Active defense debate o_Ô

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Twyll

In my humble opinion, the chance of defending against an attack should always be relative (to the attack), leading to the use of Quick Contests, and not absolute as it is in the rules. Furthermore, parrying rules should take into account of Base Speed, wich would lead to defining a Base Defense used for all Active Defense, then modified by Skills or Advantages.

I briefly tried QC based combat in 3e, and then Only The Best Shall Win (from CII). In both cases the main effect I saw was that highly-skilled combatants stopped doing cool stuff like stabbing people through the heart or attacking their hands to disable them, and switched to simple "at the torso" attacks, because the penalties for aimed attacks cut into the margin of success, and thus made the 'miss' chance go up much faster than it does in the standard system.

IOW QC make combat a little faster, but much less interesting. If you want a more abstract system, that's fine, but if you want tactical combat, it's not good.

[Twyll]

Yeah, in the end i think you managed to convince me that the way it is in the rules is possibly the best one. Many thanks for all those smart explanations about it. Happy game session with GURPS ^^.

GURPS rocks. I hope it will one day eat the d20 dragon ^^

[Rupert]

It's traditional to slay the darned things first, you know. :)

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Rupert

It's traditional to slay the darned things first, you know. :)

Just leave the Good shepards alone ok ;)

"Meddle not in the Affares of Dragons, for you are crunchy and go well with Katchup" -A.F.D.

[Kevmann10583]

Well, I was actually confronted with a similar problem, and this is how I fixed it (it tends to work real well as is a relatively simple rules change)...

"Every attack is a deceptive attack, meaning that for every 2 that you beat your weapon skill you reduce the opponents defense roll by 1. Alternatively, rolling above your weapon skill is not considered a miss! However, for every 1 that you miss your weapon skill, your opponent gets an additional 1 to his active defense. Any attack against an opponent without an active defense is made at +5."

So now, you can see that if someone has a 14+dodge or a 16+ in another active defense, I can throw enemies with high weapon scores against them and that will reduce their defenses enough were it makes the combat go faster and be equal. This also fixes the problem were the person with a dodge score of 12 defends 75% of the time against a master swordsman with a skill of 20. The higher your skill in weapons, the easier it is to hit an enemy.

Of course, this makes attacks much more deadly then base rules, so then I made this rule:

"Due to the increased power of attacks, defenses based on skills will now have the same value as the appropriate skill instead of half the skill plus three. For example, under the old rules a Shield skill of 14 would give you a Block of 10 (14/2 + 3). However, with the new rules your Block will be the same value as your Shield, in this case 14."

Simple, and it makes non-dodge defenses (parry and block) as easy to increase as your weapon or shield skill is. So now, you can see that the 14+ Dodgers (IE 12 base dodge, +2 acrobatics) will be at a disadvantage to those that rely on block or parry for their main attacks.

It seems to be working really well!

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Kevmann10583

"Every attack is a deceptive attack, meaning that for every 2 that you beat your weapon skill you reduce the opponents defense roll by 1. Alternatively, rolling above your weapon skill is not considered a miss! However, for every 1 that you miss your weapon skill, your opponent gets an additional 1 to his active defense. Any attack against an opponent without an active defense is made at +5."

The problem with this, is the same as the QC, in that you pretty much eliminate hit locations as a valid realistic option.
Who's going to target a hand, or an armpit, when it means a +2 bonus to the defender on top of the reduced chance to hit?

[cmdicely]

If you want to use QC, OtBSW, or any other "quality of attack vs. quality of defense" mechanic, but still keep hit locations as a valid option, you could treat the targetted hit location as a goal, which is what the the attacker hits if their success is good enough, after the defense, to do so.

If not, it hits the smallest more general hit location that includes the target hit location and can be hit with the actual modified margin of success; if it misses even that by no more than 1, it hits some other part of the body, either rolled randomly or selected at GM discretion.

For instance, an aimed shot for the vitals that, after defense, doesn't have enough of a margin to hit the vitals, still hits the torso if it would be a success at all, and if it misses by 1 hits some other body part.

Likewise, a strike aimed at the eyes might instead hit the face.

So, some targets will still give less chance of a hit, but there will be less risk involved in targetting specific hit locations.

Another, even simpler, option would be, instead of using the "surrounding area" rule above, just to let the player choose any hit location that the modified roll could hit instead of the original location if the defense prevented that location from being hit, representing a last-instant shift of targets in response to the opponent's defense. Targeting a narrow hit location is still a trade-off, as it reduces your critical chance -- and thus your chance of bypassing defense entirely -- but it doesn't otherwise reduce your chance of hitting at least something.

[HeroPenguin]

OMG! YOU USED THE EYEBROW QUIRK SMILIE! XDXDXD

That's it, I just had to spaz out for a second. Back to the discussion!

[Kevmann10583]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

The problem with this, is the same as the QC, in that you pretty much eliminate hit locations as a valid realistic option.
Who's going to target a hand, or an armpit, when it means a +2 bonus to the defender on top of the reduced chance to hit?

Hmmm, I hadn't thought of that because it really hasn't come up in our game. So far, when the person is trying to kill someone, they normally always go for the torso or the vitals. They go for the arm, hand, leg, feet if they want to cripple the opponent without killing him.

If you think about it, going for something like an arm (under my rules) basically means that the defender gets to keep an additional point of defense that he would not have usually gotten if the attacker had targeted the torso. It makes sense to me, because the arm has half the HP as the torso so it is much easier to debilitate (an in the case of fantasy humanoids, taking out their sword arm means they are screwed), but in trade the enemy will be harder to hit because they get to keep that extra one point of defense.

EDIT: Just wanted to put in a reminder here that for every TWO that the attacker passes his weapon score, the defender gets ONE point to his defense. So hitting an arm at -2 basically means the opponent keeps a point of defense that he would have lost.

However, I can also see your point that the -2 to the skill also means that the attacker has a greater chance of failing the attack roll all together. That is why I have the clause were a miss is not actually a miss, but gives the opponent bonuses to their defense. I know it only partially fixes the problem, but it is the only solution I can see.

So, in conclusion, it Isn’t a perfect fix, but it does fix a lot more problems then it causes IMO.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Kevmann10583

However, I can also see your point that the -2 to the skill also means that the attacker has a greater chance of failing the attack roll all together. That is why I have the clause were a miss is not actually a miss, but gives the opponent bonuses to their defense. I know it only partially fixes the problem, but it is the only solution I can see.

So, in conclusion, it Isn’t a perfect fix, but it does fix a lot more problems then it causes IMO.

Hmm, so let's say we have expert Raul a skill 20- fighter against Pierre a skill 14- fighter, both have combat reflexes, Raul's parry is 14-, Pierre's parry is 11-.

Raul attacks Pierre, rolls an average 10, Pierre's parry is now at 6-.
Raul is going to hit Pierre, pretty much every round.

Pierre attack Raul, rolls the same average 10, Raul's parry is now 10-.
Pierre is going to hit Raul half the time.

This results in a real short and bloody fight, with almost no defense, the dominant fighter will kill the other one in short order, and the fight will last 2-3 seconds.
This does lead to quick contests, but I wouldn't consider it too much fun, and neither would any PC on the short end of that skill stick, as he's being penalized twice for his lower skill.