05-24-2018, 04:32 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: On the road again...
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Combat question for symmetrical high-defense fights
We ran some one-on-one fights last night to help work out the kinks as some of the players are rusty and used to 6-second combat turns rather than 1-second turns. One of the fights ended up dragging on for some time as both the PC and the NPC opponent had high active defense scores (16+). With GURPS defenses being basically all-or-nothing, barring critical attacks, it devolved into fishing for crits for a good half hour, even with interesting descriptions and deceptive attacks. I think both characters had Dodge scores of 16, and primary Judo and Karate Parries in the 16-18 range.
While fishing for crits makes a fun visual to watch, it gets fairly dull in play. Is there a way to handle this so that we can resolve fights between two evenly-matched high-defense characters faster?
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05-24-2018, 04:52 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Combat question for symmetrical high-defense fights
Why were defenses that high? A defense score of 16, assuming combat reflexes, still requires a skill of 24, which lets you take a deceptive attack (-8) to reduce defenses to 12 while keeping your 6- crit, or deceptive attack (-12) to reduce defenses to 10.
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05-24-2018, 07:20 PM | #3 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: Combat question for symmetrical high-defense fights
That probably includes +3 for retreating, and thus only needs Judo/Karate-18 (or Speed 9 for a Dodge).
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Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
05-24-2018, 07:43 PM | #4 |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Combat question for symmetrical high-defense fights
Or a large shield. That's a good suspect for excessive defense.
Fishing for a good Feint result might work faster?
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I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident. |
05-24-2018, 07:50 PM | #5 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Upper Peninsula of Michigan
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Re: Combat question for symmetrical high-defense fights
Feint is definitely one of the best options for reducing high Defense scores. Even if you both have huge skill numbers, getting a better margin of success will kick the opponent's active defenses down a fair amount next turn.
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05-24-2018, 07:54 PM | #6 |
Banned
Join Date: Mar 2006
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Re: Combat question for symmetrical high-defense fights
Use the rules for Extreme Scores on p349 of Campaigns.
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05-24-2018, 08:51 PM | #7 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Combat question for symmetrical high-defense fights
Feint against a similar skill opponent is almost always not as good as using the same action to attack. Exception is if you have multiple attacks and the feint applies to all of them.
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05-24-2018, 09:33 PM | #8 | |
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Sydney
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Re: Combat question for symmetrical high-defense fights
Quote:
Repeat after me: DECEPTIVE ATTACK Problem solved |
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05-24-2018, 09:41 PM | #9 | |
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Sydney
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Re: Combat question for symmetrical high-defense fights
Quote:
Even 9 +3 and an acrobatic defense is only 14. Sure a shield can take it higher but that's not mentioned Sounds like something is going wrong in that fight |
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05-24-2018, 09:54 PM | #10 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: Combat question for symmetrical high-defense fights
Quote:
3 + 9 + 1 + 3 = 16
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Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
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