Defensive Points (or DP) aka points of defensive potential are mentioned by Douglas Cole in his Aggressive Shield Use article at https://gamingballistic.com/2017/08/03/aggressive-shield-use-in-gurps/
Although the phrase appears in full later, the concept is alluded to through earlier statements:
- You’re skillfully using your weapon to cover lines of attack. This makes you harder to hit, assessing a flat-out penalty to the foe’s attack roll
This resembles Defensive Feints.
The use of points is first approached in "Making Skill Matter". With 3 approaches (margin, risk, or damage roll).
"Reason to Circle" allows benefits to accrue without commitment, and this is where points are first mentioned:
- successful “Shield Employment Attack” can be reflected by points, that can be used however you’d like at any moment
When moving from "Points are Obvious" to "Benefits to Evaluate" more extensive phrasing is used:
- if they Evaluate, maybe it’s a Contest of Weapon skill, and if you win, you can know how many points of defensive potential your opponent has. Maybe margin of success caps how many points you’re told. So win by 10, and if your opponent is wandering around with 10 or fewer defensive points, you know it. Win by 2, and is all you can see from your evaluation is either she has 0, 1, 2 or “2 or more” defensive points.