Knowing the outcome of an attack before choosing to actively defend

[Tomsdad]

Ok as an offshoot of the wait - parry/counter thread, I was thinking about in RAW you only have to actively defend against a 'successful' attack (or rather one that will be successful should you either fail to actively defend or decide not to).

Now I read a few threads on when I searched on this, and I've read T-bone's DECIDE article, and there seems to be some debate on this

One of the points that was raised that an attack that misses is an attack that will miss if you choose to do nothing, and that being able to employ all the techniques that follow successful defences is a bit over balancing (or in fact any other secondary benefits the various options give you following a successful defence other than successfully defending).

Then it stuck me not choosing an active defence is not the same as just standing their hoping your opponent will miss. GURPS assumes that it is a combat situation with the inherent difficulty involved in that. Which is why you get a +4 if it's not, or a +4 for a telegraphic attack etc, etc.

I.e a miss in GURPS turns is not just a matter of your opponent aiming somewhere 'over there' but partly you also not being 'over there' any more due to the normal rough and tumble of combat.

So I'm thinking that I might ask my players to decide to actively defend in response to them being attacked not in response to them finding out if they will be hit or if they won't.

Positives:

More tactical choices to make, "is this chap good enough to hit me?" I'd allow evaluate checks to try and determine opponents skill (i.e. also allow contest's to try and mask you skill level, but we'e getting into GURPS feint territory here).

Active defences in general are more of a tactical choice, right now you take them (or choose to have them available) because you'll be hit if you don't. Now you choice weather or not to is not based on such concrete information. This will make feints slightly more powerful because I'd rule if the 'defender' failed the contest role he's has to make the same choice. However since the feint isn't an attacks I would not actually have the defence rolled (just used up as response) that way you won't have any parry/counter attacks to feints that aren't actually attacks. The Defender will obviously know at that point that it was feint, but can't do anything about it by then (they'll still get the defence negs on the following attack). If the defence included a retreat I would have the retreat take place, my rationale being a successful feint works by looking like a legitimate attack and a retreat is a reasonable response to an actual attack. This will mean that feints can be used to 'push back' opponents by causing them to retreat against phantom attacks. However I think that matches reality, and anything increases movement and reach interaction is good.


Negatives:

This might mess with the normal back and forth of GURPS combat that based on the RAW assumptions of when and why the choice to actively defend gets made.

Feints might be over powerful

Techniques that start with a successful parry (counter attack, beat etc) now no longer require a successful initial attack, just an attack. I think I would give such techniques a neg of half the margin of failure of the initial attack rounded down, as it is harder to beat/counter etc a weapon that's off target especially as such techniques are normally designed for use on a successful (on target) attack. I did half the margin rounded down for two reasons:

1). Block and parry are 'half skills'.
2). You can still use the miss by one = hesitation (which I wouldn't ask for a decision to defend against).

A lot of GURPS combat and options are based on the current back and forth (and choices that it's predicated on), so doing this might mess up something else I haven't thought of.


Finally I might allow a skill roll to allow a defender to realise if the incoming attack will be on target, with a bonus equal to any accumulated evaluation maneuvers (in the same way as it does for feints).