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Old 08-14-2019, 09:11 AM   #1
weevis
 
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Default [MA] Grab and Smash / Kiss the Wall: Face + Wall Combo?

I'm stuck: Can someone please talk me through how a Martial Arts combination would work involving grabbing someone by the head and slamming their face into a wall? Here is my stream-of-consciousness attempt to do this, which I think is wrong:

The Grab and Smash > Kiss the Wall rules (Martial Arts p. 118) seem like the way to handle this. It says I have to perform a two-handed grapple first.

OK I need a grappling skill: How about Wrestling. Grappling defaults to torso but *can* target other body parts. I actually want to target my foe's face for damage but it seems descriptively weird to say "I grab them by the face" for a slam. I could target the hair, which might be skull (?) for -7. Not sure. I see that grappling a particular body costs only half the hit location penalties (so: -4).

That means I have a targeted attack as a hard technique for my first attack in the combo: Wrestling/Grapple/Skull (-4).

Next I need to smash the face into the wall. The rules say I "can target any hit location but the feet" -- that's weird. I guess I shouldn't have grappled by the skull in the first move? Then it says I have to pay "full penalties" for hit location. Face is -5 but that seems like I am paying twice! I've already targeted the skull in the previous move! It seems like if I've already grappled their head I should be targeting the wall, which is a pretty big target. Should I not have grappled the head?

So then with these reservations if I go ahead anyway I have another targeted attack / hard technique as the second attack in the two-attack combo: Wrestling/Smash/Face (a.k.a. Kiss the Wall) (-5).

Then I put these two into a two-attack combination.

I feel like I have done this wrong as I am double-counting the location targeting. The rules *seem* to let me do a torso grapple as the first move and then smash the face, since the Kiss the Wall section says "any hit location" after a grapple. That would save me a -4 penalty on the first technique, which is good. Now I don't feel like I'm double-counting, but I am having a hard time imagining this move. Am I bear-hugging my enemy around the middle, pivoting them horizontally, then driving their face into the wall like a jousting knight aims a lance? Or maybe I should just not worry about my mental image?

Obviously, I'm confused. Hoping someone can help!
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Old 08-14-2019, 09:42 PM   #2
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Default Re: [MA] Grab and Smash / Kiss the Wall: Face + Wall Combo?

Cole cleared this up in technical grappling: you don't grapple the "face" or "skull" but rather both collectively as the "head" at -3, which works out to half (2.5) rounded up for targeting either from their ideal direction (front for face, rear for skull)

Hair seems like it could be important in grappling, but seems largely unaddressed. The closest I've seen is that Technical Grappling imparts 1 Control Resistance to those with bare skin, so I think that's only bald+beardless people for the head.

Where somewhat of a limbo exists however is if you're grappling the head and you want to Grab+Smash someone's nose/jaws specifically...

I guess I'd assume that if you're grappling the head you get your choice of which part of the head (or part of the face) you want to smash?

Or if you're just grappling the torso but want to orient someone so when they hit the wall it's their head that hits and not their torso? Unless Cole snuck that into Fantastic Dungeon Grappling, I still don't think we have it.
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Old 08-15-2019, 12:02 AM   #3
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Default Re: [MA] Grab and Smash / Kiss the Wall: Face + Wall Combo?

The way I remember and interpret the "Kiss the Wall" variant of "Grab and Smash" is this:

*Make an AoA: Double
*Grapple the foe, with two hands, hit location 0 for torso or -3 for head (half face penalty). IIRC it allows using Brawling or any grappling skill
*Smack the foe's face into a wall.
**If you have him by the head, there is no hit location penalty to smack it into the wall.
**If you have him by the torso, use the grappling hit location penalty for the head (-3), because you shove his body but want the face to impact.

So, if you take the penalty on the initial grapple, the smash part gets easier. If you take the easy initial grab, the smash gets harder.
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Old 08-15-2019, 02:02 AM   #4
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Default Re: [MA] Grab and Smash / Kiss the Wall: Face + Wall Combo?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultraviolet View Post
The way I remember and interpret the "Kiss the Wall" variant of "Grab and Smash" is this:

*Make an AoA: Double
*Grapple the foe, with two hands, hit location 0 for torso or -3 for head (half face penalty). IIRC it allows using Brawling or any grappling skill
*Smack the foe's face into a wall.
**If you have him by the head, there is no hit location penalty to smack it into the wall.
**If you have him by the torso, use the grappling hit location penalty for the head (-3), because you shove his body but want the face to impact.

So, if you take the penalty on the initial grapple, the smash part gets easier. If you take the easy initial grab, the smash gets harder.

And this is if you want the specific effects of hitting someone in the face; knock down and stunning roll, bypassing torso armour etc. If you do not want/need these results then you don't need to take the penalties at all. The attack can be described as hitting the head without actually doing it.
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Old 08-15-2019, 08:05 PM   #5
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Default Re: [MA] Grab and Smash / Kiss the Wall: Face + Wall Combo?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultraviolet View Post
The way I remember and interpret the "Kiss the Wall" variant of "Grab and Smash" is this:

*Make an AoA: Double
*Grapple the foe, with two hands, hit location 0 for torso or -3 for head (half face penalty). IIRC it allows using Brawling or any grappling skill
*Smack the foe's face into a wall.
**If you have him by the head, there is no hit location penalty to smack it into the wall.
**If you have him by the torso, use the grappling hit location penalty for the head (-3), because you shove his body but want the face to impact.

So, if you take the penalty on the initial grapple, the smash part gets easier. If you take the easy initial grab, the smash gets harder.
MA118 the basic version of "Kiss the Wall" does not require AOA:Double. It's a single attack made with someone who you are grappling, whether you made that grapple 1 second ago or 10 minutes ago.

You're probably remembering how the "Twofers" version of Kiss the Wall called "All-Out Grapple and Strike".

I consider that an under-powered idea. You can already bash a guy's skull into a skull using KTW for thrust, so why should it be less (thrust minus 1) when you're actually accelerating both bodies toward each other?

AOGAS shouldn't even be a separate rule, just using KTW mechanics is enough, and it should actually be better, like assume wall-kissing damage is always to both things, so a double-thrust should add the damage together for bypassing DR.
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Old 08-15-2019, 11:44 PM   #6
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Default Re: [MA] Grab and Smash / Kiss the Wall: Face + Wall Combo?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Plane View Post
MA118 the basic version of "Kiss the Wall" does not require AOA:Double. It's a single attack made with someone who you are grappling, whether you made that grapple 1 second ago or 10 minutes ago.

You're probably remembering how the "Twofers" version of Kiss the Wall called "All-Out Grapple and Strike".

I consider that an under-powered idea. You can already bash a guy's skull into a skull using KTW for thrust, so why should it be less (thrust minus 1) when you're actually accelerating both bodies toward each other?

AOGAS shouldn't even be a separate rule, just using KTW mechanics is enough, and it should actually be better, like assume wall-kissing damage is always to both things, so a double-thrust should add the damage together for bypassing DR.
But by doing the grapple and smash in the same round, you get the benefit of AoA Strong.
Sure, you can just grapple one round and smash the next with AoA Strong, but that takes 2 rounds.

In TG p24 Grab & Smash you grapple smash in the same round, and get to add CP from the grapple directly as damage. Doing it over 2 rounds means the CP can't be this way, only as they are normally allowed.
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Old 08-16-2019, 12:14 PM   #7
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Default Re: [MA] Grab and Smash / Kiss the Wall: Face + Wall Combo?

MA118 "Grab and Smash" describes 2 different types, the AOA strong bonus is only described for "All-Out Grapple and Strike" (AOGAS) it isn't mentioned for Kiss the Wall (KTW).

It says "can be a strike with anything except the arm(s) used to grapple."

Kiss the Wall involves using the arms you're grappling with to make an attack (throwing them into an object) so I don't know if it would fall under those guidelines.

It's comparable to thinking you'd get the AOA Strong bonus if you did AOA:Double to do Grab+Judo Throw.

I think the idea is you're using the grab to help some other attack, but if the grab itself is the mechanism of attack, you're not exactly using limbs to reinforce each other.

TG24's "several situations where a grapple is initiated and then followed immediately by a strike" I think doest not include the "Kiss the Wall" attack for the above reasoning.

Something like pulling a head into a knee: the knee attack has a basic damage and you are simply adding to that... but with Kiss the Wall, there is no basic damage: the wall isn't already moving toward them, the entire reason there is damage is because you're using grappling to do it, the damage is already coming from the arms doing the grappling.
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