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Message: <blockquote data-quote="giant.robot" data-source="post: 5521798" data-attributes="member: 93119">To expand on my previous GURPS example without just telling you to learn the GURPS combat rules.Two melee fighters are squared off. Both have broadswords and a chain mail hauberk which protects the torso and groin. One has a thrusting broadsword which does impaling damage rather than thrust damage but both have cutting damage.Neither character has armor on their limbs or head which make these targets for their opponents. A perfectly valid tactic is to cripple a limb of an opponents, if they can't come after you or attack they're not much of a threat so one of the fighters might try aiming for the opponents limbs. The fighter with the thrusting broadsword with it's impaling damage has a multiplier applied if he can get a solid impaling attack in. Instead of a precisely aimed shot at the vitals or a limb he's fine with a normal attack to the torso. So one fighter wants to cripple a limb while the other wants to leverage his weapon's capability for a kill shot. While using a feint the limb crippler is particularly successful and decides the next round to do an all out attack because he gets a hefty bonus. The limb crippling is now the old plan and a double attack (to the torso) is the new plan. The impaler decides to pull an all out defense since he fell for the feint. Now round 2 begins and the limb crippler makes his all out attack doing a double attack. Pressing his luck he does another feint and a cutting attack. He wins the feint again and the impaler now has a stiff penalty on his defense which is partially offset by his all out defense. Unfortunately he doesn't successfully defend and now takes 2d6 damage with his chain mail reducing that by 4 points, unfortunately the cutting damage that makes it past the armor's DR is multiplied by 1.5. That's an average of 5 damage and the impaler is at half his total HP and this counts as a major wound. He has to roll against his HT score, a failure means he's stunned and takes a -4 penalty to his active defenses and has to pick the Do Nothing action on his next turn and roll against HT again to see if he saves from being stunned. Keep in mind this is only the second round of combat and this guy is a sitting duck. Each fighter had lots of tactical options during the fight and I only outlined a few of them. Each had to adjust their tactics based on the outcome of a single round of combat.GURPS combat is deadly and often doesn't last too long in terms of the number of rounds but as I've said before there's tons of options. In 4E there's no real mechanics for crippling an opponents limb or just going for a head shot. You hope for your 5% chance to score a critical hit which gets hand waved as "a strong blow to the head". In GURPS you can just make a called shot on someone's neck and go all Highlander on them. Cutting damage is doubled on a neck attack and it's rarely armored.</blockquote>

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