Building a cavalryman vs. building a charioteer

[Michael Thayne]

Been thinking about what traits you want in GURPS for a cavalryman vs. a charioteer. B397 says that for melee attacks, "the rider uses melee weapons at the lower of his Melee Weapon skill or Riding skill". Similarly, for ranged attacks, "Roll against the lower of Riding or ranged weapon skill to hit". This is an important rule because it requires mounted warriors to make a significant investment in Riding, and is reflected in some published templates, which invest as many points in Riding as in primary weapon skill(s). The Combat Riding technique in Martial Arts makes raising your skill cap cheaper if that's all you want Riding for.

Now a detail I hadn't noticed before in the section on melee weapons in mounted combat is the sentence that says, "Use the same rules when attacking from a motorcycle or similar open vehicle (substitute Driving skill for Riding skill above)". The fact that this applies to "a motorcycle or similar open vehicle" is something I just noticed writing this post—it doesn't seem to be included under the vehicular combat rules in chapter 17 of Campaigns. And presumably what applies to a motorcycle would also apply to chariots? Arguably the relevant skill should be DX-based Teamster, though I don't know of any official support for that. Unless it's totally unnecessary as long as the archer and the driver are two different people.

Basic Set has a Horse-Archery technique, mostly seems to be for doing tricks like shooting backwards—which historically, real horse archers were known for. Martial Arts broadens it to "Mounted Shooting" (p. 77), which can be bought for vehicles and reduces penalties for a "rough ride", which seems to refer to things like penalties for bad roads or no roads. Those bad roads / no roads penalties don't seem to apply to mounted warriors, but would apply to chariot warriors, making this technique in some respects even more necessary for them.

Except that then Low-Tech a perk to get rid of most penalties for attacking from a chariot, and the wording seems to imply it makes the Mounted Shooting technique totally redundant? The only thing it doesn't cover is penalties for using an early chariot design with solid wheels rather than spokes. From one POV that's an awfully good perk, but from another POV those penalties don't apply to mounted warriors in the first place, so I see why this perk was published.

What's the upshot of all this? If you read the rules in a such a way that being a chariot archer requires a significant investment in Teamster and maybe Combat Riding, and you are strictly following RAW, Teamster being IQ-based could be quite annoying. But if you don't think that applies, then being a chariot archer seems a lot easier than being a mounted warrior—mostly it seems you just need one perk.

It's all very confusing—does anyone know anywhere this has been further clarified?