Is unarmed combat a contest of who can "grab first"?

[Hide]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

In a street brawl against a human male who didn't have the foresight to wear a protective cup, the correct follow-up to achieving a grapple isn't to execute another grappling technique but to knee him in the groin. The Knee Strike technique is just -1 to target the groin in that situation and your opponent is at -2 to defend.

But since you also said equally matched fighters, consider it means they both might have the same options. The grappled character could as well hit his opponent with an attack or an all-out attack and score a shock penalty on your guy before he scores the knee strike. If I remember correctly, the grappled character might spend a FP to defend after his all-out attack; however, the other guy might have a shock penalty and that will last until he recovers.

[Black Leviathan]

In my limited experience getting in fights behind the fences at school, yeah, that's pretty much how it goes. If to brawlers are out there throwing punches and one of them grabs the other by the shirt they have some slight advantge. But if someone on the Wrestling team, or with some knowledge of a martial art that grapples gets an actual hold on you, you may as well write your name on their equipment list, because they own you.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Black Leviathan

In my limited experience getting in fights behind the fences at school, yeah, that's pretty much how it goes. If to brawlers are out there throwing punches and one of them grabs the other by the shirt they have some slight advantge. But if someone on the Wrestling team, or with some knowledge of a martial art that grapples gets an actual hold on you, you may as well write your name on their equipment list, because they own you.

What I've seen of MMA (admittedly not a whole lot) is that it very frequently ends in a tapout when someone realizes the only way they are escaping a grapple is by chewing their own arm off. Strikers who don't win quickly don't win.

Now, if they did two-on-two matches, it would probably be different. You would always face the possibility of getting hit in the back if you got that tangled up with someone.

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by Hide

But since you also said equally matched fighters, consider it means they both might have the same options. The grappled character could as well hit his opponent with an attack or an all-out attack and score a shock penalty on your guy before he scores the knee strike. If I remember correctly, the grappled character might spend a FP to defend after his all-out attack; however, the other guy might have a shock penalty and that will last until he recovers.

Except the fighter who's grappled is at -4 DX, which means -4 to attack -2 to parry, and -1 dodge. He's also at an additional -2 to defend against knee strikes. And the fighter who achieved the grapple can attack the groin at -1 rather than -3. It's not impossible for the grapplee to win, but the odds are strongly against him.

[Anaraxes]

Generally the grappled just goes for his own grapple, which puts the two fighters back on even ground, both at -4.

[AlexanderHowl]

In general, striking is better than grappling because of shock penalties and the potential to end a fight. If a ST 12 individual with Karate at DX+1 and boots successfully stamp kicks a HP 12 individual in the foot, they will have a 5/6 chance of effectively ending the fight right then and there (1/2 chance if they go for the leg). Grappling is simply a set up for another attack.

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Generally the grappled just goes for his own grapple, which puts the two fighters back on even ground, both at -4.

This is the first and second bullet points in the OP. However, the roll to achieve the own grapple is at -4, so there's a good chance you won't succeed, at least not before taking a knee to the groin or two.

This is where I'm concerned the system may be unrealistic. In my experience doing Brazilian jiu jitsu / submission wrestling, it's pretty common for both parties to initially grab each other more-or-less simultaneously, especially from standup. The Basic Set grappling rules don't seem to handle that sort of thing well. I haven't played with the technical grappling rules much, but I wonder if they model that sort of situation better: the fighter who "grabs first" gets a hold, but it's only worth say 2 Control Points (-1 to DX and ST), so the other fighter doesn't have much trouble getting their own hold half a second later.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

This is where I'm concerned the system may be unrealistic. In my experience doing Brazilian jiu jitsu / submission wrestling, it's pretty common for both parties to initially grab each other more-or-less simultaneously, especially from standup. The Basic Set grappling rules don't seem to handle that sort of thing well. I haven't played with the technical grappling rules much, but I wonder if they model that sort of situation better: the fighter who "grabs first" gets a hold, but it's only worth say 2 Control Points (-1 to DX and ST), so the other fighter doesn't have much trouble getting their own hold half a second later.

In that situation are they really grappling each other in gurps terms, or are they just mutually attempting to grapple? Has either really inflicted the massive -4 penalty on the other. I've seen less than you have, but I see a lot more grabbing of arms than of torsos in these situations, and getting uninvolved is fairly simple.

If I were pressed to come up with an option for simutaneous grappling, I'd allow a grappling parry of a grapple to say they are now both grappling each other if both so choose.

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

In general, striking is better than grappling because of shock penalties and the potential to end a fight. If a ST 12 individual with Karate at DX+1 and boots successfully stamp kicks a HP 12 individual in the foot, they will have a 5/6 chance of effectively ending the fight right then and there (1/2 chance if they go for the leg). Grappling is simply a set up for another attack.

I think it does matter if you really pile up the damage bonuses or not. I haven't been taking boots into account because I thought they had to be steel-toed or something, but the rules don't seem to say that. Note, however, that "Stamp Kick to the foot" defaults to Karate-7, and will cost you 7 points just to buy up to Karate-2 (the maximum without Technique Mastery).

The lesson might be that dedicated unarmed fighters should focus on striking, but less dedicated ones who happen to find themselves fighting unarmed should grapple.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

This might be really key. I've been running fights with guys with ST 11-13, and only 2 points in Brawling. So damage is in the 1d-2 to 1d range. There's a big difference between shock penalties mostly being -1 or -2 and being -4 most of the time.

The intrinsic 0-damage at low ST is real strange, would rather see thrust equal to 3d6*ST/10 and track tenths, and also have the duration of shock be a little more random, like treat it as a permanently accruing amount (equal to injury*10/HP) with a maximum of 16 (based on 4 HP groin hit to Low Pain Threshold guy) but you heal MoS on rolling against the sum of HT+Will per second (+1 to Will if you dedicate a Concentrate maneuver to fighting shock).

Applying the DX penalties to defenses wouldn't matter if you did it like grappling using full for that location and half for referred. -16 to DX from an arm injury is -8 to parry with that limb, but only -4 for a no-hands parry using your torso, or a -2 with your other limbs. Considering 16 damage is enough to basically vaporize your arm, that seems like a realistic amount of shock, since you're going to be suffering knockdown checks from Major Wounds anyway.

You would need -2 to DX to suffer even a -1 to parry, and an HP 10 human losing 2 HP from their arm is a pretty big deal, since you only need 4 HP to cripple it. Since a Dodge only suffers -1 per loss of 4 DX, allowing shock to affect active defenses wouldn't be that big an upset and would be a realistic (even minimalist) application of death spiral if it affected more than offense.