[MA] Silent Sentry Removal

[vicky_molokh]

Greetings, all!

There have been no less than three threads touching upon sentry removal / backstabbing, one way or another. I'm looking forward to rounding up the loose ends.

First of all, it must be said that sentry removal is a risky activity that is sometimes easier done in a crude manner than with all the fancy techniques. E.g., under default adventuring sound conditions, a bolt-action .30 rifle fitted with the best suppressor has less than 10% chance of being heard if fired from 70 yards away, 50% chance from 10 yards (assuming Per 10 for the enemies). A shot without a silencer will be heard from far, but might not be considered anything particularly unusual if there's a low-intensity combat activity going on in the vicinity for days nonstop with occasional high-intensity ones (e.g. what the current reports about Donetsk Airport seem to be indicating).

The very act of sneaking up to someone requires significant Stealth to pull off reliably, since it takes a roughly unmodified Quick Contest to quietly sneak up on someone from behind. (There's an entry implying that doing it reaaaalll slowww can give -2 to enemy Hearing.) Sneaking through partially-seen areas will only make things worse.

Garrottes are okay at what they do, but require too much training.

Knives seem to be good-ish at causing grievous wounds, given their modest size, assuming proper attack options and targets - some combination of All-Out Attack, Telegraphic Attack, Evaluate, Mighty Blows, and a Vitals, Neck or Skull Target Location seem to be the way to at least cause a Major Wound, if not outright negatives, plus potentially a nasty bleeding that's hard to stop.

But there's also the issue of silence, and that seems to be the problem.

Silence requires some way of preventing both screams and other sources of noise. The former seems to require grappling the mouth or neck - which makes Choke Hold a good choice, with its modest -2/-3 default modifier, +5 to resist breaking free if using two hands, +3 to ST for choking and strangulation purposes, and a nasty nasty nasty MoS-based and time-based FP-damaging attacks that can be used to reliably knock out (and likely kill) the target by doing a fixed amount of damage.
The first big thing working against Choke Hold is that even an unaware target gets to use a grappling-based Parry at an extra -2 (which apparently means a total of -6 due to also not being able to see the attacker). For a skill-12 enemy, that means a Parry against (12/2)+3-6 = 3. Which doesn't seem like much at all, but in case of a Telegraphic Attack and a Feverish Defence, it can go up to 7 (about 1/6 chance).

The second big problem of Choke Hold is that the enemy still has free hands. Sure, that's at least -4 to DX for being grappled, and the Shock modifier on the following turns, assuming some damage done and no HPT. But that might still be enough to shoot randomly and repeatedly right next to the enemy camp, which . . . tends to be viewed differently.

I wonder whether it's faster to go for a Choke Hold with knife in right hand, with the left hand being the 'main' grappling one, while the right arm being merely assisting as if handless (i.e. 'crook-of-arm' applied to only one arm, while the other is fully operational), then releasing one hand after the choking started (thus relinquishing the +5 to hold on), and going for a Vitals stab (AoA or not) on the second turn of combat.

Or maybe AoA Grab-and-Stab is better?

What approaches have your character been using? What are the upsides and downsides I missed for different approaches? Which ones are better overall?

Thanks in advance!