Reflexes, Dodge, & Move

Combat in Mission X, as a Powered by GURPS game, relies heavily on secondary attributes. These too have been tweaked. I’d like to say I followed some of the thoughts that Sean wrote down in Power-Ups 9: Alternate Attributes. That would be pushing the truth a bit, but since he’s a thorough thinker, much of what you’ll see in Mission X you can almost certainly find – here and there – having been prototyped somewhere in the extended GURPS universe of rules and ideas.

Meet Reflexes — the unified quickness stat that serves to replace “Basic Speed” for certain combat calculations. It’s calculated as (DX + Per)/4 with no rounding, giving you a value that sets both your Dodge (3 + Reflexes) and your position in the turn order, replacing Basic Speed in these cases. A highly alert operator with strong Perception now naturally acts and reacts faster — exactly as it should be in modern action.

I have recently been teaching my eldest daughter to drive, and one thing I say over and over again is “It’s always better to make a successful Perception check than be forced to make a Dexterity saving throw.” She’s a gamer: this resonates with her. It’s also true: the best way to avoid an accident is to be aware enough to not be in a spot where your life depends on your reaction speed. I have not once said “Don’t worry, you can fall back on a Health check.” In fact, that seems like terrible advice, airbags notwithstanding. So for “do you notice the danger” and “are you quick enough to deal with it,” the blend of Per and DX that makes up reflexes seemed sensible.

Basic Move is still based on DX+HT as it has always been, and you can independently tweak both in 0.25 increments for 5 points each to fine-tune exactly how sharp and responsive your operator feels, as well as how well they can cover terrain.

The rest of your movement stats are mostly kept the same. You calculate your secondaries once at the start of the session and then jump straight into play.

• Basic Move and Basic Lift are tightly focused.
• The encumbrance system remains unchanged.
• Water Move and Air Move are handled with the same clean, consistent approach.

The result is fast, tactical firefights where smart positioning, cover, and teamwork still matter — but everything resolves at the high-speed pace modern action demands.

Over the next weeks I’ll be making posts talking about the different chapters, the game development, what MX is … and what it’s not. Please stay tuned! If you want to follow on Kickstarter so that you will be on board immediately when it launches, please click here to jump over to the promo page!