Re: Surprise
 

If you find yourself in a fair fight, you didn't plan your mission properly.
- David Hackworth

If your attack is going too well, you have walked into an ambush.
- Infantry Journal

You, you, and you: Panic. The rest of you, come with me.
- US Marine Corp Gunnery Sgt

None of my players are silly enough to think I won't run (reasonably intelligent and trained) NPCs with as effective tactics as their stats indicate.

Shockingly, most of my players either avoid combat entirely or really try not to go into it without as many advantages as they can manage. I find this realistic and recommended behavior. :)

Re: Surprise
 

I am still not agreeing with this rule.

1. I find it very hard to believe that the Ambushers may be surprised, UNLESS a monster/alien that they were NOT expecting is part of the group they are trying to ambush.

2. Even without Combat Reflexes, if you are searching for another group and expect a fight could happen at anytime, then I still don't think you are going to freeze, unless again something crazy like a monster/alien is part of the group that is ambushing your team.

Re: Surprise
 

Mind you, this is just me...

But if you have a bunch of mercenaries who are expecting trouble, that seems to imply that they have their weapons drawn and aimed towards where they are expecting trouble - no? If you look at page 393, it states that...

"Partial Surprise
This may occur when the defenders were expecting trouble . . . or when
each party surprised the other! The GM should require each side to roll for initiative."

Notice here, that your mercenaries were expecting trouble. If you took the time to stat out your mercenaries, you should have chosen a leader for them as well as giving the mercenary "tactics" as a skill. Now if you really wanted to have fun?

Page 52 of GURPS MARTIAL ARTS has this perk called "TEAMWORK" in which a group of people form up together into a team, and the team works as a single unit (as if they were one person for purposes of when they act). So how does this work in a GURPS scenario? Lets assume that as GM, you have the following books:

GURPS MARTIAL ARTS
GURPS CAMAPIGNS & GURPS CHARACTERS
GURPS HIGH TECH

You as GM, have decided, that three mercs plus their leader, are experienced mercenaries who have worked together in the past. You also decide, that you'd rather not give them COMBAT REFLEXES, as this is a costly advantage to confer upon NPCs. So you stat them out with Tactics 14 (Leader), Stealth 12, Guns 14, and IQ 11 with perception at 12. Last but not least, they all have Teamwork perk, as they have worked together in the past. Standard operating procedure is for the mercs to break up into two fire-teams of two.

Also, you know that the mercs will be entering into the bar from outside, where it is sunlit while the bar is somewhat gloomy inside. You decide (not having access to GURPS TACTICAL SHOOTING, based on real life, that it should probably take 3 seconds for the mercs' eyes to adjust to the gloom inside. So -3 visual perception turn 1, -2 visual perception turn 2, and -1 visual perception turn 3 - no penalties afterwards.

So, you tell your players "Since much of the actions will occur without the Mercs being able to see you, or you hear them, I'm afraid I'm going to have to write down what is happening until such a time as you peek over or around the bar to see what is happening. You will have to rely upon your hearing to determine much of what is happening. One more thing. Your characters do as you do. If you talk loudly, your PC's talk loudly. If you whisper, they whisper. Every time you make noise, they get a chance to hear you. If you wish to move without making noise, I suggest you use stealth." Of course, the players will complain "But what if I talk to you in a normal voice to tell you what I'm doing!". Simply smile saying "what ever you say to the GM is not part of the scene silly."

Now for the realy FUN part...

So, what is it that

Re: Surprise
 

An ambusher is unlikely to be able to keep that close an eye on their target without spooking them. You're also assuming the ambushers have perfect information. If the squad you can see is walking straight into your trap, but you haven't seen their supporting squad moving through cover, then a counter ambush isn't unlikely. Indeed, royally botching the roll for your ambush is a reasonable enough excuse to assume that your opponents have successfully spotted your ambush and taken appropriate measures to nullify it. Which could mean simply avoiding it, or calling in an air strike to deal with the threat.

Also note time-scale. Even in a prepared position, you're not going to be set up unless you've spotted a potential target, and you're spotting point could be quite far away. This gives several minutes from set-up to execution where you want the target to move along a particular path. If they don't then you're ambush isn't going to work so well.

In other words in isn't a case of roll when they enter ambush zone, but roll when you set up. I think you're assuming that the roll is made when the targets enter the ambush zone, which I think is far too late as that is not a fair point. A fair point would the point where two opposing squads of equal skill have a 50/50 chance of it going either way. That is not the point where a target is about to enter you're ambush zone.
This is why partial surprise has an incremental bonus, and nothing stops you from doing a dodge and drop when the bullets start flying. However, you do need to work out were the fire is coming from, and this will take a few seconds.

Re: Surprise
 

You as GM decide that you will have the Mercs break up into two fire teams. Team A with the leader, and his partner A2 with the lowest speed being 5.5 due to the team's speed being that of the slowest member. Team B has B1 and B2, with 5.25 being the slowest speed for the team. A1 will open the door, while A2 is kneeling such that he can fire into the room if anything moves. Team B waits pointing weapons towards the door in wait mode. So the leader does his "one, two, three" motion with his hand while being to the side of the door, and pulls it open (assuming the door opens outwards). The GM then tells the player characters "Ok, make a perception roll twice." The players grumble because the GM isn't telling them anything - and is saying to roll only after he's hastily written down what the Mercs are doing. The players all succeed in their rolls (amazing isn't it?) and the GM says "The door opens quickly, and at the same time, you notice the light level of the bar increases as the reflected outside ambient light washes into the room - making the walls overhead brighten a little. What do you do?"

So the players decide that they're in wait mode, and that they will wait until someone jumps up and start firing. The Gm smiles saying "You do realize, that if you jump up and start firing, you will be at penalties to shooting because you haven't aimed, and you are pop up firing right?"

The GM scribbles some more after making some die rolls. He knows that the way to build suspense is by not telling them what is happening and making a lot of die rolls in order to make his players paranoid. Rolling a 12 and a 10, the GM notes that both of the Mercs from Team B enter relatively noiselessly into the room. Page 358 for sense rolls, suggests that the Gm decide what the noise level of the sound is, and then roll based upon range. Since the room is about 30 feet wide by about 60 feet deep, and the bar itself is about 50' in, that works out to roughly 16 yards from front of door to the bar. Deciding that the noise level is about par with quiet conversation - which means that you have to roll versus perception at a -5 (due to range) and -0 (as the second merc only made his stealth roll by 0). Unsurprisingly, the PC's don't hear the merc team silently enter into the room.

Now Team B is in and takes a wait manuever to fire at anything that moves inside of the room - that isn't their team members.

Re: Surprise
 

At this point, fireteam B is in wait mode, and Fireteam A is beginning to enter into the room. Just as Fireteam B went to the left when entering the door, fireteam A will go to the right as they enter into the door.

Now, they work together - one fireteam advances, while the other fire team watches. After the first fire team has advanced 2 yards and stops, they will be in wait mode while the other fire team advances. Each time use the stealth rules until the player characters either can't stand the suspense and peeks over the bar counter, or they stand up and open fire. Either that, or the mercs continue to advance until they begin to investigate the bar as a potential hiding spot. If there is a bottle on the table, or if the merc get close enough - they could even have one merc throw a chair at the bar proper, and have the other fireteam in overwatch (ie wait mode) to see if it flushes anyone from behind the bar. At the very least - it offers a chance for surprise against those behind the bar because they're not expecting it.

No matter how this works out? The mercs are always prepared to fire at the first thing that moves within their point of view. No surprise, no partial surprise, and the Mercs have the upper hand in the sense that they don't have to do pop-up attacks blind, whereas the PCs will have to do pop up attacks. Granted, the mercs will be penalized for firing at a pop-up target, but that's all part of the game ;)

If these mercs really do believe the player characters are in the bar, and the mercs have access to grenades, this gets real ugly real quick...

Re: Surprise
 

Even if the ambushees detect the ambush and attack into it without warning before it springs? Pretty sure that's what the 'your ambush failed badly' scenario represents. (And you've got to fail pretty badly to get there.)
You're not going to freeze: freezing is the 1d seconds you lose when you're totally surprised before you even get to start trying to break out of mental stun (or even use an active defense, if I'm reading it right). Combat reflexes guarantees that that doesn't ever happen to you.

Mental Stun isn't freezing. For an intelligent creature with combat reflexes, it generally means 'you need to take 1 second to get a handle on what's going on here'.
Not compatible with the rules in Tactical Shooting...and ambush is not a symmetric situation. Two opposing squads of equal skill (in whichever of the 3-4 applicable traits they're best at) are 50-50 between the ambush working and neither side being surprised. The intended victims need to win by a large margin for things to actually be in their favor.

Re: Surprise
 

Part of the point of the typical ambush-response drills (Basically, charge and OVERWHELMING FIREPOWER) is to do exactly that. It apparently can work quite well, too.

Mind you, the ambushees wining the contest by that much likely represents them seeing the ambushers before the ambush is started. Suddenly coming under heavy fire when you're expecting to be the one ambushing is certainly enough of a drastic change in plans to warrant surprise.

Firefights are crazy and often scary situations, with lots of stuff happening all over the place. When stuff starts to happen, it's quite easy to get lost for a moment or two trying to take in the details and figure out "What the hell is going on?" Even the full-on freeze could simply be trying to figure out what's going on (Been there...).

That said, a group that is actively hunting down another group and expecting contact at any moment seems like it would likely be in the Focused (Orange) state of alertness. Individuals moving and taking Wait maneuvers to cover potential threats. For the game mechanics, situational awareness is reduced due to focusing on individual points of potential threat, but as a result, if that threat does present itself where expected, the individual covering it is immune to partial surprise (And with a Wait, can immediately shoot at it). This should hopefully give the rest of the team time to overcome the moment of mental stun as they take in the new threat. (At least, that's how my reading of the Tactical Shooting rules goes. I really like them!)

Re: Surprise
 

B364, "Do Nothing" says Do Nothing is what you do when you're mentally stunned, and still lets you attempt active defenses at -4. B[3]93, "Total Surprise" confirms people frozen under total surprise are mentally stunned and must take the Do Nothing maneuver.

EDIT: page number typo corrected.

Re: Surprise
 

You mean 393, I think, but other than that you're quite right. I'm not sure how I managed to misread that the way I did.