Questions on Pyramid 3/34's Grappling Article

[seasong]

I am (finally) getting around to trying to incorporate this article. I really liked my initial skim of it, but I never had the time to go through it and understand it well enough to start using it. Now I do, and I have developed questions.

The questions below are the basic rules - I'm still going through the available techniques. Although I've addressed this (sort of) at the author, I don't know if he even frequents the forums - if YOU have an opinion, I'm interested in it.

Thanks!

1. ST in general. Adding ST straight seems to get some odd effects for superheroic situations (ST 100 and 110). Does it seem reasonable to use this instead? +1 for greater ST, +2 if 20% greater, +3 if 50% greater (equivalent to SM +1), +4 if 100% greater, and +2 more per doubling thereafter. This puts ST in a similar progression to Size Modifier - both essentially change how much force can be exerted, after all.
   
2. How Many Hands?, p. 12. Okay, here is my attempt at parsing the paragraph of modifiers (this is one where I wish a table had been used instead): base is -6 for no limbs, hands, or teeth (trying to grip someone with your chin, for example, or pinning them with your stomach); +1 for each limb or +3 for a hand/arm; +1 for each pair of legs involved (which I read as "particularly strong limbs designed to act in concert"); +2 for each bite.
   
3. Fancy Grabs, p. 13. The Grabbing Parry specifies a minimum margin of victory against the Rapid Retraction perk . . . but there does not appear to be any Quick Contest. Is Grabbing Parry intended to be a QC? If so, what does the opponent roll against?
   
4. Taking the Back, p. 14. I got lost with the third sentence of the first paragraph. I think that it says, paraphrased: If the attacker attempts to change the defender's relative facing, and the defender currently has a grip on the attacker's torso, then the defender can roll against Control Torso+4 to defend. Can anyone tell me if that paraphrase is correct?

[Refplace]

I do not have that pyramid. Who is the author?
Douglas Cole is writing Technical Grappling and is on the forums, I see him on the author list but that might just be for the armor as dice article.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by seasong

Thanks![LIST=1][*]ST in general. Adding ST straight seems to get some odd effects for superheroic situations (ST 100 and 110). Does it seem reasonable to use this instead? +1 for greater ST, +2 if 20% greater, +3 if 50% greater (equivalent to SM +1), +4 if 100% greater, and +2 more per doubling thereafter. This puts ST in a similar progression to Size Modifier - both essentially change how much force can be exerted, after all.

Given the way ST goes up quadratically I would say leave it as is and each increase in ST adds normally.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by seasong

Although I've addressed this (sort of) at the author, I don't know if he even frequents the forums - if YOU have an opinion, I'm interested in it.

He does, and I'm sure he'll chime in.

Thanks![LIST=1][*]ST in general. Adding ST straight seems to get some odd effects for superheroic situations (ST 100 and 110). Does it seem reasonable to use this instead? +1 for greater ST, +2 if 20% greater, +3 if 50% greater (equivalent to SM +1), +4 if 100% greater, and +2 more per doubling thereafter. This puts ST in a similar progression to Size Modifier - both essentially change how much force can be exerted, after all.

Since I dug into this a bit for Technical Grappling, a minor correction: SM only speaks to SIZE. The bonuses you get for SM (+3 for a pin, +1 for a grapple per relative SM difference) are size-related in the Basic Set. If you want to leverage your ST, there are a host of ways to do it, most of them (not surprisingly) revolving around Contests that allow a roll vs. ST (Wrench Arm, Neck Snap, takedowns are all surprisingly brutal with high-ST characters).

To actually answer your question, I find the "percentage adjustment to force" type argument fairly compelling. You might/could also look at the Speed/Range table and how it relates to encumbrance for this (hint: Surprisingly well with a bit of tweakage involving a factor of 3). I might even try normalizing using Basic Lift: take the ratio of basic lift and convert it to a delta from 10:

ST 100, BL 2,000 vs ST 110, BL 2,240.

Unsurprisingly, you can do this in your head: it's a 10% delta in ST and 21% in force. That normalizes to 12 vs 10, or a +2.

Other trials:

ST 95 vs. ST 121: 162% of Basic Lift, ST 121 gets +6
ST 150 vs. ST 135: That's +23%, or +2
ST 119 vs. ST 83: 205%, or +10 or +11, depending how you want to round.

Kromm's advice to me for TG was that ST 10 vs. ST 20 should pretty much be a foregone conclusion for the ST 20 guy. He's getting to the ST point where the ST 10 guy is likely only treated as encumbrance (A 160-lb. man is 2xBL for a ST 20 PC!). I think the normalization above will keep things sane for supers.

[*]Fancy Grabs, p. 13. The Grabbing Parry specifies a minimum margin of victory against the Rapid Retraction perk . . . but there does not appear to be any Quick Contest. Is Grabbing Parry intended to be a QC? If so, what does the opponent roll against?

I think it's "make the Parry roll by X, and you also grab the attacking limb" by intent. No QC; the grab is part of the parry.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Refplace

I do not have that pyramid. Who is the author?
Douglas Cole is writing Technical Grappling and is on the forums, I see him on the author list but that might just be for the armor as dice article.

Ken Clary, our LP for Technical Grappling, wrote the article. He's on these boards as kenclary.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Refplace

I do not have that pyramid. Who is the author?
Douglas Cole is writing Technical Grappling and is on the forums, I see him on the author list but that might just be for the armor as dice article.

I've written two recent articles for Pyramid, and three old ones. Plus a bunch of playtesting and two rounds of LP (High Tech and Tactical Shooting). I had very little to do with Ken's article, except perhaps in chatting with Ken early on about my concepts for TG. That chat MIGHT have nudged him into codifiying pre-existing rules of his into the Pyramid article.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Ken Clary, our LP for Technical Grappling, wrote the article. He's on these boards as kenclary.

Thank you, glad hes in your playtest then :)

[kenclary]

Originally Posted by seasong

ST in general. Adding ST straight seems to get some odd effects for superheroic situations (ST 100 and 110). Does it seem reasonable to use this instead? +1 for greater ST, +2 if 20% greater, +3 if 50% greater (equivalent to SM +1), +4 if 100% greater, and +2 more per doubling thereafter. This puts ST in a similar progression to Size Modifier - both essentially change how much force can be exerted, after all.

Simply adding in ST is a very quick and dirty approach. Ideally, it would be best if ST were logST. I had a table that converted ST to logST for this purpose, where +5 logST corresponded to x2 lifting power (such that +10 had the same basic lift as ST 20). In the ST 9-20 range, this made close to no difference to the balance (within that range, with +-1, logST = ST-10). And I didn't want to introduce logarithms or a logST table just for grappling.

How Many Hands?, p. 12. Okay, here is my attempt at parsing the paragraph of modifiers (this is one where I wish a table had been used instead): base is -6 for no limbs, hands, or teeth (trying to grip someone with your chin, for example, or pinning them with your stomach); +1 for each limb or +3 for a hand/arm; +1 for each pair of legs involved (which I read as "particularly strong limbs designed to act in concert"); +2 for each bite.

How about a bullet list (I have an aversion to tables):

• Base with no manipulators is -6, and this is only allowed in special circumstances (called out in the article) or by GM fiat.
• +3 for each hand (for this purpose, it includes the arm). Thus, a "two-handed grapple" is +0.
• +1 for each non-handed limb. An arm with a busy hand counts as this.
• +1 for each full pair of legs, because you can hook feet or use the pair in tandem. Another way to think of it is that feet don't really count as manipulators, but they are better than stumps, so they get +1 for two feet.
• +1 if any legs are used if you have the Ground Guard perk.
• +2 for a bite. I angsted about included this at all, as I wasn't really addressing bites. If you have born biters or large SM differences, you want to also use the box in MA.

Fancy Grabs, p. 13. The Grabbing Parry specifies a minimum margin of victory against the Rapid Retraction perk . . . but there does not appear to be any Quick Contest. Is Grabbing Parry intended to be a QC? If so, what does the opponent roll against?

That was just a typo (I have an errata list, which I plan to put in a sequel article). It's margin of success, not victory.

Taking the Back, p. 14. I got lost with the third sentence of the first paragraph. I think that it says, paraphrased: If the attacker attempts to change the defender's relative facing, and the defender currently has a grip on the attacker's torso, then the defender can roll against Control Torso+4 to defend. Can anyone tell me if that paraphrase is correct?

Very close! If the defender has any grapple on the attacker, they can defend with Control Torso+4. Control Torso has penalties for grapples to places other than the torso.

[seasong]

Originally Posted by kenclary

Simply adding in ST is a very quick and dirty approach. Ideally, it would be best if ST were logST.

Understood now. I think I can work out something for my superhuman individuals :-).

Originally Posted by kenclary

How about a bullet list (I have an aversion to tables):

Yeah, the bullet list was sufficiently clear. The main difficulty I had was breaking out that list from the sentences :-).

Originally Posted by kenclary

That was just a typo (I have an errata list, which I plan to put in a sequel article). It's margin of success, not victory.

Thank you. Very clarified, then.

Originally Posted by kenclary

Very close! If the defender has any grapple on the attacker, they can defend with Control Torso+4. Control Torso has penalties for grapples to places other than the torso.

Doesn't the defender automatically have a grapple, though? (Grappling by Being Grappled, p. 13.) How the defender acquired the grapple would affect the final modifier (grappling by being grappled gives that additional -2 penalty, for example), but it doesn't seem as if there would be any question about whether or not the defender has a grapple.

[kenclary]

Originally Posted by seasong

Doesn't the defender automatically have a grapple, though? (Grappling by Being Grappled, p. 13.) How the defender acquired the grapple would affect the final modifier (grappling by being grappled gives that additional -2 penalty, for example), but it doesn't seem as if there would be any question about whether or not the defender has a grapple.

Potentially, yes. With the penalties involved, Control Torso+4 has a decent chance of ending up worse than the normal defenses. For example, if the attacker has a two-armed grapple to the defender's torso, the defender would be grappling two arms (-1 to Control Torso) with the torso (-6 grapple), plus the -2 for the rule in question. All things being equal, Control Torso+4 would be at -5 compared to regular defenses, so not worthwhile.

It's a "can" not a "must."