Power Grappling and 'grappling rolls'

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Balance isn't my issue. Timing is. Grappling contests are, in my opinion, anywhere from 5-50x too fast to resolve in terms of how long it should take two skilled competitors to achieve their goal.

That's simply a side effect of the lack of lulls. Realistically, neither fighter is attacking all-out during the entire grappling contest, no more than striking fighters are throwing punches constantly.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Icelander

That's simply a side effect of the lack of lulls. Realistically, neither fighter is attacking all-out during the entire grappling contest, no more than striking fighters are throwing punches constantly.

I disagree. You've said it yourself in previous posts. From Parry to Arm Lock(Grapple/Failed Defense) to Break Free (failed due to massive bonuses to the Locker) to Apply Damage and end of fight is usually three seconds (if A parries, A then Arm Lock Grapples, B then has to Break Free, A then applies damage...that's two seconds). There's no amount of lulls that will make this go on for the length of time it takes.

A decent grappler with skill 12 will succeed in moving in and grappling the torso probably about one time in four, when all is said and done (75% chance to grapple, about 50-75% chance to parry/retreating parry) Once this grapple succeeds, it's probably a matter of two more turns until the fight is over. one to take down or throw, and one more to Pin. After that, you get ten seconds of 'playtime' to turn the guy into a wet prune.

By this logic, a fight should be about four seconds to achieve the first grapple, and another two to four to finish it.

this has nothing to do with lulls, though I agree that there's an issue there...it's just the resolution of achieving control, what GURPS calls a Grapple (capital G, meaning 'you got him') is way too fast, by about an order of magnitude.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Icelander

But if one them chooses to apply an Arm Lock after a successful Parry, that carries no risk beyond any other attack and if he succeeds, he's won.

When I thought that the fighter applying it had a +4 bonus for the Quick Contest, that was fine. In going straight for a lock instead of grappling first, he had a slightly less chance of keeping hold, but as soon as the opponent failed to break free, his odds were as bad as if he had been grappled rapidly deterioated with every passing second.

A little caution here. The sequence goes:

A punches, B Wresting/Judo Parries; this allows him to...

B is allowed to use Arm Lock to attempt to grapple; apparently at no penalty for targeting the Arm; this can be defended against normally.

A then gets a chance to Break Free. It will almost certainly fail.

B then puts on the hurt, which will almost certainly succeed.


On the offense, you must first Grapple, then you can proceed with the above.


I had a house rule I'd proposed where in order to move from Parry to Arm Lock you had to make the Parry by 4 (the usual penalty for attacking the arm). This cut down the initial acquisition attempt success rate by a lot, since that penalty effectively ate up 8pts of skill.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

I had a house rule I'd proposed where in order to move from Parry to Arm Lock you had to make the Parry by 4 (the usual penalty for attacking the arm). This cut down the initial acquisition attempt success rate by a lot, since that penalty effectively ate up 8pts of skill.

The usual penalty for targeting the arm is -2, with a -1 if it is a grapple.

While I understand the desire to make Arm Locks harder to perform, I don't think that we need to have a higher hit location penalty here.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

I disagree. You've said it yourself in previous posts. From Parry to Arm Lock(Grapple/Failed Defense) to Break Free (failed due to massive bonuses to the Locker) to Apply Damage and end of fight is usually three seconds (if A parries, A then Arm Lock Grapples, B then has to Break Free, A then applies damage...that's two seconds). There's no amount of lulls that will make this go on for the length of time it takes.

Well, no. But assuming that something is off with Arm Locks, specifically, we don't observe this rapid cycle of one failed defence roll leading to inevitable defeat in grappling.

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

this has nothing to do with lulls, though I agree that there's an issue there...it's just the resolution of achieving control, what GURPS calls a Grapple (capital G, meaning 'you got him') is way too fast, by about an order of magnitude.

But just getting a normal grapple doesn't mean you've won. The other party has a decent chance of grappling you back, for one thing.

Or risk everything by making an attack that causes you pain and then breaking free in an AoA (Double).*

*Not recommended.

[Johnny Angel]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

......

By this logic, a fight should be about four seconds to achieve the first grapple, and another two to four to finish it.

this has nothing to do with lulls, though I agree that there's an issue there...it's just the resolution of achieving control, what GURPS calls a Grapple (capital G, meaning 'you got him') is way too fast, by about an order of magnitude.

Actually, to me, this sounds about right. 6-8 seconds for a skilled grappler to take down and control the average untrained joe sounds valid to me. An arterial choke will black most people out in around 3 seconds. I'm not sure if anyone else is familiar with the show Pros vs Joes, but I watched one in which the contestants had to see how long they could last against Randy Couture. They didn't make very far.

Against a skilled opponent, it will take considerably longer because they'll have better defenses, and you'll also have to worry about what grappling moves and locks they are attempting to put on you. This is part of the reason why professional fights (i.e. UFC) tend to last longer than a few seconds; both fighters typically have good grappling skill levels. When one of them doesn't, it ends quickly.

IMO, a second reason is that the rules of a professional fight take away some of the tools (i.e. small joint manipulation) which a fighter would have available in a fight to the death. Many moves which are taught to various militaries around the world are intended to quickly eliminate the opponent. You can see some of this when watching old UFC tapes from when UFC first started and the rules were virtually non-existant. I remember fights in which it was a valid tactic to grapple and then simply groin punch the opponent until he gave up or passed out.

[Dinadon]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

I will look in Martial Arts, but the text in basic (p. 371) under Break Free is very explicit: "If you are Grappled, you cannot move away until you break free by winning a Quick Contest of ST"

This me responding just before going to bed and not paying attention to who was doing what and where things were.


Still, this discussion has made me look over the various rules used in grappling and I feel like giving my own breakdown.

ST to ST based skill

Only Breaking Free, Pin, Neck Snap and Wrench (Limb) are skill less on both sides. Breaking Free is lopsided, only the one trying to escape gets a benefit from Power Grapple even if both have it. Pin requires the target to be on the ground and is a Regular Contest, and if both sides have high scores then the Contest will likely be scaled. This scaling means switching to ST based skill isn't as noticeable. Neck Snap and Wrench (Limb) do swing based damage rather than the margin based damage of Locks. Yet this also means you'll want to raise ST rather than skill to see a damage boost, which would also see an increased chance of success. However, Throws from Locks also lets you do swing damage to locations and is DX based. So overall so far, Breaking Free and Pin have seen an improvement that requires Power Grappling rather than simply switching to a skill based alternatives.

Locks inflict damage using skill or ST, so from this side there is no benefit to getting Power Grappling unless your ST is higher than your DX. Choking or Strangling does damage with ST, using a Choke Hold will give a bonus to ST but Head Lock lets you use skill instead of ST. Resisting these, and Wrench(Limb) and Neck Snap, calls for a ST or HT roll. All these ST rolls benefit from Power Grappling. So resisting grappling damage and Choke/Strangle also require Power Grappling for an improvement.

DX based to ST

The amount of purely DX based grappling rolls is quite low, and note I'm ignoring the ability to make a Judo for DX substitution in close combat. Simply doing that doesn't make something a grappling roll to me. A roll you can only make whilst grappled is the criteria I use (with probably a little fudging, but I'll leave that alone for now).

The following are pure DX grappling rolls: Shift Grip and Readying whilst Grappled. Feel free to quibble these. Throw from Lock and other Throws performed whilst Grappling I'm not sure of. Everything else that Power Grappling could affect with this already has the ability to use ST, which means the previous effect applies (unless Wrestling or Sumo doesn't give a bonus, which is unlikely).

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Well, no. But assuming that something is off with Arm Locks, specifically, we don't observe this rapid cycle of one failed defence roll leading to inevitable defeat in grappling.

Again, I disagree, based on my grapple/takedown/Pin or Choke example above. Three or four seconds, with the only rate limiting step there the DX level of the to-hit roll and the DX of the defense.

But just getting a normal grapple doesn't mean you've won. The other party has a decent chance of grappling you back, for one thing.

Decent as in 'now that you're grappled you're at a -4 attack penalty to grapple back?' Decent as in 'if the takedown succeeds, you're at an ADDITIONAL' -4 penalty to attack to grapple back due to Posture?

No...once you've been grappled, you're screwed.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Dinadon

Pin requires the target to be on the ground and is a Regular Contest, and if both sides have high scores then the Contest will likely be scaled. This scaling means switching to ST based skill isn't as noticeable.

Off list, Kromm pointed out to me that this is something many get wrong; there are so many QCs in grappling that it's easy to forget that THIS one is a REGULAR contest.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Decent as in 'now that you're grappled you're at a -4 attack penalty to grapple back?' Decent as in 'if the takedown succeeds, you're at an ADDITIONAL' -4 penalty to attack to grapple back due to Posture?

No...once you've been grappled, you're screwed.

-4 to DX when using that arm, so he can grapple back using the other arm without penalty.

So I've always run it as a -2 penalty when grappling back after getting one arm grappled if using the free arm plus the arm which has been grappled, hadn't realized that was a house rule and not RAW...