[MA] 'Tactical Counters' for other tactics/Manoeuvres/Techniques?

[giganerds]

I get your point Molock, what you want is a table with one column "if the opponet do this..." and other column "...then is better react with this". It's somewaht difficult to do, most of what you asking to be write is abstract by the skill level, but some cases are suitable to be done. Most of the whole thing is choose not a particular technique but a combat option.

Lets try again.

1. Againts a extra attack (afford by any means), where the attacker exchange one of it move to a deffensive feint and you are in trouble to hit him, then simply use attacks to particular hit location and try to respond with one of the following:

• Counter-Attack if you have it at maximum (-5 is a great penalty and you already have penalties from the deffensive feint to handle).
• Evaluate for a while and then hit it or use the bonus to resist the feint.
• If you have a weapon with better reach, try to maneuver to mantain him at bay, so he cannot be so able to hit you.
• Instead of attacking enter in wait and search for a hole (in GURPS terms, attack him just before he feint).

• If you having really huge penalties, Telegraphics attacks helps you. It's better to make your opponent rolls a AD with a bonus than don't roll.

• Riposte him if you have a good parry.

I need to think the other cases, but is this what you want?

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by Molokh

DWA can be used untrained, but DWD is mostly about ignoring the -1 to defenses from DWA. I'm asking what to do when you notice your opponent constantly DWA's.

That's part of DWD, but not all of it. If you are wielding a 2 hex weapon, you can parry both attacks with only one parry if you have Dual-Weapon Defense.

As for what to do...just because you notice something doesn't mean you can do something about it.

If your opponent is using a Style you have Familiarity with, then you do get to reduce that style's deceptive attack.

But if you really want to get exceptionally persnickety and detailed you can use the rules from Targeted Attack. MA68 says, "Repeating a Targeted Attack makes you predictable. If you use the same TA twice on a foe in a fight, he defends at +1 against your third and later uses." Under combinations, it mentions that everything is really a targeted attack...including punch to the torso. So if you really want to increase defense even more, then just rule that if any PC/NPC makes any attack more than twice the defender automatically gets a +1 to defend vs. subsequent uses.

This would involve more bookkeeping, but if you really want it, then go for it.

Punch someone in the face? You can only do it twice in a fight before your opponent gets a bonus. Swing your sword vs. a person's torso? Only twice...then a bonus to defense. You'd probably have to have a tally sheet for each combatant and make a note over every single attack they make vs. any and every target so that you can track repetition.

Trogdar (Fight 1)
Turn 1: Sword Swing Torso 1
Turn 2: Sword Swing Torso 2
Turn 3: Sword Thrust Torso 1
Turn 4: Sword Thrust Torso 2
Turn 5: Sword Thrust Vitals 1
Turn 6: Sword Thrust Vitals 2
Turn 7: Hm...can't repeat anything...Sword Swing Left Arm 1
Turn 8: Sword Swing Left Arm 2

You would certainly get variety and you'd further favor defense. If that is what you want you can do that.

[Xplo]

Originally Posted by Molokh

In real life, there are no superior techniques/manoeuvres, as each has a weak side, and is vulnerable to a certain set of counters.

Well, I wouldn't quite say that. There are good maneuvers, and there are other maneuvers. The good ones are better. (I think MA actually has a bit about fraudulent teachers and fake Techniques that explains/implements this idea pretty well.) And sometimes the best counter to something is to just block, parry, or get the hell out of the way. Not everything has a secret weakness to exploit.

But mostly, there's nothing you can actually do to be better off against a certain type of behavior. Here's what I mean:

• If an opponent decides to Dual-Attack, there's just nothing I can do once I notice this to make double-attacking less advantageous.
• If I know that my opponent will target the Vitals and I have a Shield, I nonetheless cannot choose to keep it over my vitals, sacrificing protection of other locations.
• So my opponent likes do Deceptive-Attack; what can I do to be more 'on alert' against such tricks? Other than going All-Out Defense and eventually losing anyway.
• Opponent can afford two attacks (DWA or EA), and always uses one of them on a Defensive Feint to make hitting him harder. What can I do to make his defense-booster less effective - while in combat, not by spending weeks on the Feint technique.

Dual Attack: Right, there's nothing special you can do. Take some solace in the fact that he's taking penalties to perform the attack that he could otherwise dump into Deceptive Attack. Maybe you can counterattack off of your defense. Or maybe you should have disarmed him first.

Shield: I don't see why not. Tell your GM "I'm holding my shield over my vitals, no matter what." Someone could really do that, so I can't see any reason to disallow it. Of course, it's an awkward way to fight (you can't use your shield arm for balance or anything) so a small penalty to other actions seems appropriate, and requiring a Will roll not to use your shield to block attacks to other parts of your body probably wouldn't be out of line.

Deceptive Attack: If he attacks faster than you can comfortably defend against, knowing that isn't going to help you. If he attacks from angles you can't see, knowing that he's a crafty devil still doesn't mean you can see them. Etcetera. To defend against DAs, raise your weapon or Shield skills and/or buy Combat Reflexes.

Defensive Feinter: the point of a Feint is that it tricks you. If your character keeps falling for the feints, then obviously he's not good enough to tell which of his opponent's moves are Feints and which ones are real attacks.. so, again, knowing that he's a crafty devil doesn't help you. If you really, really want to counter his attempts to fake you out, try an All Out Attack (Determined). Of course, since the guy's apparently smarter than you, he'll probably cut you to ribbons on the next turn unless your All Out Attack takes him out first. Maybe you should learn some patience instead.

Better yet, have someone sneak up behind him and hit him with a table.

(Note: after reading some of the replies, it seems there may be actual rules for defending against DWA or guarding a certain body part. I was going off the top of my head, so if those rules exist, you should probably use those instead.)

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by giganerds

1. Againts a extra attack (afford by any means), where the attacker exchange one of it move to a deffensive feint and you are in trouble to hit him, then simply use attacks to particular hit location and try to respond with one of the following:

• Counter-Attack if you have it at maximum (-5 is a great penalty and you already have penalties from the deffensive feint to handle).
• Evaluate for a while and then hit it or use the bonus to resist the feint.
• If you have a weapon with better reach, try to maneuver to mantain him at bay, so he cannot be so able to hit you.
• Instead of attacking enter in wait and search for a hole (in GURPS terms, attack him just before he feint).

• If you having really huge penalties, Telegraphics attacks helps you. It's better to make your opponent rolls a AD with a bonus than don't roll.

• Riposte him if you have a good parry.

I need to think the other cases, but is this what you want?

Yes, this is what I'm talking about. Thanks.

While I don't know the numbers, your ideas about Telegraphic Attacks and Evaluates against Defensive Feints are spot-on (at least if your skill drops to 9-). In fact, this seems to bring some usefulness to Evaluates, as they also happen to reduce effects of a Feint.

How Counterattack is better against such an opponent than against a normal one I don't see. Nor do I understand how Waiting would help: if you attack 'early', you're still under the effects of the previous feint. Also, why would a DWA-DFer (or EA-DFer) be more vulnerable to Ripostes than a normal attacker?

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Xplo

Dual Attack: Right, there's nothing special you can do. Take some solace in the fact that he's taking penalties to perform the attack that he could otherwise dump into Deceptive Attack. Maybe you can counterattack off of your defense. Or maybe you should have disarmed him first.

It seems that Disarming is actually less effective against DWA opponents (but still more routine-breaking!).

Originally Posted by Xplo

Shield: I don't see why not. Tell your GM "I'm holding my shield over my vitals, no matter what." Someone could really do that, so I can't see any reason to disallow it. Of course, it's an awkward way to fight (you can't use your shield arm for balance or anything) so a small penalty to other actions seems appropriate, and requiring a Will roll not to use your shield to block attacks to other parts of your body probably wouldn't be out of line.

As I said before, I'm surprised the mechanic isn't described in MA 4e.

Originally Posted by Xplo

Deceptive Attack: If he attacks faster than you can comfortably defend against, knowing that isn't going to help you. If he attacks from angles you can't see, knowing that he's a crafty devil still doesn't mean you can see them. Etcetera. To defend against DAs, raise your weapon or Shield skills and/or buy Combat Reflexes.

. . .
I think I just realized what bothers me: DA is an attack option which, if chosen properly, improves your overall chance to cause damage (by reducing your attack and the opponent's defense in such a way that the cumulative chance of a hit going through defenses is actually higher), but there are no defense options that, when chosen properly, would improve defensive odds. In fact, the only defense options are Retreat and Feverish Defense. Oh wait, Cross-Parries are good to use against a dedicated single-attacker. Seems like we're getting somewhere.

Originally Posted by Xplo

Defensive Feinter: the point of a Feint is that it tricks you. If your character keeps falling for the feints, then obviously he's not good enough to tell which of his opponent's moves are Feints and which ones are real attacks.. so, again, knowing that he's a crafty devil doesn't help you. If you really, really want to counter his attempts to fake you out, try an All Out Attack (Determined). Of course, since the guy's apparently smarter than you, he'll probably cut you to ribbons on the next turn unless your All Out Attack takes him out first. Maybe you should learn some patience instead.

Already looked at this one in the previous post.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Molokh

. . .
I think I just realized what bothers me: DA is an attack option which, if chosen properly, improves your overall chance to cause damage (by reducing your attack and the opponent's defense in such a way that the cumulative chance of a hit going through defenses is actually higher), but there are no defense options that, when chosen properly, would improve defensive odds. In fact, the only defense options are Retreat and Feverish Defense. Oh wait, Cross-Parries are good to use against a dedicated single-attacker. Seems like we're getting somewhere.

I think that's an unreasonable thing to be bothered about. Deceptive Attack is critical to making high skill combats work nicely, but picking the number to use isn't all that interesting, is it? I don't see the defender getting slighted here, I see the attacker being forced to guess a number to get his attacks to work properly.

Also, stick Defensive Grip on your list. It's not used at the moment of the strike, but at that point the defender doesn't have much to trade off for a stronger defense anyway. They're already doing about the best they can with the cards they dealt themselves in the preceding round.

[vicky_molokh]

Okay, so let's see what we can name already . . .

Manoeuvres - Counters:
Attack - ???
All-Out Attack - switch to Telegraphic Attack next turn.
Comitted Attack - if kicked then multiple Telegraphic Attacks; else ???.
Feint - (precognitive) Stop Hit during Feint; All-Out Attack if a Daredevil; ???.
All-Out Defense - Single Deceptive Attack; AoA:Feint if you're a Daredevil.
Defensive Attack - As above??
Move and Attack - (precognitive) try a Wait; capitalize on the no parry aspect.
Wait - long attack

Special Considerations - Counters:
Single Attack - Cross-Parry, (precognitive) Defensive Grip.
Multiple Attacks - Capitalize on Retreating Dodges?
Deceptive Attack - AoA if a Daredevil; ???
Defensive Feints - if (Skill-penalty)<10 then Telegraphic Attack and/or Evaluate; else ???.

[SuedodeuS]

Another idea might be to allow characters to choose to adapt to a fighting style. Even after only seeing someone use a given maneuver (small m) once - or based simply off reputation - a character can choose to anticipate such an attack. This would give some sort of bonus to defense against that maneuver. If a dual-wielder tends to do a DWA with feint and attack, you can opt to get a bonus against the feint - followed by a bonus to defense against the attack you know is coming immediately afterward. The counter to this would be that the attacker has the option to throw a maneuver that looks like the typical one, but that is something else. Doing so causes you to suffer a nasty defense penalty.

Here's an idea for how this could work mechanically. Once you decide on the maneuver you will adapt to, you get a bonus to defenses between +1 and +3 (your choice). You'd probably need to choose a specific method of defense (parry, block, or dodge; against rapid strikes you can set an order, like parry-parry-dodge). Against feints, this can go up to +6. If the attacker notices that you have adapted in this manner, he may opt to make an attack with a -2 penalty. The attack must be similar to the attack adapted to (so a DWA feint+attack would turn into a DWA attack+attack, for example). Provided he guessed your adaptation properly, you suffer a penalty to defense equal to double the previous bonus.

A lesser form would be for stop-hits. Essentially, if you know an enemy tends to do a specific maneuver (say, DWA), you can opt to make a Wait (Stop-Hit) against that specific maneuver. You get a bonus to the quick contest between +1 and +6 (your choice). You do not get a bonus to defenses! Against other maneuvers, you can make a normal (unmodified) stop-hit. Again, the attacker can opt to fake you out (-2 attack) with a maneuver that looks similar but functions differently, in which case you suffer a penalty to the quick contest equal to double the previous bonus.


The above numbers are probably off, but this could work with some tweaking. You could also allow an Advantage (possibly a limited form of Compartmentalized Mind) to allow a character to adapt to multiple maneuvers at once - good for anime characters who "can't be hit by the same technique twice."

EDIT: Also, although somewhat counterintuitive, against Deceptive Attacks you could do a stop-hit where you take a lesser penalty. That way, you have a higher skill for the effective quick contest, and thus the enemy suffers a greater penalty than he would have if you would have dropped your skill to his level with DA. For example, with two skill-30 characters, obviously both is generally going to drop down to (at least) 16. One might opt to drop to skill-18 for a stop hit, thus having a decent chance of inflicting an additional -3 (rather than the -1 dropping to equal skill with DA would yield).

[SuedodeuS]

Apologies for the double post.

I thought a bit further on how an attacker might determine that their target is specifically anticipating a given manuever. Something that could work would be that, any time the bonus makes the difference between success and failure, there is an IQ-based Quick Contest of their highest respective melee combat skills. This seems to make the option a bit less risky than I'd like, however. Maybe extend the range a bit? For example, if your character has Dodge-13, and you are anticipating a DWA at +2, the first scheme means the Quick Contest is rolled anytime you roll 14 or 15 on your Dodge. Extending the range would mean that any Dodge roll of 11+ (including those that involve you getting hit) allows for a Quick Contest.
Additional options might be extending the range further (or getting a bonus on the Quick Contest) when combined with Evaluate, or maybe even letting an Evaluate Maneuver automatically invoke a Quick Contest for free. Rolling the Quick Contest the round after it is invoked might also be a good idea - that way the player doesn't know he's been found out until just before the opponent attacks.
If this looks like a good idea, another thing to consider is just what maneuvers is this legal against, and what stipulations do you have to put on it? Would just a Feint be legal to anticipate, or would it have to be combined with another attack? Do hit locations have to be defined - and does just a targeted attack qualify? What about handedness for ambidextrous enemies?

On the Stop-Hit against a Deceptive Attack, you could opt to make a Defensive Attack with the Stop-Hit as well. I don't think you have to declare what kind of attack you'll make with a Wait (although I could be mistaken), so you could choose to only go Defensive if the opponent uses a nasty Deceptive Attack.

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by giganerds

Old MA has an option to guard a specific hit location in detrimental of other. I don't remember exactly the rule but it was something like +1 to Active defences against attacks to that hit location while getting -2 for the others.
I don't remember to see it in the MA 4th, but it's a huge book, and I may pass through the rule without notice it. Correct me if I wrong.

I wonder what do you guys think about the mentioned lack of 4e rules concerning to guarding specific hit locations and the new "Focused Defense" rule presented in GURPS Martial Arts: Gladiators, p. 21:

"A fighter may opt to present some hit locations and deny others. Presented locations are struck at (...) while denied ones (...)"

It has three stances: Neutral, Deny Left, Deny Right. Do you see this rule as fulfilling your idea (see below) in some way? Do you see this rule-idea suited beyond of gladiatorial combat and applicable to any sort of melee fight? I'm interested in your toughts here.

Originally Posted by Molokh

If I know that my opponent will target the Vitals and I have a Shield, I nonetheless cannot choose to keep it over my vitals, sacrificing protection of other locations.