Issues with Retreating Dodge

[JMason]

Originally Posted by bearit

-Broadsword used a Move and Attack to close the distance to 1 hex and attack.
-Bow used a Retreating Dodge, stepping back and increasing distance to 2 hexes.
-Bow used the Attack Manuever, taking another Step back, increasing distance to 3 hexes, and shooting Broadsword.
-Now 3 hexes away, Broadsword must again make another Move and Attack or All-Out Attack to close the distance and attack.

The pattern continued with the defensive ranged combatant outpacing the melee combatant until Broadsword died full of arrows.

A few things...
1) Was the melee fighter always hitting? Move and Attack is at -4 with a MAX skill of 9. That should be missing more than 50% of the time.
2) If the melee attack misses, the defender doesn't get to make a retreating dodge, breaking the loop.
3) It normally takes 3 turns to load and fire a bow. Fast-draw(arrow) reduces this to 2. Are you also using cinematic rules like Heroic Archer?

The issue you had really shouldn't come up that often. And as others have pointed out there are quite a few ways to mitigate even when it does.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by JMason

The issue you had really shouldn't come up that often. And as others have pointed out there are quite a few ways to mitigate even when it does.

I might have missed it, but did anyone suggest the swordsman pulling out a hand-axe and chucking at the bowman? Range 2 is no penalty, and dropping a point into thrown weapon (axe) - never throw knives when you can throw axes - to deliver swing cut damage with a hatchet makes for a nice eye opener.

[MrFix]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

I have always assumed that you can't take that second step back because you already did. You can't walk backward faster than your foe can walk forward.

That assumption is wrong, see B377. It does NOT say that retreat allows a step, it says that as part of Retreat you must move at least 1 yard away, but no more than 1/10 of your movement, it's a special modifier of an active defense. It also does not state that you lose the ability to make a step on your turn. This is important since majority of time Active Defenses happen on enemy's turn. It also does not say you lose this turn's step if your maneuver got interrupted by enemy's Wait and you were forced to retreat. In the same way, it doesn't say that you cannot retreat if you already stepped this turn.

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

I might have missed it, but did anyone suggest the swordsman pulling out a hand-axe and chucking at the bowman? Range 2 is no penalty, and dropping a point into thrown weapon (axe) - never throw knives when you can throw axes - to deliver swing cut damage with a hatchet makes for a nice eye opener.

Yeah, haha, I made a suggestion like that on the first page, but instead of handaxe I suggested a throwing spear - you can fast-draw them via two-handed sword specialty. Although I suppose it's a bit dubious if we're talking sword-and-board fighter, he'd have to lose one of these items to toss stuff.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by MrFix

That assumption is wrong, see B377. It does NOT say that retreat allows a step, it says that as part of Retreat you must move at least 1 yard away, but no more than 1/10 of your movement, it's a special modifier of an active defense. It also does not state that you lose the ability to make a step on your turn. This is important since majority of time Active Defenses happen on enemy's turn. It also does not say you lose this turn's step if your maneuver got interrupted by enemy's Wait and you were forced to retreat. In the same way, it doesn't say that you cannot retreat if you already stepped this turn.

So why can defenders walk backwards faster than the attackers can walk forward?

[MrFix]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

So why can defenders walk backwards faster than the attackers can walk forward?

Same reason the attacker can do two things per second - take active defense AND take a maneuver on his own turn. The attacker and defender have access to exactly the same options, so it isn't a question of unfairness - both sides of the fight make strikes and both sides of the fight defend against them, there's no exclusivety to retreat here.

OP's issue stems from the fact that ranged weapons are utterly superior to melee weapons, so when Archer retreats, he gains range, which is good. For melee fighter, gaining range means one has to make effort to return to his weapon's striking range. Which is bad.

Plus, if we assume that Active Defense allows ample time to move hands/body in a way that is capable of cancelling enemy's blow, there's no biomechanical reason to assume there cannot be any lower body mobility. After all, the attacker has lower body mobility. This is GURPS portraying an actual element of combat.

To specifically deconstruct some issues that people take with retreat.

"Retreat favors defender, giving him extra mobility"
In personal combat, there's rarely a concept of "defender". The objective of personal combat is to win, usually via killing the enemy first. So when two warriors meet and lock into duel, there's no defender, there's two people trying to murder each other. Both of them make attacks, and both of them roll active defenses. Both of them can retreat. If one fighter starts gaining advantage with retreats that another fighter can't nullify, we're not talking about game imbalance here, we're talking about skill imbalance, either stats or tactical thinking.

Bottom line - you aren't killing your enemy hard enough if all you do is extend your range between you two until you can't make attacks, you're running away, and retreat is not the best way to run away.

"Retreat favors ranged fighter"
The entirety of physics, tactics and strategy favor the ranged fighter. When human learned to throw a rock, he learned to be the king of this planet. If your enemy can strike you while you cannot strike them, it isn't bad game design or imbalance, it's you living your life wrong. Shield-Board warrior chasing an archer around a field is not even the worst example, imagine Shield-Board warrior chasing an axe-thrower (attack other turn) or spear-tosser (attack every turn with fast-draw) around a field, then you'll witness true terror. Then we can move on to a shield-board warrior chasing a gunman with M16 around a field, to properly portray the issue.

If an archer can eternally run away from you while pelting you with arrows that are actually killing you, this isn't game imbalance, this is your tactical failure.

"Retreats do not favor the aggressive fighter"
Martial Arts introduces multiple new ways to retreat (which arent actually retreats, oughta call it mobile defenses or something), including retreat to the side (-1 plus retreat bonus) and retreat forward (-2 plus retreat bonus). A defense with you standing still is the most subpar with these options, and gives the aggressive fighter better odds for success. For example, a Judo practictioner that starts 1 yard away from a broadsword warrior can retreat forward for +1 to his parry, deflecting the enemy's sword better than if they were immobile, and instantly setting himself up for a judo throw.

"But if an enemy isn't trying to kill you, they can retreat forever and thus escape"
No. At some point the dice will fail them, they'll catch damage, and loss of HP/Major Wounds often slow a person down to a crawl. Use advantages like Luck to max out deceptive attack all the way down to skill level 10, and then reroll it 3 times. The chance of you hitting grows sky high. The escaping enemy is concerned with both making his defense rolls AND keeping his HP high. If he isn't attacking you, you're only concerned with landing hits. This is an advantage.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by MrFix

"Retreat favors ranged fighter"
The entirety of physics, tactics and strategy favor the ranged fighter. When human learned to throw a rock, he learned to be the king of this planet. If your enemy can strike you while you cannot strike them, it isn't bad game design or imbalance, it's you living your life wrong. Shield-Board warrior chasing an archer around a field is not even the worst example, imagine Shield-Board warrior chasing an axe-thrower (attack other turn) or spear-tosser (attack every turn with fast-draw) around a field, then you'll witness true terror. Then we can move on to a shield-board warrior chasing a gunman with M16 around a field, to properly portray the issue.

If an archer can eternally run away from you while pelting you with arrows that are actually killing you, this isn't game imbalance, this is your tactical failure.

In the real world, having a ranged weapon isn't enough to make this kind of 'kiting' work. A foot archer in striking distance of a swordsman would not, in fact, prance backward while slowly and steadily peppering their attacker with arrows. Running ahead of your enemy and shooting back at them is a viable and highly effective maneuver in the right circumstances, but this scenario isn't the right circumstances. For a mounted archer, or for an early 20th century warship holding superiority in both effective range and speed, it makes perfect sense. For a human afoot with a bow, it doesn't.

If it were true that shuffling backwards while shooting a bow was genuinely favored against advancing and striking with melee weapons, when the engagement starts within range of the melee weapons, that would indicate a pretty serious system problem.

However, as many posts upthread have pointed out, RAW provides a number of ways for the melee attacker to overcome that basic tactic.

[finn]

Originally Posted by bearit

1) Such extra movement options require their movement from the previous turn. If all movement was used in the previous turn, the option may not be taken.

How about this variation of option 1?

1a) If you choose to Retreat, your Move and Step on your next turn is reduced by 1.

This would avoid the need for players to "hoard" move. And since Retreat is a forced move caused by responding to enemy aggression, It makes sense for it to negatively affect your proceeding tactical movement.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by MrFix

If an archer can eternally run away from you while pelting you with arrows that are actually killing you, this isn't game imbalance, this is your tactical failure.

This isn't game imbalance, this is game failure of simulation. If you try to actually do that on the battlefield, what happens is that you either trip or get overrun, because in reality someone moving forward moves faster than someone moving backwards.

[MrFix]

Originally Posted by Anthony

This isn't game imbalance, this is game failure of simulation. If you try to actually do that on the battlefield, what happens is that you either trip or get overrun, because in reality someone moving forward moves faster than someone moving backwards.

That's how it works in GURPS already, there's no failure of simulation in GURPS in this case. If you checked out the thread there's a dozen ways for an archer to be chased down. Not using these ways is a tactical failure.

[bearit]

Originally Posted by MrFix

That's how it works in GURPS already, there's no failure of simulation in GURPS in this case. If you checked out the thread there's a dozen ways for an archer to be chased down. Not using these ways is a tactical failure.

Yes, there are a dozen ways for an archer (or any retreating combatant for that matter) to be chased down using GURPS mechanics. I'm very grateful to everyone for the myriad tactical insights in this regard.

However, in each example the melee pursuer is PENALIZED in order to gain enough movement to "keep up" (All-Out Attack, Committed Attack, Move and Attack), while the retreater suffers no penalties while outpacing the pursuer. This does not seem realistic. 'Catching' the archer is not the issue here. Being able to do so REALISTICALLY (at least on equal footing) is.

Ranged weapons being superior is ALSO not the issue. The same problem would occur with another swordsman, a Concentrating mage, or even someone just rummaging through their pack (Ready Maneuver).

Retreating inherently gives a double step and therefore advantage in tactical combat to the retreater at NO penalty, forcing the penalty on the pursuer to "keep up." This is where I and others see the failure of simulation in GURPS and look for a correction.