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Old 04-21-2013, 12:22 PM   #21
Tomsdad
 
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Default Re: Knowing the outcome of an attack before choosing to actively defend

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Originally Posted by Pagan View Post
I've never been in a fight or even seen a real fight where a person threw a feint so bad or missed with an attack so badly that the opponent didn't react to it. Even if it's just getting hit because their reaction was too slow. Even bad blows get blocked, parried or dodged. Not reacting only happens when the opponent is stunned, blindsided or covering up.

What any boxing match or UFC fight fight and see if you can spot one.
I think he's not talking about just missed blows, but critically missed ones.

However I would take such bad misses (and the implications of them) as being the catered for on the relevant critical miss tables already.

I can think of UFC fights etc where something goes spectacularly wrong and someone ends up flat on their ass by mistake.
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Old 04-21-2013, 12:46 PM   #22
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Default Re: Knowing the outcome of an attack before choosing to actively defend

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Originally Posted by jacobmuller View Post
Don't know where I read the following but it was probably Kromm:
How come I know when I don’t have to defend?
It's important not to imagine that the defender is standing still and only reacting to a direct and successful attack. This creates a bizarre scene where you know the attack is going to miss and just stand there, and the attacker is whacking at the air beside you in an utterly inept manner.
Just because an attack "missed" doesn't mean you aren't defending. It just means the attack was clumsy enough that any sort of defending was minor and required so little effort that it didn't consume your active defence. It only counts as an active defence if the attack was successful and therefore took enough effort to deplete your defences.
Missing, in the chaos of battle, often means that you failed to anticipate your opponent’s movements and adjust to them, and ended up attacking somewhere he wasn't, grazing his shield or putting your attack where it could be easily and effortlessly deflected. In practice the enemy is moving about (dodging), hiding behind his shield (blocking) and trying to brush aside your attacks (parrying) the whole time.

I'd be delighted if one of you Gurus could correct me.
Thing is that fine and I agree with it to an extent, its just for me that's already covered by the general assumption that this all takes place under general combat conditions and why we have that +4 mod for non combat situations (or the +4 telegraphic attack option). i.e we're not assuming that people are just standing still being hit or not entirely basing attack success on the attackers ability to hit a static target.

Also it still seems predicated on the idea that an active defence is an qualitative increased response to a more effective attack. Which is still the same issue for me, as it would seem to be a judgement based on hind sight, rather than an attempt to stop something from happening?

However we're getting to the semantics of when does an attack become 'successful' for it to be recognised as such, here, so POV is going to going to critical

However as I said I might allow both, but give a neg for those who "wait and see" as it were. And the more I think about it it's still iffy in dodging missile attacks where 'waiting and seeing' isn't really a viable option.

Last edited by Tomsdad; 04-22-2013 at 12:51 AM.
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Old 04-21-2013, 12:53 PM   #23
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Default Re: Knowing the outcome of an attack before choosing to actively defend

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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
Good point, it's just the commitment that's required. (Although if the assumption is it happened you might want to know if you had a critical success on the defence leading to a critical failure for the attacker). Critical successes are on defence rolls are pretty fringe, but if your defending more often it seems a touch unfair to remove you chances of getting extra critical successes, no matter how small. However given the majority of defence skills are between 7-15 I guess they balance out with critical failures so removing both by not rolling probably balances out overall.
A critical success on a defense roll has no bearing whatsoever on whether an attacker has a critical failure or not.
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Old 04-21-2013, 12:58 PM   #24
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Default Re: Knowing the outcome of an attack before choosing to actively defend

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Originally Posted by Langy View Post
A critical success on a defense roll has no bearing whatsoever on whether an attacker has a critical failure or not.
Sorry I meant given most defence scores are not very low or very high, the ranges for critical success and failure will be the same so if you remove them (by not bothering to make the roll when you don't need to determine success or failure) it's neither an advantage or disadvantage to the 'roller'.

Last edited by Tomsdad; 04-22-2013 at 12:03 AM.
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Old 04-21-2013, 01:10 PM   #25
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Default Re: Knowing the outcome of an attack before choosing to actively defend

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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
However as I said I might allow both, but give a neg for those who "wait and see" as it were. And the more I think about it it's still iffy in dodging missile attacks.
Sorry, missed that!
I've seen something before about using full skill for defence (with mods to make it the same thing anyway). Could be fun: you're being attacked, do you want to defend before I roll - at full skill, or after I roll - at half+3?
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Old 04-21-2013, 02:10 PM   #26
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Default Re: Knowing the outcome of an attack before choosing to actively defend

Isn't the Pyramid article with Ten Tweaks to Combat focused on RANGED attacks and not melee. I like the idea of DECIDE, but only for ranged attacks.
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Old 04-21-2013, 02:20 PM   #27
DouglasCole
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Default Re: Knowing the outcome of an attack before choosing to actively defend

There are limited circumstances, usually involving rank amateurs, worry attack is so mind-boggling with obvious that defending is not necessary. Reacting isn't even necessary. I saw this frequently as early martial arts students begin to spar. They grow out of this quite quickly, but usually these involve all out telegraphic attacks. Even with that bonus, they can still miss badly, and obviously.

In fact, that might be the best way to handle it. And attack that is telegraphic does not require a use of your limited defenses if after you declare it misses.

You will almost never see a UFC match in which the combatants are so unskilled that this is something to worry about. But when fighting from default, it is much more frequent.
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Old 04-22-2013, 12:01 AM   #28
Tomsdad
 
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Default Re: Knowing the outcome of an attack before choosing to actively defend

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Originally Posted by jacobmuller View Post
Sorry, missed that!
I've seen something before about using full skill for defence (with mods to make it the same thing anyway). Could be fun: you're being attacked, do you want to defend before I roll - at full skill, or after I roll - at half+3?
It could be good, and it adds a bit more in. I haven't decided on the penalty. I've gamed out the original stuff I posted but not this so off the top of my head half the MoS round up. I want to make it a meaningful decision, and I like the idea that it's more difficult to do against better attacks (and that fits in with a continuum where a attack good enough to be 'critical' makes a defence impossible). But this is one more calculation (all be it not a hard one) that you have to make in the fly. But then I started this!

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There are limited circumstances, usually involving rank amateurs, worry attack is so mind-boggling with obvious that defending is not necessary. Reacting isn't even necessary. I saw this frequently as early martial arts students begin to spar. They grow out of this quite quickly, but usually these involve all out telegraphic attacks. Even with that bonus, they can still miss badly, and obviously.

In fact, that might be the best way to handle it. And attack that is telegraphic does not require a use of your limited defenses if after you declare it misses.

You will almost never see a UFC match in which the combatants are so unskilled that this is something to worry about. But when fighting from default, it is much more frequent.
That's a good idea and reinforces the idea that telegraphic attack is in fact a non combat option taken in combat.

On fighting from default if you do the tweak of penalising wait and see defence you will force the unskilled to make their choice first, which I think is reasonable as they will lack the experience to read the combat and pre-empt that more skilled fighters would have.

I like the rules for unskilled fighters going either AoA or AoD in MA for similar reasons.

Last edited by Tomsdad; 04-22-2013 at 12:12 AM.
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Old 04-22-2013, 07:46 AM   #29
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Default Re: Knowing the outcome of an attack before choosing to actively defend

Hi all. There are several old threads discussing DECIDE, and more on my site, so I don't know if there's much new to be said, but quick notes for the curious:

The full write-up is at http://www.gamesdiner.com/decide . It discusses the full what and why, the benefits and drawbacks, the special-case considerations, etc. (The version there also addresses my failed Writing rolls in old write-ups, which I hope has cleared up some early points of confusion.)

The sweetly short version that appeared in Pyramid only addresses the most important usage scenario, defense vs bullets. It's the simple rule I'd suggest interested GMs try out. All it says is:

People can't actually track and dodge bullets. When the lead flies, don't tell the targets, "Miss... Miss... Oh, this one's going to hit! What do you do?"

Instead, tell the targets, "They're shooting at you! What do you do?"

That's all. From there, everything proceeds as you'd expect: The targets take action – Drop? Dive for cover? Dodge generically? Hold fast [to Aim, Concentrate, etc.] and hope the bullets miss? – as appropriate for a character under fire. If TH misses, then the gunfire misses, per RAW. If TH hits, then the gunfire might hit: the target checks defense, per RAW.

Nothing else to it, other than the consideration of whether to do the same for non-gunfire attacks. It's debatable. I like the effects in melee (see article), but the "why not defend?" reply that jacobmuller posted (I hadn't seen that before) is a fine explanation for GMs who'd prefer to leave melee as it is. No problem there!

But for defense vs gunfire, the above tweak is sensible and, IMO, just more fun.

Quote:
Originally Posted by malloyd View Post
In addition to degrading defenses in combats with multiple foes, the other major downside is probably making combats slower - you are adding one more exchange with the player (to ask what defense they use or not)
Correct. Though for me, "The Nazis open fire; what do you do!?" is exactly the decision I want to play in combat. I find it more fun to hear the player shout "I dive for cover!", than to tell the player to wait up [and possibly do nothing] while we do some dice rolling first...

YMMV, of course!

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Originally Posted by malloyd View Post
and one extra die roll...
I think there's a misunderstanding here. Per my example above: No extra die roll, no bookkeeping, just character reaction to a life-or-death threat.

Anyway, that's it in a nutshell. If you're curious, give it a try in a gun battle!
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Old 04-22-2013, 11:43 AM   #30
Tomsdad
 
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Default Re: Knowing the outcome of an attack before choosing to actively defend

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Correct. Though for me, "The Nazis open fire; what do you do!?" is exactly the decision I want to play in combat. I find it more fun to hear the player shout "I dive for cover!", than to tell the player to wait up [and possibly do nothing] while we do some dice rolling first...
Especially if there three players standing next to each other, two of them on finding out they are going to get hit by incoming fire so dive out the way, the last guy knowing he's not stays were he is because he knows he's alright.

Personally I'd give him some cp's if he stays there because he know's nazi's can't shoot for sh*t and calmly fire's back while the bullets fly around him!

*genre depending!
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