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Old 06-05-2022, 10:18 AM   #31
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Re: should it be possible for an attack on you that your ally parries to spoil your A

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Originally Posted by kenclary View Post
Declared defenses, as usually implemented, isn't "bad design" because it's more complicated. It's bad design because the extra complexity is unnecessary. The same level of realism can be achieved without it.
It seems more realistic to create possibility of people wasting effort to try and parry a sword thrust which would've narrowly missed their throat anyway if they'd chosen to do nothing... or do activate a Warp Dodge to avoid a bullet which would've harmlessly grazed their temple instead of hitting their skull.

A perfect knowledge of where attacks will hit doesn't seem realistic.

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Originally Posted by kenclary View Post
Which is why GURPS only addresses it in TS, by folding it into maneuver choice / actions during your turn. For example, both Dodge and Drop or Acrobatic Dodge require actions/rolling on your turn, instead of as part of the defense. And it would be trivial to extend the same to Sacrificial Dodge (though technically a houserule, since TS didn't address Sacrificial Dodge at all).
Tactical Shooting introduces these as optional ideas w/ dodging ranged attacks yes, though it doesn't really cover the broader idea like when using a parry or when opposing a melee attack.

I'm pretty confident that if I were kneeling and someone threw a high roundhouse that would fly overtop of my head, it would happen so fast that I wouldn't realize it would miss and might still waste my efforts dropping into a crouch as a dodge to be very certain it would miss.

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Originally Posted by kenclary View Post
Successful parries do, just justifying successive parry penalties (apologies if I wasn't clear about that). Fully missed parries, in addition to getting hit, would just create openings...
The justification for parry penalties is more "I spent effort moving my arm" than "my arm made contact" since the penalty is identical whether you succeed (contact) or fail (arm doesn't make contact)
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Old 06-06-2022, 08:54 AM   #32
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: should it be possible for an attack on you that your ally parries to spoil your A

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Originally Posted by kenclary View Post
Declared defenses, as usually implemented, isn't "bad design" because it's more complicated. It's bad design because the extra complexity is unnecessary. The same level of realism can be achieved without it.
Having players choose to defend without knowing if an attack hit honestly adds a lot to the game. It makes suppressive fire more effective (and allows it to be used with even a single-shot weapon - rather than using the Suppressive Fire rules, you simply attack at/near the target, and hope that even if you miss they don't roll well enough to avoid spoiling their aim). It gives the GM an opening to not make it obvious when a foe makes a Feint. It allows for situations like what the thread was created for. It allows for a Critical Miss to become a normal Failure if the defender also has suffers a Critical Failure (treat as a wash; whether this wastes the defender's defense or not is up to the GM, I'd be inclined to say it does), or for a Critical Hit to be negated if the defender also has a Critical Success (treat as a normal hit - or a successfully defended attack, if you want to throw the defender a bone). And, for those of us who don't think being a trained combatant gives you flawless and complete information of the trajectory of every attack that comes your way (at least so long as you are able to detect it in the first place), this is more realistic than the alternative.

Of course, this improvement isn't free, and we have to pay for it with added complexity. There's also, as you've noted, the fact that this does disadvantage the defender, as there's the risk of wasting a defense. For some groups, it's not worth the cost - for others, it may well be.

I also think you're overselling how much complexity it adds. Currently, the order of operations is as follows (P1 is the player for the attacking character, P2 is the player for the defending character; note one of these would be the GM in the case of PC vs NPC):

1) P1 decides on and declares an attack.
2) P1 rolls.
3) P1 checks the roll against skill; on a Critical Failure, go to the appropriate Critical Miss Table; on a Failure, sequence ends; on a Success, go to step 4; on a Critical Success, roll on the Critical Hit Table and skip to step 7.
4) P2 decides on and declares a defense.
5) P2 rolls.
6) P2 checks the roll against defense; on a Critical Failure, roll on the Critical Hit Table and then go to step 7; on a Failure, go to step 7; on a Success, sequence ends; on a Critical Success, P1 rolls on the Critical Miss Table.
7) P1 rolls damage.
8) Damage is assessed (subtract DR, apply WM, check for Major Wound, deduct from HP, apply Shock Penalty, check if HP passed a threshold and apply appropriate effect, etc). Sequence ends.

My suggestion - going with the more lenient version where any success on the defense means no defense is needed, and Failure by P1's MoF/2 counts as a success here - would look like this:

1) P1 decides on and declares an attack.
2) P2 decides on and declares a defense.
3-4) Both roll.
5-6) Both check their rolls against skill/defense. If both had Critical Failures, it's a wash, but P2 wastes their defense; if P1 has a Critical Failure and P2 does not, roll on the Critical Miss Table. If P1 has a Failure and P2 has a Critical Failure, P2 wastes a defense and go to Step 7 (P2's error resulted in what should have been a miss actually hitting). If P1 has a Failure and P2 has a Failure, check MoF - if P1's MoF is less than P2's MoF*2, P2 wastes a defense, otherwise P2 does not; either way, end sequence. If P1 has a Success and P2 has a Critical Failure, roll on the Critical Hit Table and go to step 7. If P1 has a Success and P2 has a normal Failure, go to step 7. If P1 has a Success and P2 has a Success, end sequence. If P1 has a Success and P2 has a Critical Success, roll on the Critical Miss Table. If P1 has a Critical Success and P2 does not, roll on the Critical Hit Table and go to step 7. If both have Critical Successes, the result is a normal Success for P1 - go to step 7 without a roll on the Critical Hit Table.
7) P1 rolls damage.
8) Damage is assessed (subtract DR, apply WM, check for Major Wound, deduct from HP, apply Shock Penalty, check if HP passed a threshold and apply appropriate effect, etc). Sequence ends.

So, same overall number of steps, and depending on your setup this may actually go faster by being able to do some of the steps at the same time - for example, if P1's rolls are concealed from P2, P1 can roll while P2 is deciding on what defense (if any - in all cases, "Don't Do Something - Just Stand There!" is an option for the defender) to use; if they don't have to share a rolling surface (say, each has their own dice tower) they can roll at the same time, and the results of P1's roll need not be assessed prior to P2 rolling (so P1 could determine what their roll's result - CritFail, Fail, Success, Crit - was while P2 is rolling and/or determining their roll's result). The added complexity is mostly just in step 5-6 (which replaces step 3 and step 6 above), where a few other possibilities now exist (Critical Miss getting downgraded to a miss and P2 wasting a defense; Miss causing P2 to waste a defense; Miss getting upgraded to a hit; Critical Hit getting downgraded to a hit) and the fact that the sequence will always reach step 6 rather than sometimes ending at step 3 (but outside of low-skill P1, this won't be terribly common) or skipping to step 7 (which isn't terribly common even with high-skill P1). Step 2 may sometimes take a bit longer, simply because not defending is now a more worthwhile option than in RAW, but probably not enough to make a real impact.
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Last edited by Varyon; 06-06-2022 at 09:06 AM.
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Old 06-06-2022, 03:14 PM   #33
kenclary
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Default Re: should it be possible for an attack on you that your ally parries to spoil your A

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
Having players choose to defend without knowing if an attack hit honestly adds a lot to the game. <snip> Of course, this improvement isn't free, and we have to pay for it with added complexity.
Look, houserules like that are fine if you want them, but I would prefer you at least understand my point.

The situation in which all of this matters is dodging gunfire, especially spoiling aim by doing so. The TS rules cover that, completely and well, without adding any new rolls, contests, margin-evaluation, crit rules... Wherein if you chose the Aim maneuver, you are essentially committing to not dodging, and you need to pre-commit to diving for cover, "erratic" movement, etc., in order to use them. (They also provide plenty of clarity on what Dodge actually means and represents.)

Trying to model melee attacks like gunfire (where you can't even know if you're being shot at, just that you might be getting shot) is, imo, silly and absurd. Definitely not realistic, and absolutely not worth any added complexity. Feints, deceptive attacks, basic maneuver choice (especially with MA options), etc. all cover all these cases, in part because GURPS does not micromanage movement, limb positioning, combat stance...

The rules you're talking about will have only 2 gameplay impacts (over the TS rules, to be clear): reward attack-spamming even more, by making every melee attack into a "is it a miss?" gamble for the defender. Why hose defenders more? (Maybe you want that, so cool. Maybe you want to have a little minigame for every attack; also fine, if that's what you're into.) I wouldn't use such an option, nor would I ever recommend it --- it's bad design, based on a flawed model of violent action. But you don't need my agreement.
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Old 06-06-2022, 04:27 PM   #34
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: should it be possible for an attack on you that your ally parries to spoil your A

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Originally Posted by kenclary View Post
Look, houserules like that are fine if you want them, but I would prefer you at least understand my point.
I believe I understand your point, but I disagree with your conclusions.

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Originally Posted by kenclary View Post
The situation in which all of this matters is dodging gunfire, especially spoiling aim by doing so. The TS rules cover that, completely and well, without adding any new rolls, contests, margin-evaluation, crit rules... Wherein if you chose the Aim maneuver, you are essentially committing to not dodging, and you need to pre-commit to diving for cover, "erratic" movement, etc., in order to use them. (They also provide plenty of clarity on what Dodge actually means and represents.)
In some settings, it's appropriate for a character to be able to abandon their Aim in order to make a defense. Or jump out of the way immediately after making an attack In fact, Douglas Cole's "Take Aim" article, which explicitly builds on rules from Tactical Shooting, makes a distinction between Aim (allows a defense) and All Out Aim (does not allow a defense), as well as allowing for a Committed Attack to benefit from Aim instead of only allowing that for an All Out Attack as suggested in TS, all to allow for a defense.

Requiring players to declare they are going to be dodging rather than making any sort of effective attack certainly is a way to handle things, but it's not the only way, and I don't think it's realistic that the only way to get out of the way of someone's aim is to abandon your aim before they even bother to point their weapon in your direction (as would be the case for someone making an attack without Aiming first). Of course, I also think it's appropriate to call for a Dodge when someone uses Aim against you, particularly if using the rules from that article (so you can "shake off" their aim, preventing them from getting you properly in their sights), but that's arguably a different discussion.

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Originally Posted by kenclary View Post
Trying to model melee attacks like gunfire (where you can't even know if you're being shot at, just that you might be getting shot) is, imo, silly and absurd. Definitely not realistic, and absolutely not worth any added complexity. Feints, deceptive attacks, basic maneuver choice (especially with MA options), etc. all cover all these cases, in part because GURPS does not micromanage movement, limb positioning, combat stance...
I've made no attempt to model melee attacks like ranged ones - rather, I've stated that my suggestion would also work well in melee combat. And if someone opts to use it for ranged combat, I think it's appropriate to use it for melee as well.

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Originally Posted by kenclary View Post
The rules you're talking about will have only 2 gameplay impacts (over the TS rules, to be clear): reward attack-spamming even more, by making every melee attack into a "is it a miss?" gamble for the defender. Why hose defenders more? (Maybe you want that, so cool. Maybe you want to have a little minigame for every attack; also fine, if that's what you're into.) I wouldn't use such an option, nor would I ever recommend it --- it's bad design, based on a flawed model of violent action. But you don't need my agreement.
That's one impact. What's the second? Regardless, I mentioned several of the impacts this would have in my previous post. And yes, my suggestion, at least as it currently stands, is overall detrimental to the defender. Perhaps there are options available to make things a bit more equal - maybe a successful defense downgrades a Critical Hit to a normal hit, maybe rolling well enough against a missed attack results in the option to impose a penalty to the attacker's next defense as a sort of "free" Riposte (although obviously that only works for melee combat), or maybe there's some other method available.
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