Seekign Fantasy Martial-Arts Spear Suggestion

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Kromm

A cloak does, however, call for a hand. It gives DB draped over an arm, not on your back. Ergo, you'd be out all the coolness of two-handed spear/staff use.

I was thinking it gave its DB to the back and sides hands-free, shows what I know.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Besides Sojutsu, look at Viking Spear Fighting and Heroic Spear Fighting. They're designed for individual duelists.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Bookman

We may dump spear throwing and replace it with a Targeted Attack.

If what you say about her liking to hang back, defend, and pick shots carefully is true, then I'd think about not ditching the Thrown Weapon skill. Very long experience with all editions of the combat system has taught me that players with this tactical preference (I'm one myself!) benefit greatly from stepping away and aiming a lot (remember, you're allowed a step when you Aim), and then attacking at a big bonus. You might want to use Tricky Shooting (Martial Arts, p. 121) in the campaign, as it will make this tactic pay off nicely. Also, it isn't especially unrealistic to let a fighter have Fast-Draw (Javelin).

Originally Posted by Bookman

Thematically, it has more in common with the bareknuckle fight between the prisoners in Cool Hand Luke.

At the risk of being silly, an inspiring "tough-woman" fighter is the Joan Chen character in The Blood of Heroes. She has the tough, pit-fightin' survivor thing down without drooping into glamor-girl mode even once.

Originally Posted by Bookman

Your advice about cranking up the defenses is bit is very sound.

A single level of Enhanced Dodge or Enhanced Parry (Spear) is even realistic. It's multiple levels that are over-the-top. Note also that Form Mastery and a decent Staff skill effectively lets you switch on +2 to Parry at will. Finally, I'd encourage you to use Parrying with Two-Handed Weapons (Martial Arts, p. 123); it's fairly realistic, and will help this character out quite a bit.

The biggest defensive weakness here is vs. ranged weapons, though; "no shield" is nasty in that regard, and if the bad guys can also use Tricky Shooting, it gets worse. Remember that Parry Missile Weapons is not a cinematic skill . . . it's just uncommon. If the pits had people who tossed daggers and spears, however, then it isn't especially unbelievable.

[dataweaver]

Invest in Acrobatics.

Kira is all about mobility, right? So how about some custom techniques based off of the Move or Move and Attack maneuvers (with a focus on the "Move and..." portion of it)? MA pages 105-107 has a number of options that could be treated as utility techniques; given her "pit fighting" origins, I could see her being especially good at "tic-tacs": using the edge of the pit to vault over her opponent, then getting an attack on him from behind. This would be a Hard technique, defaulting to Acrobatics -4.

Realistically, acrobatics sometimes use poles to help maintain their balance; I'd give Kira a +1 to her Acrobatics rolls when using her spear for this purpose. The downside is that the spear won't be available for any other purpose, such as attack or defense; OTOH, that's not much of a downside if she's using the Move maneuver and relying on Dodge for defense.

Use Tumbling and a Move of 7 or more, and those pesky ranged attacks are at an additional -3 to hit her; and she still gets to Dodge. IMHO, this would not be improvable as a technique; if anything counts as the primary use of Acrobatics, Tumbling is it.

For the "Move and..." portion of an Acrobatic Attack, consider a Hard technique that reduces or eliminates the additional -2 penalty to the Acrobatics roll.

Also, GURPS doesn't seem to have covered pole-vaults. Pole-vault kicks, yes; but not pole-vaults designed strictly for movement. This would be useful for ignoring the enemy line in order to go after a target of opportunity that's hiding behind it (such as the archers) - or simply to threaten the line from the rear. Though this may be a bit more aggressive than you've indicated for her style.

[Kromm]

Acrobatics and Jumping techniques -- including pole-vaulting -- would be a whole 'nother book. I'd agree that a few perks and techniques related to this stuff would be handy, though. Any penalized use of Acrobatics or Jumping in Chapter 4 of Martial Arts would be a fair technique; see Acrobatic Stand for an example. Some unpenalized uses would be reasonable as well; see Breakfall and Evade. I agree that tumbling is way too basic to improve, though.

If you want a quick-and-dirty treatment of spears as aids to this stuff, then create a perk that adds (Reach - 1) to Acrobatics or Jumping whenever balance would matter, and that adds Reach to vertical or horizontal Jumping distance whenever using the thing as a pole (which, in conjunction with Evade bought up from Acrobatics, could be fairly cool). Not both at the same time, though! Form Mastery would allow switching from an "acrobatic" grip to a combat one after the stunt. Without that, she'd be sans parry until her next turn.

[dataweaver]

...and if you've already taken Form Mastery so that she can switch between Spear and Staff at will, the ability to switch to and from Acrobatics as well would be a freebie.

[Brandy]

Lots of great stuff there, guys. Her eyes really lit up yesterday at the prospect of using the spear for vaulting and/or using acrobatics as a way of putting the bad guys between her and the line.

I'm going to have to wrestle with doing these things realistically. I'm not going for a wuxia feel at all, so I need to take care with incorporating any of these things. I think it can be done, however.

Thanks! The response here has been tremendous.

B

[Brandy]

Originally Posted by Kromm

If what you say about her liking to hang back, defend, and pick shots carefully is true, then I'd think about not ditching the Thrown Weapon skill.

The character uses thrown knives for this purpose. Among other things, they're more weight-efficient.

You might want to use Tricky Shooting (Martial Arts, p. 121) in the campaign, as it will make this tactic pay off nicely. Also, it isn't especially unrealistic to let a fighter have Fast-Draw (Javelin).

I'll take a look at it, as well as the many other options you reference.

At the risk of being silly, an inspiring "tough-woman" fighter is the Joan Chen character in The Blood of Heroes. She has the tough, pit-fightin' survivor thing down without drooping into glamor-girl mode even once.

I've never seen it (or even heard of it before your mention). Looks interesting.

[Pesterfield]

If she uses throwing Knives check page 120, Rapid Strike with thrown weapons. Though considering the -6 penalty for just throwing two she needs to increase her skill first.

[Kromm]

One caution about thrown knives: They're abysmally poor performers in GURPS. Even the heftiest knife gets just thrust damage, where a javelin gets thr+1. A knife gets nothing out of a second of aiming, either -- what with Acc 0 -- where a javelin gets +3. My experience is that between misses and bouncing off armor, thrown knives disappoint. Three javelins will probably score more telling hits than six large knives.

An interesting and colorful compromise is a regular-sized hungamunga, which uses Thrown Weapon (Knife) -- as opposed to the axe-sized monster, which uses Thrown Weapon (Axe/Mace). This has Acc 1. It gets sw-1 cut, which is typically better than thr imp. At modest ST -- say, 11 -- it's 1d cut vs. 1d-1 imp, which is 2.33 HP vs. 2 HP after considering mere DR 2 leather and the wounding modifier. The hungamunga can cripple limbs, too, which are easier targets than vitals, eyes, etc. This comes at no range, weight, or cost sacrifice at all; the catch is that you have crummier Bulk and a lousy melee weapon. But if all you're doing is aimed throws, it's better.

An even whackier compromise is the boomerang, with full swing damage and Acc 2. It's big catch, of course, is that damage is strictly crushing. But you have to admit, it looks cool. :)

I guess it depends on why a 1-lb. throwing weapon matters . . . but it sounds like it's an encumbrance thing, which implies a modest ST, which suggests that knives aren't going to penetrate armor well enough to be useful. Might as well get something with solid damage!