Dodge This is a series of rules invented by Douglas Cole and published pyramid 3/57 "Gunplay" in July 2013. It involves perception rolls and speed/range penalties on active defenses.
Mentioned in a series of articles https://gamingballistic.com/tag/dodge-this/ too
perception precursor[]
The idea of making perception checks to allow active defenses already existed in GURPS Powers (P76: Small Size and Combat). Although it was only written to apply to SM-10 attackers, there doesn't seem to be any reason to have a hard cap like that. A SM-9 foe attacking a SM0 foe is probably also pretty hard to perceive!
It builds in the +10 for Plain Sight just like Cole did, and applies to melee attackers rather than ranged.
T-Bone predecessor[]
In particular https://gamingballistic.com/2013/02/03/the-occasional-silliness-of-dodging/ about Lasers discusses T-bone's rules for DECIDE which were published 10 July 2007 and perhaps influenced by his 2004 Gulliver rules for Declaring Defenses
acting to penalize ranged attackers[]
Bob and Weave introduced the maneuver Move and Attack (Evasive) allowing penalties to hit the character up to their move,
- Sort of resembles ideas from 3e's Basic Set 117:
- -1 for a vehicle swerving or a man side-stepping and dodging as he runs (halving Move).
- -2 for a man evading rapidly (making little forward progress, Move 2).
Of course, an existing means of sacrificing an attack to penalize an attacker already existed: Defensive Feint, so extending the Ranged Feint to that might've been simpler!
The main difference is that Feints target single foes whereas Bob and Weave / MAAE are penalties against ALL attackers. It doesn't actually require knowing an attacker is there to penalize them.
This makes complete sense, and should probably apply to melee combat too. Even if someone is completely unskilled relative to a foe, this doesn't matter if they're moving randomly, it should make keeping up with them harder, even if skill can mitigate that.
For that reason though, there should be general penalties for odd movements, and really this can be easily done by treating odd movements as just as 'speedy' as moving full speed in a straight line: always use full move on the Size and Speed/Range Table!
Then stuff like Defensive Feint could be done on top of it, with the difference meaning that to target EVERYONE just use Whirlwind Attack rules and treat ie like a Whirlwind Feint.
Precursor[]
Cole had wrote 14 July 2007 about this too at http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.php?p=425921&postcount=22
- If you want to alter the rules to allow deceptive attack with ranged attacks, that's your preogative. As would be a (more sensible) dodge penalty for projectile speed.
- Actually, I could easily see (in combination with the discussion about declaring defenses in another thread):
- 1. If you're aware of an attack, you may try to dodge the point of aim. Declare your defense now. No penalties for speed or anything.
- 2. Roll to hit; if you hit, they roll defense. if not, they waste a defense.
- 3. If you elect NOT to dodge point of aim, you take (say) a penalty for attack speed and skill, equal to half the margin of success of the attack (max -5) plus a penalty based on the Parry Missile Weapons penalties.
see also[]
- Declaration
- Declaring Defenses
- On Target
- Roguish Skills in Battle and Backstabbing and Disappear
- Situational Awareness
- Threat Recognition