Parrying his arm instead of his sword?

[Humabout]

I recall seeing a thread, or at least a series of posts, addressing this issue for the most part to everyone's satisfaction at some point. Unfortunately, I have a rabbit stewing and lack the time to properly search (e.g., totally failed my rushed Reasearch roll), so I'll relate what I recall:

Aggressive Parry (Weapon) offered the option to target a bodypart, at an additional penalty beyond the the normal penalty. On a success, the weapon skill was rolled, at penalty for the hit location targeted, and a success meant you inflicted damage to that hit location. I'll try searchign again later, unless someone with strong searchfu ninjas me.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

This relates to the strange way that GURPS models unarmed disarms: all the ones that I am familiar with involve grabbing the weapon or weapon arm and twisting, not hitting the weapon and knocking it away. I hope that Technical Grappling will solve this.

TG indeed talks about the difference between an Instant Disarm (Knocking a Weapon Away) and the more traditional grab and twist. It also introduces a special parry (derived from Hand Catch) to mimic the many techniques that try and grab a strike as the defense, rather than the more straightforward parry, then step in and grapple. It also treats using pain to motivate dropping a weapon.

I tried to be pretty complete, and my playtesters aided and abetted this goal, running quite a few sample fights with the new rules.

[Blood Legend]

This is all hypothetical, but lets say there was a book sitting behind a large....I don't know, sayyy.. Some kind of creature. Like a troll or something.

Annnnnd there were a bunch of people who wanted that book... maybe a little more than they wanted that troll..

Is there a way we can get that book in front of the cave instead of in the back without using telekinesis?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Blood Legend

Is there a way we can get that book in front of the cave instead of in the back without using telekinesis?

Exoteleport? Mind control the troll?

[gilbertocarlos]

Enter the cave, take the book, exit the cave.

The troll will make that a little difficult, but it can be done.


You can use stealth, or get a bunch of guys with shields to run to the book, the shield will protect them up to +3DB, AoD and you get +2, if they have skill 12 it's already 14, then, pick the book fast and run away even faster.

[Kol]

how does my party handle a troll...with excessive force, and probably recovers about half the book.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Blood Legend

This is all hypothetical, but lets say there was a book sitting behind a large....I don't know, sayyy.. Some kind of creature. Like a troll or something.

Annnnnd there were a bunch of people who wanted that book... maybe a little more than they wanted that troll..

Is there a way we can get that book in front of the cave instead of in the back without using telekinesis?

I don't know a certain person's whose initials rhyme with Jess Say (or maybe Jeeve Saxon) favorite drink, but I'd start there.

Even if it doesn't work, you get to say "I got schlotzed with Jeeve Saxon!"

It won't necessarily be the story that gets you immortalized at the water cooler, tho. I've tried. But no one knows who Jeeve Saxon is.

Now I really want to play a Monster Hunters character named Jeeve Saxon.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

TG indeed talks about the difference between an Instant Disarm (Knocking a Weapon Away) and the more traditional grab and twist. It also introduces a special parry (derived from Hand Catch) to mimic the many techniques that try and grab a strike as the defense, rather than the more straightforward parry, then step in and grapple. It also treats using pain to motivate dropping a weapon.

I tried to be pretty complete, and my playtesters aided and abetted this goal, running quite a few sample fights with the new rules.

That is good news (at least, if I ever get to play GURPS again). At one point I had wondered if "grappling = ground fighting," and ground fighting does not seem to come up too often in games. Building good rules for the sorts of fights common in games is devilishly difficult.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Lopping off the hand instead of parrying the sword is something we thought about for GURPS Martial Arts.

Take a look at Stop Hit on page 108. In many cases, the "cut his arm instead of parrying his sword" techniques you see in fechtbuch are Stop Hits. That section was written with them in mind, at least partly. You Wait, and then you let your opponent start his attack and then go for his hand or arm instead of either attacking him first or waiting until he's done. There is a risk - a realistic one, IMO - that you might not pull it off, and you might get caught by that sword swing anyway. This does the job the best, rules-wise, because you have to be able to reach his arm to pull it off (not always true, depending on your respective weapon choices) and it's not terribly effective if you are less skilled than your opponent or unable to significantly injure his limb or extremity. But if it works, you not only stop his attack but might stop any further attacks if you attack cripples the limb.

You can also simulate this with a Riposte, but there the intent is different - you're not trying to stop his attack by wrecking his arm. It's making a less "full" defense and skipping right into the attack to make it harder to stop. That would work better if you are trying to stop the weapon and then turn that stop into an attack (say, a parry and slide down the weapon to the hand, or carrying the weapon out of line enough for a quick reversal into the arm.)

Aggressive Parry, as written, won't do it. First, because it's for unarmed attacks, since armed parries are by default aggressive in GURPS - if you contact your opponent with the parry, you're going to hurt him. Parries also assume you are parrying the actual attacking weapon, not what conveys it - a parry vs. a sword, as written, is parrying the sword not the hand. While you could re-write a special case rule for this, I think that's not going to work very well, because Aggressive Parry assumes that if you pull it off you do stop the attack and may do some injury in the process; I think it's a mistake to assume that with a weapon. A weapon swung by a parried arm might keep coming and smack you. It's why flails give a parry penalty, because you can't just go stopping part of the weapon to ensure none of it hits. You'll get that "wraparound" effect if you stop my arm's momentum with a cut but let my sword, stick, knife, flail, etc. come around. Nevermind two-handed weapons (barring getting an Extreme Dismemberment result). Aggressive Parry would just say, no, that never happens if you parry the limb instead, and I think that's inaccurate. You could probably add rules for it, but it'll be complex and I think Stop Hit already does that better.

Stop Hit is the best way to simulate this "parry the arm not the sword" move, using the existing rules.

[Humabout]

Here's that link I promised earlier: Aggressive Armed Parry