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The Alternative Dodge Rules (T.A.D.R)(tm)
by Fredrik Lindblom (fredrik.lindblom@SWEDTEL.TELIA.SE)
In SR2, when you resist damage from a weapon, you roll Body + any amount of dice from your combat pool you like to add. The (not-so-new- (I think it’s from the 1st ED SR rules, but I never played it, so I really dunno)) idea is to separate this into two rolls, thus first dodging, then (if applicable) roll against damage. (Body modified by armor only. No more combat pool dice.)
The first roll uses combat pool dice (assigned to dodge that attack) only against a base TN of 4. This makes sense, sort of, because now it is equally easy to dodge a hold-out as a sniper.
The dodge TN is modified (by me :) as follows:
Target has partial cover: If you use the partial cover mods from FoF, apply half the modifier as a minus to the targets dodge TN, and the other half as a plus to the attackers to hit TN, with the higher value going to the targets dodge TN. Thus if there is a +3 partial cover modifier, subtract two from the targets dodge TN and add one to the attackers to hit TN. If you don’t use the rules in FoF, it’s of course -2 to the dodge TN and +2 to the to hit TN.
Attacker uses shotgun with shot rounds: If you think it makes sense, add the bonus the attacker gets for shot rounds to the targets dodge TN instead. GM’s choice, really.
Full Auto weapon ‘spread’: Every round spread increases target modifier to duck by one but doesn’t increase damage. Rounds have to be spread 50-50. If an odd number of bullets are fired, the higher value goes to make the dodge roll harder. Thus a three-round burst does base damage but is +2 harder to dodge. (pushes it to a 6. Nasty!) Example: a 6-round burst from a Supermach usually does 12S, but a person who decides to spread it does only 9M but the target gets a +3 TN to duck it. Note that the attacker may still opt to concentrate the bullets as in the basic rules. The burst then does full damage and is as easy to dodge as a single bullet.
By all injury modifiers.
Possibly visibility modifiers (GMs call)
If the dodge yields more successes than the attackers test, damage is avoided completely. Thus a tie goes to the attacker (like in melee combat).
Successes from the dodge test carry over to the body test when staging down damage.
Combat pool in Melee combat is still used as in the SRII rules.
Combat pool against area-effect weapons are also used as in the SRII rules.
This doesn’t fix the problems with high recoil, but it is a damn lot better than the basic rules I think. And it makes it possible to hit better at the cost of lower damage.
Well, that’s it. I guess I’ll get a LOAD of comments on this. And don’t blame Marc. Only the basic framework of this is his doing. All TN mods were added by me, so if you like/dislike them, let ME know.
This works great for me, anyway.
Enjoy.