What is the best warfighting tool set for the brawling skill?

[Engurrand]

Most people make some distinction between weapons suitable for warfare and weapons suitable to be carried in polite company. Not everyone, obviously, but most people, and it is a useful distinction to emphasize in a GURPS game since it allows cool skills like Karate, Knife, and Brawling to get some daylight when they would otherwise be eclipsed by the more warlike tools, like Two-Handed Sword and Glaive.


But what if you only have Brawling? Perhaps there isn't time to learn another skill. Perhaps you don't want to. In any case, what would be the best GURPS choice for the brawler when the going gets heavy--in the press of battle or in tactical skirmishes against armed and coordinated opponents? I'll allow the improvised weapons perk.


It feels like almost a given that you'd want a shield in the off hand.

[RyanW]

Running skill

[Sam Baughn]

There's only really two semi-viable options, in my opinion: the bladed hand (Low-Tech / Martial Arts) and spiked armour (Low-Tech Companion 2).

[Anthony]

In general your best option, other than running, is knocking people down (slams use brawling) or grappling them (using your defaults), and letting someone with a real weapon do the damage.

[Ulzgoroth]

If you're in a combat tier where your enemies don't have a lot of armor, while a damage type upgrade wouldn't hurt (you), just beating them up with a gauntlet and an armored boot isn't out of the question. A punch in the face is just as effective against someone with a sword or spear as against someone with a table leg or fist. It's disadvantageous compared to a proper weapon but the reach is probably a bigger problem than the damage, and Brawling doesn't give you options for improving that.

If they do have armor, what Anthony said.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

If they do have armor, what Anthony said.

Even if they don't have armor, you want to force close combat (which usually requires grappling) or they'll rip you to shreds with parries anyway. The rules for parrying unarmed attacks are really harsh.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

just beating them up with a gauntlet and an armored boot isn't out of the question. .

The boot desn't techncially have to be "armored". Anything Gurps is wiling to call a "heavy boot" does +1 Kick as well as giving at least DR2.

A character who took Brawling only for game mechanical reasons rather than roleplaying ones probably only took Brawling so he'd have something to roll against in unarmed combats he could not avoid but didn't have major cp to commit to the area already needs to be aware that he can Kick nstead of Punch for -2 to hit but +1 to damage but if wears those Heavy Boots he can do +2 damage more than he punches for. Highly useful for those situations where your target has an iompaired ablity to use Active Defenses.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Engurrand

But what if you only have Brawling? Perhaps there isn't time to learn another skill. Perhaps you don't want to.

GURPS is unsympathetic to the "I don't want to" argument. If you want to be special, you have to back that up with special abilities.