Reordering Parries

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Kromm

FWIW, I'm fine with the suggestion re: using an effective Basic Speed that's less than actual Basic Speed for the purpose of the combat sequence. If you have Basic Speed 6.25 and want to act as 6.00 or 4.75 or 1.00, go ahead! You'll be stuck that way for the whole fight (reordering the combat sequence mid-battle creates far more problems than it solves), but it doesn't seem unfair.

Actually, I think it'd probably always be OK to move yourself later in the sequence even in the middle of a fight. Do it enough times to cycle back to your original point in the sequence and everybody else has gotten one more turn than you did. As long as you were measuring durations in seconds and not turns I don't immediately see anything it would break.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Actually, I think it'd probably always be OK to move yourself later in the sequence even in the middle of a fight. Do it enough times to cycle back to your original point in the sequence and everybody else has gotten one more turn than you did. As long as you were measuring durations in seconds and not turns I don't immediately see anything it would break.

Actully that cause more head aches... Your Dodge spell has one second left in duration, you tendt your turn longer than a second by slowing down. Someone tacks you, do you or do you not have access to the increased dodge?

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

Actully that cause more head aches... Your Dodge spell has one second left in duration, you tendt your turn longer than a second by slowing down. Someone tacks you, do you or do you not have access to the increased dodge?

That's the point about tracking durations in seconds. Or if you like, you can keep them in turns but give each spell it's *own* turn, that happens immediately after the caster's. If the caster wants to delay his turn to later, no problem, the spell's turn stays in the same place.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by malloyd

That's the point about tracking durations in seconds. Or if you like, you can keep them in turns but give each spell it's *own* turn, that happens immediately after the caster's. If the caster wants to delay his turn to later, no problem, the spell's turn stays in the same place.

And I'm saying it point less. because there no point betwwen one attacker and the next that says when the speel tracked in second ends and were the attack
comes before or after that second.


you can track the length the spell be there IS no in game way to track when those seconds happen except by the start of your next turn. So say a turn can be longer than a second it now meanless to track seconds becuse unless you saying everying thing in the gasme happens in real time the no way to tack game time left in the system

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

And I'm saying it point less. because there no point betwwen one attacker and the next that says when the speel tracked in second ends and were the attack
comes before or after that second.


you can track the length the spell be there IS no in game way to track when those seconds happen except by the start of your next turn. So say a turn can be longer than a second it now meanless to track seconds becuse unless you saying everying thing in the gasme happens in real time the no way to tack game time left in the system

Let's say you act at Speed 5.0 (that is, you have Basic Speed 5.0), and cast a spell that lasts three seconds. This means the spell will end three seconds later at Speed 5.0, regardless of what Speed you are acting at at the time. If you have an enemy knight acting at Speed 6.0 and some skeletons acting at Speed 4.0, and you opt to delay to Speed 3.0, your spell will end between the knight's turn and that of the first skeleton.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Let's say you act at Speed 5.0 (that is, you have Basic Speed 5.0), and cast a spell that lasts three seconds. This means the spell will end three seconds later at Speed 5.0, regardless of what Speed you are acting at at the time. If you have an enemy knight acting at Speed 6.0 and some skeletons acting at Speed 4.0, and you opt to delay to Speed 3.0, your spell will end between the knight's turn and that of the first skeleton.

Except it doesnt work

You Speed 5.0 but on the 3rd second you slow down to 4.5 meaning. but while that happen someone ad speed 4.75 attacks you. Normal rules the spell last to the start of your next turn and you would be protected. however the 4.75 turn saddles both the last second and after that last second. Which side of duration does the attack actual land? the system say it'ds impossible to say in that situation.

as Kromm sayings you slow down at the start of combat time but once combat starts the system only works if constant for the enter combat time. though if you drop out combat time you can restart at a new basic speed

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

Except it doesnt work

You Speed 5.0 but on the 3rd second you slow down to 4.5 meaning. but while that happen someone ad speed 4.75 attacks you. Normal rules the spell last to the start of your next turn and you would be protected. however the 4.75 turn saddles both the last second and after that last second. Which side of duration does the attack actual land? the system say it'ds impossible to say in that situation.

4.75 occurs after 5.00. This means that, at 4.75, the spell doesn't protect you. Note this would also be the case if you hadn't delayed - the spell would have ended on your turn (at 5.00), and then the enemy would have gone at 4.75 and your spell would no longer protect you.

To preempt a further argument, in the case of a tie it's best to think of the person who "wins" as moving at something like 5.01, the one who "loses" as moving at something like 4.99. In that case, if you act on Speed 5.00 but before someone else who acts on Speed 5.00, you count yourself - and your spell - as acting on Speed 5.01, the other person as acting on Speed 4.99. When you delay down to Speed 3.00, the spell still ends on Speed 5.01, and fails to protect you against the person acting on Speed 4.99.

[roguebfl]

4.75 happens after 5.0 but not 1 second after.
the first second of combat where all participants act regarded their speed. then acet agasin 1 second after the first acted.

Normally

5.0 spell last one more second and acts
4.75 attack 5.0 the spell still in effect
5.0 next turn start spell ends at the start be fore they act as it's 1 second later.

What you probles

5.0 spell last one more second buch choses to delay to 4.5
now the duration of what happes now take more that 1 second be less than 2
there no telling if 4.75 attack heppens before the 1 secodn expires or after.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

So say a turn can be longer than a second it now meanless to track seconds becuse unless you saying everying thing in the gasme happens in real time the no way to tack game time left in the system

I have no idea what you mean here.

To clarify how I think of turns, I think of them with the standard English meaning - they have no in world duration (or if you prefer, it's always zero, so there is no issue concerning them lasting longer than a second, they never lasted a second in the first place. Your defenses are not part of any of your turns, they take place *between* them, on the *attackers* turn.

A technique I haven't used in a long time, but which I think clarifies GURPS turns a lot is to get a bunch of index cards with the character's names and speeds written on them (use colored cards for the PCs and their allies, makes it easier to separate them from the NPCs after every combat). Make a similar set for the opponents in each fight, and sort them together in numerical order. When the fight starts, take all the cards before the character that started it (made the first move, did whatever discovered the enemy, etc.) off the top, and put them on the bottom. The card on top is whose turn it is. When he acts, take it off the top, put it on the bottom and repeat. If you want to track spells by turns, when somebody casts a spell, insert a card for the spell on the bottom of the deck immediately after you move his card there.

You can now forget about seconds and just cycle through the deck. When your card comes up to the top, and you don't want to act yet, simply move it down in the deck however much you like instead of taking a turn now.

If there are occasional rules that don't work with this scheme, they're probably a result of a broken understanding of the turn sequence in the first place and ought to be fixed anyway. I don't think there are many outside some minor tweeks to the surprise rules, but the turn sequence seems to confuse people, even some GURPS writers, a lot more than it ought to for something so fundamentally simple, I think mostly because people insist turns have durations.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

Normally

5.0 spell last one more second and acts
4.75 attack 5.0 the spell still in effect
5.0 next turn start spell ends at the start be fore they act as it's 1 second later.

Alright.

Originally Posted by roguebfl

What you probles

5.0 spell last one more second buch choses to delay to 4.5
now the duration of what happes now take more that 1 second be less than 2
there no telling if 4.75 attack heppens before the 1 secodn expires or after.

There's an easy way. See, the spell is set to end at 5.0 next second. So it's still in effect for the entire rest of this second. When 5.0 of the next second comes around, the spell ends, just like it would in the first case, only now the character under the effect of the spell doesn't get to act until 4.5.

So:
Second n-1
5.0 - Character acts
4.75 - Foe acts; spell protects
Second n
5.0 - Character acts; Spell ends
4.75 - Foe acts; spell doesn't protect (it ended)
Second n+1
5.0 - Character acts
4.75 - Foe acts
... and so forth for the first case.

Second n-1
5.0 - Character delays
4.75 - Foe acts; spell protects
4.5 - Character acts
Second n
5.0 - Spell ends
4.75 - Foe acts; spell doesn't protect (it ended)
4.5 - Character acts
Second n+1
4.75 - Foe acts
4.5 - Character acts
... and so forth for the second case.