"Handless Arm" parrying

[Plane]

Exploits 36
Monster Parries: Natural beings without hands (like most animals) can’t parry

Adventurers 64
You may make unarmed parries with a handless arm.

Would this mean if you are born without a hand you can't do UPWAHA but if your hand it cut off you can do UPWAHA?

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Plane

Would this mean if you are born without a hand you can't do UPWAHA but if your hand it cut off you can do UPWAHA?

No. This means a species that is normally handless can't normally learn to make unarmed Parries.

[Kromm]

The idea is that species accustomed to grasping tools in hands and using these to deal and ward off blows, and whose unarmed fighting consists of a lot of grabbing and intercepting grabs with hands, has arms and hands structured for such fighting. If they lose the hand, they can still use the arm that way. A species that lacks suitable extremities, usually because it uses its limbs to run and support its weight, has arms and paws/hoofs/whatever unsuited for parrying. There are exceptions, always noted, but this is generally the case.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Kromm

A species that lacks suitable extremities, usually because it uses its limbs to run and support its weight, has arms and paws/hoofs/whatever unsuited for parrying.

Sounds like they have legs instead of arms, since legs can't parry.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Plane

Sounds like they have legs instead of arms, since legs can't parry.

Arguably some animals have arms, even if they have nothing better than a paw at the end of it. I would say a Kangaroo has arms with paws, a Kangaroo walking on all fours (fives, really, because they also use their tail) shuffles along not much better than a human crawling and with all the combat penalties therewith.

They also have a mean punch.

[martinl]

Originally Posted by Bruno

a Kangaroo has ... mean punch.

If they could manage to change just one letter, they could play DFRPG/GURPS with us!

[Black Leviathan]

Would a striker take the place of a hand for defense?

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Arguably some animals have arms, even if they have nothing better than a paw at the end of it. I would say a Kangaroo has arms with paws, a Kangaroo walking on all fours (fives, really, because they also use their tail) shuffles along not much better than a human crawling and with all the combat penalties therewith.

They also have a mean punch.

I think kangaroos can parry because they have hands, I saw a baby kangaroo named Doodlebug carrying a teddy bear.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Black Leviathan

Would a striker take the place of a hand for defense?

A striker is used as a weapon - it can parry as a weapon, which means it doesn't risk being injured, unlike an unarmed attack. It's much better than a hand for this reason.

[Anthony]

There aren't a lot of species that are described as having arms but no hands, and not having arms certainly should prevent parrying, though GURPS doesn't actually clearly distinguish not having hands from not having arms (it's plausible to have a race with no fine manipulators while still having arms that serve some purpose, but quadrupeds do not get any extra points back for not having arms, just NFM).