09-05-2015, 04:54 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Dec 2009
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On the uselessness of a karate course in GURPS
Something that has been bothering me for some time.
Let's say I'm a default GURPS character. I take a karate course for self defense. I practice twice a week for two hours. After a year I have roughly earned 1 cp in karate (200 hours). I'm average, so my DX =10 and my karate skill is 8. My offensive capabilities haven't increased at all. Parrying while retreating is at 10 (4+3+3) instead of 9 (5+3+1). I parry weapons at 7 instead of 5. I still feel cheated after one year of intensive training. In general, the problem is that a low karate skill is worse than the DX-based score for unarmed combat. Am I correct in this assessment? If so, are there any house rules for correcting this without changing the whole system? |
09-05-2015, 05:25 AM | #2 |
Join Date: Nov 2004
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Re: On the uselessness of a karate course in GURPS
200 hours of practice in a year is hardly 'intensive training '.
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09-05-2015, 05:25 AM | #3 | |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: On the uselessness of a karate course in GURPS
Quote:
If you like the "normal humans have some inherent coordination for moving body parts; that's what DX means" train of thought that seems to lead to the untrained defaults, then another attempt at an answer is to treat DX as a floor on trained unarmed combat skills. At least punching with Karate doesn't become worse than untrained punching. It may take some study before Karate starts to pull above the floor, but at least it's never worse. Similarly, you could "slide" the skill cost chart up one place for unarmed combat skills and allow a 0-point skill value rather than the typical defaults at -4 to -6, so that 0 points gets you Brawling (Easy) at DX, and any training shows improvement over the default. Anyone with a modicum of familiarity with Karate (0 points) gets it at DX-2. Karate is Hard, so it's still two places behind, and will take some study to catch up. Perhaps you can justify this as novices that to use all those complicated moves they don't yet properly understand and have in their muscle memory as doing themselves more harm than good. Yet another variation would to be consider anything less than 4 points in Karate to be usable as Brawling instead. (So the effective skill progression is 1 point: Brawling DX; 2 points, Brawling DX +1; 4 points; Karate DX.) You've not quite gotten to the science of the scientific methods yet, but at least your half-trained wild punches are better than no training at all. Which leads us back to the version in RAW: just use the unnamed default unarmed combat skill at DX until you get 4 points in Karate so that the training shows some net benefit. You get to choose what skill you use, so having Karate-8 doesn't mean your punches get worse. It just means that you don't yet have enough training to benefit from the complex advanced skill in combat. (The skill points might still have a game effect when it comes to things like recognizing styles or floating skills, for example a Karate-IQ check for knowing things about Karate, like knowing famous masters or the locations of dojos.) |
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09-05-2015, 05:38 AM | #4 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and some other bits.
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Re: On the uselessness of a karate course in GURPS
The improved parry would be easily worth the one point you spent if anyone actually parried at low skill. However, since Dodge is so good, you usually use that instead.
The -4 penalty to hit your attacking limb with a weapon is quite nice, although your chances of beating an armed attacker who has a high enough skill to parry seem pretty slim anyway. But in general, a single point into any unarmed striking skill is pretty much a waste. For a house rule to make that not the case, I'd suggest removing the ability to make unarmed strikes and parries at DX and instead have Brawling default to DX-2 or something. This solves a lot of issues with crappy weapons actually being worse than no weapons for untrained people as well as the weakness of low-level unarmed training. |
09-05-2015, 05:54 AM | #5 |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: One Mile Up
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Re: On the uselessness of a karate course in GURPS
1 point in Karate or Brawling also gets you two unpenalized Parries if you have two hands free, which is huge, and opens up a variety of Techniques that may not be especially useful at that level, but add fun variety and have no default without the skill.
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09-05-2015, 06:01 AM | #6 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: On the uselessness of a karate course in GURPS
Even with just the Basic Set rules, it's not quite so useless. The big improvement is you can attempt techniques that default to Karate - probably the most important ones are Disarming and Feint, but Back Kick, Elbow Strike, Jump Kick, Knee Strike and Lethal Strike are also in Basic. You also get a default to Karate Art and Karate Sport, which allows you not to look like a total idiot at Karate competitions and displays, which admittedly isn't all that big a deal for an adventurer, but is something beginning students definitely care about.
And face it, 1 point is *very much* a beginning student. This isn't "intensive training" in a year, it's slightly preferred hobby. Intensive *starts* somewhere above a full time job - 2000 hours a year.
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09-05-2015, 06:18 AM | #7 |
Join Date: Feb 2013
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Re: On the uselessness of a karate course in GURPS
A scrap with DX-2 characters might be a hilarious affair.
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09-05-2015, 06:33 AM | #8 | |
Join Date: Dec 2009
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Re: On the uselessness of a karate course in GURPS
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Setting the default punch at dx-4 while still allowing the telegraphic attack so that people can still hit each other might solve my problem. Thanks. - posted from phone. |
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09-05-2015, 08:07 AM | #9 | |
Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: UK
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Re: On the uselessness of a karate course in GURPS
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Less traditional, no-nonsense martial arts (all of which have in common that they skip the "arts") like Krav Maga or MCMAP may be a bit different, but even they put a lot of focus on strength and cardio. |
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09-05-2015, 08:17 AM | #10 |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: On the uselessness of a karate course in GURPS
You'll find other posters that are annoyed by the sudden jump from the default to the 1-point skill level (usually 4 skill levels at once). They'd prefer a more smooth increase. (The Dabbler perk is perhaps the best RAW solution, allowing what's essentially fractional points in a skill.)
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Tags |
karate, martial arts, rule, training |
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