I read some of the other posts, an here is my 2 cents to add on this topic.
1. Hitboxes
Targeting the torso is almost always the worst place to hit on an individual in melee combat. If any body location can take punishment it's the torso.
It's almost always infinitely better to target non-torso locations. Breaking an arm makes counter attack useless. Breaking a leg leaves an individual laying on the ground. Hitting the head, even if only a single point of damage gets through, forces a HT roll for Knockdown and possible stunning.
That is all on RAW. Therefore the mace is king because you're garaunteed some injury against most armors, you have a chance to do Knockback (Every ST-2 increments of damage forces DX rolls with negative modifiers), and you you look like a badass holding a big hunk of metal. You club someone in the face and they get -5 to the HT roll! Check the text, I bolded the word most people miss in this sentence.
Quote:
Whenever you suffer a major
wound, and whenever you are struck
in the head (skull, face, or eye) or vitals
for enough injury to cause a shock
penalty (see Shock, p. 419), you must
make an immediate HT roll to avoid
knockdown and stunning.
|
So that means 1 point of injury (-1 shock penalty) is all that's needed to head, face or eyes to make someone possibly wind up prone and stunned.
You also forgot to mention retreating dodge which gives +3 to melee defense. If the average person without combat reflexes has 8 dodge, spending 1 fatigue for Feverish Defense and Retreating nets +5, giving them 13 to roll. 83% for the average person not to be hit at all! So as soon as you have any real HT or DX, and combat reflexes, you can pretty much dodge one attack every round no problem.
Parry, IMO, becomes MOST useful when an individual is reeling, or when they have high skill. When you are reeling your dodge becomes crap, but your parry is unaffected.
2. Spear
That's what armor is for. If your enemy avoids the attack it's not a killing machine any longer. 14 skill is nice when no one has a defense, but as soon as you are dealing with enemies that are avoiding your attack, you quickly wish you had 18 skill for Feints and Deceptive Attacks.
The Spear seeming so unstoppable is likely the fact the enemy is not making proper defenses.
3. Rigid Armor
There is a not so often used optional rule that you may want to add if armor becomes a problem. It's spending 1 FP to add damage to attacks (See Mighty Blows under Extra Effort).
In practice it can be the difference between an attack barely grazing someone and the attack being near lethal.
Let me give you an example:
A ST 12 character has a Mace with sw+3. This gives the wielder 1d+5. If his enemy has 5 DR this pretty much means 1d of injury. Average 3.5. However, if you add in the Might Blow, that's 1d+7 or average injury of 5.5. That's enough to cripple the average person's (ST 10) extremity and enough to outright kill someone with a head hit! With an upper range of 8 injury with someone wearing rigid plate! That +2 damage matters quite a bit!
With a spear (Thrust Damage) the damage to penetrate armor becomes much lower. A ST 12 individual with a Thr+3 spear is at 1d+2 damage. With 5 armor they are looking at many attacks not penetrating at all, and the ones getting through being marginal. They can use Might Blows to improve it, but the Mace is going to be the superior weapon against an armored individual.
4. Hit chances
If someone is a warrior they should have 13 skill minimum IMO. 10 to 12 for me means "This person has probably picked up and swung swords enough to know where the point end goes". This is mostly because 8-10 is default skill level for characters with decent DX.
Often times when you are newer to the GURPS System (Even I went through that) you think about the attack more the defense. So it seems when someone has 16 skill they'll never miss. I'm in a game right now where I have 23 skill in combat and miss regularly because the enemy defends well.
Defense is what keeps the combat going amid people with trained skill in weapons.
5. Throw More Foes on the Field
One thing lots of people who know GURPS combat will tell you, one highly skilled enemy can be taken down far easier than multiple mediocre enemies. Fighting 2 v 1, even against lesser skilled enemies changes the flow of combat quite a bit.
It's a good way to challenge your players if they now have to worry about being surrounded, and diminishing returns on parries and blocks. Everyone crit fails eventually on their defenses no matter how high they are.