[Varyon]

Originally Posted by electrum

However, we've realized something strange: A trained swordsman would definitely keep as much of his body away from the enemy as possible, but nevertheless the enemy can still call a shot against his back left foot, and as far as I know there is no avenue for the swordsman to "improve" his dodge; his front left hand is at much risk as back left foot. I am aware of the fencing weapon parry being +3, easier to ready, etc. But this means that, as far as I can tell, a trained gladiator swordsman can't improve his chances of dodging with stance or skill, except by getting combat reflexes.

As Tomsdad has noted, there are options in Gladiators for denying the foe access to one side or the other of your body.

Originally Posted by electrum

2. Impaling Weapons
We have a spear-wielder, and he is a killing machine. We don't use combat distance very strictly, but we do have a rule that if someone is too close he has to shove, hit with the butt of the spear, retreat, etc. Is there some kind of bonus to parrying spears, avoiding them, or something else? Because he has impaling damage, any successful attacks he makes automatically do really severe damage, and usually the enemies are stuck on his spear and as such are further incapacitated.
Is that pretty normal? Or is combat distance the ceiling on impaling weapons? Some guidance here would be nice.

Spears are great weapons. While they're mostly restricted to thrust damage (used with Staff they can be swung), at typical ST's their bonus to damage offsets their lack of swing damage. There aren't really any spear-specific rules.

However, I should note that, unless using a barbed head, thrust impaling weapons don't get stuck like swing impaling weapons do - the default assumption for a spear strike is that you stab and withdraw (leaving your weapon free to Parry incoming attacks). If the character opts to use a barbed head (which makes thrust impaling attacks get stuck just like swing impaling ones do), keep in mind that while his spear is in his foe's gut, it's going to be extremely awkward - if not outright impossible - to Parry with it, and he can't Retreat without abandoning his weapon.

Originally Posted by electrum

Additionally, he has SL14 with spear, which honestly I feel is preposterous because he's a merchant and not a gladiator, but that's his own character. This means he almost never fails his attacks, and as a result pretty much just mows down foes. Some guidance/comments would be appreciated.

Depends heavily on your campaign. Spear-14 is appropriate for a moderately elite spearman. If the character were a soldier before becoming a merchant, I wouldn't even blink at the choice, even in a high-realism game. If he's been a merchant all his life, he needs something in his backstory to explain why he's so good - simply training heavily for one reason or another ("So that when I see a pirate, I can kill it!") could be justification enough.

Mowing down his foes is due to your houserules that make mowing down foes easy. If your issue is that the other characters have rather low levels of skill and thus tend to miss frequently, consider Telegraphic Attacks from Martial Arts - these greatly increase your hit chance but make it easier for enemies to defend. The spearman still has an advantage over his less-skilled allies, as he can either attack without giving his foes a better chance to defend or can burn the bonus from TA to target hit locations.

Originally Posted by electrum

I have a judgment call to ask about for rigid armor. The blunt trauma mechanic only applies to flexible armor, and only if all the damage is absorbed. Because almost all other weapons are cutting/impaling, this puts crushing weapons at a pretty clear disadvantage.
Historically, maces/warhammers were used explicitly to deal with plate armor, but GURPS doesn't seem to reconcile this.

In Low Tech, such weapons have better damage than their cut/imp relatives (and leave swords in the dust), which indeed gives them better armor penetration. Low Tech also has an optional rule where cutting damage that doesn't at least double the target's DR value actually gets downgraded to crushing, which brings the two closer in terms of injury.

Originally Posted by electrum

4. Hit chances
We have a lot of narrative explaining away of missed strikes as "he manages to curl himself away from you, and the sword narrowly passes in front of his chest." This seems a little strange considering we're all warriors. Is this the result of no one taking "evaluate" maneuvers? Or is this the difference between SL10, SL11, and SL12, as I see 12 describing professional skill level?

In real fights (or even just sparring, honestly), it's very easy to misjudge distance, for your foe to move out of the way of an attack accidentally (perhaps while maneuvering to get into position for his own attack), and so forth.

And, yeah, at skill 10, 11, and 12, you're likely to see a decent number of outright misses - 1/2, 1/3, and 1/4 of all attacks, respectively. Evaluate, Telegraphic Attack, and Committed/All Out Attacks can give you bonuses to help offset this.

Originally Posted by electrum

Yes, the blunt trauma rule does favor Cr weapons, but the issue is that, according to my book (Basic Set 4E), blunt trauma only happens when the victim is wearing flexible armor and all of the damage is absorbed by the armor. Taking your example of a mail shirt, that means that they only suffer blunt trauma if I deal either a 1 or a 2 before DR. Sure, blunt trauma accumulates twice as fast for Cr weapons, but the effect is so narrowly applied that it feels pretty useless. If I'm relying on a 5-to-1 damage conversion to defeat an enemy by pecking at him with 2s and 1s, I would say that is a poor weapon. Almost worse than a dagger, even.

That's pretty much a non-issue, honestly. Yes, blunt trauma only comes into play if you don't penetrate armor - but your crushing attack still has a better chance of penetrating armor to start with, which matters far more than piddling blunt trauma.

Originally Posted by electrum

We additionally realized a sort of odd strategy: If one of your arms gets crippled, it's already useless. So why not turn to face the enemy with that arm and let him pummel on it some more? According to most of the rules that arm can't inflict more damage to you as a whole unless he lands another crippling hit, so statistically it's advantageous to use your arm as a literal meatshield if you have nothing else. Is that correct?

There are no rules for shielding a part of your body with another part of your body, no. Such rules would be welcome (and would probably come down to something like a Brawling Parry with a bonus for getting your arm actually hit rather than using it to knock the attack aside), but wouldn't apply here - your arm is crippled, so you can't very well put it between yourself and an attack, and a uselessly-flopping arm isn't really going to get in the way of someone's attack.

Originally Posted by electrum

Speaking of active defenses, we realized that one of our PCs took a cloak because he thought it was cool, and it has been giving him +1DB this whole time and we didn't realize. Because that +1DB is quite impactful we're using damage to shields. What are some typical rules for when that's targeted? It doesn't really make a lot of sense to me to say that a successful parry or block by the DB of the cloak means that I parried with the cloak. A dodge would, however. Also, do you prioritize hitting the cloak first, then the shield?

First off, you don't get that +1 DB just for wearing a cloak - you must be wielding it in one of your hands (with it draped over your arm). Secondly, DB from multiple sources - say, a guy with two shields, or a shield and a cloak - do not stack, rather you just use whichever gives the better bonus. Finally, the way I interpret it, here's what combat looks like with a shield or cloak: If you Dodge/Parry without DB coming into play, this is a normal Dodge/Parry (you get out of the way, or you deflect the attack with your weapon). If you Block without DB coming into play, this means you deflected the attack off of the shield/cloak. If you Dodge/Parry with MoS=(DB-1) or lower, you weren't quite able to get out of the way or fully deflect the attack, but it hit your shield/cloak rather than hitting you directly. If you Block with MoS=(DB-1) or lower, you caught the attack on your shield/cloak, rather than deflecting it off of it.
Do note that cloaks have rather low Cover DR, meaning when it gets hit, it typically just means you get a little extra DR (1 or 2) rather than the attack actually being stopped by the cloak. Shields, on the other hand, typically have sufficient Cover DR to negate attacks up until the shield breaks.