[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Set

Of course, slitting someone's throat should probably do more damage than a tip slash, but I wanted to go strictly by the book. Maybe in my tables I'd rule it as doing the same damage as the impaling (no -2 reduction for slash).

This is a draw cut, which GURPS doesn't really have rules for. I've made my own. Most relevant here is the note that a knife grapple to the neck can be considered as the first half of the Draw Cut - the typical method would be to use an All Out Attack (Determined) with Telegraphic Attack to grapple the Face and Neck* from behind, then next round use Draw Cut at +6 (net +4, and ignore hit location penalties) to slit the throat, probably with All Out Attack (Strong) and if using Technical Grappling cashing in some of the CP from the grapple to improve damage. Doing it in one round would be a bit more difficult - you'd probably use All Out Attack (Double) instead, so the grapple would be a bit harder to hit with and the throat slitting would do less damage.

*I can't recall if this is in the books anywhere, but personally I think grappling two hit locations - one with each hand - makes perfect sense. Simply use the greater of the two hit location penalties, and count half the CP as being toward one location, half toward the other. The point here of doing Face and Neck is that the first prevents the target from speaking, the second gets you setup to slit his throat.

Originally Posted by Set

Yep, the neck is usually way less protected than the torso - in fact, the torso is usually the most protected area - maybe the skull can be more protected, but usually not by non-vision-restricting helmets.

Skull can be pretty heavily protected without restricting your vision too much, it's the Face that's a problem here. Most of the loadouts in Loadouts: Low Tech Armor have as much if not more armor on the Skull than on the Chest, and that's not even accounting for the Skull's innate DR 2.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

So try and do this with run of mill skill levels and no special training in sentry removal combinations, and the chance of neck armour becoming the factor that makes the difference drops off anyway, making it moot. I.e there's a reason why this tended to be preserve of the specially trained.

Is neck armour a compromise of protection, discomfort and distraction, yeah of course but to an extent that's all armour in all situations, and since this was a known compromise it was also something worked on.

Unless more advanced/expensive than what a sentry would typically have access to, neck armor is typically going to actively reduce the sentry's ability to actually do their job of spotting suspicious actors. Additionally, the type of actor who is likely to be skilled enough to actually sneak up on and silently remove the sentry with a knife to the throat is likely skilled enough that typical neck armor isn't going to severely limit his ability to kill the sentry. Thus, actually seeing the infiltrator before he reaches the sentry is far more important than the marginal increase in survivability once you've already failed offered by the neck armor.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

But equally I think we can overstate the negative effects of armour. The concept of a sentry or patrol that constantly swivelling it head to and fro, and thus effective sentry work is prevented by any neck armour is a bit of a misnomer ;-)

The sentry doesn't have to constantly move his head back and forth, but being able to move it freely will increase his effective arc of vision, making him much harder to sneak up on.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Maybe but his job is to raise the alarm, being alive afterwards is more a personal goal ;-)

No, his job - in regards to stealthy infiltrators - is to prevent them from getting in in the first place. A guard who manages to scream "Help I'm being murd-" *GURKBURBLETHUD* tells the others that there is a hostile actor somewhere near him, but doesn't actively prevent the infiltrator from getting past the sentry, nor does it give any further intelligence on the target (direction the target ran, what he looks like, if he was alone, etc). Still, if you see your sentries as little more than noisemaking traps that bleed, I guess he accomplished his purpose.