Going beyond Grab?

[KarinsDad]

Well, grab is escape ends, sustain minor... so perhaps add the following continuations, both standard actions.

Restrain - You may restrain a grabbed target with a Str attack vs Fortitude. (Escape still ends)

Pin - You may pin a restrained target with a Str attack vs. Fortitude. (Escape ends pin, but not restrain). A pinned creature cannot make any attacks except close attacks.

This ignores the fundamental problems with Grab/Escape.

1) Grab is a standard action, escape is a move action. So, it is faster to escape than grab (it can be done twice in a round, not once). That increases the odds of escape success by ~+5 (i.e. 2 40% chance attempts = a 64% chance of success, 2 50% chance attempts = a 75% chance of success, 2 60% chance attempts = a 84% chance of success, etc.).

2) Escape is a Skill check (from one of two skills) vs. a Defense (which should never occur in the game system since it is mathematically unbalanced). In other words, a skilled character gets +5 more than an average defense per attempt. So, it is easier to escape than grab.

3) Escape can be accomplished with push, pull, or slide of an ally with no rolls involved.

4) Even when a monster does not have Acrobatics or Athletics as a skill, they often have either a high Str or a high Dex. If it is a high Str, the Bigby's spells for example are terribly ineffective in game.

5) The grabber gives up a standard action attack in order to grab. The escapee can both attack and try to escape in the same round.

All in all, the Grab/Escape rules totally suck. Because of the problems listed above, it is super easy to escape and super difficult to keep someone grabbed.


Adding more rules for restrain/pin without fixing the fundamental problems with grab/escape adds a wart on top of sucky rules.

So with your rules above, it takes one round to grab the opponent, a second round to restrain him, and a third round to pin him. That gives the opponent 6 actions in which to try to escape. Even a cloddy Wizard can make the roll a few times in that scenario. One would never hold a Fighter or Ranger down with those rules.

 

[77IM]

All in all, the Grab/Escape rules totally suck. Because of the problems listed above, it is super easy to escape and super difficult to keep someone grabbed.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander... if you're playing a wizard, would you really want to be grabbed by a owlbear and be unable to escape? I've been in combats like that, and it gets old fast.


I think the cornerstone of any successful pinning house rule should be based around numerical advantage: you should need multiple grabbers in order to pin someone, and conversely, if you yourself get pinned (by the minion dogpile) the it should be very easy for your allies to free you, even if you yourself are having trouble. These guidelines would satisfy the OP's scenario; the PCs outnumbered the goblin and just wanted to capture him. They prevent the unpleasant scenario where the party wizard gets grabbed and can't be freed and has a lousy encounter. For bonus points, you could involve a saving throw somehow, so that solo monsters are naturally resistant.

I don't have an actual house rule to suggest, just that those are the guidelines I would use when creating or judging one.

-- 77IM

 

[eamon]

Adding more rules for restrain/pin without fixing the fundamental problems with grab/escape adds a wart on top of sucky rules.

For maximum thread derailment, something similar bothers me about bull-rush - it's a str-attack against a defense. However, since it's non-magical and gains no bonuses from proficiencies or anything, that means it's hard to do initially, and becomes impossible at high levels.

Grabbing can actually work out, action wise, if you manage to keep it up a round - once you've grabbed someone it's just a minor action to sustain.

The only real trouble I see is the skill vs. defense things. I don't have a problem with the unbalanced actions - that disadvantage is real, but it's OK to have a disadvantage, as long as it doesn't get out of hand.

As for the skill-thing, well, the problem here isn't so much just the training, it's the total variability of skills. Skill training is +5, but weapon proficiency is +2 or +3, so this isn't completely uncomparable. Also, skills are less "crucial" if you will, and characters can't keep them all at a reasonable level, so there's a solid amount of arbitrariness - one player can easily have a much higher skill check than another, whereas that's unlikely with If skill training were the sole extent of the difference, it'd be acceptable. Unfortunately, it isn't; the attacker gets to choose from two skills (which is an advantage), and he might have racial or feat bonuses (not that hard to get). So, all in all, there are bunch of factors when mean the escaping character has several choices which he can easily boost and of which he can choose the "best" one, whereas the grabber has no choices, and he need to boosts three values (attack, fort and ref), all of which are hard to boost.

All in all, it means it's exceptionally easy for someone to escape, fairly reliably.

I think the grabber should choose which defense the grabbee needs to beat, just like the grabbee gets to choose the skill, and there should be some feat to "fix" the imbalance caused by skill training (say, improved grapple?). Then, just like Bull Rush, the attack should scale with level, unlike now. Finally, potentially a third alternative for escape is needed to allow for those that just use brute force to escape. Allowing a grappler to have an honest chance to keep hold is great, but the consequence should not be that a strong cleric or paladin can never escape just because they're not trained in acrobatics or athletics.

Frankly, I'm not convinced that all this is any better than 3.5's grapple.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Adding more rules for restrain/pin without fixing the fundamental problems with grab/escape adds a wart on top of sucky rules.

I can't find anything wrong with this entire post and this just sums it up.

There are a couple different approaches to the problem:

1) Leave it as it is because being neutralized without being dead is "unfun".

2) play a system that handles combat more objectively and decide for your own group what is "unfun".

3) Make the escape skill apply only getting free of bindings out of combat and use direct contests of STR against REF as a standard action to grab and a DEX vs STR as a standard action to escape. Two failures to escape in a row = full pin requiring outside aid.

 

[keterys]

This ignores the fundamental problems with Grab/Escape.

No, it doesn't. It embraces that _feature_ of grab/escape

Other options would be too powerful.

 

[KarinsDad]

No, it doesn't. It embraces that _feature_ of grab/escape

Other options would be too powerful.

The math totally disagrees with you. The current option is too weak.

Example 1: 2 first level Fighters with 18 Str and 12 Dex, neither has Athletics or Acrobatics.

Chance to grab: 70%
Chance to escape: 45% with one attempt, 69.75% with two

Chance for this tactic to be successful for Fighter #1 for one round: 21.175%

If grabbed, chance to restrain as per your house rule: 21.75% * 55% = 11.65%
Chance to escape: 45% with one attempt, 69.75% with two

Chance for this tactic to be successful for Fighter #1 for two rounds: 3.62%

The chances of getting to Pin are not worth discussing.


Example 2: 2 first level Fighters with 18 Str and 12 Dex, both have Athletics.

Chance to grab: 70%
Chance to escape: 70% with one attempt, 91% with two

Chance for this tactic to be successful for Fighter #1 for one round: 6.3%

If grabbed, chance to restrain as per your house rule: 6.3% * 55% = 3.465%
Chance to escape: 70% with one attempt, 91% with two

Chance for this tactic to be successful for Fighter #1 for two rounds: 0.31% or less than 1 chance in 300


These house rules would never be used. Even a Wizard can easily escape without push/pull/slide help from his friends.

Example 3: 1 first level Fighter with 18 Str grabbing a first level Wizard with 10 Dex, 10 Con, and no skill:

Chance to grab: 75%
Chance to escape: 25% with one attempt, 44.75% with two

Chance for this tactic to be successful for Fighter #1 for one round: 42.1875%

If grabbed, chance to restrain as per your house rule: 42.1875% * 75% = 31.6%
Chance to escape: 25% with one attempt, 44.75% with two

Chance for this tactic to be successful for Fighter #1 for two rounds: 17.7775%

Against a super wimpy Wizard with no skill, the Fighter has about 1 chance of 6 in grabbing him for one round and restraining him for one round. Yeah, that would be used a lot. Not.


Bottom line: Skill vs. Defense is unbalanced. Two defensive attempts vs. one offensive attempt is unbalanced. Combined, it's the most worthless combat rules in the game system.

 

[Mad Hamish]

This ignores the fundamental problems with Grab/Escape.

1) Grab is a standard action, escape is a move action. So, it is faster to escape than grab (it can be done twice in a round, not once). That increases the odds of escape success by ~+5 (i.e. 2 40% chance attempts = a 64% chance of success, 2 50% chance attempts = a 75% chance of success, 2 60% chance attempts = a 84% chance of success, etc.).

All in all, the Grab/Escape rules totally suck. Because of the problems listed above, it is super easy to escape and super difficult to keep someone grabbed.
One would never hold a Fighter or Ranger down with those rules.

Except that if a character uses their standard and move actions to escape the grab then they aren't moving anywhere else without spending an action point...
Nor am I sure that failing to hold a character down easily is a bad thing, especially when PCs are commonly outnumber by a fair degree.

If you did want to make it harder to escape the grab for the restrain and pin
require the grabbed person to make an escape from restrained to get to grabbed status and similarly for pin

 

[keterys]

The math totally disagrees with you. The current option is too weak.

You're failing to look at it over a range of levels.

For example, 1 21st level fighter with 24 Str and 16 Dex and a +5 neck (Fort 34, Ref 30) has grabbed a Larva Mage (Elite 21, Ath +12, Acro +13). Who has a 20% chance to escape in one action, 36% chance to escape in two. Worse if the party has any kind of defense boosters from other sources (can get +4 or so in Adventurer's Vault at that level, but I'm thinking more like from powers)

And, of course, you can spend an action point if it fails to escape in the first round to move it to restrained the pinned, at which point it _has no attacks whatsoever_ and has a 4% chance to escape each turn instead.

If a second person joins in (it's an elite, so that's 2 to 1) then you can pin it in the first round.

Against a solo like the beholder, where the party has five chances to do these things, it has a +10 Ath and +16 Acro so has a greater chance to escape, but its actions are worth a _lot_ more and all five characters can pile onto it... its aura _might_ still activate, but it can't use any of its other powers.

If anything it looks like maybe I made it _too good_

 

[Skyscraper]

My suggestion: have all the damage dealt by the attacker be subdual damage (which is allowed anyway). Once he gets the creature to 0 HP, the creature is pinned instead of killed (again, allowed by the rules).

But what if my PC wants to pin him in a single round, you say?

Well, i'm sure he'd like that. Likewise, i'm sure he'd like to kill every opponent within a single round when engaged in mortal combat.

However, it just takes longer. Period. That creature being grabbed will make every effort to wriggle free. If you want to include powers (like pinning) that allow a creature to be eliminated by another from combat in a single round, i think you're imbalancing your game significantly.

Pinning someone to the ground is really hard to do. Have you ever tried that? I used to wrestle with my brothers (i have four), some friends and then teens when i was camp councilor and the 15-years old thought they were strong enough to take me on

Anyway, my point is, jumping on someone and pinning him to the ground is very difficult. It takes time, and agaisnt someone of a similar strength you might become exhausted before you make it.

It's quite realistic to consider that it takes several rounds, say enough to get the creautre to zero hit points, before you can pin him.

But, you ask, what if the creature is small and weak, say like a goblin, and i'm a big strong dragonborn? Why couldn't I pin him quickly then?

Well, you can't pin him in a single round for the same reason you can't kill him in a single round if you attack him in melee. Why doesn't your sword cleave through his skull in a single round, even though you're big and strong and he, small and weak? He may be small, but he's sly, he has powers, perhaps magic, and he'll use it against you to defend his hide. He has that many hit points, notwithstanding whether you're trying to kill him or pin him. He won't go down that easy.

Sky

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

3) Make the escape skill apply only getting free of bindings out of combat and use direct contests of STR against REF as a standard action to grab and a DEX vs STR as a standard action to escape. Two failures to escape in a row = full pin requiring outside aid.

I would be tempted to use a disease trackish method where the actions of the defender could worsen thier condition..

>Free< - >Grapped< - >Immoblized< - >Restrained<

Acting character choses method for escape/hold. Check is either:
Str vs Static Dex ( 10+ Dex mod )
Dex vs Static Str ( 10+ Str mod )
Acrobatics vs Ref ( opponent gains +3 to defense )
Athletics vs Fort ( opponent gains a +3 to defense )

Fail by 5 or more = worsen
Succeed by 5 or more = improve
Success to Success + 4 = maintain

...or something like that.. perhaps a thread over in HR to discuss?