Disclaimer:
The following material consists of rulings
on GURPS originally posted to electronic discussion forums, newsgroups,
and
mailing lists by Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch.
Some
of these statements have been taken out of context, or have been
altered for
clarity or brevity; therefore, these are not "official" rulings, and
neither Sean Punch nor Steve Jackson Games is responsible for the
accuracy of
the modified content.
Comments: If you have comments or suggestions about this file, please
contact Travis
Foster.
Special Combat
Situations
Explosions
Re: I think I must be Making a Mistake W/Explosions?
As for Explosive Fireball, the way it worked in 3e was that it only did full damage to the target struck. It did 1d less to everyone in the same hex as the target or in an adjacent hex -- or 2d less to those two hexes distant. It magically stopped doing damage past that range, no matter what. See p. M38. So a 3d blast worked like this:
Target:
3d (10.5)
Target Hex: 2d (7)
1 Hex Out: 2d (7)
2 Hexes Out: 1d (3.5)
3+ Hexes Out: 0d (0)
In 4e, damage is full in the target hex, whether you're struck or not, and divided by three times distance in yards past that, out to yards equal to twice the dice of damage. So a 3d blast would work like this:
Target:
3d (10.5)
Target Hex: 3d (10.5)
1 Hex Out: 3d/3 (3.50)
2 Hexes Out: 3d/6 (1.75)
3 Hexes Out: 3d/9 (1.17)
4 Hexes Out: 3d/12 (0.875)
5 Hexes Out: 3d/15 (0.700)
6 Hexes Out: 3d/18 (0.583)
7+ Hexes Out: 0d (0)
The effect is that you can blow up everyone in a single hex much more effectively (10.5 vs. 7), do only half as much damage at 1-2 hexes away, but have a chance of wounding people at 3-6 hexes distance who could ignore the blast in 3e.
Fencing
Re: Fencing in 4th ed
Remember, though, that in 4e, your encumbrance level subtracts right off the top of your attack roll and Parry. So the classic "fencer with just enough armor to avoid Medium encumbrance" -- at Light encumbrance -- is at -1 to attack and parry. Also note that there are much more detailed rules for light weapons being broken or knocked away by heavy weapons and strong opponents.
Re: Fencing in 4th ed
The way GURPS
works in practice is that fighters in 1v1 combats nearly
always retreat
for the bonus, so by giving fencers +3 instead of +1, we're giving them
a huge
advantage that will apply most of the time. In 19 years of running
combats
since Man to Man (1985), I've never known a fighter not
to
retreat if he could.
To connect GURPS to reality: When you're racing to score
a point
and aren't going to suffer anything worse than the loss of a match, and
when
you have to obey right of way and other niceties, you're playing a
game, not
fighting. I suspect that if someone lunged at you with a pointed piece
of
metal, you'd give ground just in case. This is why Saber defaults to
Saber
Sport-3 . . .
Re: Fencing in 4th ed
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Lancewholelot Are you making the retreat count as the
character's step for the next turn? I remember that this was made
optional in CI. Is there an official rule in 4e that's more firm? I can
see that retreating is much more useful if it doesn't count against
move on the next turn. |
Retreating doesn't count against movement . . . but if you sprint or otherwise move faster than your normal Move, you can't retreat! (In effect, a character in combat can push himself to get +1 Move for either sprinting or retreating, but not both.)
Flails
Re: Flail vs. foil
The rules
are meant
to reflect low mass and long lever arm. These features make fencing
weapons
adequate for parrying similar weapons, as they are light and have lots
of
parrying surface, but not so good for
parrying much of
anything else. Flails are especially nasty because, in the process of
sweeping
a light blade aside, they can wrap around and hit the wielder --
something that
maces can't do.
Thus, we give fencing weapons +2 to parry over and above all other
weapons if
the fighter retreats a little (+3 vs. +1), to reflect the fact that the
speed
of the parry allows precise coordination betwen
the
parry and the step back. We also give them a smaller penalty to parry
multiple
times per turn, to reflect the short recovery time after a parry. But
we make
them easy to break and sweep aside, and give them problems with weapons
that
can wrap as they sweep. It's an abstraction, for sure, but a gameable one.
__________________
Re: Flail vs. foil
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by lawman Personally, I don't like to say
impossible. I prefer Highly Improbable, and I usually define this as
-10 or more, if a player really wants to try it. |
That's the spirit! And this is why 4e includes a handy list of standardized difficulty mods that run from -10 to +10.
Hit Locations
Re: Targeting Chinks in Armor
For areas other than the torso, we simply assumed parity with eye slits, which are -10 to hit. For the torso, we assumed the gaps would be twice as large, hence -8. Note that your hand-sized gaps would be 4-5" (10-13cm) across. Looking that up on p. B550, we see that's -7 to hit. So the difference between your description and the Basic Set is only -1, which is plenty easy to justify by saying that -8 is an average, and good armor might really be -9.
Re: Targeting Chinks in Armor
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Carraronan And what about Counterattack after a
Swing? |
It's a pretty darned specialized rule . . . it applies to specific sorts of weapons vs. specific sorts of armor, at a specific set of TLs, while the attacker and defender are doing specific things. Feel free to go nuts with house rules like that, but don't expect to ever see them in print. We're trying to move GURPS away from "so many rules it scares newbies."
Re: Revisions to Hit Location Table
The problem with near/far was that they weren't defined by the game system! In 3e, they were just this abstract concept left to the devices of the player. On top of which, the concept only makes sense for fighting stances where one side of the body is toward the foe. There are plenty where you're square-on and both sides are equidistant. But right/left always make sense, and don't require needless complexity about stance. Shield/not shield isn't ambiguous . . . and if you look, you'll see there's a difference.
Visibility and
Flashlights
Re:
flashlight rules
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by laserdog p. 394 on visibility says that individual
item descriptions will talk about the range and radius of items like
torches and flashlights. |
The idea is that the beam (for a flashlight) or light radius (for a burning torch) is enough to reduce penalties to -3 in the beam path or area, yes. Assume a 15' (5-hex) radius for most ordinary torches.