[TG] Teamwork and CP spent to reduce hit loc

[Ultraviolet]

Another creative use of CP, that also seemed reasonable, from last Wedensday's Cliffhangers vs. Zombies:

German film star Maxwell "Maxi" von der Beiderbecke had been grappled and taken down by a zombie, but avoided getting bit by more luck than skill. The close combat left no room for his sabre so he was screwed.

Luckily Karl "Kodiak" the Bartender was there. Having twice failed with his Grab & Shoot (see separate post) to the brain of said zombie he remembered he was alsdo a Judoka and dropped his Luger.

After a good grapple to the torso of the zombie, his next round follow-up was a Force Posture Change to haul the zombie up. This resulted in the zombie having to release its grip on Maxi, because a closer target was there to bite. Luckily for Kodiak he had grapled the zombie in the rear arc, so I ruled that bites were impossible. But the zombie wasted its time trying anyway.

Maxi used his movie skills to quickly vault to his feet while fast drawing his dropped sabre from the ground, making ready to hack.

Kodiak now spent his CP in order to reduce the hit location of Maxi's targeget sabre attack to the neck of the zombie. I allowed that, even though I'm not sure you can. But the teamwork effort made sense, and CP on torso seemed ok to affect the position of the head - an adjacent location and one a lot less mobile than an arm or leg.
This seems reasonable to me. But for arms or legs I might only allow reducing hit loc for an ally using CP on that particular limb.

I see Kodiak holding the zombie around the chest, keeping it from moving, while bending it to expose the neck for an easy target for Maxi.
I even allowed them to switch placed in the initiative sequence, but that's a small thing. Technically Maxi could just have called a Wait with the order "strike at neck when exposed". Anyway they were the last characters in the sequence, within 0,25 of each other.

[Tomsdad]

Sounds great to me!

Maybe require the Teamwork Perk from MA if you really want to limit the ability to certain people/teams (or make the point that certain groups are so used to working together they can do this stuff*).

But if in doubt if it's awesome and fits your game, allow it!

If you want to play up the risk if it goes wrong there are rules for attacking into CC when a team mate is in CC, and IIRC I think the teamwork Perk helps with this? Sorry don't have access to the rules at the moment.


*that perk has become so ubiquitous at my table for so long now I sometimes just let a PC team for who it narratively make sense to have it, to have if for free! (at 1pt who really cares anyway)

[Ultraviolet]

Teamwork Perk might be a good fix, although when it's just 1 point..

When my players are finally working together, rather than against each other, I tend to cut them some slack.

Striking into CC usually gives a penalty, but when the ally is actively exposing the enemy, it seems to well-prepared that I'm willing to ignore this.
There is still a risk, and a critical failure would suck for the person holding the enemy!

[DouglasCole]

I'd totally allow this. It's a good use of spending CP.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Ultraviolet

Teamwork Perk might be a good fix, although when it's just 1 point..

When my players are finally working together, rather than against each other, I tend to cut them some slack.

Striking into CC usually gives a penalty, but when the ally is actively exposing the enemy, it seems to well-prepared that I'm willing to ignore this.
There is still a risk, and a critical failure would suck for the person holding the enemy!

Absolutely, and yeah rather than looking to discourage this kind of thing with CC pens* I'd be tempted to make the down sides of the tactic a matter of critical failures.

They grappling Zombies there is some built in risk here anyway after all!


*of course if you want those pens but also a way to circumvent them, you could spend CP to negate them!