Help a n00b - Wielding dual weapons

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Huh. I would challenge anyone to block, by hand, a blow from my construction-worker friend swinging a 12 lb. sledgehammer and walk away with even one arm intact.

But rules are rules, and this obeys them.

Do include stopping the handle of the sled hammer, or just the head?

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

Do include stopping the handle of the sled hammer, or just the head?

One would have to be parrying the handle. . .but unless you've stepped into Reach C during the parry, you're on the business end of 12 lbs of metal swung with lethal intent.

Look, I'm not saying that Mr Unarmed isn't a well-executed concept who (as the poster wrote) also got lucky. But he's fighting another character, presumably built on similar points, with a massive weapon that actually "hit" him and forced him to parry a swung attack. And he used a retreatingcross-parry, which is used to absorb the full force of the blow and MUST be at a distance because he didn't slip sideways or into CC.

It's not just that he won a fight. Anyone can do that. But the statistics Sabaron presented broke down as follows:

Win:Loss ratio
W&S 1.2
2H 1.19
Dual Weapon 0.5
Unarmed wins 1.6

So not only was it effective, it was THE MOST effective when not fighting same-style.

By a lot.

Just struck me as odd, given Harsh Realism was in use.

[Witchking]

Originally Posted by Sabaron

Let's see.

Am I missing the location of the character sheets?

It is kind of hard to analyze the effectiveness of the combat builds without the ability to see the full build...

Just wondering.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

So not only was it effective, it was THE MOST effective when not fighting same-style.

By a lot.

On the basis of 8 fights, with an observation of fantastic luck on the part of an unarmed fighter. Doesn't seem particularly significant...

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

On the basis of 8 fights, with an observation of fantastic luck on the part of an unarmed fighter. Doesn't seem particularly significant...

It very well might be significant, given the proportions involved. The increase in ratio from 1.2 to 1.6 is an increase of 33% from the smaller one. If I plugged that into Minitab, I suspect that only 8 observations would prove statistically significant, as would that picking up two weapons is fantastically stupid according to the results (0.5:1 win/loss ratio).

Look, I'd expect luck to be a factor in saying "unarmed beats armed 50% of the time!" I'd not expect luck to be a factor in fighting unarmed giving you the best odds of winning over all other combat types.

I'm actually surprised at how much resistance I'm seeing here to the basic point: fighters go armed for a reason, and if even with the "Harsh Realism" rules turned on, we're seeing results like this, well, a re-tuning of the assumptions for realistic games might be in order. "REALLY Harsh Realism for Unarmed Fighters" as an Alternate GURPS Pyramid article, for example. And the people like Sabaron and Trachmyr who do repeated arena style combats are invaluable for this sort of tuning.

[chris1982]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Huh. I would challenge anyone to block, by hand, a blow from my construction-worker friend swinging a 12 lb. sledgehammer and walk away with even one arm intact.

But rules are rules, and this obeys them.

You would of course block the arm of the armed guy - Not that that is as easy as GURPS depicts in reality.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by chris1982

You would of course block the arm of the armed guy - Not that that is as easy as GURPS depicts in reality.

Please stop misrepresenting non-shield defenses in GURPS as blocks. Most of them are meant to model parries - sideways displacement of the offensive weapon, sometimes indirectly.

[Bruno]

I think what this actually shows is that, as periodically comes up on the forums here, the default rules about heavy weapons and unarmed parries (and the related rules about the effective weight of unarmed attacks) are aimed at fast play results but produce rather wobbly results in extreme situations like this.

[chris1982]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Please stop misrepresenting non-shield defenses in GURPS as blocks. Most of them are meant to model parries - sideways displacement of the offensive weapon, sometimes indirectly.

Please stop misrepresenting words written in plain English language as GURPS specific termini technici.

[Kromm]

Do remember one thing that GURPS Martial Arts says, though:

Not every parry involves contact [but a parry without contact can't] set up an Arm Lock, Judo Throw, or other grappling technique on your turn. You must use a hand and make contact to do that.

In effect, there are really two options for unarmed fighters who parry:

1. Parry with contact (sometimes called a "block"). A true force-meets-force defense that suffers all the downsides of stopping a weapon with your hand or arm, including possible crippling if you fail. All normal penalties apply. However, this is the only way to use Aggressive Parry, Hand Catch, Hand-Clap Parry, etc.; benefit from Cross Parry; knock down thrown weapons or employ Parry Missile Weapons; or set up an unarmed follow-up (like a lock or a throw). Because it enables so many options, this is the assumed norm in the Basic Set.
   
   
2. Parry without contact (sometimes called a "counter" or a "void"). This is a special kind of dodge effective only against melee attacks. It does not suffer the downsides of stopping a weapon with your hand or arm. All normal penalties apply – in particular, those for being less-trained against weapons (this can still give -3) and for doing it repeatedly! Because you are avoiding contact, you cannot set up an unarmed follow-up or use any of the other options listed for a parry with contact.

Where games get into trouble (and I agree this could be clearer!) is when they let unarmed fighters avoid contact yet get Cross Parry bonuses, set up follow-up moves, etc. It's either/or. Perhaps a fair way to adjudicate things would be only to give the second option to Judo and Karate, and to give all uses of the first option -3 vs. weapons.