Quick tactical combat situation: Weapon Reach and Backpedal Defense

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Anthony

I don't buy that as a retreat.

Irrelevant – the system allows it. It's a very deliberate design assumption that being "in" a hex means you're within ±1.5 yards of its center, and that someone going from -1.5 in hex n to +1.5 in hex n-1 has retreated, despite these being essentially the same place. The actual movement that carries you a yard does happen, but not at the instant of your retreat . . . Hopefully, you've used your whole second to buy that ground, and are just executing a weight shift when you defend. It's a black-box combat model, wherein what matters are the initial and final states, not the minutiae of the transition, which are beneath the resolution of the time and space meshes.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The consequence of such caution should be losing the retreat bonus to defense.

Retreating (well stepping as part of a defense anyway) does certainly help in real life.

[Kromm]

The main thing you give up with a front-to-back weight shift is reach. That's what the GURPS retreat is about: not covering ground by backward movement (as I've said repeatedly, you might not be truly traveling at all!), but potentially putting your foe out of your reach. If you want a more "realistic" model, treat retreat exactly as it works now but don't move figures on the map when they invoke it. Instead, give those who retreat a temporary -1 to Reach in the 180° arc opposite their declared direction of retreat. That's the aim of the current rules, but most people find actual map movement way less fussy, because it offers a clearer visual signifier of what hexes you can now attack.