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Flinching is mentioned in a couple places in reference to attacks that hit the face or eyes. It appears to refer to nonverbal reactions in the body to disturbing stimulation.

Crying connection[]

B244's Pain (spell) creates a "will roll to avoid crying out", as well as DX rolls in precarious positions.

Low Pain Threshold gives a -4 penalty to the Will/DX rolls, the Will-4 is lower than what B142's "whenever you take a wound" policy which is a raw will roll to avoid crying out - although with Shock (rule) penalizing IQ this is probably intended to penalize will.

There are no generic rules for normal people or HPT people crying out from pain from normal damage (just the Pain spell) but using the relation seen in that spell it could be seen as a basic Will+4 roll or Will+7 for HPT

Face hits[]

B405 under Liquids in the Face mentions:

On a failure, he flinches: -2 to further defenses that turn, and -2 to any DX or Sense roll on his next turn.

HT180 halves this to -1 for just water.

Hobbyists[]

MA57 creates a Hobby Skill called Feats of Strength which notes an example:

a roll might mean you donโ€™t flinch when punched

It notes Body Control can supplement FOS although B181 only talks about this supplanting HT rolls not Will rolls.

Eye attempts[]

MA72 under Go for the eyes! mentions:

Any failure means he flinches and has -1 to attack and defense rolls until the end of his next turn

Both types of flinching penalties only happen after a failed Will Roll.

In the case of MA's GFTE it is triggered by a successful attack against the eyes, the easiest of which is Eye Rake (-5) while Poke/Pluck/Lethal are -9/-10/-11

In the case of Campaigns' LITF it is triggered by a successful attack against the face (-5 to hit) that is not blocked/dodged (you can't parry beer) and this can be attepted by anyone not just Brawling or Karate which is needed for eye rakes - Boxing can do an Eye Poke but there's no DX-based way to target the eye.

Defense penalties[]

Different policies exist here. The B405 rules which create -2 defense penalties (beer) or -1 penalties (water, per HT) only last that same turn, whereas MA72's rules last "until the end of next" - an additional second.

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