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Old 06-17-2011, 06:59 PM   #11
CousinX
 
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Default Re: [MA/LT] Blocking with Cloaks

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Originally Posted by Polydamas View Post
It would be pretty rare that a cloak fighter would face a heavy swung weapon (it was a form for hunting or duelling or situations; if the other side had polearms and axes you probably had a proper shield).
Rare in history, perhaps, but not in Dungeon Fantasy! :)


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Dall'Agocchie tells students to meet high cuts with the cloak closer to the sword's hilt than its point (where they have less force); di Grassi recommends keeping the cloak well away from the body where you can use the "length, largenes, and flexibiliitie" of the portion hanging down below the arm to parry. A cut that has to move a heavy piece of cloth several feet before it can reach its target will definitely be weakened. In short, unless a trained cloak fighter has played against heavy swung weapons and has serious difficulty parrying them, I wouldn't worry about it.
Hmm... now I just need to arrange a confrontation between a cloak-and-saber sport fencer and an SCA berserker to see what happens.

I don't know ... it seems to me that, like a boxer confronting kicks or swung melee weapons, a fencer who's used to fighting other fencers is apt to be unprepared to block Olaf's greataxe.
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Old 06-17-2011, 07:09 PM   #12
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Default Re: [MA/LT] Blocking with Cloaks

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I would just use the damage to sheilds rules, and count the Cloak's DR as "flexible" to represent that some force might get through to the fighter without having to damage the cloak first. (If of course you only succeeded by the Cloaks DB.)
A cloak would definitely be flexible DR, but flexibility doesn't make much difference for things with less than 5 DR to begin with.


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This would and should apply equally to thrusting as to swinging, but swinging weapons have much more force and will more often overcome the cloaks inertia to impact the fighter.
True, and the small DR would affect thrusts more than swings.


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I think it would be exceedingly rare to actually cut through a cloak with a swung sword. Try it at home if you can.
That's not a bad idea, I might try it for curiosity's sake ... but you don't have to cut completely through the cloak to inflict damage on anything that was on the other side of the cloak. So the real test would be, hang a "cloak" (blanket, whatever) in front of a pumpkin, and swing the sword at the pumpkin through the blanket. The cloak might slow the swing down a bit, but I bet the pumpkin still gets sliced.
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Old 06-17-2011, 07:12 PM   #13
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Default Re: [MA/LT] Blocking with Cloaks

Do note that a barbarian warrior accustomed to blocking or parrying Olaf's great axe may well be caught off-guard by Giuseppe's rapier thrust, though. That's less a function of what a fighter's weapons can accomplish against other weapons than it is a function of what the user himself has experienced. Fortunately, we have rules for this; see Cross-Cultural Encounters (Martial Arts, p. 212).

Modern pundits' views notwithstanding, it's probably the case that just about any armed fighting style intended for life-or-death combat would be adaptable to standing off any other. It's unarmed arts facing armed ones, and styles that aren't for life-or-death combat, that run into problems. From everything I've read, rapier combat – with or without a cloak – was an earnestly kill-or-be-killed pursuit. The mythology about foppery and first blood was added a few centuries after the fact. Real-world cloak-and-rapier schools drilled against pike, halberd, and two-handed sword.
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Old 06-17-2011, 08:53 PM   #14
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Default Re: [MA/LT] Blocking with Cloaks

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Do note that a barbarian warrior accustomed to blocking or parrying Olaf's great axe may well be caught off-guard by Giuseppe's rapier thrust, though. That's less a function of what a fighter's weapons can accomplish against other weapons than it is a function of what the user himself has experienced. Fortunately, we have rules for this; see Cross-Cultural Encounters (Martial Arts, p. 212).

Modern pundits' views notwithstanding, it's probably the case that just about any armed fighting style intended for life-or-death combat would be adaptable to standing off any other. It's unarmed arts facing armed ones, and styles that aren't for life-or-death combat, that run into problems. From everything I've read, rapier combat – with or without a cloak – was an earnestly kill-or-be-killed pursuit. The mythology about foppery and first blood was added a few centuries after the fact. Real-world cloak-and-rapier schools drilled against pike, halberd, and two-handed sword.
Points well-taken, particularly about "life-or-death vs. sport/art/etc" being a more important distinction than "fencing vs. heavy melee."

My question is more about the physics than the familiarity, though. Unfamiliarity with greataxes aside, I'm just not picturing a cloak vs. greataxe defense being very effective, except in the same way that an unarmed vs. greataxe defense would be -- intercepting the weapon nearer the handle than the business end, as Polydamas mentioned. And in that case, it doesn't seem that the cloak is doing much, it's mostly an unarmed parry that just happens to be performed with a cloak in your hand.

Anyway, it seems like the general consensus and the word from on high is that cloaks are adequately covered by the RAW, and there' not a compelling reason to house-rule it. That said, I might try out a -2 or -3 for cloaks vs. swung weapons, just to see how it plays.... although, as you say, real-world cloak-and-rapier fighters quite possibly faced greatswords and halberds with some regularity, so it makes sense that they'd have developed some kind of tactics for such situations. Maybe more Armed Grapple (Cloak) than Block....

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Old 06-17-2011, 10:36 PM   #15
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Default Re: [MA/LT] Blocking with Cloaks

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Rare in history, perhaps, but not in Dungeon Fantasy! :)
If its DF, is "realism" a good reason to add a house rule that makes something cool less effective? Especially without much evidence that its actually more realistic? But its your game: the most important thing is that it satisfies you and your players.
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Old 06-17-2011, 10:39 PM   #16
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Default Re: [MA/LT] Blocking with Cloaks

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A cloak would definitely be flexible DR, but flexibility doesn't make much difference for things with less than 5 DR to begin with.
Good point, serves me right for not consulting the books before commenting. I guess it calls for a special kind of Blunt Trauma, which applies to attacks that overcome the cloaks DR but not it's HP.


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True, and the small DR would affect thrusts more than swings.
Isn't this what you want? For cloaks to be more effective against thrusting weapons?

I still think this is a bit of a non-issue of you use damage to shields. It succeeds in making cloaks a less effective weapon against heavy swung weapons, which is the realism you're looking for.
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Old 06-18-2011, 05:42 AM   #17
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Default Re: [MA/LT] Blocking with Cloaks

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Originally Posted by aesir23 View Post
Good point, serves me right for not consulting the books before commenting. I guess it calls for a special kind of Blunt Trauma, which applies to attacks that overcome the cloaks DR but not it's HP.
Low-Tech already has a rule for this in the textbox called "arrow curtains" (p.104). Page 99 specifically says that a cloak would qualify. I'd have no problems expanding it to include light melee weapons like knives, fencing sabres, and smallswords.

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Old 06-18-2011, 11:04 AM   #18
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Default Re: [MA/LT] Blocking with Cloaks

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Originally Posted by Polydamas View Post
If its DF, is "realism" a good reason to add a house rule that makes something cool less effective? Especially without much evidence that its actually more realistic? But its your game: the most important thing is that it satisfies you and your players.
It's true ... worrying about realism in DF is a bit like worrying about historical accuracy in DF. I have a bad habit of impulsively house-ruling things that bug me, with the result that it gets confused or contradictory and I have to "repeal" or revise the house rules. And all-too-often, I finally end up deciding that RAW suffices anyway....


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Isn't this what you want? For cloaks to be more effective against thrusting weapons?
Yeah, I meant that as a good thing, in support of the "RAW is fine" position.


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I still think this is a bit of a non-issue of you use damage to shields. It succeeds in making cloaks a less effective weapon against heavy swung weapons, which is the realism you're looking for.
I think I'm coming around to that opinion as well. I just have to hmmm and haww about a little more first. :)
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Old 06-18-2011, 11:41 AM   #19
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Default Re: [MA/LT] Blocking with Cloaks

Note one other thing: In a fight, it isn't as if the attacker executes everything from "intent to strike," through "strike," to "follow-through" first, and then his target assesses the threat and executes everything from "intent to defend," through "defend," to "return to guard position." Yes, the dice rolling in GURPS can be interpreted that way, but that's a necessary evil that exists for the purpose of making the abstraction work: Two men walk in, one walks out, and after the fact, the rules give you answers for things like "How many telling blows did each man strike?", "Are their weapons intact?", and "How far did they move while fighting?"

A cloak defense starts before the blow is anywhere near landing. It serves to obscure the defender's body positioning so that the attacker completes an attack that isn't a square blow but a glancing one, or even a miss. And of course the defender can more easily lean aside to avoid an off-target blow. In game terms, the abstraction has this as a block defense made after an attack roll. In reality, it's more of an enhancer to a dodge of sorts. It's just that since it fully commits the cloak, GURPS counts it as a block, and like all active defenses, it's rolled after the attack roll.

If you look at fightbooks, there isn't a lot of evidence that cloaks were ever used to flat-out block or trap attacks. Just about all the images show the defender holding the cloak out to obstruct lines of attack before the attack is launched. The closest you see to truly stopping the weapon square is when the weapon is a dagger and the cloak is wrapped around the arm to protect against the dagger's edges for a defense with the arm.
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