Range penalties fix

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by tbone

I've considered the same sort of setup in melee, though I haven't played it yet. I like GURPS' one-second turns, because a person certainly *can* swing a weapon that fast... but of course he wouldn't necessarily do so, especially an inexperienced and unconfident fighter. So I considered whether the TH roll could allow for "you didn't see an opening, or otherwise didn't commit to attacking", replacing some instances of just "you miss".

From your post, I was just wondering whether by chance you'd tried out some variation of that in combat.

It is pretty much how I've always played it. The main difference being in melee, it does not really matter whether you've swung and missed or just did not get an opportunity to strike - you don't use up any ammo and it is not usually like you are in a situation where your strike will alert an otherwise unaware target (as is often the case when aiming).

In this case a successful defense roll may also mean that the defender positioned himself in a way that did not allow you an attack, rather than actually avoiding an attack you made.

Luke

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Rupert

That would probably be a reasonable way of modelling this. I'm not sure what the 'error margin' should be, though.

One option would be the accuracy of the weapon being used. Otherwise, a fixed number (like my suggestion of three) would probably be good enough for game purposes. If anyone gets the chance to try this out, let us know how the "error margin" you used worked for you.

Luke

[tbone]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

It is pretty much how I've always played it. The main difference being in melee, it does not really matter whether you've swung and missed or just did not get an opportunity to strike - you don't use up any ammo and it is not usually like you are in a situation where your strike will alert an otherwise unaware target (as is often the case when aiming).

In this case a successful defense roll may also mean that the defender positioned himself in a way that did not allow you an attack, rather than actually avoiding an attack you made.

Luke

For those reasons, I normally wouldn't worry about a difference between "you didn't attack", and "you missed", in most RPGs -- it's just a difference in interpreting what happened.

But that doesn't sit well with GURPS, where the specifics of your action often *do* matter. An easy example: with an unbalanced weapon, it matters a lot whether you swung and missed or didn't swing at all.

So, I suppose if I were to add a "you didn't attack" result to combat possibilities, whether for melee or ranged, I'd likely do something like you suggested: declare a result of "no attack" if the roll "misses" by, say, 2 or less. That'd keep a distinction clear, as GURPS requires. But I haven't played it yet, so don't know how well it'd fly...

Anyway, thanks for the thoughts --

[Kyle Aaron]

So, this is what my GM and I settled on in the end,

Range/size penalties:
In a situation in which the attacker is not under health-threatening stress (eg sniper, etc), the range and size penalties are halved. In a completely non-threatening situation, such as at the rifle range, there is a +5 bonus for an easy action, too. If in doubt as to whether the character feels under threat (such as, they're under indirect mortar fire, but in a bunker), have them make a Will roll.

Dodging missile weapons
In order to Dodge, you have to be aware of the attack. For this, you must make a Perception roll to realise the guy is shooting at you. This roll is at a penalty according to his distance from you, with a -6 if it's a bullet, a -4 if it's an arrow, rpg, etc, and -2 if it's a spear, axe, etc. A large rock, etc would be +0 to spot. This applies even if the attacker is the only one firing at you, his only target, since you must be able to judge exactly when he's firing, etc. Sometimes the Perception roll will be helped by Vision, other times by Hearing, depending on the situation. +1 for Combat Reflexes.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by Jim Bob

Dodging missile weapons
In order to Dodge, you have to be aware of the attack. For this, you must make a Perception roll to realise the guy is shooting at you. This roll is at a penalty according to his distance from you, with a -6 if it's a bullet, a -4 if it's an arrow, rpg, etc, and -2 if it's a spear, axe, etc. A large rock, etc would be +0 to spot. This applies even if the attacker is the only one firing at you, his only target, since you must be able to judge exactly when he's firing, etc. Sometimes the Perception roll will be helped by Vision, other times by Hearing, depending on the situation. +1 for Combat Reflexes.

I don't like this as a general rule.

The first part should be a perception check to see if someone is pointing a weapon at you (or in your direction). Once you realize that presumably you should start evading. Dodge represents this form of erratic movement, even though you only roll against the shots that would hit.

[Kaell]

I would think it best to have some distinction between projectiles you can see and try to dodge, vs ones you can only move erratically to be a harder target. You can dodge a spear, you cannot dodge a bullet. Projectile velocity needs to be taken into account somewhere in here.

[Kyle Aaron]

Originally Posted by Kaell

I would think it best to have some distinction between projectiles you can see and try to dodge, vs ones you can only move erratically to be a harder target. You can dodge a spear, you cannot dodge a bullet. Projectile velocity needs to be taken into account somewhere in here.

Well, the reasoning is that you're not dodging the bullet, you're just jumping about when you know the guy's about to fire on you. If you see a guy with a semi-automatic pistol, you know that when it fires, the round's likely to go high and to the right. So you should go low and to your own right, it's more likely to miss you than if you jump left.

When he's holding the pistol, though, it's hard to perceive the exact moment he's going to fire, or where he's aiming at. Thus, the -6.

Whereas seeing him biff a spear is much easier.

The difficulty really is that GURPS is a two-roll combat system; you roll to hit, your victim rolls to avoid. In a single-roll system, where his avoidance is subtract from your to hit roll, it makes more sense. Whether he's really dodging, or just jumping about to make himself a harder target, becomes irrelevant.

The problem's also in their choice of the word, "Dodge." It'd make more sense if we called it "evasiveness" or something. Just think of being down on a firing range. There's a still target up there, it's relatively easy to hit. Now, someone takes the target and starts swinging it about randomly. They're behind the butt of the range, they can't see you at all, but they're still jigging the frigging target about, making it harder for you to hit. The target, you could say it's "dodging", but it's not really. It's just moving about.

[cmdicely]

Originally Posted by Jim Bob

Well, the reasoning is that you're not dodging the bullet, you're just jumping about when you know the guy's about to fire on you.

That logic, BTW, suggests you should be able to make Deceptive Attacks and Feints with firearms.

[Luther]

Originally Posted by cmdicely

That logic, BTW, suggests you should be able to make Deceptive Attacks and Feints with firearms.

good point...

[Kyle Aaron]

Originally Posted by cmdicely

That logic, BTW, suggests you should be able to make Deceptive Attacks and Feints with firearms.

Well, why not? Works for me. But probably just easier to continue what we already do, which is that havnig a weapon gives you a bog bonus to Intimidation skill.

We already have it that most humans have got some form of Pacifism disadvantage, as per recommendation for "Realistic" campaign in the text there. Adding in use of weapons in Intimidation skill, and you find that not so many conflicts end in lethal violence.

Very few fights in reality are to the death. Here in Australia, each year we have about 16 assaults for every murder. Our game's trying to simulate that, but that's a genre assumption. It'd be rather different if we were doing GURPS D&D...