Re: Fantasy Action Hero Backup Weapons
 

I agree. I play a very strong dwarf right now IMC. His favorite weapon is an Axe/Pick combo weapon. When he gets that critical miss, or his enemy gets the critical success on his defense, and the result comes up "drop your weapon" (which it most often does), he'll draw his Dwarven quality Flail. Next is his Hammer/Pick combo. Then his hatchet. Then his other hatchet. Never (yet) had to go past weapon #3 in a single combat though. His undroppable backup is the Large Spiked Metal Shield with a sharpened edge. :-)

However, to nitpick:
You can't have a VF knife, RAW. Swords and fencing weapons only. +2 dmg is huge for something with such a low base damage.

That price is for weapons that are only missiles. No GM in his right mind would let you use that number for a weapon that is only optionally a missile. After all, any weapon can be thrown....

Sorry. TA is for melee attacks only, not missiles. But your idea is correct--this character just needs the skill to hit more vulnerable (less armored) locations.

Re: Fantasy Action Hero Backup Weapons
 

Well, I'm biased in that I tend to think that it's unrealistic for a warrior to be very skilled with one weapon and worthless with others. So I tend to encourage players to take many weapon skills, especially if they're playing warrior types (which an action hero certainly is).

As a result, the characters in my campaigns have more than backup weapons, they have tertiary, quartary and quinary weapons as well. A few examples:

A ranger who is an exiled knight carries an arming sword as his primary weapon, but wears a small axe, large knife and a hatchet as well. He owns a shield, but rarely uses it and can fight with spear and lance if he has to. He also carries a bow for long distance engagements. His skill with all of the above weapons ranges from DX+2 to DX+5.

A self-proclaimed merchant with an unsavoury past wears armour of enchanted spidersilk under his fine velvet doublets and fancy cloaks. He carries a saber as his primary weapon and has three large daggers, a small stiletto and as many as six throwing knives hidden on his person somewhere. He also owns a hunting bow, crossbow and a buckler. In a pinch, he can use cutlasses, cavalry sabers and clubs of all sizes. His skills range from DX+1 to DX+3, but he has a high DX.

The rough and tumble clansman from the wild hill folk has recently been anointed knight for his heroism. He uses a claymore as his primary weapon, most often in both hands, but wears a long-bladed rondel and small hammer as backup weapons. He also carries a ballock knife with a 10" blade and a small sgian dubh knife. He collects weapons, so these are just a sampling of what he has. Other weapons he's fought with include a spear, harpoons, shields (both bucklers and strapped ones) and improvised weapons of various sorts. He's deadly with anything he might pick up in a tavern fight. His weapon skills are DX+2 to DX+6.

The warrior scholar from an Eastern culture is a horse archer by training and is also learning to use magic. That means he has a recurved bow of dragonbone, an 8' long ash spear with a long blade, two savegely curved shamshirs, a dagger and a magic wand stiff enough to parry and thrust with. His weapon skills range from DX to DX+5, with Knife being his weakest skill, as he hardly ever uses it for battle.

If I had to name two compact and useful backup weapons, I'd name the Long Knife and the Hatchet.

Re: Fantasy Action Hero Backup Weapons
 

I believe knives are meant to count as Swords in this case.

Where is that stated? GURPS canonically has Targeted Attack (Bow Shot/Face) for Kyujutsu as well as just Targeted Attack (Bow Shot/Any) for the Foot Archery Style. Not to mention all the Targeted Attacks for guns in High-Tech.

Re: Fantasy Action Hero Backup Weapons
 

I dunno.....knives simply aren't swords, and they aren't priced the same way. As someone already observed, it fails a consistency check in that a VF knife often does more damage as many swords for a comparable price. Basic and DF both say swords and fencing weapons only. I see little room for ambiguity there. Any references???

MA68 in the Targeted Attack box, second paragraph:
It makes no mention at all of missile weapon skills. I guess we have a lack of editing consistency here. Obviously Kyujutsu contradicts this in the same book, so you must be able to use missile skills. Personally, I don't much like TA anyway. Give the players a choice, and they'll go for Vitals, Neck and Skull almost everytime.

Re: Fantasy Action Hero Backup Weapons
 

What you're looking for is a good, muscle-powered, one-handed, concealable ranged weapon. The hatchet and throwing axe are both good (the hatchet can be thrown farther, and is easier to conceal, but the throwing axe does more damage). You may want to invest in TA: Neck to optimize damage. A pistol crossbow could work with a sufficiently lax/cinematic setting. In a more realistic one, there would be legality concerns, as well as the fact that carrying around a loaded crossbow could be rather problematic. A sling is a bit less problematic (provided you have a believable way of keeping it loaded), and the damage is decent, but all told you'd probably be best off with a hatchet or throwing axe (although the sling has far better range, making it more useful outside of a backup weapon role). If you've enough skill to throw more than one at a time, shuriken can also be a good investment. TA: Neck with star shuriken is good if you expect to be against enemies in armor, TA: Vitals with spike shuriken is good against unarmored foes.

If you are willing to sacrifice damage for more useful options, the bolas and the net are excellent investments. Nothing gives an ally the upper hand like making the enemy unable to use his own! For concealability, the bolas is definately your best option. If you expect to be fairly close to the enemy, a long whip can also be useful - although concealability may not be an option.

If you want to keep the points you've invested in Thrown Weapon (Knife) useful, the hungamunga from MA probably has the best damage profile of any thrown knife (sw-1 cut). You'll probably want to target vulnerable areas (the neck and hands) to optimize usefulness. This also goes for many of the weapons I listed above.

Re: Fantasy Action Hero Backup Weapons
 

The canonical melee weapon classes used in the game appear under Melee Weapon (pp. B208-209). There, the "fencing weapons" class includes the main-gauche while the "swords" class includes knives. It's very definitely the case that knives are meant to be treated as simply a subset of swords for the purpose of weapon quality. We even say "fencing- or sword-class weapon" just above, for fine quality.

We didn't mean to exclude ranged skills. Mostly, we just wanted to list the skills most commonly used with TA. There are one or two examples of TA for ranged skills in all of Martial Arts, versus dozens for Melee Weapon and unarmed combat skills.

Re: Fantasy Action Hero Backup Weapons
 

Peter Dell'Orto, the writer of Martial Arts, wasn't sure when he thought about it. I can't recall whether we ever got an answer about what was intended with this sentence. I do remember seeing Very Fine knives references by many people, so obviously both interpretations have some favour.

Well, regardless of what the situation is now, Very Fine Knives will exist in the future. ;)

Edit: Lo and behold, Kromm has made it so. ;)

Re: Fantasy Action Hero Backup Weapons
 

So he has. :-) I'd better be quiet now before I start to look too dumb....

Re: Fantasy Action Hero Backup Weapons
 

No references here, but I can see the logic in it.

The quality plusses might simply be a more convenient way of saying the blade cuts 15% and 30% (or whatever) more efficiently than a standard blade. For larger weapons, 15% and 30% round to +1/+2 bonus damage. For smaller weapons, both round to +1.

Re: Fantasy Action Hero Backup Weapons
 

There would also be the problem of the fact that it's useless beyond a very short range, extremely expensive and once you shoot it, it takes forever to reload.

The pistol crossbow is dismissed by some historians as mythical. I don't go that far, but I'll say that the only examples that I'd rate as capable of killing an adult human on anything but a critical hit are mid-TL4, loaded with a cranequin (which is too large to conceal well) and still don't work at a longer range than few feet.