[Basic] Advantage of the Week (#26): Combat Reflexes, Enhanced Defences, ETS

[Otaku]

Please pardon the sequential posts, but I was afraid my responses would run into each other too much and be more confusing in a single, larger post.

Originally Posted by Overheat

Since we are talking about enhanced defenses now, I would not be opposed to letting people buy them in a realistic campaign. Just to stop general DX monsters and uber skill warriors from getting more DX or skill.

Especially in light of the various real world "exotic" versus GURPS term "exotic" traits available with unusual conditions and training, I think some degree of Enhanced Defenses should be fine. It might be best to view it as less "I am better than I should be at Defending." and more "I'm not as good as I should be elsewhere." In short, it would be the common clause of "Your boosted Defense may not exceed X." so that if you raised your underlying Skill or DX to a certain point, it still won't go higher. You either waste some points or the GM allows a small discount as Enhanced Defenses is slowly swallowed up by (for example) +4 to DX (granted such a change is quite extraordinary in and of itself).

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Had a similar experience. CR is good, but for warriors it competes with HPT, and for non-warriors there are usually concept-related things that are higher priority to start with, while CR are taken or not taken later.

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Combat reflexes helps you hit first. But High Pain Threshold helps you hit second, third, and last.

Good to know my personal experience wasn't a total fluke then. Combat Reflexes might be that kind of Advantage you "always take" until you get to the point where you have a good enough grasp of the rules that you can say "You know, despite offering me so many things at a huge discount, the problem is I either don't need most of these things at all or need this other thing even more!".

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Otaku

Good to know my personal experience wasn't a total fluke then. Combat Reflexes might be that kind of Advantage you "always take" until you get to the point where you have a good enough grasp of the rules that you can say "You know, despite offering me so many things at a huge discount, the problem is I either don't need most of these things at all or need this other thing even more!".

That sounds as a somewhat too-brave thing to say.

But e.g. my current ready-to-play character focuses of not entering combat. Ambushes and stealth kills are just safer, particularly at a distance.

So I wouldn't call it 'not needed'. Just there are more than one way to get an advantage against opponents, and it's often more desirable to take a different path for one reason or another.

[WaterAndWindSpirit]

Originally Posted by Otaku

Otherwise just like Combat Reflexes and High Pain Threshold are going to require some effort and player ingenuity to be useful in most social settings...

If you have HPT, my paladin I made for a Pathfinder game is going to just loooooove playing with you for the night in town... Granted, that's not most social settings, but still... :P

[Gnome]

CR is a great deal for the points if you're playing a front-line fighter. Even in combat-heavy games (think DF), I haven't felt the need to take it on every character, and in fact I have often prioritized Luck first for its more universal applicability. For wizard-type characters, for example, the active defense bonuses are nice, but I try to not get attacked or use Blocking spells to defend myself, the IQ and Fright Check bonuses are unnecessary for a character with high IQ, and I would usually much rather spend the points on more Magery, IQ, spells, ER, etc.
Consider 5 points of ER, for example...which I could use in battle to cast Reflexes on myself and gain Combat Reflexes anyway! It's not a perfect analogy of course, since that's a spell on, requires mana, takes a second and a roll to cast, etc., but of course I could use those 5 energy points on any other spell, so the flexibility gained there is well worth it in my opinion.

Long story short, CR is a good deal, but still not good enough that you have to take it for every character.

Also, I think many posters here missed the point of the Krommquote. The point is that advantages are not priced based on "power level" at all! CR is the basic "I am a veteran warrior" advantage, and since that's such a common adventurer characteristic, it's cheap. Enhanced Defenses are more expensive, even though they do something similar, because it's less of a common trope for a character to have really good defenses without having the other traits that naturally go with high defenses (in GURPS, that would be the high skill and/or high attributes that "naturally" give you a good Parry, Block or Dodge).

To price advantages based on power level would mean repricing everything, and even radically repricing things game by game. In a Social Engineering/Diplomacy game, for example, CR would be a perk and Charisma would cost 15 points. In a high TL game, Gizmos should cost more character points because there are so many more equipment choices. In a combat-heavy game, combat skills should cost way more than non-combat skills. And so on...

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

That sounds as a somewhat too-brave thing to say.

Huh?

Originally Posted by Otaku

Good to know my personal experience wasn't a total fluke then.

I meant to convey that my experience wasn't isolated or unique, but I don't claim its common either.

Originally Posted by Otaku

Combat Reflexes might be that kind of Advantage you "always take" until you get to the point where you have a good enough grasp of the rules that you can say "You know, despite offering me so many things at a huge discount, the problem is I either don't need most of these things at all or need this other thing even more!".

Emphasis added; pretty sure that was my usual wishy-washy self. ;)

I might have been more clear if I stressed I was talking about character building in general. When you're a newbie (and the impression I still sometimes get) is that the general rule of thumb is to give your character Combat Reflexes. Playing the librarian that will mostly be there to help with puzzle solving or provide assistance via research? Find a way to justify the librarian having Combat Reflexes (...yes, I am aware of The Librarians).

It is often going to be worth it for combat oriented characters, but not always. Besides possibly being a little odd on other characters, its often needed less than something else. In both cases, while there are a plethora of bonuses, not all may be especially relevant.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

But e.g. my current ready-to-play character focuses of not entering combat. Ambushes and stealth kills are just safer, particularly at a distance.

So I wouldn't call it 'not needed'. Just there are more than one way to get an advantage against opponents, and it's often more desirable to take a different path for one reason or another.

I never called it "not needed" from a general game standpoint. I called it something that, as a player becomes more experience, he or she may realize a character won't need or will need less than a more pressing purchase. Well, at least that is what I tried to say. =P

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by Gnome

Also, I think many posters here missed the point of the Krommquote. The point is that advantages are not priced based on "power level" at all! CR is the basic "I am a veteran warrior" advantage, and since that's such a common adventurer characteristic, it's cheap. Enhanced Defenses are more expensive, even though they do something similar, because it's less of a common trope for a character to have really good defenses without having the other traits that naturally go with high defenses (in GURPS, that would be the high skill and/or high attributes that "naturally" give you a good Parry, Block or Dodge).

To price advantages based on power level would mean repricing everything, and even radically repricing things game by game. In a Social Engineering/Diplomacy game, for example, CR would be a perk and Charisma would cost 15 points. In a high TL game, Gizmos should cost more character points because there are so many more equipment choices. In a combat-heavy game, combat skills should cost way more than non-combat skills. And so on...

I think you might actually be taking Kromm's quote out of context; he was specifically talking about Combat Reflexes. Hopefully he can weigh in and clear things up. Right now GURPS seems to operate on a combination of some traits are priced more or less based on how potent they seem while others are based on how common they are supposed to be... and those two things are not mutually exclusive. At the risk of actually saying a "too-brave" (foolhardy?) thing this time, I believe I'd rather GURPS focused more on relative usefulness of the traits against each other (or the lack of having them). The GM already is able to (if not encouraged) to adjust values based on the actual game setting, if not directly then via Unusual Background.

[vicky_molokh]

On the too-brave bit:
I meant that I don't see CR as 'unneeded' (which is how I originally understood the meaning of the statement, one way or another), and more about having other desirable traits, even for combat-related problems.

[Gnome]

Originally Posted by Otaku

I think you might actually be taking Kromm's quote out of context; he was specifically talking about Combat Reflexes. Hopefully he can weigh in and clear things up. Right now GURPS seems to operate on a combination of some traits are priced more or less based on how potent they seem while others are based on how common they are supposed to be... and those two things are not mutually exclusive. At the risk of actually saying a "too-brave" (foolhardy?) thing this time, I believe I'd rather GURPS focused more on relative usefulness of the traits against each other (or the lack of having them). The GM already is able to (if not encouraged) to adjust values based on the actual game setting, if not directly then via Unusual Background.

I most certainly was not taking Kromm's quote out of context. He was agreeing with the general point that advantages are not priced based on utility but are in fact priced based on desired rarity in the game (which in turn is related to general rarity in fiction). The fact that power gamers who want very "powerful" characters always gravitate to the same advantages is not really a bug here. It aids verisimilitude: it's easier to become awesome in some ways than others. Plenty of real people are sharpshooters and karate masters, and in fiction there are commonly characters who can cast spells or for whom events serendipitously seem to "work out," but it's impossible (in real life) and rare (in fiction) to be able to turn invisible or travel through time.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Otaku

No I haven't. That actually doesn't sound like a "usual" kind of thing and thus something even an experienced GURPS player might never have encountered. Did you bring this up when we covered Charisma?

*checks*

Nope. Obviously its not an issue to reference something we've discussed before, but that might have made for good discussion on that thread. ;)

Getting to what is relevant here, the Charisma rules means that people won't find a character "charismatic" unless they interact with said character in the proper, back and forth manner. I am sure that five levels of Charisma is amazing for appropriate social interactions and still quite good in many others, but you also spent 25 points on it... that's enough to buy a single level of Talent and an additional level of Intelligence or IQ, so that you're at +1 to a wide range of tasks with another +1 (so net +1) to a group of five interrelated skills. 25 points gets both Combat Reflexes and High Pain Threshold. It gets Magery 2.

Otherwise just like Combat Reflexes and High Pain Threshold are going to require some effort and player ingenuity to be useful in most social settings, high levels of Charisma aren't that useful in a sudden battle; your character will usually not get the chance to properly interact with the NPCs for Charisma to matter.

Which is why I went on to say it's situationally dependent. Points spent on social elements are not comparable to points spent on combat elements. The things they are applied to are simply too different. Combat reflexes and high pain threshold are useless or almost useless when applied to problems like "get information" or "recruit a small army" or "seduce the badguy's lieutenant so he'll untie you". Price discounts like Appearance being so cheap that it's cheaper than increasing your skill beyond minimum or Combat Reflexes having a lot of effects have no bearing on how social and combat characters balance against each other, because pure social and combat characters don't balance against other at all.

[McAllister]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

"seduce the badguy's lieutenant so he'll untie you"

I didn't initially mean to contribute to the weird undercurrent of kinky on this thread, but my goodness, I read this and thought "even after you've seduced him, whyever would he untie you?"

All traits are situationally dependent. Night vision only helps at night. Amphibious only helps in the water. Attractive only helps against people who can see you (and are your species, usually). Luck only helps if you're rolling something. Enhanced Defenses only helps against people who want to hurt you. I don't take this as a reason to throw up my hands and say "these things don't balance against each other at all," but rather to evaluate roughly how useful the advantage is, and roughly how often it'll be applicable, and go from there. Evaluating mathematically is nice, but even if the numbers are based on estimates, all advantages have some sort of impact under some subset of situations, so they can be compared.