Possible Mapless Combat approach for DF Felltower

I'm trying to do more mapless combat in my DF Felltower game, especially because it's hard to get a combat map of every place in Felltower up for the PCs to fight in.

In order to make mapless combat work quickly, but also to avoid player demands to used mapped to not lose out on perceived advantages of their characters, I am thinking of the following rules.

In these rules, the term "narrative reason" is used a few times. Only the GM will decide if there is a narrative reason for an exception to occur.

Melee

Mapless combat will assume that fights are in a rough melee, with multiple combatants able to engage one another more-or-less freely. If narrative reasons dictate it's more of a series of small duels, that will occur instead.

Flanks, Back shots, and Runarounds

These only occur if a GM-ruled narrative reason explains them. Exception: Backstabs work normally, but require the appropriate rolls and situational prerequisites.

Retreat

Each character can Retreat once per turn, unless it is prevented by some GM-ruled narrative reason that prevents it (backed into a corner, especially tight formation, etc.) or rule that disallows it (Grappled, Rooted Feet, took a Maneuver that forbids it, etc.). No actual "movement" takes place.

Range Bands

Characters in melee will be treated as using the Melee ranged band with one another. Characters outside of Melee are at Short range to the Melee, and either Short or Medium to foes also outside of melee depending on the GM-ruled narrative situation.

Movement

It takes a Move or Move and Attack to close from the back ranks into Melee, or from Melee to the back ranks. You can't move "partway" in order to reduce spell penalties; penalties are fixed by range band.

Reach

Weapon reach is essentially a non-factor. You cannot use your longer reach weapon to keep a foe at bay or "step" in order to keep reach. Neither can your opponents. You're just in melee and able to strike at will. Close combat still works as written, for attackers and weapons that require it. Optionally, there can be no Close Combat unless you're grappled, but I'm concerned this creates a big difference between mapped and mapless resolution results for attackers that depend on CC.



I think as an accepted basis of the game, this can work. You can't get flanked. You don't have to worry about "leaving room to Retreat" becuase you just get that bonus once per turn. It should just work, especially for fights that can't be easily mapped. My approach would be to use this by default, and used mapped for cases where it seems like a big potential set-to.

I'll see what my players think of this and try to give it a formal go during our next game.

I Wouldn't Miss "Miss By 1 Hits Torso"

One rule that I find annoys me the longer I play GURPS is entries on the hit location table that say "[1] Miss by 1 hits torso instead."

Why?

- it slows play, even if only because everyone says, "Does a miss by 1 hit torso?" No one can seem to remember (it's eye, skull, face, groin, neck, vitals, and that's it.)

- it causes edge cases, like rolling a 17 to hit the vitals (a 17 always misses) when you have a 16 to hit. Does that miss? A 17 always misses. Does it hit the torso? It's a miss by 1, and a miss by 1 hits torso. What about Chinks in Armor? Does that count as the underlying location? I think yes, but it's not stated clearly.

- it complicates rolling in a VTT, because it will show "miss" and it'll still be a hit, just not to the location auto-selected for damage by a player's macro. That adds an additional step.

- some of the sitations feel wonky. A miss by 1 with a swinging attack to the skull hitting body? Sure, the upward sweep clips the torso instead of the skull, or a downward cut misses the head narrowly and hits the body. But a miss by 1 to the eye with an arrow hits the body? A thrust to the groin hits body instead . . . okay. A thrust to the face also hits torso, not skull or neck? They're both closer. Why do the limbs never get hit on a "miss" to a central location?

With all of those things in mind, I'd love to delete Note [1] off of the Hit Location Table and just let a miss be a miss.

This admittedly messes with PCs - who aim for vitals and eyes and neck and skull more often than their NPC companions and foes. But it's also the case that it comes up less than you might think. And I've ruled a 17 is still a complete miss, but it's still an edge case people want to argue when it comes up. It would just speed things up and get rid of what's essentially a freebie +1 to hit overall when going for a better location.

Unless my players really revolt over this . . . it's probably gone as soon as I can reasonably ditch it.

Felltower & Swarms

I noted the other day that I don't exactly run swarms as written. That's very true. Here is what I do with them.

- You must roll "to hit" a swarm. They're treated as SM+0, so no bonus to hit. They (generally) do not defend, so Telegraphic Attack is useful for the +4 to hit.

- Swarms have a HP score for dissolution as an effective threat; however, they also have a HT score - generally HT 10, although HT 11 or 12 is possible. Once they reach 0 HP or below, they must make a HT roll to stay cohesive as a swarm. A failure removes that hex worth of the swarm.

- Swarms in general are mooks, and auto-fail HT rolls at -1xHP. In general doesn't mean always.

- You don't get "free" attacks against a swarm. You use your normal complement of attacks. Again, they usually don't defend, and they automatically hit, and you don't get to defend . . . so TG and All-Out Attack are useful to multiply your effectiveness.

Overall, this makes swarms more effective, but also a little more random when it comes to their ability to sustain damage. This removes some of the mechanistic "and I can auto-kill one swarm per second" that I dislike, but also allows fighters with more attacks to take advantage of them.

You could see this with the very nasty Stymphalian Bird Swarms from beyond the Olympus Gate.

DF Felltower: What if all critical hits did max damage?

In Felltower, we use a little rule buried in the back of Basic Set: Characters (p. B326) that makes critical hits just bypass defenses, no table roll, and a "3" is max damage.

One way I thought of speeding combat - thanks to additional lethality - is to make all critical hits maximum damage. Roll a 3-4, or a 5 or a 6 with sufficient skill (or a 7 for some templates) and bang, max damage and bypass defenses.

This would add a lot of lethality to combat when the big boys roll a 3-6. Less so when others do . . . but make wizards really happy when they nail a crit on an Explosive spell thrown at an actual person.*

It wouldn't help fodder much, but at least sometimes they'd manage to hurt someone.

It would make boss monsters really, really scary. You can't get critically hit and luck out with a low damage roll against you. A giant doing 6d+12 or something would just flat out do 48 damage and that's that.


I don't think my players would go for this but part of me wants to try it. I think it would increase the bloodbath of combats and certainly erase a few foes here and there much more quickly.



* I joke. They all take the +4 for targeting the floor that I find totally bogus, but accept as a rule.

Limits on Targeting Hit Locations?

This post is thanks to Faodladh, who made a comment on my last post on this subject.

In GURPS, it's very common to target specific hit locations. For skilled fighters run by skilled players, they often target a very small handful of optimal locations. You get eye shot guy, neck slicer guy, I only shoot the vitals guy. It's not always that realistic - the vitals or eyes or neck are always targetable? You can go for them over and over again. So let's say you want to limit the options.

Option 1: Minimum Effective Skill 10.

Like Deceptive Attack, attacks aimed at a specific location must have a minimum effective skill of 10. Therefore, to target the vitals (-3), you need a minimum effective skill of 13. Skull? 17. Eyes? 19.

Pros: Easy to implement. Limits tricky shots to the skilled.
Cons: You can't try a Hail Mary eye shot to win a fight unless your skill is higher.

Option 2: Only What's Open

I think Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch suggested this or something somewhat like this, back in the day. Roll on the Hit Location Table. Whatever comes up is your best target, at a -0. Or you can choose anything else, but with an extra -2 on it.

Pros: Has a realistic feel to it.
Cons: Probably just imposes an extra roll and/or people buying 2 extra points of skill to eat the penalties.

Option 3: Saw it Coming

Use the rules as written, but give a +1 to defend against any targeted attack after the first one on the same target.

Pros: Can be used with the RAW or the rules above.
Cons: Still allows anyone who wants to hunt for specific areas to do so.

I have some more ideas, but it's late so they'll need to wait for another post.

Multiple Defense penalty not automatically resetting?

I had a stray idea for a rough, gritty rule for cascading defenses.

Instead of resetting the penalty for multiple defenses on your turn, do not reset it unless:

- you spend a full second without using any defenses

or, optionally

- you spend a turn doing Evaluate


This is a simple, but very nasty rule. Being outnumbered and unable to take a breather - to step back and just reset - means your defenses will eventually be whittled down. Good ways to trigger the first is to use Move and clear the battle area, a classic swashbuckler move. Allowing Evaluate means you can stay in the fray, but not launch any offense, and it helps make Evaluate do something.

Why not reset when you do All-Out Defense? I think it just rewards taking a second being even more defense, which someone pressed is going to just do fairly often.

This would be a pain to deal with in a large fray, but it's probably a good way to make multiple foes - even weak ones - nasty in a realistic game with more detailed combat and/or smaller numbers of combatants. It also should have the emergent behavior of making outnumbered fighters either moving very defensively to try to limit their exposure, or very aggressively to take out a foe to cut down the odds. Right now, that's not always worth doing - the first might be useful, but with high defenses you can just ride out the attacks. The second is just standard behavior, but usually folks get a lot more tactical about which foe they choose to try to take out. Suddenly this would make "take out someone, anyone, even briefly so I can reset or even up" very attractive.

I haven't playtested this but it might be fun to try it out sometime.

Revised DRFPG Shield Rush

Let's fix shield slams for DF Felltower.

A Shield rush is a slam with a shield (NOT a buckler) does slam damage, plus 1 point per point of shield DB, and the opponent subtracts 1 point per point of shield DB from their attack.

Got that? If you have ST 13 (1d thrust) and a Medium Shield (DB 2) you slam for 1d-2, +2 = 1d+1. Your ST 13 opponent does 1d-2, -2 = 1d-4.

I find that iffy for a couple of reasons:

- your shield should help, but I don't see why it should help based on size. Weight, construction, etc. yes, but just size? Eh.

- I don't see why your shield should provide DR for you based on size.

- I don't see why your shield makes you more likely to knock a foe down or overrun them - remember, the one who inflicts less damage can fall, and automatically falls if the ratio is 2:1 or more.

Here is what I prefer:

- Your shield provides DR 3 to you from the slam damage.

- Using a shield adds +2 to slam damage, +3 if spiked or dwarven, +4 if both.

- You opponent inflicts damage normally. If your opponent tries to block the slam and the DB of the shield matters, it provides DR 3 for them, too.

And that's that. You still can't shield rush with bucklers.


Oh, and by the way, shield rush, shield bash, whatever - you can still Block with your shield. Having consulted with shield users, it's odd that they can and can't in circumstances that seem otherwise the same.




Editing Later: Optionally, you can allow both bucklers and shields to shield rush. In this case, apply the damage from a shield rush with a buckler to the attacker's hand (since you can't as easily brace it with your body), that of the shield using attacker to the body (since you brace your arm and shield with the body)

Quicker Combat - Some of My Ideas

Following up on my post on Monday, here is some of what I'd do to speed up DF combat.

Range Bands

This one is a no-brainer. Mapped can use hexes, if people really want to, but it and mapless can use range bands based on those in GURPS Action. I have specific numbers in mind, but I'll save those for once I've been able to better test them. But skipping hex counting - people trying to imagine the map when we don't have one to maneuver to specific ranges - will speed things up.
Ramming Speed!

All slams use your maxium move to calculate damage. You must move at least 2+ steps for this, otherwise it's just a "punch" with your shoulder, shield, etc. Another way to reduce the importance of counting hexes.

No Retreat

As I discussed in an earlier post, no Retreat. Optionally you could just allow everyone a free +1/+3 to one defense, without any movement, which was suggested by Angon on this post in the comments. Either way, removing the movement aspect makes for a faster game.

Fixed Feints & Deceptive Attack

I've talked about this endlessly. Feints fixed at -4, -8 if you roll a critical success and your opponent does not, Deceptive Attack fixed at -2 and -4.

Cuts down on decision time and calculation.


This next one is very optional, but I think it shouldn't be overlooked as a possible way to speed up play in general.

Wider Use of No Nuissance Rolls

Treat anything that has a 16 or less to succeed other than combat rolls and consciousness/death checks as an automatic success. Have Acrobatics-16 after modifiers? You succeed. DX roll not to fall is 16+? You don't fall. Etc. This is a small class of rolls, but say you have HT 13 and Resistant to Poison 5, and get hit with a poison resisted at -2 or less - you don't roll, you just resist. Speeds things up for sure. Only roll if the roll would otherwise change things - Lockpicking-22 vs. a -6 Lock is still rolled, because every point of success shortens the amount of time needed to pop the lock, if time actually matters.

I have another idea or two . . . but I'll keep them close to my vest to avoid my players reading this post, arguing against them before trying them, and then not letting me try them. Heh.

The others? I'd like to give them a try and see if it speeds things up.

Felltower Rules Questions: Rapid Throwing & Throwing Art

Two rules questions came up.

Rapid Throwing

We're not using the handfull of missiles Rapid Fire with Thrown Weapons rules from GURPS Martial Arts, p. 120.

We do allow the rules under Rapid Strike with Thrown Weapons . . . sort of. You can use a Rapid Strike with the usual penalties, but not Fast-Draw or otherwise ready a weapon in the middle. So you can't thrown, draw, throw unless you have Extra Attack.

You could carry two thrown weapons, one in each hand, and throw both. Or carry multiple smaller weapons in one hand and throw them as a Rapid Strike.

I don't have anything against the rules in my book, I just don't want to deal with the complexity for this game.

Throwing sling bullets?

Can you throw sling bullets with Throwing Art? Yes. It's basically a metal pebble of the specified weight, and is thrown as such. They do thr+1, as a small stone would, piercing because Throwing Art makes that kinda make sense for a metal bullet (remember, we do crush for stones with slings, not piercing, because GURPS got that wrong IMO.) Range is STx2.5, per Exploits, p. 22.

GURPS option: Ditch Retreat, or Give the Bonus Always?

I don't think it's a secret that I hate Retreat. I didn't always; in fact I used to love it. I still think it makes a lot of sense. But the longer I've run game the longer I've spent watch it be the be-all and end-all of tactical considerations. Mapless combat becomes "invisible map" combat as everyone wants to take a position where they can't be flanked but also can Retreat without letting anyone break their defensive line.

Ugh, ugh, ugh.

Thinking about this for my DF game, could I get rid of it?

I see two options:

Option 1: No Retreat.

In this option, it's just gone. Delete it, with the possible exception of "Dodge and Drop" for explosions. Yes, you can still dive flat to get away from an explosion. Maybe Duck Behind Cover - something I allow now, which is Retreat if you can fully move behind cover to try to avoid a missile. You could still use Acrobatics for a +2 or -2, because that's not tied to Retreat.

Otherwise, it's gone. All defenses are "flat" - as written, no bonuses, no defensive movement from your hex triggered by a potentially successful hit.

Pros: Simple. Increases the number of effective blows in combat. Speeds up defense calculations.

Cons: Likely to provoke vetos by any and all players who "need" Retreat. Might slow the game down as people claim to need more time to decide where to step or move because they're unable to count on Retreat if they need it.

Option 2: No Retreat but the bonus applies.

In this option, you don't have Retreat - with the possible exception of Dodge and Drop, which only provides the ability to dive a hex away and end prone from an attack.

However, the bonus you would get is baked in to defenses, as such:

Dodge - based on 6 + (Speed * Encumbrance).
Parry - based on 4 + (Weapon skill/2).
Fencing Parry, Karate Parry, Judo Parry - based on 6 + (Skill/2).
Block - based on 4 + (Shield skill/2).

This applies to all monsters, too. All monsters get +3 to their base, figured Dodge (to account for 6+ instead of 3+ base). So a Foul Bat would have a 12 Dodge, but 14 while in the air due to the height advantage (9 + 3, + 2), and a Dire Wolf a 12 (9 + 3). An Eye of Death would have a 15 (12 + 3), potentially a 19 with height advantage and Aerobatics. Your average 10/10/10/10 human now has Dodge 11 - Speed 5, no encumbrance (6 + 5).

You could say that anything that gets rid of Retreat also gives a -3 or -1 to the appropriate defense (say, Move and Attack), to even it out a bit and keep that steep cost for such an attack still the case.

Pros: PCs get to keep their higher defenses, and as a matter of fact routinely have higher defenses more than under the standard rules.

Cons: High whiff factor, and increased need for Deceptive Attack and Feint to hit even fodder monsters. Most foes will Dodge more than 50% of the time against an unenhanced attack. Have to modify every GCA, GCS, and Forge VTT entry for everyone and everything.




Thoughts on these?

If/when I run a future game, Option 1 is going to be the standard. Everyone will have to know that going in. But to get people on board with it for an ongoing game, option 2 might need to be considered.

Felltower DB cap

Going down my list of things to do before we play Felltower again, DB.

Looking at my options from here:

Possible Solutions to the Extreme DB Problem

I'm going with:

- DB cap of 8 from all sources.

- Margin-of-DB defenses means some kind of contact for follow-on effects - knockback, detonation of missiles, etc. This specifically includes the spell Shield.

I think those satisfy my main concerns at this point without doing any real violence to the system or existing canon.

Felltower Merged Unarmed Skills?

Back when we voted on merged weapon skills, we also voted on merged unarmed skills. That won out.

But implementation has been trickier than I'd hoped. I need to basically retool the skills and then add perks to allow for existing characters to use existing benefits that we want to carry through Felltower.

So I've decided that it's not worth changing for the current game situation. We'll continue to use all of the existing unarmed skills, although I'd generally prefer people avoid Boxing because it's quite limited and I think it's the odd skill out for our game.

For the weapon skill merges, check here.

Sharp Swords vs. Spears according Roland Warzecha

Is a wooden sword just a sword, but doing crushing?

GURPS says so.

It's one thing that hasn't sat well with me for a while Per the rules, it's basically just turning the weapon to crushing. Same weight, fraction of the cost.

But it doesn't affect anything else about the weapon at all. I just don't buy that. One thing that supports that idea is this interview. I'd heard it a while back (say . . . 2020?) but I couldn't find it again. I mentioned it to Doug, who knows Roland Warzecha, and he said, "That sounds like something Roland would say." Sure enough, I found it thanks to him.

RW: Exactly. And then we know about the physics of this or we know how to move a sword efficiently. You called it a labour saving device at one point. So if you know how to effortlessly use that implement, then you can get a much better idea of swordsmanship. Also, you understand why it has been such a popular weapon for such a long time. Because that’s another thing that people misconceive. I remember in my re-enactment days, people said “The spear, that’s the Gatling gun of the Viking age. It’s super efficient.” I thought it was really funny, but then I thought, hmm, it’s kind of strange that they were so obsessed with swords all the time when the spear was so much greater than the sword. It almost seems like in history, anybody who is able to pick up a sword, picked up a sword. One really interesting experiment, I ran at one point – we were talking about swords earlier on and how it really helps to better understand swordsmanship – so there was this experiment with my friend Mikkel Mønsted. He was a really good spear fighter. He was using a blunt two-handed spear and I was putting on the mask and some additional protection and I had a sword and a buckler, a blunt sword. There’s one 15th Century depiction of that kind of match, this kind of setup. So we wanted to see how it actually works. If you have a shorter weapon, you have to shorten the range as quickly as possible so you get into your killing zone, so to speak. While the other one with a longer weapon can take it easy, just retreats so that you impale yourself. So you have to make a charge. And eight out of 10 times he just poked me in the face. It was really easy. I mean, I would bind his spear, trying to it keep it safe while I entered and he would just gently rotate and disengage. Also, a good spearmen can change the length of the spear pretty easily by withdrawing it. It’s a great weapon. But then I traded my blunt for a sharp.

GW: Aha that’s very different as you can actually bite his weapon.

RW: Exactly. And what was more I didn’t have to look. I realised ,when I was using the sharp, that earlier on, to get an idea what is happening in the bind I had in my peripheral vision, tried to take track of where the spear moved, because I couldn’t sense it through the blade. Now I could focus on my target and anything that happened in the bind just happened and I felt, because I got all this tactile information, and disengaging was less easy for him because there was no slippery sensation anymore. It was crystal clear information coming from the bind and that completely reversed the outcome. It was like three to seven or so, but almost reversed the outcome. And because the active sensing is only for me, the wooden pole doesn’t have that, so this is something that a sharp blade gives you. You can sense actively, you have different means of controlling the bind and getting sensory tactile information from it. And that is exclusively for the sword. So I think this is this is one of the reasons why the sword is good.

That's GW - Guy Windsor - and RW - Roland Warzecha om The Sword Guy Podcast episode 8.

You could apply this to GURPS, if you like - reduce the effectiveness of wooden swords, or increase the effectiveness of edged metal ones, in the bind and parry. You could give it an edge in any skill vs. skill contest (Feints, Beats especially) as well vs. a wooden weapon.

It's an extra complication, but games either privilege swords over all - like D&D games, where swords are the best tool for butching unarmoured foes or cutting up iron golems or anything in between - or weaken them to the point that axes and maces and spears suddenly seem like the best weapons. Yet, as RW says, anyone who could use a sword got a sword. Rules that gently nudge you that way without making them super-weapons is helpful.

I'm not sure how I'd want to put this in . . . but it's one more thing I would consider as a factor in weapons rules if I could write them all from scratch.

GURPS with more complex Retreat

I posted about getting rid of Retreat. What if you want more options?

Here are some ideas, mostly in brief. I haven't playtested any of them. I have no intention of adding any of them to DF Felltower.

Retreat without Movement - Allow for a +1/+3 defenses, but you don't move a hex back. You simply sway, give up a few inches, etc. without a full step back. This can entirely replace, or supplement, Retreat.

Followup Step - If a foe Retreats from you, you may add an extra Step to fill in the opening they create, even if you've already used up your Step or all other movement. (This prevents the 2-man shuffle, where PC A Retreats and then PC B steps into that opening using a Wait or just regular turn order.)

Retreat Upon Threat - You can Retreat even if your foe misses - as long as they attacked you.

GURPS Martial Arts has rules for forward slips already.

I think these all make for even more decision-based paralysis, but they're potential ways to expand Retreat if you feel it is good to do so.

GURPS combat without Retreat

After a few decades of playing with the current GURPS iteration of Dodge (1 hex away from a foe, +1 Parry and Block, +3 to Dodge or specific Parry types), I know one thing:

If I was designing a hex-based combat system from scratch, I wouldn't include Retreat.

My reasoning has come up on this blog a lot. Suffice it to say that I don't like that it:

- imposes multiple calculations on your best defense choice (a decision-based pause)
- imposes a decision based on movement on the map
- forces map-based combat even when it is inappopriate to the game as a whole for fear of losing that bonus
- encourages people to design characters around a specific situational bonus and then play based on making that bonus come up

And there are other reasons as well.

What if Retreat was gone? What would happen?

Setting aside, here, the lamentations of the players, whose paper men will absolutely unfairly die if this is removed. That's the first thing that would happen, followed by the second - "I wouldn't have gotten hit here if we were using Retreat."

- All defenses would be base defenses. PCs and NPCs alike would lose out on a +1 to +3 (or more, in some special cases) on defenses. This would make Dodge-based defenders a little more vulnerable, and Block-and-Parry based defenders a little less vulnerable than that.

- You'd lose out on "attack and fly out" as the standard attack method. You wouldn't have Step and Attack, followed a Retreat before your turn. This would make two-hex-reach fighting still viable but not trivial. You'd have to back up, not assume you can move up and then move back.

- You'd have to consciously maneuver to keep out of close combat. You couldn't depend on a Retreat to take you out of it, followed by an Attack and Step on your own turn to open up space. You could still keep out of close combat, but not assume that if someone steps into CC as part of a Step and Attack that you could easily establish the need for 2 steps to get into close combat with you again.

- Keeping formation would be easier, because no one will be falling back for a transitory defensive benefit.

- You'd need to do something to allow for Dodge & Drop / Diving for Cover to deal with explosions. This could be as simple as just saying you can do that as part of a Dodge, but it doesn't give an additional bonus.

- It would make a spell like Blink have special extra effects - it lets you move as part of your defense!

- It would clear up questions like, if I've been Feinted, can I Retreat because I thought it was an attack? (This is usually done because the step, not the bonus, is what someone seeks.)

- It would make Theatre of the Mind/mapless combat an option because suddenly "I can fight safely at Reach 2 on a map" or "I need to know if I can Retreat" or "I move to where I can Retreat" aren't an issue.

Optionally, you could allow for a retreat as a FP-costing Extra Effort in Combat option, if you play with those.



Overal, I think this would be a big change but that the net positives would outweight the negatives. I know I'd never even have close to a majority agreeing to do it in DF Felltower, but if I was designing a combat system from scratch, this wouldn't be in it as written. Even the old-school 1st edition GURPS +1 to any defense opens up more decision-making and counting once you have multiple defenses and/or want to have mapless combat.

DF Felltower merged weapon skills

After a vote - where my favorite option lost! - we ended up merging weapon skills in DF Felltower.

Shortsword and Broadsword merge into one skill (Broadsword)
Staff, Spear, and Polearm merge into one skill (Polearm)
Kusari, Whip, and Flail merge into one skill (Flail)

Ranged:

Knife Throwing and Shuriken merge into Knife Throwing. Shuriken get a -1 to hit without a Perk (Shuriken Thrower) to remove it.

Otherwise unchanged.

This option will likely include 10-point weapon talents. These have not yet been defined. It's quite likely it'll basically be Master of Arms from Delvers to Grow, without the reaction bonus.

This will retroactively affect existing characters, who will have points in affected skills merged. Useless overages will be saved towards a new level, to avoid the usual "Can I buy a new skill with it?" annoyances.

The pervese incentives of I-go-you-go combat resolution for many-on-one fights

I find that RPGs, GURPS included - perhaps especially, give perverse tactical incentives at times.

Take this situation:

You're facing off with three opponents, all armed with similar length weapons to you. You have no advantage of reach or speed to put distance between you and them, or ability to channel them to fight you one on one. Despite this, you manage to put one down, briefly - either through you own attack, or a miss by your opponent, one has fallen down and is unable to fight you effectively. The other two are still armed, dangerous, and close enough to menace you.

The real-world solution is to focus on them in some respect - either defensively or offensively. You don't want to lose track of the fallen foe, especially if said foe has merely bobbled a weapon, or tripped, or otherwise become only briefly out of action. You have two foes to worry about that are potentially lethal.

The in-game solution is to finish the fallen one. Take advantage of the foe's poor situation to finish it off - reduced defenses due to weapon loss or posture, or stunning, or whatever. You need to pounce and finish the foe and make it two on one. Next foe to be disadvantaged is finished next. Rather than priority the most lethal foe, you must prioritize finishing the most helpless foe.

Why is that?

In reality, you don't take turns. You don't swing, then your foes each swing, and so on. All of this is going on at once. A weapon parrying your attack is occupied. A foe trying to attack you is one you need to deal with. A helpless foe is vulnerable, yes, but also the time you take to attack that one - if foes are still in reach - is time your weapon is not spent preventing an attack. A foe can potentially take advantage. In an I-go-you-go situation, however, you have attacks to spend that only impede your defenses if your game system allows you to prioritize defense (A GURPS All-Out Defense.) Even then, you usually don't want that because the upside (better defenses) gives up any chance to reduce your foes' lethal potential.

I think in an ideal situation, I'd have a rulesset that incentivizes more moves that make realistic sense. This is one I've been pondering recently. I don't have a solution for GURPS, but it's something I want to keep in mind as I'm going over rules design for my current game - and for future ones. I'm sharing here so others may ponder in parallel with me.

Revised GURPS Retreat?

Well . . . I'm up early and posting. I don't know if I'll do this for Felltower or not, but if I did, here is what I might do.

My issues with retreat are largely gamist and meta, not based on realism.

Retreat causes a few issues in a game, especially a tactical map-based game with a large number of combatants:

- it adds to the D in the OODA loop of each turm. That's Observe-Orient-Decide-Act. It's just one more part of "Decide." It comes up when people move - they want to ensure they can retreat. They ask about which hexes are clear to retreat to. People choose where to move to give their friends room to retreat. The additional layer of "Where do I move so I can Retreat?" comes up every turn on everyone's turn, and people consider the past and future moves of their allies when they do so.

- it adds a weird gamist element where people want to get hit, because they want to Retreat to get an additional hex of movement.

- it adds to the whiff factor, as an additional percentage of attacks just flat-out fail to connect due to better defenses.

- it adds to calculation, as people stop to decide if they need the +1 or +3 to defend before they defend.

And this is with a group of players who have played in the same 4e campaign, with the same rules, for over 10 years. The more people know, actually, the longer they spend thinking about Retreat.

Here are some options to deal with it.

Option 1: Remove it.

Just get rid of it. No one gets to take an extra hex of movement to avoid an attack, and no one gets a +1 or +3.

Pros: Easy! Speeds up play. Increases lethality so fights will end more quickly.

Cons: Lethal! Players will hate it, because no one likes losing something they "need" for fights to be "fair" because "we need it more than the NPCs do."

Option 2: Restrict it.

Limit when it can be used. For example, allow Retreat only to Dodge and Drop against explosions, and/or only when using All-Out Defense and then only on the selected defense(s).

Pros: Easy, and comes up way less often as you can only use it when you aren't attacking.

Cons: As above, except when using All-Out Defense.

Option 3: Limit it - Step.

Another option is to only allow it if you haven't take a Step. You need to reserve a Step in order to pull off a Retreat with a full bonus. If you've already taken a Step, you Retreat but at a -1 to the effective defense - a +0, in most cases, and a +2 for Dodge or Fencing parries. (This matches the cost of an extra step in Committed Attack, GURPS Martial Arts).

You can also impost a direct penalty if you use Retreat - your next turn's DX-based actions are at -2.

Pros: Limits Retreat in a useful way, but doesn't nerf it, regardless of the options you choose. Players will like this. Very much rules consistent.

Cons: Doesn't limit Retreat much. Probably adds more decision-making to the process and a cross-turn penalty to rememeber.

Option 3: Limit it - Effect.

I'd consider making all Retreats +1, no exceptions for Fencing or Dodge.

Pros: Very easy to implement. Limits Retreat without totally limiting it.

Cons: Doesn't limit it very much.

Those are the broad options as I see it. A fifth option would be "Costs 1 FP to Retreat" if you did Extra Effort in Combat, but for some reason my players always vetoed that so I don't use it.

Possible weapon skill mergers for GURPS DF Felltower

I've long been mulling reducing the number of weapon skills. I've reduced a few already, by ditching Main Gauche and making it just Knife skill, and by getting rid of Two-Handed Flail as seperate from Flail, and Shield and Buckler as two different skills.

He is what I've considered doing. I haven't implemented this yet . . . but it's under consideration.

Broadsword and Shortsword become One-Handed Sword. Fencing weapons could go under here, but that might cause a bit of confusion and they're rarely taken in Felltower, anyway.

Spear and Polearm and Staff become one skill. Wizards can use spears and halberds but won't because of the restrictions on the Staff spell. And their low ST.

Kusari gets merged into Flail, because why not.

Everything else would stay as-is. But that should get rid of some false choices and odd decisions.

Thoughts on this?

Felltower & Modified Evade Rules in Actual Play

How has my Evade House Rule worked in actual play?

Short answer? Well.

Long answer?

It essentially boils down to paying 1 extra movement point and making an unopposed DX roll against a friendly, or paying 1 extra movement point and making an opposed DX roll against a hostile. Or a concerned friend, I suppose.

It's worked out very well.

Too often in the past, PCs would essentially form a combat line and then have their second, third, fourth rankers just walk through each other like they weren't there. Even invisible friends who were concentrating on a spell and had touch-based magical defenses on them were evaded with total ease. You just got right by and did your thing. You could easily down a foe in front of you, and then step back, and have your friend step up and take your spot - or the friend step through stationary you with a Committed Attack and attack someone else. All on a one-second time scale where your buddy is a tiny fraction of a second slower than you. Bleh. It felt stupid. So stupid, in fact, that if the back guys did it the players would groan about how it wasn't realistic that that guy could do that, not this turn anyway.

Instead, the addition of the DX roll - penalized for big friends - has helped immensely. It's rarely missed, but it does mean the clumsy sorts or risk-averse aren't keen to move through occupied hexes.

The additional cost means a hallway of friends actually slows you down, which by the rules as written it does not . . . not at all. That also means rushing foes don't always get to just fill in a gap, either, with a back ranker . . . but well-coordinated foes often can, which makes for an interesting differentiation between enemies.

The one addition I've made is that you need a roll to detect an invisible friend - Hearing-2, penalized for combat noise - to attempt to avoid them unless you're certain where they are (it happens), or they hear you and move out of your way.

All in all, it's added a lot of versimilitude and interesting tactical choices to combat without any real addition to the rules, just an expansion of two basic concepts - Evade, and the Bad Footing extra cost of movement when your footing is poor or limited.

Recommended.