Newb question re endless parrying

[zoncxs]

Originally Posted by Varyon

That's a rule for Quick Contests (or maybe Regular Contests, I tend to mix those up); applying it to combat requires recalculating defenses and risks causing confusion.

You right! That's what I was thinking, but it should not confuse anyone. If they are confused by simply reducing the scores, then that means they were already confused in the first place.

Plus, the GM should be able to do that quick math for them.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by zoncxs

You right! That's what I was thinking, but it should not confuse anyone. If they are confused by simply reducing the scores, then that means they were already confused in the first place.

Plus, the GM should be able to do that quick math for them.

Well, the issue there is that defenses use (skill/2)+3, plus other modifiers, so if you're simply reducing skill you might think you need to recalculate that defense. Or alternatively you may end up with the GM and/or player trying to do the calculation as for a contest, with -10 to the attacker's skill and -10 to the defender's defense, which is going to give you wildly-off values (it should be -10/-5, not -10/-10). Better to just keep Deceptive Attack in mind.

[corwyn]

Originally Posted by zoncxs

NEVER!


Also, I don't think anyone mentioned that there are rules for High skill level and combat. I can't remember which page it is on, I think it was in Basic Set.

When 2 people with skills over 20 fight, you can have both reduce their skills by 10.


Fighter A skill at 26
Fighter B skill at 24

When they fight, they fight as if they have skills at 16 and 14.

Regardless, Deceptive Attack makes this superfluous in combat even if you wanted to use this. The first guy going to 16 skill puts the second guy to parry 10, hitting half the time and still critting 1/10. Gurps combat has a lot of depth. Why remove it to no real benefit.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by corwyn

Regardless, Deceptive Attack makes this superfluous in combat even if you wanted to use this. The first guy going to 16 skill puts the second guy to parry 10, hitting half the time and still critting 1/10. Gurps combat has a lot of depth. Why remove it to no real benefit.

Best odds for each of those two to hit is at 14/9 and 12/10.

Good advice for deciding how much deceptive attack to apply:

• Against utter nobodies, aim for 16-17.
• Against the inferior opponent, aim for 14-15.
• Against the equal or superior opponent, aim for 12-13.
• Against the vastly superior opponent, aim for the back.

[Keampe]

So, little late to the party, but I thought I'd chime in. I, too, came from Harnmaster (among many others) and had the same thought. First thing, though, is that GURPS is weighted in favor of the attacker unlike Harn. This is good and IMO realistic. Fights don't last nearly as long when you're using human level skills. Also, in Harn, the most common hit from skilled opponents is CS vs MS - which is an A1. Any decent armor and you are likely to shrug that off. In GURPS a hit is full damage unless you've critted in which case it can be more. Unless you're very well armored this is going to hurt.

Now, numbers to reiterate what others have said here:

Skill 10 is parry 8
Skill 16 is parry 11
Skill 24 is parry 15

Skill 16 Succeeds on a 16 or less and gives a crit on a 6 or less.
Skill 24 Succeeds on a 16 or less and gives a crit on a 6 or less.

The only benefit to a skill higher than 16 is to offset negative modifiers such as:

Called shots vs Mook level opponents.
Deceptive strike vs skilled opponents.

Turns out that two equally highly skilled opponents using deceptive strike to reduce their respective skills to 16 will reduce their opponents to a parry of 11. Skill 24 - 8 = 16, Parry 15 - 4 = 11. Skill 16 succeeds 98% of the time so one can almost assume a success there while roll 11 succeeds 62% of the time. So you've got about a 4 in 10 chance of hitting even before crits, assuming equal skill. Even an opponent 4 points higher in skill is getting hit almost 2 times out of 10. Of course, you're getting hit much more often.

One last note. I like to use the shield damage rules from pg484. Basically if the Shield DB makes the difference in the defense - for instance you have a parry of 11 and a Shield DB of 2 for a total of 13 and you roll a 12 or 13 - then the shield takes the hit. This does require more bookkeeping, but the shield is now temporary, especially against powerful creatures like Ogres.

Just my 2c.
- Shane

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Keampe

, especially against powerful creatures like Ogres.

Just my 2c.
- Shane

Against powerful creatures like Ogres (much less giants, dragon or dinosaurs) You'll still be trying to use that DB but the defense you'll adding it to is dodge. You're still just as likely to lose the shield but if you think Parrying a T. Rex looks dumb, it is in Gurps.

[Witchking]

Originally Posted by Keampe

The only benefit to a skill higher than 16 is to offset negative modifiers such as:

Called shots vs Mook level opponents.
Deceptive strike vs skilled opponents.

- Shane

LoL actually IME one of the most common negative modifiers are...'party is in camp, it is your shift...its pretty dark, moon is not up, its cloudy, light mod is -6 ...make a Per check...combat starts' So that is a base -6 to all skills where vision is important.

Now experienced players usually pick up a version of night/infra/darkvision widget (either tech or magic) but in many cases they are expensive (so you do not start with them) and even if owned they are often not on all the time.

A rolling ships deck is another penalty situation.

In my 30ish years of GURPS combats roughly 1 in 5 has had either negative lighting or footing penalties of one sort or another. Sometimes avoidable sometimes not.

[Keampe]

Originally Posted by Witchking

LoL actually IME one of the most common negative modifiers are...'party is in camp, it is your shift...its pretty dark, moon is not up, its cloudy, light mod is -6 ...make a Per check...combat starts' So that is a base -6 to all skills where vision is important.

Now experienced players usually pick up a version of night/infra/darkvision widget (either tech or magic) but in many cases they are expensive (so you do not start with them) and even if owned they are often not on all the time.

A rolling ships deck is another penalty situation.

In my 30ish years of GURPS combats roughly 1 in 5 has had either negative lighting or footing penalties of one sort or another. Sometimes avoidable sometimes not.

Yep, I called out two common modifiers, but there are lots of others.

- Shane

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by RyanW

Best odds for each of those two to hit is at 14/9 and 12/10.

Good advice for deciding how much deceptive attack to apply:

• Against utter nobodies, aim for 16-17.
• Against the inferior opponent, aim for 14-15.
• Against the equal or superior opponent, aim for 12-13.
• Against the vastly superior opponent, aim for the back.

There's another rule of thumb - if their defence has considerable buffs (from a shield, or the +3 Retreat for fencing weapons), you want to go for 16-17 because crit-fishing matters more, and the longer fight means not crit-failing matters more as well.

[mlangsdorf]

It really doesn't matter how your opponents gets a high Defense. Pretty consistently for attacker skill* between 12 and 27 and defense* between 10 and 20, attacker maximizes the chance of getting a hit past defenses by accepting enough Deceptive Attack to get the effective Defense to a 9. Except if the Deceptive Attack wouldn't take the defense below a 15, in which case its a waste and maximizing the attack for crit-fishing pays off. If you can't force the Defense to a 9, reducing the attack skill to 12 or 10 are both good and there's usually less than a 2% difference between them.

Optional bonuses to defense complicate the situation. A Sword-18 combatant attacking a swashbuckler with a Fencing Parry of 15 should take a -6 Deceptive Attack if the swashbuckler can't retreat, and a -2 Deceptive Attack if the swashbuckler is going to retreat. If the swashbuckler might retreat, is it better to crit-fish with a minimal Deceptive Attack or go big to force him to use the retreat? It probably depends on the tactical situation.

* In both cases before Deceptive Attack.