Universal melee weapon default

[Exeter]

Forked off from the "Can a swordsman use a baseball bat as a weapon?" thread:

Originally Posted by chris1982

There should be a catchall default of for every melee weapon skill to each other melee weapon skill (even if only best melee skill -8 or something) - There are some basic concepts that melee fighters learn that are true for every weapon: distance, parry concepts, reflexes, attack modes, feints etc.

I find the notion of the great swordmaster with 25 broadsword skill that hits at DX-5 when using an Axe or DX-4 for a knife rather unrealistic...

I, on the other hand, find this extremely unrealistic. Even at "best melee skill -8," your Broadsword 25 guy gets an effective base skill of 17 with any melee weapon whatsoever. Why should he get an effective 17 skill with, say, a quarterstaff or pike, simply by virtue of having dumped a lot of points into Broadsword? The techniques for fighting with quarterstaves, pikes, and broadswords have very little in common.

On the other hand, with the standard rules, the best default he can get is 15 (based on the rule of 20 with a -5 modifier). Considering that DX 20 is the upper limit for a normal human, I find this pretty realistic. The difference is that "best melee weapon skill -8" makes no distinction between DX 14 Broadsword 25 guy who got his skill that high by practicing a ton of hours and DX 20 Broadsword 25 guy who's just naturally talented.

[Polydamas]

Hi Exeter, do you know any armed martial arts? From my limited experience, there are things which carry over between weapons (or between weapons and unarmed!); and in addition, very few people will be masters at Broadsword but know no other weapon skills. If a style focusse on Broadsword but also teaches Spear, the spear training will emphasize how to use principles and techniques from the other skills it teaches with the new weapon.

[Maximumpain]

I was looking for some way to simulate the very experienced fighter over the highly trained fighter. I wanted a way to do it that would give some basic skill to a combat veteran with most weapons but that would not out shine the highly trained fighter in their weapon of choice, and would give someone with both training and experience some extra ability to out shine the warrior with only training or with great traing but little to no experience.

I have been thinking about a combat experience trait that would give some varied bonuses including straight skill bonus, damage bonus, active defense bonus, lessening of range penalty's, and lessening of aiming penalty's. To accurately simulate this it should include some morale bonus to avoid breaking under fire and stress in combat, and even a bonus to leadership in battle situations. There is a hell of a lot to put into it so much in fact that it makes it seem not worth the extra effort.

My point was that something like that could simulate the warrior who knows how to use several weapons and is at least handy with most if not all normal weapons of their era/tech level.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Maximumpain

I was looking for some way to simulate the very experienced fighter over the highly trained fighter. I wanted a way to do it that would give some basic skill to a combat veteran with most weapons but that would not out shine the highly trained fighter in their weapon of choice, and would give someone with both training and experience some extra ability to out shine the warrior with only training or with great traing but little to no experience.

It's very difficult to separate training and experience in Gurps. Most of the effect of either is going to be reflected in the form of Skill level.

You can't even really separate out broad training and/or experience from natural ability taking natural ability as Dex. If you're good at a broad range of Dex-based Skills that should be reflected as a high Dex. Really, it should.

So a theoretical Broadsword Master who only had a Dex of 10 isn't very likely. His Base Speed and Dodge would be improbably inferior as well.

So not only does Dex act as a universal default to Weapon Skill, it's _supposed_ to. It will also represent the expected qualities of reaction time, kinesthetic self-awareness as well as the physical aspects of situational awareness and other factors resulting in the ability to avoid attacks even when not using a weapon.

Don't re-invent the wheel before you try using the ones you already have.

[aesir23]

I'm in favor of universal defaults, but I would say that the rule of 20 should apply to skill defaults as well as attribute defaults.

Broadsword and spear don't have a lot in common, it's true, but someone with Broadsword 25, should reasonably be be a lot better with a spear than someone with a similar DX who's never trained with any weapon.

If you set the universal default at -8 and enforce an extended rule of 20, then the above example gives him a perfectly reasonable default of 12 with a spear or staff.

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

So not only does Dex act as a universal default to Weapon Skill, it's _supposed_ to. It will also represent the expected qualities of reaction time, kinesthetic self-awareness as well as the physical aspects of situational awareness and other factors resulting in the ability to avoid attacks even when not using a weapon.

I maintain that if you gave a great axe to an Olympic Gold-Medal Winning Gymnast, and an experienced Kendoka, the fight wouldn't last three seconds, only one of those people knows how to fight.

The current GURPS default rules would have the exact opposite result, granting the gymnast more skill because of their higher DX.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by aesir23

I maintain that if you gave a great axe to an Olympic Gold-Medal Winning Gymnast, and an experienced Kendoka, the fight wouldn't last three seconds, only one of those people knows how to fight.

The current GURPS default rules would have the exact opposite result, granting the gymnast more skill because of their higher DX.

Minor point, though...if the Kendoka feinted iwth that greataxe, he'd win...handily. Feinting goes to best weapon skill, not currently held weapon. By playing with (realistic) loopholes like this, the kendo player would likely get a huge opening with which to strike.

[SuedodeuS]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Minor point, though...if the Kendoka feinted iwth that greataxe, he'd win...handily. Feinting goes to best weapon skill, not currently held weapon. By playing with (realistic) loopholes like this, the kendo player would likely get a huge opening with which to strike.

Nope. Reacting to Feints uses your best weapon skill - actually pulling one off uses your current skill. The Kendoka does have a better shot at feinting than the Olympian, but not by much.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by aesir23

I maintain that if you gave a great axe to an Olympic Gold-Medal Winning Gymnast, and an experienced Kendoka, the fight wouldn't last three seconds, only one of those people knows how to fight.

The current GURPS default rules would have the exact opposite result, granting the gymnast more skill because of their higher DX.

<shrug> If the Kendo-guy has trained in one of the much more common Art forms he doesn't really know how to fight either. I admit he might not suffer from many of the common Disads like Combat Paralysis or Pacifism and that might keep things short.

Setting a -8 default isn't going to do much to change things though. It doesn't do anything for anyone who hasn't trained in an actual Combat Skill rather than an Art or Sport form up to at least Dex+4.

This is a very small class of people and I tend to doubt that the higher levels of any particular Weapon Skill are the parts that carry over to toher weapons generally.

A real fighter will be characterized by more than a single Weapon Skill. You might have somebody in your game or your imagination with Broadsword-25, no other Weapon Skills, Dex 10,no Combat Reflexes, no increased Dodge or other useful sub-stat but I'm going to ignore this as a purely theoretical problem

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

A real fighter will be characterized by more than a single Weapon Skill. You might have somebody in your game or your imagination with Broadsword-25, no other Weapon Skills, Dex 10,no Combat Reflexes, no increased Dodge or other useful sub-stat but I'm going to ignore this as a purely theoretical problem

Makes no difference. If he knows Broadsword, Two-Handed Sword, Knife, Karate, Judo, Flail, Staff, and Spear; has Dx 13, and combat reflexes, he'll still get get beaten in raw by a gymnast with Dx 18 in a fight with axes. They'll both have high dodges, but the gymnast can make Deceptive attacks that the multi-skilled weapon master can't afford. Gymnasts are usually quiet strong too, and he can make acrobatic dodges...but I digress.

The fact that he's mastered half a dozen weapons and a couple of unarmed skills makes that outcome LESS believable, not more. A universal default on melee weapons (of say -8), with an expanded Rule of 20, isn't exactly game breaking.