Combat question for symmetrical high-defense fights

[Phantasm]

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?

[Anthony]

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.

[Rupert]

That probably includes +3 for retreating, and thus only needs Judo/Karate-18 (or Speed 9 for a Dodge).

[Ulzgoroth]

Or a large shield. That's a good suspect for excessive defense.

Fishing for a good Feint result might work faster?

[William]

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.

[namada]

Use the rules for Extreme Scores on p349 of Campaigns.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by William

Feint is definitely one of the best options for reducing high Defense scores.

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.

[lachimba]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

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?

Repeat after me:

DECEPTIVE ATTACK

Problem solved

[lachimba]

Originally Posted by Rupert

That probably includes +3 for retreating, and thus only needs Judo/Karate-18 (or Speed 9 for a Dodge).

Except how is he getting dodge 16?

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

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by lachimba

Except how is he getting dodge 16?

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

Base Dodge is 3+Speed. +1 For Combat Reflexes. +3 for a Retreat.

3 + 9 + 1 + 3 = 16