Brawling in Battlesuits

[Critical]

Here's the scenario. Two men in Heavy Scout Battlesuits (UT 184) are fighting each other hand to hand. The stronger and more skilled of the two has a 13 ST and knows brawling at DX+2. The suit gives him a +16 striking ST. His thrust damage is therefore 3d, making his basic punch damage 3d-1, or 3d+2 with brawling bonuses. I am not sure how to account for his hand being armored, but I'm assuming that would add a brass knuckle equivalent bonus, bringing the damage to 3d+3. If he elects to kick, that damage rises to 3d+4. The Heavy Scout Battlesuit has DR 150 on the torso and skull, and 100 everywhere else. The armor is not flexible, so there is no blunt trauma.

This would appear to mean that these guys can wail on each other all day long and nobody is going to take damage, barring an extremely improbable result of 3 on a critical head blow (targeting the head, rolling a critical hit, and then rolling a 3 on the Critical Head Blow table so as to ignore target's DR), or a result on the Critical Miss Table whereby an attacker does something like strain a muscle or somehow knock himself out. Are these extreme results really the only way these guys can damage each other with brawling attacks, or am I missing something? If so, is the best strategy to just go on total defense to improve your chances of a critical success on dodge to increase the chance the other guy injures himself with a critical miss?

I realize there are other options open to unarmed combatants, but I just want to stick to the brawling case for now, with two guys in battlesuits trying to beat each other up with some good old-fashioned fisticuffs.

[Gnome]

I think a realistic (meaning extrapolated from technology that really exists) battlesuit could never really give you the strength to just punch through the DR of another realistic battlesuit. If you want to have a game in which punching with a battlesuit is a scary attack, make a battlesuit that adds way more Striking ST, like +100 instead of +16.

[Anthony]

Realistically, the only way you're going to damage another battlesuit with brawling is via nonpenetrating damage, which GURPS doesn't have rules for beyond the rigid/nonrigid divide. Better to go with wrestling, if you're really going to bother with unarmed at all.

[vicky_molokh]

IIRC Brawling includes slams. If so, might want to look up the HP×Move . . .

[Critical]

Originally Posted by Gnome

I think a realistic (meaning extrapolated from technology that really exists) battlesuit could never really give you the strength to just punch through the DR of another realistic battlesuit. If you want to have a game in which punching with a battlesuit is a scary attack, make a battlesuit that adds way more Striking ST, like +100 instead of +16.

I agree. I am mostly just making sure there is not some mechanic I am missing when looking at this scenario.

[Cuddle_Fish]

Seconding vicky_molokh here - if I was going to try and do damage with just impacts from a suit, I'd be looking at using that Superjump to get some altitude and land on my opponent in a slam-type maneuver; or just a running impact - I'm not actually sure which gets you going faster, so let's work it out a bit.

The scout battlesuit has Super Jump 3 on Move 10 (assuming a move 6 operator) and a weight of 500 pounds w/ helmet (call it 700-750 with the operator and a good combat load of equipment, ammo, etc). That's what, 18ish HP by the 2 * cuberoot(Mass) formula?

SJ 3 and Move 10 means we can high jump a good 400 inches (50 * 2 * 2 * 2); which is 11 yards, so velocity 15 when falling, a bit better than we could get by sprinting. That then is... 18 * 15 = 270, so 2.7 dice of damage. Not particularly inspiring either, even with a brawling bonus.

Honestly, though, if I was expecting to brawl in a Battlesuit I'd bring some shaped charge limpet mines. Grapple, stick one on, get to a safer distance, trigger it.

[Jovus]

If you want that Battletech feel to battlesuits in your game, you could make the DR Semi-Ablative. But yes, as written it seems quite unlikely for brawling to make a difference to battlesuited people.

Compare to two knights in heavy plate suits brawling each other, and you get the same* effect without targetting chinks in armor (which I'm fairly sure you can't even do with fists without special perks/techniques/advantages/whatever, but IDHMBWM).

*Not quite the same. With the playability-adjusted DR of 7, your average human 1d-2 + 1 for gauntlets can't get through, but your ST13 warrior with 1d + 1 for gauntlets + 1 for brawling can, just barely, one sixth of the time.

[Genesis]

Yeah, this scenario reminds me of Stark and Rhodes wailing on each other in Iron Man II. They can slam, punch, kick, and otherwise mess around all they want, but no real damage gets done either way (except to the surrounding environment). Wrestling (or appropriate adaptation perks) can get you limb or joint locks... Other than that, find a big gun, a deep crevasse, or an iron foundry.

Still potentially a fun scene - especially if both characters are PCs, or one's an important named NPC. Nobody gets hurt, but it's still an effective demonstration of hand-to-hand skill, and a chance to try and set yourself up for showy or interesting moves: if the bonus to influence rolls on onlookers (or even the other guy!) is the only thing you're getting out of a fight (since damaging the other guy is out), you can go for the really flashy stuff!

[Engurrand]

Could you grapple and pull their helmet off, or the emergency release pin, or some such? I don't own UT.

Medieval knights carried knives for this purpose. If hand to hand with other battle suited soldiers is remotely possible, you'd imagine they'd carry a cutting tool that can target chinks in the armor.

In the absence of that, the fight is determined by wrestling - but even that is just another way to reach a stalemate, since an arm-bar can immobilize but not incapacitate.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Engurrand

Could you grapple and pull their helmet off, or the emergency release pin, or some such?

This comes under the category of GM's discretion, in that there are no rules for it, but typically I wouldn't allow it unless the victim was pinned.