Dueling Shield Writeups and Styles?

[Prince Charon]

The late-medieval dueling shield is a curious device, part quarterstaff, part shield, part hook, and part spear. I wonder how it would be written up in GURPS, and more, I wonder what sort of Martial Arts style, if any, might be developed for it's use.

http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/files/kamp0220.jpg

Weapons that Made Britain clip

I would say that Staff, Shield, and Spear would be important skills - unless there's a skill already defined for this odd device - along with the Hook technique (Martial Arts p74), but what other elements might the style have?

[sir_pudding]

GURPS Low Tech p. 116

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

GURPS Low Tech p. 116

Really? Thanks!

Doesn't exactly have a MA style written up, but at least there's some information on the weapon.

[Aneirin]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Really? Thanks!

Doesn't exactly have a MA style written up, but at least there's some information on the weapon.

I had an NPC use this in a tournament. Regular dude, built on 75 points.

3 PC's (built on 120 points each) had a lot of difficulty getting past that shield (when he used it with the staff skill...then again he had an exotic weapons training perk to remove the -4 penalty)

+2 defensive bonus of a staff + 3 DB from a shield...even with a skill of 10 and without combat reflexes you are looking at a parry of 13 without retreating, all out defending or defensive attacks and if using optional martial arts rule was defending multiple attacks from seperate people at -2.

Plus, slamming with +3 damage and shoving with +6 to your push score ain't too shabby either. He was regulalry slamming two PC's at once and knocking them back. (using that rule from martial arts where long weapons can slam multiple opponents)

Plus, nobody dared parry him for fear of breaking their dainty little weapons. Fortunately they had acrobatic dodging and they eventually managed to surround him after taking out his allies.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Doesn't exactly have a MA style written up, but at least there's some information on the weapon.

Masters of Defense Weapons Training, GURPS Martial Arts p. 182 is the style of the Renaissance travelling masters (like Talhoffner, whose Fechtbuch is presumably where you've seen Dueling Shields).

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Aneirin

I had an NPC use this in a tournament. Regular dude, built on 75 points.

3 PC's (built on 120 points each) had a lot of difficulty getting past that shield (when he used it with the staff skill...then again he had an exotic weapons training perk to remove the -4 penalty)

+2 defensive bonus of a staff + 3 DB from a shield...even with a skill of 10 and without combat reflexes you are looking at a parry of 13 without retreating, all out defending or defensive attacks and if using optional martial arts rule was defending multiple attacks from seperate people at -2.

Plus, slamming with +3 damage and shoving with +6 to your push score ain't too shabby either. He was regulalry slamming two PC's at once and knocking them back. (using that rule from martial arts where long weapons can slam multiple opponents)

Plus, nobody dared parry him for fear of breaking their dainty little weapons. Fortunately they had acrobatic dodging and they eventually managed to surround him after taking out his allies.

Thank you. Very interesting. It's rather less obscure than I thought.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Masters of Defense Weapons Training, GURPS Martial Arts p. 182 is the style of the Renaissance travelling masters (like Talhoffner, whose Fechtbuch is presumably where you've seen Dueling Shields).

Thanks again. So, is a style specifically for dueling shields implausible, then?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Thanks again. So, is a style specifically for dueling shields implausible, then?

As a historical style? Probably. My understanding is the dueling shields were created by a judicial system irritated with professional martial artists working as champions-for-hire in judicial duels and with traveling masters training people specifically for judicial combat. They hoped to to create a weapon so bizarre that nobody would be trained in it's use if they assigned it in a trial-by-combat. Almost as soon as it existed, masters started developing techniques for it's use, and therefore they discontinued it. Trial-by-combat itself was going out of fashion for these same reasons.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

As a historical style? Probably. My understanding is the dueling shields were created by a judicial system irritated with professional martial artists working as champions-for-hire in judicial duels and with traveling masters training people specifically for judicial combat. They hoped to to create a weapon so bizarre that nobody would be trained in it's use if they assigned it in a trial-by-combat. Almost as soon as it existed, masters started developing techniques for it's use, and therefore they discontinued it. Trial-by-combat itself was going out of fashion for these same reasons.

Wasn't thinking of it necessarily as a historical style, though, more as a strange cultural style.

[CraigM]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Wasn't thinking of it necessarily as a historical style, though, more as a strange cultural style.

If you're after an ahistorical fantasy thing, it should be fairly trivial to write up.

Shield skill, Staff skill, exotic weapon training, hook technique, etc.

Shield-wall training would be nice to lose the -2/-3, but the "defend others" aspect doesn't really fit.

As well as the missing footnote 6 ("Attacks at Shield-2 or Staff-4"), there doesn't appear to be any precise info on its attack abilities. What reach, what damage?

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

GURPS Low Tech p. 116

Hmm the footnote is missing in my issue.