Powers and Perils

Hand to Hand: Grappling

The present rules in book 2 allow the use of the hand-to-hand rule to do damage, but there is nothing about grappling. The rules we use are as follows:

1) Attacker must declare his intent to grapple rather than hit.

2) Roll on combat table on the proper line for OCV-DCV, subtracting attacker HTH and adding defender HTH. A miss indicates the attacker was way off. A shield hit indicates that the attacker was warded off by the shield and does not succeed, if the target has a shield. If the target does not have a shield, but is instead parrying with a 2-h weapon (or a second 1-h) weapon, the attack is a failure UNLESS the attacker accepts a normal hit from the target. For a target with no shield or parryable weapon, a shield hit counts as a normal hit.

3) Roll "damage", the value rolled indicating the degree of control.

4) On the target's turn they may roll to escape or "act" by making their own HTH roll. Shield hits count as hits in this case. For an escape, any "hit" they roll their "damage" as escape points. If the target's escape points are greater than the attackers, they escape. If their escape points are DOUBLE or more that of the attacker they may immediately make a second HTH roll to grapple the attacker (thus switching positions). For an "act" they are allowed to make a normal combat action(like attack the grappler or another target).

5) Each phase the target is grappled, the attacker may do 1d6+(control points/10) subdual damage to the target (AV reduced to HALF protection for this).

Addendum A: If multiple attackers attempt to subdue a single target, their control points are TOTALED and the person being grappled may only escape one grappler at a time. In this case, rolling DOUBLE the control points allows two grapplers to be removed.

Alternative Wording

Grappling

An attacker going for a grapple uses his "damage" as a degree of control. While in control he can inflict an automatic subdual damage equal to his normal hit damage (armor counts half, rounded down).

EXAMPLE - Attacker A grapples and gets a severe hit. His roll of 13 "damage" is his level of control.

The controlled target can attempt to break control by making his own HtH combat roll, with "damage" compared to the control "damage" At least one-quarter damage (round up) needs to be done to reduce control, otherwise control is not affected.

EXAMPLE - Defender B tries to throw off the control but only gets a normal hit for his roll. He needs to do at least 4 points of "damage" to reduce the degree of control, otherwise there is no effect. If he does that 4 or more, control is reduced by that amount.

Once control hits 0, the target escapes the hold. The holder can attempt to improve his control at any time, with any "damage" he rolls replacing his old control. Obviously, any miss means he screwed up and loses his grip.

If a grappled target rolls DOUBLE the control he may attempt to "reverse" on the attacker and get an immediate HtH roll to grapple him.

In most cases, shield hits only matter in the initial grapple attempt -- after that it is assumed that the shield is lost and any attempt to improve the grip or get a new grip consider shield hits as no rmal hits (unless the target has time while free to get his shield back).

For larger targets, add the size difference to their damage value when breaking holds and reduce the initial degree of control by the size difference.

EXAMPLE - A hero (size 2) is grappling a giant (size 8). The initial degree of control will be reduced by 6 (which may mean that no control was gained) and if he is still grappled the giant will add +6 to any rolls when attempting to break the grip.

Subdual/Real

When using HtH, only subdual damage is done unless the attacker has "hardened" his fists with either a cestus or at least AV2 gauntlets. When hardened, he may opt to do only sudual, however.

Burton Choinski