GURPS Action: How Balanced are BAD Guys?

 At the GM’s option, henchmen without character sheets have an effective skill of 10 + absolute value of BAD: 11 at -1, 12 at -2, and so on. As with all BAD things, this is abstract. Actual skill, equipment quality, extra time, and anything else that might matter is all rolled into one handy number. -- GURPS Action 2, page 5

Last time, I looked at BAD.  I meant to look at Mooks too, as that's the real point of this exercise for me, but I took so much wordcount just looking at BAD itself. With that out of the way, let's look at Mooks themselves.

I will note, as I noted last time, that Mooks in Action, don't actually have (Absolute BAD)+10 skill; per page 45-46 of Action 2, they have skill 10-15, which might be completely unrelated to the BAD.  Skill seems to be all that matters: they have a static Dodge of 8, Parry of 8, and ST of 10.  The game largely takes damage out of the equation, and that makes sense: with guns available, characters who get hit tend to get removed from the fight pretty quickly, so we'll largely dispense with weapon other than to note melee vs ranged and focus on chances to hit.  

We'll focus almost entirely on combat capabilities (Action even suggests not using BAD for combat), as that's the point of balance I'm most interested in.  When it comes to things like "I try to Fast-Talk the guards" I'm fine with just applying a BAD penalty.

PC Baselines

So what are the combat stats of the PCs?  Well, a quick breeze through the templates shows that no character has a dodge lower than 9 and there are quite a few 10s; also, nobody has Combat Reflexes, so given how common that will be, we can expect PCs to generally have Dodge 10.  When it comes to combat skills, most templates have at least Guns 14; only non-combatants like the Medic and the Wirerat had Guns 12, and Brawl tends to center around 14.  So I think it's fair to say that specialists will have combat skill 18 to 20, and generally favor ranged weapons.  Most characters will have melee skill of 14, and at least Guns 14.

How Dangerous are Mooks in Melee

So, let's assume a melee of about 4 mooks focused on a PC; not enough to force them to lose their defense because of attacks from behind, but enough to start to overwhelm the PC.  I'll believe that basically any mook will lose one-on-one with the PC.  I will assume that any hit takes the mook out (we'll ignore concerns like damage).  I won't worry about how much damage the PC will take, only note the average number of hits they'll likely take before they defeat all the mooks.

Skill 10

"BAD 0" mooks will hit their target 50% of the time in melee. A skill 14 character with combat reflexes will have a parry of 11. So, their first parry will succeed 62% of the time, and after that, they'll be forced to Dodge, which will succeed half the time. They can spend fatigue to improve their odds, which they may, depending on how dangerous the fight is.  So, on average, 4 mooks will hit the PC twice, and without Feverish Defense or Retreats, he'll parry or dodge about 1 attack.  If he makes Feverish Defenses and Retreats, he'll defend most of the attacks (he'll get hit only about 40% of the time).

In return, a skill 14 character can afford to apply a -2 to his attacks to apply a -1 to their defense, which drops them below a level that is reasonable to expect a defense.  So, they'll take out about one mook a turn.

Thus, in practice, it'll take about 4 turns to defeat all the mooks, and given the reduced number of actual hits, there's a solid chance they'll take no damage at all.  A specialist will almost certainly walk away without being touched: dodge 11 and/or parry 12 means they don't even need to make a feverish defense to avoid being hit, and with TBAM or Wearpon Master and skill 16 to 18, you can plausibly defeat two a turn.

Sheer numbers pose a moderate risk of a bruise or two to a generalist when it comes to Skill 10 mooks.

Skill 11

Skill 11 Mooks are essentially the same as skill 10 mooks, except they have a slightly higher chance of getting three hits in with four of them.  Five mooks would certainly get 3 out of 5 hits.  Otherwise, everything is the same: the Specialist walks away without a scratch, and the generalist gets hit once maybe twice.

Skill 12

This starts to get a little interesting. On average, the mooks will hit 3, rather than 2, times, and without Feverish defense or Retreats, will get hit once per turn.  With retreats and/or feverish defense, the Generalist will still get hit more than 50% of the time (per turn, not per attack).  At this level, it behooves the generalist to find ways to cut down his opponents, which is interesting and better than I expected! Otherwise, they'll walk away tired and bruised, but probably not dead.

A specialist still has little to fear.  They can still typically take out two per turn, but even with feverish defenses and retreats, they start to approach a 50% chance of being hit in a turn.  They'll want to work quickly to take these mooks out if they don't want to be hit.

Skill 13

This gets even more interesting, because it starts to become reasonable to make deceptive attacks, though I'm not sure how much it improves the odds.  Their cumulative chances of hitting a feverishly defending generalist is better with a greater number of attacks, but as their numbers diminish, deceptive attacks become more valuable.  Otherwise, they are to 12s what 11s are to 10s.

Skill 14

At this level, almost all 4 of the mooks will hit every attack, but they can also apply a deceptive attack and hit as well as a 12, so hitting with 3 out of the four attacks. The generalist can almost certainly expect to have at least one attack get through their defenses per turn and perhaps two attacks, even with Feverish Defense and Retreats.  This is dangerous, but that's not surprising, is it? The mooks are as good as the generalist and they outnumber him 4 to one.  The specialist has better odds, but will still take a hit per turn about 2/3rd of the time, but it'll require that opening salvo to hurt him, as he'll quickly whittle their numbers after that.

Skill 15

This is like Skill 13 but with a deceptive attack.  Most of the attacks will hit and the target will find it hard to defend. 4 skill 15 mooks would probably overwhelm a generalist who isn't burning impulse buys, and a specialist, unless a deep specialist (someone from Furious Fists) will find themselves struggling.

How Dangerous are Mooks at Range

This is a little easier to calculate, because we can assume some static values and just note chances to hit.  At pistol range (-2 to hit), assuming Mooks never bother to aim and never use AoA (Determined) with their ranged attacks, and that our heroes dodge half the time, then we'd expect the following chances of success

• Skill 10: ~15% chance
• Skill 11: ~20% chance
• Skill 12: ~25% chance
• Skill 13: ~30% chance
• Skill 14: ~35% chance
• Skill 15: ~45% chance

If we have them roll individually, and we assume 4 mooks per PC, we expect the Skill 10 mooks to hit once every coupld of rounds, the Skill 12 mooks to hit at least once a round, and the skill 14 mooks to his twice about half the time.

If we assume they each fire three times and combined all of their shots at a target like a single high ROF weapon, setting aside the chances of the PC dodging and assuming RCL 2, we get:

• Skill 10: ~50% chance (average 1 hit on a ten)
• Skill 11: ~60% chance (average 1 hit on a ten)
• Skill 12: ~75% chance (average 2 hits on a ten)
• Skill 13: ~80% chance (average 2 hits on a ten)
• Skill 14: ~90% chance (average 3 hits on a ten)
• Skill 15: ~95% chance (average 3 hits on a ten)

Conclusion

So, mooks are scarier than I thought, provided there are enough of them.  Broadly speaking, I still think Skill 10 mooks are mostly a joke (Even with mass fire, there's a good chance they'll hit nothing but air, especially if the character can dodge) and even a whole group of them will probably lose to a generalist Action hero. Skill 12 becomes a reasonable challenge: a good chance of hitting with enough attackers both in melee and at range. At Skill 15, you're starting to combine quality with quantity, and they'll give PCs a real headache. I see why GURPS Action caps mooks at this level! So, I suppose BAD works out better than I expected, for both combat and generic challenges. 

I wrote this because I often centered at BAD 2 for my Psi-Wars challenges and found the fights "too easy."  But Psi-Wars characters are 300 points, rather than 250, and I often see parties bringing their specialists forward.  The generalists generally "do better than they thought" at BAD 2, while the specialists clean up, but we can see that here in these results: -2 to your rolls isn't much of a problem if you're starting at skill 14, and a few mooks at Skill 12 aren't a real problem unless they can gang up on a generalist and the specialist usually works to get between them and the more vulnerable members of the party.

I've not often got to the point where we see BAD 5, but I think based on these results, I'll be more cautious at that point, as that seems a real challenge even for specialists: they'll succeed, of course! But they'll be hurting and things can go sideways quickly in such events.  I think I'll also put more thought into intermediary ranges, with more focus on -4 and -6 and skill 13 and 14 mooks, rather than my usual "12 or 15" cutoffs.