Spear vs Knights... am I missing something?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by awesomenessofme1

Not trying to be rude, but I just don't understand how that makes any sense. By that logic, no human can ever have any remotely good DX, because the weight required would either be physically impossible or at least underweight to a deadly degree.

Sure you can, you just need to actually be strong. If we assume half normal weight at DX 15, you wind up with DX 15 adults ranging from about ST 12 (108 lb) to 16 (256 lb).

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Kromm

To be fair, there's absolutely such a thing as a cheap knight:

They have Wealthy [20], Status 2 [5] (of which one level comes from Wealth), a Duty in the 9 or less [-5] to 12 or less [-10] range, and a couple of points in each of Area Knowledge (Demesne), Broadsword, Diplomacy, Lance, Leadership, Riding, Shield, and Savoir-Faire (High Society). They're about a 30- to 35-point character.

A fit knight might raise ST and HT, the cost somewhat offset by various self-imposed codes about being a rah-rah warrior type, and perhaps things like missing eyes and hands. A really good one would of course have Tactics, high attributes, and combat skills better than 10.

But mostly they just need the Status and Wealth, which in many (maybe most) times and places weren't earned through valor, but through being in the right family: "Right, you're the first son and next Baron Whatsit, and the rest of you lot are knights. Go forth and ride horses or whatever." The idea that all knights were competent heavy cavalrymen is as idealistic as the idea that all knights obeyed the codes of romantic chivalry. Scutage goes back to the 12th century, at least, and its existence is basically the equivalent of saying the most important attributes of a knight are loyalty and paying the bills on time.

Sure, if your concept of knight includes superannuated actors and popular musicians.

I mean professional fighting men, expected to earn their keep by being ready to throw down against hard living outlaws or equally equipped peers.

A vision of some rich guy with a couple of points in Broadsword, Lance and RIding (i.e. skill level 10 unless you've neglected to mention high DX) is either a child still in training or a senior citizen.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Kromm

It's telling that when I ran the very first DFRPG adventures at GenCon using the 15 pre-gens in the box, lightly customized, that the delvers who did the best were Argua (oh, my), Grükuk, and Sir Yvor. So many of the low-ST, high-DX types just got . . . webbed, grabbed, and eaten.

As I recall, the major complaints from people running the DFRPG's included dungeon were along the lines that the early encounter with the giant spiders was way too difficult, and it usually turned out that they expected the PCs to be able to 'kite' with bows and finesse attacks and thought it unfair that the spiders would get into close combat really quickly and maul the 'light' combatants.

'Old school' players from pre-D&D3 days would've been better prepared...

Me I got my early experience in fantasy games in Runequest, and if you weren't in mail or better, and didn't have a decent weapon and a damage bonus, you had no business in melee (and arguably in combat at all).

[RGTraynor]

Originally Posted by martinl

GURPS CP are not an accurate measure of character power

+1. Case in point in my current party. One of the characters is relatively weak, two are north of 300 pts, but the fourth ... is an experiment. Player was mulling over things at startup, and popped for Multi-Millionaire with some Independent Income tacked on, declaring that wealth would be his superpower. He's got the best of everything, magical stuff and alchemicals up the wazoo, and shorn of his toys is kinda pedestrian in battle.

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Sure, if your concept of knight includes superannuated actors and popular musicians. I mean professional fighting men, expected to earn their keep by being ready to throw down against hard living outlaws or equally equipped peers.

A vision of some rich guy with a couple of points in Broadsword, Lance and RIding (i.e. skill level 10 unless you've neglected to mention high DX) is either a child still in training or a senior citizen.

My concept of knight is "someone who is a knight." GURPS not having character classes, the distinction is entirely social. Sure, people get knighted for brave deeds, but they also get knighted for service, for donating large sums to the crown (see Multi-Millionaire Guy above), for many reasons good or ill ... not to mention those cultures with the concept of hereditary knighthood. The rich guy might never have been within ten yards of a lance, never mind picking up Lance skill.

Obviously this flies in the face of Hollywood, Sir Walter Scott * and Malory, but that's the way it goes.


* - as it happens, Sir Walter (lamed from polio) wasn't a he-man either, trained as a lawyer, and got his title as a direct result of leading a successful search in Edinburgh Castle for the missing Scottish Crown Jewels.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Certain goo monsters have no vital spots at all, and just roll up and "grapple" automatically by filling the entire hex, so your options are "do enough raw damage to one-shot them before that happens" (like, ST 20-level damage), "be beefy enough to break free," or "run away and be useless."

Is that done purely w/ Binding or could you also do something w/ Modifying ST-based damage to add Area Effect to your melee attack and it buffs not just your punches but your grapples?

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by RGTraynor

Obviously this flies in the face of Hollywood, Sir Walter Scott * and Malory, but that's the way it goes.


* - as it happens, Sir Walter (lamed from polio) wasn't a he-man either, trained as a lawyer, and got his title as a direct result of leading a successful search in Edinburgh Castle for the missing Scottish Crown Jewels.

If you want a really scary knight, try William Marshall. Way up the list of people you'd not want to mess with.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Farmer

Hmmm, Kromm has already posted about DX not being limited to physicality.

Its main definition in GURPS seems to fall closest to a cross between "what stage magicians do" and "what fighter pilots do." Combat skills get all the press because they come up a lot on adventures. As a result, they're finely sliced, out of some sense of game balance or niche protection. Honestly, though, they could all be reduced to Melee Combat and Ranged Combat without breaking realism much or at all.

However DX more often concerns balance (Body Sense, Dancing, Free Fall, Mount, Parachuting, Riding, Stealth, etc.), fine motor skills (Filch, Knot-Tying, Leatherworking, Pickpocket, Sewing, Sleight of Hand, and sometimes Artist, Jeweler, Lockpicking, and Surgery), flexibility (Erotic Art, Escape, and sometimes Mechanic), or reflexes (vehicle skills, obviously, but also Fast-Draw, Fire Eating, and the like). Is that overbroad? Probably! But I think that excess breadth is the issue in GURPS – not the gap between DX and ST-to-weight ratio. As written, DX covers a great many things, most of them more neurological and articular than muscular.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Sure, if your concept of knight includes superannuated actors and popular musicians.

I mean professional fighting men, expected to earn their keep by being ready to throw down against hard living outlaws or equally equipped peers.

A vision of some rich guy with a couple of points in Broadsword, Lance and RIding (i.e. skill level 10 unless you've neglected to mention high DX) is either a child still in training or a senior citizen.

Please reread what I wrote, specifically this part:

Originally Posted by Kromm

The idea that all knights were competent heavy cavalrymen is as idealistic as the idea that all knights obeyed the codes of romantic chivalry. Scutage goes back to the 12th century, at least, and its existence is basically the equivalent of saying the most important attributes of a knight are loyalty and paying the bills on time.

That isn't just my opinion or something. Many European knights from the late 12th century on, long before the actors and musicians you mentioned, were precisely "some rich guy." They were quite literally people knighted for coming from the "right" families, most of which had the financial means to pay scutage: a fee paid in lieu of military service, ostensibly so the knight's feudal superior could hire mercenaries to fight in their stead. Especially in England at this time, that was "most knights" in quite a few places, not just one or two weaselly types trying to get out of fighting.

The vision of the knight as professional fighting man isn't wrong, but it doesn't go so well with how knights actually functioned for the majority of the historical period when knights were obliged to provide military might. The two sorts of knights coexisted, but the scutage-paying knight with minimal fighting skills steadily grew into the majority case from very early on. The erasure of that truth is largely due to tales of romantic chivalry, which have all knights on horses, jousting all the time, riding out to fight bad guys, and so on . . . Yes, that's the vision RPGs like, but there's absolutely nothing in error with the statement that anyone who has Status 2 and Wealthy is a knight by definition (because social mobility was too low to have those things by very many other means), as long as they also have and obey the correct Duty.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by RGTraynor

My concept of knight is "someone who is a knight." GURPS not having character classes, the distinction is entirely social. Sure, people get knighted for brave deeds, but they also get knighted for service, for donating large sums to the crown (see Multi-Millionaire Guy above), for many reasons good or ill ... not to mention those cultures with the concept of hereditary knighthood. The rich guy might never have been within ten yards of a lance, never mind picking up Lance skill.

There's also the "knight of the carpet," where knighthood is simply given to someone as a gift from the King of England on a holiday, rather than due to some service (although I'd imagine there was some political wheeling and dealing involved). And I believe in those cases where a knight was legally obligated to show up to fight (with retainers in tow), he could opt to instead pay some sum to the crown, and I'd imagine there were some "knights" without any notable combat prowess who did just that.
EDIT: Ah, I see from Kromm's post the latter bit I was referring to was called "scutage," and may well have been what the majority of historical knights (rather than simply "some") opted to do rather than fight. That said, there's nothing preventing one from making a setting where knights are all (or at least mostly) elite warriors, possibly even a setting where they can have Status 0 (lower than that is unlikely, however, at least not without largely doing away with what "knight" means).

Originally Posted by Rupert

If you want a really scary knight, try William Marshall. Way up the list of people you'd not want to mess with.

I've always been partial to Gotz von Berlichingen. Suffered a career-ending injury (loss of his right hand) early on but basically ignored it and went on to have a rather-successful career as a knight and mercenary, thumbed his nose at authority frequently enough that he got placed under the Imperial Ban (making him legally dead, so anyone could kill and/or rob him without legal repercussions) not just once but twice, and still managed to live to the ripe old age of 81 or 82 (only the year of his birth is known, not the month or day, although month and year of death are known). The fact the protagonist of Berserk was clearly (if a bit loosely) based off him doesn't hurt matters.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Rupert

As I recall, the major complaints from people running the DFRPG's included dungeon were along the lines that the early encounter with the giant spiders was way too difficult, and it usually turned out that they expected the PCs to be able to 'kite' with bows and finesse attacks and thought it unfair that the spiders would get into close combat really quickly and maul the 'light' combatants.

That sounds about right. I think a lot of people take their expectations in FRPGs from CRPGs these days. Few CRPGs implement close combat or grappling the way GURPS-based rules sets do, and most go with highly abstract defense and fights won by relative rate of HP ablation, so gamers from that background tend to be unaware that their characters can get swarmed, held in place, and taken out by a single shot from behind or while grabbed.

But . . .

The DFRPG has close combat, grappling, facing, explicit defenses, and fights won by getting the first telling shot. So, being able to make and break free of grapples, and deal and absorb fight-ending shots, are more important than being able to run around like a headless chicken. That puts a lot of emphasis on ST.