Active defenses as modifiers

[Tinman]

my big problem with this is: as a PC it takes away all agency I have as a player.
I should be able to adjust my defenses, use retreat or FP as I see fit & then rely on MY luck/roll to determine if I get hurt or not. I don't like that it's all on some other guy's roll.

Also, does you modifier let me choose to retreat or fp defense?

[ravenfish]

Originally Posted by Tinman

Also, does you modifier let me choose to retreat or fp defense?

I don't see why it wouldn't- you declare them when the opponent attempts his attack roll rather than after it succeeds, and they penalize his attack roll rather than benefiting your defense roll.

In principle, I see no reason why such a system could not be made to work, but, for me personally, getting to roll for a parry or dodge (rather than having my skill at parrying or dodging abstractly reduce the opponent's chance to hit) is part of the attraction of GURPS, and I doubt I'm the only one with such feelings.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Tinman

my big problem with this is: as a PC it takes away all agency I have as a player.
I should be able to adjust my defenses, use retreat or FP as I see fit & then rely on MY luck/roll to determine if I get hurt or not. I don't like that it's all on some other guy's roll.

I came into the hobby in the late 70s with a _lot_ of combat in Chivalry & Sorcery 1e which worked a lot like this. It was nice when you were the more skilled fighter that it was more difficult to be parried or dodged.

I found Gurps with its' "flat" defenses to be somewhat annoying. Some of this may have been before I appreciated the ability of crits on attacks to be always successful.

Runequest 2 may have had some of this "A successful defense always beats a successful attack" problem.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I came into the hobby in the late 70s with a _lot_ of combat in Chivalry & Sorcery 1e which worked a lot like this. It was nice when you were the more skilled fighter that it was more difficult to be parried or dodged.

I found Gurps with its' "flat" defenses to be somewhat annoying. Some of this may have been before I appreciated the ability of crits on attacks to be always successful.

Runequest 2 may have had some of this "A successful defense always beats a successful attack" problem.

In Runequest 2 at least a successful attack could damage the parrying weapon or possibly smash through a shield.

Rolemaster also works like the OP is looking at. One of the potential issues with doing this in GURPS is that it makes anything that reduces your hit chance very bad. It also makes deceptive attacks worse than useless, but this might no be of concern if skills aren't expected to get over twenty or so.

By the way, this also applies to doing quick contests - anything that might reduce your margin of success has to return huge dividends, so wise players will make very few targeted attacks, etc.

[Anthony]

The main incentive for doing something like this is streamlining: GURPS combat with can turn into quite a slog of failed attacks (this is particularly common when using shields) so cutting down on the number of rolls will cut speed things up. There's other ways of accomplishing the same thing, though (changing combat to a quick contest, for example).

[benz72]

I've seen the slogfest argument before, and taken it seriously, but every time I look into it more deeply I come across a failure to utilize terrain and tactics to change the dynamics of the fight. I get that the default attack-defend-damage loop can get boring and crit fishing is dull, but suggest that we generally do have good options to make fights interesting without actually changing the rules.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by benz72

I've seen the slogfest argument before, and taken it seriously, but every time I look into it more deeply I come across a failure to utilize terrain and tactics to change the dynamics of the fight.

Problem is the enemy will also try to utilize terrain and tactics to change the dynamics in their favor, and that usually cancels out.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Problem is the enemy will also try to utilize terrain and tactics to change the dynamics in their favor, and that usually cancels out.

Terrain is generally symmetrical in effect. The Mythbusters even showed that with better tactics Obi Wan's "high ground" would have made little difference. :)

Terrain (most likely artificial terrain like insides of buildings) can limit tactics (like no retreats) but that's the only thing that comes to my mind right now.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by benz72

I've seen the slogfest argument before, and taken it seriously, but every time I look into it more deeply I come across a failure to utilize terrain and tactics to change the dynamics of the fight. I get that the default attack-defend-damage loop can get boring and crit fishing is dull, but suggest that we generally do have good options to make fights interesting without actually changing the rules.

Again, with equally-skilled combatants, you're looking at around a 45% chance of a hit, which isn't a slogfest - it's close to one out of every 2 attacks hitting. That changes as the target's defense goes up, of course - against a foe with a +1 to defenses, you're looking at around a 34% chance (one-in-three), with +2 it's around a 24% chance (one-in-four), with +3 it's around a 15% chance (one-in-seven), and with +4 it's around an 8% chance (one-in-twelve). But then a slogfest is kind of the expectation of equally-skilled combatants wielding large shields anyway - the whole point of shields is to prevent you from getting hurt! With combatants who aren't equally skilled, the more-skilled one will have an easier time than the above values - skill 14 vs skill 12 gives around a 57% chance of a hit, 14 vs 10 is around 67%, 14 vs 8 is around 76%, and 14 vs 6 is around 83%. Needing to target somewhere other than the Torso also serves to drop the attacker's effective skill, which will make it take longer to score a hit - but then trying to hit someone in the head should take longer to score a hit than just going after the Torso.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Again, with equally-skilled combatants, you're looking at around a 45% chance of a hit, which isn't a slogfest

Until you have combat reflexes, retreats, and shields.