Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 05-24-2017, 08:33 PM   #21
Dalillama
 
Dalillama's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
Default Re: Can you Parry a Bear?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Snaps View Post
Those rules seem a little off to me. So a 19 ST Grizzly is easier to parry than a 3 lb broadsword in the hands of a ST 10 man (or woman)?

You could also stop the tusks of a Bull Elephant, or even tail swipe/bites/claw attacks of a ST 100 Dragon? The Dragon would need 100 ST before you'd even need to check for breakage. A ST 80 Dragon could be parried by a normal broadsword without even having to check for breakage.

Also, after looking over the rules, I notice that a Rapier can Parry a Greatsword without having to even check for breakage.

Anyone else think the weapon breakage rules need a little tweaking?
What about the chance of dropping the weapon? I mean, I wouldn't expect a well made sword to break if I parried a bear's paw with it, but I would expect to have trouble keeping my grip in the face of that much force.
Dalillama is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 05-24-2017, 09:11 PM   #22
Flyndaran
Untagged
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
Default Re: Can you Parry a Bear?

Parry does not mean shield block but with a weapon. It's a bunch of different things that are conflated for ease of game play.

And unless your hand and wrist are literally tougher than metal, properly made blades will not break before you do except under very specific rare situations.
__________________
Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check.
Flyndaran is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-25-2017, 12:21 AM   #23
Tomsdad
 
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Brighton
Default Re: Can you Parry a Bear?

Quote:
Originally Posted by GWJ View Post
Pyramid #77: Combat
Combat Writ Large

Here are optional "more realistic" rules for attacks of high ST and natural attacks.
Yep making a strike from a Grizzly bear with ST19 have the equivelent weight of 18lbs
Tomsdad is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-25-2017, 12:34 AM   #24
trooper6
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Medford, MA
Default Re: Can you Parry a Bear?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
Yep making a strike from a Grizzly bear with ST19 have the equivelent weight of 18lbs
That doesn't seem right. Pyramid 77 says:

Quote:
Quadratic Natural Attacks: Effective weight of an unarmed attack is 1/20 of the attacker’s Basic Lift (that’s ST*ST/100) – rising to 1/2 of BL (that’s ST*ST/10) on a slam.
So a strike from a Grizzly Bear would have the equivalent weight of 3.6lbs
trooper6 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-25-2017, 04:56 AM   #25
Tomsdad
 
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Brighton
Default Re: Can you Parry a Bear?

Quote:
Originally Posted by trooper6 View Post
That doesn't seem right. Pyramid 77 says:



So a strike from a Grizzly Bear would have the equivalent weight of 3.6lbs
Yes sorry you're right I only did 1/20th of ST*ST

But making it 3.6lbs doesn't really solve the problem (it less than the 3x weight threshold for a long sword, and way less than than the 1xBL for not being possible to be parried)

For the me the issue isn't weather or not the long sword breaks, but weather or not you'll be able to meaningfully parry a 800lb bear swinging at you or keep hold of your sword while attempting to do so!


Your grip will break long before your sword will.

Basically there are two aspects in Parrying heavy weapons:

1). the chances of weapon breakage that's based on thresholds of multiples of parrying weapon weight.

and


2). the hard and fast what you can't parry and will be disarming if you try at all based on BL.

To me they interrelate weirdly here

Last edited by Tomsdad; 05-25-2017 at 09:44 AM.
Tomsdad is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-25-2017, 06:24 AM   #26
Harald387
 
Harald387's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Ottawa, ON, CA
Default Re: Can you Parry a Bear?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
For the me the issue isn't weather or not the long sword breaks, but weather or not you'll be able to meaningfully parry a 800lb bear swing at you or keep hold of your sword while attempting to do so!
It's not 'eight hundred pounds of bear aimed at your sword'; it's 'one extended limb of a creature that weighs eight hundred pounds being deflected far enough from its path to miss your body'. There's far (FAR) more to a 'parry' than simply putting your weapon directly in the path of the swing and letting it take all the force involved.
__________________
M2: Everything is true.
GP: Even false things?
M2: Even false things are true.
GP: How can that be?
M2: I don't know man, I didn't do it.
Harald387 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-25-2017, 07:10 AM   #27
Tomsdad
 
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Brighton
Default Re: Can you Parry a Bear?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Harald387 View Post
It's not 'eight hundred pounds of bear aimed at your sword'; it's 'one extended limb of a creature that weighs eight hundred pounds being deflected far enough from its path to miss your body'. There's far (FAR) more to a 'parry' than simply putting your weapon directly in the path of the swing and letting it take all the force involved.
Yes I know, but a 800lb bear can still put a huge amount of force into a swing, and yes I also know parries are about redirection* and not just absorption of the energy. And while a good parry can rely way more on redirection than absorption, it's almost never entirely the former (I fenced for years)

But in reality most armed martial arts (and so parries) were developed with facing a relatively similar opponent in mind. Not bears three times your weight.

Now I have no problem with an attempted parry hurting the bear, and as I said I don't think a bear swipe will break the sword.

But as I said I have issues with the two effects of parrying heavier attacks work together.

I'd be tempted to ditch the chances of breaking full stop (barring unusual circumstances your grip will break before your weapon does**), and instead have some kind penalty to parry heaver and heavier attacks.

Another way is let the bear do a "beat" against a parrying weapon. This will use up the bear's turn after it get parried but with ST19 it likely going to win the context against most people.


* I don't know what kind of fighting you do but think about how you redirect such blows and how much you use the structure of the incoming weapon to do so, and how it might not apply that well to bear arms.

**the broken weapon is a bit of troupe that is over represented in fiction I think

Last edited by Tomsdad; 05-25-2017 at 09:55 AM.
Tomsdad is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-25-2017, 09:27 AM   #28
acrosome
 
acrosome's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: The Land of Enchantment
Default Re: Can you Parry a Bear?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Harald387 View Post
It's not 'eight hundred pounds of bear aimed at your sword'; it's 'one extended limb of a creature that weighs eight hundred pounds being deflected far enough from its path to miss your body'. There's far (FAR) more to a 'parry' than simply putting your weapon directly in the path of the swing and letting it take all the force involved.
This. But off the top of my head I'd suspect that realistically an attacking bear is usually going to slam or grapple and bite, and not claw much until it has the target immobile. A bear defending would claw while retreating.
acrosome is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-27-2017, 12:40 PM   #29
robkelk
Untitled
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: between keyboard and chair
Default Re: Can you Parry a Bear?

Quote:
Originally Posted by mr beer View Post
It's clear from this thread that's it's more effective to bludgeon someone with a grizzly bear than simply have the bear attack them.
(Insert your favorite joke about the right to arm bears here, then riff off that joke to "bearing armed bears"... and so on, but this would probably be better done Elsewhere.)


Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Parry does not mean shield block but with a weapon. It's a bunch of different things that are conflated for ease of game play.

And unless your hand and wrist are literally tougher than metal, properly made blades will not break before you do except under very specific rare situations.
In real life, this is quite true. In GURPS, not so much.
__________________
Rob Kelk
“Every man has a right to his own opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.”
– Bernard Baruch,
Deming (New Mexico) Headlight, 6 January 1950
No longer reading these forums regularly.
robkelk is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-27-2017, 12:46 PM   #30
Anders
 
Anders's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
Default Re: Can you Parry a Bear?

Quote:
Originally Posted by mr beer View Post
It's clear from this thread that's it's more effective to bludgeon someone with a grizzly bear than simply have the bear attack them.
Yes. Someone who can swing a bear is stronger in his arms than the bear is in his front limbs.
__________________
“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...” Marcus Aurelius
Anders is online now   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
deflections, parry, stops

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 03:29 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.