Number of parries with Martial Arts

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Anders

Fair enough. I withdraw my objection.

...Though actually, there is a sort of similar rule that I initially didn't think of. "When using a weapon that works with multiple skills, you must normally specify the skill you’re using once, at the start of your turn." (First sentence of the Form Mastery perk, quoted from Power Ups 2. Probably originates in Martial Arts.)

Evidently this only applies to actual weapons and weapon skills as opposed to hand-to-hand skills so you're free to mix up Karate punches and Judo throws. (And it applies per weapon, so it doesn't conflict with use of multiple dissimilar weapons.)

[corwyn]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Weapons mostly add the complication of handedness, which is ignored for unarmed combat: Parries with weapons in the "off" hand are at -2 because the skill is at -4 in that hand (Main-Gauche avoids this). There's also the fact that the -4 per parry after the first with a given weapon/hand may be halved for using a fencing weapon and/or having Weapon Master with the weapon. And of course you can't hurt your hands if you parry using weapons. Otherwise, weapon parries work as above.

Why is there no off-hand penalty for unarmed parries?

BS376 under Parrying says "You parry with your "off" hand, or with a weapon held in it, at -4 to skill.

That implies to me that there is a penalty if there is no weapon in hand.

[Ulzgoroth]

Karate explicitly notes that it's not subject to off-hand penalties for striking. I'm not currently spotting anything else in that line in Basic, though most unarmed skills do make reference to providing two parries, one with each hand, without reference to off-hand concerns.

Martial Arts might address further. IIRC off-hand issues are an option in the Harsh Realism for Unarmed Combat box.

[corwyn]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Karate explicitly notes that it's not subject to off-hand penalties for striking. I'm not currently spotting anything else in that line in Basic, though most unarmed skills do make reference to providing two parries, one with each hand, without reference to off-hand concerns.

Martial Arts might address further. IIRC off-hand issues are an option in the Harsh Realism for Unarmed Combat box.

Karate: attack w/both hands at full skill, no -4 to attack for off-hand (the only skill to mention this, which I always inferred that Karate was the exception here); refers to quoted paragraph above for parries
Brawling: explicitly allows 2 parries, no mention of off hand
Boxing: explicitly allows 2 parries, no mention of off hand
Judo: explicitly allows 2 parries

Martial Arts has a box for harsh reality which says BS assumes no off-hand penalties but IMO BS does not read that way (aside from Karate)

The rules for attacking in the combat section makes no mention of off hand for weapons or unarmed, but the combat modifiers in the Tables appendix have an entry for Off hand -4, not differentiating between unarmed or weapons.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by corwyn

The rules for attacking in the combat section makes no mention of off hand for weapons or unarmed, but the combat modifiers in the Tables appendix have an entry for Off hand -4, not differentiating between unarmed or weapons.

Handedness is defined in a box all the way back on page 14. It's referenced in the section on off-hand parries, though not in the sections on attacks that I can see.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Everybody gets one parry "per weapon" at no penalty for multiple parries. Usually, that's equivalent to "per hand," but parries with two-handed weapons – or with the Sumo Wrestling or Wrestling skill – count against both hands. Then there's -4 per parry after the first with a given weapon/hand.

Kind of wondering if it should be "per limb", otherwise you might have someone do an armed parry, lose the weapon via disarmament and then do an unarmed parry with the hand that held the weapon at no penalty.

"Per limb" would also prevent the more obvious "deflect punch A with my right forearm (since it's possible to do unarmed parries with an arm without using "hand" contact: B147) then deflect punch B with the club my right hand is holding without a -4 penalty" type wiggling

(assuming of course you allow "make contact with the limb not the weapon" unarmed parries when the hand is holding something .. which if allowed maybe should have at least a slight penalty)

Originally Posted by Kromm

If Joe has Sumo Wrestling or Wrestling, it's basically the same story except that since those parries count as two-handed, each counts as a parry with both hands and suffers the current penalty for the highest number of parries with either hand.

So if Joe parried once with Karate using his right hand, then tried a Wrestling parry, it would be at -4 for having already used one of his hands . . . and future parries would be at -8 for his right hand (used once already for a Karate parry and a Wrestling parry), -4 for his left (used once already for a Wrestling parry).

Given that Joe would be -4 on his followup wrestling parry even if he used TWO karate parries first (one left, one right) what would you think of idea of 2H parries suffering -2 per each hands' prior use? That sums to -4 per pair.

Originally Posted by Kromm

Weapons mostly add the complication of handedness, which is ignored for unarmed combat:

Should we assume they're just deflecting with part of arm other than hand (like forearm) to ignore the handedness penalty?

If you can ignore handedness penalty by hitting with arm instead of hand then would that mean there's no off-hand penalty for elbow striking instead of punching?

Or if there's never an off-hand penalty for punching in general then why does B202 only note it's omission for Karate but B182 doesn't parenthesize ignoring the -4 for Boxing/Brawling punches?

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

If parrying some schlub punching you with a fist, you use DX/2.
If someone is trying to cut you with a shortsword, then using Karate avoids the -3, which changes you from DX Parry-5 vs weapons to Karate Parry-7 vs weapons.

Another factor is if you want to retreat: getting a +3 instead of a +1 boosts Parry 7 to Parry 10, while Parry 8 only goes up to Parry 9.

Plus (w/ MA supp) you could only Aggressive Parry on your karate skill, not your DX.

Originally Posted by corwyn

Why is there no off-hand penalty for unarmed parries?

BS376 under Parrying says "You parry with your "off" hand, or with a weapon held in it, at -4 to skill.

That implies to me that there is a penalty if there is no weapon in hand.

It seems like the way we can respect both the RAW and the intent of writers to allow a 2nd unpenalized parry is just assume that when using the "off arm" to do a parry, you parry using the arm instead of the hand.

The arm which the off hand is to attached to presumably doesn't suffer the -4 to DX, just like neither leg does.

If someone's doing that they probably should have to make contact with forearm armor instead of hand armor, where that matters.

Or maybe if all you're doing is punching/shoving/parrying/grabbing the actions are too simple to suffer the -4 for fine manipulations like weapons?

If that's the case I'm not sure why firing a gun in off hand would suffer a -4 since pulling a trigger is a pretty basic action. I figured it had more to do with overall coordination being off for anything done from the wrist and further.

[AlexanderHowl]

You do not even need to use an arm to parry. Certain styles (Pak Hok) allow a body parry instead. Heck, with Special Setup (No Hands > Karate Parry) and Special Setup (Karate Parry > Judo Throw), you can technically throw people without using your hands.

[Tomsdad]

The off hand parry at -2 is repeated on pg 549 (with a proviso that ambidexterity removes it), it doesn't distinguish between armed and unarmed skills

Given the off hand training was then turned into a 1pt perk in MA I don't have a problem with penalising unarmed off hand parries*.

The wording of Off-Hand Weapon Training MApg50 also supports that the off hand penalty applies to parries in general.

But that said reading through the various style write ups in MA, the unarmed ones tend not to have the OHWT perk. (not that the style write ups are straight jackets that mean you can't take stuff outside them). This would to me suggest that if you don't need OHWT perk on unarmed style skills it's because you don't suffer the OH penalties on unarmed skills

Of course we then have harsh realism for unarmed attacks in MA, which explicitly has OH penalty to skill and damage (and I can never make up my mind on if the harsh realism box is adding both penalties or just adding the damage penalty and referencing the skill penalty as a pre-exiting penalty).

If you are using the harsh realism box for unarmed fighters or just interpreting the rules to mean unarmed attacks get the off hand penalty I'd certainly add OHWT perk to pretty much all the unarmed striking style write ups that don't have it. or if you don't use styles make it liberally available

EDIT: actually just checking the wording in the Harsh realism box MApg124 it expressly states that if you use the harsh realism rules for off hand then that OHWT becomes a style perk in all bare handed striking Styles


*but it's also not something I think will break the system if you don't do it and Kromm's been pretty clear

[Tomsdad]

On off hand vs. off limb, I'd say it's just a matter language use not that only hands are subject to "off-handedness". But I do agree that certain actions are easier with the your off hand than other ones. The harder ones usually being the ones that require fine motor control, parrying with your forearm compared to say writing or pistol shooting. I also agree that some parries will not use the limb's hand anyway but the lower limb. Although i'd still count that as a "hand" parry and not "hands free" parry in GURPS terms. But I'd also allow you to unarmed parry if you were holding something (depending on what it was you were holding of course).

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

You do not even need to use an arm to parry. Certain styles (Pak Hok) allow a body parry instead. Heck, with Special Setup (No Hands > Karate Parry) and Special Setup (Karate Parry > Judo Throw), you can technically throw people without using your hands.

I think hands free parries count as two handed parries anyway (IIRC, I could well be wrong) if so there would be no off-hand penalty anyway

[Plane]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

You do not even need to use an arm to parry. Certain styles (Pak Hok) allow a body parry instead.
Heck, with Special Setup (No Hands > Karate Parry) and Special Setup (Karate Parry > Judo Throw), you can technically throw people without using your hands.

I was reviewing Special Setup perk on MA51 but I can't see where it mentions being able to use a different body part to perform a technique. Instead it seems focused on using different technique to set up another technique.

MA50's "Cotton Stomach" allows something to this effect:

"Once per turn, you can attempt a standard unarmed parry against a punch or kick to your torso, but using your body instead of a limb."

Much more limited than "I can perform karate parries with my torso" though, since it only works against attacks targeting your torso (can't use torso to parry attack targeting your face/limb) and only works against punches/kicks "hands and feet" (can't use torso to parry headbutts/bites/slams/elbows/knees targeting torso)

PU2 groups this under "Hands-Free" (pg 16):

"perform tasks using a body part other than the one a particular skill usually assumes" and is "a separate perk for each task the skill allows"

For this purpose I think "tors-parry an attacker's extremities when extremities target torso" would be defined as a single task, to explain why it only applies to hands/feet (punches/kicks) but not any other kind of unarmed attack using limbs instead of extremities as the point of contact.

I could see a variant like "torso-parry an attacker's limbs when limbs targe ttorso" for also being able to parry knees/elbows being reasonable to allow the purchase too.

Perhaps a 3rd perk for attacks from the head (bites/headbutts) against the torso too?

Slams seem like the point of contact could be a lot of places on the body so maybe whether you can parry it depends on how the attacker specifies how he's doing his slam? Slammers should definitely be needing to specify which part of their body is delivering the impact for purposes of DR if they take damage.

To more broadly allow torso-parries against attacks targeting other body parts could perhaps require additional perks, maybe one perk to allow the torso to parry attacks targeting limbs, another perk to allow the torso to parry attacks targeting extremities?

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

I think hands free parries count as two handed parries anyway (IIRC, I could well be wrong) if so there would be no off-hand penalty anyway

Terms like "hands-free parry" should probably be abandoned for general use since it seems like they could cover a lot of situations:

• 1) One Hand chars using forearm instead of hand to parry
  2) doing a Leg Parry
  3) doing a Cotton Stomach parry
  4) MA122 countering a grappling technique via twist/sprawl
  5) MA122 "yanking" (still using arm/hand movement but not making contact with attacker)
  6) a Power Parry
  7) parrying using a weapon (hand manipulates weapon but hand doesn't make contact)
  8) doing a normal parry which only succeeds due to shield DB (shield makes contact, not hand or arm)

Depends on if "free" is referring to "involved" or "making contact". Would be good to have technical names for all these situations and then maybe group them under larger labels.