I have revised basic combat rules (article)

[Boge]

My group tried a method like this. We all had white boards and we'd write down our planned actions.

What I didn't like about it was a wasted action. That's not very fun.

There are some realistic improvements though. I always notice with normal rules that the second an enemy dies, or the second an ally gets in trouble, some players rush over to the next task, which would take a moment to observe what is happening first. But that doesn't happen.

Reading over this has me wanting to try it again though. I'll pitch it to the GM we play with. It was his idea originally, so I'm sure he's 1000% on board with it.

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by Boge

My group tried a method like this. We all had white boards and we'd write down our planned actions.

What I didn't like about it was a wasted action. That's not very fun.

Outsmarting enemies and making them waste their actions feels pretty awesome though. Pros and cons. This requires the GM/monster advocate to play fair (i.e. by the same rules as the PCs).

For example, if I am facing a goblin from 2 yards away, and instead of declaring that "I step forward and hit him with my axe," I instead declare that "I Wait until he's within 1 yard and then hit him with my axe and step back," then there's a good chance the goblin's "I charge and hit him with my sword" must be implemented as a Move and Attack instead of an Attack, which means it can't retreat from my attack and can't parry and gets -4 to hit and a skill cap of 9, both now and on the attack I'm immediately going to declare after my Wait goes off ("I hit him again before he can recover!") and before he can make his own attack.

So I get defensive and offensive advantages by outsmarting him with a Wait. If I instead declare that I'm fleeing from him at top speed I probably waste his action entirely (Move and Attack against a target that's no longer in reach even after moving).

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by sjmdw45

Outsmarting enemies and making them waste their actions feels pretty awesome though. Pros and cons. This requires the GM/monster advocate to play fair (i.e. by the same rules as the PCs).

For example, if I am facing a goblin from 2 yards away, and instead of declaring that "I step forward and hit him with my axe," I instead declare that "I Wait until he's within 1 yard and then hit him with my axe and step back," then there's a good chance the goblin's "I charge and hit him with my sword" must be implemented as a Move and Attack instead of an Attack, which means it can't retreat from my attack and can't parry and gets -4 to hit and a skill cap of 9, both now and on the attack I'm immediately going to declare after my Wait goes off ("I hit him again before he can recover!") and before he can make his own attack.

So I get defensive and offensive advantages by outsmarting him with a Wait. If I instead declare that I'm fleeing from him at top speed I probably waste his action entirely (Move and Attack against a target that's no longer in reach even after moving).

Neat trick standing stationary, pre-empting an incoming attack, and then stepping backwards fast enough that the attacker has to follow you to even get a chance of a hit. Note that when you declare a Retreat, the attacker gets to attack and then you move away. I'd allow the held attack to go first, but the step should come after the attacker gets their swing in, IMO. Otherwise held actions are altogether too strong, and every sensible combatant will use them, and thus fights end up as stalemates, or combatants have to start doing really weird things to avoid triggering Held actions.

[Purple Snit]

"This is a hoary old complaint applied to pretty much every game, any time anyone comes up with houserules. (Oddly enough, such semantics-chopping seems restricted to RPGs: I don't think I've ever heard anyone question whether variant table rules meant the card players weren't playing poker any more.)

Now leaving aside that some of us came up in the era where EVERYONE houseruled, and no one but rookies played OD&D RAW, my eternal answer is that stipulating so, so what?

Me not being a player at your table, it doesn't affect me one tiny little degree what rules your group does or does not use, or what labels you do or do not slap on your games. Neither do my houserules affect you in the slightest degree. I call the game I play GURPS. If, upon looking at my list of houserules, you decide that's too variant for you, that's cool: you do you. I've yet to hear a good reason for anyone to care. "

Yep, I'm from the OD&D era myself. And in my experience, houserules made it way harder to go from game to game because everyone did things differently. It wasn't the best system, though obviously we survived and kept playing. I comment because, as this is a forum, we're supposed to comment and discuss; not thinking an idea is great is as valid as loving it, as long as discourse is civil. You can absolutely do whatever you want at your table, and yes, this is a very good system for tinkering. I was just musing "how much does it change before it isn't the original game?" But to each their own - this is just my 2 cents' worth. I don't want to derail the OPs thread any further.

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Neat trick standing stationary, pre-empting an incoming attack, and then stepping backwards fast enough that the attacker has to follow you to even get a chance of a hit. Note that when you declare a Retreat, the attacker gets to attack and then you move away. I'd allow the held attack to go first, but the step should come after the attacker gets their swing in, IMO. Otherwise held actions are altogether too strong, and every sensible combatant will use them, and thus fights end up as stalemates, or combatants have to start doing really weird things to avoid triggering Held actions.

Temporary stalemates over distance make a lot of sense though and are a feature in real life, e.g. this match https://youtu.be/qSlVOYeiGrc is 80-90% Waiting in GURPS terms.

If someone has to bite the bullet and Move or Move and Attack or All Out Attack to get into distance, that seems okay to me as a GM even if it triggers a Wait-and-attack. Disarming attacks on a weapon are another way to break that stalemate under GURPS rules. Or you could withdraw a few steps and switch weapons, or manipulate the environment (close doors), attempt intimidation or social manipulation or even (gasp!) parley for surrender, rather than violence.

Therefore I let the whole Wait complete including the step, per rules as written, instead of trying to hold the step until later somehow.

IME allowing players to have lulls in the violence without being tactically punished for it is nothing but good for roleplay.

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by sjmdw45

Temporary stalemates over distance make a lot of sense though and are a feature in real life, e.g. this match https://youtu.be/qSlVOYeiGrc is 80-90% Waiting in GURPS terms.

And Evaluates I'm sure. But that's like 200 rounds of "I Wait/Evaluate". That's a boring combat.

It's better handled with Lulls out of Martial Arts pg 134 or Last Gasp if you want to "force realistic lulls". Just let the PCs make Tactics rolls or something during the lull to represent taking Evaluates or being in a "better position" when the lull ends, or for their enemy or themselves breaking the 'wait cycle' first.

IME allowing players to have lulls in the violence without being tactically punished for it is nothing but good for roleplay.

Agreed, it's just usually not tactically valuable at the table because of the way the Full Omniscience and OODA Loop works out for N/PCs.

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by mburr0003

And Evaluates I'm sure. But that's like 200 rounds of "I Wait/Evaluate". That's a boring combat.

If both parties have "I Wait" as their current action then the GM can just let the clock tick forward in lockstep with real time while they think or talk or whatever. 200 seconds of THAT goes by real fast.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by sjmdw45

Therefore I let the whole Wait complete including the step, per rules as written, instead of trying to hold the step until later somehow.

Now imagine that the attacker has the sense to cautiously advance (i.e. only step-and-attack). They never get to attack, as every time they step in the defender gets to take a swing at them and then step back out of reach. The 'defender' never even needs to make a defence roll - the guy moving simply never gets to make an attack roll.

So we two combatants with identical weapons, 'A' and 'B'. A is advancing and the 'B' retreating at the same speed, and somehow A is inside weapon range of B while never getting B inside their weapon range.

It's one thing for someone to be skipping out of range by stepping backwards and Retreating as required, forcing the other guy to make move-and-attacks (because if you step back and then Retreat you've moved two yards away, forcing the attacker to do more than a step - assuming the attacker isn't very fast), and risking getting hit if the dice go badly for them. It's another for someone to be able to do this risk free and get to attack the 'attacker' as well!

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.

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'.

By the way, this also raises the value of Speed, and thus of DX (and also HT, but that's usually not seen as such an issue) which is already seen as the uber-stat for combat.

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Now imagine that the attacker has the sense to cautiously advance (i.e. only step-and-attack). They never get to attack, as every time they step in the defender gets to take a swing at them and then step back out of reach. The 'defender' never even needs to make a defence roll - the guy moving simply never gets to make an attack roll.

That sounds like foolishness, not sense. If your tactic consistently doesn't work, it's not good sense. Try Move instead of Attack. You'll get to attack from turn 2 onwards.

If you want to attack on turn 1 you can even do Move and Attack.

Alternatively you can do the opposite, Move away and try to bait the opponent into doing a Move and Attack against you. Or you can step forward and Attack his weapon. Or parley, or throw a knife, etc., etc.

[Farmer]

A lot of people are talking as if there's a single turn, one second of time in which everyone gets a go. That's not the case. Each character has one second's worth of action. Some of them start acting before others, but it's not all happening within one, single second. It's simply an order of who started acting before who else, and people can and do make split second decisions and changes of mind and action.

Now, if you want to provide some time cost for changing your mind, that could be considered realistic. Either moving you down the initiative order by a certain amount or reducing your move, maybe prevent "all out" actions or "heroic actions". There's some potential there. Ideally, you'd trust players to say, "Oh, I've changed what I was going to do" and then apply the penalty, but you could insist on declared moves, made the moment your current one ends. Seems a bit complex, drawn out, and rules-heavy as opposed to some trust in combined story telling, but to each their own in that respect.

But conversations that imply it should all be happening in the same second, somehow with some moving sooner or later within that second but still getting one second's worth of action and then worrying that the rules aren't working well is, well, not ideal because that's not what's happening.