[MA] Grab and Smash / Kiss the Wall: Face + Wall Combo?

[Ultraviolet]

The way I remember and interpret the "Kiss the Wall" variant of "Grab and Smash" is this:

*Make an AoA: Double
*Grapple the foe, with two hands, hit location 0 for torso or -3 for head (half face penalty). IIRC it allows using Brawling or any grappling skill
*Smack the foe's face into a wall.
**If you have him by the head, there is no hit location penalty to smack it into the wall.
**If you have him by the torso, use the grappling hit location penalty for the head (-3), because you shove his body but want the face to impact.

So, if you take the penalty on the initial grapple, the smash part gets easier. If you take the easy initial grab, the smash gets harder.

[Mathulhu]

Originally Posted by Ultraviolet

The way I remember and interpret the "Kiss the Wall" variant of "Grab and Smash" is this:

*Make an AoA: Double
*Grapple the foe, with two hands, hit location 0 for torso or -3 for head (half face penalty). IIRC it allows using Brawling or any grappling skill
*Smack the foe's face into a wall.
**If you have him by the head, there is no hit location penalty to smack it into the wall.
**If you have him by the torso, use the grappling hit location penalty for the head (-3), because you shove his body but want the face to impact.

So, if you take the penalty on the initial grapple, the smash part gets easier. If you take the easy initial grab, the smash gets harder.

And this is if you want the specific effects of hitting someone in the face; knock down and stunning roll, bypassing torso armour etc. If you do not want/need these results then you don't need to take the penalties at all. The attack can be described as hitting the head without actually doing it.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Ultraviolet

The way I remember and interpret the "Kiss the Wall" variant of "Grab and Smash" is this:

*Make an AoA: Double
*Grapple the foe, with two hands, hit location 0 for torso or -3 for head (half face penalty). IIRC it allows using Brawling or any grappling skill
*Smack the foe's face into a wall.
**If you have him by the head, there is no hit location penalty to smack it into the wall.
**If you have him by the torso, use the grappling hit location penalty for the head (-3), because you shove his body but want the face to impact.

So, if you take the penalty on the initial grapple, the smash part gets easier. If you take the easy initial grab, the smash gets harder.

MA118 the basic version of "Kiss the Wall" does not require AOA:Double. It's a single attack made with someone who you are grappling, whether you made that grapple 1 second ago or 10 minutes ago.

You're probably remembering how the "Twofers" version of Kiss the Wall called "All-Out Grapple and Strike".

I consider that an under-powered idea. You can already bash a guy's skull into a skull using KTW for thrust, so why should it be less (thrust minus 1) when you're actually accelerating both bodies toward each other?

AOGAS shouldn't even be a separate rule, just using KTW mechanics is enough, and it should actually be better, like assume wall-kissing damage is always to both things, so a double-thrust should add the damage together for bypassing DR.

[Ultraviolet]

Originally Posted by Plane

MA118 the basic version of "Kiss the Wall" does not require AOA:Double. It's a single attack made with someone who you are grappling, whether you made that grapple 1 second ago or 10 minutes ago.

You're probably remembering how the "Twofers" version of Kiss the Wall called "All-Out Grapple and Strike".

I consider that an under-powered idea. You can already bash a guy's skull into a skull using KTW for thrust, so why should it be less (thrust minus 1) when you're actually accelerating both bodies toward each other?

AOGAS shouldn't even be a separate rule, just using KTW mechanics is enough, and it should actually be better, like assume wall-kissing damage is always to both things, so a double-thrust should add the damage together for bypassing DR.

But by doing the grapple and smash in the same round, you get the benefit of AoA Strong.
Sure, you can just grapple one round and smash the next with AoA Strong, but that takes 2 rounds.

In TG p24 Grab & Smash you grapple smash in the same round, and get to add CP from the grapple directly as damage. Doing it over 2 rounds means the CP can't be this way, only as they are normally allowed.

[Plane]

MA118 "Grab and Smash" describes 2 different types, the AOA strong bonus is only described for "All-Out Grapple and Strike" (AOGAS) it isn't mentioned for Kiss the Wall (KTW).

It says "can be a strike with anything except the arm(s) used to grapple."

Kiss the Wall involves using the arms you're grappling with to make an attack (throwing them into an object) so I don't know if it would fall under those guidelines.

It's comparable to thinking you'd get the AOA Strong bonus if you did AOA:Double to do Grab+Judo Throw.

I think the idea is you're using the grab to help some other attack, but if the grab itself is the mechanism of attack, you're not exactly using limbs to reinforce each other.

TG24's "several situations where a grapple is initiated and then followed immediately by a strike" I think doest not include the "Kiss the Wall" attack for the above reasoning.

Something like pulling a head into a knee: the knee attack has a basic damage and you are simply adding to that... but with Kiss the Wall, there is no basic damage: the wall isn't already moving toward them, the entire reason there is damage is because you're using grappling to do it, the damage is already coming from the arms doing the grappling.