does a natural 20 always dodge a zombie?

You are on your own. The Army is MIA and our government is gone! There are no communications of any kind. Cities and towns have gone dark, and zombies fill the streets. The dead have risen and it would seem to be the end of the world. Help me, Mommy!

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Axelmania
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does a natural 20 always dodge a zombie?

Unread post by Axelmania »

For some reason I had it in my head that a natural 20 on a defense roll is always a success, but when I looked hard in the rules I couldn't find something to support this assumption. I'll post some examples of where I've seen this discussed and how I'm critically reading it.

Pg 173
    A roll of a Natural 20 is always a hit and a Critical Strike (double damage), unless the defender also rolls a Natural 20.

Pg 180
    Rolling a Natural Twenty to Strike always hits its target and does double damage. The only way it can miss is if the defender rolls a Natural Twenty to dodge!

Pg 181
    A Natural 20 always hits its mark, unless an opponent attempting to dodge also rolls a Natural 20.

Pg 187
    A Natural 20 never misses unless one's opponent also rolls a Natural 20.
    Yes, a Natural 20 will hit even if an opponent's roll to dodge is higher than 20 after bonuses are added to it.
A natural 20 to defend means a natural 20 to strike CAN miss... but not that it WILL.

In both cases, natural 20s for strikes introduce a "always a hit" / "never misses" condition.

A natural 20 for defenses nullifies this condition.

It appears the requirement of a defense to equal (defenders always win ties) or surpass the roll is still in play though.

So for example, a Sloucher (+2 to strike) who rolls a 19 has a modified 21 to strike. A natural 20 to dodge with no dodge bonuses would still fail against it, far as I can tell, since it is still lower.

It is only strikes which have a statement about always succeeding on a natural 20 (a condition nullified in the presnece of natural 20s to defend).

If I am wrong about this, can anyone point out anywhere in the core book which says otherwise, about natural 20s for defenses always succeeding?

I've been able to find statements like these in other games by Palladium, just not in Dead Reign. For example from page 228 of Robotech: Shadow Chronicles:
Natural 20 Always WINS and does Double Damage:
A Natural Twenty occurs when a 20 is rolled all 1020 before any bonuses are added to it.
"'Natural" is the straight, unmodified roll and always wins/succeeds.
If the 1D20 roll was to grab something out or another character' s hand, dodge, parry, disarm, etc ... it is a success.


So I could incorporate them into a "Megaversal" campaign, but I know some people will make universe-specific games where only text from that universe's book counts, so I'd like to know if any statements like this which specify defenses always succeeding.

Even in Robotech though... while that would let a natural 20+0 to dodge beat a natural 19+2 to strike, I'm not sure it would allow it to defeat a natural 20+1 to strike. It states "defenders always win ties" but 21>20 so it wouldn't be a tie, so I figure the strike would still hit.
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