Spear vs Knights... am I missing something?

[OddGamer]

Okay... so... I'm checking to see if I have this right. I wrote myself a little combat simulator to check various fights. It doesn't take into account everything, of course, but it does do most of the major rules (I think). And with this I've considered two fighters of 58 points each (excluding what else they spent points on). The first fighter is a wealthy knight-type with muscles, health, and armor, armed with a nice spear. The second is a poor guy with no armor and also a spear.

Wealthy Dude: 58
ST 12, DX 10, IQ 10, HT 12, Wealth: Comfortable, Broadsword-12
--Equipment: Scale armor (DR 4 everywhere), Broadsword (1d+3 cutting), Large Shield
==Dodge: 8, Parry: 12

Poor Peasant: 57
ST 10, DX 10, IQ 10, HT 10, Wealth: Poor, Close Combat (Spear)-4, Spear-27
--Equipment: Spear (1d+1 Impaling, using 2 hands)
==Dodge: 8, Parry: 16

When I run this... the guy with who sunk all those same points into spear ability clobbers several sorts of heck out of the guy who spread it out into strength and so on, winning 80% of the time whether in a 1 on 1 situation or a 2 on 2 situation. Effectively, it looks like, for combat at least, there's literally no point in spending any points on anything other than skill with an impaling weapon. Why bother? It's the cheapest, and most effective increase to your combat potential. At least until you're at a skill level where you can stab someone in the eye intentionally with a 16 or less, even in close combat (skill 30 with the Close Combat technique), then pump points into anything else (damage, HT, etc.).

Is this correct, or am I missing something?

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Spear Guy rapidly develops a reputation. Nobody engages him in hostilities except at range, and his social life isn't great either once he becomes known as a serial eye-stabber. He is a lonely man who talks to his spear, which he has given a girl's name in a fit of maddening loneliness. Even if he has a hobby he's terrible at it. There is no relief but the death of a broken man.

[Celjabba]

-Any enemies without eyes (or other armor chinks,) and spear guy is in big trouble.

-Skill-27 is unrealistic. It works in some genre like Dungeon Fantasy, or other highly cinematic setting (where no-eye enemies will appear sometimes !), but should be avoided in mundane settings. (especially as a single skill without matching attributes and support skills)

-Wealthy Dude can afford to pay some money to a few guys with bows to help him deal with an annoying eye-stabber.

-If the poor peasant is ever separated from his spear, he is in trouble, while broadsword guy can grab any piece of wood (or go bare-handed) and clobber him.

Otherwise, you are correct.
And a bunch of guys with spears was the core of many armies for thousands of years for many reason : it is a cheap and efficient weapon.

[RGTraynor]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

Spear Guy rapidly develops a reputation. Nobody engages him in hostilities except at range, and his social life isn't great either once he becomes known as a serial eye-stabber. He is a lonely man who talks to his spear, which he has given a girl's name in a fit of maddening loneliness. Even if he has a hobby he's terrible at it. There is no relief but the death of a broken man.

A response of pure beauty.

But yeah, add me to the growing list of those who find Spear-27 ridiculous, and that's not even addressing how a schmuck "poor peasant" gets to a level beyond Dr Kromm's "best in the history of the world" marker. (For my part, in 37 years of GMing GURPS, and over 200 characters, I've allowed two players to reach -25 with a single skill each. Their characters were something like 325 and over 500 pts apiece, at the time.)

Granted, this is a time-honored riff ... remember the people who just could not be separated from the concept that Utter Dome + Create Fire was the invincible tactic that would surely have its practitioners ruling the world?

[Taneli]

Equal points does not mean equal ability, only equal potential.

[Plane]

in the case of unparryable (deceptive -10) attacks to the eye, can't you just opt to hold a buckler in front of the eye slit as cover (have to strike THROUGH it) to stop this?

[Aldric]

Originally Posted by Plane

in the case of unparryable (deceptive -10) attacks to the eye, can't you just opt to hold a buckler in front of the eye slit as cover (have to strike THROUGH it) to stop this?

Fighting blind is not really a great idea, plus I guess the spear guy can simply stab some place else w/o the need to do a deceptive attack since you can't defend anyway. An Impaling attack to the vitals is not as bad as one to the eye but it will still eventually kill, it will just be slower and more painful.

[Donny Brook]

Part of the issue is that GURPS makes eye-shots too easy.

[Gnome]

Character points spent in a melee weapon skill are way more effective than points spent in just about anything else combat-related in realistic low tech games.
That single skill gives you the ability to hit (and pierce defenses with deceptive attack), deal lots of damage (by targeting vulnerable locations), and defend yourself (using parry). In 3e, "physical" skills have a slower progression (maxing out at a cost of 8/level rather than 4), which helped mitigate this problem--I have adopted this as a house rule for weapon skills in 4e, and it has really helped with this problem. I highly recommend it, I have seen no negative side effects, and my players have even talked about how much they liked this change when I first implemented it, because they could focus on other aspects of their characters.

People sometimes talk as if this is only a problem when you have "spear guy" and how unrealistic he is, but it's really a problem for every PC who has to contemplate whether to spend 4 points raising melee weapon skill or raising anything else combat-related--raising melee weapon skill just looks better a lot of the time.

In fantasy games, the threats can be much more various, so you might consider whether it's more important to have, say, Will for resisting mind control or Dodge for avoiding lightning bolts, or what you'll do against a skeleton with no eyes and DR 6 plate armor when you have ST 10 and Spear-27.
But even in DF, I've found my house rule is fun and definitely worth having, so that you don't end up with a Rapier-30 Swashbuckler within a few sessions of advancement. The Swashbuckler already has an Edged Rapier to do sw cut damage, Weapon Master to do a lot of damage, and Luck to avoid crit fails and other mishaps, so they avoid some of the weaknesses of "spear guy."
What really messes things up for the GM (and other players) is that any enemy that even threatens Rapier-30 guy on the battlefield instantly slaughters everyone else...

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Aldric

Fighting blind is not really a great idea, plus I guess the spear guy can simply stab some place else w/o the need to do a deceptive attack since you can't defend anyway. An Impaling attack to the vitals is not as bad as one to the eye but it will still eventually kill, it will just be slower and more painful.

The idea is that someone who is fully armored could do this to protect his eyes. Now, "fully armored" generally does have armor gaps other than just the eyes; of note here is the armpit (where you are hitting the Vitals, and can cripple the arm to add insult to injury), which you'll be exposing by holding that shield up anyway (and, humorously, these armor gaps are actually easier to hit than the eye slits). Of course, at TL 4, those may be covered by mail, thanks to the knight's arming garments. On the other hand, there are face coverings that will prevent a spear from being able to hit the eyes without having to deal with DR - see this thread.

As for the topic of this thread - yes, pumping all your points into a single combat skill is a very effective, if boring, way to build a fighter. The primary way to avoid this is to just say "No." Failing that, things like needing to maintain your skills, making it clear that many scenarios in the setting won't call for just stabbing things as an effective means of getting through them, enforcing the use of templates, having foes who have full-coverage DR (such that you need higher ST to wound them), etc, can certainly help.