what if you don't want your foe to fall on your spear?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Plane

Not sure if the latter should still apply as of Technical Grappling basically giving a free grapple to the spear-user and it's their option if they want to leave it in or take it out... like is the movement points thing still an alternate option to using a "Break Free" attack to reduce the Control Points of a spear-in-body grapple?

I'd be inclined to treat such a situation similarly to a weapon/shield bind from Fantastic Dungeon Grappling, where the opponent can break the "grapple" by the simple expedient of taking a step back (the spearwielder can simply end the grapple on their own, in this case by pulling the spear out; if the foe has actually moved closer than the spear's minimum Reach, however, the spearwielder will need to either shift his/her grip to shorten Reach or take a step back). A barbed spear would, of course, be a very different situation.

Originally Posted by Plane

Going on your idea of using a parry... TG36 mentions "Escaping Parry" can be based on "an appropriate melee weapon skill". It doesn't mention what's appropriate but I imagine that might mean soemthing like "your skill in the weapon which is grappling you" (Escaping Parry based on Spear if a spear is stuck inside you and you're trying to get it out with your bare hands) or perhaps "your skill in a weapon which is grappled" (Escaping Parry based on Spear if someone is grappling your Spear)

Yeah, Spear Parry -2 to reduce Control would work for a barbed spear.

Originally Posted by Plane

If we used this, we could reduce the free Control Points that a Spear automatically establishes (as of TG) when impaled inside a foe.

Since normally a parry is for avoidance, thoughts on rolling an "escaping parry" (-2 penalty) and rolling thrust to see how many CP you subtract from the CP your spear being left in the body would do?

I've always thought this would be good emulation for "it's easier to pull your spear back for the next attack if it missed than if you stuck it in someone" (ie not just a problem for the swing-impale crowd, they should just have a more awkward time getting it loose.

I think at GURPS resolution it's fine to just let the spearman pull out as a free action. If you really want to, perhaps let the character roll against the appropriate skill at -2 to pull out (success reduces CP by thrx2), and also take -2 to any other action taken during the same maneuver (such as making an attack).

Originally Posted by Plane

That actually brings up an interesting point: since reducing a spear's grapple is now a gradual process (ie if someone puts a spear in you, maybe it takes 2-3 turns of "Break Free" to get it out) how exactly does the "half damage it went going in" get partitioned?

I can see two ways to handle this. The first is as you describe - each attempt removes some amount of CP, and inflicts Injury equal to half this value. The other is that trying to pull the weapon out is an all-or-nothing affair - if you roll well enough to completely negate the grapple, you successfully pull it out, inflicting half the Injury it caused going in. If you don't, it doesn't budge, and you can either abandon the weapon or try again next turn. I absolutely would not do some ridiculousness where the incidental Injury ends up causing you to regain CP.

Originally Posted by Plane

by the time a Stop Hit is done, you've already made contact and are inflicting some amount of damage, so I don't really think there should be any kind of "complete avoidance" here

Apologies, I was talking about the original situation, where you're trying to prevent the foe from getting impaled at all. You can, however, use the same suggestion for the case of trying to pull out to avoid a foe completely running themselves through - it's just that "complete avoidance" in that case just means the foe fails to injure themselves any further.

Originally Posted by Plane

Strange thing I just noticed: you can attempt dodges yet still do the whole "impale myself further on a spear" thing which seems weird to me. It's like "I was trying to avoid the spear but then realized it hit me so I figured -heck yeah- and leaned into the hit I was trying to avoid a split second earlier'.

Think of it more like this. You're charging at someone leveling a spear at you. At the last moment before impact, you juke to the right, but keep on running. If the foe tracks you and still manages to stick his spear in you, you can either stop and back off or just keep running.

That said, most situations where a character (or creature, boars absolutely come to mind here) would just keep going are most likely All Out Attacks.

Originally Posted by Plane

Though there weirdly isn't any kind of "I drop my sword if a 500d crushing knockback-only attack hits my sword" in basic rules, the Gun-Fu thing of making a ST roll (subtracting basic damage) which got extrapolated to Sorcery:PAWS could be a baseline.

I don't have either of those books, but if they have rules on knockback on a weapon making it hard to keep hold of a weapon, use those in this case (in the case of charging a goblin with a spear, resolve it as though you caused knockback with a Slam). I'm going to assume that those rules essentially penalize the roll based on how much knockback damage was done, so that tells you how well the goblin kept hold of the spear (and thus how much injury was dealt).

Originally Posted by Plane

There could also be situations where "I'm throwing telegraphic haymakers because I want my foe to succeed in parrying me" where a crit success would also be bad because it prevents parrying.

That would be an odd situation, but as GM I might be inclined to not only let the player downgrade to an ordinary success, but make it so the opponent automatically succeeds at their Parry. Basically:

Player: I'll throw a telegraphic punch. *Rolls* Crap, a 4! I wanted him to Parry, not get hit!
GM: Well, it's a Critical Success, so it's supposed to be a good thing. You wanted him to Parry? He Parries, and I'm not even going to bother having him roll for it. As a bonus, that means there's no risk of him rolling a Critical Success on the Parry and you knocking yourself out or something.
Player: Great, thanks!

Originally Posted by Plane

Should prob be some temporal guidelines though. Like yeah if you die, it's 50 points instead of 25 points to buy "extra life" in advance, but you shouldn't be able to get that -50% discount if you're trapped in a bomb with a room and make the purchase a second before it goes boom.

My dislike of burning character points is a digression, but I'll bite here. The way I see it (were I inclined to follow such a rule), so long as the character is still able to survive the situation intact, the player could buy Extra Life at normal cost. As soon as that becomes impossible, the price is doubled - regardless if that's because the character just died, or because Batman just showed up at the wrong address.

If the situation has become impossible to survive, but the player doesn't know that yet, I think it's the GM's responsibility to tell the player "There's literally no way out at this point. Decide what you'd like your character to do in their last moments." Before that's clear, Extra Life is [25].

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I don't have either of those books, but if they have rules on knockback on a weapon making it hard to keep hold of a weapon, use those in this case

Ironically the Gun-Fu thing wasn't based on knockback-capable attacks at all, since it was intended for piercing damage (I shoot enemy's gun with my gun's bullet, the enemy has to roll to avoid dropping it from the impact)

It was cinematic too since it was intended as an alternative to damaging the gun, instead of a supplement.

IMO the concept worked a lot better when adapted to Protection and Warning Spells since that was for cutting>crushing damage attacks, which normally have knockback, so I could conceive them unsettling someone's grip.

In theory the various Piercing Attack weapons should probably have some kinetic force that causes knockback too. Your basic Innate Attack doesn't give this unless you buy "Double Knockback" enhancement for them, but it seems like guns should have some small degree of it, even if it doesn't match the ratio you see for crushing/cutting attacks.

(in the case of charging a goblin with a spear, resolve it as though you caused knockback with a Slam). I'm going to assume that those rules essentially penalize the roll based on how much knockback damage was done, so that tells you how well the goblin kept hold of the spear (and thus how much injury was dealt).

Originally Posted by Varyon

That would be an odd situation, but as GM I might be inclined to not only let the player downgrade to an ordinary success, but make it so the opponent automatically succeeds at their Parry. Basically:

Player: I'll throw a telegraphic punch. *Rolls* Crap, a 4! I wanted him to Parry, not get hit!
GM: Well, it's a Critical Success, so it's supposed to be a good thing. You wanted him to Parry? He Parries, and I'm not even going to bother having him roll for it.

Sometimes no amount of skill can prevent a mook from punching himself in the face... but you could just design a custom technique... MA91's "+2 to default per +1 to all of the opponent’s defenses against the attack" doesn't have any upper limit (it's just that something like +20 to skill to give +10 to all defenses could never give you a net benefit, per MA90's "final default modifier can never give a bonus"

That kinda thing could get kinda broken though, like letting someone buy off the massive penalties of a Whirlwind Attack if the intent is just to exhaust parries to create openings for other allies' attacks.

Originally Posted by Varyon

As a bonus, that means there's no risk of him rolling a Critical Success on the Parry and you knocking yourself out or something.

That's a pretty good bonus! All the more reason I wouldn't want to guarantee it, just allow increasing the odds by giving a bonus to defend against the attack.

Originally Posted by Varyon

If the situation has become impossible to survive, but the player doesn't know that yet, I think it's the GM's responsibility to tell the player "There's literally no way out at this point. Decide what you'd like your character to do in their last moments." Before that's clear, Extra Life is [25].

Maybe an alternative to giving them advance spoilers of it being inescapable would by to charge normal price but then create the other -25 as a point debt?

Hard to complain about it for Extra Life since the alternative is you're out of the game unless you have a bunch of resurrecting mages in your party.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Plane

In theory the various Piercing Attack weapons should probably have some kinetic force that causes knockback too. Your basic Innate Attack doesn't give this unless you buy "Double Knockback" enhancement for them, but it seems like guns should have some small degree of it, even if it doesn't match the ratio you see for crushing/cutting attacks.

I previously worked out (using the collision rules from tbone's GULLIVER rules) that a piercing bullet would deal roughly 1/3rd as much damage if it were crushing, and thus have 1/3rd the knockback. I'll note I basically only looked at 5.56x45mm, 7.62x39mm and .50 BMG rounds for this - and even there, there was a trend that implied every +1 to pi-class (pi to pi+, pi+ to pi++) was +0.5 SSR to the multiplier; a pi++ bullet would deal half as much damage as crushing (and thus have half knockback). Note, Newton's Third Law being what it is, this does mean an ST 10 human hip-firing a .50 BMG rifle should probably be knocked back 2 yards from firing it... but the idea of someone like that stumbling back two yards after firing (provided they even keep their feet) doesn't strike me as outlandish.

Originally Posted by Plane

Sometimes no amount of skill can prevent a mook from punching himself in the face... but you could just design a custom technique... MA91's "+2 to default per +1 to all of the opponent’s defenses against the attack" doesn't have any upper limit (it's just that something like +20 to skill to give +10 to all defenses could never give you a net benefit, per MA90's "final default modifier can never give a bonus"

That kinda thing could get kinda broken though, like letting someone buy off the massive penalties of a Whirlwind Attack if the intent is just to exhaust parries to create openings for other allies' attacks.

That's a pretty good bonus! All the more reason I wouldn't want to guarantee it, just allow increasing the odds by giving a bonus to defend against the attack.

Remember, we're talking about a Critical Success here. To my mind, a Critical Success isn't a case of "I'm so amazingly skilled I pulled off this awesome thing" (which would mean it's something you could do reliably), but rather "I got really lucky." "I got really lucky, which caused the exact opposite of what I wanted to happen" doesn't really follow - that's being unlucky. So, automatic success for the Parrying foe makes sense to me.

As for the Technique, the GM should be ready to veto - or modify - anything the players come up with when it comes to Advantages/Techniques. +10 to the opponent's defenses is pretty wild. If a player came to me with something like that, and I didn't dismiss it outright, I'd probably require them to add a Special Drawback - if the foe succeeds on their defense with MoS 5+, your attack was so easy to brush aside/avoid that it doesn't count against the foe's defenses for that round (so no iteration penalty). If I were feeling particularly surly, I might even say that if the foe succeeds by 10+, it counts as a Critical Success.

Originally Posted by Plane

Maybe an alternative to giving them advance spoilers of it being inescapable would by to charge normal price but then create the other -25 as a point debt?

I think it would be a jerk move to keep the player in the dark, then charge them double if they opt to buy Extra Life before they know there's no way out. Now, I can see keeping them in the dark for a bit in service of drama, but even if you know for a fact their PC is doomed, I think if the player decides to buy Extra Life "just in case," then provided they normally have that option during play, it should be normal price, not "Ha ha, in addition to burning up your use of Extra Life, I'm going to charge you for it again because I, in my GM-omniscience, knew you were already doomed when you bought it!"

Let's use that scene from The Dark Knight as an example. Here, we'll assume Batman and Rachel are PC's, and Harvey (and the Joker) are NPCs. As soon as Batman fails whatever checks would have allowed him to realize Joker was pulling the old switcheroo, and thus opts to go to where he said Rachel was held at, the GM knows, for a fact, that Rachel is doomed. He's already decided the police literally cannot make it there in time. However, rather than telling Rachel's PC "Batman chose wrong, so you're going to die," he leaves everyone in the dark, because it's markedly more dramatic for Batman to open the door and see Harvey laying on the ground shouting "No! Not me! Why are you coming for me?" If, during the buildup to Batman reaching the location and opening the door, Rachel's player decides he/she has a bad feeling about it all and opts to invest in Extra Life, there's no premium. In fact, to avoid a ridiculous comic book resurrection, the GM may decide that, when the timer runs out, nothing explodes at Rachel's building, and the police are able to extract her - but the GM makes it clear Rachel only survived because of Extra Life, which uses up the Advantage. If the players insist on a reason why there was no explosion, well, maybe it turns out the Joker's thugs used paraffin for that batch (warning, link is to an excerpt from Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club, so probably some objectionable content in there; also, that's basically the last bit of the story before the epilogue so... spoilers).

Originally Posted by Plane

Hard to complain about it for Extra Life since the alternative is you're out of the game unless you have a bunch of resurrecting mages in your party.

Unless you're playing within a Chick Tract, chances are pretty good that, if your character dies, you can just make a new one, rather than being shunned from the table as a failure. But, as I said, I'm not really a big fan of Extra Life and other methods of permanently losing character points.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Varyon

To my mind, a Critical Success isn't a case of "I'm so amazingly skilled I pulled off this awesome thing" (which would mean it's something you could do reliably), but rather "I got really lucky."

It's both, you have a wider crit range with high skill (6 or less).