Learning combat

[johndallman]

In the revised example, the first mistake I've spotted is in round 6:

C is attacking with no shock penalty, and being below ⅓ HP does not penalise attacks. She rolls a 5 against 16, which is a critical success, so A can't defend.

Less importantly, A does not need to defend against the feint. As far as she's concerned, it just missed.

Under normal circumstances, All-out Attacking should be reserved for opponents who can't attack you even if your attack fails, ones who you're willing to bet can't get through your armour, and ones who you expect to take you down with their next attack.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by Densar

To start, I created for myself a cheat sheet, as well as an example using a simple character (based on one of the examples in 3rd edition, migrated to 4th edition).

I've uploaded both the cheat sheet and the combat example here.

I don't know if anyone has a bit of time and wouldn't mind helping me by reviewing these and pointing out the various mistakes that I made so that I can improve?

In example combat 1 (Corrected v2), on Artemisia's second turn, she gets a critical hit and does maximum damage. As she is swinging with a knife, her damage is 1d-1. You have her inflicting 3 damage that ends up at 4 injury with 1.5x cutting multiplier and no DR. However, GURPS uses 6 sided dice, and the damage should have been 5, for 7 injury. Her Clone would have taken a major wound and needed to roll against HT or be knocked down and stunned.

Both Artemisia and the Clone should be Retreating (Basic 377), for a +3 on their Dodges, as well as possibly making Acrobatic Dodges for another +2. Possibly not necessary for a simple fight, but something to keep in mind for the future.

[Densar]

And if C had chosen All-out defense (double defense) on her turn and A did an all-out attack, she could defend using two different defenses on each of the separate attacks, presumably?

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Densar

And if C had chosen All-out defense (double defense) on her turn and A did an all-out attack, she could defend using two different defenses on each of the separate attacks, presumably?

Exactly so.

[Densar]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

In example combat 1 (Corrected v2), on Artemisia's second turn, she gets a critical hit and does maximum damage. As she is swinging with a knife, her damage is 1d-1. You have her inflicting 3 damage that ends up at 4 injury with 1.5x cutting multiplier and no DR. However, GURPS uses 6 sided dice, and the damage should have been 5, for 7 injury. Her Clone would have taken a major wound and needed to roll against HT or be knocked down and stunned.

You are right, of course. This will change things quite a bit at that point. I was trying to minimize things a bit to keep the rest of the combat similar but I did it wrong due to the max damage -- there is no leeway there. I guess she will have to pass her HT roll. :-). Thanks.

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Both Artemisia and the Clone should be Retreating (Basic 377), for a +3 on their Dodges, as well as possibly making Acrobatic Dodges for another +2. Possibly not necessary for a simple fight, but something to keep in mind for the future.

Retreating would certainly have helped. No reason not too, unless you are blocked. You can only move away one step, but it would boost their dodges significantly as you pointed out.

I also thought about acrobatic dodge, but that seems more risky, since it can give a penalty. From looking online, though, it seems that the odds of rolling 13 or less on a 3d6 is 83%, which seems pretty good and high enough to warrant the risk...

[Densar]

I put up a corrected version (of the corrected version ;-).

I'll probably do a second version of this combat but add some of the recommendations to show how more experienced fighters in the same situation might do.

There seems to be a lot of things to think about when running combat (having a cheat sheet should help me a lot, but the sheet won't contain everything, of course), which I find super interesting actually. I'm assuming that the more you do it, the quicker thinks get and the less likely you are to make mistakes as part of combat (and once you are used to the level of rules that I am using, you can expand them with even more of the rules in the basic set and in things like Martial Arts?) I would think that the key would be preparation: making sure that you have all of the combat-related info for each PC/NPC done, including any modifiers due to advantages/disadvantages/etc...

[johndallman]

There are, indeed, several things to think about. It is worth playing out some practice combats with your players, to get things grooved in a bit.

[Tinman]

I highly recommend both the GURPS GM screen & GURPS combat cards.
They have a lot of the information you'll want for combat. Combat options, maneuvers and modifiers. They really help a lot.

Yes, once you get the basic options down (it only takes using them a bit) combats become much faster. Also, you can layer on additional options like deceptive attacks, which help get around enemy defenses.

The combat cards are free & the screen only $6.00
http://www.warehouse23.com/products/...n-combat-cards
http://www.warehouse23.com/products/gurps-gms-screen-2

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by Densar

I also thought about acrobatic dodge, but that seems more risky, since it can give a penalty. From looking online, though, it seems that the odds of rolling 13 or less on a 3d6 is 83%, which seems pretty good and high enough to warrant the risk...

With a base Dodge of 10, Retreating brings Dodge up to 13, a successful Acrobatic Dodge to 12, a Retreating Acrobatic Dodge is 15, and a failed Retreating Acrobatic Dodge is an 11. As long as a retreat is part of the acrobatic dodge, even a failed Acrobatics roll gives a better result than the basic Dodge.

Two knife fighters on an infinite white plain have almost no reason not to retreat, and as long as they're not suffering shock penalties, to not attempt acrobatic dodges. When you have to deal with terrain and multiple attackers, choosing how to allocate defenses and defense boosting options becomes much more complicated.

[Densar]

Originally Posted by Tinman

I highly recommend both the GURPS GM screen & GURPS combat cards.
They have a lot of the information you'll want for combat. Combat options, maneuvers and modifiers. They really help a lot.

Yes, once you get the basic options down (it only takes using them a bit) combats become much faster. Also, you can layer on additional options like deceptive attacks, which help get around enemy defenses.

The combat cards are free & the screen only $6.00
http://www.warehouse23.com/products/...n-combat-cards
http://www.warehouse23.com/products/gurps-gms-screen-2

I just got these -- the combat cards are very nice and very similar to my cheat sheet. I really like the GM screen: all kinds of useful info in an easy to find location. Thanks.

[Note that I can't purchase anything from their Warehouse23 store -- I always get an error processing my credit card -- but it works fine on their new shopify site]