Hand

A hand is an extremity of the arm, usually used to hold items, tools, and weapons. It is required to use Missile Spells and (unless one has a staff) to use Melee Spells. As GURPS is a human-centered system, characters are assumed to have hands by default.
== Use ==
Attacks delivered using hands include:
*Punch
*Spinning Punch
*Hammer Fist
*Grab
*Grappling (although MA introduced Using Your Legs as another option
== Hit Locations ==
Hands are at -4 to hit.Basic Set: Campaigns, p.399 There is also an optional palm sublocation (at -6 to hit), used for precise strikes against armored foes--most armored gauntlets have soft leather palms, compared to the hard metal for the rest of the hand!
=== Digits ===
These are part of the hand, and can be used in additional attacks:
*Eye-Poke using finger
*Eye-Gouging using thumb
*Raking using multiple fingers
==Protecting the Hand==
Hands are already tricky to hit on purpose, but they can be protected with gloves, gauntlets, and other coverings. Likewise, holding a shield or cloak provides cover and DR to the hand holding it, and some weapons have basket hiltssee Low-Tech Companion 2, p.15 which give the hand an additional DR 4.
=== Striking through Shields? ===
From Basic Set: Campaigns, p.399:
:"The penalty to hit a hand holding a shield is -8."
::(this probably means an additional -4 to the usual penalty). The size of shield doesn't seem to matter.
Wielding other weapons (even ones with hilts) don't seem to have a similar effect, even though that should probably be at least -2 for partial cover in some cases.
==See Also==
*Wizard Hand
== References ==
Category:Hit Locations