Talk:Grapples, Grabs, Disarms, and Carrying

Is the Brawling skill useful for any of these actions?

Yes, you can use Brawling and Martial Arts in place of Unarmed Combat. --Boojum 14:08, 5 May 2009 (EDT)

To carry someone who is resisting, hold down as many strength dice as are being used to maintain the grab.

Do we mean "grapple" here rather than "grab"?

Also, seems like it could lead to it occasionally being easier to carry a struggling person than a cooperative person. You could carry an uncooperative person with one or two dice held down (which seems reasonably likely in this realm of people rolling four or five dice, or if they're trying to break free and have made some progress), but you need three dice held down to carry the cooperative person. --Xian 09:14, 5 May 2009 (EDT)

for a single phase, you could get away with carrying them with only one success, but then they break out and you have to grab them again before you can carry them anywhere. No? --Mjperson 11:44, 5 May 2009 (EDT)

Say Shen Wei-han and his evil twin Shen Evil-twin (both Strength 7, Accuracy 5) are hanging out with Farmer Far-mer and Peasant Pea-sant (both Strength 3, Dexterity 3), walking to the zoo. Wei-han points out to his buddy Far-mer that if Wei-han picks up Far-mer and carries him, together they'll have a Move of 4, which is faster than Far-mer can move on his own. Far-mer agrees, and Wei-han starts holding down three dice to carry Far-mer.

Evil-twin thinks this is a great idea and grabs at Pea-sant. He rolls Accuracy (five dice), and Pea-sant elects to dodge (three dice); Evil-twin gets three successes and Pea-sant gets one, so now Evil-twin has grappled Pea-sant and is carrying him, holding down two dice to do so, so he's got one more Strength available than Wei-han even though Far-mer is cooperating and Pea-sant isn't. He's also going at Move 4 just like his goody-two-shoes brother (who rounded up).

Pea-sant only rolled two dice for his phases, and Evil-twin rolled four, and they've each used an action (grappling and dodging, respectively). So now Evil-twin has three phases left and Pea-sant has one. On that one phase Pea-sant elects to struggle. Evil-twin uses an action to resist, so Pea-sant is rolling a three-die Strength roll and Evil-twin is rolling a five-die Strength roll (two dice being held down for the carrying). Pea-sant gets two successes, but Evil-twin has a sucky roll and only gets one. So Pea-sant has ablated the grapple by one success.

Now Evil-twin is only holding down one die to carry Pea-sant, so his Strength is effectively 6, increasing his Move to 5, and he starts to outpace his straight-arrow no-fun sibling. This bit here seems very strange, that your Move can be higher carrying a struggling person than a cooperative person. Should Wei-han tell Far-mer to struggle a bit to let him release a die or two?

Also, now Evil-twin will be rolling six dice against Pea-sant's three for any struggling/resisting rolls, so it could be a while before Pea-sant manages to get another success. It gets harder to break out the more progress Pea-sant makes, which also seems askew.

Evil-twin is rolling three dice for Speed, to Pea-sant's two, so Evil-twin only has one more phase than Wei-han, but he's burning two of them resisting Pea-sant. Over the course of a round Wei-han is going to have two phases of full movement, which I think means 2*2*4=16 hexes per round. I'm not sure about Evil-twin; if Evil-twin goes in 1, 5, and 9, and Pea-sant goes in 3 and 7, can Evil-twin do his regular move in 1 and then hold his dicey action to resist Pea-sant in 3, and then the same again in 5 and 7? If so, then he gets two single moves and a double move in 9, so he'd go (1+1+2)*5=20 hexes per round and get to the zoo first, where he probably throws Pea-sant into the lion cage (Evil, remember). If Evil-twin can't move and then hold his dicey action, then Wei-han will probably beat him to the zoo, but there's still the problems of Evil-twin having a higher Move per phase, Wei-han's perverse incentive to convince Far-mer to struggle for a while and then stop struggling, and the counterintuitive thing where making progress on escaping makes it harder to make more progress escaping.--Xian 14:11, 5 May 2009 (EDT)

Does that small edit solve the problem? --Mjperson 14:25, 5 May 2009 (EDT)

Well, gee, I wrote up that whole long exciting trip to the zoo, and now you go and make the whole thing obsolete?

Actually, it doesn't have anything to do with carrying people around, but there's still the odd phenomenon of partial success in escaping making it harder to escape further (as well as getting more Speed dice if you've partially lost your grip on someone).

Well, carrying someone makes it easier for them to escape. If you have someone grabbed plainly, you roll your full Str against them trying to break out, not your Str minus your grab successes. You can always let up some of your grab successes, if you think it's more efficient. --Boojum 15:53, 5 May 2009 (EDT)

Ah, I think I finally understand one of the many points of the zoo trip. When you are holding your Str dice down in a grab+carry, those dice are unavailable for doing other things with. They are not unavailable for use with the grab itself. --Boojum 16:04, 5 May 2009 (EDT)

Also, now I think about it, 3 just seems too high. As it is, it seems like it would be nearly impossible for anyone to successfully carry anyone who is resisting, even if the former is very strong and the latter not at all. You only rate to get 3 net successes if your Strength is at least 8 higher than your target, I think (expecting 0.4 successes per die, yes?). Maybe what you want is for carrying to require holding down an extra die or two, so it only takes one (or two) dice to maintain the carry on a cooperative person, but it takes that one (or two) additional dice above the ones you're already holding down to carry a recalcitrant person. --Xian 15:04, 5 May 2009 (EDT)

Carry vs Pick Up vs Drag

In my opinion, carrying an unresisting person should not be quite so hard. (Note: edited to remove irrelevancies due to GM comments --Shen Wei Han 17:01, 5 May 2009 (EDT))

A kid should be able to carry an unresisting kid. Shen Wei Han should be able to carry Osa, one of his mates from the Wall. Shen Wei Han should be able to carry a resisting kid. The kid might be able to drag Shen Wei Han in all his armor, but not carry him.

Strengths of 3 (average) and 7 don't hold up to "usually" getting 2 or 3 successes to carry someone who is not struggling.

Dragging someone, is that 1-2 dice rather than 2-3?

Also, 1 penalty seems very small for doing things while being carried. That's not likely to take care of the "Hegemons and their mounts" problem, in my opinion.

--Shen Wei Han 15:44, 5 May 2009 (EDT)

(Note that the kid probably counts as small (previously "frail", but we were thinking of weight there)) --Boojum 15:49, 5 May 2009 (EDT)

If you want to drag a heavy object, such as a person, make a Str roll and tell the GM how many successes you get. Unless it's a very heavy object, one success will probably move it some distance, and more successes will move it more. Our intention is not to make it impossible to ever remove an unconscious person from a burning house, but to avoid having the high-move people carrying all the low-move people around the combat at full speed (unless they put shticks in it). --Boojum 17:11, 5 May 2009 (EDT)

What, you don't want all combats to devolve into chicken fights?

The most important point of the trip to the zoo was to see some of the animals. Hopefully an okapi or an aurochs. A secondary point was that Shen Wei-han and Shen Evil-twin were both able to move faster than 3 even with someone on their back. So you could still have the high-move people running around with inverted human pyramids on their shoulders, especially once our strength differentials get bigger than 4.

Perhaps what you want is a nice low number of successes needed to pick someone up, like 1, but also require you to hold down one or more dice of Body and Reflexes instead of just Strength. Additionally, you could have the penalty grow round by round.

Or you could only require one success to pick someone up, but have the difficulty for doing anything other than grabbing or escaping be +2 or even more, for both the people. I think it's realistic to think of picking up a cooperative person and carrying them around as easy to do, but doing anything else complex meanwhile is not so easy. --Xian 00:07, 7 May 2009 (EDT)

Grab and disarm

Grab and disarm seem too easy, considering the result is you've taken away their x3 (or greater) weapon.

My fear is that while disarm and grab may be "ok" as is, but when you add a schtick or so it'll be near-impossible to defend against. That's OK if the result is damage, but when the result is a substantial reduction of the loser's effectiveness for an entire combat it should be pretty hard to do.

Maybe I'm discounting too far the fact that you're rolling for nines. --Shen Wei Han 15:57, 5 May 2009 (EDT)

Weapon users get a x3 multiplier for free; unarmed combat people have to pay for theirs. Weapon users can lose their weapons; unarmed combat people can't. It's a balance. --Boojum 16:01, 5 May 2009 (EDT)

I yield until I've seen it in action. --Shen Wei Han 16:03, 5 May 2009 (EDT)

Destroying things

It seems odd that Feats of Strength aren't a useful skill for destroying things as written. Although I suppose there might be different rules for destroying an unattended object (like a door) and the destroying rules here are for basically destroying your opponent's weapon or armor. --Shen Wei Han 16:41, 10 May 2010 (EDT)

Note that "destroying things" in this particular context is just describing how to do points of damage. If you want to do straight damage with your fists, what you really want to buy is some variety of unarmed combat. Yes, you can often use Feats of Strength to destroy large things like a door, (destroying a door tends to be a one-off mechanic depending on how tough we think the door is), or crushing something in your hands, but generally applying damage to the world should use combat mechanics. --Boojum 12:04, 12 May 2010 (EDT)

Grappling

Should Feats of Strength skill be usable if you grab someone and are subsequently doing damage? --Shen Wei Han 16:41, 10 May 2010 (EDT)

If someone is already grabbed and you are simply squeezing them, then Feats of Strength can apply. We do worry about the notion that Feat of Strength applies to all strength rolls; it does not. No skill is so broad as to cover an entire stat.

We envision Feats of Strength, as something the Strongman at the circus is good at, amazing types of over the top feats where you are shouting "Graaar!" while you do it. So tearing doors off of hinges, crushing puny humans once they are already in your power, etc. Certainly not for extra movement on strength rolls, nor continuous rolls like supporting heavy things for a long time.

To take a past example, we'd agree that Feats of Strength is a fine thing for lifting a broken carriage off of your fallen comrade, but not so much for holding it up while he spends Tortoise knows how long under there fixing it. --Boojum 12:04, 12 May 2010 (EDT)

Throwing

Can we have a section of rules for throwing things too? I'm thinking of things like

• I'm throwing a weapon to you (as opposed to _at_ you).
• I'm throwing a person or other large and unwieldy object.

--Shen Wei Han 16:41, 10 May 2010 (EDT)

Is this going to come up often enough that it needs rules? I trust the GM's to come up with something sensible on a case by case basis. (Lijuan throwing Yoshi -- a strength roll adding half of any thrown weapons skill; Yoshi can assist by rolling acrobatics or diving and dexterity. A horse throwing Wei-Han -- the horse's strength roll opposed by Wei-Han's dex roll with riding, animal handling. Etc.) --HeidiB 22:06, 10 May 2010 (EDT)

It came up multiple times last run so I wanted to know where any special-case rules would start. If I didn't think it could come up again, I wouldn't have asked. --Shen Wei Han 22:28, 10 May 2010 (EDT)

• I'm throwing a weapon to you (as opposed to _at_ you).

This is just "Accuracy with skill in throwing things" - if you're throwing to rather than throwing to damage, you probably only need one to three successes (after range mods) to target the person, depending upon obstacles, how unbalanced the object you're throwing is, etc. Most trivial throws don't require a roll at all.--Boojum 12:04, 12 May 2010 (EDT)

• I'm throwing a person or other large and unwieldy object.

These will generally be strength, but again, depend upon the situation. Throwing the boulder off the side of the mountain to clear the path, Strength. Throwing the boulder at bunch of guys, Accuracy (probably limited by strength since it's a boulder).

If you are just trying to throw the person as hard as you can to get them into the gas cloud expect a strength roll. If you are trying to get them to a particular ledge, or a precise landing point, Accuracy may be more appropriate. In your circus act, you just toss Kasumi up in the air and she handles all of the Dex/Accuracy issues. Someone not skilled might need you to handle them for her. --Boojum 12:04, 12 May 2010 (EDT)