Long Weapons in Close Combat

Long Weapons in Close Combat (or LWICCC) appears on page 117 of GURPS Martial Arts
It has rules like:
*penalty to hit (-4 per yard)
*penalty to parry (-2 per yard)
*penalty to swing damage (-1 per yard)
You can use the Close Combat Technique for buying off up to half of these penalties.Martial Arts, p.69
==Preceding Rules==
In Basic Set, you couldn't parry at all against Close Combat foes if you lacked a Reach C weapon.
The FAQ loosened this restriction slightly at http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/faq/FAQ4-3.html#SS3.4.3.6&_ga=2.203972756.582066113.1612117960-1417867424.1602278467
:On a turn when someone enters close combat and tries to attack or grapple you, you can defend normally as if you were not in Close Combat
"Attack or grapple" is strange phrasing, since grapples are actually a form of attack too.
MA106 has a similar rule, but only against unarmed attacks:
:You can use a ready melee weapon to parry a grab, grapple, slam (including a pounce or flying tackle), or any other unarmed attack at no special penalty as your attacker enters close combat.
Viewed collectively, the significance of MA106's close combat note (if you can already parry ANY attack, not just unarmed, AS attackers enter close combat, without suffering Close Combat penalties, whether that be Basic's NO PARRY or MA117's 2*reach penalty) is not entirely clear.
If "normally" vs "at no special penalty" have some kind of distinct meaning, it requires elaboration/explanation.
3 May 2006 is the earliest archive of the FAQ, which precedes the 2007 publication of 4E's martial arts. This might indicate that the FAQ's defense-broadening was considered too expansive and that MA107 was meant to narrow the situations in which it applies:
*only against unarmed attacks
*only with weapons
If MA107 was meant to fully acknowledge the FAQ's ruling, it fails to do so due to it's exclusionary language.
== Houserules ==
Since Reach C,1 weapons are supposed to be more versatile than Reach 1 weapons (or 1,2 compared to 1), a compromise house rule could be in order, such as only being -2 to skill (-1 to parry) basically treating two-range weapons (non-asterisked) as being a reach halfway between the two:
* so reach 1,2 could be treated like reach 1.5 (-6 to skill, -3 to parry)
*reach 2,3 could be treated like reach 2.5 (-10 to skill, -5 to parry)
== Errata ==
* Long Weapons in Close Combat is part of the Additional Combat Options section, following Close Combat and Body Morphology and preceding More Actions After a Grapple. None of these are mentioned in the opening table of contents, where it falls between Teeth and Grab and Smash.
==See Also==
*Shoves with Weapons
*Slams with Long Weapons
*Parrying with Two-Handed Weapons
Category:Rules