Armed Parries against unarmed attacks.

[sir_pudding]

I just had a thought:

How about ditch the entire rule altogether and replace it with:

Whenever you successfully parry an unarmed attack with a weapon you may ignore the hit location penalty (or possibly just halve it) if on your next turn you attack the same limb (or maw or whatever) that was used to attack.

Originally Posted by Toadkiller_Dog

But humorous fechtbuch pictures of being losing a hand or arm(s) to swords influenced some of the rules in GURPS Martial Arts.

Can't most of those (if not all) of those defenses just as easily be Ripostes, Counterattacks, or Wait (Stop-Hits) as successful parries in GURPS terms?

[Polydamas]

The reason to keep parrying and striking separate is one of tempo. "Parry your wrist, riposte with a cut to the neck" takes no more tempi than "Parry your halberd, riposte with a cut to the neck." Also, the rpol arena showed that even with every harsh realism rule in MA turned on, a specialized judoka is very dangerous to an armed and armoured man (the GM had to impose a skill cap to avoid Arm Lock-28 against Rapier-16, Main Gauche-14 fighters). So making it easier to do something stupid like kick a man holding a sword doesn't seem like a good idea.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Why would it unless the swordsman parries with the edge, which isn't going to be the case for many (if not most) sword parries?

Why would a swordsman parry a soft target with the flat? In a hyper-detailed RPG, you might be able to get a style quirk "Always parries with the flat" for the rare styles which only do flat parries, but I think its best to assume that generic blade skills include both edge parries, flat parries, and voids which the fencer uses as appropriate. Especially since what people do in a typical RPG fight isn't likely to look much like training.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Why would a swordsman parry a soft target with the flat?

"Muscle memory". I probably would.

Well actually I probably would cut them down as soon as they committed, but really this is a Wait in game terms.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I just had a thought:

How about ditch the entire rule altogether and replace it with:

Whenever you successfully parry an unarmed attack with a weapon you may ignore the hit location penalty (or possibly just halve it) if on your next turn you attack the same limb (or maw or whatever) that was used to attack.

Sounds okay until you're parrying a punch with a force sword.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Can't most of those (if not all) of those defenses just as easily be Ripostes, Counterattacks, or Wait (Stop-Hits) as successful parries in GURPS terms?

Most, but all? How to explain to a doubting player that his guy does 3d+7 with a greatsword, or the guy who does 2d+8 with a mace, that he parried a wolf's bite with his weapon but without causing even a little bit of harm in the process? That he could attack on his next turn with no hit location penalty, but he successfully warded off the attack without contact?

There should be some consequence. I find half damage is enough of one. It seems fair enough, and if you think it should be the flat, then change cutting to crush. It's not totally realistic but it's fast and workable, and at a human scale it makes unarmed strikes vs. armed dangerous but less harmful than a full-power blow. Plus it scales up well - it's still dangerous when the ST 20 guy with a club parries your arm, and you don't have to explain how he adroitly non-contact parried you.

[safisher]

Originally Posted by Toadkiller_Dog

But humorous fechtbuch pictures of being losing a hand or arm(s) to swords influenced some of the rules in GURPS Martial Arts.

Yes, this is my point. It's not the focus of a manual, but a side item. I've seen several of these books. Some are online. There is nothing complex about it -- you punch at me (like a complete fool!) when I have a longsword and it's really about restraint on my part, nothing more. Lucky for you that I don't kill you where you stand. But assuming I want to just draw blood, it seems trivial to simply interpose my long, sharp and pointy instrument between your hand and my body and let you do the work for me. It's trivial to twist the wrist and parry, delivering a nasty cut in the process.

But my larger point is that if you were watching a cop with an expandable baton face off against a punk with a knife, you'd not be able to distinguish between "hey, keep that knife away from me, oops looks like I broke your arm!" and "I'm going to break your arm so you don't get me with the knife!" It's simply: "Sir, drop the knife!" followed by "I'm gonna cut you pig" and the slash-blur of the blade followed by the punk dropping the knife, squealing in pain, and drawing back an arm with a smashed forearm, radius exposed in a complex-compound fracture. This is a Use of Force trainer's dream, of course.

GURPS complicates this by assigning willful targeting in ways that are very precise, . . . more precise than most combatants are capable of discerning sometimes. I don't think we need to re-write the system -- simple accept that precision as a feature. As it is, I would not be opposed to half damage on a successful parry. I'd think too that an armed version of Aggressive Parry could be another route, forcing the swordsman to invest in training for such eventualities or do the technique at default. Still, the rule as-is is not ridiculous if understood in the context of "what you see is what actually happened." Visual and narrative description come together with game rules in very interesting ways, and as gamers we should accept the limitations of any system in that regard. When in doubt, force reality to bend to game rules, not the reverse. It's the only reasonable thing to do.

[doulos05]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I just had a thought:

How about ditch the entire rule altogether and replace it with:

Whenever you successfully parry an unarmed attack with a weapon you may ignore the hit location penalty (or possibly just halve it) if on your next turn you attack the same limb (or maw or whatever) that was used to attack.


Can't most of those (if not all) of those defenses just as easily be Ripostes, Counterattacks, or Wait (Stop-Hits) as successful parries in GURPS terms?

Actually, I like that idea a lot. It makes sense, even if it breaks up the flow. If you want to attack multiple places, take Riposte, counter attack, etc.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

"Muscle memory". I probably would.

Well actually I probably would cut them down as soon as they committed, but really this is a Wait in game terms.

There is already a way to represent that though; if you miss on your free attack roll, one explanation could be "you parried the punch as if it was a blade, trying to protect your edge like your master taught you. You slapped their arm aside but didn't cut it."

I would be happy to always treat that free attack as a swing (so Smallswords etc. do 0 damage) and to make hafted weapons do damage like a Baton, Light Club, or Staff on a parry (possibly half damage on Doug's suggestion?). But since GURPS doesn't represent a difference between parrying surfaces, anything more than that would be too complex for my taste (and create too many arguments and too many baffled gamers for most publishers' tastes I suspect).