09-28-2020, 09:40 AM | #11 |
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: How to avoid Retreating Dodge Spam
Retreat has nothing at all to do with Move. The two concepts are completely unrelated. The intended means of controlling infinite retreats on the part of one fighter is the presence of obstacles. But constant back-and-forth as both fighters step and retreat is also intended – people who don't like it can make use of Deceptive Attack, Feint, grappling, you name it.
Yes, it's a common house rule to say that retreat costs a movement point, but that isn't part of the rules. Retreat amounts to "Each turn, you may focus on one attacker to get a defensive bonus against that foe." The step back doesn't even matter in basic combat without a map! At least, not unless the GM decides to make it matter. On a map, it's a full hex of movement only due to the fact that's the quantum of movement in GURPS . . . it may literally be nothing more than giving an inch, but it's more "interesting" if it has a visual. The fact that this creates other artifacts in the movement system is accepted and ignored, and has been since Man to Man in 1985.
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09-28-2020, 10:14 AM | #12 |
Join Date: Aug 2019
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Re: How to avoid Retreating Dodge Spam
Thank you for your clarification.
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09-28-2020, 02:14 PM | #13 | |||
Join Date: Aug 2018
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Re: How to avoid Retreating Dodge Spam
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B92 mentions that retreat "relies on ground contact" but I'm sure it says (or at least implies) you can do aerial/aquatic retreats w/o touching ground as an override. Quote:
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If retreat is "exactly as for a step" yet not technically a step then would that mean Dodge and Drop "similar to a retreat" is mutually exclusive and in 1 turn you can Retreat vs foe A's melee attacks and Dodge and Drop vs foe B's ranged attacks? |
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09-28-2020, 11:58 PM | #14 |
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: The former Chochenyo territory
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Re: How to avoid Retreating Dodge Spam
If your opponent has a reliable defense, I think you have a couple different options:
1) change the nature of the fight - as others have suggested, using terrain or grappling the enemy can make the Retreat no longer viable; 2) go big on Deceptive Attack - drop your attack down to the 10-13 range to penalize their defense as much as possible; 3) fish for critical hits - use Deceptive Attack, but only drop your attack to 16 to maximize your chance of a critical hit (9%) for which there is no defense allowed; 4) Feint if you are more skilled. Since the Feint technique can be bought up to +4 over weapon skill, this is by far the most common technique I see purchased for weapon skills, as it deals perfectly with otherwise equally skilled opponents. Also, as others have noted, this can be regarded as a feature, not a bug. Fights between equally skilled opponents in the real world and in fiction often last longer than a few seconds. Many people have introduced house rules and systems (Last Gasp, etc) to make GURPS fights last longer, with the view that resolving in 5 seconds or less does not imitate fiction or reality well. Ultimately it's up to what your table considers the most fun.
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09-29-2020, 10:16 AM | #15 | |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Sweden, Stockholm
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Re: How to avoid Retreating Dodge Spam
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It is when you're dealing with f.ex. a skill 13 fighter with a sword vs a skill 14 fighter with a mace that the fights tend to get less interesting I feel. I can't really figure out anything more interesting either would do other than just take turns attacking. Usually the fights that happen are quite interesting I feel. F.ex. I had one fairly skilled knight (broadsword-16, I think) taking on a bunch of guards in a small room by dancing around a table and taking all sorts of strategic risks to avoid getting cornered. It is mostly the really even fights I want to figure out how to spice up (without too much stuff, like the enemies getting impatient and doing All-out-Attack Double, f.ex.).
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10-03-2020, 12:05 AM | #16 |
Join Date: Nov 2016
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Re: How to avoid Retreating Dodge Spam
Have you thought about area of effect attacks or even cone attacks? You can't simply dodge those (at least not easily).
You could also target the guy with different attacks; retreat dodge only works against the roll of a single attack move. Also, as a GM you know all of the characters in advance. If characters are overpowered in a certain niche (which happens to have a broad application) and if you feel that they are abusing of it, give them niche challenges.
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10-03-2020, 12:37 AM | #17 | |
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Dreamland
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Re: How to avoid Retreating Dodge Spam
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And this is all assuming the fight doesn't end in two turns. If two people fighting are trying to kill each other, the best way to survive that fight is to give your opponent less chances to do anything. Risk-reward really matters because every die roll is a possible critical that can screw you over or even is just flatly capable of downing you. A fight to the death isn't about playing fair, it's about being ruthless and exploiting every single out because you don't know if your opponent is better than you at everything. |
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10-03-2020, 12:53 AM | #18 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: How to avoid Retreating Dodge Spam
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The simple back and forth of (advancing) Attack vs. retreating defense is perfectly reasonable, in a 1-1 fight where both parties have equal reach, no advantageous options, and are both motivated to simply hang in there. With Martial Arts they could even go further and make Defensive Attacks to maximize the 'battle of attrition' approach! The thing is that that's a fight that is dull (or at least more suspenseful than exciting) by the choice of all participants. What is motivating them to fight that way? Are they hoping their backup will show up if they last long enough? Are they understandably but a bit myopically focused on not getting hurt for as long as possible? Using The Last Gasp (Pyramid 3/44) might change the trajectory of this sort of exchange, as the tempo of advance-attack-retreating defense is pretty rapidly draining and somebody is going to wind up running short of action points and pressured to change the game somehow. Of course, that could simply result in a mutual breather if neither fighter is motivated to try to press an advantage there, which might be even more boring!
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10-03-2020, 07:26 AM | #19 | ||
Join Date: Aug 2018
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Re: How to avoid Retreating Dodge Spam
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Never really had this problem in Whirlwhind Barbarian v. Multipleshot Amazon duels since you couldn't walk backwards and had to turn back to shoot. Quote:
Pretty much the only way to overcome them without changing maneuvers is to have Extra Step [25] or Move 11 (2 yard step). 3e's Compendium had an optional rule I think used to give 1 step per 4 full points of move (25%) rounding fractions down (except sub-1, rounds up to 1) under "increased step for high move" (pg 72) which was more generous than 4e (B368: only 1/10 your move) since you got 1st extra step at Move 8 instead of Move 11, 3rd step at Move 12 instead of Move 21, etc. The wording in 3e was a bit off since it said step was INCREASED per full 4 points, but it's more like 1 step PER full 4 points unless they mean increased from 0. If it was increased from 1 then you'd expect 2 steps at move 4, 3 steps at move 8. 72 also gave ATR free per each 6 move though it was madness |
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10-03-2020, 09:25 AM | #20 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: How to avoid Retreating Dodge Spam
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Its helpful if your actual problem is with positioning, not with active defense rolls, but that doesn't seem to be the subject here.
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retreat, step |
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