sword fight combat question?

[Rowan]

Consider 2 combatants, Move 6. Swords with Reach 1 and 2. 10 yards apart.

If combatant 2 goes first and closes to 5 yards. Then, the 1st combatant chooses the wait maneuver and chooses to step/attack when combatant 2 gets within 3 yards of them.

turn 2: Combatant 2 begins to close the distance again. At 3 yards distant, Combatant 1 step and attacks. They hit and do seven points of damage. Combatant 2 failed to defend. Combatant 2 did retreat 1 yard backwards and is now 3 yards away again. Can they still step and attack since they've not acted yet?

Any help is appreciated.

[mlangsdorf]

Let's play it out, turn by turn:

Turn 0 Character 2: at position 0
Turn 0 Character 1: at position 10
Turn 1 Character 2: Move 5 yards to position 6.
Turn 1 Character 1: Wait until Character 2 gets to position 7, then step and attack.
Turn 2 Character 2: Intends to Move 3 yards to position 9. At position 7, triggers Character 1's wait. Character 1 steps to position 9 and attacks, hits, and Character 2 fails to defend with a retreat, putting him a position 6 with 5 MP left.

It's still Character 2's turn, and he's currently taking a Move maneuver. He can't switch to a Step and Attack, but he may be able to turn the Move to a Move and Attack (if he's suffering a shock penalty, it's probably not a good idea, but slamming Character 1 is possible at this point.

Assuming Character 2 doesn't slam, he can end his move anywhere in roughly 4 hexes, so Position 1 or so, facing Character 1.

Turn 2 Character 1: Takes a Wait to hit Character 1 when he attacks and step back.

In GURPS, triggering a wait allows a character to convert the Wait into a different maneuver on another character's turn. It doesn't change the turn order or stop the other character's turn, it just interrupts it. The other character continues their turn after the interruption, and both characters keep their place in the Combat Turn Sequence. This is explicit on Basic p 366.

[zoncxs]

Everything above is perfect except:

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

...It's still Character 2's turn, and he's currently taking a Move maneuver. He can't switch to a Step and Attack, but he may be able to turn the Move to a Move and Attack (if he's suffering a shock penalty, it's probably not a good idea, but slamming Character 1 is possible at this point.
...

Page 371 of Basic Set:

"...[Slams] requires an Attack,
All-Out Attack, or Move and Attack
maneuver..."

So Character 1 would have needed to choose Move and attack to slam Character 2 when their turn 2 started in order to attempt to slam.


Move and Attack, page 366:

"Active Defense: Dodge or block
only. You cannot parry and you may
not retreat (see Retreat, p. 377)."

This means Character 2 can't turn his Move maneuver into a move and attack since they retreated.

As far as I know, RAW, you cannot change your maneuver once your turn starts. So Character 2 is stuck with only "Move".

[Maz]

I agree with zoncxs that you can't suddenly change a move to a move & attack.

However being the target of a Wait attack doesn't rob you of your action. Even if you are hit and wounded. It might, if you suffer enough damage to take a major wound, fail a HT check and become stunned. But not automatically.


Rowan doesn't specify what sot of action Combatant 2 chooses when they "Close the distance again". Had it been a move and attack they can still attack (although with a shock penalty as well).


If your opponent is taking a Wait maneuver, the best option is usually to approach them slowly using an All Out Defense or Evaluate.

[Ulzgoroth]

Yeah, after your maneuver is interrupted by a Wait you simply continue with your maneuver.

In the described scenario, we can infer that maneuver to be a Move, but if the details were different and it was a different maneuver, that could allow 2 to continue and attack 1 on the same turn that they were hit by the Wait.

However, there are no details I can think of under which they could move forward to trigger the wait, retreat to defend against the triggered attack, and then step and attack. With an Attack or Defensive Attack maneuver, the step and attack is your entire maneuver, so you couldn't have moved and then done that. With Committed Attack it would be possible to step to trigger the attack and then after to take a second step and make your own attack, but that forbids retreat. No other maneuver includes both a step and an attack at all.