Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

I was having a discussion about the utility of the ARM LOCK technique with one of my students who is also a GURPS player. His grasp of the mechanics was a bit different than mine, so I sat down with my books to catalog the rules and improve my understanding of how it all works.

My reason for posting this is two-fold. #1 is to have folks a lot smarter than me sanity check my write-up and let me know if I am making any glaring mistakes and #2 review my conclusions and let me know if I've missed something or if I am way off base. Also, it would be cool to hear from you all about experiences with the Arm Lock technique you've had/seen in your games.

I'm going to run through a scenario twice...once using just GURPS Basic and Martial Arts, and the second time using rules from Technical Grappling.

Our combatants in both scenarios will be PC and NPC. Here are the relevant stats for both characters:

PC
Trained ST: 11, DX 10
Judo: 12, Arm Lock: 16

NPC
Trained ST: 11, DX 10
Brawling: 12

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ARM LOCK MECHANICAL FLOW (GURPS Basic + Martial Arts)

-NPC throws a punch at PC
-PC attempts Retreating Judo Parry (eff skill 12), succeeds
-On his turn, PC steps into CC and Roll Arm Lock to hit (eff skill 16)
-Foe may Parry or Dodge (can retreat)
-If Arm Lock is successful, NPC's arm is trapped and cannot be used
-On NPC's turn, he faces the following
-His locked arm cannot be used unless he manages to Break Free
-Attempt to break Free is a QC of ST
-PC gets +4 in the QC, or +9 if using 2 hands (probably 2 hands)
-Also, NPC faces a -4 to DX for being grappled, though his active defenses are at -4 per the Arm Lock Technique
-NPC can attack PC with his other arm, but suffers a -4 to hit from DX penalty for being grappled (Telegraphic Attack is a good option here)
-If NPC does attack and rolls a hit, PC will have to release one arm from the lock in order to Parry. He can choose to Dodge instead and keep both arms on the Lock, but cannot retreat, regardless of which Active Defense he chooses.


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ARM LOCK MECHANICAL FLOW (Technical Grappling)

-NPC throws a punch
-PC attempts a Grabbing Parry at Parry -3 to establish a low to 0 CP grapple on NPC's arm. Effective Parry skill is 6, or 9 with a Retreat.
-Grabbing Parry succeeds, PC inflicts 1d-4 CP on NPC's arm (most likely 0)
-On PC's turn, Attack with Arm Lock technique (skill 16), Foe can Parry or Dodge
-If successful, roll 1d-1 CP (assume 3 CP) on Arm and NPC's Arm is Locked

On foe's turn, he faces the following
-His locked arm cannot be used unless he succeeds on an Attack to Break free.
-A Break free attack can be "parried" hands free by the PC
-If successful, the Break Freak attack removes 1d-1 CP (about 3)
-If attempted with the Locked Limb and successful, NPC's Arm is now unlocked even if CP remain
-Assuming 3 CP from the Lock, referred control to the rest of the NPC is 1 CP (3/2, round down) which is not enough to inflict any DX/ST penalties.
-NPC can use his other limb to attack PC at no penalty.
-PC cannot do a Hands-Free parry since NPC is striking and not grappling
-PC must Disengage a limb to Parry, lowering Grip ST from 11 to 6, removing 3 CP from the Arm Lock. This would set the CP at 0, but still maintain the lock

================================================== ======


Assuming all of the above is correct, here's my analysis. Please feel free to point out anything I am missing here, or wrong on.

*It seems like TG rules make an Arm Lock more difficult to execute, easier to counter, and less effective at penalizing a locked foe than the rules in Martial Arts do.

*I'll caveat the above by saying that playing with high cinematic characters and turning on stuff like the Quick and Dirty switches make Arm Locks positively brutal under TG.

*Under the Martial Arts rules, breaking free from an Arm Lock seems to be exceedingly difficult unless you are an order of magnitude stronger than your foe, your foe has you locked with a single limb, or both.

*A character suffers considerably heftier penalties when in an Arm Lock under Martial Arts than under Technical Grappling. You would need to inflict 16 CP with the Grabbing Parry + Arm Lock to give a foe a -4 to DX to actions with body parts other than the locked limb, which even exceeds the limits for Maximum CP for a Trained ST of 11.

*Under both sets of rules it seems like attacking your foe is a better option than trying to break free. If you have some skill to spare, making a Telegraphic Rapid Strike looks like the best bet for forcing a Judo character to parry twice and give up a lock. Incidentally, you only need to force a single parry attempt from a Wrestling character to get them to give up the lock. Dodging has a lower margin of success in this scenario, especially since you can't retreat without giving up the lock.

*The Hands-Free Parry option in TG is a great one, but it seems like it should be something you can attempt when you have someone in a Lock and they attempt a striking attack against you. It might be too granular for GURPS, but we use joint manipulation all the time in Eskrima to short-circuit punching, kicking, and Reach-C weapon attacks, and can do so without giving up the Lock. Indeed the joint lock is what allows you to do such defenses in the first place.

I do realize that I used fairly realistic characters in my scenarios, and that PCs with higher ST, higher Trained ST, Higher Skill, and Advantages like Extra Attack and/or Trained by a Master would significantly change the odds, but I wanted to see what this would look like with two fairly mundane characters. Also, it's really clear here how much more debilitating the MA version of Arm Lock is vs the TG version.

Like I said above, please feel free to chime and set me straight on any/all of my write-ups and/or conclusions. Feedback is appreciated.

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

Without going point by point, yeah, the one-second arm lock was tuned down in TG. Note that unlike in basic set grappling, you can continue to attack to increase control in TG, so after a few seconds, maxing out at 12 CP (the skill level in the technique adds +1 to trained ST for arm lock), things do get worse for the other guy, to the tune of -6 to ST and DX.

So "one second, poof, you're immobilized" is off the table in TG somewhat by design (the phrase Arm Lock Reign of Terror was uttered frequently by playtesters).

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

As explained on page 119 of Martial Arts, a grappler can use their grappling arms to parry an attack from the person they grappled, without having to let go

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

Personally, I use none of the rules from TG because I prefer the rules in Basic and Martial Arts. In my opinion, all that the additional rules do is make combat more complex without adding sufficient utility to make it worth the effort. When you compare the two systems, anyone using the former system will be ground into the dirt by someone using the latter system.

When it comes to parrying, another possibility is using Special Setup (No Hands > Karate Parry), such as that provided by Pak Hok, which allows a character to parry with their body rather than their hands. Such a defense could be useful anytime that your hands are full and, if you are attempting to embarrass your opponent, do something non-combat related with your hands during combat like playing the violin. You could even potentially combine that with Special Setup (Karate Parry > Arm Lock), like that provided by Wing Chun, allowing you to parry with no hands into your waiting hands, though you would need to put the violin down.

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

I'm going to take a look at this later when I can process it better, but seeing a thread about arm locks reminded me of the 2nd to last match between Sheamus and Matt Riddle, Sheamus was forcing Riddle's arm behind him in a key lock and an interesting counter Riddle did to that was hooking his grappled arm under his tights.

This prevented Sheamus from pulling Riddle's hand up and deepening the lock. I'd never seen that kind of counter before, very high-IQ sort of thing to choreograph, made me wonder whose idea it was.

You couldn't do something like this without a waistband to grasp, clear equipment advantage here because Riddle's palm was facing away from his body so he couldn't have just grabbed some fur if he was a pantsless gorilla in a kimura.

I don't have the vaguest idea of where to begin classifying such a counter in TG terms...

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

I use TG without reservations, since I finally got round to reading and understanding the system.

I like it a lot, that a Grapple isn't a binary thing, so you can be more or less grappled, depending on the amount of CP rolled, which again depends on the Trained ST of the grappler.
And I like the fact that you can further improve grapples, and thet Breaking Free isn't binary either but can gradually reduce a grapple (unless the grappler re-applies it), and that you may eventually make a Reversal.
Plus we use Grabbing Parries, to set up grapple moves.

The use of CP can also be used to push or shove a grapples enemy around, bang them into a wall, expose one of their body parts for an allie's attack. It has worked quite well for us.

Personally I like the strong-man type of grappling more than the fancy, technical stuff. So grab and smash, or takedown more than locks or throws.

We play a semi-cinematic Cliffhangers campaign, where some of the grappler are quite good, and can pull off fun stuff. Two other players have also found a fondness for it. One has his character learning it. Two other players accept it but don't use it. And the last player hates it, because it takes time. His character refuses to grapple, but accepts that other do it.

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

First off, I want to thank you for replying directly to this. It's really cool how you and a few other GURPS writers are so engaged on this forum, and it really helps to be able to discuss stuff like this with the actual creators.

So while I agree that the one-second immobilization Arm Lock from GURPS Basic/Martial Arts is a little over the top, I feel like TG maybe goes too far in the other direction.

Sure, after 3 seconds of attacking to improve your grip, you'd have 12 or so CP on the other guy. But during those 3 seconds, he's also punched you 3 times. That's a problem both IRL, and at the gaming table.

With the system I train in, we always work on short time scales. Trying to hold a lock or trap for too long will get you punched or countered. We work positioning and angles (i.e. relative facing in TG) to minimize counter attack threats, but also try to avoid too much "2 for 1" (I use two of my hands to tie up only one of the other guy's, so he has a free hand to hit me with).

Outside of grapple-only sparring or sports matches, it just doesn't seem practical to grapple in a manner where your opponent gets essentially free shots at you unless you give up some or all of the grapple to defend.

In addition, we generally work the kinds of grabs/locks where we can use the grapple itself to short-circuit potential strikes, essentially performing a hands-free parry. We even work to weight foe in such a manner as to disrupt his ability to throw a kick or knee strike.

From a Tabletop gaming perspective, you run into the same issue. While I agree that going from a Grab to a Lock to a Throw from a Lock normally takes more than 1 second IRL, the nature of GURPS combat, with it's turn-based "you go -> I go -> you go -> I go" mechanics means your player is at significant risk with any set of maneuvers that takes more than 1 turn.

At least with Basic/Martial Arts, you can get the arm lock on instantly on your turn after a Judo/Wrestling Parry, and it's disruptive enough to make it easier to weather 1 turn of attempted attacks/counters from your foe before you do damage or execute a throw. With TG, it's gets really risky. If you grab the arm, there likely isn't enough referred control to provide meaningful penalties to your foe when he decides to punch you with his other hand. If you manage to survive that without giving up the grab or having to release one hand to Parry, then you can perform a lock, adding CP. Again, that doesn't do very much to your foe other than immobilize one arm (which is very good), and maybe face him with a -1 or so on that next punch which is coming. God forbid he perform a Telegraphic Rapid Strike on both turns. In that case, you either have to completely give up the grab/lock, give up one hand and hope you can absorb the multiple parry penalties, or risk Dodges which will likely still be low in spite of the bonus you get from your foe doing a Telegraphic Atk.

I think when most players, myself included think of a skilled character performing an Arm Lock (followed by a Knee Strike and a Kiss the Wall), they think of something like this.

The Parry happens at 1:16, the Arm Lock at 1:17, the Knee Strike at 1:18, and Kiss the Wall at 1:19. While you could make an argument for a Stun happening somewhere in there, none of that sequence would work if the bad guy got to make 2 - 3 punches in the middle of it.

I'm not saying The Raid is realistic, but in my experience, this is what most players are looking for when they build capable modern Martial Artists in GURPS (see also The Accountant, Atomic Blonde, John Wick 1-3, The Bourne Identity, etc.). To be able to pull off stuff like this in TG, you need a very strong character with very high skills, points in several techniques, and either the Cranking it Up or Quick and Dirty switches in TG. And even then, you still run the risks I outlined above.

For what it's worth, I think the Technical Grappling book is a masterpiece, and there are tons of components that I love (spending CP for dmg/lowering hit penalties, more details on armed grappling, relative facing, etc.). I just think it reduces the utility of a previously overpowered technique to one of almost uselessness outside of a sporting competition.

Has it come up in any of your games since TG was published, and how did it work out?

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

Thanks for pointing that out. I totally missed it. Here's the specific text in question:

That would seem to allow hands-free parries using a grappling skill. However, I am concerned about the last bit that I highlighted and underlined. "Shoving you aside" could very well translate into a broken grapple. I don't see any clarity on that in the same section, so it would probably be up to the GM. In my games, I feel like this sort of parry via body control makes sense, and would allow it. But I'm not positive that Martial Arts gives you a carte blanche to do so, however, without giving up the grapple.

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

You aren't the only person that feels that way, and in fact a lot of folks that I game with feel that way about GURPS in general. Like anything else, it helps if you take the time to read through the rules more than once, and do some play testing so you can understand the flow.

I disagree about the part for not adding any utility. Let me call out 3 things specifically that the book adds that carry TONS of value:

1. Relative Facing and the ability to combine a movement to a foe's side/rear arc with an attack/grapple while in CC. Not only does this mimic my IRL in training with standing grappling techniques, it makes it easier to pull off grappling techniques and harder for your foe to counter-attack you. This is a HUGE benefit to grappler characters who were previously forever stuck in a foe's Front Arc under previous rules.

2. Spending CP to reduce hit location penalties. Again, this matches up with RL, and make strikes to the Face/Neck/Vitals/Groin much easier to pull off once you have established a grapple first. This is also a big points saver as you don't have to buy up Targeted Attack for each skill and target that you want to hit on the regular.

3. Spending CP to increase striking damage. This is another big one for me, especially since I like Grab & Smash. In Martial Arts, you get a +2 to damage for following up a grapple with a strike. In TG, you get a +1 to damage for every CP you spend when you do the same. With this rule, even relatively low ST characters can land devastating strikes on foes. A ST 10 Judo/Brawling character that has 6 CP on a foe can spend them all to throw a 1d+4 cr punch...that's the same average brawling punch damage as a dude with a 19 ST.

If you take nothing else at all out of TG, those three things are totally worth, and can really change how unarmed/grappling fights pan out at the table.

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

My reply got too long, so it's broken into two pieces...which naturally appear on two pages.

As a broad statement, I'd of course agree. The point is to leverage your grapple and position to deny free shots. This means taking certain steps in game terms to mimic what you want to see happen.

That is a "weight advantage" from TG. Hands-free parries are part of both TG and MA, and an important part of leveraging the CP from an arm lock. So is exploiting relative position - this is given a drive-by mention on p. 18.

This is probably realistic unless you slide around to the guy's side or rear arc. If a fighter just stands there in the front hexes, he's going to get kicked or punched.

But if you're doing a grabbing parry, you get two chances back-to-back. You parry and secure a few control points - usually not many. But then it's your turn, and you get the opportunity to attack into an already-established grapple with a Lock. That lock:

* Is usually bought up, since of course you buy up Arm Lock. If you buy it up to Skill+4, you'll also benefit from an extra point of Trained ST regardless of your chosen skill, since all skills get +1 to Trained ST at DX+4 (Wrestling gets +3!), and if you were already high in skill, you get another +1 for each 3 points of relative skill.

* You suffer no hit location penalties, because you've already grappled that location. So one of the biggest sinks of skill (overcoming location penalties, even though they're usually halved for grapples), is not operating against you.

* You are attacking, and so can and should leverage change position to slide into the side arc (rear if you can). If this is successful, they defend against your lock at a further -2. Attacking into your side arc (for the bad guy) is at -5 AND skill is capped at 9: it's considered a Wild Swing. So you're at -5 to DX to punch, -7 to DX to kick, and both skills are capped at 9. You can also spend CP to reduce his skill roll even further, or boost your own defenses.

* Attack to gain extra CP, which impact the guy's actions next turn.

* If you're much more skilled than the other guy, you should leverage the Riposte option (MA pp. 124-125) to make it even harder for your foe to resist your follow-on arm lock on your turn.

Overall, if the sequence for a prospective joint lock is "I grabbing parry, stay in front of my foe, arm lock, still stay in front of my foe, wait for his attack, arm lock again STILL staying in front of my foe, etc." then the fighter is not exploiting all of their options.

The key one to not getting biffed by the other guy is achieving the side arc. This is - perhaps usefully - subsumed into many things in non-TG GURPS, but it's available, and really important to avoid the kind of counter attack you're describing. Making your foe's attacks at -5/Wild Swing is a big deal.

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

...or -5 to punch, -7 (including the -2 to DX from a kick) to kick if you slide into the side arc. :-)

If your foe is capable enough to perform a telegraphic rapid strike, then you're in an MMA type situation where the skill levels are equal. In that case, you see a lot of striking, full-body grapples, and only then are you following that up with ground-level locks that leverage weight advantage, relative position, and (frequently) beating the holy heck out of the other guy, taking advantage of shock.

If they think that - and no denying it's awesome - then to enable this you need to turn on the cinematic switches. Because these partners - and stunt men are partners - throw telegraphic all-out attacks, which are merrily parried by the hero, and then freakin' stand there as hero does Cool Martial Arts Stuff to them.

I am not trying to be dismissive of the skill of the primary actors or their stunt-man partners. I know a few of these guys and they're amazing. But those movies are designed to show off intricate skills through careful choreography, and Real Life is messier than that. You've trained: you know this!



But it works great if the bad guy only AoA's, which is what most of the movies represent. Shock penalties impact their ability to strike successfully, and my read of many of those scenes (including most of Black Widow's supposedly expert opposition in the scene in Iron Man 2) is "stunt man AoAs and stands there as Hero beats 'em up."

I think all of those movies, though, have Cranking it Up on.

The other thing that is worth considering here is the exploitation and training in combinations or, even better, Extra Attack. That allows you to (say) apply an arm lock AND apply pain each turn, which imparts stacking penalties from -2 for Moderate Pain to -6 for Severe...and of course if you manage to score Agony they're done.

My experience is that Extra Attack is 100% worth it for grapplers who can afford it (and cinema heroes can), because it turns a lot of the moves that usually have to be trained as Rapid Strikes (arm-lock/attack is a big one) or on sequential turns and turns them into one-move things.

My more hands-on training does suggest that applying an arm lock and pain in one move is the most common thing - the position for most joint locks (as opposed to "simple" holds that immobilize limbs without reaching the limits of movement) puts the joint in a position of near-zero leverage and usually very much non-zero discomfort. Moving the "apply pain as a free action" to the same turn as the Arm Lock attack rather than the following turn should fix up the issue you see with "and now I have to wait for my foe."

The requirement to spend CP to apply pain is something that I did away with in Fantastic Dungeon Grappling, and it's something I'd do away with in a notional TG 2nd Edition too. That mechanic "makes sense" from a game perspective but for things like strangles and locks, never feels right in play.

My own experience is that a lot of the "formal" joint locks only work when your foe is surprised at your resistance. Being grabbed at a bar or a table was my own example, where someone got mad and grabbed my shirt, reaching directly to his left. It was a perfect setup for a C-Lock (and why I always insist grapples are mutual!) and so I just grabbed his hand as I stood up and turned, which moved him into "locked" position. Stepping away, he was then forced backwards, tipping his chair over and him with it. No harm to anyone other than that. But it was not something I feel I could have done had he tried that as a quick shot rather than "I will grab you and be intimidating, rah!"

In actual sports grappling, I see a lot more "big moves" in terms of using the entire body rather than the sort of "I have you at arm's length with a finger lock" precision manipulation.

Regardless: if you want cinematic fights you do have to employ cinematic switches, let your guys buy Extra Attack so they can do a lot of "combo" moves without a rapid strike, or really leverage that side and rear arc Change Position maneuver...which you can combine with any other Maneuver that allows a step. As Arm Lock is an attack, you can Change Position-Arm Lock in one move. That should take the wind out of their sails!

I'll admit most of the games I have run use the shorter "Fantastic Dungeon Grappling" rules, which take a lot of the fiddle out of the sequences, and make some improvements in speed of play. Exxar has a great post extrapolating almost all (all?) of the techniques listed in MA:TG to the FDG ruleset.

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

I probably should have been more clear, but I'm talking about standing grappling, and using locks to force a standing opponent to turn his kicking leg into his load bearing leg. You can't kick with a leg that is bearing more than 50% of your body weight. Again, that may be below the resolution of GURPS rules, but is a key component to not getting kicked while in a standing grapple. I've learned this the hard way as a handful of the people I train with have TKD backgrounds and will kick the living **** out of you instinctively, even when you have them in a standing joint lock, if you don't force their body weight over whichever leg it makes the most sense for them to kick you with.

They are, but TG makes it pretty explicit that you can't use Hands Free parries against strikes...only against grapple attacks.

Again, in my experience, at least when a joint lock is involved, you can totally use the locked limb to short-circuit striking attempts by your foe. It hasn't come up in the games I run, but if it did, I would allow a hands-free Judo/Wrestling/Sumo parry if you have a foe in a joint lock. If it's just a simple grapple, that might be a harder sell, though.



THAT is what I was missing. I was getting the penalty for defending attacks from the side/rear arc, but totally forgot about the -5 wild swing/skill cap 9! That's the missing piece! Not sure at all how I missed that, especially since I've been using relative facing and changing posture/position during a step from the beginning. Thanks for the refresher.

That was certainly it. Thanks for the rule reminder. It really was the missing piece for me.

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

That's still application of weight advantage in the TG terms; I don't believe it's precluded because of standing.

As far as I know, we specified grappling attacks because so does the box on p. 122 of Martial Arts, with the emphasis in the original:

So it's grappling in TG because it's grappling in MA (this was a cursory search, though - I have to run and get my kids to school).


For me, this is best represented by *spending control points* to interfere with a foe's attack. That's always allowed, IIRC. We use pain compliance from a joint lock to keep foes off balance so they can't kick or punch as well, usually by walking them around.

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

Now it's my turn to split my response up into two posts.

Hmmm, I hadn't thought of if that way. A telegraphic rapid-strike nets out to -2...a guy with 13 Brawling would be throwing both punches at skill-11. Maybe that's more of a trained fighter than I was thinking of, but I normally don't equate Telegraphic Attacks with trained fighters. Usually I have untrained foes, or barely trained brawlers throw telegraphic attacks. Most trained characters stay away from them, outside of answering All Out Attacks. But I will certainly have to chew on that.


Yeah, I am well aware that film fight choreography is generally several orders of magnitude different that actual fighting, which is quicker, messier, and far less one-sided. But I don't think it's unreasonable for people, especially those that don't have any fighting or combatives training to expect that their trained paper man can pull off at least some of the stuff you see on screen. In fact, I would expect that most of said people make such characters EXPLICITLY because of what they have witnessed in media and wish to reproduce it at the gaming table.

And I totally get that there are some requirements to make this sort expectation materialize at the table, some of which include:
-PCs with relatively high point values, likely investing in Judo, Karate, AND Wrestling
-PCs with advantages like Extra Attack 1 (almost a pre-req), Enhanced Parry, High Pain Threshold for ignoring shock, etc.
-Mook foe that generally lead with All Out Attacks, so they can't defend against that PC's follow up attacks
-For Technical Grappling, switches like Cranking it up or Quick and Dirty (I prefer Quick and Dirty)
And a host of others.

It's part of the GMs job to level-set the PCs, and make sure they understand that their 100 point modern character that is a yellow-belt in Krav Maga isn't going to fight like Rama or Jason Bourne.

But with those switches turned on and with the appropriate skills/advantages/mook behavior, I EXPECT my 250 point Action Hero Martial Artist to be able to do EXACTLY that. That's why it bothers me when you still can't duplicate that stuff.


So your "Technical Natasha" article is actually what led me to pick up a copy of Technical Grappling, and I've been all in on it since then.

One thing I did want to mention from RL regarding this, though, is timing and flow are critically important in landing techniques, and there are ways string together techniques in a manner that prevents or reduces the chance of a counter attack. And those ways don't necessarily involve landing a stunning hit so your foes has to take a DO NOTHING maneuver on his turn, nor do they require a willing stunt-man who will just stand there and take hits.

The only solution I've found to this in the GURPS rules structure so far is try and compress things to a single turn when really they should take 2 - 3 seconds of time. While that may not be realistic in terms of time-scale to execute, it's one of the few ways make stuff work. As it stands now, you need one or more of the following:

-Extra Attack (REALLY expensive, not always allowed)
-AoA Double (Generally a bad idea, especially if there are multiple bag guys)
-Rapid Strike (HEFTY penalty, need really high skill to overcome)
-Bought up Combinations (better than plain RS, but gets really expensive for more than one Combo

And of course that doesn't count any of the supernatural stuff like ATR.

Some techniques really do have to be strung together, you should be able to build a character in GURPS who can do this effectively without having to spend 200 characters on JUST unarmed competency.

Check out https://youtu.be/EElqjVt2joY?t=79 this series of techniques moves for what I am talking about. Granted, this is a demo and not something being done under duress, and the uke here is not really resisting or trying to counter, but it's about 4 seconds of techniques where the uke really only gets one or two opportunities to counter attack at best. You do see exploitation of relative position, and possible vitals striking that might result in stunning. But regardless, a well trained PC with appropriate levels of skill should be able to pull something like this off, but shouldn't need 100 points of unarmed combat skills/advantages/techniques to do it.

Incidentally, look up the rest of Maul's videos. He has some really cool stuff, and there is a lot of cross pollination between his Silat and the Modern Arnis stuff that I train in. I especially like his Axe/Tomahawk stuff.

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

Maybe. Any reason why you feel that Cranking it Up provides a more cinematic feel than Quick and Dirty?

Double CP sounds awesome, but the die roll is pretty variable, are you are likely to get **** for CP with a low roll, even with that switch in place. Q&D means that you will always get some CP, even on relatively low ST characters. If my guy has Trained ST 11 (1d-1 CP) and we are using CiU and I roll a 1 for CP that is still 0 CP. If I roll a 2, then I net out at 2 CP. With Q&D, I'm always getting 5 CP. Less variation, but I never get punished for a bad CP roll.


This is interesting to me. I went back and re-read the "Inflicting more pain with locks" section in TG to make sure I was understanding it correctly. I was not aware that you could STACK pain penalties. My assumption was that if your MoS in the QC = Severe Pain on turn 1, then you rolled another QC on turn 2 and got Moderate pain, then your foe on turn 2 is only under the moderate pain penalties. I always thought you had to hit MoV 10+ in a single quick contest to inflict Agony, and that it only lasted until your next turn.

Granted, if you have to SPEND CP each turn to do this, you are going to eventually run out and lose the lock/grapple. That's not how it works IRL in my experience, but it makes sense from a game mechanics perspective.

Yeah, I came to the same exact conclusion. Especially if you want to lock/throw in one turn, which is my experience in how it tends to work IRL, especially with wrist locks, which we use almost exclusively to throw people.

I would go so far as considering a throw from a lock is something you can also do in the same turn that you apply the lock. Timing wise, that makes it happen way faster than IRL, but game flow wise, it makes the most sense as the lock/throw happens in one smooth motion.

Agreed. Also, this made me go and pick up FDG from DriveThruRPG yesterday. I am really digging the rules in there. GREAT supplement.

Mine too, though I would add that standing joint locks are a lot easier to achieve on a non-surprised opponent if you lead in with distracting strikes first. If a guy grabs you by the wrist and is focusing on your wrist, getting him into a joint lock is really hard. But if you slam the instep of your foot against his shin FIRST, then the lock becomes pretty easy.

I suppose that sorta counts as "surprise" too. My point is that locking someone who is focusing on the joint your are trying to lock is probably going to prevent you from doing so. Getting him to think about something else first significantly increases your chance of success.

Incidentally, this applies to weapon disarms as well, and all of our disarms are preceded by strikes, feeds, or some other distraction to keep the guy from focusing on the weapon you are trying to take away from him.

{quote=DouglasCole]
In actual sports grappling, I see a lot more "big moves" in terms of using the entire body rather than the sort of "I have you at arm's length with a finger lock" precision manipulation.

Regardless: if you want cinematic fights you do have to employ cinematic switches, let your guys buy Extra Attack so they can do a lot of "combo" moves without a rapid strike, or really leverage that side and rear arc Change Position maneuver...which you can combine with any other Maneuver that allows a step. As Arm Lock is an attack, you can Change Position-Arm Lock in one move. That should take the wind out of their sails!

I'll admit most of the games I have run use the shorter "Fantastic Dungeon Grappling" rules, which take a lot of the fiddle out of the sequences, and make some improvements in speed of play. Exxar has a great post extrapolating almost all (all?) of the techniques listed in MA:TG to the FDG ruleset.[/QUOTE]

I like what I've read so far in FDG, and once I've had some more time to digest it and make sure it covers all of the bases from TG that are important to me, I'll likely it up making it my defacto ruleset for Grappling in GURPS.

Thanks again for your feedback. You've filled some gaps, applied some perspective, and given me lots of food for thought. I really appreciate it.

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

Yah, sorry. I took a shortcut here. I meant the DX/ST penalties from your CP from the grapple stack with pain penalties from the lock. That can get bad, fast. Especially in a cinematic-switched fight.

We struggled with this during (and after) writing and playtest. Spending CP for continuous-pressure techniques like locks and chokes has never really felt right, and Peter and I used to spend some casual time brainstorming over how to make it better. I obviously decided, even then, "one rule to ring them all" so that the "spend CP for effect" was a universal concept...but no question this is a case where it squeaks around the edges.

One concept we came up with was instead of spending CP, you "risk" them. You ante up (just as you'd spend them) to set the maximum effect of the technique, then make an attack roll. If you succeed, woo hoo, nothing lost (but you also don't get more CP), and the technique works as you intended.

If you fail the roll, you lose the CP.

Fantastic Dungeon Grappling does some of this; it was written with 15 years of experience of at-the-table play.

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

If you've gone all-in on TG but like some of the tweaks in FDG: Read this post by The Chaotic GM.

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

The ones in the demo before the title card (first 3 minutes of the video) are gloriously efficient.

Most of those are (mildly to very) representable.

most lead off with a grappling parry (which parries and retains mild control of the punching limb), followed immediately by a strike. GURPS doesn't always represent the openings inherent to attacking fully, but I'd consider Riposte for this, though the restriction on the effect to "Dodge only" found on pp. 124-125 of MA is not great.

I'd probably wind up treating these as "setup attacks" but off of a parry. Every -1 to Parry is -1 to your foe's defense, declared ahead of time (in effect, this is the Setup Attack version of Riposte, but without the special cases).

So the instructor is doing a Setup-Parry with a grappling parry, making an immediate strike into the opening on his turn.

Now, GURPS doesn't penalize active defenses after a shock penalty...but it probably should for "Harsh Realism." Four points of damage would be an extra -2 to Parry and -1 to Dodge...which is why you throw that strike in there to begin with, in most cases.

That shoulder strike to what we call a gooseneck - a wrist compression - is going to be rough to model in GURPS.

There are a few moves in there that are "destabilizing" sweeps that generally lead to Takedowns...though some of them just effectively so imbalancing that even though the guy is still on his feet, he might as well have fallen down; something that is the effect of "Stun" (so Do Nothing, -4 to Defend) but requires a DX roll to recover would be interesting to represent those.

Such a move as an Action After a Grapple would go a long way to represent some of the "I have all the time in the world" stuff you see in these demonstrations, and what you see in the real world when these things work.

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

You know, you may be right about this. I've always used Cranking it Up to model "movie reality," but when I've played with TG/FDG, there are a few things I've found:

1) Folks who want to grapple in their games optimize for it. The best/worst offender is the 250-point Wrestler, Lisbet, in the Hall of Judgment sample characters. She's got Wrestling Master, copious Lifting ST, and throws down at Lifting ST 28 when grappling, and 3d+5 control points on a successful attack.

This is a case where the player has paid nearly 250 points to grapple to death any ONE foe they face (they suffer in groups, much like an anti-Fezzik).

So folks who have used grappling to grapple really, really grapple the heck out of the bad guys.

2) I've mostly focused on the double CP because it has always in my mind been associated with an eliminated Max CP cap (per p. 6), and also because I like the die rolling. But you're right - in movies, these grapples ALWAYS work, unless the director is making a point of how awesome the foe is, such as when Bourne fights an equal, and they're very effective quickly. Quick-and-Dirty does that quite well.

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

Sorry for parsing out your (and my) long posts into bits, but I don't want to lose the many points made.

We liked to end up with the throw in Hwa Rang Do as well, though not always. I note that for this one, I actually went in to the dojang with some friends who were also training with me...and we brought a stopwatch.

My conclusion was that not only was the "on your next turn" realistic, that in many cases, it takes a full second for the other guy to LAND.

Try it - I think you'll be surprised at how long some of the techniques actually take. Or maybe not! I was, though.

I note that in a way, Fantastic Dungeon Grappling does this better: you can spend CP doing more or less anything to Injure the Foe, and you can definitely do this during a Takedown. So if you want a one-step "throw-from-lock," just do a Takedown while spending your CP to inflict damage. Subsume any "and I crank his arm/shoulder/neck in the process" into a penalty on the Quick Contest for the Takedown. You'll note Locks are a special case in FDG on p. 8, used for Pain...ALL the other joint locks that cause damage are subsumed into Injure the Foe.

One other thing to consider here might be Dual-Weapon Attack. It's less penalized than Rapid Strike, less expensive than Extra Attack, carries the built-in penalty to defend (which is why you do a lot of these techniques simultaneously), and with a Special Training perk, or in a cinematic world, the DWA penalty can be bought off.

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

Ahhh, I'm tracking. Thanks for the clarification.

I really like the gamble idea. I might try that out in the name game I run and let you know how feels/works out.

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

Okay...I should have been more thorough. I went back and re-read the entire Weight and Grappling section.

I'm not sure that I have this right, so I'm going to work through it on this post and you let me know if it makes sense.

Combatants are PC and NPC. Both have ST 11 and weigh 160 lbs, giving them both a BL of 24.

PC has established a 4 CP grapple on NPC's torso, giving NPC a -2 to ST/DX, giving him an effective ST of 9. PC also succeeded last turn on a Change Posture maneuver to establish a weight advantage over NPC.

It's NPC's Turn and he wants to try and Kick PC. Checking the table in TG, NPC (with effective ST 9 and effective BL 16) has a Grappling Encumbrance Multiple of 10 (160lbs / BL 16), giving him a -7 to any mass-based moves and a -1 to Dodge or to attack/parry with Judo, Karate, fencing skills.

This gives NPC a net of Karate -5 (-2 for kicking, -2 for DX penalty from the grapple, -1 for PC having a weight advantage).

My takeaways from all of that (assuming I got the sequence right) are...

• Establishing a weight advantage will significantly impact a foe's ability to execute grappling moves, but will have a relatively small impact (if at all) to striking.
• Brawling doesn't suffer the Encumbrance Penalty from being on the wrong side of a weight advantage, so the brawler can kick with impunity.
• Without having a significant ST AND Weight advantage over your foe, it just doesn't seem like establishing a weight advantage really has that much influence on weather or not someone you have grappled can kick you.

Again, entirely likely I am missing something key here, but the results just don't even come close to what I have experienced IRL.

Was there a conscious effort to NOT allow hands-free parries to be used against striking attacks, or was it the simple case of just following the text in a previous book?

If you were to do a TG 2.0 book, would you explicitly allow a Grapple to perform a hands-free parry vs a strike from a foe that he was grappling? Would your answer change if it's a lock instead of a simple grapple?


Essentially, I think what you and I do in our RL training is the same thing...or at least has the same net effect. A guy faced with walking or falling will generally choose to walk...and will likely not even choose but do it on instinct. And a guy who is walking is generally too busy with his legs to throw a kick.

In our case, it's just making a foe weight a single leg, but it all nets out to "foe CAN'T attempt a kick without falling down".

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

Maul is certainly "gloriously efficient", if anything.


Excellent analysis. I'm for sure going to chew on "shock penalizing defenses". It makes sense to me, and really encourages open strikes to enable later grapples/locks.

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

Yeah, when you are looking at 3d+5 base CP, or really anything in realm of Trained ST >= 19, I think it really starts to favor x2 CP.

Agreed. I think it also makes a BIG difference when you are dealing with Trained ST scores closer to human norms, like 10 - 16 because having a Trained ST of 13 and rolling 1d and doubling the result is a lot more swingy than always getting 6 CP on a two-handed grab.

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

Bah. I forgot Grappling Encumbrance is for, well, grappling. I figured it was the equivalent of forcing someone to suffer a "lying down" penalty or something . . . effectively a disadvantaged form of posture.

I will admit to being a bit two-minded on this. Where there was a clear rule that didn't interfere with the mission of the book to spread the joy of control points far and wide, RPK and I let it stand. This is why originally, grapples impacted defenses like Dodge on a 1:1 basis by DX penalty. So -4 to DX was -4 to Dodge. Then we both realized at the same time that the traditional DX/Parry or Block/Dodge was -4/-2/-1 . . . and did we really want to undo that? We decided no.

Same thing here. The emphasis on grappling in TG was really to call attention to the box's emphasis in MA.

I'm of two minds here: on the one hand, squirming to avoid a grapple and squirming to avoid a punch aren't that different. On the other, both of these things really are best represented by spending control points to interfere with the other person - it's an active manipulation. You don't have something like that in Martial Arts because CP don't exist in that context, and in most cases, the philosophy seems to be "grappling skills counter grapples, striking skills counter strikes." That's not universal, but there's an undercurrent.

I suppose, in both cases, you could say "spend 1 CP and then parry normally," so that you give up something but then you have enabled the hands-free defense. Or "so long as you spend at least 1 CP, you can use a hands-free parry against any attack vs someone you've grappled."

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

I like the approach of doubling the trained ST when looking at what Thrust should be, it deals better with low ST (1d6-6 and so on) for avoiding the problem of zeros compared to doubling the outcome of the standard thrust dice (same problem exists with shoving)

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

That does get rid of the zeros, but it feels like it make it TOO easy/fast to accumulate CP.

So given a Trained ST 11 and the following options you get:

BASE SYSTEM
CP = 1d-1 (avg 2.5)

QUICK AND DIRTY
CP = 5 (11/2 round down)

CRANKING IT UP
CP = (1d-1)*2, avg roll 4 - 6

DOUBLE TRAINED ST
CP = 2d (for trained ST 22), avg roll 7

Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules
 

I like it being high because then you actually can eat up stuff like a Defensive Attack penalty of -2 to thrust and still have decent odds of getting some.