Abilities From Multiple Sources

[Crimson Dynamo]

After a long (ten year+) hiatus, my live action group decided to take a break from our usual games--mostly Vampire and Shadowrun--and have some fun playing old school Rifts at higher levels.

One of our players decided to try the Gun Master O.C.C. from World Book: China 2. He decided to go with Dog Boxing for his martial art, which gives Side Step, but also noticed that at 9th level he gained Dodge Bullets from his mystic martial arts.

This lead to a whole discussion about how you should handle gaining similar abilities from different sources. Side Step and Dodge Bullets are both distinctive variants of Automatic Dodge that each use different mechanics from one another. So we were wondering what the general consensus was when dealing with that sort of thing.

How do you resolve this sort of thing? Do these particular abilities work in conjunction with each other somehow, do you have to choose which one you use in any given situation, or something else entirely?

[Crimson Dynamo]

No suggestions on how to handle this sort of thing?

[Nekira Sudacne]

You choose which one to use in any given situation. they do not blend or mix in any way, it's one or the other.

[drewkitty ~..~]

...snip
How do you resolve this sort of thing? Do these particular abilities work in conjunction with each other somehow, do you have to choose which one you use in any given situation, or something else entirely?

cannon answers:
You use each dodge type separately.

If they are a part of the same fighting style, then you can use them in the same melee round.
If they are from different fighting styles then you have to choose which fighting style you are using that melee round. Only using the moves in the fighting style your char is using.

Opinions/Options:
If you GM wants a high powered game...or is a bit lazy, she/he might just let you use all your fighting styles moves in the same melee round.
Or the GM might let you combine the bonuses from different skills and/or fighting styles to let you have a bigger bonus.

But that is a GM mod'ing the rules for that individual game.

[Crimson Dynamo]

That's what I was thinking, but I just wanted to know if there was a general consensus that deviated from that thought process.

That said, I did go back over and read the two abilities in question. Oddly, and despite the comments I've read about Gun Masters on this forum, I noticed that Dodge Bullets isn't a free action (or even an action, period) at all. It's a modification to dodge and parry that lets you halve your bonuses in order to avoid all penalties, most notably the -10 one against firearms. So I'm pretty much inclined to allow that to work with Side Flip or even regular Automatic Dodge/Automatic Parry if a player were to somehow gain access to those abilities instead.

Thanks for the answers regardless.