[Technical Grappling] Teach me using examples

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

No, they're very powerful. If you find them too powerful:

* Obvious one: don't use them
* Base the brute parry on the ST *difference* between the foes, so if you're ST 10 and your foe is ST 30, he'll have a brute parry of 13, just knocking your grapples aside.

It's not so much too powerful as heavily scale-dependent.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

No, they're very powerful. If you find them too powerful:

* Obvious one: don't use them
* Base the brute parry on the ST *difference* between the foes, so if you're ST 10 and your foe is ST 30, he'll have a brute parry of 13, just knocking your grapples aside.

I might try the latter. On the other hand, bigger and stronger creatures receive so many bonuses in grappling that it might not be necessary to use Brute Parries at all. I don't want a situation where grabbing hold of a dragon's scale and climbing to a place where you can best use your sword is impossible because the dragon keeps parrying, but he's utterly unable to do anything about your strikes.

It's no fun and not necessarily realistic for only strikes to be viable when fighting huge things. I mean, sure, have the rules make it incredibly difficult to manhandle huge foes if you are smaller and weaker, but don't necessarily prevent grabbing a hold of them to add power or accuracy to a thrust to a vital spot.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

It's not so much too powerful as heavily scale-dependent.

Yeah, they don't seem to play nice at non-human scales at all, even if I use the fix of reducing them to be only the difference between the Trained ST scores of the fighters.

As an example, it makes far too much difference in a bout between the best wrestler of the giant clan, with ST 40, DX 11, Lifting ST 55 and Sumo Wrestling at DX+6, and one of his less accomplished brethren with ST 35, DX 10, Lifting ST 45 and Sumo Wrestling at DX.

The giant champion has Trained ST 72 against his fellow's Trained ST 45, which means that he gets a Brute Parry of 16, which is far better than his Sumo Wrestling Parry of 11.

Yet the Basic Lift difference between the two is comparable to a human with ST 12 against a human with ST 10. That's not enough of a ST difference to justify a 98% efficiency in Active Defences based on being too strong to contain in a grapple.

ST is such an odd Attribute that basing rolls against or using it to derive Parries doesn't play nice at all. At least with Quick Contests of Trained ST, one can normalise the contest, so that ST 220 doesn't automatically win all the time against ST 200, but Brute Parries mean that having a ST score significantly higher than the foe (more than 25 or so), even if the difference is not all that much relatively, all-but-guarantees victory in a grappling match.

[Icelander]

Sir Michael will soon take possession of two powerful items enchanted by friendly dwarves in return for services returned and a huge pile of treasure. One will grant +6 to ST and the other will grant +6 Arm ST.

I know to disregard the Arm ST when figuring grapples made exclusively with the legs. Similarly, I can add the +0.2 or +0.1 ST without Arm ST which results from using one leg long with two arms.

What I'm not entirely sure about is which ST score to use when the rules refer to 'ST', without any qualifier. Of primary importance there is the limit of how many CPs Mickey can apply.

Are these 48 CPs, figured by calculating his Trained ST from ST + Arm ST = 32, or should they only be 39 CP, figured by taking the Trained ST for the rest of Mickey's body and disregarding his Arm ST entirely?

Or should I perhaps average the two somehow?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Yeah, they don't seem to play nice at non-human scales at all, even if I use the fix of reducing them to be only the difference between the Trained ST scores of the fighters.

As an example, it makes far too much difference in a bout between the best wrestler of the giant clan, with ST 40, DX 11, Lifting ST 55 and Sumo Wrestling at DX+6, and one of his less accomplished brethren with ST 35, DX 10, Lifting ST 45 and Sumo Wrestling at DX.

The giant champion has Trained ST 72 against his fellow's Trained ST 45, which means that he gets a Brute Parry of 16, which is far better than his Sumo Wrestling Parry of 11.

Yet the Basic Lift difference between the two is comparable to a human with ST 12 against a human with ST 10. That's not enough of a ST difference to justify a 98% efficiency in Active Defences based on being too strong to contain in a grapple.

ST is such an odd Attribute that basing rolls against or using it to derive Parries doesn't play nice at all. At least with Quick Contests of Trained ST, one can normalise the contest, so that ST 220 doesn't automatically win all the time against ST 200, but Brute Parries mean that having a ST score significantly higher than the foe (more than 25 or so), even if the difference is not all that much relatively, all-but-guarantees victory in a grappling match.

Well, you could apply that same normalization to ST and use the normalized value for brute parries.

[cbower]

Originally Posted by Icelander

One of the advantages of Brawling over Karate in the BS and MA is that you can use it for Slams and the damage bonus for DX+2 applies to the Slam damage.

Sumo Wrestling and the Shoves and Tackles perk are better choices for upping slam damage.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by cbower

Sumo Wrestling and the Shoves and Tackles perk are better choices for upping slam damage.

For infinite points, Sumo Wrestling, Karate and Wrestling indeed beat Brawling and Wrestling.

[Icelander]

Moving on from Sir Michael 'I Think Giants Are For Grappling' Carragher, his cousin Murlak Solstice is a merchant adventurer, privateer captain and former con man and burglar.

He's got ST 12, DX 17 and HT 13, Combat Reflexes, Flexibility, Striking ST +1; as well as Brawling at DX+2, Main-Gauche at DX+4 and Wrestling at DX+2. He also has Acrobatics DX+3, Evade at Acrobatics+5, Escape at DX+4 and Break Free at Escape+4. Finally, he has Unusual Training in Backstab, which means that when he attacks someone from the rear with his knife and/or grappling, he gets a +5 to ST.

Normally, his grapples with one hand are made at ST 8, for a pitiful 1d-3 CP. As part of a Backstab, however, he goes up to ST 11 or 1d-1 CP.

My question is, if he grapples one-handed for the neck of an unfortunate foe, can he add one leg to the grapple by pushing his knee into the small of his back? Or does that count as one one-armed grapple to the neck and one one-legged grapple to the torso?

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Moving on from Sir Michael 'I Think Giants Are For Grappling' Carragher, his cousin Murlak Solstice is a merchant adventurer, privateer captain and former con man and burglar.

He's got ST 12, DX 17 and HT 13, Combat Reflexes, Flexibility, Striking ST +1; as well as Brawling at DX+2, Main-Gauche at DX+4 and Wrestling at DX+2. He also has Acrobatics DX+3, Evade at Acrobatics+5, Escape at DX+4 and Break Free at Escape+4. Finally, he has Unusual Training in Backstab, which means that when he attacks someone from the rear with his knife and/or grappling, he gets a +5 to ST.

Normally, his grapples with one hand are made at ST 8, for a pitiful 1d-3 CP. As part of a Backstab, however, he goes up to ST 11 or 1d-1 CP.

My question is, if he grapples one-handed for the neck of an unfortunate foe, can he add one leg to the grapple by pushing his knee into the small of his back? Or does that count as one one-armed grapple to the neck and one one-legged grapple to the torso?

The latter. Note that you can spend CP from adjacent areas, so for many purposes (like choking someone) these two are interchangeable, if not equivalent. That's why that rule is there!

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

The latter. Note that you can spend CP from adjacent areas, so for many purposes (like choking someone) these two are interchangeable, if not equivalent. That's why that rule is there!

Hmmm... I suppose, but Murlak is not likely to expend another attack, for a -6 to his grapple and stab, just to get a leg grapple to the torso.*

Can he spend CPs from a torso grapple on damage by a knife thrust or slash to the neck?

*On the other hand, the primary reason he wants to grapple the neck with his hand and use his knee on the small of the back is that it would look silly to grapple the neck with one hand and one leg. Murlak has Flexibility and could probably do it, but it doesn't look cool and so he won't.