Message no. 1

From:	David Buehrer <dbuehrer@****.ORG>
Subject:	Combat Pool and Dodging
Date:	Mon, 30 Jun 1997 11:15:12 -0600

Okay, a lot of people have a house rule for dodging and don't allow
combat pool to augment body when resisting damage, because they feel
that adding combat pool to damage resistance tests skews the odds
when armor comes into play. Well, after reading this you might want
to toss the dodge rule.

I was re-reading the rules and my brain happily came up with the idea
of using the average of Body and Quickness to resist damage. Because
with SR's abstract system resisting damage isn't just "resisting
damage", it's also a matter of countering the attackers success by
combining luck, experience and skill. Then it dawned on me, that's
what the combat pool rules, written as is, do.

If your SR character is being attacked he *should* count his armor
toward both the Body test *and* the Combat Pool test. With the Body
test it's fairly obvious, the armor reduces the ammount of energy
imparted on the target by the round. With the Combat Pool test its a
matter of the target ducking, and *using* the armor he's wearing in
the most advantageous way possible (covering his face with his arm,
which is in his armored jacket, for example). Compare it to a
character armed with a sword and a shield. He's going to use his
skill and ability (Combat Pool) to put that shield in front of every
attack (if he can), in addition to just trying to get out of the way,
in which case that shield counts as a modifier for the Combat Pool
when resisting damage. The number of successes he gets with his
Combat Pool determines not only how well he avoids an attack, but how
well he uses his shield.

If SR used a hit location system in which damage was handled on a
location by location basis, then a dodge rule would be appropriate.
I.e., first see if you got out of the way. If not then the bullet
hits and armor augments the damage resistance test. But keep in mind
that SR's system is abstract, and it all happens at the same time.

BTW, the game designers are starting to earn a lot of respect from
me, and I'm beginning to forgive the small errors that exist
considering the depth of the system :)

-David
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1068/homepage.htm
--
Yoink - The sound of a crescent roll being stolen.