I think the general Grappling rules are nicely cleaned up by these ruleset. However (and you knew it was coming...)
I was looking for a little more meat. Personally, I have problems with several of the systems in 3.5, and the hand-to-hand combat clean up, while fine in and of itself, I was hoping for more options towards the use of combat.
The current Feat system demands that players become complete one-trick-ponies if they are going to excel at anything. Grappling is much the same - Improved Grapple and Close Quarter Combat, once taken and you can pretty much wipe the floor with opponents 5-6 levels above you.
The reality of Grappling combat is such that if you want to realistically defend against the bonuses of these feats - you have to spend feats yourself to have a snowball's chance against someone - say a 4th level Fighter who could easily have these Feats plus Improved Hand to Hand.
What I was hoping for out of the ruleset (perhaps unfairly?) were options that streamlined Grappling beyond the standard clumsy 3.5 rules (tag you're it, let's wrestle now, we're dancing, you're pinned, I win.) and give options - kind of like Roger E. Moore's open-hand fighting system from 2ed (I think it was in the Silver Best of Dragon). It allowed regular people to do some very interesting combat without having to have invested skills - only relying on the general combat skill (represented by level) of the combatants.
Sure you can make an argument that the current grappling system does the same - but it's so vanilla and painstakingly STATIC that the only offerings you have to improve upon it to take feats which completely overcompensate. +8 to Grapple checks before stat and BAB are included anyone?
Grappling for Beginners: How to Strike, Hold, & Throw does not address the real heart of the problem IMHO. If anything it's a very basic re-write of the rules that excludes the obvious problems (touch-attacks, Attacks of Opportunity) but does not push or even make the attempt to push the rules into more than what already exists.
So it is what it says it is - it's for Beginners.
I was looking for a little more meat. Personally, I have problems with several of the systems in 3.5, and the hand-to-hand combat clean up, while fine in and of itself, I was hoping for more options towards the use of combat.
The current Feat system demands that players become complete one-trick-ponies if they are going to excel at anything. Grappling is much the same - Improved Grapple and Close Quarter Combat, once taken and you can pretty much wipe the floor with opponents 5-6 levels above you.
The reality of Grappling combat is such that if you want to realistically defend against the bonuses of these feats - you have to spend feats yourself to have a snowball's chance against someone - say a 4th level Fighter who could easily have these Feats plus Improved Hand to Hand.
What I was hoping for out of the ruleset (perhaps unfairly?) were options that streamlined Grappling beyond the standard clumsy 3.5 rules (tag you're it, let's wrestle now, we're dancing, you're pinned, I win.) and give options - kind of like Roger E. Moore's open-hand fighting system from 2ed (I think it was in the Silver Best of Dragon). It allowed regular people to do some very interesting combat without having to have invested skills - only relying on the general combat skill (represented by level) of the combatants.
Sure you can make an argument that the current grappling system does the same - but it's so vanilla and painstakingly STATIC that the only offerings you have to improve upon it to take feats which completely overcompensate. +8 to Grapple checks before stat and BAB are included anyone?
Grappling for Beginners: How to Strike, Hold, & Throw does not address the real heart of the problem IMHO. If anything it's a very basic re-write of the rules that excludes the obvious problems (touch-attacks, Attacks of Opportunity) but does not push or even make the attempt to push the rules into more than what already exists.
So it is what it says it is - it's for Beginners.
