Mailanka's Musings -- GURPS Content Post

[Kalzazz]

Well, her inability to deal credible damage is what doomed her . . . not that she couldn't have lost with force swords

She goes all out to throw a pair of deceptive swings with a DWA . . . Vespers parry is insane, but her attack then is also fairly insane. She has a couple chances at a 6 or less for a crit, then a couple chances he blows his parry.

If she lands a blow, Tane goes right to death check land with 8d+16 wallop from a Force Sword. So he is looking at a death check, KO check, and stun/knockdown check to continuerumbling, which he might be unlucky enough to fail one of

The +8 is of course huge beyond reckoning, since the +8 ST means even 2 hits of a force sword won't yield 6x HP wallop, and +8 HT means he won't fail HT checks, and you already pointed out the parry awesome

However with a force sword level damage she goes from 'roadkill' to 'underdog'

I don't think a 4k vibroblade is necessarily that much cheaper than a 10k force sword . . . . I mean, M'elena could easily buy a pair of force swords with her remaining budget

[Mailanka]

Playtest 3: Rafari joins his Nehudese tribe to battle against an invasion by the Empire. This gives me a chance to test both Alien Warriors and Imperial Troopers, as well as push a Space Knight to the brink of defeat. How much does it take to take a Space Knight down?

To do this, of course, I updated Rafari to 350 points.

[Kalzazz]

And this is why smart space knights should wear some lightweight armor! DR 20 battle weave would have prevented Rafari hitting death check land

One quibble on how you wrote it up, it made it much harder to follow due to the constant use of the term Infantry, which wasn't to illuminating as all units involved were on foot

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

And this is why smart space knights should wear some lightweight armor! DR 20 battle weave would have prevented Rafari hitting death check land

One quibble on how you wrote it up, it made it much harder to follow due to the constant use of the term Infantry, which wasn't to illuminating as all units involved were on foot

Yeah, there's some editing problems in this one. It's a huge post on a very complex topic. I've given it a few passes already. It doesn't surprise me that there are more.

Armor is an interesting topic, though. A lot of Star Wars characters don't wear it, and if every space knight needs armor to function, we have a problem. Rafari uses the Graceful Form, which greatly benefits from having a superior dodge and very little encumbrance. In principle, he should be able to function just fine (or even better) without armor. Other characters, who focus on different strategies, should benefit from armor. That is, Rafari and Dun Beltain should be equally viable, rather than Dun Beltain being obviously superior.

Battleweave is all of 6 lbs (for DR 20) or 15 lbs (for DR 35). While that's not going to push Rafari into light encumbrance on its own, it's 6-15 lbs he can't use for something else, and neither will save him against a force sword, which is the thing he's the most worried about. He's about as well off naked as he is in even heavy battleweave in that case. But lesser attacks are different: he's vulnerable to a punch or a kick now, or the claws of a beast (or explosions, but there's a cinematic rule covering that), and he wouldn't be with battleweave, and from the theory that "every little bit counts" does it make a difference?

I will note that in the last fight, what killed him was dropping him well past -5xHP, so a little armor wouldn't have made that much of a difference. So far, what I've seen suggests that armor matters, but you can survive without it, and there might be good tactical reasons for doing so (though I think it's also safe to say that if you're going into a large battle, you're better off with armor than without, at least light armor)

One oversight that only occurs to me now is that if Rafari is running around bare chested (he wasn't in this fight, but he did against Vesper Tane), he should benefit from Bulletproof Nudity.

[Kalzazz]

Fighting bare chested to show off his alien exotic manliness and sweet ink for bulletproof nudity likely will trump armor by far in a setting rich with armor divisors

I've usually found 'light enough not to encumber' armor to be pretty popular, as heavy armor helps you get hit by cannons, brawny weapon masters, and death touch and other things where armor is less useful, but without any armor you wind up getting papercutted to death by giant rats, shotguns, shrapnel, and massed hordes of goblins with short bows

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

Fighting bare chested to show off his alien exotic manliness and sweet ink for bulletproof nudity likely will trump armor by far in a setting rich with armor divisors

I've usually found 'light enough not to encumber' armor to be pretty popular, as heavy armor helps you get hit by cannons, brawny weapon masters, and death touch and other things where armor is less useful, but without any armor you wind up getting papercutted to death by giant rats, shotguns, shrapnel, and massed hordes of goblins with short bows

So, your take, having watched all of this:
-You're better off with light battleweave than nothing at all unless you're particularly poor or weak
-Bulletproof nudity or being in a situation where armor is impractical (Leylana at a grand gala) is a good reason not to be in battleweave
-Heavier armor is has encumbrance penalties, or the helmet penalty, which makes it more of a strategic choice
-This is all okay and fits Psi-Wars just fine.

Is that how you see it?

(Man, it really irritates me that I forgot bulletproof nudity. M'Elena, being in a hot dancer outfit would have benefited from it against Vesper Tane. Not sure it would have made much of a difference, but it's still something I should have remembered. I should double check to make sure it's in my combat cheat sheet)

[Kalzazz]

In the Clone Wars cartoon the Jedi do wear armor, though in said cartoon they are in the midst of a fully mobilized war effort

One thing that does strike me as a bit wonky is that Jedi always stick with sidearms. A knight or samurai might walk around with clothes and sidearm when he isn't expecting to rumble, but if he actually expects to rumble he might gear up . . . often very dramatic as we see him putting on armor, tieing his hair back and so forth

Though this does give a more Action feel, sure, nameless SWAT cops might grab long arms and don armor to prepare for rumbling, but named heroes often stick with sidearms

Hmm, bullet resistant vests (always hidden beneath clothes and only revealed dramatically after the hero gets hit) are very Action to

I know in a GURPS Star Wars game I played in, the DM decided Jedi robes were made of clothing weight armor

[Kalzazz]

Yeah, that is pretty much my take

Or more simply 'this is GURPS, there is no arbitrary rule space mages can't wear armor, if someone is not wearing armor we need to look at why'

[Mailanka]

Or certain Space Knights might have "Vow (Wear no armor) [-10]" like Rafari and Tane have for their force swords, explaining why they don't use blasters. I could have battle weave robes too.

I also think that Psi-Wars will end up with knight-like Space Knights, so that's not a major concern.

Alright, I'm satisfied with the armor situation. Still keeping my eye on the vibro-weapon situation. I'm fine with them being inferior to force swords, but I'm not sure if they're too inferior.

[Kalzazz]

I definitely look forward to seeing the heavy armor in action, and also the heavily armored and the unarmored in the same party with neither feeling dumb about their choices