How to keep melee weapons relevant in a setting with "guns"?

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

(Note: I put "guns" in quotes because I'm not just talking about gunpowder projectile weapons, I'm talking about any kind of fast slug-thrower and even beam or "blaster" weapons.)

So maybe this is an easy one because I've just overlooked a rule. But I'm assuming GURPS is designed such that, baring historical long-reload weapons, it's always better to bring a gun to a fight than a melee weapon. But what if I want a setting where there are characters routinely go around fighting with melee weapons despite the fact that the setting is otherwise gun-loaded?


First thing I thought of is allowing melee weapons to Parry "gun" attacks. Looking around I find the rule on doing so with Parry Missile Weapon: requires Enhanced Time Sense (45 points) at starts at Skill-5. Seems fair, given that I don't need regular cops being able to parry bullets and beams. But I'm not sure if I need the full Time Sense: I don't think I need my melee warriors to all have the ability to do all mental stuff faster. I'm wondering if "Gun" Parry could be lumped in with the other "chi" martial arts of Trained By A Master.


Any other rules I missed?

[ericthered]

There are many approaches taken:


There is a "Melee Etiquette" setting for a campaign where you insist that like must be fought with like as a genre convention. I'm not sure what book that is in.



If you disallow predictive shot and have high point acrobatic heroes, they can close with their enemies quite quickly and dodge the shots.



Ultra-tech and super hero settings frequently have heroes that are resistant to gun fire via armor, super healing or more exotic effects like TK fields and insubstantialness. This also happens in monster hunters, where unliving and homogeneous foes are more common than living ones.


I've used an usual background of 10 points in place of ETS for allowing bullet parrying. Weirdly for that game the armor was good enough that many guns wouldn't penetrate, so it wasn't particularly relevant.

[AlexanderHowl]

Under normal circumstances, melee attacks are only relevant beyond TL 5 when you cannot use a gun, when you do not have a gun, and/or when you want to avoid killing your target. In the first case, it is generally ambush or stealth situations, when using a gun would alert a larger force of enemies to your presence. In the second case, it is generally when you have involuntarily or voluntarily been disarmed and acquired an improvised weapon. In the third case, it is when you are trying to kidnap someone, restrain an ally, avoid legal troubles, etc.

Due to the lethality of modern firearms, I have actually seen a lot more melee combat than ranged combat in my modern games through the years. Unless you are a criminal or a cop, you are not going to be carrying guns everywhere, so knowing how to fight in unarmed combat. It is also easier to gain a better weapon after being disarmed if you know how to use melee weapons.

Parrying bullets and beams is more Precognitive Parry than ETC. In either case though, you need a weapon that will survive the attack that it is parrying. Most swords do not do well against bullets from pistols, so bullets from rifles and beams from blasters will break or slag them on a successful parry (success by five, or a critical success on a parry, prevents damage to the weapon). Innate Attack (Melee) though is good for dealing with that type of thing though, as are Force Swords.

[talonthehand]

A few ways:

Technology: If guns aren't reliable, they won't replace melee weapons, at least not entirely. You can see this in history when guns were still new and largely theoretical, and took a long time to reload. Alternatively, there can be some sort of technology that defends against guns better than melee weapons. You can see this in Dune, where forcefields stop fast moving objects, but not slow moving ones.

Culture: If you have a society built up where personal melee combat is considered the height of style or culture, you can hold off on guns taking the place of melee weapons. This also allows you to have a more terrifying boss from time to time who actually uses a gun, and gives the PCs an outside-of-context enemy.

Supernatural Stuff: Melee weapons are better at being enchanted in your setting, or are used by space wizard knights to deflect gunshots. Something that for an arbitrary reason ("has to be personally connected to your chi" maybe?) only works for melee stuff.

Scarcity: Most often comes up in Post-Apocalyptic settings - guns or ammo are scarce, so they're not commonly used.

Safety: Don't use guns on a space station.

Ineffective Against Enemies: Maybe guns work just dandy against people, but not against Things Man Was Not Meant To Know for some reason.

These are at least some ways you can put melee weapons at an equal or better level to firearms.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by SilvercatMoonpaw

(Note: I put "guns" in quotes because I'm not just talking about gunpowder projectile weapons, I'm talking about any kind of fast slug-thrower and even beam or "blaster" weapons.)

So maybe this is an easy one because I've just overlooked a rule. But I'm assuming GURPS is designed such that, baring historical long-reload weapons, it's always better to bring a gun to a fight than a melee weapon. But what if I want a setting where there are characters routinely go around fighting with melee weapons despite the fact that the setting is otherwise gun-loaded?


First thing I thought of is allowing melee weapons to Parry "gun" attacks. Looking around I find the rule on doing so with Parry Missile Weapon: requires Enhanced Time Sense (45 points) at starts at Skill-5. Seems fair, given that I don't need regular cops being able to parry bullets and beams. But I'm not sure if I need the full Time Sense: I don't think I need my melee warriors to all have the ability to do all mental stuff faster. I'm wondering if "Gun" Parry could be lumped in with the other "chi" martial arts of Trained By A Master.


Any other rules I missed?

Sure it can. Mind you what also works is just to have super martial artists with really good dodges and don't allow the gun users to lower the dodges of their targets with maneuvers. The result is that super martial artists can only be hit in melee.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Originally Posted by talonthehand

Supernatural Stuff: Melee weapons are better at being enchanted in your setting, or are used by space wizard knights to deflect gunshots. Something that for an arbitrary reason ("has to be personally connected to your chi" maybe?) only works for melee stuff.

One idea I had once was that combat "magic" required motion: all the unnecessary dancing about in a cinematic sword fight wasn't just for funsies, that was how you moved the energy around in order to make a fireball. You just couldn't get the same results with ranged weapons, so you were either mundane and carried a gun or were magical and had a stick you hit people with. (Also you technically weren't without a ranged attack: you could sling magic.)

[Kilmore]

Well, for a science fiction setting it's easy. You're mostly going to find people in crowded urban spaces and vehicles, with lots of corridors and not so many wide open spaces so...

1. A guy with a stick is normally faster than a guy with a gun in his holster when turning a corner.
2. Melee is good when you want to hurt the guy in front of you but not the population behind him.
3. Shooting holes in the environmental shelter isn't appreciated.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Parrying bullets and beams is more Precognitive Parry than ETC.

Makes sense, but ETC is the RAW statement.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Innate Attack (Melee) though is good for dealing with that type of thing though, as are Force Swords.

Maybe Innate Attacks that require a focus object?

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

....and don't allow the gun users to lower the dodges of their targets with maneuvers.

Just disallow maneuvers that lower Dodge?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by SilvercatMoonpaw

Just disallow maneuvers that lower Dodge?

Shooting manuevers.

[rkbrown419]

You can put your players into situations where using guns isn't feasible, or at least unwise. If they have to go into a high security area they may not be able to take any weapons. If they have to neutralize an enemy quietly stabbing him in the back is preferable to shooting him.