Parry a Slam?

[Dustin]

Originally Posted by Dienekes

This one's tougher to explain away. I've always scratched my head over 150 lbs of soft tissue snapping a dagger (not knocking it away, not automatically a failed parry, IIRC not automatically a successful counterattack due to Impulsive Boy launching himself at the pointy, or whatever our intuition might suggest is at least as likely as snapping a stubby steel blade on someone's onrushing belly).

On a "weapon breaks vs. Slam" result, maybe a roll on the Critical Miss table would be an interesting alternative. The weapon breaking or being dropped, or turned in the hand are pretty common results there. There is a small possibility of falling down, but the most likely results are rather milder than a weapon break, so I would imagine most Slam parriers being open to it, and the variability of result is nice.

[pawsplay]

Originally Posted by Dienekes

This one's tougher to explain away. I've always scratched my head over 150 lbs of soft tissue snapping a dagger (not knocking it away, not automatically a failed parry, IIRC not automatically a successful counterattack due to Impulsive Boy launching himself at the pointy, or whatever our intuition might suggest is at least as likely as snapping a stubby steel blade on someone's onrushing belly).

My money's on the 150 pound meatbag, actually. And AFAIK, the slammer still suffers the consequences of attacking unarmed.

[benz72]

Originally Posted by stilleon

Okay, that seems to be the way a basic fighter might do it. But being around people that are trained with swords), I would say that they would rather do a dodge and swing the sword to give a blow. Their sword would never break because they wouldn't allow it, the maneuver you speak of would probably be taught AGAINST.

Which brings me to the other thing about defending against slams:

Say the slammer is moving at 6 yards/sec. This is far slower than a swung weapon and you can see it coming. Shouldn't active defenses be easier?

It just seem that slams are more useful in this game than real life

snip.

Not impossible, but consider whether or not slamming is a valid tactic in whatever simulation you are basing the conclusion on.
A fencer trained in an art that halts for corps-a-corps and resets may act very differently than one trained to clear away any intervening blade and run his opponent down.
Not having done an exhaustive search I cannot say that only the first way is taught anymore but I would be interested to know if the art you are referencing includes punching with a basket hilt, checking/slamming and stomping on the opponent's foot as legitimate maneuvers. If so I would find this to be a rarity (but an interesting one).

[Dienekes]

Originally Posted by pawsplay

My money's on the 150 pound meatbag, actually. And AFAIK, the slammer still suffers the consequences of attacking unarmed.

Oh yeah, my money too, what little of it there is. No argument on whether the rules ought to discourage parrying slams with daggers instead of big heavy thangs. The weird part is that the discouragement takes the form of weapon breakage - when in this case weapon droppage, weapon no-stop-slammage, etc, seem much more likely. (I emphasized the softness of the slammer to cast doubt on weapon breakage, not to suggest that Dagger Parry Guy should have an advantage.)

Haven't really thought it through, but I rather like the suggestion above of substituting a parry crit fail roll for weapon breakage that violates common sense, while of course still applying the consequences of unarmed attacker + successful armed parry.

[stilleon]

Originally Posted by Dienekes

Haven't really thought it through, but I rather like the suggestion above of substituting a parry crit fail roll for weapon breakage that violates common sense, while of course still applying the consequences of unarmed attacker + successful armed parry.

I do too. But I still think that it should be slam vs. dodge (no parry). If you have aggressive parry you can choose to get hit but do damage to the opponent.

[Henquist]

Originally Posted by Kromm

You can parry a slam just fine: brace your weapon against the other arm, your shield, etc., and push him away. That counts as a parry (remember: per GURPS Martial Arts, weapon skills all include the ability to shove and slam with weapons, so doing so defensively isn't anything special). The catch is that slams count as weapons with weight = attacker's ST. This is a medium-sized to large problem for ST 12+ attackers (the sort of people who like to slam) vs. the typical run of light melee weapons. Even a ST 10 man has a good chance of snapping your broadsword, and a ST 15 thug has decent odds of snapping your bastard sword.

So is it possible to attempt this sort of parry against a shield slam from the rear? say in a runaround situation where you do get a penalized parry. It seems the rules technically allow for this but I do not see it possible to make this sort of brace against the slam.

[Dustin]

For 7 years, this thread lay unquiet in its grave, until the dread necromancer known as Henquist intoned:

Originally Posted by Henquist

So is it possible to attempt this sort of parry against a shield slam from the rear? say in a runaround situation where you do get a penalized parry. It seems the rules technically allow for this but I do not see it possible to make this sort of brace against the slam.

I don't see why it would be impossible. If you've been visually tracking the attacker during their runaround, you have some time to react, and (as you noted) you're already being penalized for the effective Flank.

[Ulzgoroth]

As far as the mass issue, Pyramid 3-77 has an interesting (and often previously discussed) alternative to the standard, though it won't make a huge difference at ST 12

Originally Posted by Henquist

So is it possible to attempt this sort of parry against a shield slam from the rear? say in a runaround situation where you do get a penalized parry. It seems the rules technically allow for this but I do not see it possible to make this sort of brace against the slam.

A run-around slam is a pretty awkward maneuver in its own right...

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

As far as the mass issue, Pyramid 3-77 has an interesting (and often previously discussed) alternative to the standard, though it won't make a huge difference at ST 12

A run-around slam is a pretty awkward maneuver in its own right...

Yah. It's me trying to dance.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Yah. It's me trying to dance.

Once you get that problem heeled you should be back on the dance floor...



I'm with Dustin and Ulzgoroth, the penalty takes into account the difficulty of turning and bracing against the attack, so you can attempt to parry a run-around slam.