Dungeon Fantasy Grappling
 

I was reading about grappling and came across this.

Unarmed Grappling Attack. Roll against DX or a
grappling skill—Judo, Sumo Wrestling, or Wrestling—
to hit and establish or develop a grapple.

If I have no grappling skill and a 13 DX. Would I roll at a DEFAULT of Wrestling -2 or whatever? It seems to say that I choose either a SKILL roll or a DX roll. The skill roll would be the wrestling-2 or whatever the default is.

So how does having no training in wrestling let me wrestle better than someone who has spent 1 point in it for example?

Because if I spend 1 point on Wrestling it would still be lower than my natural DX roll, right? Those kinds of rules never made sense to me. Shouldn't I take the same default penalty to my DX roll that I would take to a skill roll at Default? Why do I get to use base DX??

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Grappling
 

https://gamingballistic.com/2015/09/...point-in-judo/

This is an old post I did for Judo, but the format (and the analogous what can and can't you do? for Wresting) should carry over.

Kromm laid down the format, so I tried to do the same thing for Judo. This is bascially a find/replace of Judo for Karate, since they mostly have the same rules.

Remember to use the higher of DX or skill. Going by the Basic Set alone, doing all the math to express things relative to DX (drop fractions at the very end!), and putting the benefits of Judo in boldface, the real progression is this:

• 0 points (DX only): Grapple (including takedowns and other DX defaults) at DX; grapple with the legs at DX-2; break free at DX, armed enemies who parry your unarmed grapples attack your limb at full skill; parry unarmed attacks at DX/2 + 3, or DX/2 + 4 if retreating; you maynot use hands-free parries to parry grapples; parry weapons at DX/2, or DX/2 + 1 if retreating; cannot attempt Judo Throw, Arm Lock, Choke Hold, or Finger Lock.
• 1 point (Judo at DX-2): Grapple (including takedowns and other DX defaults) at DX; grapple with the legs at DX-2; break free at DX, armed enemies who parry your unarmed grapples attack your limb at skill-4; parry unarmed attacks at DX/2 + 3 (DX/2 + 2 if using Judo to set up a throw), or DX/2 + 5 if retreating; you may use hands-free parries to parry grapples at DX/2 + 2; parry weapons at DX/2 + 2, or DX/2 + 5 if retreating; following a Judo parry, can attempt Judo Throw (DX-2) , Arm Lock (DX-2), Choke Hold (DX-4), or Finger Lock (DX-5).
• 2 points (Judo at DX-1): Grapple (including takedowns and other DX defaults) at DX; grapple with the legs at DX-2; break free at DX; armed enemies who parry your unarmed grapples attack your limb at skill-4; parry unarmed attacks at DX/2 + 3 (DX/2 + 2.5 if using Judo to set up a throw), or DX/2 + 5.5 if retreating; you may use hands-free parries to parry grapples at DX/2 +2.5; parry weapons at DX/2+2.5, or DX/2 + 5.5 if retreating; following a Judo parry, can attempt Judo Throw (DX-1) , Arm Lock (DX-1), Choke Hold (DX-3), or Finger Lock (DX-4).
• 4 points (Judo at DX): Grapple (including takedowns and other DX defaults) at DX; grapple with the legs at DX-2; break free at DX; armed enemies who parry your unarmed grapples attack your limb at skill-4; parried unarmed attacks automatically set up throws at DX/2 + 3, or DX/2 + 6 if retreating; you may use hands-free parries to parry grapples at DX/2 + 3; parry weapons at DX/2+3, or DX/2 + 6 if retreating; following a Judo parry, can attempt Judo Throw (DX) , Arm Lock (DX), Choke Hold (DX-2), or Finger Lock (DX-3).
• 8 points (Judo at DX+1): Grapple (including takedowns and other DX defaults) at DX+1; grapple with the legs at DX-1; break free at DX+1, armed enemies who parry your unarmed grapples attack your limb at skill-4; parry unarmed attacks automatically set up throws at DX/2 + 3.5, or DX/2 + 6.5 if retreating; you may use hands-free parries to parry grapples at DX/2 + 3.5; parry weapons atDX/2+3.5, or DX/2 + 6.5 if retreating; following a Judo parry, can attempt Judo Throw (DX+1) , Arm Lock (DX+1), Choke Hold (DX-1), or Finger Lock (DX-2).

Adding in the Martial Arts rules gives you a bunch more techniques (some of which default to untrained DX). If using Technical Grappling, Judo doesn’t start to “pay off” in the form of extra Trained ST until you reach DX+4 (+0.5 extra Control Points per roll).

Parting Shot
A point in Judo goes one important thing right off the bat – it enables Judo Throw following a parry using Judo. Now, in order to make it work, you’ll need to invest. I had a character with Axe/Mace-18 and the Perk Judo Throw defaults to Axe/Mace and could not get Judo Throws to work reliably in combat, so it’s not a slam dunk. But Judo Parry sets up both throws and locks that you must invest in a grappling skill in order to take advantage of.

Once you get 4 points in, anything you can do with DX you can do with Judo instead.

That’s the key breakpoint. At 8 points, anything you do with DX you do better with Judo if there’s an option.

For Wrestling, you won't get the Judo Throw or the ability to parry weapons without risking dismemberment/injury, but you will get bonuses to ST at DX+1 and DX+2 when you wrestle for Contests of ST.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Grappling
 

The brief answer: Always use the roll that's best for you. If your grappling skill is at less than DX, use DX. You don't become worse for learning a skill . . . you're never obliged to roll vs. your skill level to grapple, and probably won't want to do so until your skill surpasses your DX.

Which said, it's still worth learning a grappling skill for the tricks it offers.

Adventurers, p. 92: Want to throw people around? You need to attack with Judo. No amount of DX alone permits this move.

Exploits, p. 39: Want to escape from a garrote? Well, Judo or Wrestling at -3 is often better than ST at -5 . . . even if you know the skill at only DX-1 or DX-2, you'll be using DX at -4 or -5, which is almost certainly better that ST at -5 for a high-DX, low-ST character.

Exploits, p. 40: Want to avoid losing an arm when an enemy parries your grapple with a weapon? Attack with Judo instead of DX. Your enemy now rolls at -4 to injure your limb. That's probably worth rolling at less than DX.

Exploits, p. 49: Want to parry weapons barehanded? Parry with Judo, not DX. That avoids -3 to Parry. Even with Judo at DX-2, your Parry will be two levels higher than with DX. (And you get +3, not +1, if you retreat.)

Clearly, Judo is best and the other two aren't as useful. If the GM adds in moves from GURPS, though, they generally don't default to DX. You need skill.

But there's no promise that spending points on anything will make you good at low levels. This is why all templates offer enough points to raise skills to levels where they're useful.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Grappling
 

I'll note in passing that the typical builds using Fantastic Dungeon Grappling involve just enough Judo to get you into the realm of not getting filleted by others' weapons, and then focusing on Wrestling because of the ST and per-die bonuses to Control Points that Wrestling enables quickly. You get +2 per die to Control Point damage at DX+4 for Wrestling, but (specifically to balance out the Judo is best thing) that requires DX+10 for Judo.

For strong characters who intend to lock down a single foe with grappling, Wrestling has been the huckleberry for a while.

Sumo is the odd skill out, though I've seen it used to great effect combined with weapons to shove folks to optimum cuisinart range so that your long weapon is maximally useful, and you can deny the ability of foes to force you to use close combat.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Grappling
 

Mostly a badly named skill we should've called Slamtastic or something . . .

People would find it more fun, I think, if we just let slams made with it be even less risky. Say, you always get a skill roll not to fall down, no matter what you slam or how badly you mess up; your slams (and shoves!) count as armed attacks for the purpose of enemy parries; and your slams (and shoves!) use ST-based skill where better than ST. So, slam maniacs could just run at spearmen, at worst get parried (not stabbed or knocked down), and almost certainly flatten what they hit. It isn't as if it would be any more overpowered than anything else.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Grappling
 

You've seen shoves actually be useful? I'm impressed.

Sumo is pretty awesome as slams are sweet, but weapon masters slamming with shields are even more sweet

If you don't have a shield:

1. You have a bow - you don't need to slam you shoot bow
2 - you are a wimp - slamming is a bad idea
3 - you are a brawny meatball with a 2 hander - slam is ideal to close the range!

In a game where meteoric arrows are uncommon and missile shield is common it's great for archers!

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Grappling
 

They're wonderful in fights where one step to either side is a pit of death, so you don't want to risk a slam that could miss or make you fall down, and end up in the pit. But the other guy is able to eat your damage. So, shove him down the pit and let it do the damage.

Maybe you had to be there.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Grappling
 

Don't tell Brunhilde.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Grappling
 

The trouble is that shoving is based on your thrust damage vs. enemy ST. In order to move a ST 12 enemy even one hex away from you, you need to roll at least 5 damage on (thr -1 per die), which means you need ST 17+ if you want your shove to be even halfway reliable. (1d+1 will be 5+ half the time.)

Basically, if you're strong enough to shove someone, you're strong enough to penetrate any armor they could reasonably be wearing, especially if you choose a swing weapon.

Also DFRPG doesn't come with rules for shoving someone sideways into the Pit of Death instead of directly away. It should be harder, maybe infeasible, unless you're much stronger than they are. That doesn't mean shoving people into the Pit of Death has to be infeasible but probably not while you're standing on a narrow ledge where one step to either side is death.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Grappling
 

Sumo Wrestling at DX+2 makes this thr +1/die

There are certainly cases where being able to do enough damage to shove the enemy doesn't mean you can penetrate armor. A golem armor swordsman has ST 13 and DR 17. That's 11 points of knockback (so 6+ on a Shove) versus 18 points of damage to penetrate (and of course a shove may be much more tactically valuable than inflicting a minor amount of damage).

For knockback, "away from you" includes all three of your forward hex facings since in any of those cases the target is farther from you than they started. So you should be able to push them off at an angle.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Grappling
 

You're looking at a Close Combat shove, I believe sjmdw45 is talking about weapon shoves at Reach 1+

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Grappling
 

No, I just meant the basic Exploits pg 39 shove, which is unarmed per pg 38.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Grappling
 

Which is what I'm talking about too.