Making Sense of All-Out Defense

[Lovewyrm]

Originally Posted by VIVIT

It creates a similar artifact to what happens when someone shoots at you and misses, obviating the need for you to preemptively Dodge out of the path of the bullet that you couldn't have known was going to miss you.

I have never seen this as a weakness of GURPS, but a strength.
The system throws you a bone that you get a chance to dodge if you get shot at and you are aware of the attack.

If you then continue to stay in the killzone despite not having means to deal with it, make it 'harmless' or 'a regular adventuring hazard', then you're the problem, not GURPS.

What would someone not at all immune to bullets be considered, if they stood, knowingly, in the killzone of a marksman?

Sane?

I doubt it.
So, take that opportunity the system throws at you so you don't perhaps have to create a new character after getting chunky salsad by high caliber rounds...and seek cover.
If you are impervious to bullets, or are otherwise well suited for standing there to recite a spell or whatever, then fine.
Otherwise you're probably roleplaying badly, and should get some disadvantage for it, cause, again, noone sane just stands in a hail of bullets if they are vulnerable to them.

Also, your character didn't necesasrily know that the bullet was about to hit him, GURPS just saved you a potential reroll on a regular, non bullet proof character by giving you an active defense. Which, again, shouldn't be abused by a regular chararacter.
(If characters had PSI/precognition then attacks from behind wouldn't do away with defenses...)

And to me, this also extends to split defenses, options for those who want them.
Cause if you have a bullet proof, or resistant character, but not a melee proof one, you might want to decide which kind of defense you take, perhaps you're on a narrow bridge and retreating would mean plummetting down. Etc.

I think it's all good on that front for GURPS, at least for myself.

[VIVIT]

Originally Posted by Dinadon

I think most people want to narrate combat roll by roll. It does help with focusing on the battle. But personally, I prefer to treat combat as fuzzy until observed. After all, even a relatively mundane fighter could attack twice and parry three times with the same weapon across their entire front arc (give or take some weapon choices). Yet that doesn't have to mean their weapon is darting about. And when it comes to retelling the battle later, there's no reason to explain it in those discrete steps. For instance, maybe one parry makes more sense to have occurred between the attacks.

I generally agree with this. It's good to be flexible in your interpretation of action resolution… but only insofar as your interpretation agrees with the mechanics. For example, you can choose to interpret a failed attack roll as hesitation (i.e. failing to attack altogether) rather than a miss (i.e. following through with an attack that goes wide or comes up short), but RAW assumes the latter and assigns mechanical consequences to the failed roll based on that assumption. If you want to remove or alter that assumption, you need to adjust the mechanics to compensate, otherwise you'll have bullets vanishing from your magazine after not being shot, polearms becoming unready after not being swung, and martial artists losing their balance after not kicking.

As for your example, may he did know. He is presumably a trained fighter so he should know such things.

First of all, the rules apply to all fighters, not just trained ones. A novice can dodge first and save a parry just as easily as a master can. The only way that the master can be better at doing this is by being better at dodging in the first place.

But your example also only focuses on the defence. You've already presumed that the attack must be one that will require both rolls. But you cannot know that until rolls have been made.

I'm not thinking in terms of rolls so much as in terms of defensive actions. And I'm not assuming that the attack will require both defenses; I'm observing that the defender can attempt one defense while reserving the option of resorting to another in case that the first defense fails, without paying the price of the second defense.

Consider a case where we see an attack coming and then dodge—successfully—with our shield in position to block. The attack does not make contact with our shield because we, shield and all, have moved out of the way. This is how I imagine a double defense involving a dodge and a block, but it doesn't match up with the mechanics.

Observe that:

1. Our dodge was successful. The blow did not connect, neither with us nor with our shield.
2. Our block has not failed. Our shield is in position to deflect the blow, and would have saved us even if our attempt to dodge had failed.
3. Our block is expended. We are actively moving the shield into position, which means we aren't moving it into position to block any other blow this turn.
4. Resolution is sequential, so either the dodge was resolved first or the block roll was resolved first.
5. If we assume that the dodge was resolved first, then observation 1 contadicts observation 3: if the dodge roll was successful, we wouldn't have needed to waste our block. The dodge can't have been resolved first.
6. Yet if we assume that the block was resolved first, observation 2 contradicts observation 1: if our block succeeded, we wouldn't need to dodge! The block can't have been resolved first either.

By RAW, the above situation is a mechanical impossibility. This isn't a retreating block—we haven't given any ground. Nor is it a dodge that benefits from the shield's DB; we're actively moving the shield into position to block. It's a double defense—we're hedging our bets by dodging and blocking at the same time.

Ultimately, time is not instant. Turns take a second, irrespective of how busy a particular turn may be. And at some point, you've got to map continuous events to a discrete framework. This will produce artifacts during resolution, and therefore inconsistencies, so it becomes a question of what is easier to handle during play.

It isn't just the resolution of the actions that are sequential—it's each whole darn thing, declaration and resolution. The solution is simple: declare both, then resolve both. Though I think I prefer Corwyn's even simpler idea:

Originally Posted by corwyn

I'd be perfectly happy with AoD just being +2 to all defenses; you can move half speed. RAW may be more "realistic", I don't know, but I don't think it's worth the extra mental real estate.

Except I might make it into "step, +2 to all defenses OR half-move, +2 to dodge only", just to preserve the distinction between "Stand your ground, men! Stand your ground!" and "Skedaddle the hell out of dodge."

[VIVIT]

Originally Posted by Lovewyrm

I have never seen this as a weakness of GURPS, but a strength.
The system throws you a bone that you get a chance to dodge if you get shot at and you are aware of the attack.

…

I do have a response to this, but in the interest of staying on-topic I'll take it to PMs. See you there.

[Pursuivant]

Regardless of what permutations of AoD folks consider to be realistic, I'd suggest that realistically Dodge is always the "defense of last resort."

This is because your body is almost always going to be behind your weapon or shield and Dodge is the one defense you can use if your weapon or shield is unready or knocked out of line.

So, rather than Dodge first, then Parry/Block if Dodge fails, you should have to commit your Block/Parry defense first, then use Dodge as your second line of defense if using AoD (Two Defenses).

[VIVIT]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

This is because your body is almost always going to be behind your weapon or shield and Dodge is the one defense you can use if your weapon or shield is unready or knocked out of line.

The fact that your shield is between you and the enemy is represented by the shield's DB. If your Basic Dodge is 9 and your shield's DB is 2, and you roll a 10, the attack is assumed to hit your shield. This doesn't matter mechanically unless you're counting damage to the shield, but it is there. And in the case of that particular pair of numbers, the shield is about as likely to save you as the dodge. This kind of blurs the line between dodging and “blocking” already—moving your body a bit so that an attack hits your shield is, for the purposes of the availability of your block, considered a dodge. Diegetically, the difference is whether you're actively moving the shield itself into position—Basic Set assumes that shields are too unwieldy to do this more than once per second. I used to find it really weird that you only got one block per turn, but with DB taken into account it makes a fair bit more sense. I've been considering a house rule that gives weapons DB values as well, but that's for another thread.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

So, rather than Dodge first, then Parry/Block if Dodge fails, you should have to commit your Block/Parry defense first, then use Dodge as your second line of defense if using AoD (Two Defenses).

I don't like forcing it, but maybe we could steer people in that direction by penalizing a parry or block done in a turn where someone has already dodged?

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Regardless of what permutations of AoD folks consider to be realistic, I'd suggest that realistically Dodge is always the "defense of last resort."

This is because your body is almost always going to be behind your weapon or shield and Dodge is the one defense you can use if your weapon or shield is unready or knocked out of line.

So, rather than Dodge first, then Parry/Block if Dodge fails, you should have to commit your Block/Parry defense first, then use Dodge as your second line of defense if using AoD (Two Defenses).

I don't like this on two grounds. Firstly, sometimes you can start to dodge, realise that it's not going to be enough, and then parry (for example). Some times dodging is the defence you have to try first - for example the attack's one that's going to force a whole-body movement, because it's going to be slow.

The second reason is a game-mechanics based one - forcing parry or block as the first defence severely weakens them as useful defences in AoD situations where there are multiple opponents because they'll be degraded very quickly. Among other effects this makes high-dodge (and thus usually high-mobility and also low-armour) characters stronger, and I don't think they need this.

[kenclary]

If anything, I think a dodge attempt (where you get partially out of the way) makes an accompanying parry/block easier.

Edit: normally, I expect such an interaction to be covered by the Retreat rules (including slip and sideslip variations). For AoD (double) I'd just let it work the way it does on paper.

[Lovewyrm]

Originally Posted by VIVIT

I do have a response to this, but in the interest of staying on-topic I'll take it to PMs. See you there.

I think I have sent a reply...but the 'sent messages' folder is empty, so I don't know if it really worked.

The gist of my reply is:
Your character, unless under extraordinary circumstances, is on the defensive the entire time.
Not just 'right before the potential impact from a ranged attack'.

A bunker rushing soldier is on the move and does not stand there.
A mage under fire, casting a missile deflection shield should still be fearful, perhaps to the point of not standing there trying to cast it (unless, again, exceptional circumstances or not-really-threatened-by-fire)

The 'potential hit' dodge is just a special case that throws a roll at you.
If you're not immune against bullets and aren't "dodging" (aka GTFOing) the entire time, then it's bad roleplay.
The 'pings' are just tension moments where the character can get hurt. The misses are freebies and 'automatic successes in the ongoing GTFOing of the character'

It's not premonition, just game mechanics, and it stops working when awareness stops...but!
The range and speed penalties of a mad dash still apply! Making it still harder for a missile user to hit.
You just don't get a bone thrown at you for 'about to be hit's. But ideally, you should be in a constant state of 'dodge' or 'defense'. The active bits are just dramatic tension.

In my opinion of course.
But this opinion is the reason why I don't find this a weakness of GURPS.

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by Lovewyrm

If you're not immune against bullets and aren't "dodging" (aka GTFOing) the entire time, then it's bad roleplay.

Or good roleplay. Depends on the PC and their Ads, Disads, motivations, etc.