Improving contests via new rules

[(E)]

While I wholeheartedly support the "get comfortable with the standard system" approach, I will say that a couple of times when the combat was getting in the way of the story and all the players were not into gaming a fight. I used the mass combat rules (specifically 3rd edition) to run through things faster. This sped things up and by and large produced a middle of the road outcome.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by tbone

...but in fact, there are many "special effects" I could attempt with an attack. To pick three common ones, I could try to hit a small target (like an eye), or I could try to make two attacks, or I could try to make an attack so fast that it overwhelms your defenses (as above).

The oddity with the Contest described above is that it just assumes I tried the third of those options. Yet why should it assume that? Why not instead assume that if I made my roll by a lot, then I automatically aimed for your eye (whether I actually want to or not)? Or why not assume that I automatically attempted two attacks (even though I intended no such thing)? Why just decree that I automatically attempted the third option?

To amplify this a bit, it's a question of abstraction levels. The default GURPS combat system is less abstract than many RPGs, and part of that is letting the player pick the options while knowing their upfront costs. While this is more complex than, say, d20 system, the complexity is all optional and controllable, and most of it can be handled by the GM.

[PK]

Originally Posted by Sindri

Everyone will see it, because when you post in an old thread it brings it up to the first page. You'd have been better served just making a new one.

Agreed, which is why I split this into its own thread.

[seismic73]

Originally Posted by tbone

This FEND is a look at using full skill (not Skill/2+3, etc.) for both attack and defense rolls. But to be clear, it's offered as a "just for the fun of it" experimental thing; I don't use it. More importantly, it doesn't quite address the actual topic. It suggests using full skill levels for defense, yes – but still following GURPS-like separate attack rolls and defense rolls, not Contests.

tbone, this is basically the same as my idea, and I see that you've already thought through this a long time ago. Did you ever try to play-test it?

Originally Posted by tbone

The proposed Contest means that if I make my TH roll by a lot, you'll have to make a defense roll by a lot to avoid the hit. In other words, it means that I threw a particularly fast (or otherwise tricky) blow that's difficult to stop. Which may initially sound like a reasonable assumption...

Yes. It does. A very good attack would require a very good (or lucky) defense to avoid the effects.

Originally Posted by tbone

...but in fact, there are many "special effects" I could attempt with an attack.

Sure. Treat them with the usual penalty modifiers.

Originally Posted by tbone

The oddity with the Contest described above is that it just assumes I tried the third of those options. Yet why should it assume that?

It doesn't necessarily assume that. A good roll of the dice in the regular GURPS combat system doesn't assume you did anything special, so why should it do so for a Quick Contest?

Originally Posted by tbone

I like the GURPS method better: If I want to go for your eye, I need to say so in advance and take the penalty (hit location).

Again, couldn't you use the Quick Contest rules with penalties to the roll based on what you say you are doing beforehand? A large margin of victory just means you had a lucky shot (and perhaps a critical hit).

Sindri and D10 convinced me above that trying to use Quick Contests to determine combat would break the game and have unintended consequences. It would probably require re-engineering GURPS. However, I DO like the simplicity of the idea we are discussing. Maybe someday when I have the mechanics of the standard rules down I can revisit and try some re-engineering...

On a separate note, did you check out my plots in my link above? I'll repost HERE . The PDF files shows the probability of successful attacks given different attacker/defender skill levels combinations when using either the current GURPS combat rules, or the alternative we are discussing. I think the plots show some interesting features of the game mechanics. For instance, look at the image in Combat_v_Dodge.pdf . (Sindri, if you are reading, I fixed the problem in this plot that you mentioned above.) Under the regular GURPS attack and defense by Dodge rules, ridiculously high attack skills are pointless when the defender has a 16 or higher in their Dodge skill. The probability of successful attack never rises above ~10%, no matter how skilled the attacker. On the other hand, I prefer the constant diagonal plots from the Quick Contest rolls (either with or without critical hits) as shown in the other PDF files. I'd love to hear your thoughts on them!

Thanks for your post!

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by tbone

I was just about to mention that; thanks. (Actually, it appears up early in the thread too – many years and one long-discontinued URL ago.)

No problem, its a house rule that I appreciate and I'm happy to point people in the direction of those.

Originally Posted by seismic73

It doesn't necessarily assume that. A good roll of the dice in the regular GURPS combat system doesn't assume you did anything special, so why should it do so for a Quick Contest?

If rolling well makes it harder to defend that means something about an attack changes depending on how well you roll. That's not entirely crazy, but there is a relevant mechanical space for making reliable attacks that don't 'scale' with how well you pulled them off. You can see this easily in hit locations. If I have skill 16 I could go for a torso attack at skill 16 thereby maximizing my hit and critical hit chance or I could attack the torso vitals at skill 13. The former is easy, I'm pretty unlikely to screw it up on my end. The latter is harder but it allows for more rewards from performing well (since performing well means I actually hit). Its less clear with Deceptive Attack (in part because the sheer speed variety of Deceptive Attack, rather than more... deceptive... varieties are dubious to being with) but the same effect holds.

That said, there is some room for automatic scaling of attack quality. Its not necessarily crazy to let people's margin of success convert to deceptive penalties after the fact but at a ratio of 4-1 or something instead of the 2-1 of normal Deceptive Attack. Or to say that targeting the torso vitals is actually just targeting the torso at a -1, but if you succeed by 2 or more you hit the vitals instead.

Originally Posted by seismic73

Sindri and D10 convinced me above that trying to use Quick Contests to determine combat would break the game and have unintended consequences. It would probably require re-engineering GURPS. However, I DO like the simplicity of the idea we are discussing. Maybe someday when I have the mechanics of the standard rules down I can revisit and try some re-engineering...

Keep in mind that it wouldn't really break the game to make attacks into contests of skills. It was an official optional rule in (late) third edition after all. I think its worse than the replacement mechanic of Deceptive Attack, but it is fundamentally functional.

It wouldn't even break the game to have the entirety of a combat resolved as a quick contest if you could find an answer to questions like "what does my ST give me?". Naturally that's way too fast of a resolution mechanic for any game that cares about combat, but if the only combats liable to occur are lower lethality and the campaign being run doesn't really care about the details of combats it could work.

Originally Posted by seismic73

On a separate note, did you check out my plots in my link above? I'll repost HERE . The PDF files shows the probability of successful attacks given different attacker/defender skill levels combinations when using either the current GURPS combat rules, or the alternative we are discussing. I think the plots show some interesting features of the game mechanics. For instance, look at the image in Combat_v_Dodge.pdf . (Sindri, if you are reading, I fixed the problem in this plot that you mentioned above.) Under the regular GURPS attack and defense by Dodge rules, ridiculously high attack skills are pointless when the defender has a 16 or higher in their Dodge skill. The probability of successful attack never rises above ~10%, no matter how skilled the attacker. On the other hand, I prefer the constant diagonal plots from the Quick Contest rolls (either with or without critical hits) as shown in the other PDF files. I'd love to hear your thoughts on them!

Lets say your opponent has a typical dodge of 16. Aside from perverse answers like "surprise them", how can you penetrate that?

1. Get a really high attacking skill level. After all, they dropped some serious character points on their stupid dodge trick (the specifics will depend on how much DX and how much HT is contributing to their Basic Speed). If you're allowed to buy a high enough combat skill you'll be able to afford enough Deceptive Attack penalties to burn through their dodge.

2. Turn that retreat into the conditional bonus it nominally is. If two people attack them with swords their retreat only applies to one of them. If you can drive them into a literal corner they'll have difficulty retreating. That's 3 points right there.

3. Rapid strike. The more attacks you throw at them, the more chance they have to fail their dodge.

4. Rapid fire, ideally with low Recoil. You don't dodge each rapid fire shot individually, but instead need to get a margin equal to the number of shots you need to dodge. That means that someone with a laser rifle with its Recoil of 1 effectively is from some perspectives in a quick contest with you.

5. Feint. That's a quick contest that if won gives your foe penalties next attack. Can be combined with option 3 effectively.

6. Shock. If you can get some damage in that'll make their next defense worse.

And that's not comprehensive by any means.

[D10]

Originally Posted by seismic73

Under the regular GURPS attack and defense by Dodge rules, ridiculously high attack skills are pointless when the defender has a 16 or higher in their Dodge skill. The probability of successful attack never rises above ~10%, no matter how skilled the attacker. On the other hand, I prefer the constant diagonal plots from the Quick Contest rolls (either with or without critical hits) as shown in the other PDF files. I'd love to hear your thoughts on them!

Can you make the plot in a way that considers deceptive attacks? Meaning, at skill 18 you are rolling 16 but imposing -1 to all defenses, at 20 -2, at 22 -3, at 24 -4, at 26 -5, and so on?

That radically alters the defense probability

For instance, my character has a parry and a block of 24 and a dodge of 16, usually 19 with haste. But then I get attacked by an enemy with brawling at 44.

44-16 = 28
28/2 = 14

That means when I defend I have -14 on the roll. My parry and block go from 24 to 10. My dodge goes from 19 to 5. If I retreat (im a fencer), my parry will be 13 and my dodge might get to 10 with the addition of an acrobatics roll.

In this scenario my defense is far from being a certainty, and I know that these are very high skill levels, but due to this, I never experienced that which you refer as "defense score of 16 means I get hit almost never" Usually we use all at our disposal to survive.

You also have many other things you can use to affect probability of defense rolls. Climate, visibility, bad ground, stunning the enemy, using buffs and other defenses. Just something to consider

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by seismic73

...

Yes. It does. A very good attack would require a very good (or lucky) defense to avoid the effects.


Sure. Treat them with the usual penalty modifiers.
...

There's nothing wrong with the idea (in fact conceptually I quite like the idea of comparing Margins of success here, I can see why it might feel right).

However it functionally turns every attack into a deceptive attack* equal to the Margin of Success of the Attacker's success roll for free. Without requiring a conscious choice weighing the usual gamble of the trade off by the attacker.

Similarly skilled attackers in the system tend to weigh the knowledge that they are likely to be doing a good attack (i.e one with lots of MoS) to load up on penalties to leverage that MoS for positive effects. But the point is they make that choice before rolling the dice to see how many MoS they get. The 3d6 bell curve makes this prediction easier than say a d20 though!

I think the net effect will be to give more advantage to the more skilled against the less skilled especially when you take into account how the 3d6 bell curve will distribute MoS to each.



Which is not a problem in abstract of course!

Honestly the same advice I gave earlier applies here, run some combats with your system see if you like the result more than the RAW system.



*deceptive attacks here would be a 1:1 trade off not the usual 2:1 trade off due to Defences being just skill not (Skill/2)+3 I assume?

Originally Posted by seismic73

... Under the regular GURPS attack and defense by Dodge rules, ridiculously high attack skills are pointless when the defender has a 16 or higher in their Dodge skill. The probability of successful attack never rises above ~10%, no matter how skilled the attacker. On the other hand, I prefer the constant diagonal plots from the Quick Contest rolls (either with or without critical hits) as shown in the other PDF files...

Actually that's not true because of deceptive attack. As you say once you get above Skill 16 (or effective skill 16 once you factor penalties) your chances of success don't change beyond 98.1%. So 16 or 26 what's the difference.

Only If I have skill 26 I can do a -10 deceptive attack that will still give me 98.1% of being on target with my attack, but will drop that dodge skill from 16 to 11 for functionally no trade off for me (even my chances of a critical success and failure won't change) but a large benefit in terms of overall likelihood of a successful hit buy dropping the changes of dodging.

[Gnome]

Originally Posted by Sindri

6. Shock. If you can get some damage in that'll make their next defense worse.

Minor quibble: shock does not affect defenses.

Otherwise good points all around. Given the existence of Deceptive Attacks and Feints, turning attacks/defenses into QCs offers no advantage that I can see and plenty of disadvantages against the existing system.

Among other things, the proposed system takes away a sense of agency from players.
One of the coolest things about GURPS is that as a player you have many choices about how to attack and how to defend. Do I make a Deceptive Attack and risk missing for a chance to punch through enemy defenses? Do I use my retreat or my extra effort options against this attacker or save them for a later one? Should I commit my paired weapons to a cross parry or have more parries to cover more attacks? Should I risk trying to use Acrobatics on this Dodge, knowing that failure will make my Dodge even worse? Should I Dodge and Drop, knowing I'll end up on the ground if I do? How can I maneuver around my opponent to get in for a side attack or circumvent his shield? Which All-Out Defense option should I choose?

You could turn many of these into analogously meaningful choices in a QC system, but it would basically require a full system rewrite, and I really see no advantages to such a system. It's certainly not a simplification, as the number of rolls appears to be the same, and the amount of calculation required is similar.

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by Gnome

Minor quibble: shock does not affect defenses.

Right, sorry. I forgot those were the standard rules.

[tbone]

Originally Posted by seismic73

tbone, this is basically the same as my idea, and I see that you've already thought through this a long time ago. Did you ever try to play-test it?

Well, it's only partly the same as your idea. We've both looked at "What if defenses used normal skill levels?", but other than that change to "what AD number do I roll against?", I played with plain old GURPS combat: normal TH roll, then normal AD roll. You're pondering something different: TH roll vs AD roll as a Contest.

(Actually, I am talking Contest too – a form of Regular Contest. But you're discussing Quick Contests.)

Re play-test: Just in "arena battles" mode, not a campaign (i.e., the real test!). For typical PC ranges (skill 12-16 or so?), there's little change from GURPS' "skill/2+3", so not much to test. Things only change with very high weapon skills; what you're testing is essentially just "What happens when fighters have really high defense rolls?"

The answers to that are pretty well-known: You get lots of successful defenses, unless attackers do something to thwart those (feints, swarming, grappling, etc.).

Originally Posted by seismic73

Yes. It does. A very good attack would require a very good (or lucky) defense to avoid the effects.

I think that's the gist right there, though: what's "very good"?

If "very good" means "aimed right at the center of the heart, not a couple inches to the side", then "very good" is certainly harder to perform, and a greater threat if performed successfully, but in this case it wouldn't make defense appreciably harder. (And as we know, that's how it plays in GURPS.)

If "very good" means "performed with impressive speed (or other property) that challenges defense"... well, wait, where did that come from? That sort of thing is difficult to perform, just as the cardiac bullseye is difficult to perform. It should equally hold for both difficult tasks, IMO, that if I didn't say I was attempting to perform the difficult variant, and if I don't suffer any penalty for the attempt, then I didn't attempt it and I don't get to enjoy the benefit.

That's my point (I hope it's clear).

Originally Posted by seismic73

It doesn't necessarily assume that. A good roll of the dice in the regular GURPS combat system doesn't assume you did anything special, so why should it do so for a Quick Contest?

A good roll on a Quick Contest does assume you did something special. With a Quick Contest for attack/defense, an attack roll success of, say, 5 is an assumption that you did something so special that the defender's roll now needs to succeed by 5 (i.e., essentially takes a -5 penalty).

In any case, I'm not saying that you can't rework combat to use these Quick Contests, only that you'd be creating system with more abstract combat resolution. Which is perfect if it's what you want; lots of games do something of the sort!

My objection is just to a specific, uneven (IMO) mixture of more detailed + more abstract resolution, in which a heart-piercing accurate attack happens only if I intentionally attempt it and accept a penalty, but a defense-withering speedy attack happens automatically if the dice say so. Let's keep these on the same level, I say: either both difficult outcomes require success on a stated attempt with penalties (per GURPS), or both difficult outcomes can happen automatically on a good roll (per a Quick Contest... with the question of "so which one happened?" determined randomly, or selected by the attacker, or whatever).

(Even that "objection" is a formality, not a recoil in horror. Some form of Quick Contest system like you describe could certainly do the job of getting on with the fights and reaching resolutions, and would probably do a fun job of it too, whatever quibbles the picky may have. : )