Extra-effort in combat, too cheap?

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by Smirg

So, basically I'd say it's a good rule for cinematic and dungeon crawling games.

I use it in non-cinematic and non-dungeon crawling games and find it works very well.

The last campaign I ran was a Traveller:ISW game. The players started out with 150pts. They Ended with 180. Here are the relevant stats for the 5 players:

Engineer: ST 10, HT 10. Dodge 8. Lt. Encumbrance. Brawling/Knife 11. Guns 13.
Comms: ST 12, HT 10. Dodge 8. Brawling 11. Guns 11.
Doctor: ST 9, HT 10. Dodge 6. Med. Encumbrance. Guns 12.
Merchant: ST 10, HT 11. Dodge 7. Lt. Encumbrance. Brawling 10. Guns 11.
Pilot: ST 12, HT 11. Dodge 9. Brawling 15, Guns 13.

The encumbrance came from wearing their Vacc Suits and carrying their weapons.

This team has generally 7 FP to use in any given fight (generally less...they were often fatigued from staying up late). That isn't a lot of FP. Considering they don't do a lot of Hand to Hand damage, they often want to go for Mighty Blows...and they usually want feverish defense. There is usually more than one person fighting them. They often have a habit of getting into fights with people who are bigger than they are and better fighters. They have to madly wear themselves out in order to not get pounded. They usually end the fights exhausted and injured. Works for my gritty games quite well.

[Lupo]

Originally Posted by Icelander

In my view, a fight between two skilled swordsmen should at least theoretically be capable of consisting of more than a few seconds of give-and-take.

I don't care about how many seconds of In-Game time a fight lasts - I do care about how much *real time* is needed to game out the fight.

Since "a few seconds" can easily take 2-3 hours to game using GURPS tactical combat, I am ok with "fast fights".

If I ever wanted fights to last more (in game time) I would declare "ok, now each GURPS turn lasts 2 seconds", rather than actually rolling dice twice as more and spending the whole evening just for a single fight.
That would be EXTREME simulationism.

Without high defences, the game does not allow one to reproduce famous duels of fantasy, literature and even history.

I don't expect GURPS to be a "slow-motion simulator" of fights. A fight lasting 5-10 rounds features lots of interesting situations, rolls, tactical choices - I am happy with it even if, In Character, it lasted only a couple of seconds.

A combination of Critical Hits, Feints and Deceptive Attack allows any defence to be overcome in the end.

Obviously.
The point is: defence should be overcome BEFORE the player gets bored, not "in the end".

I think it's more interesting, rather than less, if combat can go on for some time without someone dying in each turn. It makes violence in the typical fantasy setting more plausible.

I am not particularly "interested" when I have to roll dice over and over again, repeating the same Deceptive Attack until all rolls go the right way and I am finally able to score a hit.
GURPS tactical combat is very well done and interesting but it isn't CHESS - it's supposed to be just a part of a larger (roleplaying) game.

If several people died per second of battle, there probably wouldn't be many living warriors. Certainly not a world where battle is frequent.

This is pointless... even with higher defenses, a GURPS battle will look nothing like a "real" battle.
In a real battle, people fear for their lives, don't have time to think and often make choices that aren't performing or effective, or are effective at self-preserving but not very adventurous ("I will wait here, all-out defending, hoping that nobody notices me")
In a GURPS battle, players have time to think, see the whole battleground easily, can calculate their odds in advance, and try to do the best possible move, every second.
There is NO WAY than a detailed system like GURPS can actually simulate a real battle so well... if you try to re-enact a GURPS fight in real time and film it, the result will be weird and/or physically impossible.

AFAIK the only way to recreate a realistic-looking, believable fight in a RPG is to use an abstract, narrativist system and forget about details, exact positioning and so on; this way you might get a believable description of a realistic fight.

Even the most realistic real-time videogames create fights that, however compelling, believable, etc., aren't "realistic" at all if you look at them from the outside...

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

The response to that may be that hirelings don't really have a choice in the matter. Or, at least, their masters are faced with their own unattractive options. If your hirelings and pack animals are close enough to be useful, then they're also close enough to be attacked. That is, they don't have to be right next to you in the marching order, but if they're close enough to adventurers to be accessible, then they are by definition in a hazardous area and may be attacked.... The other option is to make sure they stay in safe areas, but if they do that, the supplies they're carrying for you are effectively out of play for a significant chunk of the adventure.

As a house rule for GM sanity, the hirelings won't go into areas of "high" danger - they'll follow the delvers into the wilderness, but they won't go into the ghost infested tomb. And yes, this has sometimes resulted in either dead hirelings (Lenia's horse got eaten by a manticore enroute) or inconvenienced delvers ("what do you mean everyone left their tents with the hirelings?").

Even so, the hirelings are useful, because the delvers have a semi-secure base camp, replacement supplies that are only a few hours away instead of a week or more, and extra load bearers to carry loot back. Having someone else carry the 100 lbs of coin makes surviving any ambushes on the road home a lot easier.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Lupo

I don't care about how many seconds of In-Game time a fight lasts - I do care about how much *real time* is needed to game out the fight.

Since "a few seconds" can easily take 2-3 hours to game using GURPS tactical combat, I am ok with "fast fights".

If I ever wanted fights to last more (in game time) I would declare "ok, now each GURPS turn lasts 2 seconds", rather than actually rolling dice twice as more and spending the whole evening just for a single fight.
That would be EXTREME simulationism.

Very well. But you note will that Extra Effort in combat will naturally be more effective if only one side has access to it.

In my personal experience, rolling dice takes a trivial amount of time. Two or three hours of real time is hundreds of turns, not a couple of them.

Originally Posted by Lupo

I don't expect GURPS to be a "slow-motion simulator" of fights. A fight lasting 5-10 rounds features lots of interesting situations, rolls, tactical choices - I am happy with it even if, In Character, it lasted only a couple of seconds.

Some fights in my campaign, even with Extra Effort, last only a second. Some last minutes. I enjoy both and I would not want to be confined to only one possibility.

Originally Posted by Lupo

Obviously.
The point is: defence should be overcome BEFORE the player gets bored, not "in the end".

The only point where I've ever witnesses a player bored during combat was when it was non-lethal combat that did not feature his PC. At all other times, people are as excited during turn 23 as they were for turn 2.

Originally Posted by Lupo

I am not particularly "interested" when I have to roll dice over and over again, repeating the same Deceptive Attack until all rolls go the right way and I am finally able to score a hit.
GURPS tactical combat is very well done and interesting but it isn't CHESS - it's supposed to be just a part of a larger (roleplaying) game.

Well, switch tactics. Making the same attack again and again should make it easier for the opponent to defend, not harder.

In any case, if a player is ever bored with how long it's taking, he could take a risk that will either end the fight in his favour right away or not. All-Out Feint and Attack or something similar.

Originally Posted by Lupo

This is pointless... even with higher defenses, a GURPS battle will look nothing like a "real" battle.
In a real battle, people fear for their lives, don't have time to think and often make choices that aren't performing or effective, or are effective at self-preserving but not very adventurous ("I will wait here, all-out defending, hoping that nobody notices me")
In a GURPS battle, players have time to think, see the whole battleground easily, can calculate their odds in advance, and try to do the best possible move, every second.
There is NO WAY than a detailed system like GURPS can actually simulate a real battle so well... if you try to re-enact a GURPS fight in real time and film it, the result will be weird and/or physically impossible.

AFAIK the only way to recreate a realistic-looking, believable fight in a RPG is to use an abstract, narrativist system and forget about details, exact positioning and so on; this way you might get a believable description of a realistic fight.

Even the most realistic real-time videogames create fights that, however compelling, believable, etc., aren't "realistic" at all if you look at them from the outside...

In my campaign, PCs know what information about the battle they can gather with their skills. Frequent Per and Observation checks are needed to keep track of events on the battlefield and those are penalised if the PC is constantly in melee.

Frighting events call for Fright checks. Taking extreme risks calls for Will checks. NPCs, at least, will use non-adventurous and calculated tactics designed to prolong their lives. PCs that do not will have to be that much luckier or heroically powerful to avoid dying.

As for time to think, I think that you'd find battles taking much less time if you stopped allowing people to take long periods of time to decide on their tactics. If someone is unsure, declare that his character is taking Do Nothing (or if you're kind, All-Out Defence or Evaluate) manouvres until he makes up his mind.

I often run large combats where all participants are drinking shots and the pace tends to be several turns per minute. Complex actions sometimes take more, but then again, some long actions take minutes ('our squad will fall back under cover of shields and wait until the platoon from the dragoons if alongside them'). Due to the booze and stirring music, all players tend to be willing to make decisions that are less than considered and that's the way we like it. They'll try their best to use good tactics, but nobody's perfect. And some PCs have Overconfidence. ;)

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by Icelander

As for time to think, I think that you'd find battles taking much less time if you stopped allowing people to take long periods of time to decide on their tactics. If someone is unsure, declare that his character is taking Do Nothing (or if you're kind, All-Out Defence or Evaluate) manouvres until he makes up his mind.

I haven't implemented this in a game yet. But there was this neat idea I once read. You ask your players what their PCs default action in a battle is if they don't know what else to do. And if the players take to long to decide, they do that default action instead.

What I like about the idea is that is also helps define the character a bit. If things are confusing and battle is raging and your character acts on instinct...what is that instinct? To attack the nearest enemy? To evaluate? To All-Out Attack? All-Out defend?

I think I'll probably have them come up with a default for melee and a default for ranged.

This sort of thing does speed up combat quite a lot. And then also, having people learn the rules.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by trooper6

I haven't implemented this in a game yet. But there was this neat idea I once read. You ask your players what their PCs default action in a battle is if they don't know what else to do. And if the players take to long to decide, they do that default action instead.

I've basically done that on my own for my Minotaur - when playing online it's up to everyone to keep the game flowing as quickly as possible. In his case, it's "run up to the closest bad guy, then smash it in the face with my flail!" but that suits the character's personality, IQ, total lack of Tactics skill, etc.

Even if the GM doesn't impose this as a rule, I strongly encourage players to do this voluntarily. Maximizing YOUR combat numbers at the expense of boring your fellow players to tears is kind of rude.

[Kaldrin]

Originally Posted by Lupo

Example 2:
Two fighters with skill 20, combat reflexes, enhanced parry and using Feverish defence can parry at 17; so if one chooses the "most deceptive" attack possible, giving -5, the other will parry at 12... probable parry.

This changes the flow of the game *drastically*.

This highlights exactly why you don't want to expend fatigue for a minor bonus on a single roll. These two would be unconscious before they landed a blow.

[doulos05]

Originally Posted by Kaldrin

This highlights exactly why you don't want to expend fatigue for a minor bonus on a single roll. These two would be unconscious before they landed a blow.

Alternately, it highlights exactly why you would want to expend fatigue for a minor bonus on a single roll. Because in a one-on-one GURPS swordfight, the first person to get injured will almost certainly lose because of the death spiral caused by shock.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by doulos05

Alternately, it highlights exactly why you would want to expend fatigue for a minor bonus on a single roll. Because in a one-on-one GURPS swordfight, the first person to get injured will almost certainly lose because of the death spiral caused by shock.

By RAW, not necessarily.

Shock doesn't affect defences and only persists for one turn.

Of course, I feel neither is particularly realistic and so treat it differently in my campaigns, but that's another issue.

[doulos05]

Originally Posted by Icelander

By RAW, not necessarily.

Shock doesn't affect defences and only persists for one turn.

Of course, I feel neither is particularly realistic and so treat it differently in my campaigns, but that's another issue.

Huh, I thought it did. Good thing my player's never noticed, at least one of them would have called me on it....