Spear vs Knights... am I missing something?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by jackcelso

NALOTH said everything 1 shield bash and a bit of luck and the spear is broken and our spearman is defenseless

Weapon breakage is a significant concern when you're reliant on a single weapon, yeah. In my test fight between Shigran (+ two hireling NPC's from Delvers to Grow) against a group of nautamadr (Nordlondr minotaurs), Shigran - who is similarly a highly-skilled spearman, albeit not to the same extent as Mr. Spear (Shigran has Spear-21, although between Combat Reflexes and Weapon Adaptation (Staff to Spear), he has the same Parry as Mr. Spear) - suffered a broken spear that likely would have ended with his messy death without using up Luck to prevent it... and having burned his Luck there, he was unable to avoid getting gored later, which took him out of the fight (he survived, thanks to those hirelings acting quickly).

Granted, I'm pretty certain Mr. Knight (or, as Donny Brook notes, Mr. Armor and Sword and Not Much Else) would have fared far worse than Mr. Spear against that particular foe...

[Anders]

Originally Posted by OddGamer

Is this correct, or am I missing something?

Wealth. Spend the 50 points on Wealth and you can hire a group to murder the crap out of spear guy. Yeah, he's dangerous but send twenty decent fighters against him and he will lose.

Points are not a good measure of combat effectiveness. They can be if all characters are built with the same design philosophy, but otherwise they just aren't.

[oneofmanynameless]

Originally Posted by OddGamer

Okay... so... I'm checking to see if I have this right. I wrote myself a little combat simulator to check various fights. It doesn't take into account everything, of course, but it does do most of the major rules (I think). And with this I've considered two fighters of 58 points each (excluding what else they spent points on). The first fighter is a wealthy knight-type with muscles, health, and armor, armed with a nice spear. The second is a poor guy with no armor and also a spear.

Wealthy Dude: 58
ST 12, DX 10, IQ 10, HT 12, Wealth: Comfortable, Broadsword-12
--Equipment: Scale armor (DR 4 everywhere), Broadsword (1d+3 cutting), Large Shield
==Dodge: 8, Parry: 12

Poor Peasant: 57
ST 10, DX 10, IQ 10, HT 10, Wealth: Poor, Close Combat (Spear)-4, Spear-27
--Equipment: Spear (1d+1 Impaling, using 2 hands)
==Dodge: 8, Parry: 16

When I run this... the guy with who sunk all those same points into spear ability clobbers several sorts of heck out of the guy who spread it out into strength and so on, winning 80% of the time whether in a 1 on 1 situation or a 2 on 2 situation. Effectively, it looks like, for combat at least, there's literally no point in spending any points on anything other than skill with an impaling weapon. Why bother? It's the cheapest, and most effective increase to your combat potential. At least until you're at a skill level where you can stab someone in the eye intentionally with a 16 or less, even in close combat (skill 30 with the Close Combat technique), then pump points into anything else (damage, HT, etc.).

Is this correct, or am I missing something?

Spear guy is not "a poor guy with a spear" he's a legendary spear fighter the likes of which have only been seen a handful of times in history, the rival of Miyomoto Musashi and other great masters (as his skill is 2 higher than what basic set lists as the upper range of a masterful level [20-25 skill].) If you have that kind of level you should have many other skills related to spear at at least ordinary if not expert levels (armory, spear art, staff, tactics, philosophy, soldier, you name it), and unless he's old and decrepit (in which case he couldn't realistically maintain that skill level but maybe could if this was a very cinematic game) he should have very fit and great ST, DX, and HT scores to be at all believable. No one accomplishes a 27 skill with a muscled powered combat weapon without also being in peak physical condition... even old decrepit martial arts masters in cinema are functionally in good shape.

Meanwhile sword guy isn't bad, but he's no expert either. Mostly relies on his ability to afford armor to win fights, because his skill level is in the upper end of "ordinary" but not really close to being an expert (ordinary is 9-11 for a hobby, 12-13 for something used in professional life, expert is 14-19). He's had lessons for a while or maybe been in a few battles in which he sat on a horse, wearing armor, and killed a bunch of peasants who didn't have the spear skill, but he's never faced a really skilled opponent (or he has but got schooled.)

GURPS shouldn't be treated as an open book for you to buy whatever you want. GM's should take a very active hand in character creation to make sure characters make sense and are appropriate for the game. GURPS can do anything, but that doesn't mean anything is appropriate for the game or realistic or even believably cinematic. You can have a 4 DX and a 30 broadsword skill and 30 acrobatics if you want, along with Klutz but perfect Balance. Does it make sense? Not really?

[martinl]

Originally Posted by OddGamer

Okay... so... I'm checking to see if I have this right

... Snip example ...

Is this correct, or am I missing something?

Other folks have commented on many relevant aspects, but let me clarify one more thing that has been stated but not explicitly:

GURPS CP are not an accurate measure of character power (whatever that is)

They are kinda balanced for balancing the spotlight time of wandering violent squad-based troubleshooters ... but it's a rough balance. Very rough. Don't count on it to force your players to make appropriate PCs all on its own. Making sure that the PCs are good fits for the game is part of the GM's job.

[RGTraynor]

Originally Posted by martinl

GURPS CP are not an accurate measure of character power

+1. Case in point in my current party. One of the characters is relatively weak, two are north of 300 pts, but the fourth ... is an experiment. Player was mulling over things at startup, and popped for Multi-Millionaire with some Independent Income tacked on, declaring that wealth would be his superpower. He's got the best of everything, magical stuff and alchemicals up the wazoo, and shorn of his toys is kinda pedestrian in battle.

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Sure, if your concept of knight includes superannuated actors and popular musicians. I mean professional fighting men, expected to earn their keep by being ready to throw down against hard living outlaws or equally equipped peers.

A vision of some rich guy with a couple of points in Broadsword, Lance and RIding (i.e. skill level 10 unless you've neglected to mention high DX) is either a child still in training or a senior citizen.

My concept of knight is "someone who is a knight." GURPS not having character classes, the distinction is entirely social. Sure, people get knighted for brave deeds, but they also get knighted for service, for donating large sums to the crown (see Multi-Millionaire Guy above), for many reasons good or ill ... not to mention those cultures with the concept of hereditary knighthood. The rich guy might never have been within ten yards of a lance, never mind picking up Lance skill.

Obviously this flies in the face of Hollywood, Sir Walter Scott * and Malory, but that's the way it goes.


* - as it happens, Sir Walter (lamed from polio) wasn't a he-man either, trained as a lawyer, and got his title as a direct result of leading a successful search in Edinburgh Castle for the missing Scottish Crown Jewels.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by RGTraynor

Obviously this flies in the face of Hollywood, Sir Walter Scott * and Malory, but that's the way it goes.


* - as it happens, Sir Walter (lamed from polio) wasn't a he-man either, trained as a lawyer, and got his title as a direct result of leading a successful search in Edinburgh Castle for the missing Scottish Crown Jewels.

If you want a really scary knight, try William Marshall. Way up the list of people you'd not want to mess with.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by RGTraynor

My concept of knight is "someone who is a knight." GURPS not having character classes, the distinction is entirely social. Sure, people get knighted for brave deeds, but they also get knighted for service, for donating large sums to the crown (see Multi-Millionaire Guy above), for many reasons good or ill ... not to mention those cultures with the concept of hereditary knighthood. The rich guy might never have been within ten yards of a lance, never mind picking up Lance skill.

There's also the "knight of the carpet," where knighthood is simply given to someone as a gift from the King of England on a holiday, rather than due to some service (although I'd imagine there was some political wheeling and dealing involved). And I believe in those cases where a knight was legally obligated to show up to fight (with retainers in tow), he could opt to instead pay some sum to the crown, and I'd imagine there were some "knights" without any notable combat prowess who did just that.
EDIT: Ah, I see from Kromm's post the latter bit I was referring to was called "scutage," and may well have been what the majority of historical knights (rather than simply "some") opted to do rather than fight. That said, there's nothing preventing one from making a setting where knights are all (or at least mostly) elite warriors, possibly even a setting where they can have Status 0 (lower than that is unlikely, however, at least not without largely doing away with what "knight" means).

Originally Posted by Rupert

If you want a really scary knight, try William Marshall. Way up the list of people you'd not want to mess with.

I've always been partial to Gotz von Berlichingen. Suffered a career-ending injury (loss of his right hand) early on but basically ignored it and went on to have a rather-successful career as a knight and mercenary, thumbed his nose at authority frequently enough that he got placed under the Imperial Ban (making him legally dead, so anyone could kill and/or rob him without legal repercussions) not just once but twice, and still managed to live to the ripe old age of 81 or 82 (only the year of his birth is known, not the month or day, although month and year of death are known). The fact the protagonist of Berserk was clearly (if a bit loosely) based off him doesn't hurt matters.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by RGTraynor

My concept of knight is "someone who is a knight." GURPS not having character classes, the distinction is entirely social. Sure, people get knighted for brave deeds, but they also get knighted for service, for donating large sums to the crown (see Multi-Millionaire Guy above), for many reasons good or ill ... not to mention those cultures with the concept of hereditary knighthood. The rich guy might never have been within ten yards of a lance, never mind picking up Lance skill.

That's pretty much it.

This is an area of history of which I'm fairly aware due to my late father being a lifelong historian: As a young fantasy gamer, I was convinced that knights were all a bunch of armored hard men who dominated the battlefield. My father took the time to explain how the majority were more analogous to the upper middle class people across town who had bigger houses and cars, paying others to do things for them, and how that started not when the crown took to knighting rock stars, or even when gunpowder began to make knights obsolete, but rather during the reign of Henry I of England (1100-1135).

I was a bit disappointed at the time. ;)

Originally Posted by Rupert

If you want a really scary knight, try William Marshall. Way up the list of people you'd not want to mess with.

Yeah, I think he's one of the archetypes of the fighting knight among those who are into HEMA and such. Said archetype usually get romanticized with a dash of Arthurian chivalry in RPGs. Marshall was storied to a great extent for actually being good at fighting himself, which was noteworthy even at the time . . . a bit of an exception that proves the rule.

[RGTraynor]

Originally Posted by Kromm

This is an area of history of which I'm fairly aware due to my late father being a lifelong historian: As a young fantasy gamer, I was convinced that knights were all a bunch of armored hard men who dominated the battlefield. My father took the time to explain how the majority were more analogous to the upper middle class people across town who had bigger houses and cars, paying others to do things for them, and how that started not when the crown took to knighting rock stars, or even when gunpowder began to make knights obsolete, but rather during the reign of Henry I of England (1100-1135).

Absolutely. Heck, though it's out of the realm of "medieval," for those of you unaware, my namedropping Sir Walter Scott was ironic in context: the whole notion of "baronets" comes because James I wanted to boost the Crown's coffers, and sold 200 baronetcies with the stipulation that the grantees would maintain a few dozen soldiers at their own expense. The titles were hereditary, and the holders' eldest sons were automatically knighted.

Now sure, as Varyon says, anyone can decide that a "knight" must be a skilled warrior in their own settings. I just don't imagine that the vast majority of settings will be any more immune to politics, rent-seeking, money grubbing, entrenched groups or other chicanery than our culture is.

[Witchking]

Originally Posted by RGTraynor

+1. *snip* Player was mulling over things at startup, and popped for Multi-Millionaire with some Independent Income tacked on, declaring that wealth would be his superpower. He's got the best of everything, magical stuff and alchemicals up the wazoo, and shorn of his toys is kinda pedestrian in battle.

*snip*

Sure, people get knighted for brave deeds, but they also get knighted for service, for donating large sums to the crown (see Multi-Millionaire Guy above), for many reasons good or ill ... not to mention those cultures with the concept of hereditary knighthood. The rich guy might never have been within ten yards of a lance, never mind picking up Lance skill.[/I]

1. It was Filthy Rich at character creation...Multimillionaire was further buy in with earned CP.

2. Sadly I am not a knight! Started as a Status 2 Gentleman/Lordling. For services to the crown *cough cough Fund the Govt for about 6 months hack weeze* was made a Status 3 Landed Lord. (said fief being a strong contender for worst in the kingdom, with a current title holder who was on the other side of *energetic political discussion* and de facto behind enemy lines)