I recently had a converstaion over on the character builder board where a very knowledgeable community member came to the position that if one is doing a gymnastic dodge it can be used to defend against ranged, or combat, but not both at the same time. It comes from a description in SR4A that says "Gymnastics Dodge: Characters skilled in Gymnastics can spend their action flipping, rolling, cartwheeling, etc. out of danger, and may add Gymnastics skill to their dice pool against either ranged or melee attacks." The crux is the word "either". Technically, the other fellow was right, at least by the grammar, "either" is part of an either/or statement. But I have the feeling this was a case of loose writing, rather than an intentional rules element.
I would like to hear from some GMs who participate in missions, as this is as close to "official" rules as we are going to get. If I showed up to a missions game and had my character gymnastics dodge a melee attack, and in the same pass someone then shot at me, am I out of luck and have to rely on just my reaction to defend against the ranged attack.
As I said above, if one were to strictly parse the language of the rules, that is what is says. But because there is no further clairification or explanation in the rules (a simple "not both in the same pass" would have been nice if this was the intention) its kind of muddy. I have never played it that way, but I have never played at a Con or in organzied play.
Just curious.
