Thoughts on a possible home rule I'm considering

[green.nova343]

OK, so I've been thinking of making some tweaks to the base Palladium System rules for my own use. A lot of them are probably familiar -- like letting a PC's base skill go above 98% (but still make a 99-00 role be a failure) -- but I was considering some of the changes that have happened with D&D & its other clones over their past couple of editions (given that PFRPG & the base Palladium rules came from Kevin's own AD&D campaign & his "house" rules). While I somewhat liked the concept behind "simple vs. advanced vs. free" actions from Pathfinder, for example, I feel like it can get a bit cumbersome, & result in too many players spending an exorbitant amount of time looking over the charts saying "ooh, so I'll do this & this & this, no wait, I'll do this too", etc.

But it got me thinking about dodges...

So I was considering making a slight change in how dodges work.

Current RAW:

• If you dodge, you lose your next melee action
• If you have auto-dodge, you can dodge without losing your next action, but you usually have lower bonuses

I know there's probably an alternative where, instead of losing your next action/melee attack, some GMs might just say "You have 1 less remaining action/AT than you would have"...but I think that can still get a bit cumbersome.

So, instead...rather than a dodge using up your next action/attack, it makes that next action harder to complete.

• If you dodge & your next action is to fire a ranged weapon, it is considered "shooting wild".
  • No aimed or called shots are possible
  • If you don't have the appropriate W.P. skill, you have a -6 penalty
  • If you do have the appropriate W.P. skill, you lose your normal W.P. skill bonus
• If you dodge & your next action is to use a melee weapon, you are now "swinging wildly".
  • Basically, same penalties as for modern W.P.s
• If you are attempting to use a skill, the "Pressure Situation" penalty applies
  • Technically, this should be the "Deadly" option (-25% to -30%), but GMs have the option to drop it to "Serious" (-15% to -20%)
• If you are attempting to make an Attribute check (assuming your GM uses them), you have a penalty to the attribute check (I would recommend at least a -4, possibly -5 or -6).

Thoughts? Complaints? Concerns?

[Killer Cyborg]

To me, it seems more cumbersome to give the next attack penalties than to just skip it.

For that matter, I usually just took the spent attacks from Dodge off the tail end to speed up combat.

For that matter, I tended to just let auto-dodge have the same bonus as normal dodge, just because it was a pain to track two different sets of bonuses.

[Dustin Fireblade]

So, instead...rather than a dodge using up your next action/attack, it makes that next action harder to complete.

• If you dodge & your next action is to fire a ranged weapon, it is considered "shooting wild".
  • No aimed or called shots are possible
  • If you don't have the appropriate W.P. skill, you have a -6 penalty
  • If you do have the appropriate W.P. skill, you lose your normal W.P. skill bonus
  Thoughts? Complaints? Concerns?

Yes did that for years. The only difference we did was the "men-at-arms" occ's didn't lose their strike bonus. We figured it was just one more way to distinguish the Headhunter from the Rogue Scientist when they both have WP Energy Rifle at 8th level (or whatever).

Generally, we found this would speed up the combat.


We didn't have any hard/fast rules for the other examples.

[green.nova343]

So, instead...rather than a dodge using up your next action/attack, it makes that next action harder to complete.

• If you dodge & your next action is to fire a ranged weapon, it is considered "shooting wild".
  • No aimed or called shots are possible
  • If you don't have the appropriate W.P. skill, you have a -6 penalty
  • If you do have the appropriate W.P. skill, you lose your normal W.P. skill bonus
  Thoughts? Complaints? Concerns?

Yes did that for years. The only difference we did was the "men-at-arms" occ's didn't lose their strike bonus. We figured it was just one more way to distinguish the Headhunter from the Rogue Scientist when they both have WP Energy Rifle at 8th level (or whatever).

Generally, we found this would speed up the combat.


We didn't have any hard/fast rules for the other examples.

I'd probably still keep it, if only because the Rogue Scientist may or may not have HTH training (which means they have at most maybe 1 or 2 combat actions/melee, 3 if they reach 9th level), whereas the Headhunter gets 4 at 1st level (5 with Boxing), has 6 (7) at 9th level, & maxes out with 7 (8) at 14th level.

However...maybe if you have a WP skill you only lose half your base WP bonuses (rounded down), losing another half (rounded down) if firing bursts. That way they'd still get a max of +3 at higher levels, so still getting a bit of a benefit...

[Grazzik]

Shooting wild after dodging is canon (RUE pg 361, Shooting Wild)... that is why no bonus/penalty after dodging is a trick under the sharpshooting skill (WB14 pg 81).

Warning, the following are house rules:

Re attribute check, I'd apply the same modifiers to the check using the conversion rate of 1 att point per 10% as used for perception vs skill D20 rolls (RUE pg 368). That way the same modifier could be applied regardless of whether using a skill or an attribute check.

A house rule I use for dodging is that if you have used up all your attacks, you can keep dodging up to half your attacks for the next round and carry that accrual over. So if you have 4 attacks/round, you can dodge 6 times, but only have 2 attacks in the next round.

Another house rule for autododge is that, while I keep the bonuses separate, I allow everyone to autododge if you know the attack is coming beforehand. Everyone wants that cinematic "Matrix" moment trying to dodge bullets This may actually be canon from one of the older books, maybe HU, but I've filed it under house rule.

[green.nova343]

Damn, I didn't see that in there.

[Dustin Fireblade]

Well to be fair, you were looking at changing the way dodge works and its affects on players actions more than anything else right? There's not much you'd need to change, just say that non men-at-arms suffer the Wild Shooting penalty, and the m-a-a don't suffer any penalties (essentially giving them that "feature" of the sharpshooting skill for free). The big thing is neither lose their attacks, and your combat should still be sped up a bit.