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Re: Rules Nugget (GURPS): What's a Miss?
To elaborate: Using Evaluate followed by Deceptive Attack as "wait for an opening" is akin to saying that, if you wait for two seconds (+2 TH), your foe's guard will drop an appreciable amount (trade +2 TH for -1 AD) – no question about it, it will happen. Yet waiting for longer than two seconds brings no further guard-dropping (other than by voluntary choice, such as your foe getting angered by your waiting and choosing to AOA your hide : ).
I would look at this differently. In fighting/sparring, you circle for a bit, and you see the patterns in the movement and defenses that your opponent is making right then. Beyond that time, there's not much more to be gained unless the other guy changes something up. That's probably best modeled with something like Counterattack, but still...basically, once you've got the "pattern" to his movements set (and there usually IS one), you've learned what you can learn for that time. It might take more than two seconds, though.
Honestly, since I like open-ended scaling, I tend to use either doubling or the range/speed table for such things. So if you evaluate for 1 sec you get +1, 2 secs is +2, look for 2 more (4s) and you get +3, circle for 8 secs and it's +4, etc. Combine with some IQ-based Ruses from Martial arts and you have two guys probing and circling and having marginal advantage/disadvantage until someone blows a roll and does something, or someone tries to force the issue and does something.
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