03-23-2016, 08:57 AM | #81 |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Dodgin' Bullets
Having given this some thought, here are some ideas of how to handle the dodging of bullets and the like.
There are three ways to avoid a ranged attack. The first is to simply make yourself difficult to hit - this is Evasive Movement in one form or another, and should give an attack penalty. The second is to get out of the way of others' attempts to draw a bead on you. For Aiming, use the rules from On Target (Pyramid #3/77), but allow for the target to Dodge the Aiming attempt (the target should also be able to try and shake the Aim off on their own turn). For an attack, simply use the default Dodge rules. Against Sighted Shooting (All-Out or Committed), however, in the case of a successful defense the attacker should probably get a roll to hold their fire, as they can tell they aren't going to hit. The third is to perceive the projectile's path and get out of the way (or put something in the way). This uses the perception rules from Dodge This! (Pyramid #3/57), but apply a +10 to the check (don't apply this when determining if you can perceive it, however). On a success, check your MoS on the SSR table and see the distance that corresponds to that value - that is how far away the projectile is when you are able to react to it. Divide this distance by the projectile's speed in yards per second - this is how many seconds you have before the projectile reaches you. Multiply this number by 10 and read it as "yards" in the range column of the SSR table (rounding up as usual), and apply the corresponding SM value to the character's Active Defense. There is a hard limit here, based on the attacker's range and your own reaction speed (represented by unencumbered Dodge, with a further +9 for characters with ETS). You cannot* perceive the projectile from further away than where it originated, and you lose some time before actually being able to react to it. Determine how many seconds the projectile takes you reach you and subtract 0.2 from this for a character with Dodge 8 (every +1 to Dodge is -1 SSR to this value), then multiply by 10 and determine the corresponding bonus/penalty, as usual. This is the maximum bonus you can get. If it is 0 or lower, you are outright incapable of perceiving the projectile before it hits you, and thus cannot attempt such a defense (you can still Dodge the foe's aim, as above). Resolve the defense on the round the projectile would actually hit, for bullets that take a second or longer to strike. While cinematic, assume the bullet actually keeps heading toward the target, regardless of where they go**. When defending against an attack, use whichever of the last two rules gives a higher bonus. Note Predictive Shooting does not penalize Dodges when using the perception rules. Similarly, you can only use the perception rules to avoid bombardment-style attacks (like Suppression Fire and the like). The above is for Dodges - Blocks and Parries should be a bit more difficult, but I'm not certain exactly what the relationship should be (doubling any penalty and halving any bonus is a good quick-and-dirty option). Note this adds a lot of complication. Note also that we're kind of double-dipping with Dodge, as a character with a high Dodge has a higher absolute bonus. For example, let's say we've got someone firing a 600 y/s bullet from 200 yards away. The bullet takes 0.333 seconds to reach its target. A character with Dodge 8 cannot perceive it from closer than 0.133 seconds away, meaning he can't get better than Dodge -1 if basing his Dodge on perceiving the bullet. A character with Dodge 11, however, can perceive the bullet from up to 0.263 seconds away, allowing for a Dodge at +1. Give that Dodge 7 character ETS (boosting Dodge to 8, and Reaction Speed to 17) and he can perceive the bullet from 0.283 seconds away - good for a +1. Of course, the characters need to actually roll well enough on their Per checks to actually get these bonuses. *This being GURPS, you'll need to adjust these rules for characters with precognition. **Optionally, if the target moves at least 1 yard between the foe shooting the projectile and the projectile hitting, this replaces the Time of Flight modifier with a minimum roll. If a bullet would hit in 3 seconds (3d-15) but the target sees it at 2 seconds out, the roll becomes 1d-15+2. This is in addition to any applicable Dodge bonus. Last edited by Varyon; 03-23-2016 at 10:34 AM. Reason: BS 5 means Dodge 8, not Dodge 7; numbers adjusted to account for this |
03-23-2016, 10:08 AM | #82 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Dodgin' Bullets
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Unless your attacker has a sufficiently superior theory of mind that they can anticipate your attempts at random movement, there's not actually anything skill can do to compensate for the unknowable component of your displacement. It behaves like Dodge, not like an attack penalty.
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03-23-2016, 10:27 AM | #83 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Dodgin' Bullets
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Last edited by Varyon; 03-23-2016 at 10:33 AM. |
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03-23-2016, 10:35 AM | #84 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Dodgin' Bullets
It shouldn't when you're dodging by general evasive movement. This is hardly a novel observation.
Since when? Quote:
A skill penalty only makes any sense when the travel time is too short to actually evade in so it's a matter of the attacker shaving their aimpoint response time so as not to get faked out.
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I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident. |
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03-23-2016, 10:50 AM | #85 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Dodgin' Bullets
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Martial Arts. Each additional Dodge beyond the first in a given round is at a cumulative -1. Sure, it's an optional rule, but if you want to use it you'll have to give an explicit exclusion for evasive movement. Are you arguing, then, that Predictive Shooting shouldn't be a thing? That's certainly a position one can take, but I don't think we should have to choose between allowing for Evasive Movement and Predictive Shooting. Seeing as that's probably going to be the case for the vast majority of firefights, I'm fine with that. |
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03-23-2016, 11:03 AM | #86 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Dodgin' Bullets
Problem is that it's also true for the vast majority of melee combat, so the overall conclusion is to delete the concept of active defenses and handle everything with skill penalties. Which is not clearly wrong, but dramatically changes the entire flow of GURPS combat.
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03-23-2016, 11:06 AM | #87 | |||
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Dodgin' Bullets
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It is, in a very real sense, a passive defense. Quote:
EDIT: Second thought: Actually, maybe you should use it. Instead of representing a saturation of your ability to respond to multiple threats, it's a saturation of the space you could potentially (randomly) move into. Multiple attackers will tend to do that purely by accident/firing at slightly different times/having different guesses about your movement pattern. A coordinated firing pattern might upgrade it to -2 per attacker, if you take this angle! Of course it's not realistic that the one most likely to land a hit is the last one in the initiative line, but that's a general issue with GURPS combat sequencing, not a specific glitch here. Quote:
It seems fine against the 'I see you attacking and defend' type of thing, though I would consider it to be as much Deceptive as Predictive. I'm not fine with making the rules broken for everything else, and I don't know whether significantly shaving that reaction time is actually possible...
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I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident. Last edited by Ulzgoroth; 03-23-2016 at 11:11 AM. |
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03-23-2016, 11:45 AM | #88 | ||||
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Dodgin' Bullets
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It's more just that things must be rolled into abstractions in order to make the game playable. In a sense, you have a choice to make - do you want the abstraction to "break" close ranged combat (by not allowing for the shooter to adjust for the target's movements, despite the projectile hitting almost instantly), or do you want it to "break" long ranged combat (by allowing the shooter to adjust for movement that hasn't even started yet when he pulls the trigger/releases the arrow/whatever). |
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03-23-2016, 11:58 AM | #89 | |||
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Dodgin' Bullets
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Slightly yes - because if you're close enough that they can see you moving to attack and react, you're close enough that they can't actually move randomly (not enough time) and you can potentially read which way they're poised to move. Modulo perceptive capabilities on both sides. Quote:
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I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident. |
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03-23-2016, 12:30 PM | #90 | |||
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Dodgin' Bullets
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I'm saying that Predictive Shooting against Evasive Movement should be available, because it makes sense at close range. You were (or at least seemed to be) saying that Predictive Shooting against Evasive Movement shouldn't be available, because it doesn't make sense at long range. If we assume we're both correct (that PS makes sense at short range, not so much at long range), then either we have to decide which situation we want our rules to be accurate for ("breaking" in the other situation) or we need to come up with some additional rules for determining if we're in a "short range" (PS available) or "long range" (PS unavailable) situation. Having no good idea how to do the latter, I opted for the former, and felt that things "breaking" at long range was a lesser evil than them doing so at short range. |
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guns, tactical shooting |
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