From: bkoike@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Bryce Koike)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: GURPS: Armor (Basic vs. Advanced)
Date: 8 Nov 92 20:20:12 GMT
Organization: University of California, San Diego

[On the subject of how unfair it is for martial artists to "destroy"
armed opponents]

	It doesn't matter if they're martial artists or not.  If you
are unarmed or you're attacking an opponent with a weapon that's got
a better reach than yours (very apparent if you've only got a knife
and he has a pike, greatsword, or even a gun), you've got a handful
of choices:

	#1.  Run away  [preferable, really...least risk]
	#2.  Stay in range of your enemy's weapon and die.
	#3.  Close in to the point where your enemy's weapon is
useless/you can get in the way of it, and attack.

	I don't care if you're a master of Karate, if you're a
street fighter, or you're a peasant.  That's the list of options.
If your enemy insists on holding onto his weapon, then it's his
funeral.  The most effective combatant will be the most flexible
one.  I find that GURPS handles this very well indeed.
	The main problem is that the Fear of the Weapon doesn't seem
to exist.  Isn't there a danger involved in closing with an enemy?
There certainly is.  If you're unarmored and you're not good at
dodging blows (which is generally true unless you're a skilled
martial artist), closing with the enemy is very dangerous.  If you
don't have any other choice though (in other words, you can't run
away), you're better off risking getting hacked at while you close
on your enemy than staying in range and getting hacked at while you
try to figure out what to do.  Once you're in close range you can
quite easily grapple your enemy's weapon hand (you're far too close
for him to use it on you), and he has only a few choices:
	#1.  Insist on holding onto it and give YOU the advantage.
	#2.  Let go and go to hand-to-hand style combat/whatever

	This is where the main advantage in the martial artist vs.
swordsman battle comes in.  The swordsman is trained with a weapon
which loses its usefulness in close combat.  If he lets go, he'll
have to revert to some hand-to-hand style of attack.  It's assumed
that the martial artist has trained in his HtH skill as much as his
opponent has in his sword.  If the martial artist stays at the
swordsman's range, then he's in trouble.  Once he moves into close
combat, though, it's the swordsman who's at a disadvantage.  He's
"specialized" in swordplay, not hand-to-hand.  It stands to reason
that he's going to have a hard time surviving without help.
	But even if you're *NOT* a martial artist, if you've got a
weapon with limited range or if you don't have any weapon at all,
it's VERY wise to move into close combat if you want to survive.
Your enemy's greatsword won't be of much use to him if he can't hit
you with it!  If you want to use movies (argh) as an example,
there's hundreds of them out there that show exactly this.
	The only advantage that the martial artist REALLY has over
the swordsman is that once they've moved to close combat, he's
better at hand-to-hand combat.  He's trained for it.  It's
definitely wise for the swordsman to keep the martial artist at bay.
He wants to keep his sword useful and to keep it as a threat to his
enemy.  The main reason unarmed and unarmored people don't like
closing into combat is because they risk getting hurt.  Most
role-playing games don't stress this enough, I feel, but I'd feel
uncomfortable with some mechanic that controls my character's
actions.  "Nope, you can't do that.  You're too afraid of his sword
to close in."  "WHAAAAT?!"
	But if players value their character's lives, then they'd do
well to be afraid of that swinging piece of steel... (what if your
martial artist fails his dodge/parry?  If he's stunned by the blow,
hasta la vista Bruce Lee...)

	The main problem seems to be with the GURPS Martial Arts
parrying rules which I don't have with me.  If the swordsman and the
martial artist are of equal points, though, then what I suspect the
greatest problem, really, is that the martial artist is just a
combat freak...