GURPS Psionic Powers offers a way to create psychic characters using a powers framework. GURPS Martial Arts codifies fighting styles in an easy to use block. In Pyramid #3/69: Psionics II I created the first fusion of these two books with “Mind and Body”. Here is another martial arts style that never made it to […]
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Melee Academy: More Psionic Martial Arts I
GURPS Psionic Powers offers a way to create psychic characters using a powers framework. GURPS Martial Arts codifies fighting styles in an easy to use block. In Pyramid #3/69: Psionics II I created the first fusion of these two books with “Mind and Body”. Here is a martial arts style that never made it to […]
Continue readingMelee Academy: Reordering Initiative II
A random stray thought while sleep-deprived over on my private Discord server for my gaming group had me asking if you could reverse the order of initiative in GURPS and what it would ultimately mean. This led to a couple of other thoughts and I’ve just kind of tossed them all down here. Do note that […]
Continue readingMelee Academy: A Decisive Blow
+Douglas Cole is talking about an alternate way to perform the Evaluate maneuver and I got to thinking (a dangerous pastime, I know) “Why isn’t their a maneuver to sacrifice skill for damage?” We have one for making it hard to avoid an attack, but not one to increase its potency? There is always All-Out Attack […]
Continue readingMelee Academy: Whip Fighting
GURPS Martial Arts is often thought of as the “fourth” Core Book (after the Basic Set and GURPS Powers) and for good reason – it expands the rules in several profound ways. One of those ways was the introduction of “styles” an abstraction for how various martial arts in the real world can be translated […]
Continue readingMelee Academy: Hostile Diplomatic Relations (or “How to Disarm With Words Instead of Swords”)
“Drop. Your. Sword.” If there is anything more iconographic of a threat resulting in the disarmament of an opponent it’s the near final scene of Princess Bride. In my mind, there’s not much more powerful than the moment where Wesley/The Man in Black has nothing left to fight with but his wit and it’s more […]
Continue readingMelee Academy: Reordering Initiative I
I like noodling with alternate rules sometimes or just plain tinkering with how combat works. As I’ve noted before – Speed Kills. The faster you are the quicker you can attacker and the more damage you can inflict. The way GURPS combat functions combatants go in order of decreasing Basic Speed (e.g., Basic Speed 9.25 goes […]
Continue readingMelee Academy: The Feats of Samson
The Biblical figure of Samson (or “Sampson”) from the Book of Judges (chapters 13 to 16) is an interesting guy. Basically, he’s the Christian version of Heracles (and has interesting ties to that particular mythological figure as well). He did some pretty cool things, things which any PC in any campaign would love to do. […]
Continue readingMelee Academy: Speed Kills
Like most things in life, rapidity is often advantageous. In combat, speed is almost all that matters. Put bluntly: Speed kills. In GURPS, if you are fast enough, skilled enough, or coordinated enough you can pull off some amazing things. The Basic Set combat system gives you several “standard” methods of attacking (All-Out Attack, Attack, and Move and […]
Continue readingMelee Academy: Bar Fights and Being a Bouncer, Part II
Note: The title is a bit of a misnomer, since only half the post deals with actual bar fights – but I like the title…so there. Grappling has been talked about a lot on the forums lately and it’s gotten me to thinking (a dangerous pastime, I know). What have I seen performed in real […]
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