Over coming massive defense
Adam Griffith
defenses that make them virtually unhittable without a critical hit, which
is starting to bug me. I was thinking of instituting a rule that would
allow people with high weapon skill to execute tricky hits that are hard to
parry. I would let people attack at a penalty of their choosing, with a
defense penalty of -1/2 the attack penalty taken. Thus, if you have a skill
of 18 with a sword, you could choose to roll against a 14, and your opponent
would defend at -2.
Has anyone else tried anything similar, or dealt with this problem in
another way? Does anyone see any big problems such a rule might cause?
Adam
Amber, Dan, DARE, or Julie
>
> I am GMing my first GURPS campaign. A number of the characters have aquired
> defenses that make them virtually unhittable without a critical hit, which
> is starting to bug me. I was thinking of instituting a rule that would
> allow people with high weapon skill to execute tricky hits that are hard to
> parry. I would let people attack at a penalty of their choosing, with a
> defense penalty of -1/2 the attack penalty taken.
That's not a bad one, and IIRC it's in CII :) Another approach is to
have the more skilled character make extensive use of Feints. A third is
to use a Quick Contest, but that gets complicated.
- DARE, GURPSist extraordinaire and plenipotentiary
* "I never said it would be easy. I just said you would be well
rewarded."
* Hi! I'm a .sig virus! Join the fun and copy me into yours! :)
Jessie
feint will help lower the defenders chances of evading the attack. In
addition, off the wall attacks such as a slam or shield bash aren't
countered by someones parry skill. Are you running a Martial Arts campaign.
Adam Griffith <agr...@aa.net> wrote in message
news:38433...@huge.aa.net...
> I am GMing my first GURPS campaign. A number of the characters have
aquired
> defenses that make them virtually unhittable without a critical hit, which
> is starting to bug me. I was thinking of instituting a rule that would
> allow people with high weapon skill to execute tricky hits that are hard
to
> parry. I would let people attack at a penalty of their choosing, with a
Wrathchild
aquired
> defenses that make them virtually unhittable without a critical hit, which
> is starting to bug me. I was thinking of instituting a rule that would
> allow people with high weapon skill to execute tricky hits that are hard
to
> parry. I would let people attack at a penalty of their choosing, with a
> defense penalty of -1/2 the attack penalty taken. Thus, if you have a
skill
> of 18 with a sword, you could choose to roll against a 14, and your
opponent
> would defend at -2.
>
> Has anyone else tried anything similar, or dealt with this problem in
> another way? Does anyone see any big problems such a rule might cause?
>
> Adam
What exactly is causing the high defence numbers? Skill levels? Armour?
Magic? All of the above?
Wrath
Xplo Eristotle
Adam Griffith wrote:
>
> I am GMing my first GURPS campaign. A number of the characters have aquired
> defenses that make them virtually unhittable without a critical hit, which
> is starting to bug me. I was thinking of instituting a rule that would
> allow people with high weapon skill to execute tricky hits that are hard to
> parry. I would let people attack at a penalty of their choosing, with a
> defense penalty of -1/2 the attack penalty taken. Thus, if you have a skill
> of 18 with a sword, you could choose to roll against a 14, and your opponent
> would defend at -2.
It's a common sort of rule; one variation includes making the penalty to
defense automatic, so that instead of having to voluntarily reduce one's
effective skill, you just halve what they make their hit roll by and
apply that as a penalty to defense.
There are a couple consequences of this rule: first, it's fairly
realistic (as I can attest to personally), and it adds a tactical
element to choosing what hit location to aim for (if you use those
rules), since the easy targets are now even easier.
It's worth pointing out that, if the characters are being hunted or
ambushed, there are plenty of things that defense won't help against.
Large nets, poison gas, rockslides...
--
Xplo Eristotle
http://start.at/xplosion/
cra...@hotmail.com
"Adam Griffith" <agr...@aa.net> wrote:
> I am GMing my first GURPS campaign. A number of the characters
> have aquired defenses that make them virtually unhittable
> without a critical hit, which is starting to bug me. I was
> thinking of instituting a rule that would allow people with high
> weapon skill to execute tricky hits that are hard to parry. I
> would let people attack at a penalty of their choosing, with a
> defense penalty of -1/2 the attack penalty taken. Thus, if you
> have a skill of 18 with a sword, you could choose to roll against
> a 14, and your opponent would defend at -2.
>
> another way? Does anyone see any big problems such a rule might
> cause?
I'd nuke'em from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
But I don't use GURPS for low-tech fantasy settings, so
my solution might run into some implementation problems
in your campaign.
How about another area affect attack? Hand grenades?
Fireball spells? A good bath of hot oil or greek fire?
Are their defenses as effective against arrows and
other ranged attacks? A militia squad of archers
might ruin their day.
--
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
"It's Saddam. He doesn't nuture my emotions. He just
wants sex and can't learn to communicate." - Satan
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
tbone
"broken" in GURPS, precisely because defenses can get too high and
unwieldy. But it's not the skills that are the broken; the problem's a
lack of realistic actions on the part of fighters.
Feints are one realistic way to relieve the defense problem, and the rule
you describe is another vital (and IMO very good) solution.
I use the rule myself, and refer to the combat tactic as "fast blows",
for lack of a better name. If you want to read more on the topic, check
out the Appendix of Book 6 of my online GURPS supplement, GULLIVER.
There's a lot on solving the defense problem, from using common-sense
tactics (like Feints) to tweaking the rules to avoiding potential
pitfalls of those tweaks.
http://www.io.com/~tbone/gurps/
T. Bone
In article <38433...@huge.aa.net>,
"Adam Griffith" <agr...@aa.net> wrote:
> I am GMing my first GURPS campaign. A number of the characters have aquired
> defenses that make them virtually unhittable without a critical hit, which
> is starting to bug me. I was thinking of instituting a rule that would
> allow people with high weapon skill to execute tricky hits that are hard to
> parry. I would let people attack at a penalty of their choosing, with a
> defense penalty of -1/2 the attack penalty taken. Thus, if you have a skill
> of 18 with a sword, you could choose to roll against a 14, and your opponent
> would defend at -2.
>
> Has anyone else tried anything similar, or dealt with this problem in
> another way? Does anyone see any big problems such a rule might cause?
>
> Adam
Dan Desmarais
A number of the characters have aquired defenses that make them virtually
unhittable without a critical hit, which is starting to bug me.
<snip>
i hear you, brother. i've got the same problem, and i've got a 2 word
solution: Close Combat.
Slams, Flying Tackles, Grappeling, Takedowns, Pins, Armlocks (Oh God, Yes!)
a few of these manuvers and Mr. Uberfighter in the Magic Plate Mail isn't
looking so good.
not all PCs take Wrestling or Judo, but ALL my NPCs do!
Dan Desmarais
<grin>. Also, play the NPC orcs like they were PCs!
the best way to keep them in line is to only give the players a few points
at character creation. 100 points, plus 40 disadds and 5 quirks to start.
period. only magery 1 to start, or no magery at all to start (they REALLY
hate that). no magic items to start (and damn few after that). then, their
characters will not be able to have high all around stats or starting skills
in the high teens. even if one character does max out one stat and skill
(and at least one of them will), it will mean that character is a
one-trick-pony and won't be able to do anything else, like parlay or disarm
traps. (traps are cool, and orcs love to build traps...)
speaking of orcs... they are stupid, as a rule, but also as a rule they
have a very high survival instinct. they will never attack a party unless
they outnumber the adventurers at least 3:1. they always attack from
ambush. they always retreat down a path thick with traps (the rabbit snare
attached to a tree is an oldie but a goodie, but they aren't above using
pungi sticks) . they prefer to attack at range in teams of 3 with short
bows (that way, they can stager their shots and a team of 3 can get off 1
shot each turn). if adventurers close to H-T-H range, 2 of them will
grapple with the adventurer while one attacks with a short sword ("No, Mike,
most Orcs DON'T know Judo, but most Orcs DO know wrestling...(read up on the
close combat rules. it's the great equalizer)). by the way, because orcs
are stupid, they don't understand magic. orcs fear what they don't
understand. they also destroy what they don't understand. in a fight, the
mages die first.
so the thing to do will be to build quests that challenge the one-trick-pony
combat monster. lots of puzzles, traps and things that require stealth.
lots of encounters on the road with orcs that wear green berets and silver
winged broaches on their chests (sliver wings... upon their chest... these
are men... america's best...). then, the challenge will not be "how do i
stop them?", but "how do i keep them alive when the characters do stupid
things?" ("Your character does WHAT, Chris?")
the ONE thing that will give you trouble will be if they build characters
that are one-trick-ponies, but they all do different things. if one is a
stealth master, 2 are combat monsters and one is father fireball, then you
have the beginnings of a well rounded team. and if they start to pre-plan
and work together, well, the characters are on their way to greatness and
there's nothing you can do but make it an interesting climb.
"...pre-plan and work together..."? like that's ever going to happen. what
am i thinking?
phydaux
Doug M
2. You can't parry most spells. Spells can slow them down, blind them, mess
them up, etc.
3. A character with a high skill can get critical easier. Remember this.
Enemies can have highs skills, too. (My current GM always throws in another
weapons master, just to make things intersting for my weapon's master.)
4. Their enemies can have huge defenses, too. This will make fights much
slower.
5. No one is always dressed in armor all the time. Smart enemies will
exploit your weaknesses.
6. Nets, tables, tripwires, blindside attacks, wrestling, etc. These are
ways to negate armor. Same with knockdowns.
Remember. Be brutal.
Douglas
Adam Griffith <agr...@aa.net> wrote in message
news:38433...@huge.aa.net...
> I am GMing my first GURPS campaign. A number of the characters have
aquired
> defenses that make them virtually unhittable without a critical hit, which
Tom Knight
Adam Griffith wrote:
> I am GMing my first GURPS campaign. A number of the characters have aquired
> defenses that make them virtually unhittable without a critical hit, which
> is starting to bug me. I was thinking of instituting a rule that would
> allow people with high weapon skill to execute tricky hits that are hard to
> parry. I would let people attack at a penalty of their choosing, with a
> defense penalty of -1/2 the attack penalty taken. Thus, if you have a skill
> of 18 with a sword, you could choose to roll against a 14, and your opponent
> would defend at -2.
>
> Has anyone else tried anything similar, or dealt with this problem in
> another way? Does anyone see any big problems such a rule might cause?
>
Yes, this is one of the most common and widely accepted house rules around.
Another one which I like to use is adding 1 extra attack for every -3/-4/-5
(depending on cinematicness) taken to a weapon skill. Of course, if you are
going to use this, it's a good idea to ignore all of the other weird,
"official", high-skill effects that are used to try and patch the problem.
>
> Adam
Adam Griffith
Jessie <justj...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:81vk1m$2v6$1...@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net...
> When opposed by great defenses (as you will often find in Martial Arts), a
> feint will help lower the defenders chances of evading the attack. In
> addition, off the wall attacks such as a slam or shield bash aren't
> countered by someones parry skill. Are you running a Martial Arts
campaign.
Sort of. It's Swords and Sorcery fantasy, but I am using some of the
martial art stuff, although not chambara dodges.
> Adam Griffith <agr...@aa.net> wrote in message
> news:38433...@huge.aa.net...
> > I am GMing my first GURPS campaign. A number of the characters have
> aquired
> > defenses that make them virtually unhittable without a critical hit,
which
> > is starting to bug me. I was thinking of instituting a rule that would
> > allow people with high weapon skill to execute tricky hits that are hard
> to
> > parry. I would let people attack at a penalty of their choosing, with a
> > defense penalty of -1/2 the attack penalty taken. Thus, if you have a
> skill
> > of 18 with a sword, you could choose to roll against a 14, and your
> opponent
> > would defend at -2.
> >
> > Has anyone else tried anything similar, or dealt with this problem in
> > another way? Does anyone see any big problems such a rule might cause?
> >
> > Adam
> >
> >
>
>
Adam Griffith
Wrathchild <wrath...@get2net.dk> wrote in message
news:MMJ04.5$GH5...@news.get2net.dk...
> > I am GMing my first GURPS campaign. A number of the characters have
> aquired
> > defenses that make them virtually unhittable without a critical hit,
which
> > is starting to bug me. I was thinking of instituting a rule that would
> > allow people with high weapon skill to execute tricky hits that are hard
> to
> > parry. I would let people attack at a penalty of their choosing, with a
> > defense penalty of -1/2 the attack penalty taken. Thus, if you have a
> skill
> > of 18 with a sword, you could choose to roll against a 14, and your
> opponent
> > would defend at -2.
> >
> > Has anyone else tried anything similar, or dealt with this problem in
> > another way? Does anyone see any big problems such a rule might cause?
> >
> > Adam
>
> Magic? All of the above?
>
> Wrath
Pretty much all of the above. For example there is a character with 18
skill in fencing, and chain mail (PD 3). There is two parrys at 15 right
there. There is also a mage with a blink spell.
Adam
Adam Griffith
Necruar <nec...@tig.com.au> wrote in message
news:38448584...@tig.com.au...
> Doug M wrote:
>
> > 2. You can't parry most spells. Spells can slow them down, blind them,
mess them up, etc.
>
> spells basically useless.
I've used mages successfully against them, but they have to be really
powerful to be able to work well. The combination of most spells having
crappy range and long casting times can lead to your mages being chopped to
flinders if you aren't careful.
> > 4. Their enemies can have huge defenses, too. This will make fights much
> > slower.
>
> And more boring.
>
I agree.
> > 5. No one is always dressed in armor all the time. Smart enemies will
> > exploit your weaknesses.
>
> I wish you'd tell that to my group! When I was GM I used to not tell them
> about the negatives I'd put on them for wearing armour all the goddamn
> time. And they wondered why they couldn't hit yet got hit all the time!
> Serves 'em right, by that stage I'd told 'em enough times that Plate Mail
> isn't something you stroll around in regardless of your strength.
>
> > 6. Nets, tables, tripwires, blindside attacks, wrestling, etc. These are
> > ways to negate armor. Same with knockdowns.
>
> Knockdown is great, especially when two opponents are doing heaps of
damage
> and there are minuses on the DX roll!
Yes, there are a number of tricks to use. I just don't want to be stuck
with them all the time. I also don't want the party to feel like they can
push anyone around with impunity. If they pick the fight, it is often hard
to use traps and so forth on them.
>
Jessie
help. Just don't let the party walk all over you. Terrain is a great
weapon. Shields get tangled in bramble, bad footing on uneven terrain,
close combat, darkness, wind, fatigue. The more cinematic they get, the
more realistic you can get.news:38449...@huge.aa.net...
>
> Jessie <justj...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
> news:81vk1m$2v6$1...@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net...
> > When opposed by great defenses (as you will often find in Martial Arts),
a
> > feint will help lower the defenders chances of evading the attack. In
> > addition, off the wall attacks such as a slam or shield bash aren't
> > countered by someones parry skill. Are you running a Martial Arts
> campaign.
>
> Sort of. It's Swords and Sorcery fantasy, but I am using some of the
> martial art stuff, although not chambara dodges.
>
> > Adam Griffith <agr...@aa.net> wrote in message
> > news:38433...@huge.aa.net...
Necruar
> "...pre-plan and work together..."? like that's ever going to happen. what
> am i thinking?
ROFLMAO!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaaa...
Ahh, that was good, can you pull out another like that one?
N.
--
-128 point lamer...
Necruar
> 2. You can't parry most spells. Spells can slow them down, blind them, mess them up, etc.
Yeah but you can dodge them. And the Spell Throwing skills make long range
spells basically useless.
> 4. Their enemies can have huge defenses, too. This will make fights much
> slower.
And more boring.
> 5. No one is always dressed in armor all the time. Smart enemies will
> exploit your weaknesses.
I wish you'd tell that to my group! When I was GM I used to not tell them
about the negatives I'd put on them for wearing armour all the goddamn
time. And they wondered why they couldn't hit yet got hit all the time!
Serves 'em right, by that stage I'd told 'em enough times that Plate Mail
isn't something you stroll around in regardless of your strength.
> 6. Nets, tables, tripwires, blindside attacks, wrestling, etc. These are
> ways to negate armor. Same with knockdowns.
Knockdown is great, especially when two opponents are doing heaps of damage
and there are minuses on the DX roll!
> Remember. Be brutal.
This should be a cardinal rule for any GM...
Wrathchild
> skill in fencing, and chain mail (PD 3). There is two parrys at 15 right
> there.
Is he still only lightly encumbered? If any heavier, he cannot get the 2/3
parry. Chainmail? Hit him with spears. (PD 1, suddenly).
Fencing weapons? Check the weapon breakage rules.
> There is also a mage with a blink spell.
Ah. Not much to do about that, except change the rules. Blocking spells are
notoriously difficult (though IMO not unreasonable). The mage can only use
one pr. turn, though.
> Adam
Your rule suggestion seems ok, though I cannot comment on the realism of
it (others have, I believe). To stay within the rules, try hitting them with
many (even rather unskilled) opponents. IME GURPS advanced combat mimicks
the disadvantages of being outnumbered quite well <evil grin>;-)
Personally I (as a GM) try to work the tactical options that the combat
system gives - a lot of maneuvering for position (to the sides and rear...),
mixed melee and missile adversary groups, mages ... (!). And "mirror
images". If what the PC's do is effective others will do it as well (not
only because they do it, but because it will develop as general, cultural
fighting trends)
Wrath
Doug M
> with them all the time. I also don't want the party to feel like they can
> push anyone around with impunity. If they pick the fight, it is often
hard
> to use traps and so forth on them.
Each of your characters picked disads. If you do not enforce the disads, you
have given them free points.
When they attack unwitting people, how do they respond? Do they stay and get
slaughtered? Do they run away? Do the NPC's respond with common sense?
Ingenuity? Desperation? Beg for their lives?
Your characters should reap as they have sewn. They should bear the social
consequences of their actions.
If they are powerful enough, even greater powers may notice them. They may
find themselves with employers who they can't refuse? If they gain renown,
will every two-bit sword weilder challenge them in the streets? Will bounty
hunters start trailing them? Will some witch lay a curse on them?
These guys are giving you great excuses to think fun things up. Think up fun
things.
Douglas
Bryan J. Maloney
<BillS...@vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
> Hey, anyone know if Cyrano was in either of the Who's Who books and what
> his fencing skill was if so?
Cyrano isn't. But d'Artagnan in Swashbucklers has it at 18.
Bryan J. Maloney
> Sort of. It's Swords and Sorcery fantasy, but I am using some of the
> martial art stuff, although not chambara dodges.
Dude, you want to pick up Swashbucklers 3rd edition.
Bryan J. Maloney
> Pretty much all of the above. For example there is a character with 18
> skill in fencing, and chain mail (PD 3). There is two parrys at 15 right
> there. There is also a mage with a blink spell.
That character had better have a truly gawdawful ST, since the fencing
parry only applies at "none" or "light" encumbrance... Likewise, why
hasn't his weapon been breaking on a parry. Use flails against him--no
parry allowed for that skill with the standard GURPS weapons.
Wrathchild
>
> This should be a cardinal rule for any GM...
Man, you guy's are meeeeaaaannn ... ;-)
Wrath
Gregory L. Hansen
>I am GMing my first GURPS campaign. A number of the characters have aquired
>defenses that make them virtually unhittable without a critical hit, which
>is starting to bug me. I was thinking of instituting a rule that would
>allow people with high weapon skill to execute tricky hits that are hard to
>parry. I would let people attack at a penalty of their choosing, with a
>defense penalty of -1/2 the attack penalty taken. Thus, if you have a skill
>of 18 with a sword, you could choose to roll against a 14, and your opponent
>would defend at -2.
>
>Has anyone else tried anything similar, or dealt with this problem in
>another way? Does anyone see any big problems such a rule might cause?
I think the existing rules can get you out of this. There's always the
Feint. But I recommend using the optional Quick Contest rules -- match
attacker's and defender's weapons skills. The superior opponent will be
able to hit the inferior opponent more often as a matter of course, and
it's just silly for GURPS to treat defense as a constant probability
independent of the attacker's skill.
--
"That's not an avocado, that's a grenade!" -- The Skipper
Nana Yaw Ofori
says...
> You can only use one blocking spell a turn. Two guys with bows can
> handle such a wizard if he's a big problem. Failures of blocking spells
> are always spectacular, too. Just ask the guy from one game I was GMing
> whose Iron Arm spell failed when he was parrying the Battleax. They
> call him "Lefty" now. :-)
Hell, just All-Out Attack him. Go for the two attacks, and that'll
overload his Blocking-Spell based defense, easy. And if he's relying on
the Blocking Spell to keep himself safe, he won't be casting any other
nasty spells on you either, unless they're zero-time spells. (This, of
course, assumes he isn't doing something nasty like maintaining an Acid
Jet while you're in cobat with him)
He'll also have to make that Body Sense roll every turn to do anything
except defend on the turn after he Blinks.
Jared Thaler - PCD ~
:
:
: Pretty much all of the above. For example there is a character with 18
: skill in fencing, and chain mail (PD 3). There is two parrys at 15 right
: there. There is also a mage with a blink spell.
: Adam
:
:
I don't know the magic system well, so I'm not familiar with blink's effects,
but the fencer is just asking for bolts and arrows, (cannot parry, most fencers
don't carry shields, so no block, and the chain is PD1 vs piercing weapons.)
Charles Saeger
Gregory L. Hansen <glha...@steel.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote:
>In article <38433...@huge.aa.net>, Adam Griffith <agr...@aa.net> wrote:
>>I am GMing my first GURPS campaign. A number of the characters have aquired
>>defenses that make them virtually unhittable without a critical hit, which
>>is starting to bug me.
Boy, did you let things get out of whack!
>I think the existing rules can get you out of this. There's always the
>Feint.
Well, and a flamedrake. :-)
But seriously, Feint is unbelieveably overlooked. If you use the
high-skill feinting rules in CII, you can hit high-defence roll foes.
Example:
Young Crusader is fighting Veteran Saracen.
Both have ST 12, DX 12, IQ 10, HT 12 and carrying broadswords. At this
ST, a broadsword would do 2d damage.
The Crusader is wearing heavy-duty plate mail (PD 4, DR 7) and carrying a
kite shield (PD 3). He has Broadsword-12 and Shield-12. His best
defences are his Parry and his Block, both of which are 6, so his defence
roll is 13.
The Saracen is wearing leather armour (PD 2, DR 2). He has Broadsword-14
and Combat Reflexes. His best defence is his Parry, which is 8, and his
total defence roll is 10.
In a purely mathematical assessment of the battle, the Crusader would
slaughter the Saracen if both men just performed Step and Attack every
turn.
The Saracen's best option? On his first turn (he'd strike first, he's
carrying less), he Feints. He'd probably win the quick contest, as he has
Feint-16 versus Feint-12 for the Crusader. He then needs to hope that the
Crusader doesn't slash him to bits on the Crusader's turn.
Provided the Saracen won the above contest (probable) by a decent score
(if an average roll is a 10, he would beat his Feint-16 by 6 on average)
and didn't take much damage (Broadsword-12 hits about 75% of the time,
and he defends half of them, so he takes damage a little less than 3/8ths
of the time), he's in good position for his second turn.
--
Charles Saeger rasp...@visi.com
Writer, Cynic, ResEditor http://www.transdimnav.com
"Careful with that axe, Eugene." -- Pink Floyd
Paul T.
> > aquired
> > > defenses that make them virtually unhittable without a critical hit,
> which
would
> > > allow people with high weapon skill to execute tricky hits that are
hard
> > to
> > > parry. I would let people attack at a penalty of their choosing, with
a
> > > defense penalty of -1/2 the attack penalty taken. Thus, if you have a
> > skill
> > > of 18 with a sword, you could choose to roll against a 14, and your
> > opponent
> > > would defend at -2.
> > >
> > > Has anyone else tried anything similar, or dealt with this problem in
> > > another way? Does anyone see any big problems such a rule might
cause?
> > >
> >
> > What exactly is causing the high defence numbers? Skill levels? Armour?
> > Magic? All of the above?
> >
> > Wrath
>
> skill in fencing, and chain mail (PD 3). There is two parrys at 15 right
> there. There is also a mage with a blink spell.
Quick comment:
Someone with skill 18 quite definitely should be impossible to hit.
He's going to be an absolutely incredible swordsman.
If you need to humble him, either send a better or equal swordsman
against him (doing this often would probably be highly unrealistic)
or attacking him through other means. Pitfalls, spells, missile attacks...
Overbearing attacks (close combat) by several creatures. And, of
course, the best is to send against him a mediocre (for added insult)
warrior with plate mail and a morning star or flail, big shield, something
like Bloodlust, and a high HT score (perhaps some toughness along
with that)... First, the fencing weapon (whatever it is) will snap, if
he doesn't run, then...
Like I said, a quick comment. Nothing more.
P.
Simon
Adam Griffith wrote in message <38433...@huge.aa.net>...
>I am GMing my first GURPS campaign. A number of the characters have
aquired
>defenses that make them virtually unhittable without a critical hit, which
>is starting to bug me. I was thinking of instituting a rule that would
>allow people with high weapon skill to execute tricky hits that are hard to
>parry.
This sort of thing hasn't actually been a problem fr me - even though I have
met PC's "optimised" for defence. The way GURPS works, these PC's are
usually pretty vulnerable in some way.
IRL: whenever you find yourself way outmatched, you'll usually try to cheat.
Give the opponents creative and sneaky ways out. Let a major opponent
observe lackies getting chewed up then they can plausable hatch a devious
plan.
ie. if a PC has excellent parries which stop even bullits and magical
blasts - exploit that this is an active defence that can only be used
against a limited number of opponents at once... attack can come by surprise
from many different directions.
Think about it this way... imagine you had a high stakes chess game aganst a
grand master - you had to win (lets say your life depended on it or
something?) then you wouldn't just sit there like a schmuck would you? Nah -
you'd arrainge to unsettle him, murmer that you know about the bondage gear
at the back of the cupboard but you promise not to tell anyone... hire
people to threaten his family... kick him under the table... whistle
annoying ditties under your breath... and all his skill an experience at
chess wouldn't do him the slightest good.
If this dosn't inspire you - please e,ail with the details and I can even
produce a scenario that will make them think twice!
email: cor...@voyager.co.nz
Necruar
> Yes, there are a number of tricks to use. I just don't want to be stuck
> with them all the time. I also don't want the party to feel like they can
> push anyone around with impunity. If they pick the fight, it is often hard
> to use traps and so forth on them.
Which is why I still recommend using a 3d8 model and upping the average to
12 instead of 10. For me it fixes a lot of the things I dislike about GURPS
which gives me all the more reason to stick with it.
Necruar
> Is he still only lightly encumbered? If any heavier, he cannot get the 2/3
> parry.
Wha? Page number please!
> Ah. Not much to do about that, except change the rules. Blocking spells are
> notoriously difficult (though IMO not unreasonable). The mage can only use
> one pr. turn, though.
Yah, blocking spells are balanced enough, though they might provide a great
benefit it is usually just a once off and is very fatiguing. But I don't
think blink is a blocking spell, is it?
Wrathchild
>
> > Is he still only lightly encumbered? If any heavier, he cannot get the
2/3
> > parry.
>
> Wha? Page number please!
B50 - skill description, 3rd line of text.
>
> > Ah. Not much to do about that, except change the rules. Blocking spells
are
> > notoriously difficult (though IMO not unreasonable). The mage can only
use
> > one pr. turn, though.
>
> Yah, blocking spells are balanced enough, though they might provide a
great
> benefit it is usually just a once off and is very fatiguing. But I don't
> think blink is a blocking spell, is it?
>
Blink is the Blocking version of Teleport, yes.
Wrath
Adam Griffith
add that the problem is not that I am unable to challenge the players, but
that I am unhappy with the combat dynamic that allows people to fight
regular hand to hand without fear of injury. Rest assured that I have no
end of tricks to wreak havoc amongst them.
Adam
Simon <cor...@voyager.co.nz> wrote in message
news:WLl14.882$gb7....@ozemail.com.au...
Adam Griffith
>
> Someone with skill 18 quite definitely should be impossible to hit.
> He's going to be an absolutely incredible swordsman.
>
before. They beat me, but didn't shut me out. It is very hard to be
unhittable in combat.
> If you need to humble him, either send a better or equal swordsman
> against him (doing this often would probably be highly unrealistic)
> or attacking him through other means.
This is the essence of my problem. If I do this, they are just going to sit
there and parry eachother until everyone gets bored and falls asleep.
Pitfalls, spells, missile attacks...
> Overbearing attacks (close combat) by several creatures. And, of
> course, the best is to send against him a mediocre (for added insult)
> warrior with plate mail and a morning star or flail, big shield, something
> like Bloodlust, and a high HT score (perhaps some toughness along
> with that)... First, the fencing weapon (whatever it is) will snap, if
> he doesn't run, then...
Actually, the character in question has a sword enchanted to be unbreakable.
I have used flails to good effect though.
JefWilson
>Wrathchild wrote:
>
>> Is he still only lightly encumbered? If any heavier, he cannot get the 2/3
>> parry.
>
>Wha? Page number please!
B50, under Fencing skill, second paragraph. Fencing skill has some special
requirements that most combat/weapon skills do not.
Jeff Wilson
I was wondering about the chain mail.
http://members.aol.com/JefWilson/rpg/
Gregory L. Hansen
>
>>
>> Someone with skill 18 quite definitely should be impossible to hit.
>> He's going to be an absolutely incredible swordsman.
>>
>I have to disagree. I used to fence, and have fenced olympic fencers
>before. They beat me, but didn't shut me out. It is very hard to be
>unhittable in combat.
>
>> If you need to humble him, either send a better or equal swordsman
>> against him (doing this often would probably be highly unrealistic)
>> or attacking him through other means.
>
>This is the essence of my problem. If I do this, they are just going to sit
>there and parry eachother until everyone gets bored and falls asleep.
Use Quick Contests to resolve combats if your players don't mind a
mid-game rules change. Otherwise use a lot of Feints. If the Parry
skills are high enough, the bad guys shouldn't care much about losing an
attack for the opportunity to reduce his opponent's Parry.
> Pitfalls, spells, missile attacks...
>> Overbearing attacks (close combat) by several creatures. And, of
>> course, the best is to send against him a mediocre (for added insult)
>> warrior with plate mail and a morning star or flail, big shield, something
>> like Bloodlust, and a high HT score (perhaps some toughness along
>> with that)... First, the fencing weapon (whatever it is) will snap, if
>> he doesn't run, then...
>
>Actually, the character in question has a sword enchanted to be unbreakable.
>I have used flails to good effect though.
I really like that suggestion. An NPC with armor and a buckler. He
charges in, uses the buckler to block the one blow that the PC gets to
make before he closes, and then takes the PC to the ground.
Gregory L. Hansen
>Adam Griffith wrote:
>
>> This is the essence of my problem. If I do this, they are just going to sit
>> there and parry eachother until everyone gets bored and falls asleep.
>
>simply take PD out of the equation. Sure, it helps you by making blows
>glance off your armour and such but what does it *really* have to do Parrying?
It means you don't have to parry very well.
I think the system is fundamentally broken in this way. Defense should
not be an absolute, it should be relative to your opponent's skill. I
think that argues for Quick Contest. But then various skills like
Brawling and Karate, Broadsword and Fencing come in to much it up with
parries of 1/2 and parries of 2/3 and easy versus hard skills.
I really think there should be one unarmed hitting skill, call it Brawling
because it's P/E. And sword skills should be relative to weapon type, not
to style. A superior fighter, like Master Chai, will not have a "better"
skill, he'll have higher levels in the same old skills. Because fighting
skill, in the game, really means nothing more than how well you can hit
versus your opponent's ability to defend. I think GURPS suffers by having
functionally redundant skills for different styles, and I think the game
desigers have an over-idealized view of what fights look like to make a
distinction between things like Karate and Brawling.
Once the skills are normalized, attack/defense should be a Quick Contest
versus fighting skills, tie goes to the defender. Equal opponents should
get a hit in just less than 50% of the time. That's about right.
Amber, Dan, DARE, or Julie
<snip>
> I
> think that argues for Quick Contest. But then various skills like
> Brawling and Karate, Broadsword and Fencing come in to much it up with
> parries of 1/2 and parries of 2/3 and easy versus hard skills.
I think it was Preitsma who pointed this out to me: the 2/3 Parry is
usually accompanied by one difficulty increase, which for physical
skills always means a -1. So give them a +2 Parry in Quick Contest
resolution.
Come to think of it, Quick Contest resolution works even better if you
step back a bit and take out the player's skill. Use a three-second
turn, say, and roll the maneuvering and retreating and whatnot into the
Quick Contest. It's been a long time since I've used an official All-Out
Attack, but if it allows a Dodge I'd allow an attack without dodge for
the same attack rate as an AOA in normal GURPS.
One problem is one SJ or somebody mentioned, if you take too large a
turn you get weird map movement. This lead me to my Action Point system;
I don't know of any other good way to deal with it.
Has anybody tried any of this?
- DARE, GURPSist extraordinaire and plenipotentiary
* "The problem is that even if god is real, he can't be both rational
and transcendental."
* Hi! I'm a .sig virus! Join the fun and copy me into yours! :)
WHUTAGUY
posted:
>>Adam Griffith wrote:
>>
>>> This is the essence of my problem. If I do this, they are just going to
>sit
>>> there and parry eachother until everyone gets bored and falls asleep.
>>
>>Yes, this is a definite problem with the system. One suggestion is to
>>simply take PD out of the equation.
armors have a PD to speak of.
Sure, it helps you by making blows
>>glance off your armour and such but what does it *really* have to do
>Parrying?
It doesn't have anything to do with parrying, It has to do with not getting
injured.
>
>It means you don't have to parry very well.
>
>Once the skills are normalized, attack/defense should be a Quick Contest
>versus fighting skills, tie goes to the defender. Equal opponents should
>get a hit in just less than 50% of the time. That's about right.
>
Where did you get the idea that this is a correct figure? Have you watched any
actual fencing or karate matches. If 50% of the hits are landing, Fencing would
be 1 second bouts most of the time. They are not.
Whut
>
Of course I'm crazy, but that doesn't make me wrong
http://members.aol.com/WHUTAGUY/index.html updated 25 February 99.
Also http://www.geocities.com/area51/comet/5234 updated 25 February 99.
New!! http://members.about.com/whutaguy
Gregory L. Hansen
WHUTAGUY <whut...@aol.com> wrote:
>>glha...@steel.ucs.indiana.edu
>>Once the skills are normalized, attack/defense should be a Quick Contest
>>versus fighting skills, tie goes to the defender. Equal opponents should
>>get a hit in just less than 50% of the time. That's about right.
>>
>Where did you get the idea that this is a correct figure? Have you watched any
>actual fencing or karate matches. If 50% of the hits are landing, Fencing would
>be 1 second bouts most of the time. They are not.
I was looking for something fast and easy. Fighting in a game system has
to be abstracted a great deal. You cannot have a realistic blow-by-blow
fight, despite all the maneuvors and other things you might pull out of
the Martial Arts book. An appropriate attack always depends on what your
opponent is doing and how he is positioned, and usually depends on what
you've been doing because you're going to want to chose tactically
effective combinations, but role-playing games treat every attack as if it
were two guys facing off, each one attacks and defends, then the break and
face off again. If you want to call that "realistic", you're being silly.
Change the attack versus defense if you like. Maybe an attack has to
succeed by +2 to be a hit. Doesn't matter, as long as you keep it simple
and make a basic combat system that can be used even at high levels
without needing to pull out a bag of tricks.
Tom Knight
"Gregory L. Hansen" wrote:
>
I'd add that I hate PD as well. GURPS is a brilliant system, but then it has to go
and use something that's straight out of AD&D. I'm well aware that the ability to
deflect blows is an important part of armor, but this really should just be covered
by an increase in DR. I think your solutions are a little too drastic, though.
I've posted my solution ( optional -2 to skill for a -1 to your opponent's active
defense), which coupled with no PD means that I don't really have any problems.
However, I quite like the idea that two highly skilled warriors can remain locked
in combat for long periods. The skill levels at which it occurs are pretty
cinematic anyway, and the ongoing swordfight thing is a cinematic staple.
Xplo Eristotle
IMO, PD isn't an unrealistic, game-breaking evil; anyone with the right
kind of experience (ever try to stab a marble?) can tell you that it
exists. However, if I found that it was hurting my games (and so far, I
haven't, although I do generally reduce defense by half the hit margin
since I've experienced this effect first-hand), my first instinct would
be to reduce PD by half, rounding down; PD 3 for a steel suit isn't
unreasonable if everything else is in proportion, and it'd take some of
the edge off of those high defenses. If for some reason that didn't
work, I'd split defense into active and passive rolls.. although from
this POV, we can see that having two defense rolls is a cumbersome
mechanic and easily justifies combining the rolls into a single defense,
even if the official implementation is poor.
The main complaint seems to be that people with enough defense are
nearly impossible to hit reliably, but this is realistic; two
well-defended fighters of roughly equal skill can deliver over a dozen
blows each before someone gets one that really counts. The real problem
here lies not in GURPS' implementation but in the fact that combat can
sometimes be tedious if nothing happens to end it quickly.
--
Xplo Eristotle
http://start.at/xplosion/
Xplo Eristotle
Adam Griffith wrote:
>
> I want to thank everyone for their help. For the record, I would like to
> add that the problem is not that I am unable to challenge the players, but
> that I am unhappy with the combat dynamic that allows people to fight
> regular hand to hand without fear of injury. Rest assured that I have no
> end of tricks to wreak havoc amongst them.
Opponents with high skill should NOT be cookie-cutter tacticians.
Feinting, in particular, is something that offers no risk to the feinter
(except by allowing the opponent another attack), offers the chance to
reduce someone's defense by a significant margin if successful, and
hardly ever gets used. If the PCs armor is not insurmountable and his
opponent is also well-armored as well as fast, a runaround-type attack
might be feasable. Depending on the circumstances, various maneuvers or
dirty tricks might be applied to good effect, and then there's always
Close Combat if all else fails. Think like a player and find a solution.
Remember, what you call "regular hand-to-hand" is in fact a complicated
dance.. not two people swinging their arms like action figures. If you
haven't been including these alternate tactics as part of "regular
hand-to-hand", then the problem lies partly in your own interpretation.
I'm also curious as to why this is such a problem for you. Tell me, why
is it that people keep getting into fights with people who are clearly
very dangerous opponents? Do your PCs attack travellers? Are there
hordes of mindless, suicidal thugs coming after them in small batches at
a time? Are your PCs invading castles or bandit lairs or orc nests in
which there are no guards, no traps, and no warning shouts?
Adam Griffith
> >Once the skills are normalized, attack/defense should be a Quick Contest
> >versus fighting skills, tie goes to the defender. Equal opponents should
> >get a hit in just less than 50% of the time. That's about right.
> >
> Where did you get the idea that this is a correct figure? Have you watched
any
> actual fencing or karate matches. If 50% of the hits are landing, Fencing
would
> be 1 second bouts most of the time. They are not.
>
>
Actually, they are pretty close. Fencing matches are to 5 hits, and most of
the time is manuevering for position. The actual exchange of blows is very
fast, and someone is usually hit within a second or two.
Adam
Necruar
> This is the essence of my problem. If I do this, they are just going to sit
> there and parry eachother until everyone gets bored and falls asleep.
Yes, this is a definite problem with the system. One suggestion is to
simply take PD out of the equation. Sure, it helps you by making blows
glance off your armour and such but what does it *really* have to do Parrying?
Necruar
> desigers have an over-idealized view of what fights look like to make a
> distinction between things like Karate and Brawling.
No way is brawling anything like karate. There definetely has to be a
distinction between the two.
Necruar
> I'd add that I hate PD as well.
I don't hate PD, I just think it has absolutely nothing to do with ones
ability to Parry and therefore should not add to the Parry skill. This also
fixes the problem of people having high Parry skills in a limited scale
system where it is reletively easy to 'max out'.
Gregory L. Hansen
You either underestimate a brawler's fighting skills, or overestimate how
well a karateka can use good form in a fight. A punch is a punch, a parry
is a parry, and anyone can throw a front kick. A good brawler will pick
up technique, probably starting with boxing punches, and will impromptly
use things like knees and head butts that a karateka might train. Ever
listen to accounts of bar fights? Sometimes those brawlers can be quite
ingenious. And a karateka's form will degenerate quickly when a
screaming, cursing body smashes into him and they both go to ground. A
fight won't look like a sparring match.
It's a continuum between skilled and unskilled, and even making Karate a
P/H skill and Brawling a P/E puts the karateka at a disadvantage in the
beginning when it shouldn't -- learning a formal system of fighting
shouldn't make you *worse* at hitting your target than an untutored
brawler! The fact that attributes like aggression can be more important
than skill muddies it further. But in the end, for game purposes, what
does it matter if a karateka executes a perfect spinning heel kick, or if
a redneck just stomps on your knee? I think the only meaningful
definition of a skill in the game is what effect it has on the game. The
more skilled fighter can (probably) beat the less skilled fighter, period.
The difference between the karateka and the brawler is explained easily
enough by time spent training.
Having seperate Karate and Brawling skills seems to be more of an attitude
of having practiced karate, and not wanting to associate yourself with the
unwashed riff-raff. In real life America, those unwashed riff-raff can
often kick a black-belt's ass for reasons that have nothing at all to do
with skill, and more to do with aggression and the black belt not using
contact training. Bruce Lee once said that if he taught a boxer to defend
himself against kicks, the boxer would able to beat up most black belts.
And he did exactly that. That doesn't mean necessarily mean the black
belt is less skilled. But boxers usually have superior training, with a
strong emphasis on hitting things and being hit.
When training method are so much more important than the style you
practice, I'm more inclined to throw multiple fighting skills out the
window and just keep one (except for sport-specific skills like Boxing and
Judo and competition Karate).
Tom Knight
Xplo Eristotle wrote:
>
> IMO, PD isn't an unrealistic, game-breaking evil; anyone with the right
> kind of experience (ever try to stab a marble?) can tell you that it
> exists.
I would imagine that actually stabbing a marble would be no harder than stabbing, say, a
rubber ball of the same size. Damaging it would be more difficult, and this would be
handled by and increased DR. The things that currently give PD would be taken into
account, but deflection should be subsumed into DR, and not into active defenses.
Rupert boleyn
wrote:
>Yes, there are a number of tricks to use. I just don't want to be stuck
>with them all the time. I also don't want the party to feel like they can
>push anyone around with impunity. If they pick the fight, it is often hard
>to use traps and so forth on them.
Bear in mind that if you go round picking fights, sooner or later
you'll pick on someone better than you. This appies to the PCs, as
well. Also a weak enemy could well have friends in high places who can
make life miserable for you. It doesn't matter how good your defences
are if some snotty little clerk won't sign your entry visa.
--
Rupert Boleyn
"Who is your God?" - A PC making First Contact.
"He's not real, is he?" - Same PC's second question.
Rupert boleyn
Maloney) wrote:
>In article <38449...@huge.aa.net>, "Adam Griffith" <agr...@aa.net> wrote:
>
>> Pretty much all of the above. For example there is a character with 18
>> skill in fencing, and chain mail (PD 3). There is two parrys at 15 right
>> there. There is also a mage with a blink spell.
>
>That character had better have a truly gawdawful ST, since the fencing
>parry only applies at "none" or "light" encumbrance... Likewise, why
>hasn't his weapon been breaking on a parry. Use flails against him--no
>parry allowed for that skill with the standard GURPS weapons.
Or have a Ogre or giant swipe him :) Try parrying a 15 lbs club with a
smallsword.
Rupert boleyn
wrote:
>I want to thank everyone for their help. For the record, I would like to
>add that the problem is not that I am unable to challenge the players, but
>that I am unhappy with the combat dynamic that allows people to fight
>regular hand to hand without fear of injury. Rest assured that I have no
>end of tricks to wreak havoc amongst them.
It's not nearly so safe if your opponents out-number you. I remember
the first GURPS game I played in. We were chopping up encounters
nicely, and then we ran into a batch of Orcs - they out-numbered us,
so about half of us (all the warriors) were fighting two at once, and
they were stronger than most of us, which nicely countered the armour
we were wearing. We won, but it was messy.
BTW how well covered are your PC's? If you're using the rules for
individual piece armour the chances are that their hands don't as good
a PD as the rest of them has. Your more skilled opponents could make
aimed attacks at weak points. Sure they won't hit as often, but
they'll be harder to stop and the results should make up for it.
Paul T.
"Tom Knight" <kni...@planetoftheapes.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:384ABEC4...@planetoftheapes.freeserve.co.uk...
I second that. A blow glancing off armor to me is better represented by a
low damage
roll that doesn't make it past DR.
PD just causes too many problems--like the high defenses.
P.
Paul T.
"Adam Griffith" <agr...@aa.net> wrote in message
news:3849a...@huge.aa.net...
That's true in my experience as well. However, what about two people
swinging two-handed swords at each other? I'm not an SCA member
or anything like that, so I don't have first-person experience there, but
we have done that sort of thing with friends of mine
and wooden or padded weapons--you certainly don't hit someone 50%
of the time. On a slightly different note, however, I have to say that when
matched with someone of roughly equal skill, it's very easy to hit them
if you allow yourself to be hit in return. When we sparred with my friend
a few years ago, we would very often find ourselves with our (wooden)
swords at each other's throats at the same time.
P.
Jessie
between types of armor, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. And a
marble is a lot harder to stab than a rubber ball due to it's PD. (Good
analogy, btw)
Paul T. <danielha...@home.com> wrote in message
news:DOz24.18179$M%.135557@news.rdc1.wa.home.com...
prei...@my-deja.com
> practice, I'm more inclined to throw multiple fighting skills out the
> window and just keep one
I agree - what matters more is who's on the ground at the end, not how
the other guy put him there. A kick is a kick, whether you call it
fumakomi or layin' da boots.
I'd probably keep two skills, though - Striking and Grappling. IME,
they're different enough in practice and taught separately enough to
warrant this.
While we're on the subject, I'd probably shrink
Knife/Shortsword/Broadsword down to Knife/Sword - compare the range of
Shortsword to that of Axe/Mace.
> (except for sport-specific skills like Boxing and Judo and
> competition Karate).
Sport (Boxing), Sport (Judo), and so on. IMHO, this is very justified -
when I took Judo the instructors referred to it as _playing_ Judo.
The big difference between these and other sports is Sport
(Soccer/Football) doesn't give you much of a default to combat skills.
The skill _Football Fan_, on the other hand... ;)
-P
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Arne Jamtgaard
> Otherwise use a lot of Feints. If the Parry
> skills are high enough, the bad guys shouldn't care much about
> losing an attack for the opportunity to reduce his opponent's Parry.
And remember, during the turn an NPC feints, just say "He missed",
then resolve the feint the next turn. Otherwise you get the GM:
"He feinted you out of your socks." Player:"He did? Okay, I all-out
defend this turn." problem.
Arne
--
"If you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce, they
taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does." -Groucho Marx
Gregory L. Hansen
Bill Seurer <BillS...@vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
>X-no-archive: yes
>
>"Gregory L. Hansen" wrote:
>> I think the system is fundamentally broken in this way. Defense should
>> not be an absolute, it should be relative to your opponent's skill.
>
Feints, trapping, tactically clever combinations, attacking from funny
angles, sheer speed, and other methods of overcoming defenses that
shouldn't need to be defined should be rolled into the attack without
requiring a seperate maneuvor. A feint in real life is part of an attack,
not a distinct action that's done instead of an attack. And a skilled
fighter in real life will always be using them or other tricks when he
thinks it would help. It shouldn't have to be stated explicitly.
\
Jared Thaler - PCD ~
: "Adam Griffith" <agr...@aa.net> wrote in message
: news:3849a...@huge.aa.net...
:>
:> Actually, they are pretty close. Fencing matches are to 5 hits, and most
: of
:> the time is manuevering for position. The actual exchange of blows is
: very
:> fast, and someone is usually hit within a second or two.
: That's true in my experience as well. However, what about two people
: swinging two-handed swords at each other? I'm not an SCA member
: or anything like that, so I don't have first-person experience there, but
: we have done that sort of thing with friends of mine
: and wooden or padded weapons--you certainly don't hit someone 50%
: of the time. On a slightly different note, however, I have to say that when
: matched with someone of roughly equal skill, it's very easy to hit them
: if you allow yourself to be hit in return. When we sparred with my friend
: a few years ago, we would very often find ourselves with our (wooden)
: swords at each other's throats at the same time.
Actually, that's only true at lower skill levels (you see that in fencing
a lot at the beginning) My experience from fencing and some (informal)
kenjutso (with bokens) is that with either weapon, most of your time is
spent in manuvering, with short fluries of strikes, maybe a few seconds
at most after which you manuver for position again if noone got hit.
Actually what I found more common with boken was that one of us might
get a backhand scratch with the tip or take a light arm wound, but the
other person would be dead (no we didn't actually kill anyone, just thats
what the result would have been with a real katana at full power).
The key is,if your going to open yourself up to
make a strike, make sure it isn't a disabling one.) It is more a
matter of learning what you need to guard against and what you dont.
As for the time issue, boken aren't as fast as fencing sabers, (which
are much faster than the sabers the characters would be using) but it
is still VERY fast. other swords are slower but not by much. As
for SCA fighting, I would not use it as a guide, I certainly would
not use it as a guide for a fencing style. From what I've seen it
seems more of the "muscle your way through" or "swing fast from a bunch
of different directions" school. basicly applying muscle and speed
rather than timing. (yes thre are exceptions to this, but.) The result
is that there are a LOT of blows which don't land and there is more
a continueous rain of blows rather that manuvering.
Tom Knight
Necruar wrote:
> "Paul T." wrote:
>
> > I second that. A blow glancing off armor to me is better represented by a
> > low damage roll that doesn't make it past DR.
>
> Nooooo. You've got to keep DR low otherwise you get ridiculous results,
> like crossbow bolts being unable to penetrate leather armour.
>
As opposed suddenly become far more able to dodge blows once you put on a
leather jacket? I'm not advocating fiddling with DR (though I may add an extra
point or two when I think it's needed). In reality, I suspect that the way in
which armor stops blows is a complex mixture of deflection and absorption, so
we may as well treat than as the same thing under GURPS. Anyway, it's not as
if PD really adds anything to the rules.
>
> > PD just causes too many problems--like the high defenses.
>
> Not if you use my two sugesstions it doesn't.
>
> N.
> --
> -128 point lamer...
>
> http://homepages.tig.com.au/~itzu/ttos.html
Necruar
> I second that. A blow glancing off armor to me is better represented by a
> low damage roll that doesn't make it past DR.
Nooooo. You've got to keep DR low otherwise you get ridiculous results,
like crossbow bolts being unable to penetrate leather armour.
> PD just causes too many problems--like the high defenses.
Necruar
>
> > practice, I'm more inclined to throw multiple fighting skills out the
> > window and just keep one
>
> I agree - what matters more is who's on the ground at the end, not how
> the other guy put him there. A kick is a kick, whether you call it
> fumakomi or layin' da boots.
I wrote a very long explanation as to why this isn't so. However Nutscrape
crashed on me and I lost it.
So, suffice it to say that I doubt either of you have ever been in a
streetfight (where it's literally do or die) or done any *real* (in the
sense that your trainer is serious and not just after a quick buck and
therefore doesn't elevate you to black belt within a few weeks) martial arts.
Necruar
> Feints, trapping, tactically clever combinations, attacking from funny
> angles, sheer speed, and other methods of overcoming defenses that
> shouldn't need to be defined should be rolled into the attack without
> requiring a seperate maneuvor.
This is a very AD&Dish attitude. Are you going to next suggest using a one
minute combat turn? :)
Necruar
> As for the time issue, boken aren't as fast as fencing sabers, (which
> are much faster than the sabers the characters would be using) but it
> is still VERY fast. other swords are slower but not by much.
This is something that, up until now, I hadn't noticed was missing from
GURPS. One of the optional rules I always liked was the weapon speed rules
in AD&D (yes, there are a few good things but, like windows, the overall
implementation sucks).
IMO most weapons wouldn't affect ones speed but for initiative purposes I
believe that a person wielding a lighter, less cumbersome weapon than his
opponent would recieve a benefit.
One could introduce an optional rule whereby you place a bonus or a penalty
on various weapons (-2 to +2) to represent their ease or difficulty of use
in terms of manuevering.
Paul T.
"Gregory L. Hansen" <glha...@steel.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote in message
news:82gqcu$ilc$3...@flotsam.uits.indiana.edu...
> In article <384BDE9C...@vnet.ibm.com>,
> Bill Seurer <BillS...@vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
> >X-no-archive: yes
> >
> >"Gregory L. Hansen" wrote:
> >> I think the system is fundamentally broken in this way. Defense should
> >> not be an absolute, it should be relative to your opponent's skill.
> >
> >That's the way the system already works. It's called a "feint".
>
> angles, sheer speed, and other methods of overcoming defenses that
> shouldn't need to be defined should be rolled into the attack without
> not a distinct action that's done instead of an attack. And a skilled
> fighter in real life will always be using them or other tricks when he
> thinks it would help. It shouldn't have to be stated explicitly.
But isn't it fun to add that tactical feel to combat?
If you're playing very combat-light, and you want quick and abstract
fights, just use quick contests.
P.
Paul T.
"Necruar" <nec...@tig.com.au> wrote in message
news:384BDD40...@tig.com.au...
> "Paul T." wrote:
>
> > I second that. A blow glancing off armor to me is better represented by
a
> > low damage roll that doesn't make it past DR.
>
> Nooooo. You've got to keep DR low otherwise you get ridiculous results,
> like crossbow bolts being unable to penetrate leather armour.
I'm not saying we should push up the DR.
I'm just saying that a light or glancing hit is already represented by
low damage rolls. And armor that deflects blows easily but doesn't
protect very well can be simulated just as well by two separate "levels"
of DR. For example, such a suit of armor muight have DR 5/20. This
means that all hits doing up to 20 points of damage are deflected
automatically, while any hit doing over 20 points of damage is only
reduced by 5. Granted, this has some limitations, but they are certainly
not any greater than the problems brought up by PD.
For example--a character in ultra-tech armor can easily have a dodge
defense of 11 or 12. Not only does that cause game imbalance for
obvious reasons, but there is no reason why this character should be
more capable to dodge a 1,000 lb rocket coming at him, for example.
Likewise, there is no reason the armor should make a huge difference
against weapons that are supposed to cut through armor like butter--
like weapons with DR divisors of 100 or so.
Well, enough ranting.
P.
Gregory L. Hansen
>
>> practice, I'm more inclined to throw multiple fighting skills out the
>> window and just keep one
>
>I agree - what matters more is who's on the ground at the end, not how
>the other guy put him there. A kick is a kick, whether you call it
>fumakomi or layin' da boots.
A point I forgot to make is that if you teach a brawler some karate kicks,
he suddenly has the option of using them. And I shouldn't think he'd use
them at his lower Karate skill if he did use them, because he also has the
option of not using them if he thinks his old way of fighting would work
better. He just plain becomes a more effective fighter, and GURPS can't
represent that with two different skills.
>I'd probably keep two skills, though - Striking and Grappling. IME,
>they're different enough in practice and taught separately enough to
>warrant this.
Me, too.
>While we're on the subject, I'd probably shrink
>Knife/Shortsword/Broadsword down to Knife/Sword - compare the range of
>Shortsword to that of Axe/Mace.
I'm not so sure about that. Compare a short sword style like Kali to
styles that use longer swords. Kali has a lot of fakes, twirls, and
flourishes that are only possible because the sword or stick is small. It
moves very quickly; by design, it moves almost faster than the eye can
follow. But that's a different kind of short sword than the European ones
that bash armor.
>> (except for sport-specific skills like Boxing and Judo and
>> competition Karate).
>
>Sport (Boxing), Sport (Judo), and so on. IMHO, this is very justified -
>when I took Judo the instructors referred to it as _playing_ Judo.
>The big difference between these and other sports is Sport
>(Soccer/Football) doesn't give you much of a default to combat skills.
I don't know about that. I'd hate to have a soccer/football player kick
me in the stomache.
Judo tries very hard to not be associated with fighting. Somebody skilled
at a true combat art like silat tends not to do well in sport grappling,
because silat depends too much on hitting the opponent to get a favorable
movement or reaction out of him. And I don't think it's strong on good,
safe moves like the hip throw.
>The skill _Football Fan_, on the other hand... ;)
"We went to the fights, and then a game broke out on the field!"
Gregory L. Hansen
>prei...@my-deja.com wrote:
>>
>> > practice, I'm more inclined to throw multiple fighting skills out the
>> > window and just keep one
>>
>> I agree - what matters more is who's on the ground at the end, not how
>> the other guy put him there. A kick is a kick, whether you call it
>> fumakomi or layin' da boots.
>
>
>
>crashed on me and I lost it.
>
>So, suffice it to say that I doubt either of you have ever been in a
>streetfight (where it's literally do or die) or done any *real* (in the
>sense that your trainer is serious and not just after a quick buck and
>therefore doesn't elevate you to black belt within a few weeks) martial arts.
Does it matter? Sounds to me like you think the streetfighter would win.
I guess the streetfighter must have a higher fighting skill.
For what it's worth (and I don't think it really matters) my brother's
school is very good. Half the class are bouncers, police men, or
security. They take notes and use the stuff they learn at work. The head
instructor gives seminars around the world, teaches fighting to FBI and
Mounties, has bodyguarding and bouncing experience, and judging from his
anecdotes has seen no shortage of fights. The other instructor I've seen
was a street fighter before he trained in JKD and became an instructor.
They don't give belts.
Wrathchild
Necruar <nec...@tig.com.au> skrev i en
nyhedsmeddelelse:384C63DA...@tig.com.au...
> Jared Thaler - PCD ~ wrote:
>
> > As for the time issue, boken aren't as fast as fencing sabers, (which
> > are much faster than the sabers the characters would be using) but it
> > is still VERY fast. other swords are slower but not by much.
>
> This is something that, up until now, I hadn't noticed was missing from
> GURPS. One of the optional rules I always liked was the weapon speed rules
> in AD&D (yes, there are a few good things but, like windows, the overall
> implementation sucks).
This does seem to be implemented in the Time to ready rules. You could
argue, that they are grainy, but they're there. Coupled with the ST demands,
though, I'd say that the graininess gets finer.
> IMO most weapons wouldn't affect ones speed but for initiative purposes I
> believe that a person wielding a lighter, less cumbersome weapon than his
> opponent would recieve a benefit.
Again, don't overlook ST demands, as well as the superior defensive value of
many light weapons (which is what this thread is originally about...)
> One could introduce an optional rule whereby you place a bonus or a
penalty
> on various weapons (-2 to +2) to represent their ease or difficulty of use
> in terms of manuevering.
Yep, this could be done.
Wrath
Wrathchild
> I am GMing my first GURPS campaign. A number of the characters have
aquired
> defenses that make them virtually unhittable without a critical hit, which
> is starting to bug me. I was thinking of instituting a rule that would
> allow people with high weapon skill to execute tricky hits that are hard
to
> parry. I would let people attack at a penalty of their choosing, with a
> defense penalty of -1/2 the attack penalty taken. Thus, if you have a
skill
> of 18 with a sword, you could choose to roll against a 14, and your
opponent
> would defend at -2.
>
> Has anyone else tried anything similar, or dealt with this problem in
> another way? Does anyone see any big problems such a rule might cause?
>
> Adam
>
To me, Feinting is the important thing in close combat. Also, you might want
to check out the Combinations optional rule from Martial Arts (as well as
several maneuvers, who are basically feint/attack combo's).
A lot of the argumentation in the thread has AFAICS been based on Sports
Fencing. I'd disregard it if I were you. I've done Sports Karate myself, and
the simple truth is, that these styles of fighting are designed to help you
score points in a contest - not avoid being hit the next spilt second. It's
kinda like All-out
attacking ;-)
But then again, if your solution turns out to be fun, do it.
Wrath
Andrew Priestley
Bill Seurer wrote:
> X-no-archive: yes
>
> Necruar wrote:
> > This is something that, up until now, I hadn't noticed was missing from
> > GURPS. One of the optional rules I always liked was the weapon speed rules
> > in AD&D (yes, there are a few good things but, like windows, the overall
> > implementation sucks).
> >
> > IMO most weapons wouldn't affect ones speed but for initiative purposes I
> > believe that a person wielding a lighter, less cumbersome weapon than his
> > opponent would recieve a benefit.
> >
> > One could introduce an optional rule whereby you place a bonus or a penalty
> > on various weapons (-2 to +2) to represent their ease or difficulty of use
> > in terms of manuevering.
>
> But you also have to include the reach of the person and the weapon into
> that if you are going to go this way.
>
> A dagger may be really fast but if your foe has a halberd and you are a
> few yards away the speed of the dagger isn't going to help much.
>
> And if we both have the same weapon if my arm is longer I have an edge
> on you (all else being equal).
Or a point in them as the case may be. ;^)
Iceman
Adam Griffith
opponent.
Adam
Bill Seurer <BillS...@vnet.ibm.com> wrote in message
news:384BDE9C...@vnet.ibm.com...
> X-no-archive: yes
>
> "Gregory L. Hansen" wrote:
> > I think the system is fundamentally broken in this way. Defense should
> > not be an absolute, it should be relative to your opponent's skill.
>
> That's the way the system already works. It's called a "feint".
> --
>
> Bill Seurer Compiler Development IBM Rochester, MN
> Bill_Seurer AT us.ibm.com Bill AT seurer.net
> http://www.seurer.net/ (replace " AT " with "@" to email me)
prei...@my-deja.com
> > I second that. A blow glancing off armor to me is better represented
> > by a low damage roll that doesn't make it past DR.
>
> Nooooo. You've got to keep DR low otherwise you get ridiculous
> results, like crossbow bolts being unable to penetrate leather armour.
You may be missing the point. He's essentially defining a glancing blow
as one that doesn't penetrate the armour, not suggesting higher DR
values.
For example, if Bob swings at Jim and hits, but only rolls 2 damage and
hence fails to penetrate Jim's hard leather, either (a) it was a weak
swing or (b) it was a glancing blow. It doesn't really matter which it
was - it's enough to know that it contacted the body but didn't make it
through the armour.
IMHO, this gives as much realism and detail as using PD as well, but is
simpler and causes less problems - YMMV.
As well, this fixes the problem with guns vs. armour. Currently, a
simple leather jacket raises a typical character's Dodge'n'Drop from 9
to 10, somehow deflecting 1/6 of all bullets. Using only DR, though,
that .45 bullet just isn't going to glance off the leather jacket -
it'll hardly notice it.
FWIW, those who punt PD might wish to raise parries to 3+skill/2 and
fencing/karate/staff parries to 4+skill/2 - this gives parries of 9-11
for typical combatants. Shields grant cover, of course.
prei...@my-deja.com
> A point I forgot to make is that if you teach a brawler some karate
> kicks, he suddenly has the option of using them. And I shouldn't
> think he'd use them at his lower Karate skill if he did use them,
> because he also has the option of not using them if he thinks his old
> way of fighting would work better. He just plain becomes a more
> effective fighter, and GURPS can't represent that with two different
> skills.
Sorta - he could roll against his Brawling to punch and Karate to kick,
but that doesn't represent an integrated fighting ability.
I wonder how to do boxing-trained fighters with 1 skill. The
alternatives seem to be generic hits, where it's assumed the character
makes the best attack possible given the circumstances, or limited
skills, where the boxer has, say, -20% cost-to-buy but has to buy off
all or part of that limitation in order to kick effectively.
Probably the former would be fine for most games and the latter for more
combat-intensive ones.
> >While we're on the subject, I'd probably shrink
> >Knife/Shortsword/Broadsword down to Knife/Sword - compare the range
> >of Shortsword to that of Axe/Mace.
>
> I'm not so sure about that. Compare a short sword style like Kali to
> styles that use longer swords. Kali has a lot of fakes, twirls, and
> flourishes that are only possible because the sword or stick is small.
> It moves very quickly; by design, it moves almost faster than the eye
> can follow. But that's a different kind of short sword than the
> European ones that bash armor.
So it would probably use Knife skill for that. AFAIK, Kali is used with
various knives up through machetes, all of which are fairly light and
quick. The line blurs a mite between long knives and short swords, but
no more than between long knives, short shortswords, long shortswords,
and short longswords...
That, and do different Kali techniques have to be learned for long vs.
short blades, or is there a fair amount of retraining? If not, it might
be more realistic to have just the small/light vs. large/heavy blade
distinction.
Valorian Callocholon
> You may be missing the point.
Yah, this I did.
> For example, if Bob swings at Jim and hits, but only rolls 2 damage and
> hence fails to penetrate Jim's hard leather, either (a) it was a weak
> swing or (b) it was a glancing blow. It doesn't really matter which it
> was - it's enough to know that it contacted the body but didn't make it
> through the armour.
Ok, I like this now. I think I'll tell my GM, give it a playtest.
Simon
regestered yet. Oh well...
Adam Griffith wrote in message <38433...@huge.aa.net>...
>I am GMing my first GURPS campaign. A number of the characters have
aquired
>defenses that make them virtually unhittable without a critical hit, which
>is starting to bug me. I was thinking of instituting a rule that would
Well... your kicking yerself now! How did this happen?
>allow people with high weapon skill to execute tricky hits that are hard to
>parry. I would let people attack at a penalty of their choosing, with a
>defense penalty of -1/2 the attack penalty taken. Thus, if you have a
skill
>of 18 with a sword, you could choose to roll against a 14, and your
opponent
>would defend at -2.
Which is an interesting idea... which egnored the physical basis for skills.
You'd be better off executing feints.
It's OK as a quick cinematic fix. The way GURPS has been going, you may find
it in the next compendium even. However - ingenuity is usually the best way
around these things.
The direct approach: a critical occurs about 2% of the time (minimum) so
just hearding them into the line of fire of 100 archers will do the trick.
They are not going to be immune to ALL attacks. Like an enemy could arrainge
to have one of them seduced and strike at the moment of passion... or
slipping poison into their food is a method favoured by my old girlfreind
Lucretia.
I've found most defences have to be switched off sometime. Any enemy who is
defeated but not killed may decide to study them forst before taking
revenge.
It is also possible to attack them indirectly by undermining their
reputation in their community - I bet their defences don't work against an
organised smear campaign.
Whenever I have had trouble like this, I found the best way was to have a
small side game with another group... where the villain had the
characteristics I wanted to overcome and the players had to overcome them.
In the end I would have a set of tools to try out.
Happy hunting.
cor...@voyager.co.nz
Valorian Callocholon
>
> Does it matter? Sounds to me like you think the streetfighter would win.
> I guess the streetfighter must have a higher fighting skill.
Yeah, it does sorta. A martial art; and I wouldn't call brawling either an
art or very martial; is *very* different from brawling. You simply *cannot*
put them in the same category. Experience in both would give you an
advantage in a streetfight but at the end of the day; if the martial artist
is prepared to do whatever it takes to win, which is the attitude of most
brawlers; then I'd place bets on the martial artist winning.
The problem in the system is a problem in the system. My recommendation is
that if you are going to use martial arts in the game then fix it by
defining the arts *further* not by grouping them together into one big ole
skill. You could give a karate person either extra attacks or bonuses to
certain manauvers (the best system I've ever seen for martial arts was
actually in Cyberpunk which does exactly this) which reflect the style of
the art.
For instance, every 3 levels of skill above 12, i.e. 15, 18 gives a +1 to
certain manauvers. For karate you could get a bonus to kicking, punching
and dodging but not grappling or holds. For Judo you could give the bonus
to grappling and holds but nothing else, for Tae Kwon Do you could give the
bonus to kicking straight away (at level 12) and delay the punching bonus
until level 18.
These bonuses are exactly that, bonuses. They are not paid for as extras
because the increased ability is already reflected in the increased cost to learn.
This is a fix and represents reality. Brawlers are brawlers, skill does not
really come into it.
> security. They take notes and use the stuff they learn at work. The head
> instructor gives seminars around the world, teaches fighting to FBI and
Yeah, so he's teaching martial arts. What's that got to do with the price
of cheese in Bulgravia though?
> They don't give belts.
Good, belts are a lame system developed more as a money making idea than
anything else. Judo is a sport and that is where the belt system comes
from. In traditional karate there was only ever white and black.
Valorian Callocholon
> >I agree - what matters more is who's on the ground at the end, not how
> >the other guy put him there. A kick is a kick, whether you call it
> >fumakomi or layin' da boots.
A kick is definetely *NOT* just a kick. I garuntee you that there is a
major difference in a brawlers kick and a karate kick and, for that matter,
a big difference between a kung fu kick and a karate kick.
If anything I'd get rid of the ridiculous rules for falling over if you're
kicking someone using a martial art but would keep them for brawling. A
brawler is a wanker whereas a martial artist is a *trained* wanker.
> A point I forgot to make is that if you teach a brawler some karate kicks,
> he suddenly has the option of using them. And I shouldn't think he'd use
> them at his lower Karate skill if he did use them, because he also has the
> option of not using them if he thinks his old way of fighting would work
> better. He just plain becomes a more effective fighter, and GURPS can't
> represent that with two different skills.
You don't know how to do a karate kick by simply being shown once or seeing
it in the movies. If that person puts time and effort into learning that
kick then they should get a corresponding bonus as I have listed elsewhere
in this thread. But I wouldn't give that person a separate skill in karate,
they are not learning karate, they are learning a karate kick, *HUGE*
difference. Therefore I'd simply say that they are putting points toward
the kicking manuever in brawling.
> >While we're on the subject, I'd probably shrink
> >Knife/Shortsword/Broadsword down to Knife/Sword - compare the range of
> >Shortsword to that of Axe/Mace.
Wha???? Wielding a knife is *NOTHING* like wielding a sword. Sheesh.
Jessie
Valorian Callocholon <nec...@tig.com.au> wrote in message
news:384DDFD1...@tig.com.au...
I think you're missing the point that the skill in GURPS called Karate is
not a Martial Art.
It is only the representation of "scientific" kicking and punching.
Teaching a Brawler how to kick, and therefore where to kick, will also
confer the knowledge of where to punch, justifying the difference and
therefore increased difficulty in the skill. If he is positioning his body
in such a way to execute "scientific" kicking and punching he only gets one
parry, if he's standing like an Ogre and "Brawling" he actually gets 2
parrys (at 2/3) skill. Making a Brawler much harder for a Karateka to make
contact with, but when he hits (all other things being equal) he will
average more damage.
Gregory L. Hansen
Valorian Callocholon <nec...@tig.com.au> wrote:
>"Gregory L. Hansen" wrote:
>>
>
>> Does it matter? Sounds to me like you think the streetfighter would win.
>> I guess the streetfighter must have a higher fighting skill.
>
>Yeah, it does sorta. A martial art; and I wouldn't call brawling either an
>art or very martial; is *very* different from brawling. You simply *cannot*
>put them in the same category. Experience in both would give you an
>advantage in a streetfight but at the end of the day; if the martial artist
>is prepared to do whatever it takes to win, which is the attitude of most
>brawlers; then I'd place bets on the martial artist winning.
According to everything I've heard, technique breaks down faster than
you'd think possible in a real all-out fight. No situation in a fight is
going to be the way you drilled it. But a situation in a fight will come
up that looks familiar, and you'll be able to do something with it.
Combine that with the fact that good brawlers really do know how to punch
and kick. And that you might learn a dozen martial arts and use elements
from any of them in a fight -- you don't fight with a dozen martial arts,
you fight with your own personal style that draws from a dozen martial
arts plus your own inspiration. Consider the neophyte martial artist --
he'll look a lot more like brawling than martial arts in a fight, even
though the game says he has the Karate skill, not Brawling.
Savate grew up from street fights in France. Jailhouse boxing looks
amazingly like a crude form of wing chun. Brawlers like to use knees and
headbutts, and especially the punch-the-gut-and-knee-the-face combination.
Martial artists specifically train exactly the same thing. Skilled
brawlers tend to use boxing punches, and spend some time practicing them,
and most martial artists also use boxing punches. (Unskilled brawlers
tend to flail. But that's an aspect of skill, not style.) To make
a distinction between brawling and formal training is artificial, and does
little more than to give practicing martial artists a reason to say "But I
have the Karate skill, not the Brawling skill." Every hitting style in
GURPS is rolled up into the Karate skill. Brawling is just one more
style.
Consider Thai boxing. It's another art that would be called Karate, but
they only have about eight techniques. That hardly puts them above
Brawling! But they train those techniques brutally and learn to do very
clever things with them. Consider any martial artist that creates his own
style -- he still gets Karate, not Brawling, even though every Brawler is
using his own personal, non-formalized style. The major difference between
a martial artist and a brawler seems to be that the martial artist
specifically sets aside large chunks of time to train, while it is assumed
that the brawler doesn't. Spend the time, get the character points, buy
up your skill. What if the brawler sets aside large chunks of time to
train? Suddenly he's no longer a brawler, but a martial artist with his
own style.
GURPS is the only game I know of that makes a distinction between
brawling and karate. Call of Cthulhu has a karate skill, but as I recall,
that only modifies your fighting skills, not replace them. And I can't
help thinking that people saying there should be two seperate skills have
internalized the rules and are now trying to justify them.
>The problem in the system is a problem in the system. My recommendation is
>that if you are going to use martial arts in the game then fix it by
>defining the arts *further* not by grouping them together into one big ole
>skill. You could give a karate person either extra attacks or bonuses to
>certain manauvers (the best system I've ever seen for martial arts was
>actually in Cyberpunk which does exactly this) which reflect the style of
>the art.
>
>For instance, every 3 levels of skill above 12, i.e. 15, 18 gives a +1 to
>certain manauvers. For karate you could get a bonus to kicking, punching
>and dodging but not grappling or holds. For Judo you could give the bonus
>to grappling and holds but nothing else, for Tae Kwon Do you could give the
>bonus to kicking straight away (at level 12) and delay the punching bonus
>until level 18.
Doesn't the Martial Arts book already do this? Every martial arts style
is defined by a relative importance of Karate and Judo, plus a set of
requied and recommended maneuvors, and a set of required and recommended
auxiliary skills. Capoeria would be Karate and Dance, for instance.
One reason I don't like having seperate skills for each style is because
there's so darn much overlap. Once you learn boxing punches, you've
learned a significant portion of most living martial arts around the
world. Once you've learned kicks in Tae Kwon Do, the kicks of most other
martial arts will be minor variations of that. All grappling arts have a
lot of elements in common because they all use the same principles of
leverage and power, they all work the same joints and nerves. I've seen
similar grappling techniques show up in Judo, Hapkido, and my brother's
JKD class. And I know half of Hapkido looks a lot like Aikido.
In my brother's class we once learned a really cool takedown from Tai Chi.
The partner punched and we did an entry, then put an arm here, a
leg there, and the hips right here. Twitch, and the partner falls on his
ass hard! Those that practiced it enough to use it (not me) would not
have 1/2 point in Tai Chi. But it would give them another option in a
fight, they'd be free to use it whenever they thought it would help,
they'd become better fighters. You don't need to know the style in order
to learn a maneuvor from the style.
>This is a fix and represents reality. Brawlers are brawlers, skill does not
>really come into it.
If skill does not really come into it, then the brawlers have a low
fighting skill. How much simpler can it be?
>> security. They take notes and use the stuff they learn at work. The head
>> instructor gives seminars around the world, teaches fighting to FBI and
>
>Yeah, so he's teaching martial arts. What's that got to do with the price
>of cheese in Bulgravia though?
I don't know. But I was asked.
>> They don't give belts.
>
>Good, belts are a lame system developed more as a money making idea than
>anything else. Judo is a sport and that is where the belt system comes
>from. In traditional karate there was only ever white and black.
In really, really traditional karate, didn't a black belt mean you
practiced a lot and got mud and grass stains and sweat on it?
Gregory L. Hansen
>
>> A point I forgot to make is that if you teach a brawler some karate
>> kicks, he suddenly has the option of using them. And I shouldn't
>> think he'd use them at his lower Karate skill if he did use them,
>> because he also has the option of not using them if he thinks his old
>> way of fighting would work better. He just plain becomes a more
>> effective fighter, and GURPS can't represent that with two different
>> skills.
>
>but that doesn't represent an integrated fighting ability.
That's sorta my point. It should be an integrated fighting ability,
because the brawler knows about how well he can kick, and he'll pretty
much know if he should use it. And despite the opinions some other people
might have, most martial arts techniques really aren't very hard to learn.
Except for the spinny, acrobatic moves, and some joint locks and
takedowns (grappling does seem harder than hitting), most are really quite
easy to learn. Doing them well is just a matter of putting in the time to
drill them.
>> >While we're on the subject, I'd probably shrink
>> >Knife/Shortsword/Broadsword down to Knife/Sword - compare the range
>> >of Shortsword to that of Axe/Mace.
>>
>> I'm not so sure about that. Compare a short sword style like Kali to
>> styles that use longer swords. Kali has a lot of fakes, twirls, and
>> flourishes that are only possible because the sword or stick is small.
>> It moves very quickly; by design, it moves almost faster than the eye
>> can follow. But that's a different kind of short sword than the
>> European ones that bash armor.
>
>So it would probably use Knife skill for that. AFAIK, Kali is used with
>various knives up through machetes, all of which are fairly light and
>quick. The line blurs a mite between long knives and short swords, but
>no more than between long knives, short shortswords, long shortswords,
>and short longswords...
>That, and do different Kali techniques have to be learned for long vs.
>short blades, or is there a fair amount of retraining? If not, it might
>be more realistic to have just the small/light vs. large/heavy blade
>distinction.
Weapon length does make a big difference, but there are certain "themes"
that occur again and again. Like a parry with one hand, hit the bicep
with the other. It can be done with two sticks, one stick, a stick and
a knife, one knife, or no weapons. Each version needs to be practiced,
but the tactic translates. More important than practicing with the
different weapons, I think, is practicing with a partner that has the
different weapons! When you stick to traditional Kali weapons, I think
the differences in defending against various weapons are more important
than the differences in attacking with various weapons.
Bryan J. Maloney
> Then it shouldn't be called Karate, it should be called Analysis of Kicking
> and Punching with Practical Approaches.
Virtually EVERYTHING about the GURPS combat system is a mess. I used to
think it was realistic--then I actually began studying combat skills.
--
"NASA": From the Attic Greek for "oopsie".
Adam Griffith
> X-no-archive: yes
>
> Adam Griffith wrote:
> >
> > Feints aren't all that useful if you don't have a higher skill than your
> > opponent.
>
> chance of improving your chance to hit every other round wheras if your
> foes is very skilled you may have almost no chance without a feint.
> --
It depends. If you are high enough in skill so that your chance of getting
a critical is pretty good, it may hurt you more to give up those extra blows
than to gain the possibility of lessening your opponent's defense. I don't
really want to figure out the math right now, but if your opponent has got a
skill of 2 points higher than you or so, then your chance of beating him in
a contest is probably something like 25%. If his defense is high enough so
that a -1 isn't going to do you a whole lot of good, then the feint is
really only going to do you a lot of good even less often. In some
circumstances you are no doubt right though. Perhaps some time I will do
the math and figure out when (and If) feinting stops being useful.
Necruar
> I think you're missing the point that the skill in GURPS called Karate is
> not a Martial Art.
No dude, *you're* missing the point. I was simply saying that if Karate in
GURPS is misrepresented, as I think it is, then change the way it works so
as it isn't. I suggested a way to do so.
> It is only the representation of "scientific" kicking and punching.
Then it shouldn't be called Karate, it should be called Analysis of Kicking
and Punching with Practical Approaches.
Necruar
> According to everything I've heard, technique breaks down faster than
> you'd think possible in a real all-out fight. No situation in a fight is
> going to be the way you drilled it. But a situation in a fight will come
> up that looks familiar, and you'll be able to do something with it.
It doesn't matter that the situation isn't exactly the same as in the
practice room. The fact that you have trained against an opponent and thus
had experience in using your manuevers and improvising them as well as
having those manuevers ingrained upon your mind means that you will be able
to call upon that, instinctively, whatever the situation.
> Combine that with the fact that good brawlers really do know how to punch
> and kick. And that you might learn a dozen martial arts and use elements
See, this is where I think we have a different opinion of what a brawler
is. The fact that you think a brawler has learnt a dozen different elements
of martial arts says to me that our definitions of brawling are far, far,
different. To me, a brawler is nothing more than a pub fighter, someone
that used to bully people at school and got into a few fights here and
there. Maybe they've made a living out of that skill and so become bouncers
or whatever.
In your example of a brawler I would no longer consider them to *be* a
brawler but rather a martial artist. To me, a martial artist is anyone that
takes their martial skills seriously and studies in the use of those
skills. This would then be my defining point, that a brawler picks stuff up
whereas a martial artist trains and studies.
> a distinction between brawling and formal training is artificial, and does
> little more than to give practicing martial artists a reason to say "But I
> have the Karate skill, not the Brawling skill." Every hitting style in
> GURPS is rolled up into the Karate skill. Brawling is just one more
> style.
This is like saying, "Physics can be learnt without a teacher so why bother
going to CERN." There is a vast difference between knowledge aquired
through experience and knowledge gained through learning from a teacher.
GURPS represents this in the rules so I still don't understand why you
can't see a difference.
Question: have you trained in any martial art?
Question: have you ever been in a brawl?
Question: have you ever been in a streetfight?
No offense, but if you can't answer yes to any of these then your opinion
is just that, an opinion.
To me there is a great difference between a brawler (in my definition) and
a martial artist and the fact that this isn't represented in GURPS very
well is a mistake on their part. If you want realism then I'd suggest using
the optional rule I provided earlier, if you want a quick system then go
your way.
> Consider Thai boxing. It's another art that would be called Karate, but
> they only have about eight techniques. That hardly puts them above
> Brawling! But they train those techniques brutally and learn to do very
> clever things with them.
Exactly. And that is the difference between a brawler and a martial artist.
The brawler doesn't train or learn from a master. A brawlers only learning
environment is in a brawl. If a brawler begins training with other brawlers
then they become a martial artist through that training.
> Consider any martial artist that creates his own
> style -- he still gets Karate, not Brawling, even though every Brawler is
> using his own personal, non-formalized style.
Creating your own style isn't a simple matter of sitting down and drawing
diagrams (unless you're Bruce Lee who I'd call more of an artist than a
martial anything, oops, hope I didn't offend any fans :)
> The major difference between
> a martial artist and a brawler seems to be that the martial artist
> specifically sets aside large chunks of time to train, while it is assumed
> that the brawler doesn't. Spend the time, get the character points, buy
> up your skill. What if the brawler sets aside large chunks of time to
> train? Suddenly he's no longer a brawler, but a martial artist with his
> own style.
Hey... wait a sec, that's what *I* said! So... err... if you are of the
same opinion, then what's your problem?
> GURPS is the only game I know of that makes a distinction between
> brawling and karate.
Cyberpunk (R.Talsorian) did a great job of representing martial arts which,
as I mentioned earlier, could easily be transported to GURPS.
> Doesn't the Martial Arts book already do this? Every martial arts style
> is defined by a relative importance of Karate and Judo, plus a set of
> requied and recommended maneuvors, and a set of required and recommended
> auxiliary skills. Capoeria would be Karate and Dance, for instance.
Don't know, I don't have the MA book. But if that's how they do it then
quite frankly that sucks.
> One reason I don't like having seperate skills for each style is because
> there's so darn much overlap. Once you learn boxing punches, you've
> learned a significant portion of most living martial arts around the
> world.
NO WAY! Having done a few different martial arts I can say, without doubt,
that there is a great deal of difference between kicking, punching,
blocking, dodging, manuevering and stance between the styles. It's part of
the reason that I love freeform MA which incorporates all the different
styles. Wing Chun for instance is speedy and *can* be powerful but a karate
kick is *far* more effective in terms of power because of the way in which
you kick. Tae Kwon Do punches are reletively weak which is why it is more
of a kicking art. When you know lots of different ways of doing something
you have a huge advantage in a fight because a) you can adapt to almost any
situation and b) your understanding of the principles of each manuever,
i.e. kick, punch, block, is far more profound and therefore you can
improvise with a greater degree of skill.
> leverage and power, they all work the same joints and nerves. I've seen
> similar grappling techniques show up in Judo, Hapkido, and my brother's
> JKD class. And I know half of Hapkido looks a lot like Aikido.
Ok, sure, there are similarities but the differences are still there.
> ass hard! Those that practiced it enough to use it (not me) would not
> have 1/2 point in Tai Chi. But it would give them another option in a
> fight, they'd be free to use it whenever they thought it would help,
> they'd become better fighters. You don't need to know the style in order
> to learn a maneuvor from the style.
Err... yeah, I know this which is why I recommended using that other system
> In really, really traditional karate, didn't a black belt mean you
> practiced a lot and got mud and grass stains and sweat on it?
Don't know but it sounds cool! Hmm... I might use that in a game. I've
already adapted something the ninjas used to do for one of my religions.
They used to soak garments in pomegranate juice and dry them (where the
black uniforms came from only Hollywood knows). This would colour them to
something akin to dried blood so that if they were injured it would not
show up as readily and thus they would not be questioned. It also hardened
the garment and added to protection. Tre cool!
Necruar
> Virtually EVERYTHING about the GURPS combat system is a mess. I used to
> think it was realistic--then I actually began studying combat skills.
Lololol.
Ah well, it's still one of the best out there though: the only other one
that I could claim was in any way realistic was R.Talsorians Cyberpunk, but
that was also what I'd call a mess of a system.
The question is, what can we do about it?
I'm currently working on my new website. One particular section is for
gaming and has a section within it for 'house' rules. If you come up with
anything that improves on the 'realism' in GURPS then I'd like to hear
about it so as I can add it to the section.
Geoffrey Brent
> > practiced a lot and got mud and grass stains and sweat on it?
Argh! WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM!
;-)
Urban myth. I don't have the relevant books handy (isn't
this one covered in GURPS MA?) but there are two very
strong arguments against it:
(1) Japanese culture tends to value cleanliness very highly.
'Dirty clothes = status symbol' seems very unlikely to me.
(2) Coloured belts were not _used_ in 'really really
traditional karate'. IIRC, the system of coloured belts
is only about a hundred years old, having been invented
by Jigoro Kano (founder of judo) and then borrowed by
various other styles.
> Don't know but it sounds cool! Hmm... I might use that in a game. I've
> already adapted something the ninjas used to do for one of my religions.
> They used to soak garments in pomegranate juice and dry them (where the
> black uniforms came from only Hollywood knows).
The explanation I've heard, which may or may not be
urban myth: in Kabuki theatre, prop handlers/scene
shifters/etc wore all-black outfits, much as they
do today in theatre all around the world. It doesn't
exactly make them invisible, but it makes them easier
to ignore, and by convention you do ignore them.
So, when ninja were represented in kabuki, they wore
the same outfit to signify that they were invisible.
Accounts of what ninjas _really_ wore vary widely -
since there's a lot of interest but not much real
information about the ninja, people fill the gaps
with invention :-) But the one I find most plausible
is that ninja tended to wear the same clothes as
normal people, because disguising themselves as Joe
Average was generally a better tactic than trying to
avoid being seen. By preference, picking a social
class that nobody wanted to get too close to... yes,
it's the old 'disguised as a leper' tactic.
> This would colour them to
> something akin to dried blood so that if they were injured it would not
> show up as readily and thus they would not be questioned. It also hardened
> the garment and added to protection. Tre cool!
Hmm. I've heard that khaki was favoured for (Western)
military uniforms because bloodstained khaki looks the
same as wet khaki - thus, soldiers can't see how badly
they may have been wounded. Again, may be just urban
myth. But it seems unlikely that ninja would wear a
'uniform' once that uniform was known - if we've heard
about it, presumably Japanese guards etc would have
heard about it too.
(Plus, we all know what red shirts mean :-)
Geoffrey Brent
Gregory L. Hansen
>"Bryan J. Maloney" wrote:
>
>> Virtually EVERYTHING about the GURPS combat system is a mess. I used to
>> think it was realistic--then I actually began studying combat skills.
>
>Lololol.
>
>Ah well, it's still one of the best out there though: the only other one
>that I could claim was in any way realistic was R.Talsorians Cyberpunk, but
>that was also what I'd call a mess of a system.
>
>The question is, what can we do about it?
To be really honest, I'm not sure I want to do anything about it. I can
complain long and loud about how detailed GURPS combat doesn't imply
realistic GURPS combat. But modifying it can be a pain, it's only
effective if you're the GM, and may affect other peripherally related
actions. In the end, I think there's some merit to the "Shut up and
roll!" approach.
Gregory L. Hansen
>"Gregory L. Hansen" wrote:
>
>> According to everything I've heard, technique breaks down faster than
>> you'd think possible in a real all-out fight. No situation in a fight is
>> going to be the way you drilled it. But a situation in a fight will come
>> up that looks familiar, and you'll be able to do something with it.
>
>It doesn't matter that the situation isn't exactly the same as in the
>practice room. The fact that you have trained against an opponent and thus
>had experience in using your manuevers and improvising them as well as
>having those manuevers ingrained upon your mind means that you will be able
>to call upon that, instinctively, whatever the situation.
At least, that's the goal. One's training can break down rapidly in a
real fight. But I have heard about one guy, I forget his name, who had
sort of reached the state of martial artist nirvana where he had entirely
internalized his fighting system and acted instinctively. He had
participated in numerous death matches, brawls, and so on, and another
fellow wanted to record his style. So he asked him "What would you do
against a straight punch?" and was told "I don't know." He had so
thoroughly reached that state of instinct that he didn't know how he'd
respond to an attack until the attack came! So they had a student feeding
him attacks and the responses were recorded.
>Question: have you trained in any martial art?
Orange belt in hapkido, experience in some of everything my brother does
which is more the jeet kune do/kali/silat/savate thing. Juvenile karate.
Read some of the literature, heard some lectures and war stories.
>Question: have you ever been in a brawl?
No.
>Question: have you ever been in a streetfight?
Yes.
>No offense, but if you can't answer yes to any of these then your opinion
>is just that, an opinion.
>Creating your own style isn't a simple matter of sitting down and drawing
>diagrams (unless you're Bruce Lee who I'd call more of an artist than a
>martial anything, oops, hope I didn't offend any fans :)
Bruce was a really interesting case in that he set down a *theory* of
fighting. The body of techniques that existed when he died was the
current implementation of that theory. Since then jeet kune do has split
into two camps, the "Bruce Lee fan club" that insists it must be practiced
just as Bruce Lee left it (which I believe is exactly what Lee wanted not
to happen), and the other led by Dan Inosanto that continues to evolve
JKD. I think limb destructions from Kali were added by Inosanto's crowd,
for instance, to the displeasure of the fan club.
>> The major difference between
>> a martial artist and a brawler seems to be that the martial artist
>> specifically sets aside large chunks of time to train, while it is assumed
>> that the brawler doesn't. Spend the time, get the character points, buy
>> up your skill. What if the brawler sets aside large chunks of time to
>> train? Suddenly he's no longer a brawler, but a martial artist with his
>> own style.
>
>Hey... wait a sec, that's what *I* said! So... err... if you are of the
>same opinion, then what's your problem?
My problem is just that the brawler should be represented by a lower level
of the same skill, not an entirely seperate skill. It seems to me that
the major difference between a guy that trains and a guy that gets all his
experience in bar fights is that the latter doesn't put in enough hours to
get many points to spend.
>> Doesn't the Martial Arts book already do this? Every martial arts style
>> is defined by a relative importance of Karate and Judo, plus a set of
>> requied and recommended maneuvors, and a set of required and recommended
>> auxiliary skills. Capoeria would be Karate and Dance, for instance.
>
>Don't know, I don't have the MA book. But if that's how they do it then
>quite frankly that sucks.
I don't have it, either, which is one reason I don't like a combat system
that virtually requires maneuvors at a certain level.
>> One reason I don't like having seperate skills for each style is because
>> there's so darn much overlap. Once you learn boxing punches, you've
>> learned a significant portion of most living martial arts around the
>> world.
>
>NO WAY! Having done a few different martial arts I can say, without doubt,
>that there is a great deal of difference between kicking, punching,
>blocking, dodging, manuevering and stance between the styles. It's part of
>the reason that I love freeform MA which incorporates all the different
>styles. Wing Chun for instance is speedy and *can* be powerful but a karate
>kick is *far* more effective in terms of power because of the way in which
>you kick.
Compare the kicks of karate, savate, tae kwon do, hapkido, thai boxing,
and I'm sure you can find others. Of course there are differences. But
in the realm of the karate-class kicks, those differences are fairly
minor. In tae kwon do, a front kick hits with the ball of the foot. In
Shorin-Rye karate it hits with the heel. Big deal. If you know one
martial art, it's easier to learn another.
I put in the specification "living martial art" because I'm talking about
martial arts that I feel would be covered by the GURPS Karate skill. That
is, martial arts learned by people that want to kick ass and kill, who
have no interest in sport, competition, or culture. Around the world,
people that fight "for real" tend to use boxing punches because boxing
punches are good enough that they made a lot of traditional techniques
obsolete. So those techniques were discarded and the better punches
adopted. And the people that really depended on the arts just didn't
complain much about maintaining the tradition.
>Tae Kwon Do punches are reletively weak which is why it is more
>of a kicking art. When you know lots of different ways of doing something
>you have a huge advantage in a fight because a) you can adapt to almost any
>situation and b) your understanding of the principles of each manuever,
>i.e. kick, punch, block, is far more profound and therefore you can
>improvise with a greater degree of skill.
That's exactly why I wouldn't like to see a seperate skill representing
each martial art. If you put 8 points into savate and get a skill of 13,
then put 8 points into silat for a skill of 13, you should be fighting
better than a skill 13 fighter.
>> leverage and power, they all work the same joints and nerves. I've seen
>> similar grappling techniques show up in Judo, Hapkido, and my brother's
>> JKD class. And I know half of Hapkido looks a lot like Aikido.
>
>Ok, sure, there are similarities but the differences are still there.
Sure, the differences are there. That's why they're known by different
names. But I've seen *identical* techniques taught in the context of
various arts! But my point all along is that the body of techniques
shouldn't determine the fighting skill in an RPG. How well you can kick
ass, regardless of technique, should determine your fighting skill. And
it's been shown often enough that technique is relatively unimportant
compared to training methods. Most boxers can beat up most black belts.
Why? Boxers train by hitting each other!
Here's an example from my own experience. In a hapkido class I was
rocking on the heavy bag, and a brown belt asked me how I hit so hard. I
told her what I could, and she tapped the bag and her wrist caved in.
That's another reason it bothers me to see formal training under the
superior skill Karate while brawlers get the low-class skill. What good
is it going to do you if you can't punch? My friend the bar brawler could
kick her ass (although he wouldn't). A lot of martial artists
(mostly karate, I think) spend a lot of time hitting the air. They don't
have a clear idea what it's like to hit something solid, they haven't
conditioned their muscles to deliver the damage and to take it. And their
technique may look perfect, but only hitting something solid will help you
to "get it", the connection that starts at your feet and goes all
the way out to your fist, bringing almost every muscle in your body behind
the blow. Heck, I think a lead-hand backfist feels pretty strong when I
hit the air, but it's about the weakest strike you can throw! Much weaker
even than a boxing jab.
>Don't know but it sounds cool! Hmm... I might use that in a game. I've
>already adapted something the ninjas used to do for one of my religions.
>They used to soak garments in pomegranate juice and dry them (where the
>black uniforms came from only Hollywood knows). This would colour them to
>something akin to dried blood so that if they were injured it would not
>show up as readily and thus they would not be questioned. It also hardened
>the garment and added to protection. Tre cool!
Hardened? Would the garment rustle?
A friend said the black outfits were picked up in kabuki theater. The
stage hands wore "ninja outfits" to blend in with the background, and also
to give the audience the message "We're just stage hands, ignore us."
Amber, Dan, DARE, or Julie
>
> "Gregory L. Hansen" wrote:
> > Combine that with the fact that good brawlers really do know how to punch
> > and kick. And that you might learn a dozen martial arts and use elements
> In your example of a brawler I would no longer consider them to *be* a
> brawler but rather a martial artist. To me, a martial artist is anyone that
> takes their martial skills seriously and studies in the use of those
> skills. This would then be my defining point, that a brawler picks stuff up
> whereas a martial artist trains and studies.
Actually, it seems like you're not making that distinction. He's
suggesting a brawler is best modeled by someone with only a few points
in hand-to-hand skill, and a martial artist as someone with tons of
points in it. Otherwise, you have people with 1600 hours in Brawling;
what is that, if not someone who's trained and studied brawling? If you
roll hand-to-hand into one skill, as barfighter who puts that much time
in has become a martial artist.
BTW, I do like your CP-based system. I can't judge its realism, but it
has great flair.
- DARE, GURPSist extraordinaire and plenipotentiary
* Pseudocognointellecualism: The use of long and complex words to make
something sound more scientific.
* Hi! I'm a .sig virus! Join the fun and copy me into yours! :)
prei...@my-deja.com
> > >I agree - what matters more is who's on the ground at the end, not
> > >how the other guy put him there. A kick is a kick, whether you
> > >call it fumakomi or layin' da boots.
>
> A kick is definetely *NOT* just a kick. I garuntee you that there is a
> major difference in a brawlers kick and a karate kick and, for that
> matter, a big difference between a kung fu kick and a karate kick.
And between a Shotokan-karate roundhouse and Goju-karate roundhouse and
a Chito-karate roundhouse and...
But the _effect_ is the same - "guy thumps guy with foot". That the
appearances or even implementations are different doesn't really matter
- they still do essentially the same thing.
> If anything I'd get rid of the ridiculous rules for falling over if
> you're kicking someone using a martial art but would keep them for
> brawling. A brawler is a wanker whereas a martial artist is a
> *trained* wanker.
Meaning the difference is the number of points invested in the skill,
rather than the nature of the skill. The stereotypical brawler relies
on natural strength, resilience, aggression, and speed, while the
stereotypical martial artist relies more on skill. This is easily
modelled by give the martial artist a higher skill rather than a
different one.
Additionally, if a martial artist spends some time brawling, he'll
become a better fighter: his Sport(Karate) skill might not improve, but
his Striking skill _will_ - more practice = better at it. Giving him
some points in Brawling doesn't model this - his Brawling is still lower
than his Karate, and so doesn't help him at all.
Alternatively, if "trained in a martial style" vs. "trained by
experience" are different skills for unarmed combat, why not for
Broadsword? Or for Axe? Or for any of the other weapons which had
formal schools of training?
The important part is "can you hit the other guy without letting him hit
you?" This is represented by levels in the skill, not by different
skills.
> > >While we're on the subject, I'd probably shrink
> > >Knife/Shortsword/Broadsword down to Knife/Sword - compare the range
> > >of Shortsword to that of Axe/Mace.
>
> Wha???? Wielding a knife is *NOTHING* like wielding a sword. Sheesh.
Which is why I suggested two skills.
Note that Kali is usually used with knives, but can be used with sticks
or blades ranging from a few inches up to machetes (defined as
shortswords in GURPS). That huge retraining isn't necessary to go from
one to another suggests that (a) a very small Knife<->Shortsword default
should exist or (b) some longer blades can be used similarly to knives.
Since Shortsword skill covers weapons from 1-2 feet long and more than a
few knives fall within this range, a lot of the lighter Shortsword
weapons can easily be taken into the Knife skill, and probably should
be.
What's left to Shortsword isn't much - just the longer, heavier blades.
Moving these into the Broadsword skill isn't unreasonable, especially
given the breadth of other skills - Axe/Mace covers everything from a
small hatchet to a 5-pound mace to a 3-foot axe, and these don't handle
the same.
Nis Haller Baggesen
> Xplo Eristotle wrote:
>
> >
> > IMO, PD isn't an unrealistic, game-breaking evil; anyone with the right
> > kind of experience (ever try to stab a marble?) can tell you that it
> > exists.
>
> I would imagine that actually stabbing a marble would be no harder than stabbing, say, a
> rubber ball of the same size.
A better analogy might be the difference between stabbing a D4 nad stabbing a D6. the D4 is
sloped, so you'd propably end up with a knife mark in you table, even if you hit the damn
thing, where as the D6 won't deflect a blow. Since the D4 propably wasn't dodging, it must
have used a passive defence.
You might still prefer to model it as DR of course.
mvh
Nis
Gregory L. Hansen
>"Gregory L. Hansen" wrote:
>
>> Compare the kicks of karate, savate, tae kwon do, hapkido, thai boxing,
>> and I'm sure you can find others. Of course there are differences. But
>> in the realm of the karate-class kicks, those differences are fairly
>> minor. In tae kwon do, a front kick hits with the ball of the foot. In
>> Shorin-Rye karate it hits with the heel. Big deal. If you know one
>> martial art, it's easier to learn another.
>
>the heel use completely opposite muscles in the calf to do so. As for
Yes. Big deal. If you can do one, it's very easy to learn the other.
You just do the same thing but adjust your foot position on the way in.
Don't even tell me it's a big deal because I've practiced both and find
the difference to be trivial! And in savate you'd always chamber your
knee as high as you can, even if you're kicking low. Again, big deal.
You've already developed the balance, conditioned the muscles, and gone
through the basic movement a thousand times. Putting minor variations to
the technique doesn't mean you need to start over from the beginning.
>knowing one martial art making it easier to learn another there are schools
>of thought were one is required to *forget* everything they have previously
>learnt so as to be able to learn another art. But that's another point
>altogether.
There's ethnocentrism in martial arts, no doubt about it. Their art is
special, it is not like any other, and no previous experience will help
you learn it. But they're wrong. I'll bet they have mystical chi power,
too.
Well, I guess I shouldn't be quite so hasty. I had learned the karate
style reverse punch from the hip early on, and for a long time I think
that was holding me up on boxing punches. The karate style has a wide
stance and gives you a feeling of pushing forward when you punch. Boxers
have a narrow stance and you should be getting a feeling of twisting when
you punch. But, hey, now I can do both. And boxing punches have always
been difficult for people to learn, so I'm not sure how much karate was
holding me back.
>> That's exactly why I wouldn't like to see a seperate skill representing
>> each martial art. If you put 8 points into savate and get a skill of 13,
>> then put 8 points into silat for a skill of 13, you should be fighting
>> better than a skill 13 fighter.
>
>Ok, so what's to be done about it? You answered in another post that
>nothing should be done but IMO that doesn't help anyone. I like fiddling
>with the rules and the fact that SJ incorporates some of these ideas into
>the official books means everyone can benefit from the discussions here.
Well, I did say I'd like a single hitting skill. I think that's
reasonable. As for stylistic variations, I'm really not sure what a good
thing to do about that is. Maybe some sort of maneuvor system like you
suggested. Maybe "phantom skills" where you put 8 points into savate to
represent the technical skills you've picked up and another 8 points
automatically goes into your hitting skill to represent your increased
fighting effectiveness -- roll your savate skill pretty much only when
you're trying to impress a french martial artist.
But I also recognize that in a game, some realism must be sacrificed for
playability. And I am a pretty strong believer in keeping it simple.
>> various arts! But my point all along is that the body of techniques
>> shouldn't determine the fighting skill in an RPG. How well you can kick
>> ass, regardless of technique, should determine your fighting skill. And
>> it's been shown often enough that technique is relatively unimportant
>> compared to training methods. Most boxers can beat up most black belts.
>> Why? Boxers train by hitting each other!
>
>But what you are learning is a different method, this method needs to be
>represented. This is why manuevers give you an advantage to *all* skills,
>i.e. if you've got a +2 to headlocks then that +2 is added to karate,
I sort of have to take issue with manuevors in that sense, too. Like the
martial arts book says Elbow defaults to Karate-2 (I think). And I
suppose you could work on that specifically. But does that mean you would
just decide to throw an elbow and roll Karate-2? Realistically, if you
just decide to use an elbow instead of a kick, you have virtually no
chance at all of success! Your success in an elbow strike depends on an
entry to in-fighting range and a manipulation of your opponent's hands so
that he can't effectively block it. In other words, it depends on the
history of the fight, it depends on your and your opponent's current
positions and states of motion. You cannot just arbitrarily decide to
throw any technique you want and have a uniform chance of success.
But it's a game, so don't worry too much about it.
On a related note, any given punch or kick might succeed on a 13 or less.
But when used in tactically clever combinations, the chance of success can
rise dramatically as you go farther into the sequence, even if you're
throwing exactly the same punches and kicks. Chuck Norris is good at
combinations and timing, and because of that has beaten faster opponents.
But we don't worry about things like that when we're playing a game.
When it comes to "real" fighting, I think technique is a relatively minor
part of it. Techniques are easy to learn. They're harder to perfect, but
that comes with practice. Anyone can throw a punch, anyone can block a
punch. But good fighting tactics is hard to learn, hard to internalize,
and is not tied to any one style.
Some hold that attitude, the "killer instinct", is 90% of winning a fight.
But I haven't heard anyone that holds technical skill to be more important
than attitude, strength, timing, sense of distance, and other attributes.
If you train right you'll be developing those attributes no matter which
style you practice, and you'll carry them into any other style you
practice.
>> Here's an example from my own experience. In a hapkido class I was
>> rocking on the heavy bag, and a brown belt asked me how I hit so hard. I
>> told her what I could, and she tapped the bag and her wrist caved in.
>
>Igh, this is indicative of the sensai' skill in teaching. If she can't hit
>without hurting herself then she shouldn't be a brown belt.
I'm inclined to agree, but not to her face. But it does raise the
question, what is the Karate skill, anyway? Not necessarily what they
teach at the karate school.
>> (mostly karate, I think) spend a lot of time hitting the air. They don't
>> have a clear idea what it's like to hit something solid, they haven't
>> conditioned their muscles to deliver the damage and to take it. And their
>> technique may look perfect, but only hitting something solid will help you
>> to "get it", the connection that starts at your feet and goes all
...
>As for hitting air though, there is a reason for it that goes beyond simply
>not wanting to hurt people in a 'civilised' (read western capitalist
>venture) dojo. That is to train people to know where they are striking. It
>is reletively easy to aim for a body but missing on purpose requires skill.
Hitting air is definitely a good thing to do. It gives you a chance to
work on technique. When you get into shadow boxing, it develops
spontaneity and speed. You should imagine yourself to be fighting
imaginary opponents and work combinations.
But the only way to learn how to hit hard is to practice hitting hard, and
you can't do that in air. I think too many schools do too little contact
work.
>> the blow. Heck, I think a lead-hand backfist feels pretty strong when I
>> hit the air, but it's about the weakest strike you can throw! Much weaker
>> even than a boxing jab.
>
>Ever noticed in star trek the federation fighting technique consists mainly
>of rabbit punches? Lol.
Heh! That must be a change in fighting philosophy from Kirk's two-handed
hammerfist.
Paul T.
"Nis Haller Baggesen" <u97...@daimi.au.dk> wrote in message
news:384FB96E...@daimi.au.dk...
The problem there is that there is no feasible way (that I know of) to
simulate in a game
the placement of a moving object as it is being hit. In your example, yes,
hitting a d4 on a table
is very different from hitting a d6 on a table, but that doesn't come up
very often in games.
Usually, we're referring to combat with moving (or unmoving) opponents. Even
if the target looks
like a d4, you could still hit it on one of the flat sides, while the cube
might be facing you
at a 45 degree angle, which means that your attack would glance off. I am
saying this
is too complex to be dealt with.
In other words, if the dice were Fuzzy Dice (tm), or some other sort of soft
object (low DR),
then your knife would penetrate them in both scenarios. The damage roll
already (IMO)
represents the angle at which you strike an object.
P.
Necruar
> Compare the kicks of karate, savate, tae kwon do, hapkido, thai boxing,
> and I'm sure you can find others. Of course there are differences. But
> in the realm of the karate-class kicks, those differences are fairly
> minor. In tae kwon do, a front kick hits with the ball of the foot. In
> Shorin-Rye karate it hits with the heel. Big deal. If you know one
> martial art, it's easier to learn another.
Big deal? Of course it's a big deal, hitting with the ball of your foot or
the heel use completely opposite muscles in the calf to do so. As for
knowing one martial art making it easier to learn another there are schools
of thought were one is required to *forget* everything they have previously
learnt so as to be able to learn another art. But that's another point altogether.
> That's exactly why I wouldn't like to see a seperate skill representing
> each martial art. If you put 8 points into savate and get a skill of 13,
> then put 8 points into silat for a skill of 13, you should be fighting
> better than a skill 13 fighter.
Ok, so what's to be done about it? You answered in another post that
nothing should be done but IMO that doesn't help anyone. I like fiddling
with the rules and the fact that SJ incorporates some of these ideas into
the official books means everyone can benefit from the discussions here.
> various arts! But my point all along is that the body of techniques
> shouldn't determine the fighting skill in an RPG. How well you can kick
> ass, regardless of technique, should determine your fighting skill. And
> it's been shown often enough that technique is relatively unimportant
> compared to training methods. Most boxers can beat up most black belts.
> Why? Boxers train by hitting each other!
But what you are learning is a different method, this method needs to be
represented. This is why manuevers give you an advantage to *all* skills,
i.e. if you've got a +2 to headlocks then that +2 is added to karate,
brawling, silat or whatever other skill you are using. Which is why I
suggested that if a brawler learns a new method, say a front kick from
karate, then they could put points toward the kicking manuaver to represent
the advantage.
> Here's an example from my own experience. In a hapkido class I was
> rocking on the heavy bag, and a brown belt asked me how I hit so hard. I
> told her what I could, and she tapped the bag and her wrist caved in.
Igh, this is indicative of the sensai' skill in teaching. If she can't hit
without hurting herself then she shouldn't be a brown belt.
> That's another reason it bothers me to see formal training under the
> superior skill Karate while brawlers get the low-class skill. What good
> is it going to do you if you can't punch? My friend the bar brawler could
> kick her ass (although he wouldn't). A lot of martial artists
Again, she isn't truly a brown belt and therefore she deserves to get her
ass kicked if she gets into a fight with someone.
> (mostly karate, I think) spend a lot of time hitting the air. They don't
> have a clear idea what it's like to hit something solid, they haven't
> conditioned their muscles to deliver the damage and to take it. And their
> technique may look perfect, but only hitting something solid will help you
> to "get it", the connection that starts at your feet and goes all
Well again, depends on your teacher. One of the classes I used to go to was
always crowded so I went to the morning classes where only six or so people
rocked up, all were black or brown belts except me and so they trained
harder. Every so often they'd have sparring matches. The first few times
they asked if I wanted to join in and I said I'd just watch, lucky for me
because they were doing full-contact! Later on I joined in though so I got
a taste for it.
As for hitting air though, there is a reason for it that goes beyond simply
not wanting to hurt people in a 'civilised' (read western capitalist
venture) dojo. That is to train people to know where they are striking. It
is reletively easy to aim for a body but missing on purpose requires skill.
Besides which, there are always the bags and they have far less give than a
body does.
> the blow. Heck, I think a lead-hand backfist feels pretty strong when I
> hit the air, but it's about the weakest strike you can throw! Much weaker
> even than a boxing jab.
Ever noticed in star trek the federation fighting technique consists mainly
of rabbit punches? Lol.
> Hardened? Would the garment rustle?
I don't know, it was just something I read.
Necruar |The Dark Mage|
>
> the difference to be trivial! And in savate you'd always chamber your
> knee as high as you can, even if you're kicking low. Again, big deal.
Just curious, do you happen to know of a savate school or organisation that
exists world wide? I'd love to train in it is all.
> Well, I did say I'd like a single hitting skill. I think that's
> reasonable. As for stylistic variations, I'm really not sure what a good
> thing to do about that is. Maybe some sort of maneuvor system like you
> suggested. Maybe "phantom skills" where you put 8 points into savate to
> represent the technical skills you've picked up and another 8 points
> automatically goes into your hitting skill to represent your increased
> fighting effectiveness -- roll your savate skill pretty much only when
> you're trying to impress a french martial artist.
Nono, what I suggested essentially (I think?) solves the problem you are
talking about (unless I've got my wires crossed which is entirely
possible), I'll explain more clearly with an example:
The system is tiered so that for every say, 3 levels above the *default*
(this is important because it represents how many CP's one has put in
rather than how dextrous a person is) in a martial art, the person gains a
+1 bonus to the relevant manuevers that are the strengths of that martial
art. Therefore, if a person had a DX of 12 say, and put 2 CP into a P/H
martial art then that would raise their skill to 3 above the default.
Let's say it was Judo that was the skill they were learning (I don't know
what difficulty judo is as I don't have the books with me so just go with
it). Judo (yes, yes I know it's sport) is a strong grappling and holds
based skill so therefore the person would now have a +1 to the grappling
and holds manuevers. This bonus applies to *any* martial art used whether
it be karate or tae kwon do or savate.
Therefore if that person was then to put 4 CP into karate (for this example
also a P/H skill) they would then have a bonus +1 (it is still only 4
levels above the default, they would have to put in another 14 points to
get it to Attri +2 which would be 6 levels above the default to gain
another +1 bonus) to the strengths of karate which, IMO, are kicking,
punching and blocking.
That person now has a skill of 11 (DX 12, 2 CP, Attr -1) in Judo and 12 (DX
12, 4CP, Attr 0) Karate but gains a bonus of +1 to the holding, grappling,
kicking, punching and blocking manuevers.
> But I also recognize that in a game, some realism must be sacrificed for
> playability. And I am a pretty strong believer in keeping it simple.
I feel this is pretty simple.
N.
--
Gregory L. Hansen
Necruar |The Dark Mage| <nec...@tig.com.au> wrote:
>"Gregory L. Hansen" wrote:
>>
>> the difference to be trivial! And in savate you'd always chamber your
>> knee as high as you can, even if you're kicking low. Again, big deal.
>
>exists world wide? I'd love to train in it is all.
Sorry, I only know of my brother's school in Minneapolis. I can refer you
there if you're in the area. Otherwise I can only suggest checking the
yellow pages, and looking for the videos by that one little french savate
guy whose name sounds like "Sallam Osley", but probably isn't spelled that
way. He's a lot of fun to watch, and he talks funny. The local martial
arts supplier, if you have one, is probably the best place to look.
>> Well, I did say I'd like a single hitting skill. I think that's
>> reasonable. As for stylistic variations, I'm really not sure what a good
>> thing to do about that is. Maybe some sort of maneuvor system like you
>> suggested. Maybe "phantom skills" where you put 8 points into savate to
>> represent the technical skills you've picked up and another 8 points
>> automatically goes into your hitting skill to represent your increased
>> fighting effectiveness -- roll your savate skill pretty much only when
>> you're trying to impress a french martial artist.
>
>Nono, what I suggested essentially (I think?) solves the problem you are
>talking about (unless I've got my wires crossed which is entirely
>possible), I'll explain more clearly with an example:
>
>The system is tiered so that for every say, 3 levels above the *default*
>(this is important because it represents how many CP's one has put in
>rather than how dextrous a person is) in a martial art, the person gains a
>+1 bonus to the relevant manuevers that are the strengths of that martial
>art. Therefore, if a person had a DX of 12 say, and put 2 CP into a P/H
>martial art then that would raise their skill to 3 above the default.
>
>Let's say it was Judo that was the skill they were learning (I don't know
>what difficulty judo is as I don't have the books with me so just go with
>it). Judo (yes, yes I know it's sport) is a strong grappling and holds
>based skill so therefore the person would now have a +1 to the grappling
>and holds manuevers. This bonus applies to *any* martial art used whether
>it be karate or tae kwon do or savate.
That looks reasonable. If you ever play-test it, let us know how it
works.
Gregory L. Hansen
>> > >While we're on the subject, I'd probably shrink
>> > >Knife/Shortsword/Broadsword down to Knife/Sword - compare the range
>> > >of Shortsword to that of Axe/Mace.
>>
>> Wha???? Wielding a knife is *NOTHING* like wielding a sword. Sheesh.
>
>Which is why I suggested two skills.
>
>Note that Kali is usually used with knives, but can be used with sticks
>or blades ranging from a few inches up to machetes (defined as
>shortswords in GURPS). That huge retraining isn't necessary to go from
>one to another suggests that (a) a very small Knife<->Shortsword default
>should exist or (b) some longer blades can be used similarly to knives.
I was with you until here. But a small knife just can't be used like any
kind of sword, and can barely be used like a long knife (by "small" I'm
thinking of a blade less than about six inches). You won't parry
weapons with it, for one thing. A knife is the fastest weapon there
is, faster than a sword or machette, and faster than a punch. But it also
has about the same range as a punch. That means you have to get close.
The range has important consequences, and the speed combined with
sharpness gives you opportunities to do scary things.
Emily Smirle
>"Gregory L. Hansen" wrote:
>
>> Compare the kicks of karate, savate, tae kwon do, hapkido, thai boxing,
>> and I'm sure you can find others. Of course there are differences. But
>> in the realm of the karate-class kicks, those differences are fairly
>> minor. In tae kwon do, a front kick hits with the ball of the foot. In
>> Shorin-Rye karate it hits with the heel. Big deal. If you know one
>> martial art, it's easier to learn another.
>
>Big deal? Of course it's a big deal, hitting with the ball of your foot or
>the heel use completely opposite muscles in the calf to do so.
As someone who took Tae quon do, doing a front kick (the quick
vertical snap with no twist of the hip) with the ball, and with the
heel of your foot only has one difference: to hit with the heel you
have to pull your toes further back. Not much difference, as either
way you keep your ankle fairly rigid so as to strike hard and not
sprain anything. I prefer the ball-of-the-foot kick for a front kick,
but considering my training that's not surprising.
> As for
>knowing one martial art making it easier to learn another there are schools
>of thought were one is required to *forget* everything they have previously
>learnt so as to be able to learn another art. But that's another point altogether.
Admitedly, I only formally trained in one rather ideosyncronatic
TKD school, but I fail to see why forgetting how to fight will make me
fight better...
Irrelevant Anectode time (more GURPS stuff at the bottom):
My teacher was a police officer, and his master (the school owner)
helped design the korean and canadian military's unarmed defence
courses. The *FIRST* thing I was tought in class, and possibly the
most useful thing you can be tought in a formal school, was "what do
to if someone tries to mug you".
The teacher stood at the front of the class and asked people what
we thought we should do if we were mugged. He got answers like "go
into sutch and such a stance", "do such and such technique", etc. and
he rejected them all.
Official school advice for everyone from white to black-belts: Give
them your money. Your shoes, whatever they want, give it to them. If
that doesn't satisfy them, run away as fast as you can. If you can't
run away, scream bloody blue murder and hope they decide you aren't
worth it. If you absolutely must fight, try to kick him in the shins
or something, so you have a chance to run away.
Not surprisingly, we spent much of our classes running around.
Sprinting, stamina running, agility... we might spend up to half an
hour each class just running. Of course, stamina and leg strength are
both good things in a kicking-oriented martial art, but we sure did a
*lot* of running.
We learned traditional "sport" techniques, but we did a lot of
full-contact sparring, with all the body armor and boxing gloves and
helmets etc as well. We also were given some training in "self
defence"; one class out of six was on holds, arm locks, throws, and
how to get out of same. We were taught how to break someones grip on
your arm, shirt, sleave, etc, and how to get them on the ground
without getting hurt or hurting them.
Ok, back to GURPS. :)
Trying to write up my training in the current GURPS rules is a
little hard. I'd say it was two parts Sport(Karate), one part
Wrestling or Judo, and one part Running. I'd give myself half a point
in Streetwise, just for practical tidbits you pick up when your
teacher is a cop.
Uh, ok, back to GURPS *now* :)
So my post isn't totally OT for the thread, I think the changes I'd
like to make to the GURPS unarmed combat skills set is as follows:
Nuke the whole brawling, karate, judo, boxing, wrestling scheme as
it stands.
Introduce two new P/A skills; call them Hitting and Grabbing. These
skills have a 'default' use, but the default only allows limited
combat actions.
Hitting, when used at default, lets you thump someone with simple
blows, either with the hands or with the feet. This 'default' use of
Hitting Stuff is at DX. It does ST-2 (no matter what limb you used),
you can't do feignts or maneuvers or anything fancy with Hitting Stuff
at this level.
If you actually put points in Hitting you can do advanced
techniques and if your Hitting skill is at DX, you do damage without
the -2 penalty with both hands and feet, but Kicks are at a penalty to
skill (cuz they're hard). If you want to kick really well, buy
Kicking. Small change to the Kicking maneuver: maximum level Kicking
can be raised to is Hitting+2.
Grabbing, when used at default, lets you grapple someone. Simple
tackles and takedowns are the 'default' use of Grabbing, and
where-ever the grappling rules say 'DX or Judo or Wrestling',
substitute 'DX or Grabbing'. However: an untrained Grabber is at -2 in
all grappling-related contests of ST *or* DX if their opponant is
trained.
If you put points into Grabbing, you can do all the holds and and
stuff. 'Judo' throws are based on a maneuver (Hard, called Throwing)
which defaults to Grabbing-2. Throwing isn't taught in many european
styles, and (like Kicking) is rarer for 'practically-taught' fighters
to pick up by trial and error.
I'll post my rationale for this later. This is getting to be a very
long message... :)
For the record, I really like the maneuver system, and I absolutely
hate the 'different skill for different styles' system. This is why I
play GURPS and Champions instead of D&D or Cyberpunk. :)
Just my $.50 worth (in Canadian)
Emily
--
Emily Smirle <esm...@magma.ca> ICQ #33140104
Visit Sailor Squasher's Games Page
for GURPS, Quake 1&2, and more! http://sailor.home.dhs.org
prei...@my-deja.com
> >> > >While we're on the subject, I'd probably shrink
> >> > >Knife/Shortsword/Broadsword down to Knife/Sword - compare the
> >> > >range of Shortsword to that of Axe/Mace.
>
> any kind of sword, and can barely be used like a long knife (by
> "small" I'm thinking of a blade less than about six inches). You
Is the difference between a 5" knife and a 14" one greater than that
between a 1-pound hatchet and a full-sized axe or large mace? Do 5" and
14" knives require totally different techniques (ie. different skills)
or somewhat similar techniques that have to be altered for the
particular weapon (ie. in-skill weapon defaults, like with fencing
weapons)?
There's significant granularity to the system, and that level of
granularity should probably be more-or-less constant. It may be that
small and large knives are extremely different and kama (light sickle)
vs. large maces aren't nearly so. That would make small and large
knives _very_ different, though - kama are very different to use than
any sort of multi-pound hammer IME.
It may be that experience with weapon classes simply points out the
differences, in which case similar levels of abstraction should probably
be used for each class. The alternatives are monstrous numbers of
skills to cover each possible distinction or wide variations in the
breadth of skills (witness biology's 6 skills vs. the Physics,
Chemistry, and Math skills).
YMMV, of course.