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Old 06-03-2021, 06:03 PM   #1
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Sacrificial Breakfall

Buddy B and Ally A are walking down a path. Buddy B is holding onto the wrist of Ally A.

Enemy Ethel jumps out and chucks a snowball at Ally A's head.

Ally A rolls a dodge and critical fails it, meaning Ally A is now falling down.

Normally when this happens you get a roll to do a break fall.

Can Buddy B who is not falling, use his grip on Ally A's wrist to be of some hepl? Like do a 'sacrificial' breakfall on his behalf and lessen the damage they'll take?

Maybe the standing Buddy can't completely stop the falling Ally from falling and hitting the ground, but perhaps he could help just enough to decelerate that descent (subtract velocity) and lessen the damage?

Conversely: what if Ally A was instead the one who was holding onto Buddy B's wrist? Does crit-failing a dodge and falling down mean automatically losing your grip? Or could they use it to try and pull themselves up?

It seems like one party or the other could unilaterally try to decelerate the faller, or they might cooperate at it. But I don't really know how you'd work the mechanics of it.

I'm thinking somehow Technical Grappling's Mass-Based Moves penalty system could somehow play into it, like the stronger/heavier guy is more able to slow the fall of the weaker/lighter guy as opposed to vice versa, though I'm sure DX plays into it somehow too.

If you're already grappling your ally (or they're grappling you, since it's mutual) it also makes me wonder if you could do stuff like yank them out of the way of an attack, kind of similar to how a parry can represent moving your sword out of the way of an attack.

If you're not already grappling your ally that would get a lot more complicated though.
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Old 06-03-2021, 08:17 PM   #2
Donny Brook
 
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Default Re: Sacrificial Breakfall

I don't think breakfall enters into it unless the idea is the rescuer plans to leap under the faller.

If the rescuer has enough Lifting ST he just holds the faller up. Extra effort could be used too. If he still doesn't have enough lifting ST, I'd subtract the Basic Lift for the effective Lifting ST from the faller's weight, and convert the remainder to an HP figure to calculate damage.
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Old 06-04-2021, 12:15 AM   #3
Plane
 
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Default Re: Sacrificial Breakfall

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Originally Posted by Donny Brook View Post
If the rescuer has enough Lifting ST he just holds the faller up. Extra effort could be used too. If he still doesn't have enough lifting ST, I'd subtract the Basic Lift for the effective Lifting ST from the faller's weight, and convert the remainder to an HP figure to calculate damage.
I'm wondering if there's a roll though since having a loose grip on a wrist might not be enough force to actually prevent a fall, plus if hands are down at sides you'd need to tug the arm up in time too.
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Old 06-04-2021, 05:50 AM   #4
Donny Brook
 
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Default Re: Sacrificial Breakfall

Yes, I suppose there are two possible challenges for the rescuer, acting in time and not falling themselves. So maybe a DX roll modified by Combat Reflexes.
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Old 06-04-2021, 06:04 AM   #5
kenclary
 
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Default Re: Sacrificial Breakfall

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Originally Posted by Plane View Post
Can Buddy B who is not falling, use his grip on Ally A's wrist to be of some hepl? Like do a 'sacrificial' breakfall on his behalf and lessen the damage they'll take?
1) B could maybe try to use the grip to hold A up. The closest official combat rule I could think of would be "shoving people around" from MA118. It's not a great match, and realistically holding someone up like this would require their speedy cooperation.

2) Taking the "sacrifical breakfall" phrasing seriously, B could use "sacrificial dodge and drop" (B377) to attempt to drop prone underneath A, to act as a cushion. That tact has, like, zero relation to grappling, though.
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Old 06-04-2021, 04:25 PM   #6
Pursuivant
 
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Default Re: Sacrificial Breakfall

Techniques like this are regularly used by bodyguards, first responders, and medical personnel.

Assuming that "Sacrificial Breakfall" means that you fall so that the person you're guarding doesn't fall or so that they fall on top of you, make it an Average technique based on Acrobatics or Judo. Success means that you make a controlled fall which doesn't inflict injury. Success by +2 or +4 means that the person doesn't fall. Success by less than that means that they fall on top of you, taking no damage themselves but inflicting half the falling damage they would have suffered on you. Failure means that both people fall and take normal damage. Critical failure means that you land on top of the person you're trying to protect, inflicting damage like a normal collision or fall.

If you're just trying to hold or partially carry someone to steady them as they move, and to keep them from falling due to injury or unstable ground, I'd allow DX-based skill rolls vs. a skill such as First Aid, PS (Firefighter, Physical Therapist, etc.), or possibly Crewman or Soldier, with a penalty equal to the effective level of Encumbrance the person you're helping represents. This is perhaps 25-50% of their weight if they are capable of supporting some of their weight, 50 to 75% if you're dragging them, or 100% if you're carrying them. Substitute ST for DX if you're trying to steady someone who is significantly heavier than your BL.

Also consider:

Sacrificial Tackle: You tackle the person you're guarding, taking them to the ground in such a way that you inflict minimal damage to yourself and your "principal" and placing your self between them and some threat, such as gunfire or explosion.

Sacrificial Dodge: You dive into the path of some attack taking damage yourself but preventing the person you're protecting from being hit (unless the damage overpenetrates your body).
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Old 06-04-2021, 11:04 PM   #7
Plane
 
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Default Re: Sacrificial Breakfall

Quote:
Originally Posted by kenclary View Post
1) B could maybe try to use the grip to hold A up. The closest official combat rule I could think of would be "shoving people around" from MA118. It's not a great match, and realistically holding someone up like this would require their speedy cooperation.
You got my wheels turning and helped me along to another possible solution...

TG37 is where Douglas Cole replaced and broadened the classicle Takedown from Basic Set with Force Posture Change, which not only can force people to lower postures but also bring them up to higher ones.

In theory there's already a legal way to do this... take a Wait maneuver and be "attack with force posture change to bring my ally to standing when he enters a non-standing state".

When you fall down you're presumably temporarily airborne in a non-standing state ("lying on air" so to speak) before you come crashing down, and maybe a Wait could allow you to intervene to right the posture prior to the Collision with the floor?

So since we already have a mechanic which allows changing someone from "lying down" to "standing up" as an attack, I'd just want to approach a way to do it without taking a Wait... we're basically looking to transform this into sort of an active defense.

We have stuff sorta like this such as Aggressive Parry where if you pass an active defense you can roll an attack and if it succeeds you can roll some damage...

In lieu of a damaging attack, perhaps instead a parry where if it succeeds, you get to roll a force posture change attempt.

Maybe with some "+1 because I'm not actually preventing an attack" since that's an inherent aspect of parries which aggressive parry still accomplishes.

Instead you're functioning more like a power parry or parry dodge just to see if you fire off something in time for it to do something.

Quote:
Originally Posted by kenclary View Post
2) Taking the "sacrifical breakfall" phrasing seriously, B could use "sacrificial dodge and drop" (B377) to attempt to drop prone underneath A, to act as a cushion. That tact has, like, zero relation to grappling, though.
Yeah, although I could see if you had a grapple that might be of some help in using your ally as leverage to pull yourself underneath them faster instead of relying purely on gravity.
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