B371 Actions After Being Grappled (top right) talks about maneuvering restrictions for those who are grappled (ie the graplee):
- you cannot take a Move maneuver unless you have at least twice your foe’s ST.
- Aim, Feint, Concentrate, and Wait maneuvers – and ranged attacks – are completely impossible
There is no actual mention there of maneuver restrictions for the one doing the grappling (the grappler).
Instead that is covered on B371's lower-left: Other Actions which applies to the grappler:
- You cannot Aim, Feint, Concentrate, Wait, or make ranged attacks unless you’ve pinned your foe.
Technical Grappling 23 softened the restriction on grapplers (but NOT on grapplees).
There is a penalty to a will rolls equal to trained ST of the one you are grappling. Specifically the EFFECTIVE trained ST, as reduced by Control Points. Divided by ST/10 if 20+. This will roll determines if one can take the Aim or Concentrate.
- this sadly still makes you require a will roll to Concentrate if grappling a mouse with a trained ST of 1, even if you have 10 CP to give him -5 to ST and effectively pin him. Its unclear why there would be a will roll needed at all when you are merely maintaining a grapple: there is no will roll required to concentrate when maintaining a will roll on a "pinned" staff, for example.
- instead: perhaps the will roll made when actively defending during a concentrate against a "break free", or if you "take damage" but in this case "damage" is losing CP on your grapple (you are distracted by a loosened grip)
Waits are no longer restricted at all.
Feints can only be used against the graplee.
Readying requires the limb be "free", meaning it can't be used to grapple.
- one loose way around this might be to treat "limb" and "extremity" separately. For example: if you were leaning your elbow into a foe's neck, your hand would not be grasping anything, so if you arched your torso toward your hand, even though the hand is fixed in space, it is effectively moving so that you could pull a knife out of your belt!
Probably exceptions should be made for light foes. IE allowing feints against other foes if the one grappling you is negligle. Much like you are able to move when grappled if the grappler is low ST relative to you.
Although there is no mention at all of this applying to the graplee (they STILL canonically RAW cannot make aim/feint/concentrate/wait maneuvers) loosening this cap probably makes sense. A similar approach could be taken as is done for the grappler, but inverted:
- require a will roll to Aim or Concentrate when you are grappled, but since you have 0 control points, the entire "trained ST" applies
- since it's weird to make it hard to concentrate because "a mouse is sitting on my shoulder" (that mouse might be your friendly familiar!) perhaps just use the same "active defense" rules: if you try to resist the grapple or "take damage" (CP are applied to you) then you roll at will -3. However simply having "CP applied" (only a DX/ST penalty) should not affect concentration once you're accustomed to it! This should however possibly impede DX rolls to do gestures, if the GM requires them.
Aim rolls if using On Target are per based. Actually being grappled on your leg shouldn't necessarily throw off aim unless referred control penalties apply. Perhaps there should be a DX component to aiming since it actually does involve raising the weapon level with the eye, at which point CP could apply normally.
Forbidding Waits should just be tossed out altogether, as for the attacker.
Feints could just suffer DX penalties normally, or ST penalties for beats. There's no IQ penalties from grappling for Ruses. Being grappled could be distracting though, so perhaps "shock" should initially apply when CP is first applied to someone, equivalent to whatever the DX penalty is. Unlike the DX penalty this would wear off, but someone who keeps improving their grapple could keep someone in shock.
Casting While Grappled[]
http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.php?p=1401362&postcount=10
- Try "you can't do it unless you make a Will with a penalty to the roll equal to the foe's ST. If you have also grappled HIM, that penalty is reduced by 4."
- That's a version of a rule that will appear in Technical Grappling. It's not the exact rule, for reasons that will be obvious when the book comes out.
- So if a Will-14 caster is being grappled by a ST 10 foe, you will roll as if you had Will of 4. If you grappled him back, you improve that to Will of 8 . . . but likely both of your arms are occupied, so if the spell has any sort of physical component to it, you're out of luck. Note that being grappled has you at -4 to do just about everything, and I would certainly apply this -4 to the actual spellcasting roll!
This rule never actually made it into the book as promised.
Also: it apparently does not care how much CP worth of grappler the grappling foe has, even though this would probably affect how much of their weight they could bring to bear to impede their target. TG 8 has that same problem: the full weight of the grappler is brought to bear even if they have a 0 CP hold on you!
- the only way to make that realistic is if movement is an automatic "break free" regardless of whether or not you take an attack maneuver. It's harder to keep your grip if movement by your foe requires your grip to support your own weight.
- for example: clutching the ankle of a foe as you lie on the floor (0 force pulling away) vs clutching the ankle of a foe as the for dangles by arms from tree branch: even if he doesn't change you free and opts to "Do Nothing" or "Concentrate" your grip is supporting the weight of your body!
One way to do this is to consider your grip as blocking "fall" damage. Your own mass would attack your Arm ST in a similar way that walking across a bridge is a low-tier "series of falls" when calculating how much weight an Innate Attack with Wall could support as a bridge.
Perhaps simpler is to require Will rolls ALWAYS to aim or initiate a concentrate...
However they are done with the GEM as a modifier: so +9 to the roll with absolutely no weight whatsoever. ANY amount of sum weight (no matte how high the BL) makes GEM 0 impossible, so at best you can hope for GEM 1 to get a +8.
Consider "concentrate outside of combat" to be a +3 Task Difficulty Modifier in many situations.
The total +11 bonus creates an effective skill of 15 so long as your will is 4 or more.
This means you can do Like Riding a Bike to assume automatic success to concentrate outside of combat with minimal gear on.
Those carrying heavy things would be distracted and probably require the will roll to begin concentration or aiming.
You could do that for readying too! Using the GWM as a modifier (bonus or penalty) for both will rolls and DX rolls to ready could make a lot of sense.
In the case however of weight of item in hand (exactly: weight of gauntlet hindering someone trying to do a hand action like draw a knife) it should could more than normal.
TG8's WAG rules assume "weight the whole body can carry" which generally caps out at BLx10 (BLx15 using extra effort).
That x10 factor is more than what you can lift one-handed.
So: for purposes of readying with limb, multiply the weight of armor on that limb x10 (+900%) when summing up the weight to determine penalty on that ready!
You would not, for example, multiple the weight of a left gauntlet when doing a right-handed ready, though.
In cases of 2H readies, hand weight should only be x5 (+400%) or mayb e450?
Weight on arms should be less impeding than weight on hands and decreased accordingly. Some ideas:
- 10/5 for hands
- 8/4 for forearms
- 6/3 for elbows
- 4/2 for aftarms
- 2/1.5 for shoulders???
- no multiplier for torso or other limbs
same pattern (foot/shin/knee/thigh/hip) for legs