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Old 12-10-2014, 08:52 PM   #6
TheOneRonin
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Default Re: Unarmed vs. Knife

Quote:
Originally Posted by Toptomcat View Post
Judo 18 + All-Out Defense (Parry) + Retreating Parry + Cross Parry, followed up by an Arm Lock, is a very attractive answer, providing a very reliable defense immediately followed by an attack that controls, damages, and takes the weapon out of the equation. Buy up Arm Lock and Counterattack to enhance it.

I'd choose a grappling answer over a striking-oriented one because you specify a single assailant and not more than one, where grappling becomes more problematic. I'd choose a reactive answer over a proactive one because the after-a-parry application of Arm Lock permits the opponent only one chance to parry you rather than two, and giving them a chance to parry you risks hand injury per the B.376 rules for parrying unarmed attacks with edged weapons. I'd choose a retreating parry because duh. I'd choose a Cross Parry because I'm assuming my enemy doesn't have the high skill needed to Rapid Strike or the Extra Attack advantage.
I think that's one of the better choices out there, but the Arm Lock alone won't finish the job. It won't stop him from trying to break free or from striking you with another available limb. So what's your follow up? Break the arm? Throw from a lock? Try a disarm?

My concern about locks and throwing from locks is the amount of in-game time it takes. Every turn spent on the setup and execution of this is another attempt he gets to break free or counter attack.

As much as I love Technical Grappling, it slows down this process even more as you must first grab and inflict CP before you can attempt a lock.

Using just Martial Arts, the sequence above looks like this:

1: Bad Guy attacks
2: Hero performs retreating judo cross parry
3: Hero performs Arm Lock
4: Bad guy gets to Parry/Dodge the Arm Lock (attempt fails)
5: Bad guy spends his turn trying to break free
6: Hero can do something nasty like damage the arm or throw from a lock.

In the above example, the Bad Guy gets two attempts to defeat the lock before the Hero can start doing nasty stuff to him.

Using the same basic approach with TG, you get two options:

1. Hero makes a grapple attack against the Bad Guy's arm.
2. Bad guy gets to Parry/Dodge (fails, so Hero accumulates CP)
3. Bad guy attacks to break free on his turn (fails)
4. Hero performs Arm Lock to lock the joint (adds more CP)
5. Bad guy gets to Parry/Dodge (penalized by CP and fails)
6. Bad guy can attack to break free again on his turn (fails)
7. Hero can now perform nastiness on the locked limb

So now we are at step 7 before before we can begin the carnage, and the bad guy gets two active defense rolls and two attacks to break free.

The 2nd option is to use Grabbing Parry as a defense to start your initial grapple:

1. Bad guy attack's Hero.
2. Hero makes a grabbing parry to grab attacker's arm (inflicts CP)
3. Hero performs Arm Lock to lock the joint (adds more CP)
4. Bad guy gets to Parry/Dodge (penalized by CP and fails)
5. Bad guy can attack to break free again on his turn (fails)
6. Hero can now perform nastiness on the locked limb

Back down to six steps, and the bad guy still gets two opportunities to disrupt the Hero's plans.

Also, Grabbing Parry is pretty difficult to pull off and cannot be improved in a non-cinematic game.
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