Interposing a foe

[arnej]

We've seen it in the movies dozens of times. The Hero is wrestling with a minion, when the Bad Guy tries to stab him. Quickly, he spins and interposes the minion with whom he is grappling, letting the Bad Guy kill one of his own men!

So, doable in GURPS? What sort of maneuvers/techniques/skills would such a feat require?

[Hide]

Hey there,

To make things really simple, I would suggest a custom leveled perk (up to 2 levels):

Perk: "Coward's Dodge", as long as you have a minion (i.e. allies > minion), and if said minion is at most 1 yard away from you, you might interpose them between the attacker and you, receiving the benefits of a sacrificial dodge in your favor.

You must roll against your minion's dodge score + your perk's level to succeed.

How about it?

[Plane]

Originally Posted by arnej

We've seen it in the movies dozens of times. The Hero is wrestling with a minion, when the Bad Guy tries to stab him. Quickly, he spins and interposes the minion with whom he is grappling, letting the Bad Guy kill one of his own men!

So, doable in GURPS? What sort of maneuvers/techniques/skills would such a feat require?

B375:
If you’re strong enough to grab and lift someone, you can block with his body!

If you want to use the Buckler skill to block with them (I assume the usual -2 for improvised weapons) after you lift them (this requires a "Grapple Technique" then a "Pickup" technique, I think, so 2 attacks just for that) then you could probably "Ready" them as a shield in 1 more turn.

Since you are already grappling with the minion, you just need to pick them up and ready them (2 seconds worth).

Now obviously, it should be possible to push someone in the way of an attack without being strong enough to lift them, although that should be a lot harder. It's sort of like a "can I swivel this big table I can't lift but which is propped up on it's edge to block this arrow"?

In this case, instead of relying on the "use them as a shield to block" tactic, you probably need to use MA132-133 "Proxy Fighting" to force them to do a Sacrificial Dodge on your behalf. It's part of "More Cinematic Combat Rules". If it succeeds, you would force them to dodge in front of the hit and take it instead of you.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by arnej

We've seen it in the movies dozens of times. The Hero is wrestling with a minion, when the Bad Guy tries to stab him. Quickly, he spins and interposes the minion with whom he is grappling, letting the Bad Guy kill one of his own men!

So, doable in GURPS? What sort of maneuvers/techniques/skills would such a feat require?

As it happens, this is also covered explicitly in This! Is! Grappling! - which is a set of worked examples on page 8 of the Fantastic Dungeon Grappling booklet released as part of the Citadel at Nordvorn kickstarter.

See! Lookin' out for you guys.

[Ultraviolet]

That should be done as simple as "Shoving people around", however the tricky part is the timing, since you're not doing it as youir own action but rather as a reaction to the enemy.
Without delaying your own action with a Wait, I don't see it happening within RAW. And skipping your own attack defeats the purpose of fighting to begin with.
But a Perk or Advantage that allows you to do this as a defense would work, however it is quite powerful.

[dcarson]

Martial Arts 132, Proxy Fighting. If we use the rules that it has for attacking with someone else you would parry ate -4 or the proxies ST/2 rounded up whichever is higher.

[Ultraviolet]

Originally Posted by dcarson

Martial Arts 132, Proxy Fighting. If we use the rules that it has for attacking with someone else you would parry ate -4 or the proxies ST/2 rounded up whichever is higher.

Good catch, the fourth as well asd second to last paragraphs actually mention defense

[Hide]

Originally Posted by dcarson

Martial Arts 132, Proxy Fighting. If we use the rules that it has for attacking with someone else you would parry ate -4 or the proxies ST/2 rounded up whichever is higher.

This is very nice, I agree.

I wonder if this fits as regular rules or house-rules.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Hide

This is very nice, I agree.

I wonder if this fits as regular rules or house-rules.

For what it's worth, the simple rules in FDG also use the ST/2 basis; I don't actually recall if we consulted Martial Arts or Basic there, just went with "whatever you do, defenses do it half" as a general "this should be difficult but possible" guideline.

Directly to your question: it's anywhere from "this is the actual rule, published in a GURPS hardback co-authored by the line editor," and "I didn't jump to conclusions, I took a tiny step and there conclusions were" extrapolation. My books are at home, but the ruling seems on firm ground, especially given the explicit mentions of defense rolls brought up in the prior post.

[arnej]

Thanks, all. "Proxy Fighting" looks like what I was looking for!