Combo Suggestions for point starved Witch wanting to be effective in melee?

[naloth]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I found a way to do this as a Witch that worked quite well, which was to literally concentrate on defence, and take advantage of the +2 to parry you get with a quarterstaff. That let me get away with DX 12, Staff-14 [8], and get a parry of 13 with Combat Reflexes. When in melee, I usually did All-Out Defence, and the GM let me do multiple parries at -2, as per pp. 123 & 222 of Martial Arts.

The only times I actually did damage with the staff was parrying unarmed attacks, but that was fairly useful vs zombies.

I'd second staff. The +2 to parry is a very nice bonus and it has both swing and thrust options if you actually need to attack.

[Pursuivant]

Depending on your exact mix of skills, take a look at Innate Attack skill. While it's not technically a melee skill it can make relatively short-ranged magic attacks - like gaze or breath weapons - much more effective.

Others have mentioned Staff skill for its defensive abilities, but if you can use a staff to launch magic attacks it becomes a very dangerous "stand-off" weapon capable of launching a variety of attacks at Reach 1,2 while also reducing or eliminating range penalties for spellcasting.

[Malleable]

Thanks guys,
I might drop the sword and go to staff/spear. My thought is I can make an expandable cane into a staff, and probably a thin spear tip as well. I figure you could use a spear for parrying as well. And the spear should be impaling. If I get really good I can shoot for targeted attack (eye).
And since this is a modernish campaign, walking around with a cane sounds more reasonable than a sword.

[DangerousThing]

Originally Posted by Malleable

So precognitive parry is my best bet for defense. And if I'm gonna parry, I may as well counter attack. And if I'm counter attacking I may as well work that into a combo.

As a gm, I wouldn't allow a counterattack to be used anytime a precognitive parry could be useful.

All a successful precognitive parry roll allows is the ability to use the parry skill to parry something that the character couldn't normally parry, such as a bullet. It slows down combat because of this second roll.

It is also something that I would limit to martial arts specialists; it isn't something I'd allow to a dabbler.

Your character is a witch. You have much better things to spend points on. Why are you trying to invade other character niches?

[Malleable]

Originally Posted by DangerousThing

Your character is a witch. You have much better things to spend points on. Why are you trying to invade other character niches?

As I've said, everyone in the party needs to be able to handle themselves against multiple monsters. There is no way the two main fighters, can cover multiple mobs on themselves, and the three other characters at the same time. This campaign doesn't allow the witch or scientist to avoid melee combat. Everyone has to be able to fight. My role is to use my Mind, Crossroads and Chance paths to control provide information and eventually travel. The other witch handles Body, Matter and Energy; so she provides buffs to the party.
Having already spent 400pts using the Witch template, and Thaumaturgy Rituals allow casters a much larger body of rituals from the start, and charms my spells are covered, but I am still woefully unprepared for combat.
In my GURPS fantasy campaigns typical caster roles could be specialized with just focusing on Magic, but the modern monster hunters campaigns seem to require more combat. This is similar to a World of Darkness campaign I played in. I started out with spells, but realized that I needed to specialize in some melee combat if I was going to survive (Aikido Throw worked well).

Thanks,
Mal

[DangerousThing]

Originally Posted by Malleable

As I've said, everyone in the party needs to be able to handle themselves against multiple monsters. There is no way the two main fighters, can cover multiple mobs on themselves, and the three other characters at the same time.

Your character will never be as good as a specialized fighter, so work on more point-efficient skills rather than very specialized martial arts skills.

Brawling is more efficient than Karate. For the same number of cp, you get two levels more with brawling than karate.

Staff is more efficient than sword, because of the +2 to defense.

Don't worry about martial arts perks and cinematic skills. Those are really for the combat specialists. Your witch will never be one of those (well, unless you get another 400 cp).

Your witch can be a decent fighter without becoming a specialist.

Magic is better than precognative parry, and the Path of Chance could have bullets avoid you like they do Vash the Stampede (watch the anime Trigun -- in the first episode a bunch of mooks shot up the saloon, except for him and the Vash-shaped part of the wall behind him). The path of mind is also useful for defense: put up a somebody-else's-problem field, and you'll be ignored.

Also, don't forget firearms. Guns is probably the most efficient self-defense skill in a modern game, as long as you don't have to fight on an airplane. Or other place where guns are difficult to bring in.

Good luck, and help the group.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by DangerousThing

Also, don't forget firearms. Guns is probably the most efficient self-defense skill in a modern game . . .

Defending against Guns is also surprisingly easy, with the right approach. A Lesser Destroy Matter effect that deactivates primers will often get naïve opponents to waste several turns trying to shoot, cycling the gun, and trying again before they give up.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Malleable

Thanks guys,
I might drop the sword and go to staff/spear. My thought is I can make an expandable cane into a staff, and probably a thin spear tip as well. I figure you could use a spear for parrying as well. And the spear should be impaling. If I get really good I can shoot for targeted attack (eye).
And since this is a modernish campaign, walking around with a cane sounds more reasonable than a sword.

If you're wanting a spear, check with your GM first. While I believe it's a common houserule that a spear wielded with Staff gets the +2 Parry, it's just that - a houserule, and one your GM may not agree with. A properly-designed cane should be able to function as a Short Staff/jo, which benefits from the +2 Parry. It's not quite as good as an iron-shod quarterstaff (it has less damage and is only Reach 1), but is a lot easier to justify carrying around in a modern setting. You'd generally be restricted to crushing damage (you might be able to convince the other witch to put a Conditional on your cane that allows it to transform its metal cap into something like a spearhead), but that's actually still pretty useful (swing-based crushing damage is often roughly comparable to thrust-based impaling damage in terms of Injury, it's just that the former isn't able to get an increased WM against the Vitals). Eye-shots are really more the domain of dedicated combatants - instead of spending [6] on Targeted Attack and then taking a -4/-5 (depending on if it's the eye or the eye slits that you're targeting) to hit, you may be better off spending (some of) that [6] to boost your combat skill and using the penalty to make it harder for the foe to avoid.

Originally Posted by johndallman

Defending against Guns is also surprisingly easy, with the right approach. A Lesser Destroy Matter effect that deactivates primers will often get naïve opponents to waste several turns trying to shoot, cycling the gun, and trying again before they give up.

An issue there is that you've got to actually affect your opponents but not your allies (assuming you have allies who use firearms, but I'm pretty certain that's the default for MH). That either calls for an Area Effect with exceptions for the hexes your allies occupy or Range plus probably Area Effect. The former potentially needs a lot of energy to reach all your enemies if they aren't very close to you, while the latter risks missing enemies that aren't in the targeted cluster. I'm also not certain how hex-based exceptions work when using Conditionals (including Charms) - is it alright to define this as "any hex occupied by Alice, Bob, and/or Charlie" or do you have to define a pattern relative to where the Conditional gets activated (in which case you've got to get your allies in the right formation). On the bright side, primers are so light you don't even need to bother accounting for Subject Weight.

That said, I'm not certain you're allowed to refine the effect enough to only work on primers with a Lesser Effect. Then again, a Lesser Effect is probably enough to refine it to "affects bullets only," and 1d internal damage (which you get for free) is probably enough to ruin most bullets (or at least get their Malf bad enough most firearms are highly likely to jam). Path of Energy is potentially even nastier - 1d internal burning damage is probably enough to set off most bullets, ruining the foe's loaded weapons and magazines and potentially harming the foe as well.

[Donny Brook]

The generous Move and Attack treatment of ranged weapons makes pistols extremely tactically effective compared to melee weapons for close combat.

[Tymathee]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

The generous Move and Attack treatment of ranged weapons makes pistols extremely tactically effective compared to melee weapons for close combat.

Certainly, why waste time swinging a staff when you can just put a bullet in their head?

I guess the important question to ask is if this fits within how they personally conceptualize the character. If this is a matter of optimization and the fluff doesn't matter as much to them, then a pistol certainly is called for.