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Old 12-03-2020, 11:05 AM   #21
EskrimadorNC
 
Join Date: Jul 2015
Default Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules

Quote:
Originally Posted by DouglasCole View Post
Yah, sorry. I took a shortcut here. I meant the DX/ST penalties from your CP from the grapple stack with pain penalties from the lock. That can get bad, fast. Especially in a cinematic-switched fight.
Ahhh, I'm tracking. Thanks for the clarification.

Quote:
Originally Posted by DouglasCole
We struggled with this during (and after) writing and playtest. Spending CP for continuous-pressure techniques like locks and chokes has never really felt right, and Peter and I used to spend some casual time brainstorming over how to make it better. I obviously decided, even then, "one rule to ring them all" so that the "spend CP for effect" was a universal concept...but no question this is a case where it squeaks around the edges.

One concept we came up with was instead of spending CP, you "risk" them. You ante up (just as you'd spend them) to set the maximum effect of the technique, then make an attack roll. If you succeed, woo hoo, nothing lost (but you also don't get more CP), and the technique works as you intended.

If you fail the roll, you lose the CP.

Fantastic Dungeon Grappling does some of this; it was written with 15 years of experience of at-the-table play.
I really like the gamble idea. I might try that out in the name game I run and let you know how feels/works out.
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Old 12-03-2020, 11:50 AM   #22
EskrimadorNC
 
Join Date: Jul 2015
Default Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules

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Originally Posted by DouglasCole View Post
That's still application of weight advantage in the TG terms; I don't believe it's precluded because of standing.
Okay...I should have been more thorough. I went back and re-read the entire Weight and Grappling section.

I'm not sure that I have this right, so I'm going to work through it on this post and you let me know if it makes sense.

Combatants are PC and NPC. Both have ST 11 and weigh 160 lbs, giving them both a BL of 24.

PC has established a 4 CP grapple on NPC's torso, giving NPC a -2 to ST/DX, giving him an effective ST of 9. PC also succeeded last turn on a Change Posture maneuver to establish a weight advantage over NPC.

It's NPC's Turn and he wants to try and Kick PC. Checking the table in TG, NPC (with effective ST 9 and effective BL 16) has a Grappling Encumbrance Multiple of 10 (160lbs / BL 16), giving him a -7 to any mass-based moves and a -1 to Dodge or to attack/parry with Judo, Karate, fencing skills.

This gives NPC a net of Karate -5 (-2 for kicking, -2 for DX penalty from the grapple, -1 for PC having a weight advantage).

My takeaways from all of that (assuming I got the sequence right) are...
  • Establishing a weight advantage will significantly impact a foe's ability to execute grappling moves, but will have a relatively small impact (if at all) to striking.
  • Brawling doesn't suffer the Encumbrance Penalty from being on the wrong side of a weight advantage, so the brawler can kick with impunity.
  • Without having a significant ST AND Weight advantage over your foe, it just doesn't seem like establishing a weight advantage really has that much influence on weather or not someone you have grappled can kick you.

Again, entirely likely I am missing something key here, but the results just don't even come close to what I have experienced IRL.

Quote:
Originally Posted by DouglasCole
As far as I know, we specified grappling attacks because so does the box on p. 122 of Martial Arts, with the emphasis in the original
Was there a conscious effort to NOT allow hands-free parries to be used against striking attacks, or was it the simple case of just following the text in a previous book?

If you were to do a TG 2.0 book, would you explicitly allow a Grapple to perform a hands-free parry vs a strike from a foe that he was grappling? Would your answer change if it's a lock instead of a simple grapple?


Quote:
Originally Posted by DouglasCole
For me, this is best represented by *spending control points* to interfere with a foe's attack. That's always allowed, IIRC. We use pain compliance from a joint lock to keep foes off balance so they can't kick or punch as well, usually by walking them around.
Essentially, I think what you and I do in our RL training is the same thing...or at least has the same net effect. A guy faced with walking or falling will generally choose to walk...and will likely not even choose but do it on instinct. And a guy who is walking is generally too busy with his legs to throw a kick.

In our case, it's just making a foe weight a single leg, but it all nets out to "foe CAN'T attempt a kick without falling down".
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Old 12-03-2020, 12:20 PM   #23
EskrimadorNC
 
Join Date: Jul 2015
Default Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules

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Originally Posted by DouglasCole View Post
The ones in the demo before the title card (first 3 minutes of the video) are gloriously efficient.
Maul is certainly "gloriously efficient", if anything.


Quote:
Originally Posted by DouglasCole
Most of those are (mildly to very) representable.

most lead off with a grappling parry (which parries and retains mild control of the punching limb), followed immediately by a strike. GURPS doesn't always represent the openings inherent to attacking fully, but I'd consider Riposte for this, though the restriction on the effect to "Dodge only" found on pp. 124-125 of MA is not great.

I'd probably wind up treating these as "setup attacks" but off of a parry. Every -1 to Parry is -1 to your foe's defense, declared ahead of time (in effect, this is the Setup Attack version of Riposte, but without the special cases).

So the instructor is doing a Setup-Parry with a grappling parry, making an immediate strike into the opening on his turn.

Now, GURPS doesn't penalize active defenses after a shock penalty...but it probably should for "Harsh Realism." Four points of damage would be an extra -2 to Parry and -1 to Dodge...which is why you throw that strike in there to begin with, in most cases.

That shoulder strike to what we call a gooseneck - a wrist compression - is going to be rough to model in GURPS.

There are a few moves in there that are "destabilizing" sweeps that generally lead to Takedowns...though some of them just effectively so imbalancing that even though the guy is still on his feet, he might as well have fallen down; something that is the effect of "Stun" (so Do Nothing, -4 to Defend) but requires a DX roll to recover would be interesting to represent those.

Such a move as an Action After a Grapple would go a long way to represent some of the "I have all the time in the world" stuff you see in these demonstrations, and what you see in the real world when these things work.
Excellent analysis. I'm for sure going to chew on "shock penalizing defenses". It makes sense to me, and really encourages open strikes to enable later grapples/locks.
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Old 12-03-2020, 12:31 PM   #24
EskrimadorNC
 
Join Date: Jul 2015
Default Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules

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Originally Posted by DouglasCole View Post
You know, you may be right about this. I've always used Cranking it Up to model "movie reality," but when I've played with TG/FDG, there are a few things I've found:

1) Folks who want to grapple in their games optimize for it. The best/worst offender is the 250-point Wrestler, Lisbet, in the Hall of Judgment sample characters. She's got Wrestling Master, copious Lifting ST, and throws down at Lifting ST 28 when grappling, and 3d+5 control points on a successful attack.

This is a case where the player has paid nearly 250 points to grapple to death any ONE foe they face (they suffer in groups, much like an anti-Fezzik).

So folks who have used grappling to grapple really, really grapple the heck out of the bad guys.
Yeah, when you are looking at 3d+5 base CP, or really anything in realm of Trained ST >= 19, I think it really starts to favor x2 CP.

Quote:
Originally Posted by DouglasCole
2) I've mostly focused on the double CP because it has always in my mind been associated with an eliminated Max CP cap (per p. 6), and also because I like the die rolling. But you're right - in movies, these grapples ALWAYS work, unless the director is making a point of how awesome the foe is, such as when Bourne fights an equal, and they're very effective quickly. Quick-and-Dirty does that quite well.
Agreed. I think it also makes a BIG difference when you are dealing with Trained ST scores closer to human norms, like 10 - 16 because having a Trained ST of 13 and rolling 1d and doubling the result is a lot more swingy than always getting 6 CP on a two-handed grab.
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Old 12-03-2020, 01:29 PM   #25
DouglasCole
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Default Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules

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Originally Posted by EskrimadorNC View Post
My takeaways from all of that (assuming I got the sequence right) are...
  • Establishing a weight advantage will significantly impact a foe's ability to execute grappling moves, but will have a relatively small impact (if at all) to striking.
  • Brawling doesn't suffer the Encumbrance Penalty from being on the wrong side of a weight advantage, so the brawler can kick with impunity.
  • Without having a significant ST AND Weight advantage over your foe, it just doesn't seem like establishing a weight advantage really has that much influence on weather or not someone you have grappled can kick you.

Again, entirely likely I am missing something key here, but the results just don't even come close to what I have experienced IRL.

Bah. I forgot Grappling Encumbrance is for, well, grappling. I figured it was the equivalent of forcing someone to suffer a "lying down" penalty or something . . . effectively a disadvantaged form of posture.

Quote:
Was there a conscious effort to NOT allow hands-free parries to be used against striking attacks, or was it the simple case of just following the text in a previous book?
I will admit to being a bit two-minded on this. Where there was a clear rule that didn't interfere with the mission of the book to spread the joy of control points far and wide, RPK and I let it stand. This is why originally, grapples impacted defenses like Dodge on a 1:1 basis by DX penalty. So -4 to DX was -4 to Dodge. Then we both realized at the same time that the traditional DX/Parry or Block/Dodge was -4/-2/-1 . . . and did we really want to undo that? We decided no.

Same thing here. The emphasis on grappling in TG was really to call attention to the box's emphasis in MA.

Quote:
If you were to do a TG 2.0 book, would you explicitly allow a Grapple to perform a hands-free parry vs a strike from a foe that he was grappling? Would your answer change if it's a lock instead of a simple grapple?
I'm of two minds here: on the one hand, squirming to avoid a grapple and squirming to avoid a punch aren't that different. On the other, both of these things really are best represented by spending control points to interfere with the other person - it's an active manipulation. You don't have something like that in Martial Arts because CP don't exist in that context, and in most cases, the philosophy seems to be "grappling skills counter grapples, striking skills counter strikes." That's not universal, but there's an undercurrent.

I suppose, in both cases, you could say "spend 1 CP and then parry normally," so that you give up something but then you have enabled the hands-free defense. Or "so long as you spend at least 1 CP, you can use a hands-free parry against any attack vs someone you've grappled."
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Old 12-04-2020, 10:37 AM   #26
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules

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Originally Posted by EskrimadorNC View Post
Yeah, when you are looking at 3d+5 base CP, or really anything in realm of Trained ST >= 19, I think it really starts to favor x2 CP.
I like the approach of doubling the trained ST when looking at what Thrust should be, it deals better with low ST (1d6-6 and so on) for avoiding the problem of zeros compared to doubling the outcome of the standard thrust dice (same problem exists with shoving)
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Old 12-04-2020, 10:49 AM   #27
EskrimadorNC
 
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Default Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules

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Originally Posted by Plane View Post
I like the approach of doubling the trained ST when looking at what Thrust should be, it deals better with low ST (1d6-6 and so on) for avoiding the problem of zeros compared to doubling the outcome of the standard thrust dice (same problem exists with shoving)
That does get rid of the zeros, but it feels like it make it TOO easy/fast to accumulate CP.

So given a Trained ST 11 and the following options you get:

BASE SYSTEM
CP = 1d-1 (avg 2.5)

QUICK AND DIRTY
CP = 5 (11/2 round down)

CRANKING IT UP
CP = (1d-1)*2, avg roll 4 - 6

DOUBLE TRAINED ST
CP = 2d (for trained ST 22), avg roll 7
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Old 12-04-2020, 10:55 AM   #28
Plane
 
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Default Re: Arm Lock with and without Technical Grappling rules

I like it being high because then you actually can eat up stuff like a Defensive Attack penalty of -2 to thrust and still have decent odds of getting some.
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