Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - Combat as a contest of attack skill vs defense

trooper6 · 08-02-2015, 12:56 PM

Tai makes great points. The minute you make it a Quick Contest, a lot of the attractive to me parts of GURPS combat gets flushed down the drain. Specifically, targeted attacks.

If your players don't like that there is defense, they don't like deceptive attacks (which really aren't that complex--they are just "I take a -2 to my attack to mess up his defense!"), they are fine with cutting out targeted attacks, rapid strikes, etc...do they actually want to play GURPS or would they rather just play D&D? If they prefer D&D, maybe that is what they should be playing?

Losing targeted attacks and all that comes with it is a big negative for me to the quick contest method. Treating as equivalent numerically something that is not (Attack and Defense--an attack roll with a sword is likely to be twice as much as a Parry roll) is a negative for me. But the worst would come for me as a player when the shoe is on the other foot. Combat might well come faster because my PCs are getting killed because their defenses have been hampered. And I spend a lot of time on my GURPS characters...a lot more than I do on a first level D&D character...which is quick to make and somewhat disposable.

I wouldn't play in a game like that. There are other ways to speed up combat.

But if your players are happy, I suppose that is all that matters.

08-02-2015, 12:56 PM	#10
trooper6 Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Medford, MA	Re: Combat as a contest of attack skill vs defense Tai makes great points. The minute you make it a Quick Contest, a lot of the attractive to me parts of GURPS combat gets flushed down the drain. Specifically, targeted attacks. If your players don't like that there is defense, they don't like deceptive attacks (which really aren't that complex--they are just "I take a -2 to my attack to mess up his defense!"), they are fine with cutting out targeted attacks, rapid strikes, etc...do they actually want to play GURPS or would they rather just play D&D? If they prefer D&D, maybe that is what they should be playing? Losing targeted attacks and all that comes with it is a big negative for me to the quick contest method. Treating as equivalent numerically something that is not (Attack and Defense--an attack roll with a sword is likely to be twice as much as a Parry roll) is a negative for me. But the worst would come for me as a player when the shoe is on the other foot. Combat might well come faster because my PCs are getting killed because their defenses have been hampered. And I spend a lot of time on my GURPS characters...a lot more than I do on a first level D&D character...which is quick to make and somewhat disposable. I wouldn't play in a game like that. There are other ways to speed up combat. But if your players are happy, I suppose that is all that matters. Last edited by trooper6; 08-02-2015 at 12:59 PM.