Parrying weapons with Karate/Judo

[TheOneRonin]

The thread I started on Unarmed vs. Knife, along with Douglas Cole's Gaming Ballistic and Peter Dell'Orto's Dungeon Fantastic blog posts have got me thinking a lot more about being unarmed and dealing with an armed attacker, from GURPS mechanics, Narrative Description, and Real Life angles.

1st Thought: Parrying the Arm

Originally Posted by Basic Set, pg 377

You are at -3 to parry weapons, unless the attack is a thrust or you are using Judo or Karate (in either case, use your full parry).

This assumes you are parrying the weapon. If you are using Boxing, Brawling, or (Sumo/Normal) Wrestling, why wouldn't you choose to Parry the arm instead? If you are dealing with a Reach 1 or greater weapon, you'll need to do a Retreat (Slip) to move into CC in order to reach the arm, but what about vs. something like a Reach C knife?

If your opponent has to be in Reach C to attack you, you don't need to move into Reach C to Parry the limb holding the weapon.

Does this mean it's safe to say that none of the Unarmed skills face any penalty for Parrying Reach C weapon attacks?


2nd Thought: Narrative description, unarmed Parry vs. weapon

Going back to Judo and Karate Parries vs. armed attacks, how do you GMs out there describe what such a defense looks like? My RL training often intrudes here as most of our empty-hand "parry" defenses vs. weapon attacks involve contact with the opponent's hand or arm. We only really make contact with the weapon if A.) we are dealing with a thrust and/or B.) it's a blunt, non-edged weapon.

So assuming you don't narrate the defense as "parrying the arm", how do you describe this sort of thing at the table?

3rd Thought: Unarmed vs. Weapon, is it risky enough?

If you take a look at Doug's blog (linked above), you'll see that the % chance of being damaged by a parry from the knife guy is really small, and gets even smaller if the attacker is using Judo or Karate. Here is the relevant bit from the Basic Set:

Originally Posted by Basic Set, pg 376

Parrying Unarmed Attacks: If you successfully parry an unarmed attack (bite, punch, etc.) with a weapon, you may injure your attacker. Immediately roll against your skill with the weapon you used to parry. This roll is at -4 if your attacker used Judo or Karate.

If you use GURPS: Martial Arts, then you take a further penalty on the attack roll = to the normal hit location penalty (-2 vs. Arm, -4 vs. Hand), so that's -6 to hit the arm, -8 to hit the hand.

How do you feel about those penalties? The sucky thing about them is that the skill level of the attacker is mostly irrelevant (outside of the chance of landing the initial parry). If the Knife guy manages to pull off a parry vs. the unarmed guy, it doesn't matter if the unarmed guy is Skill 10 or Skill 25...the Knife guy still has a very small chance of doing any damage.

Does this make your unarmed players less risk-averse when facing armed opponents? Does it play into their tactics/mindset at all?

I'll probably add some more later, but I wanted to throw this out for the community to chew on and maybe give some feedback.

[McAllister]

1. Parrying a unarmed attack with a weapon currently has a low chance to deal full weapon damage. I believe it should have a higher chance to deal lower damage.

2. Parrying a weapon while unarmed currently suffers a penalty, takes no damage on success, and can take damage to the original target or the parrying limb on failure (attacker's choice). I believe there should be an option that lets people parry unarmed with no penalty, or perhaps even with a bonus, but that causes them to take damage to the parrying limb even on a successful parry (perhaps the parryer takes no damage with a sufficiently high Margin of Success). If I'm wearing bracers but no other armor, or my vitals might be targeted with an impaling weapon, I may well want to take the damage on my arm.

3. The "parry the weapon" vs. "parry the arm" thing really does bear clarification. I think it's reasonable to propose that there's no penalty to parry a weapon in CC, but not safe to assume it.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by TheOneRonin

The thread I started on Unarmed vs. Knife, along with Douglas Cole's Gaming Ballistic and Peter Dell'Orto's Dungeon Fantastic blog posts have got me thinking a lot more about being unarmed and dealing with an armed attacker, from GURPS mechanics, Narrative Description, and Real Life angles.

1st Thought: Parrying the Arm


This assumes you are parrying the weapon.

It does? I don't know, I'm asking. Otherwise reading it in this light, I'd assume the reason there is no penalty for armed thrusting attacks is because you can just parry the arm instead of having to parry the weapon.

[Adversary]

Originally Posted by TheOneRonin

1st Thought: Parrying the Arm

This assumes you are parrying the weapon. If you are using Boxing, Brawling, or (Sumo/Normal) Wrestling, why wouldn't you choose to Parry the arm instead?

I'd interpret it as any successful unarmed parry of a weapon is in actuality parrying the arm. That's what I've seen in martial arts training. But getting inside a weapon swing to parry the arm requires good timing, anticipation, etc. In gurps, karate and judo train for this; boxing, wrestling, etc. do not. Hence the penalty--everyone regardless of what skill they are using is trying to parry the arm, but the judo and karate people are better at it. You can't get around this by simply declaring "I am a going to parry the arm instead of the weapon." That is already what you are doing.

[TheOneRonin]

Originally Posted by Adversary

I'd interpret it as any successful unarmed parry of a weapon is in actuality parrying the arm. That's what I've seen in martial arts training. But getting inside a weapon swing to parry the arm requires good timing, anticipation, etc. In gurps, karate and judo train for this; boxing, wrestling, etc. do not. Hence the penalty--everyone regardless of what skill they are using is trying to parry the arm, but the judo and karate people are better at it. You can't get around this by simply declaring "I am a going to parry the arm instead of the weapon." That is already what you are doing.

Actually, GURPS has very specific rules for this. If someone with a Reach 1 weapon is in an adjacent hex and attacks you, can you use a Retreat(Slip) Parry to move into close combat and Parry the attacking limb. It's most certainly an arm/limb parry, and not a weapon parry.

I agree that it makes sense that an Unarmed Parry vs. a weapon attack is, IRL, likely going to be a deflection and/or redirection of the attacking limb. However, that's not assumed in a GURPS Unarmed Parry. You can choose to describe it that way, but it's not what is actually happening, per the rules.

Here is an example for you:

Joe Gloves the Boxer has Boxing-14, and his Boxing Parry is 10.

If someone swings a Reach 1 Broadsword at Joe, his Parry is at -3, so he has to roll a 7 or less. Failure on the Parry means the attacker can choose to hit his original target or Joe's Parrying Hand/Arm.

If, on the other hand, Joe decides to combine his Parry with a Retreat(Slip) to Parry the Arm, his Parry is 11 and a failed Parry does not offer the attacker the opportunity to strike Joe's Hand/Arm (unless that was his original target).

[TheOneRonin]

Originally Posted by McAllister

1. Parrying a unarmed attack with a weapon currently has a low chance to deal full weapon damage. I believe it should have a higher chance to deal lower damage.

Agreed. Maybe use some variant of the Aggressive Parry damage rules from MA? Having your punch parried by a knife should suck, but not as bad as having it raked across your stomach.

How do you feel about having the successful parry by the weapon wielder do automatic damage, but at base damage -2, or -1 per die, whatever is worse?

Still makes it scary, but not as immediately crippling (unless he is a ST 20 guy and Parries your punch with his Two-Handed Sword).

2. Parrying a weapon while unarmed currently suffers a penalty, takes no damage on success, and can take damage to the original target or the parrying limb on failure (attacker's choice). I believe there should be an option that lets people parry unarmed with no penalty, or perhaps even with a bonus, but that causes them to take damage to the parrying limb even on a successful parry (perhaps the parryer takes no damage with a sufficiently high Margin of Success). If I'm wearing bracers but no other armor, or my vitals might be targeted with an impaling weapon, I may well want to take the damage on my arm.

I like that. Put your limb in the way deliberately. Better to have your arms cut up than your abdomen. And like you said, if you have armored forearms, you can take Knife Slashes all day.

3. The "parry the weapon" vs. "parry the arm" thing really does bear clarification. I think it's reasonable to propose that there's no penalty to parry a weapon in CC, but not safe to assume it.

True. It would be nice to get some clarification from Pete, Kromm, or someone else officially involved in the rules creation.

[McAllister]

Originally Posted by Adversary

I'd interpret it as any successful unarmed parry of a weapon is in actuality parrying the arm. That's what I've seen in martial arts training. But getting inside a weapon swing to parry the arm requires good timing, anticipation, etc. In gurps, karate and judo train for this; boxing, wrestling, etc. do not. Hence the penalty--everyone regardless of what skill they are using is trying to parry the arm, but the judo and karate people are better at it. You can't get around this by simply declaring "I am a going to parry the arm instead of the weapon." That is already what you are doing.

So how do I parry a swung polearm at reach 2+?

[vicky_molokh]

Personally, I think the rules for damaging parries should be unified, and differ in modifiers and damage types, at most.
Currently, there's some perverse situation that when parrying an enemy arm, you need a special Technique and deal reduced damage with your own arms, but doing the same with a carried weapon or a Striker (e.g. built-in shortsword, shark snout, hardened shin etc.) is suddenly full-damage and rolls at full skill (except the -4 vs. Karate/Judo).

[Adversary]

Originally Posted by TheOneRonin

Actually, GURPS has very specific rules for this. If someone with a Reach 1 weapon is in an adjacent hex and attacks you, can you use a Retreat(Slip) Parry to move into close combat and Parry the attacking limb. It's most certainly an arm/limb parry, and not a weapon parry.

I agree that it makes sense that an Unarmed Parry vs. a weapon attack is, IRL, likely going to be a deflection and/or redirection of the attacking limb. However, that's not assumed in a GURPS Unarmed Parry. You can choose to describe it that way, but it's not what is actually happening, per the rules.

Here is an example for you:

Joe Gloves the Boxer has Boxing-14, and his Boxing Parry is 10.

If someone swings a Reach 1 Broadsword at Joe, his Parry is at -3, so he has to roll a 7 or less. Failure on the Parry means the attacker can choose to hit his original target or Joe's Parrying Hand/Arm.

If, on the other hand, Joe decides to combine his Parry with a Retreat(Slip) to Parry the Arm, his Parry is 11 and a failed Parry does not offer the attacker the opportunity to strike Joe's Hand/Arm (unless that was his original target).

Ah, I did not know that. Should have made sure I knew what I was talking about before speaking up.

That doesn't map to reality very well for me--if you parry a sword attack with your bare hands and you aren't in fact parrying the arm, what are you doing? Parrying the flat of the blade is considerably more than -3 in my opinion, is probably only possible in cinematic campaigns.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by TheOneRonin

Actually, GURPS has very specific rules for this. If someone with a Reach 1 weapon is in an adjacent hex and attacks you, can you use a Retreat(Slip) Parry to move into close combat and Parry the attacking limb. It's most certainly an arm/limb parry, and not a weapon parry.

Could I get a page reference for that rule, please? Nothing in the description of Slip on MA124 talks about parrying the arm/limb instead of the weapon, and I can't find any other references in MA to this.

The only thing that I can find that kind of relates to arm vs weapon parries in a Harsh Realism for Unarmed Fighters suggestion (also on MA124), in which there isn't a penalty for Judo/Karate parries in Close Combat against crushing weapons. But that's a highly optional rule.