Followup on Martial Dodge and levels.

[Paragon]

Steve, I finally got around to looking at one of the local copies 5eRev in regard to my question, and I'm afraid that your pointer to page 383 doesn't really seem to address my question. I'm not sure I was clear enough, so I'll try it again and perhaps you can either answer it directly or give a new pointer.

 

As I understand the rules currently, we have the current situation:

 

1. Dodge and Martial Dodge bonuses apply to both ranged and melee combat.

 

2. Most levels that apply to combat maneuvers only apply to melee combat, as they're melee levels themselves.

 

Now the muddy issue involves using certain types of levels with the aforementioned Dodges. I'll mention the three cases, and (if they're different) perhaps you can tell me in which ones the levels would apply versus ranged.

 

1. Three point levels that apply to three maneuvers (say, Dodge, Block and Dive for Cover);

 

2. Three point levels with a martial art (say, Aikido) that includes a Martial Dodge.

 

3. Five point hand to hand levels (which presumably apply to both sorts of Dodge).

 

Do any of these three classes of levels help against ranged attacks when dodging? If only some of them do, can you explain the difference (I know you don't do design philosophy; this is purely so I can sort odd cases out as they come up).

[Steve Long]

Re: Followup on Martial Dodge and levels.

 

5ER 383 states:

 

Some Combat Maneuvers provide a DCV bonus or penalty. For Dodge and Martial Dodge, the bonus applies to all attacks; for other Maneuvers, the modifier generally only applies to HTH Combat. However, for ease of game play, some GMs allow a Maneuver’s DCV modifier to apply to DCV generally (i.e., against all attacks, HTH or Ranged).

 

Thus, if a Combat Skill Level can be applied to Dodge/Martial Dodge, it affects DCV against all types of attacks. That's why many GMs are reluctant to allow any CSLs to apply to Dodge other than 5-point or more expensive ones.