Revised GURPS Defense Flow (T-Bone)

[kenclary]

Originally Posted by tbone

@Ken: We probably don't disagree on melee as much as you think. I think my article still leaves my assertions unclear w/ you, something we can blame on my Writing skill. : /

I think I do understand what you're trying to do, I just disagree with (what I see as) your assumptions going into your design.

In action: When I swing my sword, do you commit to meeting it with your blade as soon as you see that I might hit you, or do you commit your blade only when you know that I will hit you?

Generally, the latter. It is more effective, therefore more "correct," and what (in my experience) fighters train to do. I think this is the primary disagreement, which I'll get to in more detail below.

Good, so does DECIDE! Using "last-second defense", an experienced fighter wouldn't waste an active defense on a missed attack. Rather, he'd accurately read the blow and defend only when he actually needed to.

How I chose to mechanically represent that skilled ability – a small defense penalty that the skilled fighter can afford but the unskilled fighter often can't – may or may not be to your liking, but that's a matter of implementation. On the point itself, that the experienced fighter wouldn't waste defenses, DECIDE agrees with you all the way.

That implementation detail is what really bugs me. This "last-second defense" is the primary defense a fighter practices, because it works better than the alternative. The alternative, defending before you can tell if an attack is a real danger or not, isn't very effective (yet, DECIDE says that it has a higher chance of success than what I see as "propper" defense). Defending early(er), pretty much by definition, over-commits, over-extends, and/or telegraphs your defense. It's almost a stage-combat maneuver. Whenever I even think about someone doing it, my instinct is to stop them and yell "don't do that, it's just a good way to get very hurt!"

I understand that it's an attractive rule from a game-ist standpoint. After all, it introduces a tradeoff between committing to defense early and taking a penalty at the "last second." But I disagree that this tradeoff is realistic, at least at GURPS' (and DECIDE's, for that matter) time-scale.

However, the _concept_ of "I want to decide to defend before I know if they'll actually hit, and get a better chance of not getting hit by doing so" isn't inherently flawed. If I wanted to implement the concept in GURPS RAW, and do so in a constructive, useful manner, I'd model it as:

Take a Wait action, triggered by your opponent making any melee attack against you. When triggered, interrupt the attack with a Defensive Beat.

(In case you haven't read MA, a "Beat" is a ST-based Feint where you use weapon-on-weapon contact [thus, it would look a tiny bit like a parry]. A "Defensive Feint" [which could be any type of Feint, like a Beat] is one that penalizes the target's next attack instead of their next defense.)

(EDIT: This would work just fine with a Defensive Ruse or a normal Defensive Feint. I chose Defensive Beat only because a Beat represents a direct physical interaction between the weapons, which could be easily confused with a parry or block.)

This requires a Wait on your preceding turn, of course, but I think the concept is definitely pre-emptive.* But, in exchange for that Wait, you get to decrease the chance of the incoming attack hitting you. As a bonus, you're not even using up a defense, so if they manage to make their TH roll with the penalty, you still get to parry at no penalty.

(*Now that I think about it, this illustrates a more fundamental objection I have with the perceived goals of DECIDE: you seem to be trying to take much of the tactical decision making that happens between GURPS rounds, like the decision-making that goes into Waits and maneuver selection, and embedding it into every attack-defense exchange within any given round. This is likely fascinating if you're exploring roleplaying characters at time-scales faster than the 1-second round, but seems too far beneath GURPS' level of granularity. Anyway, I apologize if I'm misreading you.)

I'll just put this out for now: Is it really unrealistic to allow a difference between an uncertain, novice swordsman who jumps to parry every thrust coming toward him, versus a poised veteran who ably recognizes, and can choose to ignore, the off-target thrusts that'll miss by inches? RAW doesn't allow it; it says novice and veteran have the same infallible ability to know which thrusts will miss, always, and will never take an unneeded action. But I say it's more realistic to allow for the above difference in the two fighters.

Well, that novice will have lower defense scores, therefore a higher chance of getting skewered and dead. Which is a pretty important difference. On the scale of the GURPS combat round, "has a lesser defense score" is very encompassing, and reflects many different ways a novice will defend poorly.

But, I think you're saying that that novice will know they're a novice, and fight more conservatively, and not rely on their own reflexes and speed so much as an experienced fighter. Which is probably very true, at least when the novice isn't consumed by raw panic. I say it is best to reflect this with conservative choices within RAW, like All-Out Defense, Wait, Retreat, etc.

[kenclary]

After seeing some comments made in another thread, and re-checking my copy of Martial Arts, I have a slight revision on my suggestion:

A Defense Beat won't actually work the way I suggested, as it requires a preceding attack/parry. But, a regular DX-based Defensive Feint would do nicely. And, if we're talking about the mythical librarian, an IQ-based Defensive Ruse may be the best option. So, Wait triggered by an attack, interrupt attack with a Defensive Ruse.

An "Attack to Disarm" from BS400-401 would also do something similar, though it may be way more complicated and different from the sort of simple prudence you seem to be looking for.

Even the Wait/Defensive Ruse option may seem more aggressive than simply saying "I just commit to my active defense before knowing if it's necessary," but I think that "simpler" tactic is actually foolhardy. Besides, I suspect any fighter will tell you that aggression is often the key to survival, especially if you're a relative novice.

(At this point, I will stop rambling to myself about this. :)

[tbone]

Ahoy, mateys. (Isn't "Debate Like a Pirate Day" around this time of year? Did I miss it?)

@robertsconley: I appreciate the continued interest, though if I scratch my head, it's only because several comments – including some that fall under the "I know, that's what I'm been saying!" category – have left me wondering whether we're addressing exactly the same thing.

But if I may jump ahead for brevity's sake, I think I see your core objection, and it would indeed squarely target DECIDE. As follows:

@kenclary: Okay, if I'm not mistaken, both you and robertsconley are mostly in agreement with the article. In particular:

Yes, it makes sense that a normal mortal wouldn't know that an incoming bullet will miss by a bit; and even with slower melee attacks, it's possible that a fighter of lesser experience might take a full defense against an attack that would have actually missed by a bit.

Glad we can agree on that. What I believe is the sole point of contention:

I'm allowing that an experienced fighter, too, could (though not necessarily would) commit a defense to a melee attack that would have missed by a bit. Whereas you both say an experienced fighter simply would not make that error, and should be treated as having automatic full ability to accurately read a melee hit/miss.

If that's the sole real point of disagreement, then I think we've got things resolved. I'd file the above difference under implementation. So we'd all be comfortable with the base idea, with only a quibble about the implementation. And that's fine by me.

Specifically, it looks like you'd prefer an implementation that drew a line at the "experienced fighter" – presumably defined by skill level and other factors – and let him unerringly know when a blow will miss, with no penalties or restrictions involved. (And I know you're not unreasonably claiming "an experienced fighter can never make a mistake", but rather, are reasonably saying "for game purposes, he doesn't make this mistake". Sounds good to me.)

Am I right that such a change would make things palatable for you? If so, I leave you to work out the details of your preferred implementation (or even take up the simple default: ignore the whole thing : ). I have reasons for liking my implementation (and still think you're interpreting it a bit differently from how I do), all of which, again, I'll pass on for brevity here. (If you'd really like to move into comparing different implementations, I'm sure I can squeeze out more words, but let me at least offer the option of mutual disengagement : )

@fredo01:

Welcome!

I know this might come as a shock but has anyone among the DECIDE supporters actually thought that a miss is exactly that - a miss.

Yes, I've thought it, and in fact keep saying it!

A couple of quick comments, though I'll be rehashing things already said many times:

The whole of T-Bones article assumes that one needs to prepare for something when in fact people are prepared and react all the time.

No, I don't even know what that means. The whole and only point is contained within another comment of yours:

"Did I say I knew that he was going to miss me? He just did. Nothing to do with my knowledge about that."

So you didn't know beforehand that the attack would miss? Sounds good to me. I like that!

But RAW says that you did know. That you have actual, unfailing, actionable knowledge about an impending hit/miss. Always, in any situation, at any level of combat experience.

Broken, or a problem? No, IMO. But a wee odd, yes.

That's the only point of the article.

Re the fellow who runs full-speed into a building while a machine gun fires at him: As the article mentions, there are cases – many cases! – in which it makes no mechanical game difference whether a defender knows that a bullet or other attack will miss and thus require no commitment to AD. You've accurately described one such case.

(It's true: whether a person can make use of unusual knowledge in defense decisions becomes a moot point when he doesn't make defense decisions! : )

There are other cases in which the issue does make a mechanical difference: namely, when a person does make defense decisions which have specific game consequences. As the article, and others in this thread, amply point out.

Another point I dont agree with. People mostly react on instinct and/or training. They dont think very much about dodging - they just dodge. While a veteran has a highly developed instinct through his training and experience, an amateur just acts out of self-preservation.

Combatants are constantly moving. GURPS is not simulating a turn-based computer game in which people stand still and hit each other. A miss is attackers bad luck or lack of skill and it still doesnt mean that you were standing still and waiting for it.

I couldn't say whether the above are speaking in favor of DECIDE's suggestion, or against it, or what the connection is. It seems we're not always discussing the same topic.

Of the comments that do have a clear connection to the topic, I think they're saying things that have been thoroughly discussed, dissected, rebutted, etc. in the past – in this thread, in many similar older threads, or in the article's comments. (Discussion of the topic actually goes back many years!)

I appreciate the attention to the article and its topic, but might I humbly request that you read some of the old threads so we don't revisit well-beaten territory? (And I make the request with apologies, as I can't promise fascinating reading in those old discussions... : )

[fredo01]

I know its hard to pop in every few days and try to respond to the posts so I ll try to be as short as possible. The essence of what I am saying is that while a character doesnt know what is going to happen, the system does. Your tweak uses GURPS for the example so we are discussing it within GURPS parameters.

Explanation 1) If the rules state you automatically know that your opponent missed, then you do. There are infinite ways to explain how that happens. One possible explanation is that the attack is so off target that everyone can see it.

Explanation 2) There is some very fast and subtle interaction of the attacker and the defender in which the defender gains that knowledge.

E.g.
1) The attacker decides to shoot the wizard and points the gun in his direction.
1) The wizard doing concentrate is already in a combat situation and sees the shooter pointing a gun in his general area.
2) The attacker makes his skill roll to start shooting and possibly hit the intended target. So far, the roll says that he will send one bullet into wizards torso.
2) The wizard decides that the spell that will put all enemies to sleep is too important and keeps concentrating but at the same time starts a semi-crouch which will not change his posture but will remove his torso from where it was.
3) The wizard is now more actively watching the eyes and the barrel of the attacker that is slowly following him which shakes his concentration but rolls his dodge and succeds, lowering his torso in time.
4) The trigger is pulled and the bullet passes through empty space where the lucky wizards torso was less than a second ago.
4) The Mage makes a will-3 roll and fails it and the spell is blown.

or

1) The attacker decides to shoot the wizard and points the gun in his direction.
1) The wizard doing concentrate is already in a combat situation and sees the shooter pointing a gun at him.
2) The attacker makes his skill roll to start shooting and possibly hit the intended target. So far, the roll says that he will send all bullets into empty air.
2) Wizard decides that the spell that will put all enemies to sleep is too important and keeps concentrating but at the same time starts a semi-crouch which will not change his posture but will remove his torso from where it was.
3) The wizard is now more actively watching the eyes and the barrel of the attacker that is not following him which reinforces his concentration on the spell.
3) The trigger is pulled and the bullets pass through empty air and hit nobody.

Explanation 3) The attack was so easy to defend against that it merits no Active Defense.

The point is that the rules work just fine. Your tweak, on the other hand steals one Active Defense from the defender which you dont give back in any way and wastes a few seconds needed for asking the defender what he does and for his reply.

As to the article in question, I would change the lockpicking example to something more appropriate because, as I explained before, it is not really a valid paralel.

[tbone]

Originally Posted by fredo01

The essence of what I am saying is that while a character doesnt know what is going to happen, the system does.

I don't really know what that means, but can respond to following points, so will do so:

Explanation 1) If the rules state you automatically know that your opponent missed, then you do. There are infinite ways to explain how that happens. One possible explanation is that the attack is so off target that everyone can see it.

I have to say, I've never heard that one before! In short, every miss is a really obvious one; there's no other kind. I'd never choose that for realism, but as an explanation of why game characters defend as they do, hey, it matches the game effects. It's easy to understand, too, so I think everyone reading here can mull it over and decide its merits for him/herself.

Explanation 2) There is some very fast and subtle interaction of the attacker and the defender in which the defender gains that knowledge.

Another option for anyone wanting to put an explanation on RAW defense knowledge. Nothing I can add; the examples speak for themselves.

Explanation 3) The attack was so easy to defend against that it merits no Active Defense.

Hmm, that'd fit in with Explanation 1), no?

The point is that the rules work just fine. Your tweak, on the other hand steals one Active Defense from the defender which you dont give back in any way...

Holding back the hit/miss knowledge from a defender can, in a limited subset of cases, cause him to defend against an attack that actually would have missed by some degree, yes. That's the logical outcome of not knowing, for example, that an incoming bullet is on a course to miss.

...and wastes a few seconds needed for asking the defender what he does and for his reply.

"Wizard! The Nazi spy starts shooting at you. What do you do?"
"I jump behind the barrels!"

Whether that's a waste of time or whether that's the game is entirely up to you!

Anyway, for anyone wanting to keep defense knowledge per RAW but place some explanation behind it, your comments should be of interest. Thanks –

[fredo01]

Originally Posted by tbone

Whether that's a waste of time or whether that's the game is entirely up to you!

Erm... I was refering to the same situation where a defender needlessly defends against an attack that already missed and not only a GM doesnt tell him the truth but also makes him say how he defends and then probably lies some more.
Seemed to me I needed to clarify that.

[tbone]

Pardon the personal message, all:

I received a forum Private Message from a reader of this thread, who I assume will see this post.

Sorry, for some reason I can neither reply to nor initiate a Private Message (Forum bug? Firefox bug?), so as I can't reply directly, let me say "thank you very much!" here.

[kenclary]

Originally Posted by tbone

I'm allowing that an experienced fighter, too, could (though not necessarily would) commit a defense to a melee attack that would have missed by a bit. Whereas you both say an experienced fighter simply would not make that error, and should be treated as having automatic full ability to accurately read a melee hit/miss.

If that's the sole real point of disagreement, then I think we've got things resolved. I'd file the above difference under implementation. So we'd all be comfortable with the base idea, with only a quibble about the implementation. And that's fine by me.

Specifically, it looks like you'd prefer an implementation that drew a line at the "experienced fighter" – presumably defined by skill level and other factors – and let him unerringly know when a blow will miss, with no penalties or restrictions involved. (And I know you're not unreasonably claiming "an experienced fighter can never make a mistake", but rather, are reasonably saying "for game purposes, he doesn't make this mistake". Sounds good to me.)

My objections are a bit more complicated than that. For the sake of clarity, I will enumerate them. For some, we may ultimately just "agree to disagree," but I want to make sure I'm not being misinterpreted. I have what boils down to three objections:


1) As concerns melee combat, I disagree that it is very realistic or sensible to give a player the choice between defending "immediately" or defending at the "last second," once the attack is already begun. I think that GURPS RAW better reflects reality, as concerns reflexes and active defense.

I don't mean to say that the GURPS "defense flow" is perfectly realistic. I concede there will be rare moments where combatants will overcommit (i.e. waste) an active defense against a missed attack, thus the untrained-fighter house-rule I suggested earlier in this thread. However, this doesn't happen as a consequence of them "fighting smart" or using advantageous tactics; it happens because they have poor, twitchy reflexes, normally reflected by a low defense score. They are easier to feint; so easy, in fact, that they occasionally feint themselves by accident.

(The house-rule I suggested only applied to characters without any points in real combat skills. This was inspired by a similar set of "binary" optional rules in Martial Arts. You may think this approach is inelegant, but I like it because it means I don't have to pay attention to all the extra "let's shaft the novice fighters even more!" details during the vast majority of combat gameplay.)

The prudent, defensive tactics that (I assume) you're representing by having characters not wait until the "last second" until defending are better represented All-Out Defense, Retreat, Wait, and a number of other solid defensive tactics available in RAW. Letting someone just decide "I'm defending early, before knowing if they'll hit me" should not be an effective tactic (see Objection #2).

Alternatively, look at it from the attacker's perspective: if you miss your attack, under DECIDE, chances are very high that they'll waste a defense, anyway. Should you really be getting this benefit when you _missed_? People can debate whether that miss represents you simply miscalculating, you stumbling and failing to pull off a full attack, or you expertly missing by a mere fraction of an inch (as has been discussed in a different thread), but it will not change that the miss is a _failure_. I don't like giving the nice feint-like benefit to a failed attack roll, except in rare, extreme circumstances.

Want to exploit someone's reflexes? Feint them. Want to use up one of their good defenses so a subsequent attack (from you or your buddies) will have less defense to deal with? Then just attack them. Worried that this won't work if/when you miss? Then use a Telegraphic Attack (MA113, basically the inverse of Deceptive Attack, have I plugged this book enough? :). Or use Evaluate, or All-Out Attack, etc. None of this requires re-defining the primary combat mechanic.



2) Within the rules of DECIDE, I do not think the "last second" defense should get a penalty. The "immediate" defense, where you commit before having a reasonable idea of whether the attack will hit, should have a penalty or other drawback. This may be a disagreement over an implementation detail, but it's basically a complete switch between which option is advantageous.

In another post, I wrote that the normal DECIDE defense "over-commits, over-extends, and/or telegraphs your defense." Perhaps a straight-up penalty isn't the best mechanic for what I see as "bad" with this kind of defense. Maybe a penalty to defenses against that attacker in the following round, essentially saying you're feinting yourself.

(Though really, I'd prefer to just use "you overreacted, too early" as yet another way to detail what happened when a twitchy-yet-low-skilled fighter misses a defense. And I can just refer to my aforementioned house-rule to deal with the special case of a panicked librarian being hosed and distracted by a spastic viking who can't hit with his axe, so his better viking compatriots have an easier time chopping the poor librarian to bits.)

As for the "last second" defense, it is basically what fighters train to do (in my experience). It's the standard, default defense. It is not unrealistic to rely on your reflexes to read an attack. I even claim that second-guessing your own reflexes, which is one way I'd categorize DECIDE's immediate defense, is always less effective.



3) At its heart, DECIDE re-orders GURPS' defense sequence. I think this is an extreme measure. It adds some bits of procedural complexity. Namely, it passes control to the defender for every attack, not just those that succeed, and does so in the middle of the attacker's action, so control has to pass back for them to roll/reveal their TH (normally, control only passes back to the attacker for damage rolling, which happens only if defense fails). These bits are minor, but could slow things down, at least in my experience.

Though I don't use the label "wargamey," I understand where that objection comes from. You are not adding any fully new rolls or steps; however, on average, players will go through more rolls and steps as they play, and control will pass back-and-forth more often for every attack. At the very least, all the "zero-bookkeeping, zero-extra-rolls, zero-effort" hyperbole is inappropriate.

DECIDE in melee also has a few rough edges to the design, notably with feints and criticals. These have been discussed at length in this very thread.

Which is all to say that DECIDE does have a cost, however small, to implement. Are its benefits worth that cost? Well, that depends on the benefits. I think, quite thoroughly, that the melee side isn't a benefit at all. However, the ranged side, which is really DECIDE's primary point, addresses a problem that has been debated to death. So, if you only apply DECIDE's methodology to dodging ranged attacks, it can be worthwhile.

(However, I personally prefer something much simpler, like just disallowing ranged dodges when you Aim or Concentrate. That covers all the cases with real tactical impact. And now there's even an "official" option in Martial Arts that includes that, albeit implicitly.)


OK, that's enough being negative for me. I have a great deal of respect for your original GULLIVER rules, and GULLIVER Mini for 4e is probably the single best collection of house-rules and guildelines I've ever encountered. I hope it, or something derived from it, shows up in any future "creature design system" GURPS product (and you get an "additional material by" credit :). Also, with a bit of care and attention, I think GUTHS could also be really awesome. Part of me is sad that a similar discussion didn't make its way into Martial Arts.

Your Writing skill is fine, and the logic in DECIDE is presented clearly. I just disagree with some of the assumptions and conclusions.

[tbone]

Hi ho, kenclary. Yep, let's do the "agree to disagree" mambo. There are still spots where we're just not envisioning the same thing, so that'll go nowhere.

In the interest of "lay it all out and let the reader decide", I've got comments on the three areas of objection. (Hey, looking at the view count of the thread, I guess someone is interested. Though for how much longer, I don't know. : )

1) We may have a mutual misunderstanding. I'm not imagining a guy in melee making defenses at some 'too early to be effective' stage, which is the big objection I read into your comments. I'm at no point suggesting that any fighter would do something like "over-commit, over-extend, telegraph".

I'm only talking about the distinction between the guy saying "yikes, that's coming at my head, gotta parry!", versus his saying, a split instant later, "yikes, that's coming at my... aw, it's just gonna be a haircut. Let it go."

Maybe my names "immediate defense" and "last-second defense" are still really, really lame. I'll take any better names. "Standard defense versus a seemingly legitimate threat", versus "The same, but with an extra split-second to make 100% certain that the attack's not going to fall short by a hair" – those are what I'm looking to name, but I'm fresh out of snappy English labels.

Whatever the names, everyone's pretty much agreed it's a realistic distinction when bullets fly, and maybe/sometimes/possibly in melee too where fighters of a certain experience level are concerned, so we can let the remaining subset of disputed cases lie without agreement. (This whole melee biz has little mechanical game effect anyway, and is easy to ignore completely.)

I miss the direct relevance of some other points. A novice fighter's low defense score reflects his poor chance of successfully parrying, yes, but that has nothing to do with the knowledge issue (i.e., his unfailingly knowing whether defense action is needed in the first place). Similarly, re discussions of tactics involving Telegraphic Attack, Evaluate, etc.: all interesting stuff, but I don't see direct relevance to the issue of the game rules telling everyone, "This attack's going to miss you."

That's OK; any relevance that I'm missing is no doubt visible to general readers, which is what matters. So I'm happy with no further explanation.

2) Re your not liking my use of a defense penalty in the implementation: Yes, that's a matter of implementation, and could easily be changed to something more to your liking. No harm in disagreeing there. I have reasons for thinking my implementation is quite all right – and can even be improved – but I'll save that for my site.

3) Re "re-ordering defense sequence", "extra steps", "procedural complexity", etc.: Let's massively (and cheerfully) disagree. I guess there's no chance of seeing eye-to-eye on whether the game's better when characters react immediately to imminent danger, or when we set that aside so the GM can first get down to calculating TH mods and rolling dice. To each his own idea of fun. (One request, though: you slipped in a mention again of "more rolls", and that's gotta go. My writeup involves Absolutely. No. Extra. Rolls. Really.)

All I discuss is a simple matter of withholding unreasonable knowledge; that's it. On that subject, let me point out an interesting recent post: http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...34&postcount=8

It refers to Feints, but otherwise deals with the same issue: withholding unreasonable knowledge from a combatant. And as a suggestion for handling that, the poster even goes so far as to move the roll for a current action to the next turn, just to address the knowledge issue. That's far more "re-ordering" than what you're seeing in DECIDE, yet it's presented as – and plays as – a Good Thing.


Closing notes:

a) I haven't said much at all about the related rules in the new MA. There's plenty I'd like to say, based on what I've heard so far, but I'll withhold comment until I've actually read the rules. (Ready when you are, e23!)

b) Thanks for the kind words on other parts of my site. In case you're concerned about me taking objections personally, really, no worries. I have no ability to get worked up over something as inconsequential as RPG forum discussions. The game issue under discussion here is not only the most trivial thing any of us will ever come across in life, it's even pretty trivial within the context of a GURPS game! (And where melee is concerned, we're just a step above "number of angels on the head of a pin" on the trivialness scale. : )

c) In the end, I think we do more agreeing than disagreeing, and am happy with where the discussion stands. I'll confess, though, that every time a debate on the topic's come up over the years, I've only ended up liking my rule even more. No exception this time, especially after the discussion's gotten me to review my play experiences and written text all over again.

The objections are well-ordered and -detailed; they'll be of use to any reader, and I'm sure will be accepted by some (many? all?) readers. But my Stubbornness disad is acting up, and more than ever, I heartily endorse DECIDE (in all its glorious triviality : ), complete with unapologetic "zero-bookkeeping, zero-extra-rolls, zero-effort" claim.

Anyway, again, thanks for the many comments; it has been a help in giving the concept and article some needed polish.

[fredo01]

I am sure that Kenclary will answer your post but I had to comment.

Originally Posted by tbone

1) We may have a mutual misunderstanding. I'm not imagining a guy in melee making defenses at some 'too early to be effective' stage, which is the big objection I read into your comments. I'm at no point suggesting that any fighter would do something like "over-commit, over-extend, telegraph".

I'm only talking about the distinction between the guy saying "yikes, that's coming at my head, gotta parry!", versus his saying, a split instant later, "yikes, that's coming at my... aw, it's just gonna be a haircut. Let it go."

Maybe my names "immediate defense" and "last-second defense" are still really, really lame. I'll take any better names. "Standard defense versus a seemingly legitimate threat", versus "The same, but with an extra split-second to make 100% certain that the attack's not going to fall short by a hair" – those are what I'm looking to name, but I'm fresh out of snappy English labels.

People watching the attack coming at them and knowing if its going to hit them or their hairline? Come on! You are just hammering the nail in the coffin of your "realistic" option.

Originally Posted by tbone

Whatever the names, everyone's pretty much agreed it's a realistic distinction when bullets fly, and maybe/sometimes/possibly in melee too where fighters of a certain experience level are concerned, so we can let the remaining subset of disputed cases lie without agreement. (This whole melee biz has little mechanical game effect anyway, and is easy to ignore completely.)

Not everyone agreed.

Originally Posted by tbone

3) Re "re-ordering defense sequence", "extra steps", "procedural complexity", etc.: Let's massively (and cheerfully) disagree. I guess there's no chance of seeing eye-to-eye on whether the game's better when characters react immediately to imminent danger, or when we set that aside so the GM can first get down to calculating TH mods and rolling dice. To each his own idea of fun. (One request, though: you slipped in a mention again of "more rolls", and that's gotta go. My writeup involves Absolutely. No. Extra. Rolls. Really.)

There are extra rolls and you are outright lying about it. If someone misses on his attack roll, a defense roll is an extra roll. Whats so hard to understand about that?

Originally Posted by tbone

All I discuss is a simple matter of withholding unreasonable knowledge; that's it.

Riiiight. An obvious miss is a unreasonable knowledge while getting frame by frame information about incoming attack and deciding whether to defend now or later isnt.