Claw-claw-bite and armor

[Trachmyr]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

[...snip...]

I've sat still and let a decently trained but wussy black belt throw multiple punches at my head, defending only by presenting the crown of my head to the blows, and I can tell you that he hurt his hands way worse than he hurt me, especially since if I even had any bruises they didn't bother me.
(It was funny how he ran away when I told him it was my turn now...)

GURPS represents this quite well actually. This mistake might be in overassigning skill to real people.

One common misconception about "black-belts" is that they are a "Master". This is far from the truth, at 1st dan (1st degree black belt), the student has learned and can perform with a degree of competance the basic skills of a style. Instructors are usually at least a 3rd degree black-belt, often higher. 1st degree black-belts are more like interns. Thus at 1st degree black, a practioner should have "style familiarity" and Attribute Level+0 in all required skills. This is because the student is evaluated on their ability to perform techniques, forms, katas, etc. not actually fight. So it's the number of skill points invested, not overall skill that is graded. Also be aware that most style don't teach "karate", but teach "karate sport/art".

So let's say your wussy black-belt has a ST8. Let's say he's a 2nd dan (decently trained), and give him attribute level+2 in all required skills... perhaps even a few points in techniques. Since he likely learned karate sport/art, that gives him karate at DX-1. Let's be generous and say he has a DX of 12.

Effect: To strike the skull he rolls at a effective skill of 5 (DX based Punch), so to improve that let's take AoA (Determined) and a Telegraphic Attack... that gives a skill roll of 13, so he'll land most of those hits... and you're not defending. ST8 thrusting damage is 1d-3, for a punch that's 1d-4. His Karate skill is not high enough to give a bounus, so 1d-4 vs. DR2 results in 0 damage barring a critical hit.

You would get some bruises out of it (and possibly some real damage if he missed by 1 and hit the face and rolled high on the damage roll), and his hands would likely be bruised (unless using open palm or a hammer fist, but then his damage is reduced to 1d-5)... both below the scale of GURPS injury.

Had he not been so wussy (ST9 or ST10), or have been an instructor (thus getting a +1 damage bonus due to karate default of attribute+0), then damage would have been an average of 2/3 a point per hit (1/6 damage x4 for brain hit)... if both conditions were true damage would have averaged 2 points per hit.