Ties going to the roller I think is the single best improvement to the system out of the entire post here. I must admit that that was the strangest thing to me out of the entire experience.

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There is one Boon right now that adds to Dodge and that's Combat Reflexes, which make Dodge roll calculate out like: Agiligity + (Dodge Skill / 2, round up) + 1

So there is that already in the system. The big issue is that I didn't bother to model the dice mechanics to make sure I understood how steep that +1 to difficulty could be. In short, "Bad Rory! No biscuit!"

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Yay afternoon break. Instead of wandering outside enjoying the sunshine and trimming split ends, let's geek.

You get an afternoon break? I get long delays between building setup packages and installing them on a VM to see if I was able to get MSIEXEC to do what I want it to. Fortunately, that's an automated process. I push a button and walk away.

It's spurts of coding followed by periods of waiting. ;)

Yay afternoon break. Instead of wandering outside enjoying the sunshine and trimming split ends, let's geek.

Yes, the +6 and +4 were grabbed out of my ass that day. In short, yes, a bad call and those are being specifically addressed along with modifiers for called shots to the head, vitals, et cetera, since cover tends to follow the same basic constraints.

What about a Boon called "Nine Lives" that ignores (or reverses!) the bad die once per session when someone is actively trying to kill you? How about "Trick Shot" that halves cover/concealment penalties?

Feng Shui may have other colorful suggestions. I seem to recall something like "Signature Weapon" that gives a bonus when using your favorite gun - though overlap with Gunslinger might be interesting or inappropriate.

Hmmm. I'll have to think about that. sylvan and I were talking about possibly using creating a system where a player could spend XP to dictate a die roll. Kind of like "Karma Points" in Shadowrun or "Force Points" in Westend Game's Star Wars.

In conclusion: let people buy Slays instead of nerfing armor. ;-)

Nah, I haven't touched the armor rules. :p But I have been thinking about the balance between gritty and cinematic and I think where I want it to lie is where damage, if hit, can easily be lethal, but the fight between the skilled should be epic.

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Absolutely. No plot ever survives contact with the players. ;)

Now the big question is which of those quotes up there can you identify? :D

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Yeah, that would be cheating. ;)

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Yes, it's a very good movie. :)

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for combat(at least) it might just be easy to use active/passive rules. If the defender is wants to attack, they only use base dodge(aka the whole agility with no mods) and if they chose to "defend" they get the whole score (agility and skill and any mods from abilitys).

You can even make it the other way around if you want to hurt people. Skill is base dodge(min of 0) and you only get to add the agility if you push it.
So in a combat with 2 combat monsters if they are both on full attack they might have dodges of 1-4, not 7-9. However once someone decides to cut and run, the dodge goes right up.

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I'm still musing over the subject, but here's some thought experiments that may or may not matter.
1) Can you really dodge a bullet (muzzle velocity: 800-3000 feet per second) or does evasive action taken to disrupt aim amount to the same thing?
2) What about a laser weapon (c = 186,000 MILES per second)?
3) Should dodge stack with stationary cover (junk pile)?
4) Should dodge stack with mobile cover (meatshield)?

1) You're not really dodging the bullet per se, but rather you're taking evasive action and trying to get out of the way. Unless you're Neo and then all bets are off.
2) This is really the same thing as 1. for all intents and purposes. You can't move faster than the gun or the light beam, but you could move faster than the one pulling the trigger.
3) and 4) Yes, I think it should. The key thing to remember you get exactly one oppurtunity to Dodge per round (unless a Boon or a skill says otherwise); meaning that you may be able to dodge the first shooter, but you can't dodge the second one.

Tangent that I imagine will be addressed in the modifier table:
5) Do kneeling/sitting/prone positions give you virtual cover?
5a) ...at the expense of dodge?
5b) ...but a more stable firing platform?

5) Yes, see my most recent post.
5a) I think you would still get a dodge (you can always duck or roll out of the way).
5b) That sounds reasonable enough, but I would need to think about that in some more detail.

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