I’ve made an update to DECIDE, the suggestion that combatants make defense decisions without unnatural prior knowledge of whether attacks will succeed or not. It’s a GURPS article, but could be applied to any game handling defenses in a similar manner. 

On the topic of whether to use DECIDE with melee as well as ranged attacks, I’ve changed the article’s options from 1, 2a, and 2b, to 1, 2, and 3. For Option 3, I’ve made a change first discussed in DECIDE implementation notes: a change from -1 to 0 for “last-second defense” penalty vs melee weapons, and a blanket +1 to all “immediate defense” rolls that don’t wait to check TH.

This is arguably how the option should have been designed from the start. It lets fighters make normal GURPS defenses (“I’ll see whether my foe’s TH succeeds first”) vs melee weapons at no bonus or penalty, for no change to the rules as written. But it then awards an attractive +1 bonus vs any attack when the fighter commits to defending (regardless of how the TH roll goes). The net effect: DECIDE becomes nicely “invisible” in melee combat, staying out of play unless a fighter opts for its effects. That’s the sort of option I like!

Thousands of visitors have checked out the DECIDE page; if you haven’t (or just haven’t done so in a while), please do!