Steve Jackson Games Forums - I have revised basic combat rules (article)

Quote:

Originally Posted by sjmdw45 (Post 2496895)

I think this is a misunderstanding.

It's about the fact that Conan is reacting unrealistically quickly and intelligently to Legolas's actions a fraction of a second earlier.

Indeed, that's exactly one of the things I'm addressing in my homerule.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kenclary (Post 2496897)

Kind of an aside to this particular discussion...but Tactical Shooting has a little section called "Situation Awareness" that covers this sort of thing pretty well, without reinventing the whole turn system.

That's not quite it. Tactical awareness from the supplement intends to game-mechanically simulate the real-life lack of knowledge that combatants have on the battlefield and thus tries to limit the omnipresent knowledge that players have on the gaming table. That is the tool to prevent metagaming by limiting options and knowledge to what the character knows and not the player. Or, in other words, it's about knowledge, not speed of action.

So far there came one serious objection:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rupert (Post 2496776)

Personally, having played in many games with 'everyone declares, then all is resolved', I find them quite annoying when playing a slow character, because of lost actions. It's bad enough when you see all your opportunities to do useful things pre-empted in a game like GURPS, but it's even worse when you have to declare and pray what you do decide to do doesn't turn into 'I stand there, flummoxed, as the faster combatants make me look like a fool'.

After some consideration, I decided to implement a tweak similar to what sjmdw45 is suggesting. Now, if someone's declared action became unavailable for some reason, that character may reconsider his choice. To do that, he must roll IQ (similar to recovery from mental stun). On a failure, his turn is wasted, and on success, he can choose another action, although he will get -2 on all rolls for multitasking. Tactics and Soldier should probably substitute for IQ. How does that sound?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rupert (Post 2496776)

And back to the OP's revised order of declaration: It makes this even worse, because someone can force an opponent into this situation even if they didn't intend it if a player's wording is a bit imprecise. On the other hand, faster characters have to declare 'holds' before seeing what everyone is doing, so intelligent players will just avoid characters with such Holds. Meanwhile, if understand things right, a slower character with such a Hold doesn't actually get to have the action held until their turn, so they can't usefully hold an action unless they roll over into the next turn - and even then, they'll simply be avoided as normal. Holds only work if players and GMs are very good at compartmentalising 'player knowledge' away from 'character knowledge' in a system where full declarations are made at the beginning of each turn.

I don't see much problem here, as in my tweak Wait works practically the same way as in turn-by-turn basic combat rules. If a slower character declares Wait, its effect is extended into the next round, so he does get the benefit.

For the problems with abusing the Wait maneuver, as people previously discussed, I just came up with the idea to make the characters involved roll a quick contest of DX or weapon skills, to see who goes first. That is, if the hero has declared he's going to wait for the goblin to get close and then strike him, and the goblin indeed closes in to make his own attack -- they roll quick contest and the winner goes first! That should limit the potency of the Wait and perhaps players won't be abusing it so much. What do you think about that?