Script: Multiple Attacks in GURPS

Script: Multiple Attacks in GURPS

This is a transcript of my video about multiple attacks in GURPS.

One of the signature features of GURPS is that combat has a very high resolution – each round only lasts 1 second. I like this approach, but many people seem to be turned off by the idea that you cannot do much in a single round. If you played D&D – a round there lasts 6 seconds and you get multiple actions, while in GURPS you can only perform a single maneuver. An experienced D&D fighter can swing his sword five times in a single round, while in GURPS you can only make one attack per turn. Or two, if you are taking the All-Out Attack maneuver. Or maybe more, if you have Extra Attack. What if you do a Rapid Strike? And what about dual-wielding – how does Dual-Weapon Attack fit into this? Oh, and Altered Time Rate gives you more maneuvers. How does one even make sense of all this? Multiple attacks per turn is a staple of cinematic combat, but it definitely has place in realistic games as well, so in this video I will try to explain everything about attacking more than once per turn.

First of all, let’s talk about what maneuvers allow attacks. Obviously, Attack is one of them, but there’s also Move and Attack, All-Out Attack, Defensive Attack, and Committed Attack. Feint is not an attack, but it can be interchanged with attacks, so let’s list it at well.

The first option to get two attacks per turn is using the All-Out Attack (Double) maneuver. This maneuver allows you to attack twice. You can attack either with two different weapons – two different swords, a sword and a shield, two punches, a sword swing and a kick – or attack twice with the same weapon as long as it does not become unready after attacking. Thus, you cannot use All-Out Attack (Double) with a great axe that becomes unready after each swing. But you can swing the great axe and kick the enemy. If you make an attack with the off-hand, then you take the normal off-hand penalty, unless you bought it off. GURPS Basic Set says that both attacks must target the same enemy, but GURPS Martial Arts expands these rules. I will come back to this topic later. All-Out Attack (Feint) is a variant of All-Out Attack (Double) that replaces the first attack with a Feint. You should also keep in mind that a Feint never unreadies a weapon – you can Feint with a great axe and attack with it with an All-Out Attack (Feint). All-Out Attack (Double) also interacts with slams in a unique way – you can’t slam twice, but you can launch another melee attack before you slam. This attack can be against the slam’s target or against somebody passed along the way.

The next option is the Extra Attack advantage (p. B53). Each level of the Extra Attack advantage gives one additional attack per All-Out Attack, Attack, Committed Attack, Defensive Attack, or Move and Attack maneuver. Extra Attack benefits only those maneuvers. For instance, someone with Extra Attack 2 could use Attack to make three attacks instead of one. All-Out Attack (Double) adds an extra attack, it does not double your number of attacks. Thus, a character with Extra Attack 2 making an All-Out Attack (Double) attacks 4 times, not 6 times. In other words, Number of Attacks = 1 + Extra Attack Level + 1 if All-Out Attack (Double).

By default, Extra Attack requires a ready weapon or body part – you cannot use it to attack with the same weapon twice. GURPS Martial Arts added the Multi-Strike enhancement that removes this limitation. You can replace any of the attacks with feints. GURPS Monster Hunters Power-Ups 1 adds new modifiers that allow replacing the Extra Attack with a Ready. This, combined with other options of making multiple attacks, can enable you to attack with an unwieldy weapon twice. For example, if you have Extra Attack 1 (Readying Only, +0%) and make an All-Out Attack (Double) with a great axe, you can swing the axe, ready it, and then swing it again. Or you could kick, swing the axe, and ready it.

Another other option is to make a Rapid Strike (p. B370). A Rapid Strike gives you an extra attack, but, just like with All-Out Attack (Double), you must use a ready weapon, and it does not have to be the same weapon. Thus, you can punch with both hands, swing a swing a sword twice, swing a great axe and kick, but not swing a great axe twice. Also, you can use thrown weapons. Both attacks are at -6 to skill, and if you are making an off-hand attack, you also take the normal off-hand penalty. You can target different opponents, but I will talk about that later. Rapid Strike is not a maneuver, but an attack option – you can combine it with, for example, All-Out Attack (Strong), and in this case all your attacks will get the damage bonus. But if you use Extra Effort to increase damage with Mighty Blows, you have to pay 1 FP per attack. You can even do a Telegraphic Attack with a Rapid Strike to improve your chances of hitting. You can also replace attacks with feints. However, there are two exceptions. First, you cannot use Rapid Strike with the Move and Attack maneuver. Second, if you combine it with All-Out Attack (Double), or if you have the Extra Attack advantage, then you can only replace one and only one of the attacks with a Rapid Strike. Thus, if you make an All-Out Attack (Double) with a Rapid Strike, you make three attacks – one with no penalty, and two at -6.

GURPS Martial Arts expands these rules, allowing cinematic fighters to make even more attacks with Rapid Strike. The penalty becomes -6 per extra attack: -6 for two attacks, -12 for three, -18 for four, and so on.

Rapid Strike penalties are halved for characters with Trained by a Master or Weapon Master. So, a Weapon Master can make two attacks with Rapid Strike, and both attacks will be at -3 to skill, not -6. GURPS Basic Set also has an Extra Effort option on page 358 – Flurry of Blows. You can spend 1 FP per attack to halve Rapid Strike penalties. You cannot combine it with Mighty Blows. Trained by a Master and Weapon Master do not stack for this purpose, but you still can use Flurry of Blows with one of these advantages to halve the penalties again. Thus, a character with Trained by a Master can pay 2 FP on Flurry of Blows to make two attacks with Rapid Strike at -1, not -3.

GURPS Tactical Shooting expands the Rapid Strike rules, introducing the Ranged Rapid Strike that requires a ready ranged weapon with RoF 2+. You can attack multiple targets or hit locations, but both must be within a 30 degree angle, and you have to split your RoF between the targets. Unlike other Rapid Strikes, the -6 penalty for a Ranged Rapid Strike can be bought off fully with the Quick-Shot technique even in realistic games.

A Rapid Strike should not be taken literally – it doesn’t have to me two distinct attacks in succession. It could be a single motion, such as a knee strike to the groin that is followed up by a stamp on the foot. Or a sword thrust and twist or draw. But in any case, both attacks require attack rolls and both attacks are affected by DR separately. Consult the “What is… a Rapid Strike?” box on page 127 of GURPS Martial Arts for more detail.

GURPS Martial Arts on page 80 introduces a new concept – Combinations. This is a special case of a very specific Rapid Strike that can be improved with a technique. The rules for building a combination are quite complex and do not really matter for this video, so I will leave them for you to read.

The next option is Dual-Weapon Attack (p. B417). Just like Rapid Strike, this is a combat option, not a separate maneuver. If you have two ready weapons, be they actual weapons or your hands or feet, you can attack with both weapons at once. These two attacks are at -4, but there is a technique that lets cinematic warriors buy off this penalty. Off-hand attacks still take the normal off-hand penalty, unless you bought it off too. You can only target either the same opponent or two adjacent opponents, if you’re making melee attacks. If both attacks are aimed at the same target, then his active defense is at -1. You can feint with one hand and attack with the other.

Just like with Rapid Strike, if you have multiple attacks from other sources, such as All-Out Attack (Double) or Extra Attack, then you can only replace one of them with a Dual-Weapon Attack. Dual-Weapon Attack is incompatible with Rapid Strike. You cannot make a Rapid Strike Dual-Weapon Attack or make an All-Out Attack (Double) and split one of the attacks into two by using Dual-Weapon Attack and split the other one into two by using Rapid Strike. Of course, there is one obscure exception to this rule – Rapid Strike with Thrown Weapons (p. MA120). If you have multiple small thrown weapons, such as shurikens, in both hands, you can make two Rapid Strikes as a Dual-Weapon Attack.

Unlike Rapid Strike, Dual-Weapon Attack can be used with Move and Attack. Also, you cannot spend FP as Extra Effort to halve these penalties. Trained by a Master and Weapon Master also do not affect these penalties.

Dual-Weapon Attacks can be used with ranged weapons, usually pistols or thrown weapons. In cinematic games, it is also possible to use it with a bow, possibly even targeting two different opponents by shooting two arrows at once. Heroic Archer (GURPS Martial Arts, p. 45) halves the penalties to -2. GURPS Tactical Shooting also adds that both targets must be within a 30 degree angle.

GURPS Low-Tech and GURPS Martial Arts have some double-ended weapons that can be used against two adjacent enemies as a Dual-Weapon Attack despite using the same weapon. This was later expanded in GURPS Fantasy-Tech 2: Weapons of Fantasy into another option – Double-Ended Attack. It can only be done against two adjacent enemies, and only at Reach 1, but there’s no off-hand penalty – only the normal -4 for Dual-Weapon Attack. The same book has a cinematic technique that allows buying off this penalty.

You might ask “Why ever do Rapid Strike if you can do Dual-Weapon Attack and buy off the penalties with Ambidexterity and the DWA technique?” Kromm explained it on the SJGames forums. Later, this post was reprinted in How to be a GURPS GM. There are lots of reasons. RS is possible even in a realistic campaign; DWA, much less buying off the penalty, often isn’t. Even if it’s possible, DWA is a different technique for every single weapon skill, while RS works for anything you care to wield. And in a cinematic campaign where you can raise DWA, Weapon Master and Trained By A Master halve RS penalties, making them -3/-3 for everything and better than the -4/-4 for DWA for weapons you haven’t studied. But most importantly, RS lets you use a single, really good weapon twice – DWA isn’t much use if you can only find or afford one Sword o’ Power or light saber or weapon with Weapon Bond – and lets you use a shield while you whack somebody twice with a weapon.

Then, there’s the Altered Time Rate advantage. This one gives you an entire new maneuver. All the restrictions I talked about earlier apply to maneuvers, so now you can do it twice. For example, if you have Altered Time Rate 1, you can make an All-Out Attack (Double) and split one of them into two by using Dual-Weapon Attack and make another All-Out Attack (Double) and split one of them into two by using Rapid Strike. This will give you six attacks total. Extra Attack advantage adds an extra attack to each maneuver. Yeah, things can get ridiculous with Altered Time Rate.

Now, I’d like to talk about some nuances with multiple attacks. First, if you used Aim or Evaluate, then your bonus applies to all attacks that target the opponent you Aimed at or Evaluates – if some of the attacks target another opponent, they do not get the bonus.

Second, multiple attacks can be used with grapples. You can replace any attack with a grappling move, but usually, you must attempt different actions, such as a takedown and pin, or a grapple and a punch, etc. You cannot make repeated attempts at a takedown, pin, or lock; try to snap the neck, strangle, or injure the opponent with Arm Lock repeatedly; or try to break free multiple times. But you can try the same move against different body parts or opponents or make a grapple and an instant follow-up – or, if making an attack that must follow a parry, such as a Judo Throw – insert attack between the parry and the follow-up.

Third, targeting multiple opponents. If you have multiple melee attacks, you can use them to attack or feint multiple opponents. You can alternate between opponents in any order you wish – but each full yard (hex, on a battle map) you skip between targets “wastes” one attack. Thus, it’s most efficient to attack adjacent adversaries from right to left or left to right, striking each enemy in succession.

Finally, chambara attacks. GURPS Martial Arts introduces some extra rules for highly cinematic games. You can trade extra attacks from Extra Attack or All-Out Attack (Double), but not Dual-Weapon Attack, Combination, or Rapid Strike, for extra steps on a one-for-one basis. You can insert steps anywhere in the attack sequence.

And that’s it. Multiple attacks in GURPS is where many confusions and arguments arise. Some people believe that Dual-Weapon Attack has no place in the game and should be a special case of Rapid Strike. Some people believe that Double-Ended Attack makes no sense. Personally, I haven’t really encountered any problems with the default rules yet – so I do not want to houserule anything – I’m content with the rules.