GURPS' "Unready" Weapon -- Does HERO Have Something Like It?

[Black Rose]

Apologies for the rambling, I find that if I take the time to write down a topic question I frequently already know the answer. But this time I'm not sure if I do.

 

There was a stretch in the oughts' and early teens' where I was bouncing back and forth between HERO and GURPS semi-regularly. This has messed with my understanding of both, I'm sure. Regardless... There's a rule in GURPS, primarily for combat, called "Readying". The idea is that you have something held or carried such that you can use it pretty much immediately, with no fiddling. To use HERO terminology, it's strongly related to the "STR Min" and somewhat related to the "Required Hands" of the weapon. Por ejemplo:

• Something like a knife or a short sword is almost impossible to Unready, while a polearm or great sword held with one hand would require great strength to maintain Ready after an attack.
• Marching in formation with your rifle against your shoulder means its more available than if it were slung on your back, but Unready for combat -- you need to shift it to either a shoulder or hip position to effectively fire it.
• For an out of combat example, you could carry a big Maglite flashlight like a mace, and that would make it Ready for combat, but Unready for you to turn it on/off. Likewise, if you held it close to the top, with your thumb resting on the switch, you can turn it on/off very quickly, but now it's Unready to use in combat.

 

And yes, I know that it only takes about a second to shift grips and take something from Unready to Ready, but GURPS runs on 1-second turns, so that means "you don't get to do anything this round but get ready for the next one."

 

On a cursory look through Fantasy Hero and the Equipment Guide, the closest thing I could find was Extra Time for reloading. STR Minimum gives penalties to OCV and DCs, but says nothing about taking longer to hit. Weapon Length mentions Initiative Penalties, and I feel that's the closest I'm going to get. I think the fact that it's harder to fully Disarm someone in GURPS than it is to Unready their weapon (seconds count) might have something to do with this -- Unreadying is a more realistic, less cinematic effect, and HERO prefers a more cinematic, less realistic vibe.

 

Does anyone have thoughts on this?

Edited September 21, 2022 by Black Rose
clarity

[Christopher R Taylor]

Its implicit in the system, takes a half phase to ready a real weapon as opposed to some superheroic thing.

[Derek Hiemforth]

5 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Its implicit in the system, takes a half phase to ready a real weapon as opposed to some superheroic thing.

 

<nitpick> Technically, it takes a ½ Phase to draw a weapon, not specifically to ready it.  The default assumption in HERO is that if the weapon is drawn, it's ready.  It doesn't get granular enough to distinguish a drawn-and-ready weapon from a drawn-but-not-ready weapon in the same manner as GURPS.  </nitpick>

[steriaca]

Generally HERO doesn't do "not ready". As soon as you have the object, your ready to use it.

 

If you want to implement something like that? I don't know how, but I guess the weapon gains an additional -2 OCV and -2 DCV with the object if used if unready. And it may take a zero phase action to ready it (you can take only one "zero phase" action per turn, but it takes no real time).

 

I guess others could create a better system than I layed out.

[dmjalund]

ready vs not ready might make sense when you are following combat second/per second basis. when you are dealing in phases that take multiple seconds, it matters less

[IndianaJoe3]

11 hours ago, steriaca said:

(you can take only one "zero phase" action per turn, but it takes no real time).

 

Not per RAW. You can perform multiple Zero-Phase Actions on your Phase. (6e2 18)

[steriaca]

14 minutes ago, IndianaJoe3 said:

 

Not per RAW. You can perform multiple Zero-Phase Actions on your Phase. (6e2 18)

Of course.

 

 There is nothing between a zero phase action and a half phase action. Sorry.