Playing out tournament jousts round-by-round can be monotonous -- two
heavily armored, highly-trained warriors can clash for a long time without
accomplishing anything more significant than a lot of broken lances. In
a tournament setting, where most or all of the PCs might have to fight multiple
bouts over several days, combat can bog down the adventure mightily.
The system presented below is a much quicker method of resolving non-lethal,
tournament jousts. While it is much less detailed and more abstract than
the complete joust routine, it does give a reasonable outcome of the joust,
showing who won and how much real damage each fighter took.
This method is intended for use with non-lethal, tournament jousts with
blunted lances only! For lethal combat, normal GURPS
combat should be used.
To begin, each competitor in the joust should average his Lance, Shield
and Riding skills to come up with a single Jousting combat value. The Joust
is then resolved as a series of Quick Contests, with each opponent rolling
against his Jousting combat value. In each contest, the loser takes the
amount of damage he lost by. This is real damage. It is not modified
by DR and attack type -- that's already been figured in, under the assumption
that both competitors will be similarly armed and armored -- if for some
reason one competitor has an edge or disadvantage (magic weapons or armor,
say, or no armor) which is liable to seriously change the odds of the combat,
use normal combat. Damage taken does not modify the next roll in any way.
If a competitor falls below 0 HT, he must make the appropriate HT roll(s)
before each new contest -- if he fails a HT roll, he is unable to continue
the joust, and his opponent is declared the winner. On a tie, neither competitor
takes damage.
The contests will normally continue until one or both characters are unhorsed.
A knight is considered to be unhorsed when he either rolls above his Jousting
combat value, or loses a quick contest by S or more. Note that it is entirely
possible for both knights to unhorse each other, by both failing their Jousting
rolls on the same round. A jouster is always unhorsed on a critical failure
(or any roll of 17 or 18), and can never be unhorsed or take damage on a
critical success. If a knight fails his Jousting roll, he takes a final
1d of damage, in addition to any damage he may take from losing the contest.
If the unhorsed fighter decides to continue to attack on foot, the combat
may be continued using normal GURPS combat rules.