06-17-2011, 06:59 PM | #11 | ||
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Shangri-La
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Re: [MA/LT] Blocking with Cloaks
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I don't know ... it seems to me that, like a boxer confronting kicks or swung melee weapons, a fencer who's used to fighting other fencers is apt to be unprepared to block Olaf's greataxe. |
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06-17-2011, 07:09 PM | #12 | ||
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Shangri-La
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Re: [MA/LT] Blocking with Cloaks
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That's not a bad idea, I might try it for curiosity's sake ... but you don't have to cut completely through the cloak to inflict damage on anything that was on the other side of the cloak. So the real test would be, hang a "cloak" (blanket, whatever) in front of a pumpkin, and swing the sword at the pumpkin through the blanket. The cloak might slow the swing down a bit, but I bet the pumpkin still gets sliced. |
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06-17-2011, 07:12 PM | #13 |
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: [MA/LT] Blocking with Cloaks
Do note that a barbarian warrior accustomed to blocking or parrying Olaf's great axe may well be caught off-guard by Giuseppe's rapier thrust, though. That's less a function of what a fighter's weapons can accomplish against other weapons than it is a function of what the user himself has experienced. Fortunately, we have rules for this; see Cross-Cultural Encounters (Martial Arts, p. 212).
Modern pundits' views notwithstanding, it's probably the case that just about any armed fighting style intended for life-or-death combat would be adaptable to standing off any other. It's unarmed arts facing armed ones, and styles that aren't for life-or-death combat, that run into problems. From everything I've read, rapier combat – with or without a cloak – was an earnestly kill-or-be-killed pursuit. The mythology about foppery and first blood was added a few centuries after the fact. Real-world cloak-and-rapier schools drilled against pike, halberd, and two-handed sword.
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
06-17-2011, 08:53 PM | #14 | |
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Shangri-La
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Re: [MA/LT] Blocking with Cloaks
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My question is more about the physics than the familiarity, though. Unfamiliarity with greataxes aside, I'm just not picturing a cloak vs. greataxe defense being very effective, except in the same way that an unarmed vs. greataxe defense would be -- intercepting the weapon nearer the handle than the business end, as Polydamas mentioned. And in that case, it doesn't seem that the cloak is doing much, it's mostly an unarmed parry that just happens to be performed with a cloak in your hand. Anyway, it seems like the general consensus and the word from on high is that cloaks are adequately covered by the RAW, and there' not a compelling reason to house-rule it. That said, I might try out a -2 or -3 for cloaks vs. swung weapons, just to see how it plays.... although, as you say, real-world cloak-and-rapier fighters quite possibly faced greatswords and halberds with some regularity, so it makes sense that they'd have developed some kind of tactics for such situations. Maybe more Armed Grapple (Cloak) than Block.... Last edited by CousinX; 06-17-2011 at 09:04 PM. |
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06-17-2011, 10:36 PM | #15 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: [MA/LT] Blocking with Cloaks
If its DF, is "realism" a good reason to add a house rule that makes something cool less effective? Especially without much evidence that its actually more realistic? But its your game: the most important thing is that it satisfies you and your players.
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06-17-2011, 10:39 PM | #16 | |
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Vermont
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Re: [MA/LT] Blocking with Cloaks
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Isn't this what you want? For cloaks to be more effective against thrusting weapons? I still think this is a bit of a non-issue of you use damage to shields. It succeeds in making cloaks a less effective weapon against heavy swung weapons, which is the realism you're looking for.
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06-18-2011, 05:42 AM | #17 |
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
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Re: [MA/LT] Blocking with Cloaks
Low-Tech already has a rule for this in the textbox called "arrow curtains" (p.104). Page 99 specifically says that a cloak would qualify. I'd have no problems expanding it to include light melee weapons like knives, fencing sabres, and smallswords.
Last edited by DanHoward; 06-18-2011 at 05:46 AM. |
06-18-2011, 11:04 AM | #18 | ||
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Shangri-La
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Re: [MA/LT] Blocking with Cloaks
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I think I'm coming around to that opinion as well. I just have to hmmm and haww about a little more first. :) |
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06-18-2011, 11:41 AM | #19 |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: [MA/LT] Blocking with Cloaks
Note one other thing: In a fight, it isn't as if the attacker executes everything from "intent to strike," through "strike," to "follow-through" first, and then his target assesses the threat and executes everything from "intent to defend," through "defend," to "return to guard position." Yes, the dice rolling in GURPS can be interpreted that way, but that's a necessary evil that exists for the purpose of making the abstraction work: Two men walk in, one walks out, and after the fact, the rules give you answers for things like "How many telling blows did each man strike?", "Are their weapons intact?", and "How far did they move while fighting?"
A cloak defense starts before the blow is anywhere near landing. It serves to obscure the defender's body positioning so that the attacker completes an attack that isn't a square blow but a glancing one, or even a miss. And of course the defender can more easily lean aside to avoid an off-target blow. In game terms, the abstraction has this as a block defense made after an attack roll. In reality, it's more of an enhancer to a dodge of sorts. It's just that since it fully commits the cloak, GURPS counts it as a block, and like all active defenses, it's rolled after the attack roll. If you look at fightbooks, there isn't a lot of evidence that cloaks were ever used to flat-out block or trap attacks. Just about all the images show the defender holding the cloak out to obstruct lines of attack before the attack is launched. The closest you see to truly stopping the weapon square is when the weapon is a dagger and the cloak is wrapped around the arm to protect against the dagger's edges for a defense with the arm.
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
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block, cloak, fencing, low-tech, martial arts |
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