More uses for Tactics in GURPS
This was a bit of off-the-cuff, but I wonder if there should be a few more uses for Tactics, or the re-rolls granted by virtue of a successful Tactics contest, in GURPS. Tactics seems like it should do more, to me, anyway.
Things like:
- Make a Tactics roll to get the benefit of partial cover when doing a retreating Dodge and Drop vs. an explosion. This would be to get the benefit of micro-environmental cover (that six to eight inch wave in the ground? Find it!) where such exists.
- I wonder if you could use re-roll points to declare a Wait-and-Move on your turn. Basically, represent outguessing the enemy’s actions by letting him move first, then adjusting accordingly – even interrupting his move. He rushes you? You were waiting, and can move away.
- As combat starts, when setting the turn order, look up your margin of success on a Tactics roll on the Size (and Speed/Range) Table. Make the Tactics roll by 5? You get +2 to your Speed for the purpose of setting initial turn order.
What other uses of Tactics (or Evaluate, for that matter) have you played with in your GURPS games?
I'd say the micro-cover option would also be a good use for Soldier, and I'd expand both to let you add 1 yard to your retreat distance against area effect attacks: basically saying that you're hanging out on the very edge of your hex and retreat just past the boundary of the +1 hex, but still enough to matter.
The second and third uses seem pretty marginal, but I'd go with both of them if people really wanted that. The Wait-and-Move does seem pretty cool.
I play[ed] in a PvP GURPS arena game (message board play-by-post format, which actually works very well for arena-style games), in which the start of each match featured a QC of Tactics. The winner automatically converted their first critical failure to a regular failure, or their opponent's first critical success to a regular success. Sort of a modified/toned-down take on the re-roll approach, but one that worked well for the context.
Use it instead of Dodge for active defense against bullets.