tank skill: how to take a beating

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by cmdicely

I think that tanking-through-massive-damage-capacity (and also through special "draw attacks to me" abilities) is largely a video game (and D&D) artifact, driven by the lack of good support for active defense in those games.

It's basically a video game phenomenon; it wasn't in D&D before 4th edition, and I suspect it's an artifact of the difficulty of doing traditional wargame style positional defense in an MMO (old school computer games did defense via front row/back row).

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It's basically a video game phenomenon; it wasn't in D&D before 4th edition, and I suspect it's an artifact of the difficulty of doing traditional wargame style positional defense in an MMO (old school computer games did defense via front row/back row).

It's been in AD&D ever since the 1st ed Dragonlance Adventures stated out the Kender's Taunt ability.

[Dammann]

I'm going to capitalize the GURPS terminology, here and try to relate it to my Hung Gar experience. It matches up well with what you seems to be asking for, this "bracing for a hit."

In my training, many years ago, we were taught to "focus our chi" where we were being hit. We were told that we could injure people who struck us if we did this, and in training, we got hit by one another so much that we all probably had at least some degree of Hard to Subdue. We certainly spent a lot of time trying develop something like an Immovable Stance.

In my experience, I would describe that "focusing" as a combination of breathing in a controlled manner and flexing one's muscles at the site of an impact. So Breath Control is appropriate. It is easier than dodging and much easier than a parry, in my experience, and could be combined with these active defenses. Since we were also drilled to almost always be moving toward our opponent, with a combination of Aggressive Parries and Counterattacks, it was always tough to get out of the way or stop attacks. Instead, our opponents couldn't get much force behind a punch or kick, while we were using Hammer Strikes and Elbow Strikes. I did a ton of fingertip push-ups to get the strength for Exotic Hand Strikes, too, but I think that those are mostly impractical for actual hitting. It is hard to talk about Hung Gar without emphasizing offense.

[cmdicely]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It's basically a video game phenomenon; it wasn't in D&D before 4th edition

I am aware that D&D didn't really feature tanking in the sense most known from video games until D&D/4e, but D&D/4e's been out for a while, and I suspect that its as much a direct referent for people looking for tanking in GURPS as video games are.

and I suspect it's an artifact of the difficulty of doing traditional wargame style positional defense in an MMO (old school computer games did defense via front row/back row).

Possibly. That's certainly another option besides MMO-style tanking and GURPS-style active defense.

At any rate, my point was that a major GURPS mechanic that addresses the conceptual role of "I'm good at stopping attacks from hurting my friends and I don't get taken down as fast by attacks" is good active defenses and the traits and options that allow using those defenses to protect your allies. Focussing on converting the mechanics of "tanking" from MMOs or D&D/4e misses out on a lot of what GURPS offers that addresses the concept. There's probably some tweaks that could be done to improve those rules -- e.g., allow Sacrificial Parry and Shield-Wall Training defenses to use a Step by consuming a Retreat (inspired by Sacrificial Dodge), and (also inspired by Sacrificial Dodge) allowing a Retreat to be burned to take a Step to intercept a moving enemy would be fairly natural extensions of existing GURPS rules which would make "tanking" more effective.

[cmdicely]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

It's been in AD&D ever since the 1st ed Dragonlance Adventures stated out the Kender's Taunt ability.

Tanking through massive damage capacity has been in D&D since fighters first got bigger hit dice. I think the draw attacks part predates DLA and started with a Magic-User spell in the AD&D 1e PHB or earlier.

The combination of those abilities wasn't a core feature of a major D&D role until 4e though.