Okay, another question from the duh category. During hand-to-hand combat, after innitiative has been decided and actions have been announced, when is a character able to dodge or block? Also, when is it SMART to dodge or block?
Thanks again for reading my rather basic quesitons?
Dodge anything thrown, edged, fanged or clawed. Block the other stuff. At least, that's what I would do, when possible.
I always allow dodge rolls, even if the character has already taken their actions, I just penalize them for waiting til the last moment. If they tell me ahead of time they want to attack & defend, it's just like two actions per turn.
The way I allow players to use dodge, is derived from hero system. A character can take an undeclared dodge at any time prior to a regular action (a dodge can still be declared as part of a multi-action) in a round, even prior to initiative, this however ends all other actions he might get for the remainder of this round. Once a character has taken all declared action in a round, he can no longer take an undeclared dodge- All of his actions are finished for this round.
Phoenix...
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"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."
-Napoleon
I just stick with the rules in the books. If you take an undeclared dodge because of something that happens during the round, that action and all other actions after that suffer normal multiple action penalties.
Fr'instance, if you've declared two phaser shots, and a baddie comes in to thwack you after you get off one shot, you can dodge the baddie's attack. However, the dodge and your remaining attack suffer DIF +2 multiple action penalties (instead of the +1 because of your two attacks). Note that multiple action penalties for Dodging actually subtract from your Dodge result, they don't add to the DIF--because you're rolling to establish the opponent's DIF.
A character can interrupt an attack against them to declare a Dodge or Block at any time without penalty. The only applicable penalty is the multiple action penalty.
Thus, if a character had already taken a shot and then Dodges, he suffers a -1 task modifier, even though he didn’t declare his Dodge at the beginning of the turn; he doesn’t have to.
A Dodge or Block attempt does count as an action when determining the character’s multiple action penalty for further actions later in the round.
You should always Dodge/Block an attack against you, unless you don’t care about being hit and/or have an outrageous Resistance.
As a personal commentary I don’t agree with imposing penalties beyond those in the book for characters taking defensive actions. I find it amusing to read in one thread where people think the Icon system is “too lethal” and have another thread where people impose restrictions/penalties beyond those dictated in the rules to avoid being hit.
Actually Don the conficlt arises from a differnece in wording in the Rules about Immidiate Actions.
On page 125 of the TNG Core rules, it does state that character can add a dodge or parry to actinons or change an action to a dodge or parry .
However, on page 137 of the TNG Core Rules, in indicates that a character attempting to "interrrupt" another character's action must make an opposed Coordination Test, including changing actions to Dodges or Parries.
The DS9 rules clarified this, but people who are using the TNG book could bet confused if looking at p. 137.
Yes, the DS9 and TOS books had the benefit of clarifying many of the rules.
For example, in the TOS book if you don’t declare multiple actions you get to take a free Dodge or Block; except that you take a multiple action penalty, so it isn’t really “free” at all.
The Opposed Coordination Test roll to interrupt an action is used when you wish to delay your action, not when you elect to replace (or add) an action with a Dodge or Block. If I hold my initiative to shoot the Klingon who pulls his disruptor to shoot the captain, then you have to make the Opposed Test. If the Klingon pulls his disruptor to shoot me I can substitute my delayed action with a Dodge (or use a Dodge on top of my other actions, increasing my net difficulty) and make the Test immediately without having to roll Coordination.
In short, a Dodge or Block can be taken as a declared action, or as a changed or added action. There are no penalties beyond the multiple action penalty for selecting any one of these three options.
BTW, although I haven’t mentioned it in the threads thus far, in melee combat you can use your Dodge against melee attacks as well. This doesn’t happen very often because most characters have a higher Unarmed Combat rating than Dodge.
I agree with Steven Cook on this. About the only times I'd restict the player's ability to dodge would be during surpise situation or if the character is somehow retrained.
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