Cinematic Combat Options: by Anthony Jackson Rules for cinematic combat. Be careful about combining them with rules such as stun, however -- in particular, 'only a graze' would make combats using the stun rules interminable. 'My attack is too primitive for your advanced armor' High tech body armor is optimized to deal with guns, not melee attacks. Reduce DR by 75% against such attacks. Open-weave armor (kevlar, monocrys) should also have DR reduced against 'energy' attacks (most ultra-tech energy attacks are impaling, so this is not a problem). This rule is semi-realistic. 'And a *boot* to the head' A tough helmet doesn't help against whiplash injuries. Unless armor provides rigid neck protection, DR against head shots is limited to the weight of the armor, though any excess damage is halved. Armor with rigid neck protection gives full defense, but tends to restrict head motion; this has the effect that a person with peripheral vision goes to normal vision, someone without peripheral vision cannot see hexes behind them at all. Powered armor, cybersuits, and reflex armor (which successfully activates) all protect against whiplash without reduction in field of view. Similar arguments apply to various joint-breaker attacks, though the 'primitive attack' rule is typically sufficient there. 'Your armor makes you *slow*' In vanilla GURPS, encumbrance only affects dodge. For a cinematic setting, have it also reduce DX as well (either recompute active defenses based on the stat change, or just directly subtract encumbrance from active defenses). 'PD is overrated' Unarmored locations have PD 2. Halve the PD of all armor (round down, minimum 1). An appropriate costume for the genre (ninja suit, superhero costume, whatever) gives +2 PD if it has no more than DR 1, +1 PD otherwise. *Realistic version: give locations with PD < 2 a PD of 2; otherwise use normal rules. This raises defense rolls for unarmored 'average' combatants to a more reasonable level. 'Slapping Guns Away' Guns have PD 0 against any attack, and reduce your unarmed combat parry to 1/2 while carried. If you hit a gun, the holder must make a ST roll, minus the damage of your attack, or have the gun knocked away by 1 hex per point of damage. In any contest of skills to determine order of events, guns are at -5 to go first. 'Only a graze' Normally, if you take a hit, you take the full damage of the hit. With this rule, the damage (after defenses) done by a hit is limited to the amount by which you _fail_ your defense roll. If you only apply this rule when people fail by 1, this is a realistic rule. 'Critical Defense' You can defend against a critical hit with a critical success on your defense roll. A normal success on the defense roll will negate the roll on the critical hits table. If you are using the 'only a graze' rule, non-critical success limits damage to the amount by which you failed to get a critical success. 'Lost from sight' In situations where a character is lost from sight (due to falling off of a cliff, airplane crash, whatever), the character can make an IQ roll (+1 for combat reflexes) to come up with a clever way to avoid the situation. If the roll is failed, they can come up with a 'dumb luck' method, which reduces the character to -HT (this _does_ require a death roll) and unconscious. The _player_ must come up with an explanation for the survival of the character before the character next comes into play (in the case of 'dumb luck' explanations, assume the character is in a coma until the player comes up with an explanation). If the player can't come up with a clever method, they may simply accept a dumb luck method. 'Lethal Wounds' A lethal injury reduces the target to -HT. This requires a single death roll. If the attack would normally require multiple death rolls, target must make multiple consciousness rolls; if it would have reduced the target to -5xHT the target automatically falls unconscious. 'Last Words' Someone who dies has long enough to make a final soliloqy. This may occur immediately, or the person may sit around dying for a while before giving the last words. Note, however, that regardless of the wait, the subject is immune to healing (other than resurrection) after failing the first death check. It's at the GMs discretion when 'last words' end; however, it is expected that the character will die just before revealing the critical aspect to some secret they know. Last words can also be used to curse people, if you know appropriate spells. 'Going out in a blaze of glory' Someone who has failed a death check can attempt to go out in a blaze of glory (this does _not_ prevent last words). The player must specify a goal he can't die before he accomplishes, and make a will roll. If successful, he is treated as berserk (+4 to HT rolls to stay up, immune to pain) until he goes down or is hacked to bits (-5xHT); he is not required to all-out attack, but can only take actions towards the specified goal. Mages may spend HT sufficient to take them down to -5xHT if they desire; they do _not_ take skill penalties from the damage taken in this way. 'Magic Bandages' Bandaging someone requires a strip of cloth, which may conveniently be torn from whereever. A single first-aid roll is sufficient to fix all damage except for one point, and takes one minute. Add +5 to the roll for using a strip of clothing from one of the heroes. 'Better Now' If you have some time to rest, you can attempt to gain the bonus from 'magic bandages' even without bandaging. This requires a HT roll, and is only possible if you are conscious. Consciousness takes normal time to occur, unless someone tries to stomp on your head, in which case its likely that you were only faking ;) 'Only faking!' An unconscious character may make a HT roll to wake up in time to save him/her self (or a companion) from being killed; you also have enough time to make one attempt (usually escape or a ST roll) to break free of any bindings at this time. Note that you can only rescue a companion who can't rescue him/her self (this includes cases where the victim failed his/her rolls under this rule). You should assume that the character was (retroactively) conscious for long enough to attempt this. 'Aiming for a critical success' At a -5 to your attack roll, any successful hit will roll on the critical success tables (however, unlike a normal critical success, an active defense still applies). At an additional penalty you may specify _what_ critical success is generated -- the penalty is (11-desired roll) for rolls of 10-, (roll-10) for rolls of 11+. You might wish to disallow aiming for a critical head shot result of 3, though this _is_ a -18 to hit. Optionally, this can be considered a 'hard' manuever (cannot exceed base skill). 'Blinding Speed' I don't like the 'only the best shall win' rule, because it requires me to determine margin of success and divide by 2 after rolling to hit, and is thus slow. With this rule (aka TAFE) you may take -2 to hit to get -1 to active defenses. It is mathematically fairly similar to OTBSW, but typically somewhat faster to resolve. **For more options, see S.John.Ross's 'action movie advantages' at