grappling & posture and grappling & letting go

[Plane]

Originally Posted by zedlopez

Given that Change Posture isn't proscribed for those who are grappled, is there any reason you couldn't stalemate someone trying to pin you by Changing Posture to Kneeling after each time you're taken down, other than the fact that a stalemate does nothing to change your being grappled and in a vulnerable situation?

Originally Posted by Kromm

Nothing prevents that. This is one of many problems that GURPS Martial Arts: Technical Grappling attempts to rectify. Without those rules, the puzzle is that there's no way to prevent somebody from taking a Change Posture maneuver unless you've pinned them.

I just thought of one possible pre-TG solution to this. B395 has the optional "Changing Posture in Armor" rule which has a broader definition than just armor:

you can let encumbrance level affect the time it takes to perform a Change Posture maneuver

If you are heavy enough to qualify as "Medium" encumbrance on your opponent, then it should take them 2 seconds to do a Change Posture maneuver, which should prevent the 'stalemate' since you'd have enough time to try a Pin at least once before they managed to complete the maneuver and upgrade to Crawling.

Where I'm stuck though is I'm not sure where to find out how much of your weight (partial to full) can qualify as encumbrance on someone without them having intentionally.

Maybe using Climbing (183/349)? It requires a "Move" maneuver to do climbs in combat, though I'm not sure which thing on the chart would be the closest match to a person. Guessing "tree" for stationary person, "rope" for moving person.