Can you substitute a Ready for an Attack?

[Sam Baughn]

I thought there was a rule which said you could swap an attack for a feint or ready, but having just checked Martial Arts it actually only seems to cover feints.

So, is there any way to ready more than one item in a turn or ready without taking the ready maneuver except for Fast Draw?

If not, is there any reason that adding the option as a house rule would be unbalanced or problematic?

How about a perk to allow it?

[Ulzgoroth]

I'm pretty sure there's never been such a rule.

No, there's no way to multi-Ready or to Ready without a Ready maneuver. Well, I think you can draw with multiple hands simultaneously as a single ready? Not positive.

I would have said that substituting a Ready for an Attack was a reasonable house-rule with provisions made for what you do with associated penalties, but the multi-Ready you mentioned makes it clear that it isn't. All Out Ready (Double) is not appropriate at all. The problem being less 'readying two things at once' and more getting through a sequence of Readies twice as fast as you ought to.

Some way to Move and Ready would probably be a good idea. Maybe even a Defensive Ready. But they're not direct implications of the attack maneuvers.

[Maz]

My GURPS Fu has become weak since I haven't played for ages. But, a few things a ready action allow you to do, that an attack do not:

Change grip on weapon. Draw a weapon: These would be a good fit for a substitute to atk.

Reload gun faster: This might become a bit weird. Can you make an AOA:double attack, and reload your gun faster? ... Actually I would be OK with that.

Ready an unbalanced weapon... Oh no wait. You can't actually ready an unbalanced weapon with a ready action. Only unwieldy weapons, and they are all, also unbalanced. So yea, no problem there.

[weby]

Originally Posted by Perfect Organism

I thought there was a rule which said you could swap an attack for a feint or ready, but having just checked Martial Arts it actually only seems to cover feints.

correct

So, is there any way to ready more than one item in a turn or ready without taking the ready maneuver except for Fast Draw?

Dual Ready

If not, is there any reason that adding the option as a house rule would be unbalanced or problematic?

How about a perk to allow it?

I use a "Extra Effort - Fast Ready" option that thus costs 1 FP and allows a free time ready operation in some of my games. I have no idea where it has come from originally. I have not found it unbalanced, but that is a lot because of the campaign style where heroes often can not freely recover FP so they are wary of using too much.

I would not allow it as full option as an attack is only 25 points and a ready quite much more (Guestimate of order of magnitude:40 points)

A perk to allow a specific type of item, sure, specially if the combat perks are limited as suggested.

But quite often just getting fast draw is the simple option for drawing things.

[VariousRen]

Fast Draw allows you to draw something with each free hand that you have (Martial Arts somewhere), with normal off hand penalties. This is a pretty good reason to take ambidextrous rather than just offhand weapon training for a duel wielder.

Allowing people to ready something in each hand seems reasonable, since they are spending the whole second just doing that. For duel wielders it seems a little strange to have to spend more time drawing your two daggers than the fighter with his oversized great sword.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by VariousRen

Fast Draw allows you to draw something with each free hand that you have (Martial Arts somewhere), with normal off hand penalties. This is a pretty good reason to take ambidextrous rather than just offhand weapon training for a duel wielder.

Not really much of one, if you just need one more Off-Hand Skill Training perk.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Perfect Organism

If not, is there any reason that adding the option as a house rule would be unbalanced or problematic?

As in give up an attack and ready something instead?

That sounds fine if we are talking about readying a weapon.

For anything Ready has been used for, I can imagine there are potential abuses - some of those things probably should have used Concentrate, and Long Action probably should have been a separate maneuver, not rolled into Ready.

But really a simple continuous physical action might just as well be an Attack as a Ready - move this thing in my hand from here to there uses one or the other depending on whether there is an object in the movement path, right?

[VariousRen]

"I grapple my sword by the hilt with my right hand and make a wrestle check to gain CP. I now have enough that it is helpless and I can wield it like a weapon!" - Technical Sword drawing

I would allow an attack be traded for a minor physical action that could reasonably be done every once in a while, but not as a constant way of getting a free ready action out of your extra attack advantage. If the player intends to duel with one hand and ready a potion with the other as an "attack" once during a fight, that would be fine. They couldn't use the extra attack to draw the potion every fight though(a perk would let them), nor could they use the attack as a ready action to turn on a different advantage.

[evileeyore]

I allow a Ready as a free-action with a Fast-Draw at -5. If they fail the roll they spend the action as a Ready action instead.


(Stolen shamelessly from the Pyramid article on making Aiming into part of the Attack action)

[VariousRen]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

I allow a Ready as a free-action with a Fast-Draw at -5. If they fail the roll they spend the action as a Ready action instead.


(Stolen shamelessly from the Pyramid article on making Aiming into part of the Attack action)

Any ready action, or only ones to do with the weapon? Ready actions also include switching advantages, rummaging through bags of stuff, and other seemingly unrelated things. It seems like the ready maneuver was used as the catch all for physical non-attacking actions.