Fantasy Action Hero Backup Weapons

[Blood Legend]

Most of us have been down this road. A good action hero is only as good as his emergency weapon in any genre. The first one always gets knocked out of his hand and kicked across the floor somehow.

I've dabbled in Crossbows, Knives, Hatchets, and sometimes a whole 'nother sword. But I can't seem to find one I like.

Sometimes you need to help out a friend while you're engaged in your own fight. One such event happened to me in a recent game where I played a ranger.

Assassins broke into our room after poisoning us with room service. The cleric goes down, but the ward and I are up and rearing to defend. A woman and an old man (possibly wizardly) break in. I'm trying to rack up the kill count as fast as I can now. I'm going toe-to-toe with the femme and she's getting stomped. My friend is having less luck so I pull out a knife on my turn to even the odds. I give it a good toss and to cut things short: it does crap, against an old man, an old man who isn't wearing much better than cloth armor. The words uttered "What kind of a ranger are you?" In jest out-of-game at the proceeding moment got me thinking...

Knives suck. Whats a good off-hand ranged weapon suitable for aiding friends having bad luck with the dice? It needs to be small, capable of practical holdout rolls, legal in most typical fantasy settings (dont ask me 'well it depends on your setting.' Have some imagination will ya? Guy walks into the inn in full plate armor for god's sake) and easily useable indoors.

Bonus points if I can use Gizmo on it.

[Johnny Angel]

I can't vouch for the effectiveness of any of these ideas; they're just ideas.

1. Rocks
2. Boomerang
3. Sai
4. Shuriken
5. a wineskin full of lamp oil and a torch

[sir_pudding]

Long Knife FTW

[vicky_molokh]

A katar? Decent damage and bonus against chinks.

[ed_209a]

Well, a melee weapon small enough to carry all the time, that won't get the city guard's attention just isn't going to be very effective.

I'd have to agree with sir_pudding, and suggest something in the knife family, depending largely on how much you want to be able to throw it.

[Sam Baughn]

If you don't mind sinking a few points into it, a decent karate skill, the kick technique and a pair of heavy boots will give you a fairly good attack which doesn't require fast draw or holdout skills. Alternatively, get grappling skills and don't worry about damage.

Knives are probably the most common backup weapons, because they are easy to conceal, can be used in close combat (when you often need a backup weapon), can be used with fast draw and can be thrown. If you are willing to sacrifice the throwning and you have martial arts you could consider the kukri, which gets +1 swinging damage over the large knife and a better parry or the katar which gives you better thrusting damage, a better parry and the ability to target chinks in armour with a reduced penalty.

Nunchaku are easy to conceal and do a fair amount of damage for a small weapon, although it's crushing and they can't be used to parry when attacking, can't be thrown, can't be fast drawn and don't work well in close combat. A bola perdida (in martial arts) has a little less damage and is even worse on defence, but can be thrown.

Consider a weighted cloak, especially if you don't use a shield. They give you a defence bonus and let you grapple at reach 1, although you will need something else to actually do any damage.

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by Blood Legend

Knives suck. Whats a good off-hand ranged weapon suitable for aiding friends having bad luck with the dice? It needs to be small, capable of practical holdout rolls, legal in most typical fantasy settings (dont ask me 'well it depends on your setting.' Have some imagination will ya? Guy walks into the inn in full plate armor for god's sake) and easily useable indoors.

A .45. That being said, hatchets and small axes can be thrown too, and get Swing damage IIRC. The thing is that there really isn't any such weapon at low tech levels, that's why pistols were so popular among those who could afford them as son as they were available.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Blood Legend

Most of us have been down this road. A good action hero is only as good as his emergency weapon in any genre. The first one always gets knocked out of his hand and kicked across the floor somehow.

Sorry, no. I tend to play massively strong barbarians who have lots of muscle to plug in to the "muscle-powered" part of "muscle powered weapons". Rognor the Illegible one slaughtered two dopplegangers with a steak knife and laughed while he did it. Rognor did tend to worry some people.

Or weapon masters who get lots of bonus pts of damage and can use Targeted Attacks easily. Or even massively strong weapon masters.

You're just not going to get that much out of any weapon in Gurps unless you invest something in it.

If you don't have the CP to put into ST and WM at least put some $ into the weapon. Knives are only $40 and Fine ones are only $160. VF is only $800. That's less than some average quality swords.

Then there's (probably) magic. If you want a weapon for Throwing only most Enchantments for individual Missiles or ammunition are 1/10th cost.

Do look into spending CP too. You can put 3 cp into TA(Vitals) for Thrown Knife and make those sort of attacks at only -1.

Or maybe it's not Vitals you want to aim at. Hands are not armored as often and easily crippled.

Whatever you end up doing for a satisfactory solution you can bet it's not going to be as simple as making a different choice from the weapons tables.

[griffin]

Originally Posted by Blood Legend

Most of us have been down this road. A good action hero is only as good as his emergency weapon in any genre. The first one always gets knocked out of his hand and kicked across the floor somehow.

I've dabbled in Crossbows, Knives, Hatchets, and sometimes a whole 'nother sword. But I can't seem to find one I like.

Hatchets or Throwing Axes are good. I prefer knives though. More elegant weapon

Sometimes you need to help out a friend while you're engaged in your own fight. One such event happened to me in a recent game where I played a ranger.

Assassins broke into our room after poisoning us with room service. The cleric goes down, but the ward and I are up and rearing to defend. I'm trying to rack up the kill count as fast as I can now. I'm going toe-to-toe with the femme and she's getting stomped. My friend is having less luck so I pull out a knife on my turn to even the odds. I give it a good toss and to cut things short: it does crap, against an old man, an old man who isn't wearing much better than cloth armor. The words uttered "What kind of a ranger are you?" In jest out-of-game at the proceeding moment got me thinking...

I'm not entirely clear on what happened here, but I assume the old man was the enemy target and NOT your friend. First read I thought you were tossing the knife to your buddy and managed to skewer him!

Knives suck. Whats a good off-hand ranged weapon suitable for aiding friends having bad luck with the dice? It needs to be small, capable of practical holdout rolls, legal in most typical fantasy settings (dont ask me 'well it depends on your setting.' Have some imagination will ya? Guy walks into the inn in full plate armor for god's sake) and easily useable indoors.

You need Weapon Master (Knife) and/or Targeted Attack. TA should specify some vulnerable area like neck or vitals. BTW, if you are throwing with your off hand you will take a penalty so you need to offset that some way (Off hand training, Ambidextrous, etc.).

[Kale]

I was in a campaign with a guy who used twin shortswords and only had ST 10. He only did 1d with each sword, so he took hit location (neck) and dual weapon attack. If he hit you with that combo you went down unless you had significant armor on the neck (uncommon in fantasy armor since its hard to make comfortable neck armor that allows your head free movement). Long knives give you almost the same bang for the buck as shortswords. I'd say a long knife and some points in targeted attack (chinks in armor) and targeted attack (vitals) or (neck) would be worth it. Also, slashing at veins and arteries (additional -2, I believe) ups the damage factor significantly. With a weak weapon that does impaling or cutting it's important to go for targets that increase the damage multiplier.