I need tips on how to win a fight in fantasy.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Boge

or put 1 point toward a skill I used in the previous session, which wouldn't increase anything substantial.

https://gamingballistic.com/2015/09/...point-in-judo/

[Gnome]

Do you have an unspent CP you can spend? I would suggest picking up a shield and putting a point in Shield if possible. This will improve your defenses and allow you to try a Shield Rush, which is a much safer form of slam that he won't be able to parry (due to the weight of the shield) and that won't hurt you. Once he's prone and you have a shield, you have a fighting chance.

There's no real way to get around that sword. Forcing CC isn't going to happen unless you somehow have him stuck in a corner, as he can always step or retreat away from you. Grappling is way to risky, as if he parries he can basically chop your arm off for free, against which you can't even defend.

If he's overconfident, you can try taking Evaluates and Waits and forcing him to come to you, which can afford a significant advantage as well.

Good luck, it looks like that's what you'll need...

[Anders]

Try to force him into an unarmed duel. He's overconfident, try playing on that. "You couldn't take me in unarmed fight. You need to hide behind a sword."

[ericthered]

Do you have access to magic or alchemy? I'm wondering about coating your sword with alchemical stickiness so that after the first parry neither of you has a functional sword. Then its backup weapons, where you have the advantage.

Can you impair him in some way before the fight? Even something as simple as giving him simple food poisoning the night before? Or have one of your buddies get him really drunk the night before and hung over during the fight?

If the details of the fight aren't set, try to avoid swords. Talk him into an unarmed duel, or use axes, or dueling scythes. Or set it up with obstacles, or on a narrow walkway.

If you're able to use ranged weapons and keep out of range, a bow or crossbow will serve you much better than thrown weapons: its the difference between NO PARRY and a mere -2 to parry.

If you can use a sheild and he can't that will go a long ways to evening up the fight.

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

If at all possible, arrange to fight at a location of your chosing. This can either level the playing field (such as forced to sword-fight armpit-deep in a river or lake) or you can cheat (a battlefield full of booby-traps that you can locate and he can't).

"Fair fights" are for sporting events and formal duels. Otherwise, cheat and cheat outrageously.

[Boge]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

https://gamingballistic.com/2015/09/...point-in-judo/

Judo isn't allowed in this campaign, at least that's what he told me when I first made my character. I'll double check.

Originally Posted by Gnome

Do you have an unspent CP you can spend? I would suggest picking up a shield and putting a point in Shield if possible. This will improve your defenses and allow you to try a Shield Rush, which is a much safer form of slam that he won't be able to parry (due to the weight of the shield) and that won't hurt you. Once he's prone and you have a shield, you have a fighting chance.

There's no real way to get around that sword. Forcing CC isn't going to happen unless you somehow have him stuck in a corner, as he can always step or retreat away from you. Grappling is way to risky, as if he parries he can basically chop your arm off for free, against which you can't even defend.

If he's overconfident, you can try taking Evaluates and Waits and forcing him to come to you, which can afford a significant advantage as well.

Good luck, it looks like that's what you'll need...

I have 9 now and will have more as time goes by before the fight. I can buy the Shield skill if I use or specify training with a shield during a session. I might. I've been more of a dual weild character instead. Cross parry is changed to only +1 for our house rule, but it is an option.

He can't always step and retreat away from me as we have a house rule where he cannot retreat if he stepped on his turn. My initial thought was to get him to step in and attack, then on my turn step into close combat and have my way with him as he can't use his sword in close combat. But apparently the rules only disallow him to parry with his sword if we were already in cc when I made my attack.

I'm sure he's overconfident and I can manipulate him into doing what I want. Should I lose a sword fight only, I'll propose an anything goes fight anyway. Either way, he's a tough opponent I don't look forward to fighting.

Luck would help, but I don't believe that one would be allowed to be purchased after character creation anyway.

Originally Posted by ericthered

Do you have access to magic or alchemy? I'm wondering about coating your sword with alchemical stickiness so that after the first parry neither of you has a functional sword. Then its backup weapons, where you have the advantage.

Can you impair him in some way before the fight? Even something as simple as giving him simple food poisoning the night before? Or have one of your buddies get him really drunk the night before and hung over during the fight?

If the details of the fight aren't set, try to avoid swords. Talk him into an unarmed duel, or use axes, or dueling scythes. Or set it up with obstacles, or on a narrow walkway.

If you're able to use ranged weapons and keep out of range, a bow or crossbow will serve you much better than thrown weapons: its the difference between NO PARRY and a mere -2 to parry.

If you can use a sheild and he can't that will go a long ways to evening up the fight.

I doubt he has Parry Missile weapon. So he couldn't parry a thrown knife anyway. The GM might allow it as he's supposed to be that good, but I doubt the GM remembered to give him that skill. So that's an iffy. If he does, he could still parry my arrows from a bow. Unless you're talking about something I'm now aware of.

Impairing him some way before the fight could be an option. I'll have to ponder on whether my character would really stoop that low. I think he might. It's bad enough that I'm going to get my butt kicked by a one eyed swordsman. If people found out he was impaired as well and I still lost...

EDIT: Now that I think about it, we always mess this up, Acrobatic Stand is -6. So it's unlikely he'll do that and he'd be down after a slam. THen what? Kick dirt in his face and start all out attacking him with my sword? He he...

After a Slam, are you both in the same hex in CC assuming you hit and knock him down?

If I take a wait maneuver for him to move in to attack and I step into CC as he approaches, can he parry my C attack (grapple) with his sword on my Wait (Attack) maneuver?

[Varyon]

If you had access to Martial Arts, a Committed Attack (I think that’s the term - basically All Out Attack Lite) can get you an additional Step, which you could use to move into his Shield Side hex, where he’d be at -2 to defend and be unable to use his sword to Parry. If that happens to be his eyeless side, this is functionally a runaround attack. It would be risky - mess up and you’re penalized for your defense next round - but could be your best shot at initiating a grapple. Without Martial Arts, you may be able to do the same thing with an All Out Attack, but you’ll be nearly guaranteed to die if you fail. Of course, without his astronomical Parry, you may opt to eschew grappling and just go for the kill - buy up Dual Weapon Attack (if you don’t already have it, I don’t see any Techniques at a glance), do AoA (Dedicated) to step into his Side or Back hex. Do a DWA stab at his Vitals, at -6 Deceptive (final skill 17). If you hit with both - which is likely - that imposes a further -1 to his defenses. So, he’s at at least -2 for a side attack, -3 for deceptive, and -1 for DWA, for a total of -6, and is reliant on a secondary defense (not his sword). At 2d+1 vs his Vitals, each successful hit is going to average 24 HP of wounding, certainly a Major Wound, so even if he survives he has to roll against HT-5 to avoid knockdown/stunning against each hit.

If he’s wearing sufficient armor on his back to make a Vitals hit unlikely to seriously wound, consider swinging at his Neck - you’re at a relative -2 to hit, so you’ll probably give up some of your Deceptive (+1 to enemy’s defense, so total -5 instead of -6), but each hit deals 3d+1 cut, and each point that gets past DR is doubled (if neck is unarmored, average wounding is 22 HP per hit). You may instead wish to target the weapon arm (you’re behind him, so should be doable), for final skill 16 and a relative -1 to his defense (total -7); you only get a x1.5 multiplier, but even if he has 20 HP, so long as 7 damage gets through DR (better than even odds against DR 4) on one hit you’ll cripple his weapon arm. More realistic HP means less damage needs to get past DR - against your own doppelgänger, you need to deal more than 6.5 HP of wounding, and 5 points past DR will manage that. As you’re already gambling everything on this one attack, feel free to burn FP on Mighty Blows to boost damage. Alternatively, if you aren’t allowed to buy up DWA (or have to use one sword instead of two) use Flurry of Blows - combined with Weapon Master, this means you’re only at -1 to hit per additional attack. Being at -3 to each attack would be +1 to the enemy’s defense if going after Vitals or Neck, +2 if going after the arm, and the enemy would no longer suffer the -1 for DWA - total -4, -3, and -4, respectively, to the enemy’s defense, but you get 4 attacks at skill 17 or 16 (which are indistinguishable), so you have a very good chance of at least one connecting - and one may be all you need. You even have a decent chance (~32% total) of at least one attack being a Critical Success, which ignores the target’s defenses outright (and may have an add-on effect, like increased or maximized damage).

If the GM allows buying successes with character points, you could also leverage that to increase your chances even further.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Boge

Judo isn't allowed in this campaign, at least that's what he told me when I first made my character. I'll double check.

In my opinion, it should be. Talhoffer was teaching ringen in Germany nearly a century before Takenouchi started teaching jujutsu in Japan.

[Boge]

Good suggestions, Varyon. That's what I've been thinking. I'm not sure where you're getting 4 attacks from though as with an All Out Attack Double I can only convert one of those attacks to a Dual Weapon Attack OR Rapid Strike. Can't do both.

I believe his stats are something like Speed of just under 7, especially with -1 DX in combat with One Eye. 26 Broadsword Skill (25 with -1 DX), Combat Reflexes, maybe High Pain Threshold. Not sure if he uses a shield or not. He might be too arrogant for that.

All Out Attack allows movement up to 1/2. That's 3 hexes for me. Correct me if I'm wrong here. I believe I'll get the first move:

1. Wait with intent to All Out Attack Double when he gets within range.

2. He moves in for his attack...

3. I get to act due to my wait maneuver. I move around to his side or back where he'll get -4 defense (with house rules). Deceptive Attack for -4 defenses, success on a 14. Rapid Strike with Flurry of Blows and Deceptive for -4 defenses, success on 13s. He'll be defending at -8, -8, and -8 again. Assuming a retreat defense (unsure if possible with house rules due to him having moved, but we'll give him the benefit of the doubt), he can retreat parry on a 9, then acrobatic retreat dodge the second on a 8 and retreat second parry the third on a 7 (I'm sure he has Weapon Mastery for consecutive parry bonus). Since he has one eye and SHOULD get -1 to dexerity in combat, it's possible he only has a dodge of 10 instead of 11 which will be worse for him. I doubt our GM will give him a feverish defense, but that's a small possibility.

4. He falls.

It's risky. If he comes out of it alright, he'll rapid strike me for easy attacks, likely going for my head, neck, or vitals. But, I can't think of any other high chance options.

If this succeeds, I defeat the "greatest swordsman" in a fair fight. I like it...I like it a lot.

Note: I also have longswords for a 2 reach thrust if that could help.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by RyanW

In my opinion, it should be. Talhoffer was teaching ringen in Germany nearly a century before Takenouchi started teaching jujutsu in Japan.

The skill names ("judo", "karate") names have the unfortunate side effect that many people assume they refer to those specific modern styles, and so are completely out of place in fantasy games unless they're doing D&D monks. It's even more confusing when there's more than one "trained scientific" striking (Boxing, Karate) and grappling (Judo, Wrestling) skill available. Probably a place where GURPS could use a bit more Genericity, but simplicity was preferred in this case.

But that leads to a whole different thread, which has of course been done before.

If the GM doesn't allow Judo, does he allow Wresting? An unarmed combat skill is useful for a dedicated warrior at any tech level. And the goal of the unarmed skill is avoiding the sword and shifting the battle to something where the fight is hopefully more even. It doesn't have to be specifically Judo to be useful to that end. Boxing? Brawling?