Re: Beats Suck(?)
 

Just use the rules for feint, but call it a beat feint.

M.

Re: Beats Suck(?)
 

Full disclosure, I also use the 'Beat acts as Defensive Feint as well' and 'success by 5+ Unreadies the weapon, success by 10+ disarms it'*.

Playtesting reveals no problems so far. After all, this takes up an attack that could have seriously wounded or killed the opponent and the best you can gain is that the enemy's main weapon is taken out of play for one turn. Given that most serious combatants have either a shield or a back-up weapon, this is not the be all and end all of fight-enders.

Against an opponent with similar levels of skill, but slightly inferior ST, it's a nice option, but rarely used by my players. I'll have to inquire about it more closely.

It could be terribly effective when used by giants or ogres, but given that I have other house rules that make blade-to-blade contact with much heavier weapons a bad idea, the PCs tend to Dodge against massively strong foes.

*Two-handed weapons receive a +2 to make and resist Beats in my house rules, as well.

Re: Beats Suck(?)
 

As written in a one-on-one duel no, there's not many reasons for the normal-sized guy fighting a normal-sized-guy to use a Beat. As noted, a Beat IS resisted by currently-in-use weapon skill unlike a Feint, which is important, but not common in duelling situations where presumably both duellists are, well, duellists - they do whatever it is they're doing as their major hobby or job.

It's much more useful (as written) in a group-on-group fight where the skilled character can set up a defence penalty for the strong-but-not-skilled character.

I'm a little uncomfortable with the "beats are resisted by ST-based rolls, not DX-based rolls" idea - it's tempting, but with all the effort to exorcise ST-based skill rolls from 4e I'm a little leery of unintended consequences. It seems like a safe idea, though, since Beats are ST-based skill rolls in the first place.

Re: Beats Suck(?)
 

Well, if you ever do that against a competent foe, he'll Telegraphic kick you in the nuts or Fast-Draw a knife and Telegraphic stab the hell out of you with it.

Re: Beats Suck(?)
 

I'm also assuming that my "big guy" will be fighting opponents who have medium or high encumbrance due to armor, so their dodge score will be fairly penalized.

Re: Beats Suck(?)
 

Huh. That's very interesting. Given your pickiness and the fact you've playtested it quite a bit, it looks likely that this is sufficiently vetted for my purposes. I'll probably give this a look then.

A very fair point.

Well, full disclosure here, I'm not necessarily looking at this house rule to be a sweeping, generalized change. Specifically, I'm looking at swashbuckling/samurai games where you don't see ST 30 ogres stomping around. I can see why Peter was cautious when writing Beats, and I'm not necessarily suggesting a total change to GURPS, I'm just looking for something that, in a human-on-human martial arts game, will make beats attractive to more than just barbarian characters.

Re: Beats Suck(?)
 

Personally, I have my house rules for beats, but I'm going to steal some from you too ;)

• Beats are both offensive and defensive feints at the same time
• Beats require a second roll against the skill of the beaten weapon, with a penalty equal to how much the beat was successfull (Meaning that if you won the contest by 5, then he rolls skill-5). Failure unreadies the weapon, critical failure disarms, for handheld weapons, and becomes a full damage attack against the item for items that can not be disarmed (strapped shields, etc). The defender can again choose to use either ST or DX for this roll.
• Even if a shield is not unreadied by the beat, it's ability to boost your defenses is reduced. Reduce the DB bonus granted by the shield, to defenses other than block, by 1 per 5 points the beat was successfull.
• Beats are also weak (-2 per dice) attacks against the beaten objects.
• Two handed weapons resist beats at +2

Re: Beats Suck(?)
 

Well, the thing here, is that you made your samurai ST 14 DX 14. Beats are designed for characters that are stronger than they're dexterous. They might be a little timid, but trust me, it's better to err on the side of timidity than it is to make them totally overpowered.

Re: Beats Suck(?)
 

I did that deliberately because I wanted to show that it wasn't particularly useful for such a character and I want it to be. Thus, the need for house rules.

Re: Beats Suck(?)
 

Why do you want something that was specifically intended for a different kind of character to be useful well outside its intended area?

And big brawny guys are not that weird to see in samurai or swashbuckling. It might be a ST of 18 instead of 24 but it is still there.

And why are you ignoring Ruses? How do we make them useful for characters who's IQ is not higher than their DX?