[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Kallatari

I therefore had the rescuer "grapple" the victim, and roll for CP to see how well the rescuer was holding onto the victim... and this likewise penalized the victim's abilities to continue to attack the spiders while both being pulled and stuck to the web.

This seems logical, but I'd require a straight Grappling roll by the rescuer since the trapped character is thrashing around.

If you want to be really evil, possibly have the rescuer make a DX roll to avoid getting one or both of their hands stuck to the web or treat the results of a badly failed grapple as getting stuck.

Originally Posted by Kallatari

The above in-game scenario of course led me to thinking how would you game a tug-of-war with a person in the middle. For example, the two orcs warriors each want the princess as their prisoner, so they each grab and arm and try to pull her out of the arm of the other orc? What would be the mechanics? Would the princess suffer any injuries in the process? And how do you determine the level of injury?

The person in the middle could easily suffer severe damage if they are pulled in opposite directions by strong foes.

For example, I once tried to rescue a mouse from a cat's jaws. Unfortunately, the cat really wanted that mouse, so even with gentle pulling on my part we each temporarily ended up with half a mouse. (I was gracious in defeat, however, and gave my half to the cat.)

More seriously, people were historically executed by being torn apart by horses, ships, or bent saplings. People still suffer dislocated joints when they try to hold on to heavy falling or moving objects or as a result of being yanked around during domestic disputes.

I'll defer to Doug on a TG solution, but it's obvious that most of the force applied against an opposing grapple pulling the victim in the opposite direction also applies to the victim.

One possibility is to use a variation on the Slam rules to determine how much damage the victim suffers:

The victim must roll a Quick Contest of ST or HP, whichever is better, vs. the grapplers' combined ST.

Roll once when the force is applied and once per minute thereafter.

Failure means that they suffer the equivalent of Slam damage based on (Attackers' combined HP x combined Move in opposite directions)/100.

If attackers are essentially stationary, the victim just takes damage equal to (Attacker's Combined HP x 1)/100.

Double damage if victim rolls a Critical Failure or loses the Quick Contest by 10+.

If damage is less than 1d, treat fractions up to 0.25 as 1d-3, fractions up to 0.5 as 1d-2, and any larger fraction as 1d-1. Otherwise, round fractions of 0.5 or more up to a full die.

Damage is treated as whole body damage for Diffuse or Homogeneous victims. For other victims damage treat it as crushing damage applied to one or more grappled hit locations or to an adjacent joint.

Damage over time counts as a single injury to determine if a body part is Crippled, but not to determine if it is actually dismembered.

Special Cases

Dismemberment: As long as the victim is still alive or not completely destroyed all but the most fragile objects have DR for "structural integrity" equal to HT to avoid actual dismemberment, but not crippling damage to grappled limbs. HP damage to the grappled part subtracts from HT when determining effective DR to avoid being torn apart down to a minimum of 0.

Furthermore, as long as damage doesn't exceed effective DR for structural integrity, the victim can't take more than damage to a given body part than is required to Cripple it. Damage in excess of that needed to cripple that body part is applied to another grappled hit location instead. If there are no hit locations left uncrippled, excess damage is lost.

Living creatures which fail a HT roll to remain alive, or inanimate objects reduced to 0 HP or less, due to damage from being pulled apart can be assumed to be torn apart as they die.

Protective Gear: If the victim is wearing a Sealed suit of armor substitute its ST, HP, and HT. It's effective DR is that of the weakest part of the entire suit (typically the joints). The wearer is only at risk of injury once the armor fails.

Example 1:

ST 10 man vs. ST 3 cat with ST 1 mouse in the middle. The mouse automatically fails its ST roll vs. combined ST 13 by 10+.

Cat and human are more or less stationary, so mouse takes (10 + 3 x 1) /100 HP damage x 2, or .26, which is 1d-2 HP of damage. Since the cat previously did 1 HP of cutting damage to it, and takes 1+ points of damage from combined grapple attacks, the mouse is reduced to -HP x 2 or x3, fails a HT roll to survive, and is torn in half as it dies.

Example 2:

Two ST 21 horses vs. ST 10, HT 10 human victim tied to one horse by his leg, the other horse by his arm (there are two other horses pulling on the opposing arms and legs, but they are ignored for this example). The horses are straining against each other and have effective combined Move of just 1. The human rolls a 10 (success by 0) vs. a roll of 12 (success by 10+) by the horses so damage is doubled. He suffers (42 x 1)/100 x 2 = 0.84 points of damage. This is treated as 1d-1 HP of crushing damage to his arm. He takes 2 HP of damage, not enough to cripple or dismember it.

The horses continue to strain, however, so the victim must roll another Quick Contest every minute. Eventually he takes enough damage that both his arm and leg are crippled. Since he remains alive, however, he has effective DR 10 each turn to avoid having his limbs actually torn off takes only HP/2+1 damage to each crippled limb. This means that the horses are unlikely to actually tear him to pieces unless he suffers cutting damage to his limbs or dies. He could remain alive, but in agony, for hours, while the horses futilely tug on his limbs.

(This example was based on descriptions of the execution of the French regicide Robert-François Damiens.)

If each horse had been whipped to a gallop (Move 10) before the slack on the chains holding the victim's limbs was taken up, he would initially take ((21 x2) x (10 x 2)/100 x 2 = 8.2, rounded down to 8d damage. In addition to instantly crippling both limbs, the damage could easily exceed the victim's "structural integrity" DR of 10 (average damage 28 HP) to avoid actual dismemberment.

This explains why "wild horses" were used to perform such executions.

Example 3:

Two ST 11 orc vs. ST 9, HT 11 princess. Each orc has grappled an arm and are tugging in opposite directions making them effectively stationary.

For the first contest the princess rolls a 7 and the orcs roll a 12 (with combined ST 22). The princess loses the contest by 10+ and takes double damage. She suffers (22 x 1)/100 = .22 or 1d-3 HP of damage to one of her arms. She is unlikely to suffer HP damage, just minor bruising. If the orcs continue to struggle for a minute or more, she might eventually take enough damage to sprain or dislocate a shoulder or wrist, but never enough to tear her apart.

The same logic could be applied to grappling attacks against fixed inanimate objects, like a giant pulling a tree up by the roots, a superhero ripping a stop sign from its base, or just a human pulling a weed. In such cases, however, just use the attacker's ST and Move vs. the victim's ST and HT. Only massive damage in well in excess of the victim's HT will be sufficient to uproot it.