[MA] [TG] Berserk, Reistance, Pins and potential Errata

[Icelander]

Berserk characters aren't just vulnerable to eye pokes. In fact, anything that merely does damage is probably letting them down easy. Given that they're also subject to automatic Sweeps, Arm Locks, Judo Throws, Throws from Lock or any other nasty grappling-based fight ending move, taking them out is easy as pie.

Even if it would require two attacks to set up a fight ender, if he's utterly defenceless, it's so easy to just Rapid Telegraphic Strike, for a mere -2 to each attack.

[Kromm]

Up to a point that's true, but remember what Martial Arts says about these moves: "You still get a ST or HT roll to resist injury." The classic fantasy berserker has ST and HT to spare, and most moves use the better of the two scores. Given the average minotaur barbarian's ST 20, HT 16 before potential power-ups (like up to Lifting ST 3 for +3 to ST when grappling and Very Fit for +2 to HT rolls), I wouldn't want to count on choking, breaking limbs with grappling, etc. And just chucking him on the ground . . . I keep getting visions of the "dead" Terminator crawling for me, but with 100% more horns.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Up to a point that's true, but remember what Martial Arts says about these moves: "You still get a ST or HT roll to resist injury." The classic fantasy berserker has ST and HT to spare, and most moves use the better of the two scores. Given the average minotaur barbarian's ST 20, HT 16 before potential power-ups (like up to Lifting ST 3 for +3 to ST when grappling and Very Fit for +2 to HT rolls), I wouldn't want to count on choking, breaking limbs with grappling, etc. And just chucking him on the ground . . . I keep getting visions of the "dead" Terminator crawling for me, but with 100% more horns.

Huh.

I had always understood MA p. 114 to mean that the AoA character is pretty much finished.

Of the combat moves I mentioned, only Arm Lock allows an AoA character any kind of resistance roll. And that only protects from damage from the lock, it doesn't really help you get free or help you once you are prone, have suffered swing damage to the arm from Throws from Locks and are still in the lock.

If you Arm Lock and Throw from Lock against an AoA character, what can he realistically do? You can move to the hex to the side of his legs, making it much more awkward for him to attack with anything and still allowing you to keep the lock. Or, if you used an AoA of your own, you can just use your half Move forward after throwing him to ensure that you're out of range when it's his turn again. Once he's done his All-Out Change Position*, you can move back in for some more mayhem he can in no way defend against.**

Since it takes him two turns to stand up and you can Sweep him in one attack and Throw from Lock in two attacks without any meaningful chance for resistance, you'll be able to keep him down infinitely and find something bad to do to him alongside all those Sweeps or Throws.

Never Wrench a Berskerker, of course. But there are plenty of ways to hurt him with grappling that doesn't allow a ST or HT roll at all.

I'm not totally convinced that some of these easy fight-ending locks are realistic. But the RAW, so far at least, allows them to be used.

Edit: Though I'm suddenly not sure whether I ever found out the official line on what happens if someone uses Rapid Strike or All-Out Attack (Double) with grappling. There are a lot of places in MA where it says 'in the turn after...', but I don't know to what degree this is meant as a check on too-fast grappling fight-enders. I thought I remembered PK or you saying that All-Out Attack (Double) Arm Lock + Throw from Lock was kosher, but I can't find any such thing. If it's not, obviously that extends the 'useful' life of the berserker by a whole second.

*Which is the only way Berserkers can change position, poor defenceless dears that they are.
**If he doesn't try to stand up, the RAW appears to allow you to Pin him without him being able to resist in any way. Just move in, and declare AoA(Double) or Rapid Strike, grapple his torso and then pin. All you need to do is succeed at two grappling rolls. He, in turn, gets no roll at all.

[Icelander]

As far as I can see, all of the following are RAW-legal responses to an AoA you survive:

If you parry an attack: Attack maneuver, Rapid Strike option. Telegraphic Arm Lock at Weapon or grappling skill-2 + Telegraphic Takedown at grappling skill-2.* Place the foe prone on the ground. If possible, use your Step to move to the hex occupied by his legs** while continuing to hold the lock. He can now attack you by kicking or with a wild swing from his free arm.
The battle is technically not over, but unless his AoA in response to this successfully gets him free, even despite your +9 to the QC and his -4, your next move is either AoA (Double) or just Rapid Strike; Grapple + Pin.

If you have a two-handed weapon (or Judo, Karate or Sumo Wrestling): Telegraphic Sweep, for automatic knockdown. Then either you or someone else can follow up with a Grapple + Pin. If you have enough skill, meaning Sweep at 12+ and grappling at 16 or so, you could even do all three in one turn: All-Out Attack (Double), one attack of which is a Rapid Strike. Telegraphic Sweep at Sweep+1 + Rapid Strike Telegraphic Grapple/Torso at skill-2 + Rapid Strike Telegraphic Pin at skill-2 (or -6 if we don't allow Telegraphic on other than 'to hit rolls).

If there are two or more of you: Rapid Strike Telegraphic Grapple + Rapid Strike Telegraphic Arm Lock. Each takes one arm. An alternative is simply a Telegraphic Disarm. Yeah, sure, some berserkers might have horns or just be real good at kicking, but at least they won't have weapons for more than one second of a fight against a group of thinking foes. And assuming that there are at least three or four foes, nothing prevents two of them from doing this while someone else is doing a Sweep and/or moving in for the grapple + pin.

It looks to me that within at most two seconds of starting a fight with a few human guards, goblin hunters or orc raiders, the berserker is going to be unable to use his weapons, lying prone and able to be pinned by any foe who can make an unopposed grappling skill roll.

The default counter to a berserker will, of course, be All-Out Defence with a spear held in a Defensive staff grip. You really don't want to be hit, after all. And then, if you do survive, you can Sweep. And if you parried, you may even Sweep + Arm Lock. And a prone berserker should automatically invite an All-Out Attack (Double) or Rapid Strike (depending on your skill) attempt to Grapple + Pin him. About the only thing that would not make you want to do that is if he has allies that are still fighting, in which case you had better deal with them first, just stopping every two turns to Sweep the berserker so he stays out of the battle.

*Even though the RAW never specifically forbids it, I think allowing Telegraphic to apply to all kinds of attacks, even Actions after a Grapple that count as attacks, is sometimes excessive. I'd disallow the Telegraphic bonus on anything that is not a roll 'to hit', such as Takedowns and other Actions after a Grapple. This would make the latter roll at skill-6.
**Prone SM 0 character occupy two hexes. You're still in Close Combat, you're just one hex away from his free arm. Even if this is not legal, it doesn't really matter, because you're still behind your foe and he's lying down and in a lock, which means that he can only perform kicks, Back Strikes, Elbow Strikes and Wild Swings at a further -8 anyway.

[Anthony]

Berserk is most useful to NPCs; when you have some animal with lots of ST and hit points, mediocre combat skills, and maybe things like nictating membrane or a really tiny brain (the brain is behind the human eye. When dealing with something with a walnut-sized brain, an eye poke is just an eye poke) there's really no downside to having it go berserk, other than how tedious it is.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Berserk is most useful to NPCs; when you have some animal with lots of ST and hit points, mediocre combat skills, and maybe things like nictating membrane or a really tiny brain (the brain is behind the human eye. When dealing with something with a walnut-sized brain, an eye poke is just an eye poke) there's really no downside to having it go berserk, other than how tedious it is.

Until Technical Grappling fixes it, there is no reason why Locking, Sweeping, Throwing, Grappling and Pinning doesn't work on huge monsters as well as on humans. As long as they are All-Out Attacking, no amount of ST or SM bonuses are going to help them. They just don't get any rolls to resist being thrown around and pinned.

Sure, if they lack arms, Arm Lock might be out, but unless they lack the standing posture, sweeping and throwing are still in. And once they are down, size is no barrier to a simple Rapid Strike Grapple + Pin. Just have to make your skill roll, no opposed roll or nothing.

[Fwibos]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

How do you avoid Telegraphic Eye Poke syndrome and such when berserk?

The only time I made a Berserker, it was in a 150/-75 point game. Multimillionaire 2, Gigantism, ST 18,Very Fine Double Plate and Helmet, VF Horsecutter, A SM+1 horsecutter, and a Targeted Attack (Horsecutter Swing/Neck).

Trademark move was an AoA(Long) to lop off heads at 5 yards. And his DR was somewhere around 11 ish.

Sooooo broken...

He died in a ambush. Didn't have his armor, and a trio of scrubs knifed him on the commission of another lord. I actually am really proud they worked together, rather than engage in Melee Ettiquette.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

As for pins not being resistible if you All-Out Attack: I think that doesn't reality check well, but it didn't come up in the playtest.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to say that the Regular Contest for a pin is, in fact, an effect roll (much like injury, or the quick contest for strangulation and neck snap), not a defense-like roll. Had this come up during the playtest, I'm sure we would have changed the wording to make it so.

So IMO (remember I'm a freelancer and co-author, not an SJG employee) you could amend the rule to takeout "pins" from the sentence about automatically losing a contest, and revise the line below to say "You get a ST roll to resist a pin, or a ST or HT roll to resist injury from strangling, Arm Lock, Neck Snap, Wrench Limb, etc."

I personally wouldn't apply the -2 to the contest for a Committed Attack, either, but if you like that, -2 for a CA, -4 for an AOA would parallel nicely, I think.

Reality checking would support this, I think - it's easy to take someone down if they aren't trying to stop you, but it's not easier to pin someone who is furiously fighting with no thought to defense. That would make it reasonable to do that multi-man rush against a crazed person in order to get them down - suddenly, you need all of them. It should be harder to hold down a berserker, even if it's easier to get them down. Plus this would match Sweep, where you still get your normal rolls, you just don't get much chance to stop the attacker from trying.

Doug can discuss what Technical Grappling does, since I know he's said it handles "pin" in an entirely different fashion than BASIC SET or MARTIAL ARTS.

[Kromm]

As Peter's coauthor on Martial Arts (and an official staff member, too!), I endorse his words. The spirit of the rule was to prevent people from doing All-Out Attacks against grapplers knowing that they could still evade the many grappling moves that rely on the Quick Contest mechanism instead of the attack roll-defense roll mechanic for their roll to "hit." The exception to allow ST and HT rolls was meant to cover all "saving throws" against all bad effects from grappling moves that had already "hit" by either mechanism . . . and where we called out injury from locks, we probably ought to have explicitly allowed all rolls to resist control (forced change of position, pin, etc.), injury, or affliction (choking or whatever). In short, read that as: "You can't use DX in Quick Contests vs. grappling moves."

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Toadkiller_Dog

I think it's perfectly reasonable to say that the Regular Contest for a pin is, in fact, an effect roll (much like injury, or the quick contest for strangulation and neck snap), not a defense-like roll. Had this come up during the playtest, I'm sure we would have changed the wording to make it so.[

Doug can discuss what Technical Grappling does, since I know he's said it handles "pin" in an entirely different fashion than BASIC SET or MARTIAL ARTS.

That's correct. We do away with both the flat penalty for being grappled as well as the magical "pin" that dooms you to ten seconds of uselessness.

Instead, you attack to both grapple and break free, and both use an effect roll to see how good your grapple is. To pin someone, you rack up so much effect that they can't roll (their effective skill is less than 3) to do anything.

TG still retains rolls vs. HT or ST (sometimes penalized) in cases where you're resisting injury or where ST is a stand in for mass.

That's the short version; obviously the new rules are a wee bit more detailed.