Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 02-02-2022, 09:20 AM   #11
The Colonel
 
The Colonel's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Default Re: Blunt weapons and edged weapons using the same skills?

Isn't the question more about balance? That's why axe and mace use the same skill - because they are balanced the same way and designed to deliver a similar strike. Granted the axe user has to worry about blade alignment, but the fighting technique is more or less the same as I understand it.

So the baton, presumably, envisions a weapon balanced like a sword and usable with similar techniques. A baton not so balanced, I would guess, is a club.

As people have pointed out, things like bokken and wasters blur the line between sword and baton (even if they are training weapons) - and weapons like the single-stick were considered an appropriate training for sword fighting.
Also, didn't cane-de-combat, bartisu and similar things borrow heavily from sword fighting techniques ... again, blurring the line between sword and baton?
The Colonel is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-02-2022, 09:27 AM   #12
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: Blunt weapons and edged weapons using the same skills?

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Colonel View Post
Isn't the question more about balance? That's why axe and mace use the same skill - because they are balanced the same way and designed to deliver a similar strike. Granted the axe user has to worry about blade alignment, but the fighting technique is more or less the same as I understand it.
Yeah, the skills are largely about balance and handedness, with some oddities thrown in (like shorter swords using a different skill than longer ones, or some weapons with weapon-catching prongs using a different skill than weapons that are otherwise used identically). There are some weapons that blur the line between sword and axe, by being particularly top-heavy swords; I believe GURPS actually has such weapons usable with both skills (I think the khopesh is given this treatment).

As I noted, if you want edge alignment to be a concern, the best way to do that is to impose a (small) penalty to hit with proper alignment, and allow those who favor swords or axes over batons or maces to buy it off with a Technique.
__________________
GURPS Overhaul
Varyon is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 02-02-2022, 09:52 AM   #13
kenclary
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Default Re: Blunt weapons and edged weapons using the same skills?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
As I noted, if you want edge alignment to be a concern, the best way to do that is to impose a (small) penalty to hit with proper alignment, and allow those who favor swords or axes over batons or maces to buy it off with a Technique.
You could just treat it as a familiarity. If you're used to a stick, take a penalty with a sword for a bit; if you're used to double-edge, take a penalty with a single-edge for a bit; etc.
kenclary is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 02-02-2022, 10:09 AM   #14
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: Blunt weapons and edged weapons using the same skills?

Quote:
Originally Posted by kenclary View Post
You could just treat it as a familiarity. If you're used to a stick, take a penalty with a sword for a bit; if you're used to double-edge, take a penalty with a single-edge for a bit; etc.
Familiarity is generally per weapon design (thrusting broadsword vs large falchion, say), but doing it based more on various components (double-edge vs single-edge, curved vs straight, balanced vs not-so-balanced, etc) might be an option (I think there are some options to treat Guns this way).
__________________
GURPS Overhaul
Varyon is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 02-03-2022, 04:11 PM   #15
Pursuivant
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Default Re: Blunt weapons and edged weapons using the same skills?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
Edged weapons are a bit more difficult to use than blunt ones, due to concerns of edge alignment, but this is generally assumed to be below the resolution of the system.
Arguably, edged weapons are harder to defend against, however. A bokken or similar sword-shaped club will be about 0.75-1.25" in width. By comparison, the edge of a blade is fractions of a millimeter. The difference requires your blocks and parries to be much more precise and increases the gaps your opponent can exploit by orders of magnitude.

Also remember that GURPS skills cover experience with lethal combat. Someone with lots of training time with blunt or slowed weapons but no battlefield experience effectively has Weapon Sport or Weapon Art, which defaults to actual weapon skill at -2.
Pursuivant is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-03-2022, 04:59 PM   #16
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: Blunt weapons and edged weapons using the same skills?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pursuivant View Post
Arguably, edged weapons are harder to defend against, however. A bokken or similar sword-shaped club will be about 0.75-1.25" in width. By comparison, the edge of a blade is fractions of a millimeter. The difference requires your blocks and parries to be much more precise and increases the gaps your opponent can exploit by orders of magnitude.
Maybe if you're trying to Parry with your fingernail or something. Realistically, anything you're using as a parrying surface (to say nothing of blocking!) is going to be sufficiently larger than the width of the blade or bludgeon that differences in said widths don't really come into play.

Now, Parrying a blade unarmed without getting harmed is harder than Parrying a bludgeon unarmed without getting harmed, but honestly, I think if you manage a Parry that wouldn't have harmed you if the foe was using a bludgeon, the shallow cut you'd get from a blade is probably below system resolution.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pursuivant View Post
Also remember that GURPS skills cover experience with lethal combat. Someone with lots of training time with blunt or slowed weapons but no battlefield experience effectively has Weapon Sport or Weapon Art, which defaults to actual weapon skill at -2.
This is true. That said, it's about how one trains - a bokken can certainly be a lethal weapon, if you train for it to be. A minor correction, however - Combat, Sport, and Art skills default to each other at -3, not -2.
__________________
GURPS Overhaul
Varyon is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 02-04-2022, 04:59 AM   #17
RGTraynor
 
RGTraynor's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Pioneer Valley
Default Re: Blunt weapons and edged weapons using the same skills?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pursuivant View Post
Arguably, edged weapons are harder to defend against, however. A bokken or similar sword-shaped club will be about 0.75-1.25" in width. By comparison, the edge of a blade is fractions of a millimeter. The difference requires your blocks and parries to be much more precise and increases the gaps your opponent can exploit by orders of magnitude.
Good grief. Are you serious?

Quite aside from that the width of a sword is a great deal wider than a millimeter, no one who's been in armed combat would possibly think so. The difference isn't in the width of the parrying surface. The difference is in the relative air resistance of the weapon, and even that's less important than many other factors. It'd be a coin toss even with perfectly evenly matched master fencers on a piste.

And once again, the question is meaningless. GURPS just isn't granular enough for the difference to matter.
__________________
My gaming blog: Apotheosis of the Invisible City

"Call me old-fashioned, but after you're dead, I don't think you should be entitled to a Dodge any more." - my wife

It's not that I don't understand what you're saying. It's that I disagree with what you're saying.
RGTraynor is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-05-2022, 03:39 PM   #18
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Re: Blunt weapons and edged weapons using the same skills?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
Maybe if you're trying to Parry with your fingernail or something.
Based man of culture ref to Shalltear =) Forgot about that scene. Those nails are at most an inch long and it would be pretty tricky to align them perfectly with narrow weapons like swords compared to big-headed attacks like mauls/warhammers or even punches.

That said: it probably takes the same accuracy to do a centre-of-mass parry against a maul/punch. If you didn't perfectly parry in centre of mass it could glance off to the side and work like a deflection where you prevented it from hitting the primary/intended target but maybe it hits some secondary target adjacent to it instead?

I'm wondering if we could somehow fiddle with how T-bone's rules in pyramid 3/34 worked for this. Like instead of "half damage on a MoF 1 parry" if you're using a tiny parrying implement like a finger, you ignore this benefit?

IMO the 'miss by 1' graze rule should not just be half-damage, but should also alter the hit location. The idea here is that the parry still made contact, right? If it made enough contact to halve the damage then it should be enough to deflect the attack?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
Realistically, anything you're using as a parrying surface (to say nothing of blocking!) is going to be sufficiently larger than the width of the blade or bludgeon that differences in said widths don't really come into play.
Another example similar to "Shalltear parries a normal sword with her fingernail" would be something like "anyone with a normal sword parries Ichigo Kurosaki"

For example when Zaraki Kenpachi parries Ichigo

Zaraki's sword is much thinner, however it's also pretty long so he has a lot more flexibility in where he places his hand.

Ichigo v. Zaraki is I think one of those situations where we can recognize that with variations in lenght (I'm going to assume their swords are reach 1,2 ? or maybe 3?) that parries could actually make contact in a variety of places.

IE you might parry just before the sword hits you (contact in your own hex) or make contact w/ a parry further out, in longsword vs. longsword dueling.

This could actually be an important factor if you have stuff going on like "any time my sword makes contact there is an AE explosion centered on point of contact") so maybe we should actually have rules for determining in which hex the swords make contact?

I would say for example that where Zaraki parries Ichigo, it's probably in the empty hex between them (middle meets middle), as opposed to a narrow parry in Zaraki's hex (guard parries tip) or a pre-emptive parry in Ichigo's hex (tip parries guard)

- -

Maybe this relates to "matter of inches" areas (normally only a factor in Cascading Waits) where maybe if we categorized weapons based on their sub-hex length varyations we might give them some kind of parrying bonus or penalty.

There's IMO already some element of this seen in the -1 to parry which B272 assigns to all of the knives. It doesn't seem to distinguish between the reach C vs the reach C,1 ones though.

(btw does anyone remember why the large/small knife is C for impale and C,1 for cut? Is this due to them being curved like katana?)

Last edited by Plane; 02-05-2022 at 03:42 PM.
Plane is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
skills

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 02:33 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.