Martial Arts training armor for a combat skill?

[BraselC5048]

Mostly as a background detail for my campaign is some training armor for martial artists. Well, not exactly. There's no "blue on blue" training, it's all "blue on red." There is a heavy difference in skill levels in favor of blue (the martial artists), and they actually wear minimal armor, generally enough to prevent serious injury, but not injury at all, just broken bones. The opponents are mostly a combination of volunteer army grunts who get money if they lose (normal), or a much larger sum if they win (rare, but provides motivation), or volunteer prison convects for moderate crimes (those that would imply Brawling-10 to 12), but with time off their sentences instead. The training targets need more protection to ensure they don't get (seriously) hurt. Since the skull is the most common target, they need protection against full-power extra effort jump kicks at the high end, at least for the skull. At the same time, it also has to avoid injuring the martial artist under Hurting Yourself. Basically it has to keep injury below the Major Wound threshold.

It's intended for learning real combat skills without anybody getting hurt (seriously), and shouldn't be something for training a Combat Art skill. Judging who "won" is simple - if the martial artiest lands a blow, particularly to the skull, it's assumed to be a fight-ender, which it would usually be in real combat. If the training guy connects with a good blow, he's considered to have won, as the trainees never have more than 10-11 HP anyway. If the both connect close to the same time, in the same motion, then the both sides lose.

I guess just keep it as a background detail?

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by BraselC5048

Mostly as a background detail for my campaign is some training armor for martial artists. Well, not exactly. There's no "blue on blue" training, it's all "blue on red."

...What?

Originally Posted by BraselC5048

There is a heavy difference in skill levels in favor of blue (the martial artists), and they actually wear minimal armor, generally enough to prevent serious injury, but not injury at all, just broken bones. The opponents are mostly a combination of volunteer army grunts who get money if they lose (normal), or a much larger sum if they win (rare, but provides motivation), or volunteer prison convects for moderate crimes (those that would imply Brawling-10 to 12), but with time off their sentences instead. The training targets need more protection to ensure they don't get (seriously) hurt. Since the skull is the most common target, they need protection against full-power extra effort jump kicks at the high end, at least for the skull. At the same time, it also has to avoid injuring the martial artist under Hurting Yourself. Basically it has to keep injury below the Major Wound threshold.

It's intended for learning real combat skills without anybody getting hurt (seriously), and shouldn't be something for training a Combat Art skill. Judging who "won" is simple - if the martial artiest lands a blow, particularly to the skull, it's assumed to be a fight-ender, which it would usually be in real combat. If the training guy connects with a good blow, he's considered to have won, as the trainees never have more than 10-11 HP anyway. If the both connect close to the same time, in the same motion, then the both sides lose.

I guess just keep it as a background detail?

People don't normally train with full power extra effort jump kicks to the skull.

If you're adamant on that pile up multiple layers of some variety of DR 2 cloth. Alternatively give the martial artists gloves and some kind of foot coverings to protect themselves and better armour on the heads of the targets. No matter what, it's a sadistic method of training.

[Toptomcat]

If the training guy connects with a good blow, he's considered to have won, as the trainees never have more than 10-11 HP anyway.

Realistically speaking, it would be pretty weird for someone to be a very high-skilled unarmed martial artist with a ST in the 10-11 range. Maybe if all the trainees were tiny? Under ordinary circumstances, people who work really, really hard at physical skills tend to develop the physical attributes that are demanded by that skill, in addition to 'pure' skill itself. Real-world people with high combat skills look like this, or this, or this.

[Flyndaran]

St 10 is a fully athletic 18 year old man fit for adventuring and soldiering, not Lazy McLazyson systems analyst.

[BraselC5048]

Originally Posted by Sindri

...What?

Basically it's operating on the quite rational TL 6 judgement that you need to train to fight against the opposition you'll actually be facing, namely brawling (or other skill) 10-12. Second, they'd rather the people they're training have no experience how to fight against their own style.

Originally Posted by Sindri

People don't normally train with full power extra effort jump kicks to the skull.

Oh. OK.

Originally Posted by Sindri

No matter what, it's a sadistic method of training.

For who? Nobody gets worse than heavy bruises, and it's always volunteers, and the reward is high enough to make it worthwhile for enough of them. You still get a bonus if you lose. It's worth pointing out it's not always 1 on 1, both unarmed. It's perfectly common to give "red" a blunt training knife, or other kinds of training weapons. Or impose scenario limitations on the martial artist (you have to go for the leg, or you have to try to disarm him (and his friend). Or give "red" a gun with non-leathel training rounds, for "blue" to to ensure their dodges are up to par. It's also common to do 2 on 1 or 3 on 1 as well (always with "red" having the advantage). Or both at the same time.

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

St 10 is a fully athletic 18 year old man fit for adventuring and soldiering, not Lazy McLazyson systems analyst.

ST 10 is fit to be accepted for soldiering, not the final product.

Originally Posted by BraselC5048

Basically it's operating on the quite rational TL 6 judgement that you need to train to fight against the opposition you'll actually be facing, namely brawling (or other skill) 10-12. Second, they'd rather the people they're training have no experience how to fight against their own style.

I do not know what "blue on blue" or "blue on red" means.

Originally Posted by BraselC5048

Oh. OK.

I'm not sure if anyone trains using extra effort on a regular basis for anything. A cinematic martial arts style putting heavy emphasis on extra effort would be a cool concept but extra effort is difficult to get people to do just as a normal thing and will wear people out and reduce the amount of time you can spend training.

Originally Posted by BraselC5048

For who? Nobody gets worse than heavy bruises, and it's always volunteers, and the reward is high enough to make it worthwhile for enough of them. You still get a bonus if you lose. It's worth pointing out it's not always 1 on 1, both unarmed. It's perfectly common to give "red" a blunt training knife, or other kinds of training weapons. Or impose scenario limitations on the martial artist (you have to go for the leg, or you have to try to disarm him (and his friend). Or give "red" a gun with non-leathel training rounds, for "blue" to to ensure their dodges are up to par. It's also common to do 2 on 1 or 3 on 1 as well (always with "red" having the advantage). Or both at the same time.

People being jump kicked in the head isn't safe. You can't guarantee heavy bruises to a sufficient degree. Why not just have them spend some time sparring with the volunteers and some time jump kicking the heads of training dummies that people below a stage move around erratically or something?

[Dwarf99]

I think you're focusing too heavily on the jump kick to the head. I read it as an outlier possibility that, by virtue of not being against the training rules, needs to be addressed.

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by Dwarf99

I think you're focusing too heavily on the jump kick to the head. I read it as an outlier possibility that, by virtue of not being against the training rules, needs to be addressed.

Possibly!

So armour to avoid hurting your martial artists you either want leather (possibly multiple layers) or higher DR armour combined with things like the gloves on Martial Arts 233 which protect the hands and in the case of boxing gloves even reduce the damage dealt.

[Tomsdad]

I'm guessing the biggest problem with full Strength or even extra effort training, is going to be critical hits. People train a lot (there's not much point to it if they don't), that's going to be a lot of rolls. A critical hit to the head can leave you dead.

To a lesser extent you also likely to pick up injuries that will mean missed training, so it might also be counter productive (as well as painful).

That said there have been some pretty harsh training programs through history. I'm guessing the Agoge felt pretty full strength for many of it's cohort.

[Gnome]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

St 10 is a fully athletic 18 year old man fit for adventuring and soldiering, not Lazy McLazyson systems analyst.

Where are you getting this idea? B14 defines an attribute of 10 as "average," and goes on to state that "Most humans get by just fine with a score of 10."
How did "average" suddenly turn into an athletic man in his prime? That sounds like a pretty good description of "above average" to me...

In general, I've seen a lot of people on the forums make blanket statements about what attribute scores "mean" that contradicts what GURPS says they mean in the very first chapter of the Basic set. Statements like "nobody really has IQ 13," "everyone has HT 10 or lower," etc.