Tactics Skill: any utility at all?

[BraselC5048]

Really, what good is tactics skill anyway? I've been playing a space military campaign for a while now (a naval campaign set in a highly altered Traveller universe, with all the non-starship rules from stock GURPS - I don't even own GURPS Traveller), [Note to mods: this not a traveller post, it's a GURPS post] and I've never come across a situation where I’ve had to use it.

For example, GURPS WWII give the example of ‘using tactics skill to determine the best way to approach the house.’ Do you roll, and then the GM tells you the best way if you passed? At least in my experience, what happens is the GM draws up a quick sketch map, and gives a description, and then the player decides what course of action to take. For example, “we’ll head along the creek until we get a close a we can, then we rush them, hopefully taking them by surprise, since there’s only two windows on that side of the house.”

And for one example from my campaign, my character was arriving to help a group of marines pinned down in a warehouse. A quick sketch map, and the enemy is firing down from a sort of balcony/open hallway along the front of a loft with offices in it. I decided essentially instantly that there were likely stairs up to the loft around the back of the building, and I still don’t know why I thought that. But my character went round the side of the building, and sure enough, there were stairs there.

As for tactics(starship), it’s even more useless. Essentially, the player has to have tactics skill, because ‘here’s the grid map, you are here, there’s the enemy, their course and speed is this, now what direction do you send your ship, captain?’ The player has all the information the character would have, and the player has to make a decision based on it, and all the skill in the world your character has won’t help you if you ‘fail the rolls,’ so to speak.

I figure I have maybe skill 12 in starship tactics, but then again, I’ve never obviously done something that would be a failed roll, either.


On a side note, operations skill works much the same way, and since success at operations gives you a major advantage when it comes to tactics, it helps my GM is working from default.

[Last Pawn]

I'm sure I didn't come up with this myself, but I've been allowing each side in a combat a Quick contest against Tactics before combat begins. The roll is made by the character with the highest level on either side with the winning side getting 2 Impulse Points apiece for the purpose of buying success. If the person who rolled for their side can also make a successful Leadership roll then those points are put into a pool for general use.

[Edges]

Martial Arts page 60 has some rules.

[gilbertocarlos]

When combat starts, everyone can roll Tactics or Soldier-4, on a success, you get an advantage on the combat, usually starting with cover, but the player can ask something else like starting near a window or behind a wall.

[Mathulhu]

In my experience when a GM draws a map they give a lot of information that a character might only suspect not know for certain. A successful Tactics roll can avoid the tricks and traps the GM can spring on you due to this imperfect information.

[The Benj]

I substitute a Quick Contest of Tactics for the Initiative roll.

[PseudoFenton]

DF offers the ability to spend a second to give someone advice (by rolling tactics) which grants bonuses or penalties depending on its outcome.

I also allow tactics to be used to grant insight in how to take advantage of elements they may have missed. It may also be used to get a "this is a good plan" set of actions - which is guaranteed to be a good plan as following through on the plan grants bonuses to all the actions required - this is handy when the players are bad at tactical decisions, but also when there's no obviously 'best' course of action.

[Juca]

In my table, the tactic skill can be generally used in two ways:

- At the start of a combat that the characters are expecting, they can make tactics checks to start at a position of advantage, say behind a cover, facing someone (or something), crouching, etc.
- When planning, they can make tactics check to ask things to the GM that are not obvious for the players, but the characters can know, like probably escape routes, where would be a good ambush position, and the like.

[gilbertocarlos]

Instead of using it to give what's the best course of action, use it to know what the opponent will do(roll in secret).

So, instead of saying:
The best strategy is trying to pass through the brute and kill the mage.
Say:
The brute is protecting the mage, who is casting a slow, through powerful spell, if he keep concentration for long enough, he'll be able to cast it.

Instead of saying:
You should sneak in the house from the left flank.
Say:
There are 5 guards in the front, 3 in the back, and 2 on each side, the front is an open camp, the back has some forest, the right side is also open camp, and the left has deep forest.


This way, even though it's "railroading", the player has the option, and if the player is a really good tactician, he might even have an extra insight, like:
One of the henchmen will walk around the right, watching, seeming suspicious, this way, they may deslocate one of the guards to the right.

[Dustin]

I'm going to try a system where a leader's Tactics roll at the start of combat provides a pool of bonus points to hand out before dice rolls. So, making Tactics by 4 might provide (4+1) 5 bonus points that the leader can hand out, frex +2 for the sniper's initial shot on the sentry, a +1 for the guy with the door ram when he does a Forced Entry, and reserve the last 2 pts for whatever they find inside...