Fantasy Action Hero Backup Weapons

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by The Benj

It gets the bonus to target chinks in armour because of its geometry.

The only geometry that is useful for punching through armour is a compact spike. Show me an example of a katar with a such a geometry.

[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.

[Kazander]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

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".

I agree. I play a very strong dwarf right now IMC. His favorite weapon is an Axe/Pick combo weapon. When he gets that critical miss, or his enemy gets the critical success on his defense, and the result comes up "drop your weapon" (which it most often does), he'll draw his Dwarven quality Flail. Next is his Hammer/Pick combo. Then his hatchet. Then his other hatchet. Never (yet) had to go past weapon #3 in a single combat though. His undroppable backup is the Large Spiked Metal Shield with a sharpened edge. :-)

However, to nitpick:

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

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.

You can't have a VF knife, RAW. Swords and fencing weapons only. +2 dmg is huge for something with such a low base damage.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

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

That price is for weapons that are only missiles. No GM in his right mind would let you use that number for a weapon that is only optionally a missile. After all, any weapon can be thrown....

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

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.

Sorry. TA is for melee attacks only, not missiles. But your idea is correct--this character just needs the skill to hit more vulnerable (less armored) locations.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Kazander

You can't have a VF knife, RAW. Swords and fencing weapons only. +2 dmg is huge for something with such a low base damage.

I believe knives are meant to count as Swords in this case.

Originally Posted by Kazander

Sorry. TA is for melee attacks only, not missiles. But your idea is correct--this character just needs the skill to hit more vulnerable (less armored) locations.

Where is that stated? GURPS canonically has Targeted Attack (Bow Shot/Face) for Kyujutsu as well as just Targeted Attack (Bow Shot/Any) for the Foot Archery Style. Not to mention all the Targeted Attacks for guns in High-Tech.

[Kazander]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I believe knives are meant to count as Swords in this case.

I dunno.....knives simply aren't swords, and they aren't priced the same way. As someone already observed, it fails a consistency check in that a VF knife often does more damage as many swords for a comparable price. Basic and DF both say swords and fencing weapons only. I see little room for ambiguity there. Any references???

Originally Posted by Icelander

Where is that stated? GURPS canonically has Targeted Attack (Bow Shot/Face) for Kyujutsu as well as just Targeted Attack (Bow Shot/Any) for the Foot Archery Style. Not to mention all the Targeted Attacks for guns in High-Tech.

MA68 in the Targeted Attack box, second paragraph:

Originally Posted by Martial Arts, p68

Skill: The Melee Weapon or unarmed combat skill used.

It makes no mention at all of missile weapon skills. I guess we have a lack of editing consistency here. Obviously Kyujutsu contradicts this in the same book, so you must be able to use missile skills. Personally, I don't much like TA anyway. Give the players a choice, and they'll go for Vitals, Neck and Skull almost everytime.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Kazander

I dunno.....knives simply aren't swords, and they aren't priced the same way. As someone already observed, it fails a consistency check in that a VF knife often does more damage as many swords for a comparable price. Basic and DF both say swords and fencing weapons only. I see little room for ambiguity there. Any references???

The canonical melee weapon classes used in the game appear under Melee Weapon (pp. B208-209). There, the "fencing weapons" class includes the main-gauche while the "swords" class includes knives. It's very definitely the case that knives are meant to be treated as simply a subset of swords for the purpose of weapon quality. We even say "fencing- or sword-class weapon" just above, for fine quality.

Originally Posted by Kazander

MA68 in the Targeted Attack box

We didn't mean to exclude ranged skills. Mostly, we just wanted to list the skills most commonly used with TA. There are one or two examples of TA for ranged skills in all of Martial Arts, versus dozens for Melee Weapon and unarmed combat skills.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Kazander

I dunno.....knives simply aren't swords, and they aren't priced the same way. As someone already observed, it fails a consistency check in that a VF knife often does more damage as many swords for a comparable price. Basic and DF both say swords and fencing weapons only. I see little room for ambiguity there. Any references???

Peter Dell'Orto, the writer of Martial Arts, wasn't sure when he thought about it. I can't recall whether we ever got an answer about what was intended with this sentence. I do remember seeing Very Fine knives references by many people, so obviously both interpretations have some favour.

Well, regardless of what the situation is now, Very Fine Knives will exist in the future. ;)

Edit: Lo and behold, Kromm has made it so. ;)

[ed_209a]

Originally Posted by Kazander

I dunno.....knives simply aren't swords, and they aren't priced the same way. As someone already observed, it fails a consistency check in that a VF knife often does more damage as many swords for a comparable price. Basic and DF both say swords and fencing weapons only. I see little room for ambiguity there. Any references???

No references here, but I can see the logic in it.

The quality plusses might simply be a more convenient way of saying the blade cuts 15% and 30% (or whatever) more efficiently than a standard blade. For larger weapons, 15% and 30% round to +1/+2 bonus damage. For smaller weapons, both round to +1.