Re: Combat- Why not contests of skills?
 

I would say it is correct because the head is smaller than the body, it is easier to protect. Less surface to defend. Having done karate for 5 years, I can say that it is easier to hit and not be parried by a debutant if you hit the body.

If you feint the body (simulated by feint or deceptive attack) and then attack the head, that’s another story.

Re: Combat- Why not contests of skills?
 

Good point.

Actually, I think it makes sense for some locations to be easier to defend. I just meant that it went back to the situation Kromm seemed to warn against.

If we wanted to get complicated, wouldn't each hit location have a different bonus/penalty to defend. The head may be easier to defend, but the hands might be harder to defend. I find my legs harder to defend than my torso, etc.

Re: Combat- Why not contests of skills?
 

The 7-year old girl wouldn't give the Kung Fu Master her candy.

Re: Combat- Why not contests of skills?
 

Exactly. Let's not forget that a 7 year old's DX is lower, too, so her defaults are going to be craptacular. If she manages to roll well enough to succeed, well, then she got lucky, just like her player did, and the Master is going to have to defend.

Did we forget to mention that she's a seven-year-old Felicia-series combat bioroid that emerged fully grown from a biogenesis tank?

Oops.

Re: Combat- Why not contests of skills?
 

Hey, seven's pretty old in cat years.

Re: Combat- Why not contests of skills?
 

I think you are right and it could (not saying should) be more complicated to add some realism. I do not know all the thinking that Kromm and David did behind it but they took at least 2 years to deconstruct the system and they certainly went through those issues. In the end, it certainly came down to statistics and playability.

I must say that one of the things that was bugging me in 3E was that a skill 25 had to make a feint if he wanted to lower the defence of let say a skill 16. Now with deceptive attack, he could attack once at 19 for a –3 and still have a good chance to hit. Now if he is trained by a master, he could do rapid strike (feint) and then attack (deceptive attack). Let just say that in Kromm’s game, I am not the weapon master but I have seen it in use and it is quite deadly. WM don’t have 4 or 5 attacks anymore but the 2 or 3 they have are more deadlier and fights are shorter.

Re: Combat- Why not contests of skills?
 

I have yet to see such a thing; I can only imagine it in my head. But I love it.

Glad to hear it, recnamorceN ;)

Re: Combat- Why not contests of skills?
 

Do the numbers. Skill/2+3 is the base for a block, and once you count retreating (+3 for Boxing, Judi, or Karate) it's Skill/2+6. That means a Karate-12 guy (who, if he's an average person, has put 12 points into the skill - 2400 hours training - he's dedicated) has defence equal to his skill as long as he keeps backing away. Less dedicated people have higher defence than skill. My concern is more that defence is likely to be too high than too low - I expect any half-way competent character to manage defence-12 or more for their best defence, and Dodge-10-12 won't be unusual for PC-grade characters, I think.

IIRC Douglas Cole tried this back before G4 was announced, and found there to be some issues with play speed, and so on.

I looked at it, and decided I didn't like the likely effect on damage vs armour, and on gun-damage (which really is independant of the attacker's skill, aside from carefully aimed hits to vital locations - something GURPS already covers well).

Re: Combat- Why not contests of skills?
 

But for that you can still make a regular feint, right? The feint move is still in the 4th edition, I guess.

Anyway, I really like the deceptive move idea. I really wanna see how it will work in play.

Re: Combat- Why not contests of skills?
 

I was part of that discussion w/ D Cole, and replied to him that it seemed strange that the -2 TH/-1 AD rule would cause any slowness of play. IIRC, he then reviewed the games in question, and allowed that the slowness actually stemmed from a handful of additional house rules he'd implemented at the same time, not the above rule.

There's no reason why the above rule would slow play; it's just a pair of modifiers like any other, with no bookkeeping between rounds -- and by addressing "unbeatable" defenses, makes combat run more *quickly*. I've spoken in favor of it for a long time, and am glad to see it in 4e.