Gurps says: don't learn karate

[joppeknol]

Peter the PC (all 10's no skills) gets his ass kicked in a bar fight with Nolan the NPC (DX 11). He hates it and wants to learn karate.

He joins a karate club and trains for 1 year, 4 hours a week = 200hours). Now he has 1 point in karate. He meets Nolan again.

His skill is 8, which is still too low. Nolan still beats him. Peter is stubborn and starts practicing again. After 3 more years he has 4 cp on his character sheet and a skill of 10. Still not as high has Nolan, but since Karate also gives him some more advantages he now stands a chance. Still, four years karate, just to get over a very small difference is quite an investment.

It gets even worse. To be fair: What Peter learns in a normal school, is karate art. He knows how to move at tournaments and do kata's but still doesn't have a clue about how a real fight goes. Karate art is karate -3, so he needs 12 cp extra, 12 more years of training, before he can finally face Nolan. Beating a slightly better guy in a bar becomes a life's work of 16 years fairly intensive practice.

What am I missing?

[JulianLW]

Originally Posted by joppeknol

Peter the PC (all 10's no skills) gets his ass kicked in a bar fight with Nolan the NPC (DX 11). He hates it and wants to learn karate.

He joins a karate club and trains for 1 year, 4 hours a week = 200hours). Now he has 1 point in karate. He meets Nolan again.

His skill is 8, which is still too low. Nolan still beats him. Peter is stubborn and starts practicing again. After 3 more years he has 4 cp on his character sheet and a skill of 10. Still not as high has Nolan, but since Karate also gives him some more advantages he now stands a chance. Still, four years karate, just to get over a very small difference is quite an investment.

It gets even worse. To be fair: What Peter learns in a normal school, is karate art. He knows how to move at tournaments and do kata's but still doesn't have a clue about how a real fight goes. Karate art is karate -3, so he needs 12 cp extra, 12 more years of training, before he can finally face Nolan. Beating a slightly better guy in a bar becomes a life's work of 16 years fairly intensive practice.

What am I missing?

I actually think that Peter has a very good chance of winning the rematch with Nolan with 1 point in Karate because of the +2 increased retreat bonus to his parries; it's a lot harder for Nolan to hit Peter now.

The difference that one point makes becomes much more pronounced if both Peter and Nolan start off as equal combatants; the scenario you present gives Nolan a really huge advantage from the start. The difference between DX 11 and DX 10 is much steeper than the difference between, say, DX 13 and DX 12. Even so, that one point in Karate might make the difference. Remember too that we're comparing a PC with 0 points and an NPC with 10 points; for the rematch we're giving the PC 1 point in a skill. Nolan still has 10 times as many points as Pete!

If Nolan picks up a weapon when he starts to realize he's losing that rematch, that 1 point in Karate really shines: it eliminates -3 when parrying weapons barehanded.

Remember too that if you gave Pete 1 point in Brawling, he's probably no better off at all in this scenario - unless Nolan and Pete are wearing armor.

[Celjabba]

What karate give you over raw DX :

Originally Posted by http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.php?p=1934035&postcount=18

Remember to use the higher of DX or skill. Going by the Basic Set alone, doing all the math to express things relative to DX (drop fractions at the very end!), and putting the benefits of Karate in boldface, the real progression is this:

0 points (DX only): Punch at DX for thrust-1; kick at DX-2 for thrust; armed enemies who parry your unarmed strikes attack your limb at full skill; parry unarmed attacks at DX/2 + 3, or DX/2 + 4 if retreating; parry weapons at DX/2, or DX/2 + 1 if retreating; cannot attempt Back Kick, Elbow Strike, Jump Kick, Knee Strike.

1 point (Karate at DX-2): Punch at DX for thrust-1; kick at DX-2 for thrust; armed enemies who parry your unarmed strikes attack your limb at skill-4; parry unarmed attacks at DX/2 + 3, or DX/2 + 5 if retreating; parry weapons at DX/2 + 2, or DX/2 + 5 if retreating; Back Kick at DX-6, Elbow Strike at DX-4, Jump Kick at DX-6, Knee Strike at DX-3.

2 points (Karate at DX-1): Punch at DX for thrust-1; kick at DX-2 for thrust; armed enemies who parry your unarmed strikes attack your limb at skill-4; parry unarmed attacks at DX/2 + 3, or DX/2 + 5.5 if retreating; parry weapons at DX/2 + 2.5, or DX/2 + 5.5 if retreating; Back Kick at DX-5, Elbow Strike at DX-3, Jump Kick at DX-5, Knee Strike at DX-2.

4 points (Karate at DX): Punch at DX for thrust; kick at DX-2 for thrust+1; armed enemies who parry your unarmed strikes attack your limb at skill-4; parry unarmed attacks at DX/2 + 3, or DX/2 + 6 if retreating; parry weapons at DX/2 + 3, or DX/2 + 6 if retreating; Back Kick at DX-4, Elbow Strike at DX-2, Jump Kick at DX-4, Knee Strike at DX-1.

8 points (Karate at DX+1): Punch at DX+1 for thrust+1; kick at DX-1 for thrust+2; armed enemies who parry your unarmed strikes attack your limb at skill-4; parry unarmed attacks at DX/2 + 3.5, or DX/2 + 6.5 if retreating; parry weapons at DX/2 + 3.5, or DX/2 + 6.5 if retreating; Back Kick at DX-3, Elbow Strike at DX-1, Jump Kick at DX-3, Knee Strike at DX.

Adding in the Martial Arts rules gives you a bunch more techniques (almost none of which default to untrained DX). You also get to parry with the legs or feet, and may parry grappling techniques with "counters" that don't require a free hand. And you can dive, sideslip, and slip as well as or better than an untrained person can retreat.

The benefits are subtle but real at low levels.

At low cp, Karate mostly give you better defences (parry, retreat) and access to techniques.


For attack, use DX instead of karate until Karate catch up (at 4cp) !

Note that some schools will effectively teach you the karate skill alongside the karate art/sport skill (or even instead of).

[Farmer]

Originally Posted by joppeknol

It gets even worse. To be fair: What Peter learns in a normal school, is karate art. He knows how to move at tournaments and do kata's but still doesn't have a clue about how a real fight goes. Karate art is karate -3, so he needs 12 cp extra, 12 more years of training, before he can finally face Nolan.

Not necessarily. It's not hard to find a school that teaches what GURPS would take as Karate rather than Karate Art, and it costs no more time or points to learn that instead of Karate Art.

Others have pointed out the defensive bonuses, which are significant.

Also, if he's keen, he can do 2 classes a week of 2 hours, but he can also put in 4 hours of practice. The 1 year figure changes based on his level of commitment, effort, and interest. He might also put some additional work into ST training in that time, raising his damage by a point, potentially. If the NPC isn't doing anything to improve himself, then our hero can be significantly improved in a year without running out of time for his day job.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by joppeknol

What am I missing?

It is absolutely realistic!

Karate is a hard skill, and it begins with unlearning what you already know. The manners of hitting and parrying are far away from the natural manner (innate reflexes) of doing it. Why? Because karate techniques are intended to be much more effective …

A karateka’s punch, for instance, is less strong than a boxer’s punch, but it is more penetrating. Masters say than way you strike someone at the torso in the right way, he isn’t pushed back at all. He just falls down, straight where he is.

Likewise, karate parries are hard to execute because they are intended to be followed by a grapple or an immediate counterattack. Innate parries are faster, but it’s much harder to do something immediately after.

Finally, karate art (kata championship) or karate sport (combat championship) are not the same than karate combat. They only teach about 20% of karate techniques.

The karateka who practice only kata rarely understand what is behind their move (hidden techniques, named Kaisai in Japanese). And someone who learned karate combat notice it when glancing at that kind of kata. The moves are not correct for combat. They often add gestures that are here to be graceful (but which are named muda in Japanese: parasitic gesture).

Karateka who practice only combat sport, on the other hand, don’t learn the most dangerous techniques because they are forbidden in competitions: Karate combat teaches techniques which are designed to kill the opponent or to send him to hospital as quickly as possible. Furthermore, because karate athletes hold back their blows, their parries are often not strong enough to avoid a strong strike (especially when they parry swinging kicks). Here again, it is obvious when you look carefully.

Thus, karate combat (or karate do) is much longer to learn and begins with unlearning a lot of things. Masters say that you need about 30 years to become an effective fighter.

In terms of GURPS rules, traditional karate combat would even requires two skills instead of just one: karate and judo (yes, traditional karatedo teaches a lot of throws, grapples, arm and wrist wrenches, and so on).

Disclaimer: I’m not telling that karate art or karate sport are bad. To the contrary. Becoming a kata or a sports combat champion is very hard too and requires as much personal investment. It is just a different path, as interesting and noble. And it is also clear that a karate sport champion or a karate art champion will be a much better fighter than someone who didn’t train as much (or even twice as much) in karate combat. Here again, GURPS is realistic. The -3 penalty sounds very good.

[Prince Charon]

Sort of wondering if one point in Brawling plus one point in Karate (you use Brawling to attack and Karate to defend, in this case) is more useful than two points in either one (or at least more than two in Karate).

[Anaraxes]

You're allowed to switch between unarmed skills (only) in the same turn. So, the 1 point of Karate training can't make you any worse than default. It may not grant you much of an advantage at that low level of training, but it's not giving you a -2 to punch. You can choose to punch and Parry with your native DX, if that's better. Each punch, Parry, and retreat could use a different skill, even.

So, 1 point in Karate basically gives you the +3 retreat bonus, still better than a pure default fighter or a 1-point Brawler (who's hitting at DX level, just like default). Rather than eat a -2 to hit with no damage bonus yet, you can just punch at default DX rather than Karate skill until your Karate training catches up. Not much improvement with two points in Karate, though, as that's still DX-1 level, so you'd probably still be punching at default. Moving the point to Brawling puts you one point further away from Karate (DX) [4], but doesn't add a lot other than the ability to use a blackjack or sap.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Sort of wondering if one point in Brawling plus one point in Karate (you use Brawling to attack and Karate to defend, in this case) is more useful than two points in either one (or at least more than two in Karate).

1 CP in Brawling gives DX level. 1 CP in Karate gives DX-2 level.

• DX 10: Brawling 10, parry 8 (9 with retreat); Karate 8, parry 7 (10 with retreat).
• DX 12: Brawling 12, parry 9 (10 with retreat); Karate 10, parry 8 (11 with retreat).

2 CP in Brawling gives DX+1 level; 2 CP in Karate gives DX-1 level.

• DX 10: Brawling 11, parry 8 (9 with retreat); Karate 9, parry 7 (10 with retreat).
• DX 12: Brawling 13, parry 9 (10 with retreat); Karate 11, parry 8 (11 with retreat).

So for 1 CP in both rather than 2 CP in only one, we’ve got:

• DX 10: Attack 10, parry 10 vs Attack 11, parry 9 (for Brawling only) or attack, 9 parry 10 (for Karate only).
• DX 12: Attack 12, parry 11 vs Attack 13 parry 10 (for Brawling only) or attack 11, parry 11 (for Karate only).

So, yes, 1 point in each is better, but not blatantly.

What is more assured is that if you only have a couple of points left, Brawling is better than Karate.

[joppeknol]

Thanks for all the replies. I see that if Peter goes for the first rematch, he might win if he has enough space to retreat.

Still, I feel that the combination of long teaching times and slow return on investment is unrealistic. I would expert Peter's fighting skills to improve notably after say six months of training 4 hours a week. 4 hours a week is not Rocky Bilboa style, but still a substantial investment for a hobby.

There is a debate on whether karate schools teach karate art/sport or karate skill. If Peter studies karate/art his point/time investment looks silly. If schools teach both, then one of the two seems to be a waste of points.

The only thing I forgot in the latter case is the damage bonus. Does Peter get a damage bonus if he knows karate art at dx +2?

[Anthony]

Unfortunately for theories about karate getting a better retreat option: dodge also gets a +3, which makes it better than either parry.