[MA] Arm Lock, Judo Throw, Throws From Locks and Combinations: how they interact

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I've always seen the 'next turn' wording as problematic. As evidenced by Fairbairn, there are real world styles teaching one to follow up a move within the same second.

Except Sykes and Fairbairn later stopped teaching many of these moves, mostly likely because they were impractical.

And they taught "immediate" follow-up, sure, but it's a stretch to say they taught it "in the same second." Heck *I* am taught to move from grapple to lock to break/throw in a continuous flowing move, and I've been training very specific versions of this for near-on ten years, in Hwa Rang Do.

I was very sure that the "grapple, or parry, then lock, damage, and throw could be done in one move, in less than one second. So I timed myself, without a partner (which is faster than with one). The fastest I ever did any of these react, lock, break/throw combos was 1.1 seconds, typically more like 1.25 to 1.30. 1.4 wasn't unknown.

And that was just getting me into the position whre I'd finished the move; the invisible partner certainly didn't have time to land.

And this would be "Judo Art," which is with a willing partner, or at least one who's not going to try and shoot you, knife you, or kick you in a nads. These moves DO NOT WORK RELIABLY in hot combat against a trained and aware foe; they DEFINITELY DO work when you've got the other guy by surprise, or he effectively AoAs. Presumably that's why Sykes and Fairbairn stopped teaching them.

Sure, for some moves, it makes less sense, but for others, the reaction time of the foe is of no importance. When trying to apply an Arm Lock, the less he can react from the time you grasp him and until the time you have a secure lock, the better for you.

I've got no problem with lock and damage in one second; that was well within my timing frame. It's the THROW that's problematic, and here, Sean and Peter's writing (next turn only) is a better representation of reality without ATR than anything else.

It doesn't make sense that preternaturally fast supers with Altered Time Rate or even just extremely skilled mortals are prevented from doing a grab and throw/lock/etc. in one turn instead of two.

I can get behind this, especially since if you have ATR, you can often magically exceed the cyclic rate of firearms, etc.

When a normal person is using Rapid Strike to do so, he is already at a -6 penalty. That is already enough to make an expert as bad at something as a diligent dabbler or beginner. There is no need for a flat-out denial of the attempt at all.

It's not a bad house rule, of course. There's enough truth (more than enough) behind the "next turn for a throw" ruling that it's the right blanket case, even with Rapid Strike.

I was taught that the lock IS the damage; it's a matter of degree. So doing both a lock and applying damage in a Rapid Strike doesn't faze me.

And most of the "throw from lock" stuff is really throw+damage, and the foe elects Breakfall. I know about 200 various lock/throw combinations from my Hwa Rang Do training, though if I tried to take all of those combos and convert them into GURPS, it would likely "degenerate" into only a few styles of Combination, mostly Arm Lock+Damage or Leg Grapple+Takedown, if I had to guess. Some of them are straight up Judo Throw.

But by and large, my experience tells me that the "throws" are mostly Breakfall, since a REAL break would not throw the foe. There are a few exceptions where the break happens DURING a throw . . . but GURPS has a mechanic for that too, called "damaging Judo Throw."