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Old 06-05-2016, 09:42 PM   #1
lugaid
 
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Default Forehead Cuts

One of the things that boxers and other fighters worry about is a cut above the eyes, since the bleeding can interfere with vision. I can't find any way for this to happen in the Basic Set or Martial Arts, but may have missed something. Is there already a rule that makes this situation possible? If not, what sort of ruling would you make around it, if you were interested in harshly realistic combat?
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Old 06-06-2016, 12:06 AM   #2
DanHoward
 
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Default Re: Forehead Cuts

You could rule that a blow to the head that causes a stun can temporarily blind one eye instead.
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Old 06-06-2016, 04:33 AM   #3
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Default Re: Forehead Cuts

This could be the explanation for a temporary crippling eye injury.
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Old 06-06-2016, 06:42 AM   #4
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Default Re: Forehead Cuts

An interesting idea. I like it. Not least because I'm a bare-fisted boxing aficionado.

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Originally Posted by kabson View Post
This could be the explanation for a temporary crippling eye injury.
The problem with this is that nobody will ever target the eye with a punch in GURPS--too difficult, not enough pay-off.

I'm not sure how to handle it without adding a bunch of unnecessary HT rolls and book-keeping. Perhaps it's just a justification for shock and injury penalties.
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Old 06-06-2016, 06:55 AM   #5
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Default Re: Forehead Cuts

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Originally Posted by aesir23 View Post
An interesting idea. I like it. Not least because I'm a bare-fisted boxing aficionado.

The problem with this is that nobody will ever target the eye with a punch in GURPS--too difficult, not enough pay-off.

Since the vast majority of punches are crushing damage, they won't be targeting the eye directly anyway.

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Originally Posted by aesir23 View Post
I'm not sure how to handle it without adding a bunch of unnecessary HT rolls and book-keeping. Perhaps it's just a justification for shock and injury penalties.
Yep

You could run something like the the partial injures rules, 2HT x Seconds is probably long enough for blood to start getting into the eyes.

Well unless it a lot of blood from a big wound at which point I think the game effects of the wound itself are likely to cover all this (we did thread on this recently, I suggest running the bleeding rules for attacks that don't penetrate the skull)

Head / skull doesn't actually have any partial injuries rules, which is a bit odd, I guess it less likely to come up but still?

Last edited by Tomsdad; 06-06-2016 at 08:16 AM.
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Old 06-06-2016, 08:01 AM   #6
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Default Re: Forehead Cuts

To make forehead cuts meaningful in a boxing match, you'd have to revamp GURPS damage, honestly. For punches, you're talking a pretty low-probability event, so by the time one is likely to happen, the target is almost certainly unconscious - if not dead - from all those Skull hits. They're more likely with actual crushing weapons, as well as cutting, piercing, and impaling. Offhand, I'd say such a cut would happen something like 1/6 (1 on 1d) of the time from a crushing weapon, 1/3 (1 or 2 on 1d) of the time from a cutting/piercing/impaling weapon, in either case requiring a hit to the Skull from the front that does at least 1 point of damage. This is if the character isn't wearing head armor - if so, you'd might as well ignore it (even if a sharp penetrates the armor, the padding will probably soak up the blood well enough it won't become an issue unless the fight goes on for a long time). I'd say you've got about 1d seconds before the blood reaches your eye, giving you One Eye. Wiping blood from your forehead resets this time; it gives a -1 to most actions (-2 for actions with the wiping hand, which corresponds to a -1 to defend with that hand) on the same round you wiped it away. Once the blood's in your eye, you need a cloth of some sort, then can opt for a Do Nothing to wipe the blood out, but it will come back in 1d seconds, as usual. The wiping hand is unusable and you're at -1 to all defenses until your next turn. You can try to use an uncovered hand (or one covered with soft leather), but this requires a roll against HT to actually clear the eye.
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Old 06-06-2016, 11:14 AM   #7
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Default Re: Forehead Cuts

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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
Since the vast majority of punches are crushing damage, they won't be targeting the eye directly anyway.
Now that I think about it, that makes no sense. As of now, I'm house ruling that the eye can be targeted with crushing attacks.

Crushing attacks to the eye: 2 points to cripple the eye (with temporary crippling representing an eye swollen shut.) Any damage beyond that is applied to Face (rather than the brain as in impaling attacks).

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
For punches, you're talking a pretty low-probability event, so by the time one is likely to happen, the target is almost certainly unconscious - if not dead - from all those Skull hits.
They're low probability with gloves on (not to mention the Vaseline fighters rub on their faces to reduce friction.) Cuts are A LOT more common with bare-knuckles (as can be seen from the early days of UFC) but knockouts are much, much rarer.*

I like the idea that 1 in 6 of crushing attacks to the skull cause bleeding that could leak into the eyes.



*You can't punch someone's head hard enough to give them a concussion without seriously hurting your hand. The majority of bare-knuckle boxing knockouts (from the London Prize-fight days) were from body blows (solar plexus).
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Old 06-06-2016, 11:19 AM   #8
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Default Re: Forehead Cuts

There's the Eye Rake maneuver in MA. 72. I'd probably make it one of the entries on the Critical Head Hits table.
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Old 06-06-2016, 12:14 PM   #9
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Default Re: Forehead Cuts

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Originally Posted by aesir23 View Post
Now that I think about it, that makes no sense. As of now, I'm house ruling that the eye can be targeted with crushing attacks.
...
Well I get the impression it's more about not giving punches access to that x4 brain multiplier (the eye has some oddities as a hit location anyway), than saying you can't punch someone's eye at all.

Punching eyes are kind of limited in effect because a lot of the eye is behind the orbit. So most eye attacks are gouges and rakes (so Pi) i.e. you have to get you fingers/thumb in there*.

So personally I think pretty much all locations are variable targets for pretty much all Pi, Imp, Cr, Cut & Imp. But would likely recognise some practical differences. For example I like the way MA allows Cr attack to target Vitals.

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Originally Posted by aesir23 View Post
....

Crushing attacks to the eye: 2 points to cripple the eye (with temporary crippling representing an eye swollen shut.) Any damage beyond that is applied to Face (rather than the brain as in impaling attacks).

....
Something like that for example!

There' also a pretty clear game balance effect at work a times, thr although lower damage than sw get's a reward for being more often able to target the vitals**. But realistically you can target some of the things that GURPS calls vital organs with cutting attacks.

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Originally Posted by aesir23 View Post
....
*You can't punch someone's head hard enough to give them a concussion without seriously hurting your hand. The majority of bare-knuckle boxing knockouts (from the London Prize-fight days) were from body blows (solar plexus).
Erm I assure you that is not the case! (but yes I take your general point)



*which get into the question of when is a blunt attack crushing and when is it piecing, when it's small? etc, etc

**see also various tropes regarding fighting styles and types of weapons

Last edited by Tomsdad; 06-06-2016 at 11:39 PM.
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Old 06-06-2016, 12:56 PM   #10
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Default Re: Forehead Cuts

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Originally Posted by aesir23 View Post
They're low probability with gloves on (not to mention the Vaseline fighters rub on their faces to reduce friction.) Cuts are A LOT more common with bare-knuckles (as can be seen from the early days of UFC) but knockouts are much, much rarer.*
Low probability per hit, not per fight - but GURPS fights are often over in so few hits this rarely matters. As for the asterisked bit, with Harsh Realism for Unarmed Fighters (MA124), you risk taking damage when punching the skull, but the minimum amount of damage needed to actually harm your hand (5 damage becomes 1 HP injury to your hand) will cause 12 HP of injury to the target, which will most likely render him unconscious (it's at least a Major Wound to the Skull, for -10 to the knockdown check, which will almost certainly knock the target down and has a really good chance of knocking him out). Out of the roughly 12 or so hits (see below) needed to cause this effect, an ST 12 boxer (1d+1, assuming he has Boxing high enough for the full damage bonus) is quite likely to have incapacitated or killed his target already. There's a better chance of it happening before the battle's over if he's using Defensive Attacks (good for both a Parry bonus and reduced chance of hurting yourself), for 1d-1, but it's still not great. Even if he purposefully lowers his damage to 1d-2 (negating the chance of rolling too high and hurting himself), each hit has a 1/3 chance of doing nothing, a 1/3 chance of doing no injury but risking the bleeding, a 1/6 chance of injuring his target for 4 HP and risking the bleeding, and a 1/6 chance of injuring his target for 8 HP - a Major Wound - and risking the bleeding. Out of 12 effective hits (that is, ignoring those 1/3 that fall into the "does nothing" range, meaning around 18 actual hits), you'd have roughly 6 that did nothing but chance the bleeding, 3 that seriously wounded the target (if the target has HP 12 or lower, he's now struggling to maintain consciousness each round), and 3 that dealt major wounds, each of which would have a rather high chance of knocking the target out. Combined total of all wounds is 36 HP, dropping the target to -26 HP and (likely) 2 death checks. At this point, there's still only a 65% chance the target is bleeding into his eye.

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Originally Posted by aesir23 View Post
I like the idea that 1 in 6 of crushing attacks to the skull cause bleeding that could leak into the eyes.
Note this is meant to be with crushing weapons. A fist should be lower - I'd eyeball it as a roll of 2 or 3 on 2d (1/12, half as likely as with a weapon). Optionally, some crushing weapons might use the same check as cutting weapons - this would be appropriate for maces (but not round maces), as well as weapons with spikes that aren't long enough to justify impaling (or piercing) damage. If you let fists get the same rate as crushing weapons, you'll be more likely to see some bleeding into the eyes.

Of course, the probabilities for bleeding into the eyes are something I basically just came up with out of thin air. I've no clue how realistic they actually are.
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