Active defenses as modifiers

[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.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Until you have combat reflexes, retreats, and shields.

... which is why I also explored defense bonuses between +1 (CR) and +4 (CR + Large Shield). And, of course, the entire purpose of a defense bonus is to make it take longer for you to get hit, so the fact it makes it take longer for you to get hit is things working as intended.

[harlandski]

Thank you for the discussion and ideas everyone!

Originally Posted by benz72

If it is indeed quicker, how much time did you save?

As Varyon said:

Originally Posted by Varyon

I'd imagine you'd just write what your Defense Modifier is on your sheet ahead of time, then when someone attacks you just see if their MoS was enough to soak the penalty. So if you have Block 15, Parry 12, and Dodge 9, you just note that you impose a -5 to hit with a Block, -4 with a Parry, and -3 with a Dodge.

Thanks also to Varyon for doing the maths, it's also and interesting idea how to make a linear modifier.

Originally Posted by Tinman

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

Yes, as ravenfish said my idea is that the defender would still get the choice, and should decide before they are attacked. I totally get it that people might like the defense rolls too.

Originally Posted by Otaku

You may wish to check out an article from Roleplayer 23 (included in Compendium II):

This sounds very interesting, I will definitely follow it up.

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 would love to try Chivalry & Sorcery one day.

Originally Posted by Rupert

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

This sounds like a cool limitation on parrying & shield blocking.

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.

Yes, basically I am trying to get around the slogfest, though I take benz72's point that tactics can also get around this.

Originally Posted by RyanW

You just write down the modifier on your character sheet. As long as you either never fight with a shield or always fight with the same sized shield, never get flanked or stunned and have to defend with a penalty, never retreat, All-Out Defend or use a defensive grip that gives you a bonus, and never have anything else that applies any temporary modifiers to skill and/or defense, it saves loads of time.

The very thing that GURPS defenses add to combat (tactical decisions matter) turns into an extra math step added to every attack, hit or miss.

And thanks for the list of cases where you would need to recalculate, RyanW!