Grappling

[Bankuei]

Ok, two fold question here....

1) What is the ATN to use for grappling?
2) How do you do a tackle?  The rules are currently set for a set up grapple then a break/throw/pin rules?

Chris

PS- Also, a point in our last play came up where we were wondering what the effect of being attacked while trying to climb was.  We ruled that it worked like being attacked while grappling, that is, you lose 3/4 your combat pool.

[Jake Norwood]

Use the "hand" numbers on both accounts.

Fighting while climbing...your option sounds good to me. Another way to handle it would be to incur some kind of horrible Terrain modifier. That would certainly be more intense. That's what I'd do, I think...Terrain of 13 or something.

Jake

[Bankuei]

That's a good option too, I think the reason the 3/4ths of a pool sounded good was that the character was climbing up holding onto a banner...
But since last time, we know how nasty terrain mistakes can be. :)

Chris

[Jaif]

I've seen people ask about grappling a few times now (in the rpg.net thread, etc).  The problem, I think, is that there's no "hand" number in the back of the book (that I can find).  Instead, I see kick & punch, and I thought before that grapple was left out.  It might be easier to:

a) Label "punch" as "punch/grapple" in the back, and
b) reference this in the offensive & defensive grapple sections.

Furthermore, and I don't mean to be rude here, I found (and still find) the grappling rules hard to decipher.  For example, there's talk of both "set-up" and "straight" takedowns, but you only describe set-ups.  I've guessed that straight takedowns are the higher-cost, one-round alternative to setups, but it's not explicit that I could find.  Also, when people get on the ground and start wrestling, the rules state (near the end) that people can make attacks (punches, kicks, daggers, etc) with dice remaining from the original pool, but early on it says that dice not allocated to wrestling are lost.

Anyway, I think the grappling rules need a bit more explaining to them.  I also think some complex grappling examples would go a long-way to helping people get used to these rules. (Like a counter that turns into a grapple which moves to wrestling which ends with a knife in the gut).

-Jeff

[Jake Norwood]

We've already "fixed" grappling in the book for 2nd printing (I'll be posting all modifications for free on our site once they're done), specifically the "set up" and "no set up" options. Unfortunately long examples in-text arent possible due to space considerations, but I think an example on our site with lots of manuevers stacked on each other could be kinda cool. After I send the 2nd printing manuscript off I'll probably start on that.

Jake

[Atomic Requiem]

Furthermore, and I don't mean to be rude here, I found (and still find) the grappling rules hard to decipher.

Whenever I've seen grappling implemented in as a separate entity to "regular fighting", it has been clumsy and annoying. d20 is a pretty easy system, but I don't understand the grappling there, and it hasn't been used more than a couple times (and that only by monsters that have an edge at it).

Grappling seems like a really important part of fighting, at least as a critically useful option, but it's always been too complicated for me to really get a hang of.

Shamefully,

*AR*