Reducing the number of weapon skills

[zoncxs]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

This makes me wonder if weapons would have been better off being quite general with Styles really defining them. I feel unarmed really shines because of them with a focus on techniques and perks to truly define your 'skill' even though there are only three damage unarmed skills vs the 20ish weapon skills.

My house rule for unarmed is to actually roll all three striking skills into one, and the same with the grappling skills. I have posted this before on another thread that talks about revamping combat skills a few weeks (months?) ago. I then use techniques to make the new skills (Unarmed Striking and Unarmed Grappling) more unique. For example, to make a "Boxer" you would take the unarmed striking skill and then the fencing technique to buy off the retreating parry as well as the footwork technique to buy off the encumbrance penalty.

Karate? Fencing tech and Weapon parry tech.

[ericthered]

I've toyed around with making the entire weapons system a skill. As in you learn "Broadsword and Shield" as a single skill.

I've also thought about making "Melee Combat" a single skill and having weapons bought as techniques.

But I haven't played low-tech combat eccentric games in a while, so I've saved my players patience with house rules for more important tweaks, and haven't tested these.

[Donny Brook]

Skill are really just superfluous in general. We could just turf them all and simply roll attributes.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It's not that one skill is sufficient -- it's that there's generally no point to taking additional melee weapon skills, because in situation where the broadsword is unavailable or useless, most other melee weapon skills will also be unavailable or useless (possible exception: knife -- but its often best to skip directly from your sword skill to unarmed combat).

I think expanding defaults would really help solve that. You can basically use any gun with any given Guns. You can survive anywhere at -3 from Survival. Having all weapons default at worst -4 could go a long way to helping fix this (-4 might be too good?).

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

I (-4 might be too good?).

Oh no. -4 is generally "no one will bother with it". -3 Defaults are theoretically useful bt you seldom see them used. You need to get down to (at least) -2s before you see them used at all often.

You need a main skill at Attribute +3 before defaulting to Skill-4 is even as good as a single cp in the Skill itself. That's 12 cp in your "main" Skill. That's a lot for someone who's not a weapon's master.

It'll probbaly be much more efficint in the long run to buy up Dex and spend single cps to get that broad range of weapon Skills even if you find uses for them. I had a character who was basically a profesional duelist and that's what he did. Even though his Two-handed Sword-24 gave him Broadsword-20 he bought up the Skills as normal rather than trying to create a web of Defaults. A single cp gave him Skill-21 in any weapon (22 in Knife).

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Anders

Have you mucked about with redefining the weapon skills in GURPS? Here's what I've done:

All the Fencing skills are reduced to one skill: Fencing. Defaults to Knife and Sword at -4.

Fencing was a Classic Skill - (Physical/Average) Defaults to DX-5 (Classic B50)

Originally Posted by Anders

Broadsword, Shortsword, Jitte/Sai, and Two-Handed Sword reduced to the Sword skill. Defaults to Knife at -4 and Fencing at -4.
Knife defaults to Sword and Knife at -4.
Two-Handed Axe/Mace and Axe/Mace is one skill, called Axe/Mace. Defaults to Flail-4 and Polearm -4.
Two-Handed Flail and Flail is one skill. Defaults to Axe/Mace and Whip at -4.
Spear and Staff is one skill, called Pole. Defaults to Polearm at -4.
Polearm defaults to Axe/Mace and Pole at -4 but is otherwise unchanged.
Whip and Kusari are collapsed into the Whip skill. Defaults to Flail at -4.

Opinions?

Given the reasonable defaults why would this be needed?

[AlexanderHowl]

Hm, how is that possible? You would need DX 21 for 1 CP to matter for improving defaults for a character with Broadsword-24 (and it would only matter for Force Sword). A much cheaper build would be DX 14 and Shortsword-24, and spending 4 CP in Broadsword to allow the chain from its effective 23 and Knife to chain off its effective skill 22 (at worst, you would end up with between 18 and 24 in all Fencing weapons, Sword weapons, and Tonfa). Conversly, purchasing those eleven skills at 18 would cost the same character around 80 CP more than doing the default chain.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Melee Weapons: DX/H
Covers use of all melee weapons. Optional Speciality: any one weapon type.
Ranged Weapons: DX/VH
Covers use of all ranged weapons. Optional Speciality: any one weapon type.
Unarmed Combat: DX/VH
Covers unarmed combat. Optional Speciality: grappling, slams, striking.

Honestly, I believe that would be worth a playtest! Things I'd change:

• I'd make all three skills Very Hard. That's easier to remember and doesn't hint that the designer believes armed melee combat is simpler than other combat. (If anything should be easier, Ranged Weapons – which replaces Beam Weapons, Crossbow, Gunner, Guns, Liquid Projector, Thrown Weapon, and other DX/E skills – seems like the right choice.)
  
  
• I'd add strict, perk-governed familiarity with specific weapons – not merely types. Without the perk, you'd fight at -2 to skill. So you'd see people with Melee Weapons (DX/VH) and a couple of perks like "Weapon Familiarity (Long Axe)" and "Weapon Familiarity (Small Knife)," or with Melee Weapons (One-Handed Swords) (DX/H) and a couple of perks like "Weapon Familiarity (Rapier)" and "Weapon Familiarity (Large Knife)."
  
  
• I'd add a "Skill Modifier" stat to weapons that works much like the "Parry" stat, but that gives a bonus to attack, feint, etc. with simpler weapons. For instance, most knives might get +2 or even +3 (so they're effectively Easy), weapons commonly given to levies and recruits (notably spears) would get +1 or +2, most weapons commonly used by professional warriors would get +1, but swords would get 0 for requiring so much study to master, while flails and other weirdness would get 0 for being ungainly.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Hm, how is that possible?

TL 10 bio-tech and a large cp budget.

Note that the DX 22 build gives you all Average weapons at 21 for 1cp and not just the so-so Blades chain. Also benefitting are Ranged Weapons and Dodge and Basic Speed and non-weapon Skills like Pilot.

Just because the character was a professional duellist doesn't mean he was intended to do nothing in the game except duel.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Honestly, I believe that would be worth a playtest! Things I'd change:

• I'd make all three skills Very Hard. That's easier to remember and doesn't hint that the designer believes armed melee combat is simpler than other combat. (If anything should be easier, Ranged Weapons – which replaces Beam Weapons, Crossbow, Gunner, Guns, Liquid Projector, Thrown Weapon, and other DX/E skills – seems like the right choice.)
  
  
• I'd add strict, perk-governed familiarity with specific weapons – not merely types. Without the perk, you'd fight at -2 to skill. So you'd see people with Melee Weapons (DX/VH) and a couple of perks like "Weapon Familiarity (Long Axe)" and "Weapon Familiarity (Small Knife)," or with Melee Weapons (One-Handed Swords) (DX/H) and a couple of perks like "Weapon Familiarity (Rapier)" and "Weapon Familiarity (Large Knife)."
  
  
• I'd add a "Skill Modifier" stat to weapons that works much like the "Parry" stat, but that gives a bonus to attack, feint, etc. with simpler weapons. For instance, most knives might get +2 or even +3 (so they're effectively Easy), weapons commonly given to levies and recruits (notably spears) would get +1 or +2, most weapons commonly used by professional warriors would get +1, but swords would get 0 for requiring so much study to master, while flails and other weirdness would get 0 for being ungainly.

Pretty sure the different skills being different difficulty was a typo. I'd agree with all the points above.