Parrying a Battering Ram (or I don't think I applied Parry Heavy Weapons right)

[kirbwarrior]

In my last campaign the player with a Zweihander got a ram pushed pretty fast in his direction. I already knew the numbers of how this slam was going to work. The player wanted to parry and I'm like "okay, the slam is based on 20, so presumably this means 20 for purposes of parrying". We both went "wait, does that make sense?" but he rolled a 3 and I just went "Screw it, you push the ram back with your sword and flatten three of your opponents".

Now, Rule of Cool aside, I'm fairly certain I applied this wrong. So, to put it into better numbers, average person is ST10 and 145lbs, while a beast with ST20 is roughly 1k. B376 says to use full ST for determining weapon weight when slamming and not actual weight. Does that actually make sense? Further, if it is true, should I also apply it to something like the ram doing a 'slam'? If not, what makes it different?

Thank you ahead of time.

[Anaraxes]

That B376 sentence actually gives you a number to use as a weapon weight when it comes to unarmed attacks ("a punch, kick, bite, etc) -- that is, a body part that normally doesn't already have a weight of its own. But I wouldn't think of a battering ram as an unarmed attack. If it did come down to this rule, you'd probably use the combined ST of the team propelling the RAM (three guys, at least, if I read the OP correctly).

But if you're talking about a battering ram, just use the weapon of the actual weapon. Note that the slam rules actually specify that "your body counts as a heavy weapon", so in that case you're talking about body weight (plus gear), not the "full ST" number for the proxy "weight" of an unarmed punch.

Let's assume a battering ram would be a slam. So you need to use the body weight of the RAM itself. (A 12" oak log that's six feet long weighs over 300 pounds.) If you want, think of it as a really big baton thrust, so you still need to use the weight of the weapon :) The "not more than twice BL" rule in that box for two-handers means you'd need ST 28 to parry a 300-lb ram.

A greatsword weighs 7 pounds, so it breaks automatically at 7 times its own weight (49 pounds), or 9 times (63 pounds) if it's Very Fine. So the sword gets shattered regardless, and since the breakage chance is higher than 6 out of 6, the parry "doesn't count", which is to say it's simply ineffective. You'd need to parry with a weapon weighing at least 43 pounds to avoid the automatic fail. (Over 100 pounds to avoid the breakage.)

I wouldn't have a problem with the Rule of Cool result in a sufficiently cinematic game. But if you wanted a more tame description, you might describe the parry simply as slowing the ram enough to slip by it, or the force of the deflection making the man on the off-side stumble which drags the ram out of line. All you have to do is make the weapon not hit you, which is not necessarily a big movement (like flinging the log backwards and toppling its team).

[Kromm]

A battering ram is just another melee weapon, if a very large and slow one. Use its full weight. It certainly isn't and shouldn't be treated as a slam – it comes closest to a really huge monster thrusting with a pikestaff, not to said being running bodily into things and going "splat."

[ericthered]

For the record, Using ST as the weight for unarmed attacks and slams is in fact wonky, and I personally suggest using basic lift as the base for the weight, not ST. That doesn't show up as a big deal until you get into ST 20 or even 30 though.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by ericthered

For the record, Using ST as the weight for unarmed attacks and slams is in fact wonky, and I personally suggest using basic lift as the base for the weight, not ST. That doesn't show up as a big deal until you get into ST 20 or even 30 though.

I think the general thought was "use BL/20 instead of ST/10," leaving Joe Average melee strike working like a 1-lb weapon, but ST 20 becomes a 4-lb weapon instead of 2.

As Eric notes, even at ST 30, that's still "only" a 9-lb weapon. Which is heavy but not insane.

[Christopher R. Rice]

One of my players is using an 88 lb sword for his character in my wuxia campaign. You can't really parry it.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Note that the slam rules actually specify that "your body counts as a heavy weapon", so in that case you're talking about body weight (plus gear), not the "full ST" number for the proxy "weight" of an unarmed punch.

You use 1/10 ST for punches and full ST for slams in that box, so slams saying that actually contradicts things. Mind, I definitely prefer the latter, saying that slams effectively can't be parried make sense (however, I don't see a slam breaking a sword... ever).

Originally Posted by Kromm

A battering ram is just another melee weapon, if a very large and slow one. Use its full weight. It certainly isn't and shouldn't be treated as a slam – it comes closest to a really huge monster thrusting with a pikestaff, not to said being running bodily into things and going "splat."

That does make more sense, but I do find it odd that it's very different for, say, a ST20 beast to use different rules when slamming than a battering ram hitting something unless I'm reading that text box wrong.

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

I think the general thought was "use BL/20 instead of ST/10," leaving Joe Average melee strike working like a 1-lb weapon, but ST 20 becomes a 4-lb weapon instead of 2.

As Eric notes, even at ST 30, that's still "only" a 9-lb weapon. Which is heavy but not insane.

If the point of the rule is to use ST instead of weight, I'd rather use BL, too. That way it effectively scales right.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

You use 1/10 ST for punches and full ST for slams in that box, so slams saying that actually contradicts things.

Oh, it's worse than that. The sentence is talking about using body parts in a slam, which I don't even know how you'd do, mechanically speaking. An attack is either a punch or a slam. There's not really a punch-with-followup-slam or punch-while-slamming Maneuver. So mentioning slams in that bit about body parts doesn't really apply to anything that's obvious to me.

[WingedKagouti]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Oh, it's worse than that. The sentence is talking about using body parts in a slam, which I don't even know how you'd do, mechanically speaking. An attack is either a punch or a slam. There's not really a punch-with-followup-slam or punch-while-slamming Maneuver. So mentioning slams in that bit about body parts doesn't really apply to anything that's obvious to me.

The two relevant bits:

Originally Posted by Slam, B371

(but your body counts as a heavy weapon; see Parrying Heavy Weapons, p. 376).

Originally Posted by Parrying Heavy Weapons, B376

The same is true for unarmed attacks from high-ST creatures. For the purpose of these rules, treat a punch, kick, bite, etc. as a weapon with an effective weight of 1/10 the attacker’s ST. Use his full ST if he made a slam, flying tackle, pounce, or shield rush!

The PHW box does not talk about slamming with a limb. It talks about all types of unarmed attacks from high ST creatures and makes a distinction between attacks with limbs (which use 1/10th of ST to calculate "weight") and slams & variants (which use full ST for "weight").

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by WingedKagouti

The PHW box does not talk about slamming with a limb.

Yes, I get that point of view.

In the second quote, context for the second sentence is provided by the first (" treat a punch, kick, bite, etc"), as well as the phrase "unarmed attacks", which are distinct from slams. (Nothing prevents you from slamming while you hold a weapon, for instance, though more importantly it's an entirely different mechanic for resolving hits and damage.)

Luckily, GURPS isn't one of those systems that tries to pretend the rules are absolutely and literally correct in all instances. So it's not a question of trying to pull out individual sentences, or argue about the differences between reading the first and second sentence of a single paragraph as being related, or trying to treat them as two completely independent bits of isolated standalone text. The problem is simply that neither one of those interpretations makes sense. Either you take the second quote as defining the weight of a slam as full ST, in which case you have a direct contradiction with the actual slam rule ("body weight"), which was kirbwarrior's point. It would also leave you with absurdities like having full body slams from ogres or giants do only slightly more damage than the same slam from a human.
Or, you take that second quote as being in the context of attacks with body weapons. In that context, then the bit about slams (etc) makes little sense, unless there's a rule somewhere about slamming into a target teeth-first for "slam piercing" damage or some such. I don't know of any rules like that, though perhaps there are some. Certainly pretty detailed for Basic.

So, I'm left with a case where the text as written doesn't make literal sense either way. But we don't have to stop there and argue about which incorrect interpretation is actually The True RAW. As players, we get to consider the rules, surmise probable intent of the author, and come up with a way to read them that seems to make sense in play.

My preference is just to ignore the bit about resolving slams as a weapon weight of merely ST rather than the actual weapon weight (bodies, rams, giant boulders, giants, whatever). That gives more sensible results in the case in the OP, where a battering ram winds up behaving as an object that weighs 300+ pounds, rather than 20, and prevents slams from ogres and giants as being treated as barely more damaging than a slam from a strong human of much smaller size and mass.