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Old 11-14-2013, 09:16 AM   #11
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: Quick tactical combat situation: Weapon Reach and Backpedal Defense

Yeah, AoD (Dodge) into Pokey's hex is probably your best bet. He'll get his Attack from his Wait, of course, but then he's in a situation where his Reach 2 weapon is useless (he needs to back up two hexes before he can use it again, which he can't do and attack at the same time).

Of course, if you absolutely need to hit Pokey this round, you can Step (triggering his Wait), then Slip forward as your "Retreat" against his Attack, keeping you in reach for your own Attack.
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Old 11-14-2013, 09:54 AM   #12
Ulzgoroth
 
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Default Re: Quick tactical combat situation: Weapon Reach and Backpedal Defense

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Originally Posted by Nereidalbel View Post
The back peddler should only be allowed to see what's behind them if they actually *look* behind them, thus risking a sword to the [insert hit location here].
Under what rule are you imagining this could possibly happen? Are you proposing that looking behind you means taking an entire turn facing the wrong direction?
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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
Yeah, AoD (Dodge) into Pokey's hex is probably your best bet. He'll get his Attack from his Wait, of course, but then he's in a situation where his Reach 2 weapon is useless (he needs to back up two hexes before he can use it again, which he can't do and attack at the same time).
Committed Attack doesn't require your two steps to be 'forward' in any sense, does it?
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Old 11-14-2013, 09:59 AM   #13
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Default Re: Quick tactical combat situation: Weapon Reach and Backpedal Defense

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
Under what rule are you imagining this could possibly happen? Are you proposing that looking behind you means taking an entire turn facing the wrong direction?
Look behind yourself while walking backwards and tell me if that takes the majority of a second to tell if you're about to trip over a random object or not. Getting anything better than a sense of "ok, not hitting the cliff yet!" is going to take at least a second.
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Old 11-14-2013, 10:27 AM   #14
Gnome
 
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Default Re: Quick tactical combat situation: Weapon Reach and Backpedal Defense

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Originally Posted by Nereidalbel View Post
Look behind yourself while walking backwards and tell me if that takes the majority of a second to tell if you're about to trip over a random object or not. Getting anything better than a sense of "ok, not hitting the cliff yet!" is going to take at least a second.
That may be the reality of the situation--I'm not sure. However, in the GURPS tactical combat ruleset, there are no restrictions on backward movement other than the number of hexes you can move backward (namely, you move more slowly backward than forward). Generally, the GM draws out the map and the players make decisions based on what they see there. Which is why it's relatively easy to keep "stepping back" without running into rocks, stumps, sidewalk curbs, ditches, or other obstacles, even if you're not on an "infinite featureless plain."
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Old 11-14-2013, 10:30 AM   #15
Kromm
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Default Re: Quick tactical combat situation: Weapon Reach and Backpedal Defense

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post

[...] then he's in a situation where his Reach 2 weapon is useless (he needs to back up two hexes before he can use it again, which he can't do and attack at the same time).
Not always! If you get into his hex, he can move back one hex – out of close combat, to Reach 1 – as the "step" portion of an Attack maneuver. Many long weapons are capable of attacking at Reach 1 or Reach 2 without any special preparation: bastard sword, greatsword, jian, katana, longsword, quarterstaff, rapier, three-part staff, etc. The quoted advice is mostly applicable to ungainly hafted weapons such as polearms and warhammers, which have an asterisk (*) on their Reach stat.
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Old 11-14-2013, 10:43 AM   #16
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Default Re: Quick tactical combat situation: Weapon Reach and Backpedal Defense

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Originally Posted by Gnome View Post

That may be the reality of the situation--I'm not sure. However, in the GURPS tactical combat ruleset, there are no restrictions on backward movement other than the number of hexes you can move backward (namely, you move more slowly backward than forward). Generally, the GM draws out the map and the players make decisions based on what they see there. Which is why it's relatively easy to keep "stepping back" without running into rocks, stumps, sidewalk curbs, ditches, or other obstacles, even if you're not on an "infinite featureless plain."
Yep. It's a concession to the game being, well, a game. The character knows all these wonderful combat moves and tactics, and is doubtless a badass . . . but unless you have an unusual gaming group, the player is at best a weekend-warrior SCAdian, sport fencer, or kendoka with a point or two in Combat Sport skills. The omniscient overhead view is part of the meta-game correction for this disconnect, much as allowing players to talk to one another and offer advice is a tool for simulating the big edge in training – and often brains – that heroic characters have over us ordinary folks.



More abstractly, I think people overestimate the difficulty of achieving awareness to the rear. You don't look – you use deliberate leg extension with the foot close to the ground, exactly as in dance. When martial-artists compare the footwork of dance to that of fighting, this is what they mean: not shuffling and dodging about, but maintaining body awareness and groundedness during steps. When our long-weapon user is retreating from someone darting at him, he isn't leaping at random, but shifting his weight onto a back leg that has already found purchase, and then gathering up, back, and out of the way. Remember, GURPS hexes have a positional uncertainty . . . a retreat that takes you "back" a hex might well mean you moved all of 6".

The "infinite plane" argument still holds because even if you maintain full awareness to the rear, many places – like three-hex-square rooms – have corners, and one fighter effectively controls half the area. There are also places like doorways you're trying to defend and don't dare abandon, and of course stairs you can't safely backpedal down.
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Old 11-14-2013, 11:03 AM   #17
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Default Re: Quick tactical combat situation: Weapon Reach and Backpedal Defense

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Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
Not always! If you get into his hex, he can move back one hex – out of close combat, to Reach 1 – as the "step" portion of an Attack maneuver. Many long weapons are capable of attacking at Reach 1 or Reach 2 without any special preparation: bastard sword, greatsword, jian, katana, longsword, quarterstaff, rapier, three-part staff, etc. The quoted advice is mostly applicable to ungainly hafted weapons such as polearms and warhammers, which have an asterisk (*) on their Reach stat.
As a corollary, say this happens, and Shorty AoD Dodges into Pokey's hex. Pokey then steps back and strikes at range 1. Shorty then steps into his hex again and attempts to grapple, so Pokey Retreats away. If Shorty manages to hit and Pokey fails to defend, is Pokey considered back in Shorty's hex since he failed?

I can see this working as a realistic model if Shorty has very good defenses, which I suppose he should to charge a guy with a greatsword.

Is Pokey better off spending FP on Great Lunge and Feverish Defense to try and close and grapple from far away immediately? (I haven't used the MA extra efforts yet but they're looking fun now.)
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Old 11-14-2013, 11:37 AM   #18
Ulzgoroth
 
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Default Re: Quick tactical combat situation: Weapon Reach and Backpedal Defense

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Originally Posted by Nereidalbel View Post
Look behind yourself while walking backwards and tell me if that takes the majority of a second to tell if you're about to trip over a random object or not. Getting anything better than a sense of "ok, not hitting the cliff yet!" is going to take at least a second.
A second is short, but not that short, not with normal peripheral vision. Tactical Shooting's got situational awareness rules which permit 'free action' glances...one could reasonably apply those to map awareness if you're feeling nasty and have the infrastructure to do so, though Kromm's point suggests that obstacles close behind you should be exempt even from that.
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As a corollary, say this happens, and Shorty AoD Dodges into Pokey's hex. Pokey then steps back and strikes at range 1. Shorty then steps into his hex again and attempts to grapple, so Pokey Retreats away. If Shorty manages to hit and Pokey fails to defend, is Pokey considered back in Shorty's hex since he failed?
Yeah, pretty sure if you get grappled, your movement to retreat away should be discounted. Clearly you didn't make it out of the hex, since if you did you couldn't possibly be grappled.

(Assuming that there isn't a circumstance such that you could carry the grappler with you as you retreat, of course. A squirrel leaping onto you shouldn't cancel your retreat step.)
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Old 11-14-2013, 12:14 PM   #19
Anders
 
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Default Re: Quick tactical combat situation: Weapon Reach and Backpedal Defense

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Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
More abstractly, I think people overestimate the difficulty of achieving awareness to the rear. You don't look – you use deliberate leg extension with the foot close to the ground, exactly as in dance. When martial-artists compare the footwork of dance to that of fighting, this is what they mean: not shuffling and dodging about, but maintaining body awareness and groundedness during steps.
When cats eat or just sit around doing nothing in particular, they have the tail extended straight rearwards. There's probably something like that going on there.

Should tailed animals get extra sensitivity for their back hexes?
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Last edited by Anders; 11-14-2013 at 12:32 PM.
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Old 11-14-2013, 12:55 PM   #20
Gnome
 
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Default Re: Quick tactical combat situation: Weapon Reach and Backpedal Defense

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
Yep. It's a concession to the game being, well, a game. The character knows all these wonderful combat moves and tactics, and is doubtless a badass . . . but unless you have an unusual gaming group, the player is at best a weekend-warrior SCAdian, sport fencer, or kendoka with a point or two in Combat Sport skills. The omniscient overhead view is part of the meta-game correction for this disconnect, much as allowing players to talk to one another and offer advice is a tool for simulating the big edge in training – and often brains – that heroic characters have over us ordinary folks.



More abstractly, I think people overestimate the difficulty of achieving awareness to the rear. You don't look – you use deliberate leg extension with the foot close to the ground, exactly as in dance. When martial-artists compare the footwork of dance to that of fighting, this is what they mean: not shuffling and dodging about, but maintaining body awareness and groundedness during steps. When our long-weapon user is retreating from someone darting at him, he isn't leaping at random, but shifting his weight onto a back leg that has already found purchase, and then gathering up, back, and out of the way. Remember, GURPS hexes have a positional uncertainty . . . a retreat that takes you "back" a hex might well mean you moved all of 6".

The "infinite plane" argument still holds because even if you maintain full awareness to the rear, many places – like three-hex-square rooms – have corners, and one fighter effectively controls half the area. There are also places like doorways you're trying to defend and don't dare abandon, and of course stairs you can't safely backpedal down.
This is really helpful, and it's more or less how I've always imagined it. It sounds like we also agree that many scenarios essentially can be treated like infinite planes, with the exception of places like small rooms and doorways.

A follow-up question: why is there no defense against attacks from the back hex? Shouldn't you be able to defend at a penalty given that you do have some awareness of the area behind you?
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