[Technique] Barbectomy

[Anders]

There's a Swedish RPG in which dwarves have a proverb: "Your beard is your honor." This means that honor is as much part of a dwarves nature as the beard is. One of the elven PCs in my friend's game has developed a technique for Fast-Drawing a sword and cutting off a dwarf's beard in one stroke. I call this "Barbectomy". How would you stat that for GURPS?

[David Johnston2]

It would just be a technique for a targeted attack. Probably starting at -5. Maybe -4.

[GodBeastX]

Use the beard's size modifier as base. So if dwarf beards are six inches then you got your modifier.

Then you apply that as a technique as said above. You can find out more info in Martial Arts book on how to create techniques like these.

[sir_pudding]

Using the technique design system I get Skill-7:

• Weapon Strike (-0)
• Hit location, Jaw(-6)
• Special Benefit, Clean cut of beard without injury to face (-1)

This is pretty clearly a cinematic technique along the lines of initial carving, so it should be allowed to buy off the full penalty. A "realistic" version might be allowed with Unusual Training, that probably requires that you grapple the beard with another limb or weapon, can't exceed skill -3 and causes injury to the Jaw on any failure by 1.

Barbectomy

Hard

Default: Prerequisite skill-7
Prerequisite: Any edged weapon skill; cannot exceed prerequisite skill.

A successful hit with an attack capable of doing at least one point of cutting damage severs the target's beard near the jawline, doing no injury.

[whswhs]

It would be "barbotomy." An -ectomy is a cutting out of something internal; an -otomy is a cutting off of something. You'd only have barbectomy if the dwarf was suffering from ingrown beard.

Strictly it ought to be pogonotomy, from the Greek word for "beard," as the use of Greek anatomical roots is customary in surgery.