Quote:
Originally Posted by Kromm
This isn't any kind of weird mystery . . . it's simply a matter of Staff and Spear being related via Form Mastery, not Weapon Adaptation. Form Mastery reflects real-world styles that use distinct grips that GURPS would call "staff" and "spear" grips. Weapon Adaptation, on the other hand, represents real-world styles that use unorthodox weapons for a particular GURPS skill and never teach what GURPS considers the orthodox skill/weapon matchup. It's a judgment call, and the perks are similar in some ways, but there are both real-world and game-mechanical differences.
Anyway, just about all Spear/Staff styles – and many Polearm/Staff styles, and a few Polearm/Spear styles (the three skills inter-default) – include Form Mastery. It isn't automatic or universal because (1) not everybody who learns to use a weapon one way learns to use it both ways, and (2) even those who learn styles that teach fluid shifts can have preferred modes and/or not be very good at those shifts. Still, the perk is present in most such styles.
MCMAP is an exception because it's an unarmed style, and Spear and Staff are optional skills picked up via training that commonly occurs alongside MCMAP but that isn't part of MCMAP proper. Those skills aren't in fact taught for use with the same weapon. Spear is there for rifles with bayonets. Staff is there for pugil sticks, which "simulate" rifles with bayonets, I guess, but not especially well. There are no fluid shifts. |
I get that you don't need WA to use a spear with the staff skill, the way you need WA to use a club with a fencing skill. But then, you could always build a stick style around Shortsword skill and not need it then. The reason to build it around a fencing skill at all is, presumably, because you feel the skill matches the way the style is fought and to get the greater benefits of the skill: retreating parry bonuses and better Rapid Strike penalties.
So it seems to me the reasons to combine Staff and Spear are to get the quick Reach change, to strike with the butt, and to get a better Parry. And that last one demands Weapon Adaptation. So it seems sensible to at least include Weapon Adaptation as an optional perk. Or to relax the rules and allow spears the +2 to parry when parrying with Staff skill.
Anyway, my questions have been answered. The Reach-change is a strong benefit, and the crushing attack would be at least intermittently valuable, so there is clearly some value in using the two skills. I'd still like to let spear-fighters with the Staff skill have a chance at that +2, but I'll have to think of the best way to achieve it.