Questions about hitboxes, impaling weapons, rigid armor, and hit chances

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by electrum

How do you think it should be taken then, if a PC just says "oh yeah well my guy's no idiot, of course he's going to take a fencing stance"? AFAIK there's no specific skill I can require. I don't like to just say "narratively, your guy is a pirate, not a fencer. He's not trained as a fencer and has no reason to know this. You can't do it"

And as for the former, that's how I've been dealing with it so far. It sometimes feels muddy and "hacked together" when we do it that way, like we're missing an aspect of how it would really turn out.

This thread has so far made it clear that I need to read the whole of low-tech, at least!

If GURPS was being written from scratch by historians of fencing, the Fencing skills might well be replaced with an option that represents leading with the weapon, point in line with the enemy, and trying to return to that stance as often as possible. This would offer bonuses to defence and in Who Strikes First, but expose the weapon and weapon hand to attacks and Beats and give some penalties to cutting attacks (damage penalty? bonus to parry them? I don't know). Historically, some fencers recommended relying on guardie basse strette (low guards with the point in line) when fencing with the staff or sword alone, and others did not ... they have many good features but some disadvantages, especially if the sword does not protect the sword hand very well.

At the end of this rules change, the skills Staff and Spear and Lance would probably be replaced with a single skill, just like Broadsword, Rapier, and Smallsword would become one. But my GURPS books are back in the Old Country. Some aspects of the GURPS combat mechanics date back to the 1980s when less was known and there was no community of experts in different subjects to help the authors do research or write the books themselves.