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Old 01-10-2012, 09:29 AM   #21
Captain Joy
 
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Default Re: Hack n' slash?

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Originally Posted by Bruno View Post
One of the biggest things I've found for speeding up people starting in GURPS is to only put down on their sheet techniques or options that they have a 12 or higher in, and that leave their defenses at a reasonable level too.
This is what I gave to my newbie players. I call it Combat Ultralite (not to be confused with GURPS Ultralite).

GURPS combat can be as detailed as you want it to be. This richness of detail can be overwhelming to people new to RPGs. If you find Combat Lite too much to deal with, may I recommend Combat Ultralite.

TURN SEQUENCE: Go in order of Basic Speed. When your turn comes up, you may attack if you want to. You may also need to defend yourself one or more times.

ATTACKING: When it’s your turn, you may make one attack--
1. Make your attack roll. E.g. DX, Brawling, Boxing, or Karate to punch, Gun to shoot.
2. If you hit, your foe can try to defend.
3. If you hit and he fails to defend, roll for damage.

DEFENDING: When you need to, choose one of the following--
Dodge: You may dodge multiple different attacks during your turn. Dodge = Move+3
Block: You may block one melee attack during your turn. Block = (1/2)*(Shield Skill) +3.
Parry: You may parry one melee attack using a weapon or empty hand during your turn. Parry = (1/2)*(Broadsword, Brawling, Karate, etc. skill or DX) + 3.

DAMAGE AND INJURY
1. Roll to see how much basic damage you did. Check your weapon’s stats for this.
2. Subtract the victim’s DR from the basic damage to see how much gets through.
If any damage gets through DR, subtract it from the victim’s HPs.

Code:
Hit Points  Condition
   0        HT roll to stay conscious every turn until you fall unconscious.
 -HP        HT roll to stay alive, e.g. -10 when you normally have 10 HP.
-2HP        HT roll to stay alive, e.g. -20 when you normally have 10 HP.
-3HP        HT roll to stay alive, e.g. -30 when you normally have 10 HP.
-4HP        HT roll to stay alive, e.g. -40 when you normally have 10 HP.
-5HP        you die, e.g. -50 when you normally have 10 HP.
EXAMPLE
Ensign Ginger wants to shoot a Klingon crouched behind a console 10 yards away.
  1. Ginger’s Beam Weapon skill is 12, so Ginger will need to roll a 12 or less to hit the Klingon. Ginger rolls a 10 and “a blue beam streaks from Ensign Ginger’s phaser towards the Klingon when he pops up to see what’s going on”.
  2. The Klingon is hit, but he gets a chance to Dodge (but not Block or Parry). The Klingon’s Dodge is 8; he rolls a 13 and “the Klingon does not notice Ginger’s intention to fire in time to dodge her attack.”
  3. Ginger rolls to see how much damage her phaser does. Ginger’s phaser does 2d(2) burn damage. She rolls a 2 and a 4 for 6 points of basic damage and “the phaser energy hits him squarely in the chest”. (Ignore the “(2)” and “burn” until you’re ready and want to add more detail.
  4. The Klingon is wearing leather armor which has a 2 DR. Therefore, the Klingon loses (6*-*2*=) 4 hit points. He started with 12 HP, so now he’s down to 8 and “the Klingon is now wounded and returning fire!”.
(Eventually, you’ll be ready to deal with “crouched behind console 10 yards away”.)

Last edited by Captain Joy; 01-10-2012 at 09:34 AM. Reason: improved formatting
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Old 01-10-2012, 09:53 AM   #22
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Default Hack n' slash? [OT]

I keep seeing the thread title and thinking that I should dig up my old Reboot! campaign notes :?

I always kinda liked the two goons.
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Old 01-10-2012, 12:37 PM   #23
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Default Re: Hack n' slash?

For new players (or even complex characters) one good option is to do a bit of the math for any combinations in advance for anything the players think they'll have their characters do. This can be complex if their characters have lots of maneuvers, or relatively simple such as Neck Attack-8 (because they have skill-13 and intend to strike at the neck often) or even Telegraphic Attack: Neck-12 (given the same skill-13). A handful of such predetermined modified attacks (noting effects -- cutting attacks to the neck do double damage after penetrating DR, telegraphic attacks are +2 to defend against, etc.). That's handy.

Once you've been through a few combats, have the players look up any options they intend to use prior to their turn so that they're done (or mostly so) before they try to do something exotic. And have a standard "default" action for indecisive players (something like "Swing attack to weapon arm") or assume that they Do Nothing if they can't come up with an action when their turn comes up. After all, the player has had everyone else's turns to think about it. This is no different than enforcing such actions in DnD (nothing is less fun than someone wasting everyone's time while they decide what spell to cast, especially if they've been peppering everyone else with commentary up until their turn).

I've never used the combat cards, but they sound like a good idea if they work for you, and might help enumerate what options are available in combat.
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Old 01-10-2012, 01:04 PM   #24
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Default Re: Hack n' slash?

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Originally Posted by Sniperkitty View Post
Hi. I'm Sniperkitty. you may remember me from such recent threads as Loot in GURPS?? and ... well, that's it, but i'm here to ask more questions of seasoned GURPS players.

as you probably know, i'm coming from d20 OGL, and am considering jumping into GURPS. d20 is all about the hack n' slash. Well, it can be made to be so. jump in with a pre-fab character, start rolling your d20 and damage and you're killing monsters.

GURPS is much more geared toward story telling, correct? Is it true that the combat is weaker in GURPS? if so, what can be done to enhance the hack n' slash fun? or have i gathered and heard wrongly?
Completely wrong. There are many more options in GURPS combat, which makes it stronger, not weaker, than D&D.
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Old 01-10-2012, 01:13 PM   #25
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Default Re: Hack n' slash?

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Originally Posted by ULFGARD View Post
And have a standard "default" action for indecisive players (something like "Swing attack to weapon arm") or assume that they Do Nothing if they can't come up with an action when their turn comes up.
I generally agree with this, but specifically I want to recommend against "Do nothing". "Do nothing" is a terrible "you're taking too long" action. All Out Defense or Evaluate or even Wait are better options, as the player doesn't feel punished afterwards.

But definitely strongly recommend making sure there's a clear "Bread And Butter" attack for each PC. These are like the At Will attacks in D&D4e - things you'll do a lot that are always reasonable choices. The risk-reward ratio is decent with no special risk of loosing a limited-uses ability on a bad choice (or in GURPS, FP and other combat resources). These shouldn't be the "also ran" colourless ability like "Swing weapon at torso", it should be something decent but not-too-complicated.
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Old 01-10-2012, 01:13 PM   #26
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Default Re: Hack n' slash?

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Originally Posted by Langy View Post
Completely wrong. There are many more options in GURPS combat, which makes it stronger, not weaker, than D&D.
I completely agree. I find it completely unbearable trying to play games without active defense and hit locations, at the very least.

I find d20 combat quite boring unless I'm a spellcaster.
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Old 01-10-2012, 01:19 PM   #27
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Default Re: Hack n' slash?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruno View Post
I generally agree with this, but specifically I want to recommend against "Do nothing". "Do nothing" is a terrible "you're taking too long" action. All Out Defense or Evaluate or even Wait are better options, as the player doesn't feel punished afterwards.

But definitely strongly recommend making sure there's a clear "Bread And Butter" attack for each PC. These are like the At Will attacks in D&D4e - things you'll do a lot that are always reasonable choices. The risk-reward ratio is decent with no special risk of loosing a limited-uses ability on a bad choice (or in GURPS, FP and other combat resources). These shouldn't be the "also ran" colourless ability like "Swing weapon at torso", it should be something decent but not-too-complicated.
This is a great situation to use the Trademark Move perk. It can act as a "standard operating procedure" perk - if you don't make a choice, you default to this action. The +1 skill bonus is frosting on the cake.
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Old 01-10-2012, 01:32 PM   #28
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Default Re: Hack n' slash?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruno View Post
I generally agree with this, but specifically I want to recommend against "Do nothing". "Do nothing" is a terrible "you're taking too long" action. All Out Defense or Evaluate or even Wait are better options, as the player doesn't feel punished afterwards.
I agree in general. I have reserved the Do Nothing or Wait options for players with mage PCs who have outright refused to create anything resembling SOP for their characters. I didn't want to, but having a player stare blankly at the game and/or give advice to other players (not generally allowed, but I do allow it for new players or in some games for funsies)/make offhand remarks then grind combat to a halt while he goes through his spell list, finally decides there's nothing good for him to use, then look back at the map, decide there's not a "good" move, and Do Nothing or Wait after all. HIGHLY annoying after awhile. He didn't want to lose control of his character by having a default action, yet he WOULD say things like "just have me do something useful," which isn't the GM's job. Hopefully this isn't a problem for Snipperkitty.

So the "default" action should be something like Attack Torso, or Wait (if there's no one immediately at hand to attack). Reserve "Do Nothing" for players who are obstinate enough to refuse a productive and balanced default option.

----
I will say this: what I did for my difficult player (with the "have me do something useful" type of action when he couldn't think of something better) was this: I'd have him evaluate the situation looking to use skills he possessed (Hidden Lore, Tactics, and Thaumatology in particular). I'd roll vs. Per-5 for him in secret, adding +1 for each turn. On a success, I'd make an appropriate roll. The margin of success would affect the quality of the suggestion I gave him, with a crit revealing something that only *I* knew was going to happen. This was a case of a player who would panic under pressure (he once had a character die because he cast yet another fire spell literally one round AFTER the bad guy had laughed in his face and told him that he had prepared for fire spells). Even his screwing off was a part of this -- he was blowing off nervous energy. Yet he was playing thoughtful characters. I used this mechanism to give him the ability to play a character with mental attributes he himself lacked. It ended up working in the end.
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Last edited by ULFGARD; 01-10-2012 at 01:38 PM.
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Old 01-10-2012, 01:42 PM   #29
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Default Re: Hack n' slash?

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...he cast yet another fire spell literally one round AFTER the bad guy had laughed in his face and told him that he had prepared for fire spells...
So your players usually trust the bad guys? ;-)
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Old 01-10-2012, 01:50 PM   #30
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Default Re: Hack n' slash?

For the slow ones I like evaluate as a default action. It makes their attack more likely to work so when they do decide they have better options and feel like it was productive time.
All out Defense if their hurt or overwhelmed is good too.
But ideally they have a SOP move.
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