Active defense debate o_Ô

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Rupert

I briefly tried QC based combat in 3e, and then Only The Best Shall Win (from CII). In both cases the main effect I saw was that highly-skilled combatants stopped doing cool stuff like stabbing people through the heart or attacking their hands to disable them, and switched to simple "at the torso" attacks, because the penalties for aimed attacks cut into the margin of success, and thus made the 'miss' chance go up much faster than it does in the standard system.

IOW QC make combat a little faster, but much less interesting. If you want a more abstract system, that's fine, but if you want tactical combat, it's not good.

It seems to me the obvious solution is to base the defense on the unmodified skill roll. You still have to hit normally, but if you do, your attack roll unmodified by such details as hit location, range, darkness, footing, and so on is contested by your opponent's defense skill roll. The GM can apply all the modifiers he wants to the defense roll, if the attacker has better footing than the defender, or if the fight is in gloomy caverns but the attacker can see in the dark, apply those skill modifiers to the opponent's defense roll. If both attacker and defender have the same bad footing, or trouble seeing in the dark, ignore those penalties, they make no difference.

Luke

[Kevmann10583]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

This results in a real short and bloody fight, with almost no defense, the dominant fighter will kill the other one in short order, and the fight will last 2-3 seconds.
This does lead to quick contests, but I wouldn't consider it too much fun, and neither would any PC on the short end of that skill stick, as he's being penalized twice for his lower skill.

Ahh, but you forgot my clause:

"Due to the increased power of attacks, defenses based on skills will now have the same value as the appropriate skill instead of half the skill plus three. For example, under the old rules a Shield skill of 14 would give you a Block of 10 (14/2 + 3). However, with the new rules your Block will be the same value as your Shield, in this case 14."

So we have Raul, a skill 20 being close to unique, and Pierre which would be considered an expert at skill 14.

Raul on average rolls a 10, meaning that Pierre gets a -5 to defense score. He has a parry of 15 (weapon skill 14 +1 combat reflexs) meaning that his acctual defense score is now a 10, meaning he defends 50% of the time.

However, Raul has a parry of 20 because of his high skill. It is obvious who will win the fight, because Pierre basically has to faint every other round to even have a chance to hit Raul. Since Pierre attacks Raul half as much as Raul attack Pierre, Raul will be the obvious victor. However, I wouldn't consider a 50% chance to defend against a grandmaster swordsman a short and bloody fight, and one that would not be over in just two to three seconds.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Kevmann10583

Ahh, but you forgot my clause:

"Due to the increased power of attacks, defenses based on skills will now have the same value as the appropriate skill instead of half the skill plus three. For example, under the old rules a Shield skill of 14 would give you a Block of 10 (14/2 + 3). However, with the new rules your Block will be the same value as your Shield, in this case 14."

That makes no sense. When fighting against someone of equivalent skill, the defender is now more likely to defend, and without any Deceptive attacks, master swordsmen are untouchable, a bit unrealistic, and not much swashbuckling fun. No offense.
In your system, a journeyman fencer, with a normal skill of 14-, with CR and a retreat will defend against an equivalent fencer, on average, at 16-, almost untouchable, it even worse for an expert at 16-, and a master at 18-20 is untouchable.

Let's look at parries this way, no CR, just normal, the last column is the defense in your system against someone of equivalent skill.

Skill...Normal....Kev's....Kev's Defense against roll of 10
12.......9...........12......11
13.......9...........13......11
14......10...........14......12
15......10...........15......12
16......11...........16......13
17......11...........17......13
18......12...........18......14
19......12...........19......14
20......13...........20......15
21......13...........21......15
22......14...........22......16
23......14...........23......16
24......15...........24......17
25......15...........25......17

Like I said above, the problem isn't just because you're base defense is 2 higher than the normal system, but you also cannot lower that defense by using a deceptive attack, which makes it even worse.

[Kevmann10583]

I don't think I quite understand what you mean.

Firstly, you mention that there are no deceptive attacks in my system, when in fact if you read:

""Every attack is a deceptive attack, meaning that for every 2 that you beat your weapon skill you reduce the opponents defense roll by 1."

Every attack that you make is a deceptive attack! So, lets take your example of the expert (skill 14) vs the master (skill 16). And, for fun's sake, I am going to call the skill 14 Pierre and the skill 16 Raul.

OK, so Raul attacks, and Pierre defends while retreating. Therefore he gets a total defense of 16 as you said. Raul rolls and average roll of 10, meaning he beats his weapon skill (a 16) by 6 points, lowering Pierre's defense by 3 points. Therefore Pierre's parry is lowered to 13 and therefore has about a 60+% chance to defend (I don't have my book, so I don't know the exact percentage). This seems fair to me, does it not to you?

OK, so lets say that Pierre goes and buffs up at the gym, increasing his weapon skill to 20 (grand master), which you mentioned is untouchable.

Now Raul knows that with an average roll, a 10, that still leaves Pierre with a defense of 18 (IE untouchable like you said). However, my rules system relies on the fact that combatants can make a FEINT maneuver. Now, again, I don't have my books so correct me if I am wrong, but a feint maneuver means that an attacker forgoes his attack upon an enemy and makes a simple weapon roll. For every two that he beats this weapon roll by, his opponent gets a -1 penalty to his defense score for the next round and the next round only.

So now, Raul is forced to do a feint the first round, reducing his opponents defense by 3 points on an average roll of 10, then he has to make an attack roll the next round and, if he rolls a average 10, reduces his opponents defense by another 3 points, reducing the masters defense now to 15. Hard to hit, but not untouchable.

Of course, Raul is still probably going to loose because he only makes an attack every other round, while the grand master makes an attack every round. And because the grand master has a higher attack score, he is reducing Raul’s defense from 18 (if he retreats, as the underdogs always do) to 13 on an average roll of 10. But this combat is going to last the better part of a minute (13 still means that Raul defends 60+% of the time), and in my opinion if a grand master with a skill of 20 fights 1x1 with a master at 16, he is going to win almost every time unless the 16 skill gets lucky with a crit or two.

PS by the way I have to say that this discussion is very cool. On the Wizards board, I would have been insulted at least twice by now, and our argument would have turned into a flame contest. I have to say I think I am going to like it here in the GURPS forum :-)

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Kevmann10583

I don't think I quite understand what you mean.

Well, if you look at the columns I made of your system compared with the standard, it might be clearer.
That is, if you look at say an expert skill of 16-,

Skill...Normal....Kev's....Kev's Defense against roll of 10
16......11...........16......13

That means when the skill is 16-, a normal parry is 11-, in your system, the parry is 16-, and when parrying someone of equivalent skill, who rolls a 10 to hit, the defender rolls a 13-. Your system boosts everyones defense by about a +2 all around.

Since you're already using a pseudo deceptive attack, you also cannot lower that defense by using a real deceptive attack.

Originally Posted by Kevmann10583

Now Raul knows that with an average roll, a 10, that still leaves Pierre with a defense of 18 (IE untouchable like you said). However, my rules system relies on the fact that combatants can make a FEINT maneuver. Now, again, I don't have my books so correct me if I am wrong, but a feint maneuver means that an attacker forgoes his attack upon an enemy and makes a simple weapon roll. For every two that he beats this weapon roll by, his opponent gets a -1 penalty to his defense score for the next round and the next round only.

Well, you are wrong. *grin*
You'd need another new house rule to do what you're describing, since normally, feinting is a quick contest of straight melee weapon skills, so Raul, with a 14- skill, is unlikely to successfully feint Pierre at 16- skill, and if Pierre is a master with a skill of 20-, Raul will almost have to crit succeed or have Pierre crit fail for Raul to be able to get through.

Originally Posted by Kevmann10583

PS by the way I have to say that this discussion is very cool. On the Wizards board, I would have been insulted at least twice by now, and our argument would have turned into a flame contest. I have to say I think I am going to like it here in the GURPS forum :-)

We tend to be rather civil, and we self-regulate too. ^-
It's easy enough to reread a post and take out extra possibly inflammatory words which can be misinterpreted online.

[Kevmann10583]

Upps, looks like your right.

I was hoping not to have to make any more rules changes, but I guess I will have to change Feint as well in order to make this work.

Thanks!

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Kevmann10583

Upps, looks like you're right.

I was hoping not to have to make any more rules changes, but I guess I will have to change Feint as well in order to make this work.

Thanks!

May I suggest a step towards simplification instead of over-complication?
Too many house rules can spoil the recipe, you may also want to consider entirely scrapping your Parry=Skill defense house rule, it's pretty broken by itself.

As for the Deceptive Attack, are you trying to eliminate it entirely, or are you simply trying to reduce miss chances?
If so, how about if you take your current house rule, and tweak it just a bit. ie.:
Since you have the clause where a miss is not actually a miss, but gives the opponent bonuses to their defense.
Then you just give the attacker the option of whether or not to do a Deceptive Attack.

That way, if Raul has a normal skill of 14-, and he's attacking Pierre who has expert skill of 16-, (no CR, no retreat).
On a normal attack, Pierre would be Parry 11-.
Raul could choose to use Deceptive attack up to a 10-, giving Pierre a -2 to Parry at 9- he'll be likely hit.
If Raul rolls over a 10, Pierre's parry bonus would equal whatever Raul missed by. So if Raul rolls a 12, Pierre's parry is 11-; if Raul rolls a 14, Pierre parries at 14-, if Raul rolls a 16, Pierre parries at 16-.

This allows the attacker to decide whether or not to use a Deceptive Attack, but it makes it more attractive to use by reducing the repercussions for missing.

[I'll have to consider this house rule myself.]