Any system where combat isn't like this:

Might as well be a nerd suggesting dice less or freeform for the amount of actual difference it brings into play. DW combat just moves the scene along quickly, which isn't a bad thing but is the opposite of more interesting combat.

Song of Swords comes to mind as one with a good combat system.

But pretty much any combat-focused system other than D&D meets this incredibly low bar.

This. Severely underrated system. Probably the best system ever devised for actually making players feel like they're controlling a character inside a coherent story.

This.

Even simple systems can be spiced up with terrain features and interesting enemies.

How do you feel about:
P1: Roll & Explain Attack
P2: Roll & Explain Defense
P2: Roll & Explain Attack
P1: Roll & Explain Defense
P1: Roll & Explain Attack
P2: Roll & Explain Defense

-esque systems?

More Dogs fans please. How is AW the game that stuck?

Riddle of Steel

F.A.T.A.L.
look it up, you'll enjoy it's unique mechanics and stats.

Example of combat?
Been tempted to try gurps already read the rules
how fast is combat?
If you could give me a better example?, beign descriptive is good but it doesnt change mechanically
I think i confuse this game with song of swords
thanks i will look it up, sounds gritty

>how fast is combat?
Not super fast. It's for impressive and deep combat, where the fight is a big part of the game, not "get her over and done so we can move on" combat.

>OH U

>Who the hell sits in place and just exchanges blows with their enemy?
Shit players with shit GMs. As usual, fa/tg/uys blame the system for their laziness and lack of creativity.

Riddle of Steel

Just to quickly explain for OP, Riddle of Steel and Song of Swords use a combat system whereby more skilled characters have a larger pool of dice to use in combat. This pool can be split between attack and defence.

There's a lot of other shit tacked on top, but that's the core system. This means that your character can go all-out on an attack, but have no dice left to defend himself if his attack is parried. A super-skilled player has a big enough dicepool to defend against almost any attack, and still have enough dice left over for an attack of their own.

The system is fast in the sense that the two people involved in an exchange are simultaneously working out their attack and defence, and people die REALLY fast.

Probably because DITV is incredibly difficult to roleplay for your average murderhobos and fedora tippers.

I know maybe 5 people I'd trust to play a game with, and only one of those online.

System is fucking amazing though; Somehow manages to be gamey, narrative and simulationist at the same time.

On The first thing you have to understand about Dogs in the Vineyard combat is that it can (and usually does) start social. When someone is losing an argument, they escalate (ie bitch slap, start shoving). If the opponent didn't like getting slapped, it escalates again (ie start punching and getting into real combat). By this point, if someone really wants to show who's boss, guns get broken out

You've got 4 stats: Acuity, Body, Will, and Heart
Just talking: Roll Acuity + Heart
Start to get shovey but not punchy: Body + Heart
Start to seriously duke it out with fists and knives: Body + Will
Break out the guns: Acuity + Will

You roll your dice pool, find 2 dice with a nice high number, throw it down. The opponent throws their dice pool, finds 2 dice that exceed your roll, say what they do, throw it down.

At this point or any point further, you can either
a) find 1 dice in your pool that'll exceed what their opponent's total is and fight back
b) find 2 dice to exceed your opponent's roll to block/dodge
c) find 3 or more dice to exceed their roll and take a blow (aka get hurt based on how many dice you used and what level of escalation your conflict is in)
or
d) back off and let them win

If you or your opponent sees their talking is not going in their favor, they escalate, roll the next dice pool (ie from just talking to start shoving, you and opponent now roll body + heart), add these dice to your current dice pool, and keep going

Backing off means the other side gets whatever goal was being contested, but the loser gets some sort of bonus when they fight again, so losing the battle doesn't mean losing the war

Dogs in the Vineyard as a setting is wild west with Mormon tones (you're dogs of the faith, going from town to town making judgements).

With some reskinning, you can go play pic related with this in the background

youtube.com/watch?v=Q3Yc3HhSl1Q

Is this complaining about gameplay based on wiffing or something else?

The philosophy behind it is incredibly good as well.

You can draw in "stats" at any time, that can represent most anything as long as it ties into the conflict.

The game actually gives you dice for penalties; they're just low dice which means you're more likely to be forced to take a blow when you try to leverage them.

They can be tools, people, phrases (The example is "Momma always told me there'd be times like this."), ideas, tactics, even enemies or injuries.

And that's literally everything; There's no other conflict resolution mechanic, because literally everything worth rolling dice for is a part of an escalation; Everything else is constrained narrative freeform.

Martial arts systems give a bit more

Legend of Wulin:
Have a 'lake' of dice that's your dice pool and a 'river' of dice, which are pairs of dice you set aside and use to make another roll bigger.

When you roll your dice pool, your roll is whatever number shows up the most, and that number is your multiplier, ie if you roll 7 dice and 5 of them are 4s, your roll is 54, or if 3 of them are 9s, your roll is 39. Depending on what action your doing, your modifiers vary depending on what fighting style you're using (granting bonuses), your inner style (magical crap), what weapon you're using, at what distance, and what you're trying to do (hurt, knock them back to another zone, inflict problems). I'm really screwing up how this system really works, just working off top of my head

Qin: Warring States
Similar to Riddle of Steel, you have a number of actions you can have per turn, and you separate how many actions you'll use for offense and how many for defense. You only roll 2 dice, and crit every time you have doubles. Combat seems slow on paper but it gets fast and brutal if players just want to make murder hobos that say screw it to defending

I hear Shard is similar to Qin, but no one ever talks about Shard and never seen anyone ever play it/heard anyone make an actual play of it

Feng Shui 2:
Everyone's initiative plays a huge part on what you can do when. Everyone's character is on a sort of initiative counter, whoever's highest goes first, and spends their initiative location to do actions. The moment their location gets lower than the next person, they stop doing crap and the next person starts saying what they do

Warhammer 40k RPG, Shadowrun, Stars Without Number just to name a few off the top of my head

I'm genuinely impressed at how gay, smug and self-righteously autistic your response is.

Legends of the Wulin is one of my favourite systems ever, and is generally considered one of the top two combat systems in RPG's, Riddle of Steel/song of Swords and its other successors being the other one.

The above poster is close to right, but misses out on one of the key traits of the system- On a roll, it's very common you get multiple sets of dice, all of which can be used to perform actions. Anyone can perform Marvels, special actions that can debuff or manipulate opponents, at no cost, while techniques can allow you to make extra attacks, fling fireballs or even attack your opponent with Secret Arts, letting your social, mystical or medical skills be directly useful in a fight.

And that's just the dicerolling. There's so much more to combat in the system, how your External style interacts with your opponents, when to hold or spend Chi and what to do with it, the various ways weapon types interact and have advantages over one another... It's fantastic.

It's not without problems though. Specifically, some of the worst editing I've ever seen in a published book, dear god. It makes the system way, way harder to run. There's also a few balance problems in core, although the fan made Half Burnt Manual supplement fixes most of them.

I am writing a system where you can actively react parrying, dodging, counter-attacking, or you could benefit from having set a defensive stance in your turn. All works with a set number of actions per round, every weapon type and shield has its parrying dice bonus to add to your defense, and so on. And then you have a number of maneuvers you can use, a bunch of which are universal and others instead have to be learned.

Shit is working pretty fine; a round takes some more time than with your average D&D/PF/D20s, but on the other hand there's no such thing as HP bloat and combat is quite brutal, and even the hardiest warrior is unlikely to tank more than five blows.

Many of these combat options become less useful or plain useless against big monsters - for example trying to parry a giant's blow won't really serve you well - but there are other maneuvers specifically to fight them, including climbing on their back Dragon Dogma's style.

check the codex martialis, it's a fan made D&D overhaul meant for a more realistic and varied kind of fighting

Fantasy Age. Not shilling but the stunt system in that game is great for increasing the players options. Stunting is basically when you roll doubles with dice (everything is 3d6 btw) and the third dice (usually a different color) shows how many stunt points you can use.

Yes its a bit gamey, but damn does it lead combat in new directions than the problem you describe. Stunted and now you can shove the enemy after you attack him? Push him backwards into the fireplace. Stunted and now you can do extra damage? Send of that Orcs blood splashing into the eyes of one of his allies. Of course this is sometimes DM dependent on creative allowance but I think its really neat.

Just read up on that swedish Tvroiadfdsaf roleplaying game that keeps gettin shilled around here.

Apparently it uses a points pool that players spend in combat to do different actions including offensive and defensive ones which sounds dope as all hell.

Anima. It's the same but with more rolls, double fun!

World of Darkness.

Amber

He is right, though.

Anima.

Same rolls as if you hit, instead you get to roll your defense!
Or set it to a value.

You can fluff your attacks any way you like, but mechanics wise you're usually better off just planting your ass and Full Attacking instead of trying anything wacky. Combat maneuvers you're not specced in are less likely to succeed than plain attacking, and giving a temporary malus to opponent's actions isn't as effective as reducing their hp to 0 and preventing them doing anything at all.

If you want to try out GURPS, I recommend the following for maximum combat carnage
>run a simple Dungeon Fantasy game. It has the ideal power level/equipment to get into the nitty gritty of the melee combat system
>Use GURPS Martial Arts. Ban normal attacks and replace them with Committed and Defensive Attacks (stops players from just spamming "I attack" every turn)
>Use target locations, but do not use accumulated wounds.
>Learn how deceptive attacks, feints, range and light penalties apply
>be very stern with what counts as a back attack. If an opponent starts at a player's flank, he should be able to take a step sideways into the player's rear hex and score a true back attack (which means no defense rolls allowed)
>You can stick to vanilla magic for this
>when designing opponents, mooks should have 8-10 HT, elites can have 11-12 HT and "bosses and other super monsters" can have 13-14 HT. Feel free to just ignore HT rolls on mooks that get limbs crippled or who go negative HP (chances are they don't WANT to fight anymore at that point anyway).
>Mix up your enemy design. Many small foes that try to surround. Big and tough guys. Ranged monsters. Spellcasters that go for area of effect control spells like grease. Etc.
>Always put some variation on how enemies are armored. Leave intentional weak spots and intentionally strengthened spots in their armor such as no armored necks, open helmets, reinforced gloves, chain leggings and plate torso, etc.
>Be fair and factual in your information to the players. Don't obscure information such as how well they are armed or if they got special resistances.

Out of all these suggestions, the one about replacing attack, the hit locations and the one about how to deal with back attacks are the ones I recommend the most, because they are very important to the combat metagame.

Runequest. At least the sixth edition has a lot more options in combat and I think at least a few of the earlier ones do as well.

Praedor if you speak moonrunes.

Twilight 2000 and 2013.

Burning Wheel et al, especially Mouse Guard.

For me combat is all about flow. As long as the flow is with you, you're in control of the fight. As soon as the flow is disrupted, your opponent is in control of the fight.

In game term this means that the fighter (A) with the higher initiative has the flow. He can either directly attack or feint (I won't treat feint here). His opponent (B) can either choose to defend or to attack. Let's imagine that (B) wants to live and decides to defend. (A) rolls for attack and succeeds, (B) rolls for attack and succeeds. What happens now is that I check who succeeded best. If it's (A) he can attack in the next round, and (B) will have a penalty to its next action. If (B) succeeded better, he disrupts (A)'s flow and can attack normally in the next round. If (B) had failed its defense, (A) would have hit him, and could continue to attack him in the next round with a bonus. If (A) had missed it's attack but (B) had succeeded its defense, (B) could attack in the next round with a bonus. (B) could also have chosen to attack instead of defend. But if (A) had succeeded its attack and would have wounded him, (B)'s attack would have been interrupted, and (A) could have attacked again in the next round with a bonus. But if (A)'s attack had failed, or would not have wounded (B) because of armor or natural resistance, (B) could have attacked, etc.

This means that the main strategy to remain alive is:

1. to avoid combat,
2. to only fight when you are stronger (better fighter, better equipment, etc.),
3. to attack your enemy in the back (ambush, poison, stealth attack, etc.),
4. to attack with numerical superiority.

Fortunately for every story ever, not everything is real life.

If that's your experience, the trouble isn't the game. It's who you are playing with. And who they are playing with.

I'm more into gritty action than high-fantasy heroism.

>DM: It's attacking the wizard
>SwordNBoard Player: I try to intercept the attack with my own
>Wizard Player: I cast Deflective Field incase he gets by SnB.
>DM: Ok, roll it.
>All roll
>Ok, looks like he gets past you, SnB, but his blade is turned by Wizards spell. Your attack still hits, SnB, so roll your damage.

That sad feeling when you know you'll never get your shit together and finish your homebrew RPG system.

How would this even work?

The whole team gets to roll to defend?

Not him, but my guess is: Simultaneous turns. You all declare what you are going to do (in some order) then everything happens.

Since the Wizard and the Fighter declared defensive actions, they rolled defense.

Is your problem the cyclical nature, or that the characters don't have access to enough options (or the players don't take advantage of the ones they do)?

Runequest 6. You get set number of action points to do with as you want. You might hit the enemy with all of them, you might spend one moving, one hitting, one masturbating into a cup and one preparing to block an enemy attack. Also all rolls are opposed rolls.

I spose he could be doing some Riddle-esque blocking maneuvers

A homebrew I made doesn't work like that, but it's also a niche fetish game.

Pretty much the average combat between two people is a tug of war. You can attack regularly, but you'll only do basic damage. However you can also choose to 'maneuver' yourself so you have an advantage. Each time you do this you roll to see if you're maneuver is successful, and the opponent rolls to negate your maneuver. You can stack manuevers with each one granting you more advantages in the fight. If you're opponent has an advantage on you, you can choose to attempt to reverse the advantage or just play at your current disadvantage.

Different classes have different maneuver strategies to counter other fighting styles (Simultaneously maneuver against multiple foes, assassinate targets after getting massive advantage on them, purposely get disadvantage for risky counter attacks, take on an ally's disadvantage onto yourself, etc.). It works pretty well, though still needs a lot of play testing done.

It's vore.

FFG Star Wars

Its specialty dice are just awesome and apply in this situation as well as in less action-y ones.

But also, most RPGs that aren't D&D.

It see+ms good but it dramatically increases the complexity of both the fights and the character sheets, which causes the fights to go 2-3 times as long. 4-5 if you have a separate damage roll, 5-6 if you have that and a separate soak roll.

Depending on what your group is after, this might well be excellent for you. The trap is that this might well be something your group *thinks* they want but wouldn't actually enjoy.

1d20 +atr + prof vs AC abstracts a lot of things in pursuit of speed. And it succeeds wildly at that. At its best that makes for an easy to follow mechanic with a lot of time for vivid descriptions, but at its worst it leads to "19" "hit" "15 damage" sequences.

My solution is to make sure I'm hitting "good" descriptions at 3 points and "great" descriptions at 3. First attacks, killing blows, and almost killing blows always get a good description. If the die roll is a 1 or a 20 it changes nothing mechanically but I do my best to put on a 5-star description at that point.

Ideally I'll prompt the player for the description giving them opportunities to join in, but that's to be used sparingly. I don't try to "force" anything.

real life?

I've always thought that it was because of how tightly coupled Dogs tends to be with its setting. AW lead to a lot of "powered by the Apocalypse" games that made it clear how flexible the underlying system was while Dogs is still usually perceived as nothing more than "Mormon Gunslingers."

A couple more "powered by the Vineyard" or "_____ in the Vineyard" releases might go towards that. I've thought about releasing a few freebies to try and jump start it but I feel awkward about it

Rune Quest; you have to respond to attacks with a limited pool of defensive actions; the same number as your offensive actions usually; two or three for a human.

Say you have 3 combat actions; your character can try to parry or dodge up to three attacks per turn (they can still miss if no defence attempt is made), and can make up to three offensive actions as well.

In combat against a single fast enemy with more attacks than you can parry, or a swarm of enemies you can be overrun very quickly and find yourself unable to respond to the onslaught.

I like this because it is reflective of my real life experiences of being piled on by multiple attackers; you get overwhelmed very quickly unless you're some real tough shit.

And yet, correct.

>With some reskinning, you can go play pic related with this in the background
I've always wanted to use Dogs for kung fu Journey to the West stuff.

Dogs was actually my very first game like ten years ago now. I haven't played it since.

I've been trying to practice the system to fluff an Mass Effect style setting, since the Bioware games are nearly identical in format to the escalation system. Mass Effect encounters always follow the format of Conversation->Argument->Interrupt->Combat

>A couple more "powered by the Vineyard" or "_____ in the Vineyard" releases might go towards that. I've thought about releasing a few freebies to try and jump start it but I feel awkward about it
Would that be legal?
I mean, I suppose it doesn't really matter if you don't sell it, but...

I love World of Darkness, but all it really does is make the combat faster by making it all one roll instead of fucking around with multiple rolls. There's not even the opportunity to react as the defender, other than spending Willpower or Dodging, and Dodging takes your entire turn.

>(not meming really)
I'm not falling for that, user.

How about this:
>Player: I raise my sword and attack from the right, attempting to cut through his side.
>Roll
>Gm: A good stroke, but the enemy was too fast, bringing his shield between your sword and him. Now he uses the moment of you, lowering your guard, by stabbing you in the chest.
>Rolls
>Gm: You quickly pull your sword back and manages to block his attack.
>REPEAT

OP has said elsewhere in the thread that he wants a mechanical difference.
We've all agreed that what you suggest is better, but not mechanically different.

And it doesn't matter because not only did you not read the thread, you probably aren't still here now.

Correct to first, wrong to second.

Every system if you're not friggin' stupid.

Player: I use my Bonus Action to throw my cape at him, then attack him through it.

DM: Okay, throwing the cape will grant you Advantage as he struggles to get it off of him.

Player: Based sneak attack! [rolls 2d20, gets an 11 and a 15, hits with the latter] BOOM!

DM: Well, he's still up. What's your Passive Perception?

Player: Uh...13?

DM: Remember that Bullette he had with him that burrowed two rounds ago? It emerges from the ground beneath your feet.

Player: SHIT!

1d4chan.org/wiki/Oberoni_Fallacy

What is happening that your best opening is throwing capes when there's a Bulette in the same encounter?

None of that is houserules: rogue uses item, gets sneak attack, bullette moves on its turn.

RuneQuest 6/Mythras is probably the best tactical combat for the amount of time it takes to learn and memorize.

Dogs in the Vineyard's system is honestly what I'd use for a Sunless Sea or Fallen London game.

honestly just some systems that don't risk turning players off if you mention the M-word, sunless sea in particular seems to fit well because you can have that episodic "travelling from port to port" element, and skip over the time consuming "travelling across the zee slowly" element of the game, with only a few random rolls for "your ship bumps into a pirate during the journey" or "your ship bumps into Mt. Nomad" and have a brief minigame of combat or fleeing/sneaking past them

What I'm thinking of doing for martials in a game I'm designing is making it so they can, instead of attacking, "defend" in various ways which also bump them up the intiative order for the next turn as well as boosting their defensive stats. the "martials can defend" option really needs an additional boost like that to make it on par with straight attacking and getting an encounter overwith asap to minimise damage while also making it something other than a "tank only ability".

>honestly just some systems that don't risk turning players off

Or maybe I meant "settings" and not "systems". Maybe.

Let players tell what they want to do during the fight, roll dice for attacking and defending, reveal outcome of fight, what happens etc. and get on with it!

>one masturbating into a cup
Although this requires the Expert Rules.

But RQ6/Mythras is a good alternative to "I hit, you hit, we all hit"-combat.

> What is, Expending bonus actions to dodge?
Or declaring defensive actions before your offensive ones.
Or having a storyteller that isn't Shit.

The players describe how they want to attack and, based on the dice rolls, I describe the results. When an enemy attacks a player, I describe what they are doing and usually have the player describe his reaction / defense (though sometimes I'll streamline things and just describe what happens without player input, depending on the flow of events and the pace of battle). I improvise modifiers as seems fitting.

Me: The hobgoblin, anxious to get at you, slams aside the goblin who had engaged you with his shield, clearing the way for a thrust of his spear at your midsection.

Player: I'm going to sidestep the spear, turning my body sideways and moving in the direction he shoved the goblin on the assumption that will crowd him and reduce his mobility. As I turn, I'm going to bring my sword across in an arc that intersects his neck. Hopefully his shield is still out of place from shoving the goblin.

Me: No! You start to turn, so the thrust is oblique, but the spearhead still slides across your stomach and catches, embedding itself in your left side for 3 points of damage.

Player: Shit! I'm down to 5.

Me: The blow is going to knock off your aim a bit, but you're already halfway through the swing, and if anything, the impact is going spin you around, increasing the speed of your arc. Roll to hit at -2, but we'll call damage a wash, with speed counterbalancing inaccuracy.

Player: Wait! Is it to late change my attack?

Me: You're already partway through your swing.

Player: But what if I just divert it? Like, I reflexively grab the spear with my left hand as its tip pushes into my side, and I turn my arc downwards, bringing my sword across the shaft where the hobgoblin's hand is, and hopefully slicing off some fingers and possibly bisecting the spear.

Me: Okay. I let you divert your attack without penalty, but you still have the original -2.

Player: 17! I miss! [roll-under system]

Me: Your body clenched up from the spear thrust, causing you to swing wild...

Something like this is much better than packaged maneuvers, especially since there will usually be a significant mechanical advantage for one maneuver over another, leading to a narrowing of options and sometimes a repetition of certain maneuvers that seems silly in character.

Yeah, a common thing in almost all dice pool based systems is increasing passive defenses at the cost of your current dicepool.

However, it still means what you're DOING actively every turn is attacking.

Currently suffering through interpreting LoTW myself. Spent several hours bookmarking, gathering/writing cheat sheets, and test running to make sure I had a grasp on the system so I could GM it.

That said, the system does seem fairly robust and evocative with the Secret Arts (once you wrap your head around them) adding intriguing options. Time spent though seems to be a recurring issue though.

>ITT: People don't understand the concept of gamefeel and resort to implying everyone is just bad at games
Look, we get it, you can fluff things however you want, and describe doing all sorts of things. But pretty much every roleplaying game is turn based, and you have very little ability to react to your opponent's turn, or even in concert with allies. This is really just a result of games needing to be understandable, while actual violence is often chaotic and confusing.

Suffice it to say, "every system, if you're creative" is not a valuable answer. Because plenty of systems don't facilitate interactive combat.

What are you even talking about?
You don't have bonus actions. You have one Instant action per turn, and as many Reflexive actions as is appropriate. If you want to Dodge, you have to give up your turn AND sacrifice your Defense. Spending a point of Willpower will give you +2 to your Defense.

Whether the Storyteller is or isn't shit has no bearing on the system.

"Declaring defensive actions before your offensive ones" isn't even a thing. If you want to Dodge, at the top of the round you announce that you're Dodging this turn.

Do you even know how this game works?

>But pretty much every roleplaying game is turn based, and you have very little ability to react to your opponent's turn
Why? The attacker describes what he's trying to do and the defender describes his reaction to this. Dice are rolled, and the GM describes the results, which result in changes in status and positioning that affect the next person's turn.

In order to keep things immediate and add to the feel of back-and-forth, I like to have people locked in melee against each other go one after the other, before resolving other people's turns. In fact, in situations that seem conducive to it, I'll go back and forth between adversaries a couple of times before moving on.

>Suffice it to say, "every system, if you're creative" is not a valuable answer.
I think this is actually an argument for a rules-light system that is more conducive to improvisation.

Just because you're describing your reaction to an attack doesn't mean you're mechanically doing anything. Of course, systems with lots of dice rolling (attacker rolls to hit, defender rolls to dodge, attacker rolls damage, defender rolls soak) have high player interaction, but grind things to a halt.

This is also why systems that have, say, points allocation are good for this. You can do more things in a "turn".

Fluffing out an attack doesn't change the fact you're basically rolling 1d10+STR damage per hit against what is essentially a damage sponge until the GM tells you that it's dead.

Actually engaging combat comes about when the game gives you options that are just as viable, if not moreso, than just rolling for attack until the enemy dies.

4e had the right idea honestly, especially when most powers actually had mechanical effects that occured even if you missed, which meant that no matter what, combat was still moving forward.

As opposed to 3.PF and 5e where either you deal damage, you put your opponent at a disadvantage, or you wasted turn (as well as resources) because you missed/they saved.

>no ability to react

it's a fallacy to think that dice rolling slows down the game significantly.

>Just because you're describing your reaction to an attack doesn't mean you're mechanically doing anything.
If your GM is decent, your descriptions will have a mechanical effect on combat.

this

By RAW, the rogue doesn't have abilities that allow it to throw their cape as a diversion to sneak attack with.

So the thing that you're suggesting would technically be a houserule.

thus houseruling

Shadowrun - with high enough Initiative you can get multiple attacks before opponent have their first.

There's a difference between a house rule, which modifies the permanent mechanics of the game, and an improvised effect for a particular action. Most RPGs at least mention the concept of giving the GM discretion in applying situational effects and so forth, so that's actually in keeping with the rules. Also, if you play an RPG like a robot picking options out of a book of war game rules, you're so incredibly doing it wrong.

Adding to this, combat is also lethal, to the point where if you don't have good armor on or some other means of soaking damage, a security guar will kill you with their first attack if you don't roll high enough on your soak roll.

Not to mention how the nature of runs means that if you set off an alarm or take too long, a corp's first response units will show up and murder you as well, so planning out your runs and having a dude who can disable shit like security cameras, tripwires, phone lines, etc. was also insanely more useful than charging in and blowing everything to holy hell.

That's not a situation limited to fucking Pathfinder. In fact, Pathfinder has several character types specifically built around reacting.

It's a situation in THE MAJORITY OF GAMES. Fuck, even games with lots of combat options tend to have you make those options at the start of the turn, and at best we're talking about systems like GURPS, where Addison attacks Bailey and Bailey rolls to defend. That's still only two people interacting on a set initiative, as opposed to some kind of complex clusterfuck that feels more like a real fight.

Very few systems are going to have you doing something every turn and in response to things

4e had a good design philosophy, but combat still took forever, and required a grid. As someone who primarily plays over IRC-likes, that shit is a dealbreaker.

>It's a fallacy to think that something that consumes time consumes time.
What.

That's houseruling at worst or situational modifiers at best. Regardless, that's still Addison rolling attack at Bailey. It's not like a video game or even a LARP, where active dodging is a possibility.
That's a limitation of the format for the most part. Just like it's a limitation that combat that should take only a few moments eats up more time than any other part of a game.

Being able to take multiple turns doesn't mean the game isn't turn based. It just means initiative passes are king. There's a reason Wired Reflexes costs so damned much.

If you go back to early D&D (which is where it all started) there was a lot of stuff that just plain wasn't covered, at least not explicitly. So you had to fill in the gaps. This was the way that everybody did things way back when because if they didn't, they wouldn't have a functional game. So the DM would arbitrate by fiat or would decide how to specifically apply generalized game policies, like the one in the pic here.

And deciding what happens in one instance isn't a rule, it's a ruling. There's a difference. A rule is something that affects the game on a permanent, or at least a long term basis.