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10-19-2016, 02:17 PM | #1 | |
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Heartland, U.S.A.
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Combat Skill Bonus for taking a Damage Penalty
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Last edited by Captain Joy; 10-19-2016 at 02:18 PM. Reason: spelling, punctuation |
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10-19-2016, 03:07 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Oct 2008
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Re: Combat Skill Bonus for taking a Damage Penalty
This question come up quite often, last time a couple of months ago.
In general this is often problematic in quite many situations as even a single point of damage is meaningful in many places so bypassing defenses that much easier is problematic. |
10-19-2016, 04:13 PM | #3 |
Join Date: Jul 2012
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Re: Combat Skill Bonus for taking a Damage Penalty
Not directly, although if I remember the Book of 5 Rings correctly it advises not to attempt to cut your opponent lightly or strongly, just cut them - the point being that making weaker attacks does not improve reliability or accuracy.
The closest I can see under GURPS is to combine Defensive Attack (damage penalty, +1 Active Defences) with Riposte (trade your defence for lowering their defence). |
10-19-2016, 05:57 PM | #4 | |
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Luxembourg
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Re: Combat Skill Bonus for taking a Damage Penalty
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But as said above, it may not make sense. At the extreme, it is just rolling to touch. There may be something in magic about that, can't remember. Last edited by Celjabba; 10-21-2016 at 12:46 AM. Reason: rephrasing |
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10-20-2016, 03:09 AM | #5 |
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Southern New Hampshire
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Re: Combat Skill Bonus for taking a Damage Penalty
Aren't there rules for pulling punches? I don't think you get bomuses for doing less damage.
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10-20-2016, 08:43 AM | #6 | |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: Combat Skill Bonus for taking a Damage Penalty
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This doesn't seem unreasonable to me from a realism angle. Naively, it would seem that it would take more control, rather than less, to hit someone with precisely controlled force. And if you have a combat skill (as opposed to sport or art), hitting people lightly is doing things differently than the way you were trained. Your timing would change with slower strikes and so on. If there were a skill modifier, it seems more likely to be a penalty than a bonus. But, lacking any real-world experience, I don't know how much difference it would really make. The combat version of "Taking Extra Time" would seem to be Evaluate. This reduces your damage in the sense of total damage done over time (though not of a single hit), and provides a bonus to hit. Pretty severe loss of damage in most cases, though, compared to the +1 modifier suggested in the OP. |
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10-20-2016, 10:35 AM | #7 | |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
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Re: Combat Skill Bonus for taking a Damage Penalty
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If you're using a skill where you trained to make "real" hits, it really doesn't feel simple to just tag people. I took TKD classes, and it was definitely a Sport version - but a full-strength, full-contact version with a lot of armor. I had tons of drilling on striking into a target, setting myself up so at wherever I planned on extending my limb, it end up one to three inches into the target (if not more) depending on if it was a quick jab or a big hit. You can't stop at the surface if you're trying to hurt someone, and they grind that into you. Learning your real reach in combat takes a lot of training and is really really danged important, and it's not where your fingers or toes (or weapon) end. Per my training, my effective combat reach for a full-strength punch is somewhere around my wrists because if I'm much further than that, I just can't deliver maximum force with that punch. Equally, if I'm too close, I can't extend my elbow and step in for that maximum force punch, and if I want to deliver big force, I have to consider other options (don't step in - don't get as much force, don't extend the elbow - don't get as much force, palm-heel strike, elbow strike, knee them in the balls, head-butt, whatever). Or switch to another plan entirely obviously. It seems pretty simple, but I had to write a lot of sentances to talk about it, and you have to drill and drill and drill until you're making that evaluation in real-time. Which means that training heavily colors what you're doing. Incidentally, this reminds me that we need another variation of Pacifism (Reluctant Killer). That's another thread though.
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10-20-2016, 08:43 PM | #8 |
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Northern Virginia, USA
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Re: Combat Skill Bonus for taking a Damage Penalty
I don't like this idea. Imagine a giant with massive ST and damage but mediocre skill, facing a quick and skilled but lightly armored and squishy swashbuckler. If the giant can convert all that extra damage (that he doesn't really need against a soft target) into extra skill, he's negated his opponent's advantages. And possibly turned it from an interesting fight into a cakewalk.
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Tags |
combat, maneuvers, optional rules, rules question, techniques |
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