From:	"Jason Carter, Nightstalker" <CARTER@***.EDU>
Subject:	There is no dodging in SRII!
Date:	Fri, 9 Apr 93 00:29:58 CET

Oh no, their trying to overwhelm me, but wait! I still have a few guns to fire
off. It will never be that easy guys!

It's a Combat Pool, not some hybrid-bastard son of the Dodge Pool and a never
existant Attack Pool. If it was meant to be a Dodge Pool it would make alot
more sense to give everyone a Dodge pool equal to their quickness and get it
over with.

Magister has a misconception which helps me illustrate my point. He goes off
about a resisted success test for attacks in which the attacker uses skill and
Combat Pool while defender uses Combat Pool. But that's not how it works. The
attacker makes his roll and he's out of there, sorta like the hitter in a
baseball, he hits the ball and now it's up to the other side to tell him if he's
out. The defender than makes a Damage Resistance Test to try to reduce the
damage that attack does. He rolls Combat Pool plus Body Dice. Damage is then
reduced by his successes. Now comes the one time in the rules where Combat Pool
dice are treated differently than the dice they were rolled with. If the
defender was able to roll more successes than the attacker with Combat Pool
alone than a "clean miss" is indicated and no damage is taken. Notice that the
defender must exceed the attackers successes. If this was the Resisted Success
test as Magister indicated than with defender would only need as many
successes as the attacker, because then net successes would be zero and you need
one success to hit your target.

Now this brings up the question, "what exactly is a clean miss than?" This is
actually simple to answer. A "clean miss" is a game convention that says
basically at if the attack was so feeble that the defender could get that many
successes on his roll that it does no damage. It could be a complete miss. It
could be a "flesh would". It might have been deflected by your armor. It
doesn't really matter. But if there were no clean misses than you could get
blown away by some putz with a panther assualt cannon who gets one lucky success
because you'll need 9 to stage the damage down to nothing.

Now for a few extra comments:
>> If we flashback (this has nothing to do with the LSD discussion) to
>> SR1 for a moment and look at the dodge pool, we see that it was used in
>> an opposed test. Just like the combat pool is in SR2. As a matter of
>> fact, the combat pool can ONLY be used in opposed tests. This leads
>> me to believe that FASA screwed up (NO!!) in their description of the
>> combat pool. As I understand it, the combat pool can't be used for
>> dammage resistance, as it is a _resisted_ test.
That's incorrect. You can use your Combat Pool to resist damage from a
grenade.

>> You shoot me and get seven successes. (*Whuff*) I get the same two
>> successes as before. (oops) This was an opposed test so you get a
>> net of five successes. You, being very stylish, shot me with a
>> Predator II, staging the dammage up to 9D. Yes I chose 7 to avoid
>> the Deadly++ senario. Now I get to try to resist dammage from the
>> attack. I cannot use my combat pool for this because a) I just used
>> most or all of it trying not to get hurt in the first place and b) this
>> is a resisted test. I subtract my armor value from the power of your
>> attack and roll my body dice to offset the damage.
Wrong, look in your book. Body and Combat Pool dice are rolled at the same
time. They just advise your Combat Pool dice be a different color.

>> Note that the combat pool is used PRIOR to the application of armor
>> or amunition bonuses, but after burst/autofire mods.
Wrong on both counts. The target number for the Damage Resistance test is
the adjusted power rating of the weapon minus the appropriate armor rating.
Both ammunition and autofire mods are used to find the adjusted power level.
The number of dice used on a Damage Resistance is Body plus Combat Pool.

>>-- Magister
>> Never argue rules with a hermetic.
>> They're right even when they're wrong ;)

Be warned, I too am a hermetic and I guess my magic theory is higher than
yours :)

See Ya in Shadows,
Jason J Carter
The Nightstalker