Sayoc Kali
 

This knife-fighting art has roots in both silat and kali (escrima). It is prominently on display in the movie 'The Hunted'.

Does anyone with experience or familiarity with the style have an idea for a GURPS Martial Arts style writeup?

Primarily, should one use Main-Gauche or Knife as the main skill? Shortsword or Smallsword for supporting skills?

Re: Sayoc Kali
 

Looking at a few Youtube clips, it looks like the knife is mostly not used defensively; it looks like the stylist uses his off-hand to defend, and to overcome his opponent's defenses, and then the knife, often in a reversed grip, to attack the throat or various arteries.

Going from that, I'd suggest Knife, perhaps with the OHWT perk, but happily justifying TA (Knife Swing/Neck) and TA (Knife Swing/Leg Veins).

But that's based on five minutes of Youtube research.

Re: Sayoc Kali
 

I used to train in Pekiti Tersia Kali, which focuses more on knife fighting then other kali systems.

It should be noted that using Kali should be a sword skill and not a stick fighting skill. Sticks were used to mimmic machetes, but the system saw that many objects could be used as the weapon in kali (I never read the ma gurps book so I dont know how they wrote it up).

If it is combined with silat, then I would guess it would have more stand up grapples and more exotic weapons.

Re: Sayoc Kali
 

Fair point, but largely irrelevant, as all the stick/club-fighting skills - broadsword, shortsword and smallsword - are designed for use with both. The only skill for use with a length of wood that doesn't also work with swords is Staff.

Re: Sayoc Kali
 

I trained a fair bit (~2-3 years) with Escrima back in the day. I'd call it Maine-Gauche, due to the fact that they train you to use both hands A LOT.

The MA writeup for Escrima uses Smallsword, but I think Shortsword is more appropriate. There's a lot of slashing and very little sticking with escrima, which seems less "fencing" and more "chopping your opponent's limbs off" to me. While it's a lot faster moving and more frenetic than most romans you've seen using a gladius in a movie, I don't think this means that most escrima guys are using their machettes with smallsword. It just means romans were usually armored and had a shield so they fought on the defensive, as opposed to the unarmored filipinos.

Re: Sayoc Kali
 

Escrima is Main-Gauche and Smallsword in RAW GURPS, but I'd call it Main-Gauche and Saber myself.

But I was wondering how much Sayoc Kali took from Escrima and how much from Silat, since those are not the same skill in GURPS.

Re: Sayoc Kali
 

Ah, sorry. No idear. Most of the escrima/kali/arnis arts are pretty similar. With Silat it's probably just they named all the stuff from escrima after animals and it's a little lower to the ground than normal.

Re: Sayoc Kali
 

In real world terms, it is pretty similar, I agree.

But since GURPS elected to go with two different skills, it becomes important to distinguish between influences from kali/escrima and influences from silat.

Looking at clips of Sayoc Kali, I agree that it looks more like Knife skill. Does anyone else have a thought about writing it up?

Re: Sayoc Kali
 

The reason for Smallsword and not Shortsword in MA is for the fencing parry, as I believe Escrima teaches very effective light parries? You can swing and thrust with both skills.

But it does feature Weapon Adaptation (Smallsword to Shortsword), so you can use Smallsword techniques with a shortsword.

Re: Sayoc Kali
 

The main reason to feature MG instead of Knife in a style is to lose the -1 for parrying with a knife and to use fencing parries with the knife. Otherwise Knife with the OHWT perk is the same price at DX and cheaper from DX+1 upwards.

My impression from the video clips is that Sayoc Kali doesn't use the knife for parries a lot, hence I'd suggest Knife with OHWT; but if a lot of knife parries are taught, then MG is the way to go.