Grappling
 

In the Dungeon, the heroes go down into the cellar, and there's a lot of spider webs there. If you step on it, you are grappled. And the grappling rules say that a grappled person only can use reach C weapons.

How much webbing is there? How can something that grabs your feet and legs prevent you from using reach 1 weapons? How does it prevent you from making ranged attacks?

This may very well be the first time I've had to use the grappling rules in any game.

Re: Grappling
 

Those rules come with a huge assumption that the grapple is by a body and it's presence interferes with your use of handheld items.
I"d say in the case of webs grappling the feet, it might restrict more like Rooted Feet or Glue spells instead of behaving like a warrior grappling with another.

Re: Grappling
 

It doesn’t.

I think your inclination and MIB.6361 are correct: common sense dictates that if only part of your body is grappled, it is the most restricted, and other parts less so.

In your specific example of legs being grappled, I’d allow the use of any hand-held weapons with no effect on Reach or Range. I’d probably assign a penalty to attack rolls, anywhere from a -1 to -4 depending on how important footwork is to wielding the weapon.

Re: Grappling
 

Well, keep in mind there is already the hefty DX -4 penalty from just being Grappled.

My thoughts† are to use 'common sense' (which is how I've resolved similar issues in my games in the past), and allow attacks out of the Grapple if they make sense (in other words attacking another foe, or in this case the spiders, and not the webs grappling the character).


† Full disclosure, I am the Player who's Character stepped boldly into the webs with a Reach 1,2 weapon and is now in a rather sticky situation. I also haven't read the adventure text, so I'm guessing it says something like "the webs grapple with ST XX" and nothing else. And let's keep the XX a secret eh? I haven't tried to break-free yet (I didn't realize how bad the situation was until I reread the grappling and close combat rules).

This'll learn the Party to go into dark basements without torches... ;)

Re: Grappling
 

Well said. To clarify, I should say "up to the -4 suggested by RAW".

Re: Grappling
 

I like questions like these because I'm a stickler for precision and clarity. Of course that takes time and space in a product.

I would agree with the conclusions here that just the legs and feet are grappled.

Still the text of Dungeon is compressed in its description of the threat:
You could infer that the spiders were very active and the webbing is chest high.

This would be a bit irrational for two reasons:

1. The spiders would probably be operating from on top of the webbing and attacking from a height off the ground (this is not explicitly described.)
2. It would be silly for adventurers to just walk into such a web hex.

But yes, none of this is explained outside of the quote above.

Re: Grappling
 

P.S.

Just reviewed the text:
So if the webbing was chest high it would be very hard to fall down (you are grappled upright as you walk in.)

Again, you are required to infer the situation from items beyond the primary description.

Re: Grappling
 

Ah, so I'll be skipping my plans to suplex a giant spider then... ;)


It might help to get Mr Punch or Mr Levine in here... batsignal deployed...

Re: Grappling
 

Another thought:

in this particular case it might be better to treat the webs as a particularly strongly 'cast' Glue spell. Say wording it something like this:

"Anyone stepping in webs is immediately affected as per Rooted Feet (Spells pg 22) with no initial resistance roll possible. Further attempts to break free treat the spell as cast at XX*. If the delver falls down he is trapped at ST YY*. Once freed the delver may act as normal until hey move into another webbed hex."


* XX and YY should be a bit lower than whatever the current 'trap's' ST is as Rooted Feet gives a -5 on follow up resistance rolls.

Re: Grappling
 

Spoiler tag?

Anyway, I do think we tend to underplay the footwork required to use weapons well, but I'm not sure how to factor that in, and I think DF probably shouldn't. If my players step on webs, I'll let them use weapons, if they fall, I won't.