Blunt weapons and edged weapons using the same skills?

[The Colonel]

Isn't the question more about balance? That's why axe and mace use the same skill - because they are balanced the same way and designed to deliver a similar strike. Granted the axe user has to worry about blade alignment, but the fighting technique is more or less the same as I understand it.

So the baton, presumably, envisions a weapon balanced like a sword and usable with similar techniques. A baton not so balanced, I would guess, is a club.

As people have pointed out, things like bokken and wasters blur the line between sword and baton (even if they are training weapons) - and weapons like the single-stick were considered an appropriate training for sword fighting.
Also, didn't cane-de-combat, bartisu and similar things borrow heavily from sword fighting techniques ... again, blurring the line between sword and baton?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Isn't the question more about balance? That's why axe and mace use the same skill - because they are balanced the same way and designed to deliver a similar strike. Granted the axe user has to worry about blade alignment, but the fighting technique is more or less the same as I understand it.

Yeah, the skills are largely about balance and handedness, with some oddities thrown in (like shorter swords using a different skill than longer ones, or some weapons with weapon-catching prongs using a different skill than weapons that are otherwise used identically). There are some weapons that blur the line between sword and axe, by being particularly top-heavy swords; I believe GURPS actually has such weapons usable with both skills (I think the khopesh is given this treatment).

As I noted, if you want edge alignment to be a concern, the best way to do that is to impose a (small) penalty to hit with proper alignment, and allow those who favor swords or axes over batons or maces to buy it off with a Technique.

[kenclary]

Originally Posted by Varyon

As I noted, if you want edge alignment to be a concern, the best way to do that is to impose a (small) penalty to hit with proper alignment, and allow those who favor swords or axes over batons or maces to buy it off with a Technique.

You could just treat it as a familiarity. If you're used to a stick, take a penalty with a sword for a bit; if you're used to double-edge, take a penalty with a single-edge for a bit; etc.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by kenclary

You could just treat it as a familiarity. If you're used to a stick, take a penalty with a sword for a bit; if you're used to double-edge, take a penalty with a single-edge for a bit; etc.

Familiarity is generally per weapon design (thrusting broadsword vs large falchion, say), but doing it based more on various components (double-edge vs single-edge, curved vs straight, balanced vs not-so-balanced, etc) might be an option (I think there are some options to treat Guns this way).

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Edged weapons are a bit more difficult to use than blunt ones, due to concerns of edge alignment, but this is generally assumed to be below the resolution of the system.

Arguably, edged weapons are harder to defend against, however. A bokken or similar sword-shaped club will be about 0.75-1.25" in width. By comparison, the edge of a blade is fractions of a millimeter. The difference requires your blocks and parries to be much more precise and increases the gaps your opponent can exploit by orders of magnitude.

Also remember that GURPS skills cover experience with lethal combat. Someone with lots of training time with blunt or slowed weapons but no battlefield experience effectively has Weapon Sport or Weapon Art, which defaults to actual weapon skill at -2.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Arguably, edged weapons are harder to defend against, however. A bokken or similar sword-shaped club will be about 0.75-1.25" in width. By comparison, the edge of a blade is fractions of a millimeter. The difference requires your blocks and parries to be much more precise and increases the gaps your opponent can exploit by orders of magnitude.

Maybe if you're trying to Parry with your fingernail or something. Realistically, anything you're using as a parrying surface (to say nothing of blocking!) is going to be sufficiently larger than the width of the blade or bludgeon that differences in said widths don't really come into play.

Now, Parrying a blade unarmed without getting harmed is harder than Parrying a bludgeon unarmed without getting harmed, but honestly, I think if you manage a Parry that wouldn't have harmed you if the foe was using a bludgeon, the shallow cut you'd get from a blade is probably below system resolution.

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Also remember that GURPS skills cover experience with lethal combat. Someone with lots of training time with blunt or slowed weapons but no battlefield experience effectively has Weapon Sport or Weapon Art, which defaults to actual weapon skill at -2.

This is true. That said, it's about how one trains - a bokken can certainly be a lethal weapon, if you train for it to be. A minor correction, however - Combat, Sport, and Art skills default to each other at -3, not -2.

[RGTraynor]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Arguably, edged weapons are harder to defend against, however. A bokken or similar sword-shaped club will be about 0.75-1.25" in width. By comparison, the edge of a blade is fractions of a millimeter. The difference requires your blocks and parries to be much more precise and increases the gaps your opponent can exploit by orders of magnitude.

Good grief. Are you serious?

Quite aside from that the width of a sword is a great deal wider than a millimeter, no one who's been in armed combat would possibly think so. The difference isn't in the width of the parrying surface. The difference is in the relative air resistance of the weapon, and even that's less important than many other factors. It'd be a coin toss even with perfectly evenly matched master fencers on a piste.

And once again, the question is meaningless. GURPS just isn't granular enough for the difference to matter.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Maybe if you're trying to Parry with your fingernail or something.

Based man of culture ref to Shalltear =) Forgot about that scene. Those nails are at most an inch long and it would be pretty tricky to align them perfectly with narrow weapons like swords compared to big-headed attacks like mauls/warhammers or even punches.

That said: it probably takes the same accuracy to do a centre-of-mass parry against a maul/punch. If you didn't perfectly parry in centre of mass it could glance off to the side and work like a deflection where you prevented it from hitting the primary/intended target but maybe it hits some secondary target adjacent to it instead?

I'm wondering if we could somehow fiddle with how T-bone's rules in pyramid 3/34 worked for this. Like instead of "half damage on a MoF 1 parry" if you're using a tiny parrying implement like a finger, you ignore this benefit?

IMO the 'miss by 1' graze rule should not just be half-damage, but should also alter the hit location. The idea here is that the parry still made contact, right? If it made enough contact to halve the damage then it should be enough to deflect the attack?

Originally Posted by Varyon

Realistically, anything you're using as a parrying surface (to say nothing of blocking!) is going to be sufficiently larger than the width of the blade or bludgeon that differences in said widths don't really come into play.

Another example similar to "Shalltear parries a normal sword with her fingernail" would be something like "anyone with a normal sword parries Ichigo Kurosaki"

For example when Zaraki Kenpachi parries Ichigo

Zaraki's sword is much thinner, however it's also pretty long so he has a lot more flexibility in where he places his hand.

Ichigo v. Zaraki is I think one of those situations where we can recognize that with variations in lenght (I'm going to assume their swords are reach 1,2 ? or maybe 3?) that parries could actually make contact in a variety of places.

IE you might parry just before the sword hits you (contact in your own hex) or make contact w/ a parry further out, in longsword vs. longsword dueling.

This could actually be an important factor if you have stuff going on like "any time my sword makes contact there is an AE explosion centered on point of contact") so maybe we should actually have rules for determining in which hex the swords make contact?

I would say for example that where Zaraki parries Ichigo, it's probably in the empty hex between them (middle meets middle), as opposed to a narrow parry in Zaraki's hex (guard parries tip) or a pre-emptive parry in Ichigo's hex (tip parries guard)

- -

Maybe this relates to "matter of inches" areas (normally only a factor in Cascading Waits) where maybe if we categorized weapons based on their sub-hex length varyations we might give them some kind of parrying bonus or penalty.

There's IMO already some element of this seen in the -1 to parry which B272 assigns to all of the knives. It doesn't seem to distinguish between the reach C vs the reach C,1 ones though.

(btw does anyone remember why the large/small knife is C for impale and C,1 for cut? Is this due to them being curved like katana?)