[Last Gasp] Mighty Warriors: Which Advantages and Skills Count?

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

You seem to be doing so much work to avoid the impact of spending AP, why use them at all? The entire purpose is to pace combat. If you want warriors to have lots of attacks before they have to rest, have them buy AP regeneration, extra AP, or all the other things designed to allow longer flurries.

I want cunning and skillful warriors to be able to tire out less thoughtful ones, who may have higher Attributes. Making probing attacks that expend little energy and defending with minimum wasted effort are an important part of that strategy.

Even with maximum Extra AP as well as the 'Mighty Warriors...' rule, Sir Michael, for example, will expend all his APs in a flurry lasting about five to six seconds. And part of his concept is being in the best shape possible for a human. Other PCs will last even less time in a combat where they are making 2-6 Active Defences per turn, not to mention making 2-5 attacks themselves, depending on whether they are Weapon Masters.

Extending that up to ten seconds would be nice, if they are prepared to accept doing less damage and getting a penalty to their defences.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I want cunning and skillful warriors to be able to tire out less thoughtful ones, who may have higher Attributes. Making probing attacks that expend little energy and defending with minimum wasted effort are an important part of that strategy.

Even with maximum Extra AP as well as the 'Mighty Warriors...' rule, Sir Michael, for example, will expend all his APs in a flurry lasting about five to six seconds. And part of his concept is being in the best shape possible for a human. Other PCs will last even less time in a combat where they are making 2-6 Active Defences per turn, not to mention making 2-5 attacks themselves, depending on whether they are Weapon Masters.

Extending that up to ten seconds would be nice, if they are prepared to accept doing less damage and getting a penalty to their defences.

TBH I think the AP system as intended and it's default set up, and making 2-6 defences and 2-5 attacks per turn for 10 turns may be somewhat opposed ideals. I.e the chaps your talking about doing this are already operating on a level greater than most. In which case I suggest ignoring the max extra AP limit for them as the quickest easiest way to allow them to operate at full speed for more than few seconds. Ultimately it's a resource management system that adds another dimension to combat, and one that will need to be adapted to fit combat at higher levels if you want them to last as long between pauses.

IIRC from other threads your pc's are in the 800-1000 cp range (and judging from the TG with examples thread some scary stats commensurate with that)?

So I'm guessing however that these guys don't really need to operate at full speed for more than a couple of seconds for fighting targets of less threat than them? I.e for mincing mooks which I'm guessing they do pretty handily, they can overwhelm them before AP becomes a factor, and even if they don't that will still enjoy an AP advantage large enough to win AP games against them as well.

If its squaring off against each other than I guess it balances out, each having a flurry of activity followed by a respite (possibly with suitable dialogue).


EDIT: actually on the walk to work I thought of another way, you could simply double the APs relevant skills give you, this wouldn't make much difference to those with relatively low skills, but will mean your chaps with high skills will be able to go for longer. Or if you have particular advantages that they enjoy (IIRC you have a warrior talent that you use) you could inflate the APs they give.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

TBH I think the AP system as intended and it's default set up, and making 2-6 defences and 2-5 attacks per turn for 10 turns may be somewhat opposed ideals. I.e the chaps your talking about doing this are already operating on a level greater than most.

That's true, but I like the idea of them being gasping for breath and stopping to rest occasionally in the course of their heroics.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

In which case I suggest ignoring the max extra AP limit for them as the quickest easiest way to allow them to operate at full speed for more than few seconds.

Human maximums are relevant in the campaign and surpassing them usually carries an Unusual Background or at least a Special Exercises surcharge.

Adding these rules to an ongoing campaign also causes odd results in that at least one PCs has 'maximum human fitness' as part of his concept and his extra FP and Very Fit don't help him much under AP rules. If I give every PC equal points to buy APs, it alters the descriptions and concepts of Sir Mickey, Murlak, Ankhapet, etc.

I gave Mickey's enough points to buy maximum AP for his HT and I figure I'll do the same for Ankhapet, who is a warrior type as well, if not with as high HT. Murlak will get something else shiny to make up for it, probably the last level of the Smooth Operator Talent. Abadas will get more ER.

Rasul Khamsin Mubtasim, who is a supernatural-power-using martial artist, will need figuring out. I don't want him to have more APs than Mickey, because in a non-powered fight, Mickey ought to have more endurance, but I do want him to be able to Flying Leap, run and jump over the battlefield for more than two seconds.

I wonder if Perks or other Advantages to reduce the AP cost of specific moves are valid? So that he can accelerate, Power Blow or Flying Leap more cheaply than Mickey could, but spend the same on making attacks and defences?

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

IIRC from other threads your pc's are in the 800-1000 cp range (and judging from the TG with examples thread some scary stats commensurate with that)?

Just so. They also have magical gear that grants them DR from 10-30, DB from +3 to +5, bonuses to hit and damage from +3 to +5 and varying immunities, defences and other bonuses.

If that gear were bought with points, I expect they might reach 1500 points.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

So I'm guessing however that these guys don't really need to operate at full speed for more than a couple of seconds for fighting targets of less threat than them? I.e for mincing mooks which I'm guessing they do pretty handily, they can overwhelm them before AP becomes a factor, and even if they don't that will still enjoy an AP advantage large enough to win AP games against them as well.

Well, if by 'mook' you mean ordinary soldiers, they never face just a few of them. Since they are so powerful, they tend to influence the course of field battles and face hundreds of soldiers in the course of the battle.

Of course, I expect that will draw heavily on their FP reserves, as well as APs, and I will have to adjust the rules (or at least the Cost) for Healing Potions and Potions of Endurance, which they'd use in such cases.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

If its squaring off against each other than I guess it balances out, each having a flurry of activity followed by a respites (possibly with suitable dialogue).

Just so.

What I want to avoid is having every attack and defence take the same effort, regardless of whether you are defending against an attack you can counter with minimal worries or an exceptionally fast and dangerous one, or whether you attack at full power or make probing jabs.

If necessary for balance, I could make the penalties for Pacing Attack and Pacing [Defence] more severe. I just want the option of making attacks and defences with less effort at the price of having them be less effective.

It should be more tiring to cut your way through the Pharoah's elite guard than it is to cut your way through an undisciplined rabble of orc tribesmen. If you don't have to operate at full power and speed to overcome your foes, it shouldn't tire you out equally fast.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

EDIT: actually on the walk to work I thought of another way, you could simply double the APs relevant skills give you, this wouldn't make much difference to those with relatively low skills, but will mean your chaps with high skills will be able to go for longer. Or if you have particular advantages that they enjoy (IIRC you have a warrior talent that you use) you could inflate the APs they give.

Hmmm... I don't necessarily see any need to do that. I want the PCs to be at or near the human maximum except in cases where they have access to and buy supernatural abilities that surpass that. Making the bonus pool of the first flurry larger isn't necessarily going to feel right, as the AP rules will work oddly if you've got a larger bonus pool than you have an AP pool.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Icelander

That's true, but I like the idea of them being gasping for breath and stopping to rest occasionally in the course of their heroics..

You main problem seems to be that "occasionally" is happening too often? If that's the case I'd suggest just making more AP available to them, that way you not reworking the system in a way that will effect everyone

Originally Posted by Icelander

Human maximums are relevant in the campaign and surpassing them usually carries an Unusual Background or at least a Special Exercises surcharge.

Adding these rules to an ongoing campaign also causes odd results in that at least one PCs has 'maximum human fitness' as part of his concept and his extra FP and Very Fit don't help him much under AP rules. If I give every PC equal points to buy APs, it alters the descriptions and concepts of Sir Mickey, Murlak, Ankhapet, etc...

I think the problem is that their actions as supported by the system and their human maximum concept are outstripping the AP that they have available under the same concept. I.e human maximum in one outpaces and is unsupported by human maximum in the other. But you're talking about chaps who are making 2-6 attacks and 2-4 defences a second in combat. I suggest that that is not a feasible level of activity that can be sustained for very long even at human maximum. However it only means you might need to be bit more generous with the APs rather than that you're doing something 'wrong'.

Originally Posted by Icelander

I gave Mickey's enough points to buy maximum AP for his HT and I figure I'll do the same for Ankhapet, who is a warrior type as well, if not with as high HT. Murlak will get something else shiny to make up for it, probably the last level of the Smooth Operator Talent. Abadas will get more ER.

Rasul Khamsin Mubtasim, who is a supernatural-power-using martial artist, will need figuring out. I don't want him to have more APs than Mickey, because in a non-powered fight, Mickey ought to have more endurance, but I do want him to be able to Flying Leap, run and jump over the battlefield for more than two seconds.

Well aspected AP are already in the system, so I'd argue that if he has a MA that's based on those kind of attacks he could get some extra APs for those specific attacks (the balance being he doesn't get extra any AP derived from his MA for attacks that aren't part of that MA.

Originally Posted by Icelander

I wonder if Perks or other Advantages to reduce the AP cost of specific moves are valid? So that he can accelerate, Power Blow or Flying Leap more cheaply than Mickey could, but spend the same on making attacks and defences?.

Could do, although since I assume he'd be doing these anyway the overall effect will be the same as giving him more APs. But the side effect would be there would be never be any incentive for him to fight conservatively by not choosing such energetic moves.

The overall effect you seem to want here is that as martial artist you want him to be able to pull of such energetic moves that are inherent to his fighting style without falling behind those who's fighting styles are less reliant on jumping and zipping about. Thing is you yourself have said he's a supernatural martial artist, I think the best way to allow him to do this is to give him a 'supernatural' amount of APs even if it's only for doing supernatural things.

Originally Posted by Icelander

Just so. They also have magical gear that grants them DR from 10-30, DB from +3 to +5, bonuses to hit and damage from +3 to +5 and varying immunities, defences and other bonuses.

If that gear were bought with points, I expect they might reach 1500 points.

Yeah well, human maximum is always going to be a relative term ;-)

Originally Posted by Icelander

Well, if by 'mook' you mean ordinary soldiers, they never face just a few of them. Since they are so powerful, they tend to influence the course of field battles and face hundreds of soldiers in the course of the battle.

Of course, I expect that will draw heavily on their FP reserves, as well as APs, and I will have to adjust the rules (or at least the Cost) for Healing Potions and Potions of Endurance, which they'd use in such cases..

Well the thing is there a difference between facing a hundred soldiers in battle and pacing yourself so that you kill them over a say half an hour* (which I'm guessing these chaps could do without using up their APs i.e with semi frequent recover choices every few rounds) and killing 5 a turn for 20 seconds, and having to deal with hitting the AP/FP wall.

AP's really are just about how long you give your self to do something

*Or hell even 10 minutes would still give them an average of six rounds per soldier, which from what I remember from the stats should be enough for a second's rest once in a while!

Originally Posted by Icelander

Just so.

What I want to avoid is having every attack and defence take the same effort, regardless of whether you are defending against an attack you can counter with minimal worries or an exceptionally fast and dangerous one, or whether you attack at full power or make probing jabs.

If necessary for balance, I could make the penalties for Pacing Attack and Pacing [Defence] more severe. I just want the option of making attacks and defences with less effort at the price of having them be less effective.

It should be more tiring to cut your way through the Pharoah's elite guard than it is to cut your way through an undisciplined rabble of orc tribesmen. If you don't have to operate at full power and speed to overcome your foes, it shouldn't tire you out equally fast.

Well at the moment any action that get's a critical success cost's no AP, you could change that to any action that succeeds by say 4 Mos costs no (or half) AP, that way you PCs fighting outclassed opponents will be expending less AP overall than of they are facing equal foes.

Originally Posted by Icelander

Hmmm... I don't necessarily see any need to do that. I want the PCs to be at or near the human maximum except in cases where they have access to and buy supernatural abilities that surpass that. Making the bonus pool of the first flurry larger isn't necessarily going to feel right, as the AP rules will work oddly if you've got a larger bonus pool than you have an AP pool.

It will depend on how many flurries make up your usual combat I guess. The bonus AP per flurry is great way to have a skilled/experienced opponent gain advantage over of less skilled one, one on one by outlasting him (or playing classic rope-a-dope). But yes if your flurry is going to be Guard A drops, guard B steps in to fill the gap etc, etc, it will work less so.

One way you could go is spit the extra AP so that its not all extra per flurry, but just extra AP for certain things, that are recovered as normal for AP (although again how many flurries you have will effect their comparative value)

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

You main problem seems to be that "occasionally" is happening too often? If that's the case I'd suggest just making more AP available to them, that way you not reworking the system in a way that will effect everyone

Making Techniques and Perks available serves the same purpose and seems to be how GURPS handles a lot of other special combat moves or bonuses.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

I think the problem is that their actions as supported by the system and their human maximum concept are outstripping the AP that they have available under the same concept. I.e human maximum in one outpaces and is unsupported by human maximum in the other.

Rather, yes. A mighty warrior might be able to make three attacks and defences to a regular warrior's one, but he only gets +3 to +5 bonus AP for the difference. That's eaten up in one or two seconds and after that, he just gets tired really fast.

I could make AP cost per manuever, not attack, but that has the problem of granularity again, in that it doesn't encourage pacing your attacks instead of always maxing out on them.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

But you're talking about chaps who are making 2-6 attacks and 2-4 defences a second in combat. I suggest that that is not a feasible level of activity that can be sustained for very long even at human maximum. However it only means you might need to be bit more generous with the APs rather than that you're doing something 'wrong'.

Well, avoiding the making of too many attacks per turn is something they can control, but with Active Defences costing 1 AP per, that's almost not going to matter. In an average fight, the PCs will defend several times per second, every second. Sometimes they have to make 10+ defences in a second.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

The overall effect you seem to want here is that as martial artist you want him to be able to pull of such energetic moves that are inherent to his fighting style without falling behind those who's fighting styles are less reliant on jumping and zipping about. Thing is you yourself have said he's a supernatural martial artist, I think the best way to allow him to do this is to give him a 'supernatural' amount of APs for doing supernatural things.

Yeah, but I want the option of tailoring the energy expenditure of various combat moves by how good the character is at them. As an example, Rasul is very light on his feet and able to glide almost effortlessly around the battlefield, but he'd get tired faster than Mickey in the clinch.

Techniques, Perks or Advantages that change the relative cost of movement and attacks seem to me to be the best way of doing that.

I'm giving Rasul a small Energy Reserve for his FP-powered chi-skills, but that still leaves the problem that moving his full Move in a fight will consume 8 APs. And buying APs to allow him to do that several times in a fight is insanely expensive, not to mention that it will allow him to tire out anyone else in a wrestle, boxing match, fencing match or anything else he could do.

There has to be some fair price for a reduction in the AP cost of specific actions, but not others.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Well the thing is there a difference between facing a hundred soldiers in battle and pacing yourself so that you kill them over a say half an hour* (which I'm guessing these chaps could do without using up their APs i.e with semi frequent recover choices every few rounds) and killing 5 a turn for 20 seconds, and having to deal with hitting the AP/FP wall.

AP's really are just about how long you give your self to do something

*Or hell even 10 minutes would still give them an average of six rounds per soldier, which from what I remember from the stats should be enough for a second's rest once in a while!

One of the things I hope APs will do is to make it scarier to be cut-off or unsupported, having to cut your way out or even defend a spot while waiting for help. The risk of running out of steam adds a new element of danger, which I like.

But it will still do that if the PCs can last 10-15 seconds by pacing themselves instead of 4-6 if they don't. Indeed, having to choose between maximum effectiveness and longer periods where they can perform at all is one of the things I want the system to force on them.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Well at the moment any action that get's a critical success cost's no AP, you could change that to any action that succeeds by say 4 Mos costs no (or half) AP, that way you PCs fighting outclassed opponents will be expending less AP overall than of they are facing equal foes.

That's interesting, but it lacks any element of tactical choice. Choosing between a Deceptive Attack that inflicts a -5 on your foe's defences and inflicts full damage (but Costs 1 AP per) and one that inflicts -3 to his defences and does reduced damage (but you can make 2 per 1 AP) seems to better reflect whether to punch with full power and speed, or making probing jabs while you tire your opponent out.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

It will depend on how many flurries make up your usual combat I guess. The bonus AP per flurry is great way to have a skilled/experienced opponent gain advantage over of less skilled one, one on one by outlasting him (or playing classic rope-a-dope). But yes if your flurry is going to be Guard A drops, guard B steps in to fill the gap, it will work less so.

I'd say that the most common kind of combat encounter recently is at minimum several hundred turns and may last hours (but then it features rest periods in cover and such), generally takes place on a battlefield with thousands of enemies* and allies, there are dozens of enemy champions and spellcasters waiting for a chance to get you while you are vulnerable, and each PC will alternate getting hurt with being healed, consuming potions or dropping to the ground hors d' combat.

But there are plenty of duels, short skirmishes and even unarmed less-than-lethal brawls, too.

*Of whom you engage only the high-value targets or those in critical areas of the battlefield, but if you stand around taking a breather, you are overwhelmed by lesser foes.

[DouglasCole]

Even getting past the point levels your characters are operating at and then enforcing "normal human maximum" on them (that's pretty self-contradictory given GURPS' assumptions), what you want is tactical choice, so you need to put something out there.

The harsh version would be something like "for -8 to -10 to attack, and -4 or -5 to Parry, you may reduce the AP cost of an action by 1. This can bring the AP cost of an action to zero. You may never recover AP on the same turn you do an action that would have spent them, you just don't lose the AP."

Less harsh would be lower penalties, obviously.

And don't knock the tactical choice involved in a Margin of Success argument either. Starting at Skill-26, your minimum margin of success is 10, maximum is 23. If you are looking at reducing AP cost by 1 if you succeed by (say) 10 or more on an attack, and 5+ on a defense, you're constraining tactical choices by dint of "how much awesome can I pile on this attack?" If you target the neck (-5) for a -6 deceptive attack, you will be rolling vs 15, crit on 5, but your typical margin will be 5, which depending on your threshold, will likely cost you AP to execute this.

If you just swing for the torso, your typical margin will be 10 even with the -6, and you will almost certainly NOT spend AP on it.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Making Techniques and Perks available serves the same purpose and seems to be how GURPS handles a lot of other special combat moves or bonuses.]

True, but negating AP cost (which is what you intending) means selectively applying it, is which case there's no real point in having it (i.e your players will choose options that remove the AP issue for them). AP as restriction tends to work when it's unavoidable.

Originally Posted by Icelander

Rather, yes. A mighty warrior might be able to make three attacks and defences to a regular warrior's one, but he only gets +3 to +5 bonus AP for the difference. That's eaten up in one or two seconds and after that, he just gets tired really fast..]

True but he still gets some tactical flexibility over the less experienced warrior, he can go as fast as he can but tire quickly (something the less experienced warrior is not able to do in that he can't simply can't attack and defend as quickly even if he had the AP to do so, which he won't) or he can fight in a more measured way for longer (something the less experienced warrior cannot do with his comparatively fewer AP). This will be especially true within a flurry where the more experienced warriors AP advantage is more apparent.

Originally Posted by Icelander

I could make AP cost per manuever, not attack, but that has the problem of granularity again, in that it doesn't encourage pacing your attacks instead of always maxing out on them.

Yes I agree.

Originally Posted by Icelander

Well, avoiding the making of too many attacks per turn is something they can control, but with Active Defences costing 1 AP per, that's almost not going to matter. In an average fight, the PCs will defend several times per second, every second. Sometimes they have to make 10+ defences in a second..

Well while not wanting to get into a discussion on what is realistically human maximum, that's defending against 10 attacks in a second all while not concentrating fully on doing so (i.e not full on defence) and also attacking at the same time! I honestly can't think of a way to picture that that doesn't involve parrying individual rounds from a gun fired on FA!

Originally Posted by Icelander

Yeah, but I want the option of tailoring the energy expenditure of various combat moves by how good the character is at them. As an example, Rasul is very light on his feet and able to glide almost effortlessly around the battlefield, but he'd get tired faster than Mickey in the clinch.

Techniques, Perks or Advantages that change the relative cost of movement and attacks seem to me to be the best way of doing that.

I'm giving Rasul a small Energy Reserve for his FP-powered chi-skills, but that still leaves the problem that moving his full Move in a fight will consume 8 APs. And buying APs to allow him to do that several times in a fight is insanely expensive, not to mention that it will allow him to tire out anyone else in a wrestle, boxing match, fencing match or anything else he could do.

There has to be some fair price for a reduction in the AP cost of specific actions, but not others.

That's why I suggested allowing extra AP for moves that work with a particular MA and not for moves that don't fit. So having lots of points in a wuxia style jumping/kicking MA you get APs for jumping and kicking, but not for rolling around on the floor in a clinch. Similarly a sumo wrestler gets no MA based APs for a leaping kick.

Originally Posted by Icelander

One of the things I hope APs will do is to make it scarier to be cut-off or unsupported, having to cut your way out or even defend a spot while waiting for help. The risk of running out of steam adds a new element of danger, which I like..

I agree, and it makes the point that even uber fighters still don't want to get mobbed. As 10 chaps with 10AP and 2AP per flurry, will still outlast one chap with 15AP and 20Ap per flurry. And as per below makes fighting conservatively more attractive.

However what's quite fun is that those chaps also have an incentive to fight defensively in order to increase their chance of individually surviving the fight long enough of the uber fighter to tire himself out.

Originally Posted by Icelander

But it will still do that if the PCs can last 10-15 seconds by pacing themselves instead of 4-6 if they don't. Indeed, having to choose between maximum effectiveness and longer periods where they can perform at all is one of the things I want the system to force on them.

But that what they would have to do, they're only falling over after a few seconds because they are burning so many APs per second, pacing themselves is also a matter of choosing less attacks and defending against less attacks per round. The first is as you say a matter of choice, the second is matter of positioning and tactics that effects the combat situation.

Originally Posted by Icelander

That's interesting, but it lacks any element of tactical choice. Choosing between a Deceptive Attack that inflicts a -5 on your foe's defences and inflicts full damage (but Costs 1 AP per) and one that inflicts -3 to his defences and does reduced damage (but you can make 2 per 1 AP) seems to better reflect whether to punch with full power and speed, or making probing jabs while you tire your opponent out.

well the tactical choice is in the manoeuvre choice, I'd argue that making a -5 deceptive attack (and thus less likely to get 5 MOS) is going to more effort than just making a regular attack safe in the knowledge you'll probably hit anyway. But the issue is always going to be what does a GURPS manoeuvre actually mean/look like. So I take your point.

The idea behind my suggestion was that combat choices that are more likely to get you many MOS are by definition going to be conservative choices, and IMO such conservative choices are good candidates for justifying reduced AP costs. The more experienced/able fighter has more leeway to choose to fight conservatively against a less experienced one and still fight effectively, whereas the less experienced lacking that advantage has such options removed.

i.e its another way to leverage superiority.

But yes I agree working out some kind of AP/mod exchange rate would be very direct way to do it. (but again i'd be wary of system that could allow characters to reliably remove themselves from the issue).

Originally Posted by Icelander

I'd say that the most common kind of combat encounter recently is at minimum several hundred turns and may last hours (but then it features rest periods in cover and such), generally takes place on a battlefield with thousands of enemies* and allies, there are dozens of enemy champions and spellcasters waiting for a chance to get you while you are vulnerable, and each PC will alternate getting hurt with being healed, consuming potions or dropping to the ground hors d' combat.

But there are plenty of duels, short skirmishes and even unarmed less-than-lethal brawls, too.

*Of whom you engage only the high-value targets or those in critical areas of the battlefield, but if you stand around taking a breather, you are overwhelmed by lesser foes.

Hmm, I'll be honest, if your combats are lasting hundreds of rounds, I'm just not sure a system that tracks AP per round is going fit (or even add much to the overall ebb and flow) again the scale you're operating on seems mismatched to the AP system as it current stands.

Where I think you might have scope is the duels where the frame of reference is going to presumably similar, and thus the fine grained nature of the extra detail the AP system gives will be more noticeable.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

This can bring the AP cost of an action to zero. You may never recover AP on the same turn you do an action that would have spent them, you just don't lose the AP."

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

True, but negating AP cost (which is what you intending) means selectively applying it, is which case there's no real point in having it (i.e your players will choose options that remove the AP issue for them). AP as restriction tends to work when it's unavoidable.

I don't want to make it possible to reliably reduce AP cost to zero. I just want to be able to reduce the cost of an individual attack or Parry down to 1/2 AP*, so you can make more than one in a turn and still expend only one AP.

Or, for example, with Move, a levelled Perk or Advantage which grants the benefit that you can accelerate up to twice as fast for the same AP cost.

Basically, I want to be able to spend points and/or attack or defend at reduced effectiveness to reduce, but not remove, the rate at which APs deplete.

*And maybe 1/3, for an even more severe penalty.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Even getting past the point levels your characters are operating at and then enforcing "normal human maximum" on them (that's pretty self-contradictory given GURPS' assumptions), what you want is tactical choice, so you need to put something out there.

The maximum human levels are a point of reference for PCs and NPCs in the setting. They know what the human body is capable of and they know that it is possible, through some combination of inborn grace, luck, favour of gods or other things, to surpass those. In that case, however, it calls for taking Unusual Background and being clearly identifiable as 'more than a normal human' by the cognoscenti.

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

The harsh version would be something like "for -8 to -10 to attack, and -4 or -5 to Parry, you may reduce the AP cost of an action by 1.
[...]
Less harsh would be lower penalties, obviously.

Fair enough.

Assuming that I don't want to reduce the cost down to 0, but only make it possible to make multiple attacks and defences in a turn for a reduced cost, what would you rate as a fair modifier?

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

And don't knock the tactical choice involved in a Margin of Success argument either. Starting at Skill-26, your minimum margin of success is 10, maximum is 23. If you are looking at reducing AP cost by 1 if you succeed by (say) 10 or more on an attack, and 5+ on a defense, you're constraining tactical choices by dint of "how much awesome can I pile on this attack?" If you target the neck (-5) for a -6 deceptive attack, you will be rolling vs 15, crit on 5, but your typical margin will be 5, which depending on your threshold, will likely cost you AP to execute this.

If you just swing for the torso, your typical margin will be 10 even with the -6, and you will almost certainly NOT spend AP on it.

You are right, there is an element of tactical choice there. Unfortunately, it has some perverse incentives, in that it favours high-ST chopping attacks that don't need precise targeting over low-power thrusts that expend minimal energy, but are lethal because they are targeted at unarmoured veins or vitals.

I'd rather convert the attack penalty of a Technique (or at least a large part of it) to a damage penalty, so that attacks which expend APs at a reduced rate also inflict much lower damage. That seems more intuitively 'right', as well as fitting fictional portrayals of efficient, cooly competent killers.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I don't want to make it possible to reliably reduce AP cost to zero. I just want to be able to reduce the cost of an individual attack or Parry down to 1/2 AP*, so you can make more than one in a turn and still expend only one AP.

Or, for example, with Move, a levelled Perk or Advantage which grants the benefit that you can accelerate up to twice as fast for the same AP cost.

Basically, I want to be able to spend points and/or attack or defend at reduced effectiveness to reduce, but not remove, the rate at which APs deplete.

*And maybe 1/3, for an even more severe penalty.

Ok fair enough, I'm not seeing that much difference between reducing AP cost and increasing AP availability. But your right its not the same as negating the system.

Ultimately though you are value adding to the advantages they already have over lesser fighters. That's not a bad thing, but FWIW I think your pushing the envelope of human maximum even further by doing so. But that's not a bad thing either in abstract.