Gaming The System

The feint rules in GURPS are pretty simple.

There's a quick contest of weapon/defense skill rolls and margin of success is the penalty to their defense next round.   See p.B365.

It doesn't get used much because, most of the time, the players are overpowering their opponents and they don't need the bonus to land hits.

But something I noticed a while back was when you announce that you're feinting, the opponent goes all-out-attack that same turn.

They KNOW they don't need to defend that round, because a feint isn't an actual attack, and they get a +4 to hit.  If they hit, the penalty from wounding the character doing the feint more that offsets the risk of a penalty to their defense next round.

That seems unclear to ME as I write it.

Turn 1:

NPC feints at Player.  Contest gets a -3 to the NPC's defense in turn 2.
Player all out attack (determined) the NPC scores 3 points of damage.

Turn 2:

NPC suffers effects of injuries, -3 to hit.  Misses.
Player has defenses again, at -3, but that doesn't matter because the NPC missed.

Thus nobody feints!

At least not when they have the initiative and move first.

If you go after the Player, then they have to decide to use all out attack BEFORE you announce your feint.

So to make this work, you have to take a wait maneuver to let them attack first.

If you've got good active defenses, like il Gatto, then this is a good plan. 

PS: Suddenly a lot of cinematic and SCA fights I've seen make more sense in gaming terms.  If there are numerous wait and feint maneuvers going on, that explains the circling each other slinging soliloquies!