Fatigue for Warriors

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Evil Roy Slade

If keeping track of elapsed time is an issue, what I use for things like scrolls that take ten seconds to read out is a handheld mechanical gizmo called a tally tracker, mainly used by people at the door of a venue keeping track of how many have entered. See who is the last to act in a round and click every time that player comes up.

Since you're probably sititing at a table with dice on it you can just rotate a die. You can even do with all D6s if no other polyhedra are handy.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Evil Roy Slade

If keeping track of elapsed time is an issue, what I use for things like scrolls that take ten seconds to read out is a handheld mechanical gizmo called a tally tracker, mainly used by people at the door of a venue keeping track of how many have entered. See who is the last to act in a round and click every time that player comes up.

If you're playing online, your turn-tracker should also be able to handle this. Just have it keep a count of how many times it has come up in the turn sequence, or have it count down from 10.

[Emerikol]

Originally Posted by Evil Roy Slade

If keeping track of elapsed time is an issue, what I use for things like scrolls that take ten seconds to read out is a handheld mechanical gizmo called a tally tracker, mainly used by people at the door of a venue keeping track of how many have entered. See who is the last to act in a round and click every time that player comes up.

I can keep track of time. Do I want to keep track of time is the question. For me in some instances, it might be worth it but often it's easier to just have a die roll result that triggers it about as often as it occurs.

In another game for example, when a power was used you rolled a d6 every round to recover it. On a 1 you got it back. So how often can you use that power? About every 6 rounds. So if I had something I wanted to happen every 6 rounds, instead of keeping track of what round it is I could just roll every round.

In this case, I was suggesting just using the actual attack and defense rolls and trigger off some number on the 3d6 curve that happens about as often as I want fatigue to occur. That way I never have to record to track anything. If the number comes up you lose a point of fatigue. That is a feature at least for some people.

[RedMattis]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

That would be the bullets most of them can't really deal with.

There will be exceptions of course probably starting with very high Dodges and moving on to Weapon Masters with Force Swords and Precognitive Parry.

Pretty much. For 50-250 point campaigns the fact that range weapons (can) have much better accuracy and no longer need to reload after every shot. This makes ranged 'mooks' much more dangerous than they are in low-TL campaigns.

That is, assuming military-grade weapons are available and frequent. If you're playing street-level vampire-hunting vigilantes in Sweden or something you might not even have to worry about tiny handguns most of the time.

[Farmer]

Originally Posted by RedMattis

Pretty much. For 50-250 point campaigns the fact that range weapons (can) have much better accuracy and no longer need to reload after every shot. This makes ranged 'mooks' much more dangerous than they are in low-TL campaigns.

That is, assuming military-grade weapons are available and frequent. If you're playing street-level vampire-hunting vigilantes in Sweden or something you might not even have to worry about tiny handguns most of the time.

Higher tech armour. Not always fighting in wide open spaces. High tech blades with more damage, balanced, armour divisors. Accuracy of weapons only helps if you have Gunslinger or you aim. If you aim, there's a round (at least) of closure. If they have Gunslinger it's reasonable the melee have Weapon Master.

In fact, in higher tech space opera, for example, we find a *lot* of benefit in having some high tech blades and being able to use them.

Of course ranged weapons have an advantage, but if it happens all the time, well, I'd suggest reading Kromm's latest How to be GURP GM - Combat :-)

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Farmer

Higher tech armour. Not always fighting in wide open spaces. High tech blades with more damage, balanced, armour divisors. Accuracy of weapons only helps if you have Gunslinger or you aim. If you aim, there's a round (at least) of closure. If they have Gunslinger it's reasonable the melee have Weapon Master.

In fact, in higher tech space opera, for example, we find a *lot* of benefit in having some high tech blades and being able to use them.

Of course ranged weapons have an advantage, but if it happens all the time, well, I'd suggest reading Kromm's latest How to be GURP GM - Combat :-)

While the ultra-tech melee weapon options help, UT armour and guns make being a melee-oriented character a fairly poor option if the good stuff is available. The good news is that most of the UT melee weapon options are LC3 or even LC4, so in a high-LC setting melee combatants can do well without having to spend huge amounts of points.

[Farmer]

Originally Posted by Rupert

While the ultra-tech melee weapon options help, UT armour and guns make being a melee-oriented character a fairly poor option if the good stuff is available. The good news is that most of the UT melee weapon options are LC3 or even LC4, so in a high-LC setting melee combatants can do well without having to spend huge amounts of points.

Yep. Currently playing a post-apocalypse / invasion sci-fi where the invaders aren't worried about melee weapons. Very high quality, WM, advanced materials to get AD and they are very effective if you aren't trying to rush them from a distance! 4d cutting damage with AD3 works very well.

The key is AD. Unless you're up against hardened armour. Then you're in trouble :-)

Point is, melee is a very valid option in many situations, and doesn't have to be weak. Totally fine to play a game where it is, just doesn't have to be.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by RedMattis

That is, assuming military-grade weapons are available and frequent. If you're playing street-level vampire-hunting vigilantes in Sweden or something you might not even have to worry about tiny handguns most of the time.

What if the vampires are wearing trauma plates? You're not going to be driving wooden stakes through DR 35. :)

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Farmer

Yep. Currently playing a post-apocalypse / invasion sci-fi where the invaders aren't worried about melee weapons. Very high quality, WM, advanced materials to get AD and they are very effective if you aren't trying to rush them from a distance! 4d cutting damage with AD3 works very well.

The key is AD. Unless you're up against hardened armour. Then you're in trouble :-)

Point is, melee is a very valid option in many situations, and doesn't have to be weak. Totally fine to play a game where it is, just doesn't have to be.

The thing is, a laser rifle gets 6d(2), with Acc 12, RoF 10, and a 700 yard 1/2D range. That's the same effective penetration, more damage, more range, and with that Acc and RoF it will most likely land 5-10 hits, making it very hard to dodge all of them. Even without time spent aiming it's pretty lethal.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Emerikol

I can keep track of time. Do I want to keep track of time is the question. For me in some instances, it might be worth it but often it's easier to just have a die roll result that triggers it about as often as it occurs.

In another game for example, when a power was used you rolled a d6 every round to recover it. On a 1 you got it back. So how often can you use that power? About every 6 rounds. So if I had something I wanted to happen every 6 rounds, instead of keeping track of what round it is I could just roll every round.

In this case, I was suggesting just using the actual attack and defense rolls and trigger off some number on the 3d6 curve that happens about as often as I want fatigue to occur. That way I never have to record to track anything. If the number comes up you lose a point of fatigue. That is a feature at least for some people.

A similar rule I've seen elsewhere is, rather than tracking ammunition, the weapon runs dry once the character rolls a certain number on the die (a 1 on d20). I can certainly see applying a similar method to FP.

Of course, there's the question of why you want this. Is it primarily to give non-mages a reason to have FP? You probably aren't going to see it being that useful in that case - you're typically looking at a low FP cost per battle, and unless running a frantic scenario, the characters are likely to have enough time after each battle to rest and recover. If you're instead looking to simplify things, consider just... not bothering to track FP lost in combat. Again, outside of frantic scenarios, not tracking FP loss probably isn't going to make much difference. If you're wanting to both give warriors a use for their FP and simplify matters, consider adapting a more simplified version of Extra Effort - rather than having its own independent options, spending 1 FP (perhaps more if encumbered) allows you to make an All Out Attack (assuming you're already using that option) without sacrificing defenses. Note this makes Extra Effort a bit more powerful, but probably not enough to be outright unbalanced. I'll note this is more simple than the default because you're just making an adjustment to an option you're already using (All Out Attack), rather than introducing a new set.

Originally Posted by Farmer

Higher tech armour. Not always fighting in wide open spaces. High tech blades with more damage, balanced, armour divisors. Accuracy of weapons only helps if you have Gunslinger or you aim. If you aim, there's a round (at least) of closure. If they have Gunslinger it's reasonable the melee have Weapon Master.

Close combat can make melee weapons much more viable, particularly if combined with options that make melee more powerful, such as are often seen in video games. In GURPS, this is likely to mean higher armor divisors on melee weapons, via the use of Superfine Vibroblades and the like.