Got a Real World Weapons or Armour Question? Mk XI

[gkathellar]

Sometimes, you hear legends of people who kill tigers with their barehanded and such as that.

Emphasis mine. If someone tries to take on a large, powerful predator in its specialty (predation) without using the human specialty (tool use) they are going to get badly hurt, and very likely killed. I doubt even someone like Masutatsu Oyama could have taken on a tiger barehanded.

This brought me to wondering... how would you deal with fighting creatures such as gnolls, or wild beasts in general?

Traps, projectile weapons, plate mail armor, spears, shields, and knives, in that order of priority.

If we're talking fantasy humanoids like gnolls, there is one bit of good news — bipeds have a large set of well-understood weaknesses that are relatively easy to exploit. You might also be able to exploit field of vision, depending. The bad news is that they'd be exploiting all of the same weaknesses on you, and copying your tool use.

(The other good news is that these creatures are largely impossible for structural reasons, so we're already in the realm of the ridiculous even sincerely considering them).

A lot of fighting techniques include wrestling, in such a way that your opponent can't stab you or get at your eyes. However, I don't know if they often make provision for them having a set of predatory teeth and jaws.

If you're forced to confront a toothed, clawed, big humanoid with your bare hands, then yes, grappling would probably be your best bet. A lot of locks and holds would effectively neutralize the advantages of teeth and claws. The problem is, first you'd have to go through the teeth and the claws.

everything has a vulnerable spot. EVERYTHING. there would be different techniques for close quarters combat with a gnoll than with a lizardman but there would be techniques. There will be somewhere that a well placed boot will cause severe pain. And while lack of claws/sharp teeth are a disadvantage for humans, it is not a disadvantage that training can't balance.

It is if whatever you're up against also has training. It's like that old saw, "training in X can allow you to defeat bigger opponents and use your opponent's size against them." Well, yeah, unless your bigger opponent has the same training. Then you're not in such a great boat.

My real life example is people who deal with gators and Crocodiles, while the gator has the advantage of extreemly sharp teeth and powerfull jaws, there are techniques that allow these people to subdue the gator with little more than their bare hands.

Crocodiles are easy. They bite harder than anything else alive, but the muscles they use to open their jaws are weak enough that you can hold them shut with rubber bands. Many animals have no such obvious weakness — trying something like that on something like a hyena, a bear, a tiger, a wild gaur or (god forbid) a hippo? That's a recipe for disaster.