Unarmed vs. Knife

[TheOneRonin]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

You choose All Out Defense during your _attacker's_ Turn. When your Turn comes around you're locked into the All-Out Defense you chose. You're not out of All-Out Defense until the _next_ time you choose a Defense and you can't attack until after that.

The first paragraph under MANEUVERS in the Basic Set disagrees with you.

Originally Posted by Basic Set, page 363

A “maneuver” is an action that you can take on your turn. Each turn, you must choose one of the following maneuvers: Aim, All-Out Attack, All-Out Defense, Attack, Change Posture, Concentrate, Do Nothing, Evaluate, Feint, Move, Move and Attack, Ready, or Wait. Your choice determines what you can do on your turn, and sets your options for active defense and movement.

[Toptomcat]

And further:

Originally Posted by Basic Set p. 324

Increased Defense: Add +2 to one active defense of your choice:Dodge, Parry, or Block. This bonus persists until your next turn.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

that makes no sense. How can you retreat away only to magically be next to your target immediately after?

If you truly do retreat from a Reach 1 attack, you will have issues. Some knives are Reach C, which allows you to retreat to Reach 1, and still attempt to capture the arm and then step into CC.

I did a rather extensive breakdown of Arm Lock by RAW a few weeks ago on my blog.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

that makes no sense. How can you retreat away only to magically be next to your target immediately after?

You can't unless he steps forward to follow you, you'd do a side step instead, and step in on your following attack.

[Lorka]

Try to kick him in a joint (knee) MA p. 137 or if not using MA go for the foot, he will likely have some armour in the form of boots so knee is better. If you can deal a crippling blow or otherwise get him prone you have a better chance.

Boots should give some protection from knife parries.

Realistically unarmed against a knife is almost impossible to manage without injuries.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

You choose All Out Defense during your _attacker's_ Turn.

That is in fact not a legal action.

What happens is:

Turn A1: A declares AoD, thus does not attack.
Turn B1: B attacks A, A parries with the +2 from AoD.
Turn A2: A new turn has begun for A, so now A arm-locks B; B parries.
Turn B2: B tries to break free or whatever.

[vicky_molokh]

Something I've been thinking of more for characterisation than for efficiency. Specifically, if you happen to have Brawling instead of Judo/Karate, you might consider showing brutishness by biting the enemy. Note: approach is made more for RP reasons than for safety; do not try this at home.

I'm working on the assumption that you have Brawling 18 instead of Judo 16 (due to cheaper skill) as per OP, while the opponent has Knife 12 (I haven't seen enemy skill level specified).

RAW Variant 1 (the basic).
Declare a Wait.
When opponent steps into attack range, your Wait is triggered. If you need to, step forward. Now bite you're opponent's knife arm (-2). Do not let go. Taking -2 or even -4 Deceptive Attack for a -1 or -2 to defence is reasonable, more if you're desperate enough to do an AoA (Determined). Knife-12 grants a base Parry 8.
If you're successful and the enemy failed to Parry, you're now grappling his knife hand, so he can't use it - he has to break free, which he has a 45% chance assuming equal ST (bite counts as one-handed grapple). Next turn, if he didn't break free, you can add two hands to your bite-grapple, for a net +7 to your ST in the break free resistance, and proceed to making Knee Strikes to his groin for a mere -1 to skill, against which he defends at -2.
If he Parries, he can opt to hit your face with the knife (if he makes a successful Knife roll), which is bad, but the risk seems worth it. If he decides to strike you instead of breaking free, he's at -4 DX.

RAW Variant 2 (the tricky).
Declare a Wait as above, but use a Stop Hit (not Stop Thrust!) instead.
You're very likely to win the Quick Contest, providing the enemy with -3 on on his Knife Parry from that alone. You probably shouldn't lower your skill to less than 14, whether you AoA or not.

Note that if you're using unofficial Step-while-already-Waiting that allows the knife-wielding attacker to arbitrarily trigger a Cascading Wait, you're (a) essentially forced into something close to Variant 2, so you probably want to use Variant 2 anyway and (b) you're still very likely to win the QC.

[Lorka]

Deceptive or not, if you are going for realism I would rule at least +2 to parry a bite to the knife arm with a successful parry equal to a stab in the face or neck.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

That is in fact not a legal action.

What happens is:

Turn A1: A declares AoD, thus does not attack.
Turn B1: B attacks A, A parries with the +2 from AoD.
Turn A2: A new turn has begun for A, so now A arm-locks B; B parries.
Turn B2: B tries to break free or whatever.

I used to make this mistake too, because I used to play a lot of Exalted/World of Darkness, where a round would start, and you could "abort" to a defense before your turn. It seemed logical that I could attack on my turn, and then "abort" to an All-Out Defense on my opponent's turn, and then "miss" my attack the next turn. Only this isn't how it works. You can only ever declare a maneuver on your turn (and there's no such thing as a "round" in GURPS).

[TheOneRonin]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

If you truly do retreat from a Reach 1 attack, you will have issues. Some knives are Reach C, which allows you to retreat to Reach 1, and still attempt to capture the arm and then step into CC.

Exactly! I touched on this as well in one of my earlier posts:

Originally Posted by TheOneRonin

Depends on the knife and the attack. With the knife in the basic book, the bad guy has to be in Close Combat for a Thrusting attack. If he does that, then you can retreat to an adjacent hex and still be able to move into close combat on your turn.