View Single Post
Old 09-13-2020, 09:48 AM   #7
DouglasCole
Doctor of GURPS Ballistics
 
DouglasCole's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Lakeville, MN
Default Re: Technical Grappling: Grabbing Parry clarification

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaware View Post
So, the group was in a place where they were having a 1v1 with another unarmed individual MMA style near gladiatorial combat for entertainment purposes, and one of the PCs did a grabbing parry and asked how it worked.

So I told him from memory, and then we looked it up because I couldn't remember the modifiers of the top of my head.

Well. He noticed that the description doesn't specify that it works like Jam and Aggressive parry (I had honestly never looked I just assumed. and it is 100% my fault)

so. now im confused.

Jam and aggressive parry work by giving a minus to your parry (assuming you haven't bought it off as a technique), and then roll defense.

if you succeed the defense, roll vs. underlying skill at a modifier depending on what you are trying to hit, if you succeed do stuff, if you don't, not enough damage to cause injury.

But Grabbing parry, at least from what i look at it, doesn't say it works that way.

That's correct. You take a penalty to Parry equivalent to -4 to skill, -2 to Parry, plus modifiers for what you're trying to grab. And if you're successful, you've achieved a (usually very weak) grapple of the foe's limb.

Even at ST 20, half ST is 1d-2 CP, and a more usual ST 14 hero is 1d-3...so half the time you have "grappled" the foe but don't have enough control to even interfere slightly with their movement (by spending CP).

Having an additional roll in this case was discussed and discarded in the playtest, because the rewards for the parry are so low.

Quote:
the scenario was the PC used grabbing parry on a punch from a fighter with 2 levels of rapid retraction. he succeeded by 0. before the rapid retraction was taken into effect. and he asked if he failed his parry because the other dude pulled his arm back fast enough.

I was stumped. I ruled no, he succeeded his parry, but failed the grab. and we continued. but i told him i would ask.

What is going on here? is there supposed to be a (if parry successful, roll vs. underlying skill) clause in there? or is there something im missing?
Having to make the parry by an MoS equal or more than levels of rapid retraction is an excellent way to rule this one. It's a PERK, not a power, so it shouldn't be that good, but on parries, as opposed to contests, it "counts double" because an MoS of 1 or 2 requires 2 or 4 skill levels to cancel out.

But ultimately, that's what the thinking was when it got put in there. The rewards for it are low, and the expectation is that you don't have to "waste" an attack achieving a grapple on your own turn, not that you parry and lock 'em up super tight ready for destruction.

Given low expected reward, the overhead of an extra Quick Contest was deemed to be a waste of game time.

And note that even if the grab is successful, and the person who parried goes to develop the grapple on their own turn . . . the now-defender can use Escaping Parry on p. 36...which allows 0.5 x Trained ST (slightly better than the Grabbing Parry's 0.5 x ST) to shed the (probably weak) grapple.

So there's some back and forth built into it, and Grabbing Parry and Escaping Parry are built the same way: make the Parry, roll CP.

If you wanted to make BOTH work more like "make parry, roll QC" that's a fine way to go! Anything that reduces cognitive overhead in play is a good thing for a particular group. The above explanation gives the WHY of it...at least according to my mind in 2012 or so when I first wrote the darn thing.
__________________
My blog:Gaming Ballistic, LLC
My Store: Gaming Ballistic on Shopify
My Patreon: Gaming Ballistic on Patreon
DouglasCole is online now   Reply With Quote