"I once saw him kill three men in a bar... with a pencil, with a f@#$% pencil." -- Viggo Tarasov, John Wick (2014)
Characters sometimes must fight with objects which were not designed as weapons, and do not have stats in the melee weapons tables. Per Basic Set p. 404, the GM can assign stats to improvised weapons by finding a similar weapon (for instance, a heavy hammer working as a small mace) but with a penalty to skill and/or damage.
Penalties[]
There are innate penalties for using improvised weapons described as penalties to a weapon skill on page 63 of Low-Tech.
Perks[]
Characters who are proficient in using improvised weapons can take Improvised Weapons as a leveled perk, with each level lowering the penalty to using an unusual item as a weapon.[1]
Premade Improvised Melee Weapon Entries[]
Low-Tech Examples[]
| Item | Weapon | Skill | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pen or Stylus[2] | Dagger | Knife-1 | thr-4 imp |
| Arrow or Bolt*[Note 1] | Dagger | Knife+0 | max 1d-4 imp |
| Bottle, Intact | Knobbed Club | Axe/Mace-2 | -2 cr |
| Bottle, Broken | Small Knife | Knife-2 | 0 thr imp (0.5)[3] |
Examples (to be added)[]
- GURPS High-Tech, p.25, p.199 (just a reference to entries in other books)
- Most hardware store items--hammers, wrenches, etc--have their own associated entries.
- GURPS Martial Arts, p. 224 has a table of how to assign statistics to common objects used as improvised weapons
- GURPS Low-Tech, p.63 has a table of how to assign statistics to common objects used as improvised weapons
- GURPS Horror, p.49-51 has another table of improvised weapons
Fire Extinguishers[]
Fire extinguishers are used in several action movie setpieces as improvised weapons, but they're more than just clubs! The spray from a fire extinguisher can blind and stun opponents (HT-3) when sprayed at the face! Fire extinguishers typically have a range of about three yards. Ultra-Tech describes fire extinguishers using Jet,[4] but High-Tech uses Cone.[5]
See Also[]
- Improvised Shields
- Garrote (lots of improvised garrotes)
- Cloak skill
- Improvised Weapons perk (Low-Tech p.9; GURPS Martial Arts p. 50; Power Ups 2: Perks)
Notes[]
- ↑ Fragile -- breaks half the time on an attack or parry. Unusual arrowheads do their own special effects.
References[]
- ↑ Low-Tech, p.9
- ↑ Low-Tech, p.63
- ↑ Fractional Armor Divisor -- this means enemy's DR is multiplied by 2!
- ↑ Ultra-Tech, p.87
- ↑ High-Tech, p.29