Technical Grappling in Dungeon Fantasy

[Skarg]

Seems to me that many actions in Technical Grappling have nothing to do with the Martial Artist class, e.g. grabbing weapons, bear hug, Shoving People Around, choke, wrench, etc., though the GM would want to go through and choose what to allow or not.

[mlangsdorf]

All of my judo focused martial artists spend a lot of their time shoving people around, putting them into locks, and wrenching their arms or necks after an Instant Power Blow. They don't choke people out very often, because neck grab->instant power blow->neck snap is faster than a choke hold.

It's all kind of niche, and the swashbuckler still does more damage faster, but I find a judo focused martial artist is more effective than a karate focused martial artist.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Spartan506

Peter definitely uses Technical Grappling to good effect (I'm not sure if it's 100% pure as Doug wrote it or slightly modified).

Modified, I think. Simplified. Peter and I kept working on a formalized version of this, but kept saying "simpler, darnit!" until we wound up both moving on to other things.

It works quite well. The last session in the Lost City involved grappling with Shambling Mounds. I think the Lost City Mowgli Battle was another good one with Five-Headed Panthers. Any Felltower session including Crushrooms had it.

There's quite a few monsters that are strong and grapple--they make for very interesting (and sometimes quite frightening) encounters. Mo has done a good job of busting out of various grapples in the past (of course he's ridiculously strong and has wrestling at at least DX+1 if not DX+2).

It definitely adds a separate and useful axis to both storytelling and combat.

[Skarg]

But what are the Sweat, Clothing and Armor hand-hold modifiers for Shambling Mounds?

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Skarg

But what are the Sweat, Clothing and Armor hand-hold modifiers for Shambling Mounds?

So, this can be answered two ways:

Factually/Mechanically, I'd say it's somewhere between being sweaty and oiled, which is Control Resistance 2 to 4; calling it CR 3 would split the difference and mean that it's basically immune to the average result of a 1d-1 or 1d grapple: you need to be strong or trained to grapple it.

Thematically: I'm not sure that as a *general rule*, the tweaks for Sweat, Clothing, and Armor belong in a DFRPG game. I might just note specifically in the monster descriptions that "the shambling mound is very slippery, and ignores the first [2 to 4] points of control on any damage roll, and successful attempts to break free get +3 to control points rolled!"

[Harald387]

I know that at one point I had an ST 22 Coleopteran Barbarian whose primary combat skill was Wrestling (using Technical Grappling). That worked out really well.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Harald387

I know that at one point I had an ST 22 Coleopteran Barbarian whose primary combat skill was Wrestling (using Technical Grappling). That worked out really well.

I remember that character. He was scary.