[Technical Grappling] Teach me using examples

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Icelander

It's only bad if he wants to use grappling. He's fine if he's content to strike, since Master Braelgar will have to defend with Dodge 9 against those, as even if he were prepared to release the Hook, his polarm is an Unbalanced weapon and can't Parry on the turn after it was used to attack.

Only because Hands-Free Parry somehow allows an unarmed Parry with an Unbalanced weapon that cannot otherwise be used to Parry, even at Reach 2 when no other body part can possibly be used to counter any grappling move, can Master Braelgar defend reliably against any grappling counter Mickey might try. He's helpless against anything which isn't defined as 'grappling' and thus doesn't fall under Hands-Free Parry.

The fact that you gave Master Braelgar an incredibly brittle defense and then drove into a situation where he broke it himself doesn't seem like it should reflect on the expectations for how good he is at defense. Which is ridiculously so. The appearance of being vulnerable due to the ridiculous choice to take all his conventional parries out of play is the illusion.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

If you don't simply have your opponent shut out by them being unable to beat your active defenses, rather than trying to break free they could pile up CP against your weapon, which will quickly pose a problem to your ability to use the weapon against them.

How do you pile up CP against a weapon without a Parry being allowed? It seems that all attacks that pile up CP are 'grappling' attacks and thus allow a Hands-Free Parry, even when no Parry is otherwise allowed.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

The fact that you gave Master Braelgar an incredibly brittle defense and then drove into a situation where he broke it himself doesn't seem like it should reflect on the expectations for how good he is at defense. Which is ridiculously so. The appearance of being vulnerable due to the ridiculous choice to take all his conventional parries out of play is the illusion.

Fair enough, but I was trying to learn to use Technical Grappling, which kind of necessiated that I use, you know, grappling moves.

If I hadn't, Braelgar would simply have attacked a random hit location with a Defensive Attack swing. He'd have hit with a 16 and Mickey would have succeed at a Parry on an 11 (he failed against the Hook even though he was rolling against the same 11).

If he had failed, he'd have taken a hit to the... (roll 3d, 13) Left Leg, on the (roll 1d, 5) thigh. Since he's wearing light field plate, particularly light on the legs (DR 4 or so), that's painful. ST 16 Weapon Master does 2d+7 cr even on a Defensive Attack, so that's 16 damage, of which 12 go through (reduced to 4 HP of damage by Mickey's IT:DR).

Not a fight ender, but a fine start for Master Braelgar. However, not likely to teach me Technical Grappling.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Icelander

How do you pile up CP against a weapon without a Parry being allowed? It seems that all attacks that pile up CP are 'grappling' attacks and thus allow a Hands-Free Parry, even when no Parry is otherwise allowed.

You can't. If you can't beat your opponent's parry, you can't do much of anything. But that's generally the case.

What you can get out of applying CP on the weapon is that you avoid the problem of trying to cancel out your opponent's leverage-boosted CP with your unaided CP.

Originally Posted by Icelander

Fair enough, but I was trying to learn to use Technical Grappling, which kind of necessiated that I use, you know, grappling moves.

If I hadn't, Braelgar would simply have attacked a random hit location with a Defensive Attack swing. He'd have hit with a 16 and Mickey would have succeed at a Parry on an 11 (he failed against the Hook even though he was rolling against the same 11).

If he had failed, he'd have taken a hit to the... (roll 3d, 13) Left Leg, on the (roll 1d, 5) thigh. Since he's wearing light field plate, particularly light on the legs (DR 4 or so), that's painful. ST 16 Weapon Master does 2d+7 cr even on a Defensive Attack, so that's 16 damage, of which 12 go through (reduced to 4 HP of damage by Mickey's IT:DR).

Not a fight ender, but a fine start for Master Braelgar. However, not likely to teach me Technical Grappling.

My point is that I'm unsure this isn't a grossly unfair fight, considering the nigh-impervious parry.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

You can't. If you can't beat your opponent's parry, you can't do much of anything. But that's generally the case.

That it is.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

What you can get out of applying CP on the weapon is that you avoid the problem of trying to cancel out your opponent's leverage-boosted CP with your unaided CP.

True.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

My point is that I'm unsure this isn't a grossly unfair fight, considering the nigh-impervious parry.

Mickey has Parry 17 with longsword and Wrestling, with Parry 18 with his longsword in a defensive grip. That's not far off Master Braelgar's Parry 18 with Wrestling and Parry 22 with his polearm in Defensive Staff Grip. Edit: Even with my house rules which allow Polearms in Staff grip to get a bonus to Parry (like Spears do), the breakpoint for +1 instead of +2 is before the 10-lbs. weight of the Dueling Halberd, so Braelgar's Parry is just 21, not 22.

Well, okay, if they both retain their distance, it is far off in terms of relative skill, but Master Braelgar is not meant to be a fair fight for him that way. He's far more skilled and this fight would only happen in game to make up for Mickey humiliating him in a jousting match. And I imagined that Mickey's only hope was to turn it into a grappling match, where his ST +4 and Trained ST +8 relative to Master Braelgar could prove decisive.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Mickey has Parry 17 with longsword and Wrestling, with Parry 18 with his longsword in a defensive grip. That's not far off Master Braelgar's Parry 18 with Wrestling and Parry 22 with his polearm in Defensive Staff Grip.

Well, okay, if they both retain their distance, it is far off in terms of relative skill, but Master Braelgar is not meant to be a fair fight for him that way. He's far more skilled and this fight would only happen in game to make up for Mickey humiliating him in a jousting match. And I imagined that Mickey's only hope was to turn it into a grappling match, where his ST +4 and Trained ST +8 relative to Master Braelgar could prove decisive.

If that's his only hope, he's in for it. You can't get a grapple without getting past an active defense, and as far as I can see he's just not good enough for that.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

If that's his only hope, he's in for it. You can't get a grapple without getting past an active defense, and as far as I can see he's just not good enough for that.

PCs have Luck and even Extraordinary Luck, whereas NPCs are far less likely* to have such traits.

And it's not as if Mickey is supposed to have an all that good chance of winning a foot list duel against the greatest Master of Defence he knows about. Sir Michael is trained in the same style and well-regarded by most people who know about him, as a bit of a young prodigy, but, well, he's young. He's not the greatest living master yet.

Losing to Master Braelgar, but making a good showing in the attempt, would still be good for his Reputation.

*It's not forbidden, but it is assumed that only those whose concepts include a consistent run of luck will have it. Others have just occasionally spent CP for luck.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Icelander

PCs have Luck and even Extraordinary Luck, whereas NPCs are far less likely* to have such traits.

And it's not as if Mickey is supposed to have an all that good chance of winning a foot list duel against the greatest Master of Defence he knows about. Sir Michael is trained in the same style and well-regarded by most people who know about him, as a bit of a young prodigy, but, well, he's young. He's not the greatest living master yet.

Losing to Master Braelgar, but making a good showing in the attempt, would still be good for his Reputation.

*It's not forbidden, but it is assumed that only those whose concepts include a consistent run of luck will have it. Others have just occasionally spent CP for luck.

Is that going to get him through the active defense? And if so, could he use it to grab the polearm with both hands? Because if he can make this into a 'who has more CP on the stick' contest...well, he might have a chance. And if he makes the master drop the polearm to get loose that's got to be a good showing.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Is that going to get him through the active defense? And if so, could he use it to grab the polearm with both hands? Because if he can make this into a 'who has more CP on the stick' contest...well, he might have a chance.

Mickey has Skill Adaptation (Bind Weapon defaults to Two-Handed Sword), so he could use that to grab the halberd. Better CP that way.

On the other hand, that's done at skill 21 before CP penalties and his Wrestling grab would be done at skill 23 before CP, so maybe he'd be better off dropping his sword.

What I think his player would do is take advantage of another house rule of mine, where if you Feint with a dangerous weapon and follow it up with an attack with a much less dangerous one, you get +2 for something like feinting with a sword and attacking with a dagger and a +4 for feinting with a sword, dropping it and attacking with bare hands. He'd Rapid Strike, 2 attacks at -3 per. First he Feints an attack at Master Braelgar's head with his Two-Handed Sword and when he steps back to try to avoid it, Mickey tries to grab the halberd with Wrestling.

Using Luck, he wins the Feint with enough to give a -6 penalty to Master Braelgar's active defences and then he makes his grab at skill 12, which gives a further -4 (not reduced for Style Familiarity, as the now-unarmed Mickey can use Battlerager Rasslin', a style Master Braelgar is not familiar with).

Master Braelgar has to sidestep on his retreat to avoid stepping out of the circle, so he does not get a Retreat bonus to his Hands-Free Parry. That means it's at 8 or less. He spends a FP, but still fails with a 12.

Mickey grapples the halberd and rolls 2d+2 CP for his Trained ST of 26, reduced by the grapple. That gets him 11 CP.

Now things are quite different for Master Braelgar, of course. Luck to the rescue!

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

And if he makes the master drop the polearm to get loose that's got to be a good showing.

That's probably a victory, as Sir Michael is a better unarmed fighter than Master Braelgar and even if they drew rondels, their skill there is about equal and the live hand used for grappling would favour Mickey.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Mickey grapples the halberd and rolls 2d+2 CP for his Trained ST of 26, reduced by the grapple. That gets him 11 CP.

It's a minor point, but I think he can do a little better. After all, he's already got one leg involved in the grapple. So he uses 1.1*ST rather that 1*ST when he grapples the halberd, which seems like it should give him Trained ST 28.