the best, told me that when using Combat
> Pool to avoid being hit, one rolled against a TN of the Attacking weapons
> Power and subtracted the armour the target wore - if any.
> For example, with a predator 9M unmodified, and a secuity jacket of 5/3,
> one rolled against TN = 9-5 = 4

The attacker rolls to hit as usual. The defender rolls body dice
against (weapon power - armor). If the defender generates more successes
with his combat pool dice ALONE, the attack is a clean miss. Yes, this
means that the defender's armor rating helps to avoid being hit at all.
Many people find this somewhat illogical and use their own house rule for
determining clean misses.

--Craig
Message no. 3
From: Marc A Renouf <jormung@*****.UMICH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Combat Pool and Defending vs. Attacks
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 1995 20:45:54 -0400
On Thu, 5 Oct 1995, Helge Diernaes wrote:

> A week ago, one of my gamers and the previous GM of our group, and the
> one that truly knows the rules the best, told me that when using Combat
> Pool to avoid being hit, one rolled against a TN of the Attacking weapons
> Power and subtracted the armour the target wore - if any.
> For example, with a predator 9M unmodified, and a secuity jacket of 5/3,
> one rolled against TN = 9-5 = 4
> Was he right? He did not die because of that, but he was close.

The way the rules are written, he was correct. By the SRII
rules, it is more difficult to dodge a heavy pistol round than a light
pistol round. There are numerous justifications for this, but I don't
buy any of them.
What I and many other GM's have done to get around this seeming
inconsistency is to basically reinstate the SRI "dodge" rules and import
them into SRII. Thus, you Combat Pool can be used either to augment your
attack, to dodge, or a combination of both. The target number to dodge
is *not* dependent on the weapon being fired. For my campaign, it's a
base T# pf 4 modified by wounds and a few other things.
Like all the rest of the rules, if something sucks, change it.

Marc
Message no. 4
From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
Subject: Re: Combat Pool and Defending vs. Attacks
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 11:23:16 +0100
Helge Diernaes said on 5 Oct 95...

> A week ago, one of my gamers and the previous GM of our group, and the
> one that truly knows the rules the best, told me that when using Combat
> Pool to avoid being hit, one rolled against a TN of the Attacking weapons
> Power and subtracted the armour the target wore - if any.
> For example, with a predator 9M unmodified, and a secuity jacket of 5/3,
> one rolled against TN = 9-5 = 4
> ^
> I told him, that this seemed wrong to me as the armor did not help you to
> avoid getting hit by the bullet - though it ofcourse did help when
> rolling Body checks when determining the actual damage caused by the weapon.
> His counterargument was that in such cases, any combat pool dice
> allocated to defence would mostly be wasted because of the high TN.

The Combat Pool dice are, under the standard SR2 rules, rolled against the
same TN as those of the Body test. Many people have modified this to
(4+injury mods) instead of (Power-Armor) to make all weapons just as easy
to avoid.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Keep on running back into that wall
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-

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Message no. 5
From: The Digital Mage <mn3rge@****.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: Combat Pool and Defending vs. Attacks
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 15:26:30 +0100
On Thu, 5 Oct 1995, Helge Diernaes wrote:

> A week ago, one of my gamers and the previous GM of our group, and the
> one that truly knows the rules the best, told me that when using Combat
> Pool to avoid being hit, one rolled against a TN of the Attacking weapons
> Power and subtracted the armour the target wore - if any.
> For example, with a predator 9M unmodified, and a secuity jacket of 5/3,
> one rolled against TN = 9-5 = 4
> ^
> I told him, that this seemed wrong to me as the armor did not help you to
> avoid getting hit by the bullet - though it ofcourse did help when
> rolling Body checks when determining the actual damage caused by the weapon.
> His counterargument was that in such cases, any combat pool dice
> allocated to defence would mostly be wasted because of the high TN.
>
> Was he right? He did not die because of that, but he was close.
> -----------
According to the official rules he was right, and I guess a reasoning
could be that the more armour you wear the easier it is to get part of
that armour in front of the bullet and thus reduce damage.

I personally agree with you though and so use a set TN irrespective of
the power of the weapon, it goes something like this:

Single shot: 4
Burst fire : 5
Full auto : 6
Flechette (including bursts as a burst just means the slivers are more
tightly packed): 5
Shot guns : 4+1 per metre of spread, ie base of 5 as at point blank
spread is still 1 metre.

I also allow that for every dodge success genertaed the character may
move half a metre -this allows characters to dive for cover and receive
cover bonuses for subsequent shots. With this option players don't feel
the need to armour themselves up so much.

The full rules are on my WWW site.

The Digital Mage : mn3rge@****.ac.uk
Shadowrun Web Site under construction at
http://www.bath.ac.uk/~mn3rge/Shadowrun.html

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