Shooting While Grappled

SenorPez · 08-13-2010, 08:41 AM

I remember seeing a post about this sometime during my lurker phase, but I can't seem to find a reference to it. It's possible, of course, that I imagined it all.

The question came up in a game about shooting a gun while being grappled. The following was my ruling:

If the arm holding the weapon (for a one-handed pistol), or either arm (for a two-handed firearm), is grappled, then shooting is impossible.
If the grapple is on another part of the body, you can shoot. There are penalities and risk, however. -4 due to the DX penalty for being grappled and -Bulk for the weapon. If you miss due to the -4, you potentially shoot yourself; check for hitting the wrong target, using the hit location penalty for the body part being grappled.

After the session, one of the players pointed out that RAW says You may not make ranged attacks while being grappled. I couldn't find anything that superceded that in my collection, and while I can see it being applicable to a bow (maybe? I can see an argument for shooting it, but reloading would take a lot of passed DX checks!), a gun, especially a pistol or an SMG, is a different beast.

Thoughts? When that demon mutant chihuahua latches onto your leg using the MA115 Teeth rule, can you plunk at him with your gun instead of or in addition to breaking free? My ruling seemed to work well (even if one PC in question shot himself in the leg), but it was a small sample size, and I'm wondering if there's either an official rule, or something with a bit more playtesting behind it out there?

08-13-2010, 08:41 AM	#1
SenorPez Join Date: Aug 2010	Shooting While Grappled I remember seeing a post about this sometime during my lurker phase, but I can't seem to find a reference to it. It's possible, of course, that I imagined it all. The question came up in a game about shooting a gun while being grappled. The following was my ruling: If the arm holding the weapon (for a one-handed pistol), or either arm (for a two-handed firearm), is grappled, then shooting is impossible. If the grapple is on another part of the body, you can shoot. There are penalities and risk, however. -4 due to the DX penalty for being grappled and -Bulk for the weapon. If you miss due to the -4, you potentially shoot yourself; check for hitting the wrong target, using the hit location penalty for the body part being grappled. After the session, one of the players pointed out that RAW says You may not make ranged attacks while being grappled. I couldn't find anything that superceded that in my collection, and while I can see it being applicable to a bow (maybe? I can see an argument for shooting it, but reloading would take a lot of passed DX checks!), a gun, especially a pistol or an SMG, is a different beast. Thoughts? When that demon mutant chihuahua latches onto your leg using the MA115 Teeth rule, can you plunk at him with your gun instead of or in addition to breaking free? My ruling seemed to work well (even if one PC in question shot himself in the leg), but it was a small sample size, and I'm wondering if there's either an official rule, or something with a bit more playtesting behind it out there?