Verification re: Move and Attack

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Polkageist

Nailing down the constants, the example looks like it assumes this:
1) Constant distance at 5 yards (a common move value)
2) Each action is a move and attack
3) Ranged and Melee skill are equal, we'll say 14 since that's a nice 'good but not great' level.

If the example you mean is my thought experiment, what I am actually asking is for people to imagine it in real action rather than modelling it with rules. I believe that will give a sense of how the rules underplay the difficulty of shooting vs. the simplicity of whacking.

Originally Posted by MrFix

Revolver, if you're skilled. It's possible to time your cadence and counter-act a lot of the bumping. GURPS calls it Close-Quarters Combat technique. It removes bulk (up to -4) from the penalties on Move & Attack. IRL it is sometimes called Combat Gliding.

The experiment will be skewed into uselessness if high skills and special techniques are imported for one side of it. I am trying to compare the base case for each side.

Melee weapons generally require a lot of footwork, especially to deliver a proper full strength blow, so it's less reliable when your legs are busy moving your body around the battlefield in the high speed sprint way.

GURPS Move is not sprinting, it's "as fast as you'd want to go with a pair of scissor in your hand" (if I recall Kromm's quote correctly). Footwork is much more about spacing and timing your opponent which is of diminished relevance when you're not in striking reach unless/until you Move to it.

My own assessment of the case is that if you are able to run a tight enough circle and still reach the dummy could just do that an bash away at it about as quick as you can swing or poke, hitting with virtually no difficulty. Doing the same with the pistol would probably be the best bet there, but making reliable hits would seem much less certain.

If you can't run tight enough at full move to stay in reach, for melee your best bet is to run some kind of parabola where you'd loose out on whacking abilities at the apogee. With the pistol you'd do better running a wider circle. The case here is closer, but the sheer certainty of the melee hits seems like they'd carry the test.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Are people in those melees using Move and Attack? Because if they're not, that assessment is irrelevant. In a standard fencing match, there's generally very little possible reason to attempt one...

In sabre, it's pretty much ALL either Wait and something or Move and Attack (often with Feints or Deceptive) as far as I can tell; in foil there's more step and lunge or Long attacks but still lots of Move and Attack. Epee, however, is less mobile.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by ravenfish

The somewhat silly thing about move and attack is that, because of the cap, a highly skilled character may be able to make difficult attacks like the vitals or even eyes with exactly the same chance of success as an ordinary attack against the torso.

[The very silly thing is that, because attacks against many of these hit locations hit the torso on an attack that misses by one, a strict reading of the rules would cause them to hit the torso on a roll of ten, making them more accurate than regular torso shots, but no sane GM would allow that.]

Yeah, the cap just makes no sense. Why wouldn't a charging veteran be any better than a charging novice? Why wouldn't Aramis be more likely to slash the portcullis rope dashing past than some farmhand recruited a few months ago?

[Polkageist]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

In sabre, it's pretty much ALL either Wait and something or Move and Attack (often with Feints or Deceptive) as far as I can tell; in foil there's more step and lunge or Long attacks but still lots of Move and Attack. Epee, however, is less mobile.

Foil/Sabre has lots of All-out-attacks (w/ extras) and taking advantage of priority. Fun as heck.

Also, lol at my own personal skills being relevant to any example

^^ a veteran would be better because they'd use advanced techniques to offset the penalties because they have the training invested in order to take advantage of those.
Also, you'd AoA a rope because the rope won't stab back.

[MrFix]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

If the example you mean is my thought experiment, what I am actually asking is for people to imagine it in real action rather than modelling it with rules. I believe that will give a sense of how the rules underplay the difficulty of shooting vs. the simplicity of whacking.




The experiment will be skewed into uselessness if high skills and special techniques are imported for one side of it. I am trying to compare the base case for each side.



GURPS Move is not sprinting, it's "as fast as you'd want to go with a pair of scissor in your hand" (if I recall Kromm's quote correctly). Footwork is much more about spacing and timing your opponent which is of diminished relevance when you're not in striking reach unless/until you Move to it.

My own assessment of the case is that if you are able to run a tight enough circle and still reach the dummy could just do that an bash away at it about as quick as you can swing or poke, hitting with virtually no difficulty. Doing the same with the pistol would probably be the best bet there, but making reliable hits would seem much less certain.

If you can't run tight enough at full move to stay in reach, for melee your best bet is to run some kind of parabola where you'd loose out on whacking abilities at the apogee. With the pistol you'd do better running a wider circle. The case here is closer, but the sheer certainty of the melee hits seems like they'd carry the test.

It seems odd to state that you do not want to involve rules but then go ahead and state you want to exclude techniques. Real people don't learn guns skill as a compound thing, marksmanship and firing on the move are distinct to the point where you just have to train in both, and a real person would more likely be Guns-12 CQB+2, rather than Guns-14.

Either way, what that meant to illustrate is that firing on the move, as in, MOVING while firing is a trained and used technique IRL. Swinging your sword while running circles around your opponent so far doesn't seem to be and is at best a wild swing.

GURPS Move is most definitely what real world would call sprinting, as it lets an average human being with Move 5 to move 16 kilometers per hour, and what GURPS calls sprinting would only improve that result to 19 kilometers per hour. Step meanwhile is merely 3.3 km/h, 5 times less. The rules account for that by applying severe penalties.

Obviously the maneuver allows you to move just 1 yard, but penalties do not decrease, despite you effectively making a step & attack. This is a freaky bit of a system not meant to simulate reality, but meant to be realistic AND gameable at the same time. So when your character gets -4 to his melee skill and his skill caps at 9, the game does assume you're sprinting like mad trying to wild swing somebody. And it does not offer a technique to improve this aspect outside of cinematic campaigns.

P.S.:
If you want to convert Reach into bulk, it seems -2 per reach step is what GURPS understands. C is -2/3 bulk, 1 is -4/5 bulk, 2 is -6/7 bulk etc. I'm basing this on the reach that -4 bulk firearm gets when a bayonet is attached to it, and reach that -2 bulk handgun has when used to beat people via pistol whip.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by ravenfish

The somewhat silly thing about move and attack is that, because of the cap, a highly skilled character may be able to make difficult attacks like the vitals or even eyes with exactly the same chance of success as an ordinary attack against the torso.

[The very silly thing is that, because attacks against many of these hit locations hit the torso on an attack that misses by one, a strict reading of the rules would cause them to hit the torso on a roll of ten, making them more accurate than regular torso shots, but no sane GM would allow that.]

I believe any attack that suffers from such a skill cap uses the random hit location table - you don't have the option of aiming at a specific target. I do not know if you're allowed to trade in skill for a Deceptive Attack; if so, there's no reason not to drop skill down to 10 or 11 using DA prior to the cap coming into play (provided you have sufficient skill to do so - with the -4 for Move and Attack, you'd need skill 16 or higher).

[coronatiger]

You're not allowed to combine Deceptive Attack with M&A, but I think you can aim for a body part.

[Celjabba]

Originally Posted by coronatiger

You're not allowed to combine Deceptive Attack with M&A, but I think you can aim for a body part.

You definitively can, per MA p 107

Originally Posted by MA p 107

Most melee attack options (e.g., hit location) are compatible with Move and Attack. Assess penalties for these before applying the effective skill limit of 9. Rapid Strike and Combinations aren’t allowed, however. Neither is Deceptive Attack, ...

Extra-effort for a MA is also worth noting (and using) !
Heroic Charge: If you make a Move and Attack, you can spend 1 FP to ignore both its skill penalty and its effective skill cap in melee combat.

[Plane]

That was always weird-seeming since I thought you weren't supposed to be able to gain skill/DX with EE which is effectively what ignoring or lessening penalties does.

Gaining damage/distance always made more sense.

"Feverish Defense" sort of sets the precedent of "effort creates skill" but I figured it was more of an exception since defenses were special and ignored stuff like shock penalties or the inability to act when stunned.

Pretty sure they even ignored grapple penalties in basic set until MA opted them in (but not shock)

[Extrarius]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Videos of real gun fights where people are dashing about shooting seem to have a lot of misses, far more than seem to be the case in recreation melees or fencing matches.

Real gun fights seem to have a lot of misses even when both sides are stationary and only a few tens of yards apart.