>>97490584
No one wanted to use Metzner's grecoroman larp grappling rules where you had to wrestle the gm or the gm's second (which could be any animal in the mystery cage, guy was nuts) after that incident with Ernie, the feds and all 4 hula girls.
So we're stuck with dice.

Your thread reminded me of this for some reason.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z7bsTL74i8

>>97490596
I tried it but I miss enough sessions when my back acts up as is.

>>97490584
Why do you think they're the worst?
What "ttg battle systems" have you experienced them in, and how did they work in those systems?

>>97490599
Ah yes an artist formerly known as "Sexual Lobster"

>>97490954
His stuff is great.

>>97490584
Because in my experience they're either:
>Completely ineffective and do basically nothing
>Completely overpowered and basically lock two people out of the fight

>>97490584
I'd let her grapple me if ya know what I mean

>>97490584
Because game devs are bullied nerds and not jocks who might actually have wrestled.

They aren't. Some do it well.

>>97490584
because it isn't abstracted for shit taking you around 5 turns of total vulnerability to get to do anything, as if it is some form of formal athletic wrestling of the modern world instead of a fast and dirty grab and stab or grab and drop prone, a disarm etc

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>>97490584
Much of what >>97491107 said. This is on top of execution of grappling rules, as they have a nasty habit of being more complex than a basic combat check or, in worse cases, only being reasonably usable by characters with specific builds (e.g. requires investment in a skill players don't normally take).

Still, this is all worst-case scenario stuff. Some systems do it well or may otherwise have a more egregious failing in its combat.

>>97490584
Because any realistic grappling slows the fight to a crawl and any two combatants grappling are effectively disarmed and extremely vulnerable to third parties. In my experience, anytime I have a grappling situation it turns into a mini 1v1 single player game and even though that one player is having fun, the others can get quite bored waiting for their turn.

>>97490584
What setting?

>>97491767
Palladium

>>97490584
>Why are they the worst aspects of any ttg battle system?
>any
Stop playing shitty games and you will find out what a non-issue this is

>>97491804
name three

>>97491107
GURPS is the latter
Want to win against a grappler? Carry a knife and/or get better at wrestling. It's realistic but probably not very satisfying for most

>>97490584
>Grappling
A lot of detail involved in the fine intricacies of rassling. What's bound, what's not bound, relative freedom of movement, et cetera. Systematizing it leads to tons of detail for a system that most campaigns won't use, abstract GM interpretation is suddenly shifting from the typically more crunchy elements combat centers around to more freeform elements, which might not be the players' cup of tea.

>unarmed combat
I mean, yeah, it often sucks. But that's not consistently the case. The more weeb something gets, the more punching people is allowed to be effective. When it does suck, its because the system has relegated it to the final fallback combat option, with no allowances for it to be anything but.

>>97491816
>Non-shitty
Anything that isn't 1d20-based
>Good grappling rules
The Witcher (the Polish one), Hollow Earth Expedition, Righteous Blood, Ruthless Blades.

Grappling is pretty ass and lame in general as can be seen from UFC fights where you have fags pullling guard on the floor looking like a cat in heat. The only thing protecting them from getting their heads stomped is the rules.
Now translate that into RPG scenarios where both sides always have a group to back them up it just becomes a completely silly scenario as many pointed out.

>>97492188
That's why you have your grappler yell out "YOU AND ME, ONE ON ONE!" the moment the fight breaks out.

the rest of your party can deal with the rest of his party

>>97490611
I hear that.
Remember to do your morning warmups anon.

>>97492188
>grappling wouldnt work with head stomps
>Pride, which allowed stomps and soccer kicks, had some of the greatest submission wizards in MMA history

Someone is insecure about getting grapplefucked.

As for OP, because much like in real life, grappling is more fun to do than to watch.

>>97490584
Why do you think they're the worst?
What "ttg battle systems" have you experienced them in, and how did they work in those systems?
Can you answer these simple questions?

>>97492250
based
THE CREAM RISES TO THE TOP

>>97494259
Sorry I don't like your attitude I'm not going to reply to you.

>>97490584
Generally speaking, the majority of people writing TTRPGs aren't avid followers of combat sports. This either leads to anemic rules for unarmed and grappling combat, or it leads to rules that are attempting to be "balanced" or "realistic" where some nerd writer who has never been punched in the face just reasons that hand to hand combat can't possibly be as good or worthwhile as guns or swords, so it should be weaker and not as effective. Sometimes they're nice enough to give players the option to overinvest in unarmed combat as an option, but not without overtaxing them for the ability to be almost as effective as other martials.

>>97494817

I'd say it's more a problem of grappling not really being cool in this day and age. What was the last movie you saw in which "realistic" grappling (or even bar brawling) was heavily featured, versus whatever weeb asian heavily coreographed martial art?

>>97494832
Yeah, that's certainly part of it. Even when it's two pro BJJ guys going at it, it's just two dudes writhing until one gets the other in a lock or a hold. I think the balance issue comes back into that because designers don't like the idea of someone being able to win a single grapple check and then put someone in a rear naked choke/sleeper hold that knocks them out in a round or two.

Likewise, a lot of holds and throws are kinda boring, and people shy away from the more theatrical pro wrestling stuff because it would be too corny to allow a player to powerbomb a goblin... But all the same, we're going to have anime shit anyways where the wizard waves his hands in a special way and launches a fireball, or the fighter goes into a special stance that lets him cut down half a dozen guys in 1 second. It just kinda comes down to the biases of the writers who don't think it's cool enough to be allowed and that it breaks their immersion to allow players the options to use something other than basic attacks or game breaking spells.

>>97490584
Because they are the most prone to simulationism. It is complicated enough that it could be its own combat minisystem, but niche enough that it doesn't justify the page space for that. So it baits designers into trying to cram a minisystems worth of options into a quarter of a page worth of text, which turns into a giant mess.

>>97494682
Ah, because you don't actually have any experience with what you're talking about, and you don't play games.

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>>97490584
Because most ttg's are made by nerds.

Nerds, by and large, do not do martial arts.

This is why Wizards and clerics and shit are so powerful in DnD. It's unconscious bias by designers who think "Wizards are smarter than normal, give them smart people capacities like spells to fix anything, or briefly make them on par with similar level martial characters", while simultaneously not giving marital classes anything because, half by stat use half by personal bias, they don't see that to be good at fighting, you need to be INCREDIBLY intelligent in multiple capacities.

The body has physical and biological limits. Being smart is what gets you past those.


Sure, there's the HEMA/swords crossover, but a lot of HEMA places with big nerd populations aren't exactly high grade martial arts places (fun, but not good to train in long term), and there's next to nothing physically confronting.

Now grappling and wrestling, atop being a secondary and often 'unsecure' aspect of weapon combat, is very physically confronting and demanding. I do MMA, BJJ, a little bit of Freestyle wrestling, among others, and grappling is far more of a strain on muscles, joints, tendons, and head knocks.

Not the kind of place you normally see even a MA-inclined nerd. Two VERY different scenes.

So you just don't really get any crossover between good knowledgeable grapplers, and competent game designers.

DnD surprisingly does them kinda decently, if you use ALL the rules. But even there it's mediocre and needs a full spec meme build with three different splatbooks and a specific race and mods to make it work.

If it's not underpowered and useless, it's overbloated and too extensive.
If it's not, it's clunky and flow-breaking, and not fun to use at most tables.
Even BJJ, which arguably has a flow chart for a whole engagement, has too many particulars.

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>>97497124
In other words, the "wrestler/TTRPG game designer" overlap is too narrow for there to be any serious attempt at good grappling rules? It's not exactly a condemnation of all unarmed combat (people make D&D monks work), but I can see how that could be a gap in knowledge.

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>>97491221
>You will never be stretched by a French fashion designer with a massive chest and elevated libido

The worst aspect of any system, whether battle or not, is one that doesn't establish a consistent rule and leaves it up to the arbiter, which guarantees it will never be resolved consistently.
Some people like this, sure, and I'm glad they can enjoy it, but considering there are people who enjoy getting their nuts stepped on with sharp heels, "I enjoy it" is not an argument for objective quality.

>>97497680
I would say that the worst aspect of any system is not necessarily a mechanic that is ill-defined, but rather one that just feels out of place. At least with the former, there is hopefully at least enough scaffolding that players can settle on a ruling that works for their table and still speaks to the spirit of that rule. An out-of-place mechanic, however, breaks up the flow of the game and comes across as jagged in how it stands out compared to the broader mechanics of the game, be it raw execution or how much attention it demands or similar.

People bemoan Shadowrun hacking because, at worst, it's a single-player dungeon crawl that leaves the rest of the table twiddling their thumbs while the GM and the hacker go through all these relatively esoteric actions and checks and goals, all happening on a different time signature than everyone in meatspace. Meanwhile, Genesys's dedicated hacking rules are great because it uses the same core dice mechanic as everything else in the system, the goals and actions used to achieve said goals are simpler and much more clearly defined, and the timing of it can be done in a way that doesn't leave out the rest of the party doing their own thing.

>>97497711
>there is hopefully at least enough scaffolding
It rarely ever works out that way in practice.
Take for example how DMs are expected to set DCs for "skill" checks in D&D; swinging from a chandelier at a given height, distance, material, and dryness could be passed on a roll of 7 +2 for acrobatics early in the campaign, but months later down the line, there's nothing stopping the DM from saying a roll of 14 +4 for acrobatics fails in spite of the same material and environmental conditions.
And this is benign compared to what else can happen with an inconsistent foundation.

"Game flow" on the other hand, is all about how well the players process the information. Hangups over mechanics that might seem out of place all come down to player knowledge of the game.
I agree with the notion there should never be a time when the table is sitting on their thumbs while only one or two people are doing something, though that isn't exclusive to playing a game, and often times happens when two people just want to make voices at each other or one person wants to infodump a bunch of crap barely relevant to playing the game.

Having clear rules everyone is familiar with and can be referenced quickly is more favorable than "oh just wing it" because at that point, it comes down more to guessing what the arbiter is thinking than playing the game everyone agreed on.

>>97497740
>Take for example how DMs are expected to set DCs for "skill" checks in D&D; swinging from a chandelier at a given height, distance, material, and dryness could be passed on a roll of 7 +2 for acrobatics early in the campaign, but months later down the line, there's nothing stopping the DM from saying a roll of 14 +4 for acrobatics fails in spite of the same material and environmental conditions.
That's just bad practice. At least Genesys makes it clear that when you set a flat difficulty for a check (1-5+), that measure is objective and applies to everyone. Let a player feel good if they easily clear what may have been a more difficult task earlier in the campaign.

>>97490584
because being a grappler and fighting people with actual weapons is dumb as fuck and these systems should be deliberately made shit so that no one wants to interact with them and instead plays normal fucking characters

>>97497974
>plays normal fucking characters
like wizards?

>>97491914
>Hollow Earth Expedition
Surprised by this, I cracked open my PDF and checked for "grapp". Making it a variant attack keeps it simple although the ‘add penalty then long explanation that means add a second penalty’ text makes little sense. The issue I see is that it’s not as versatile as you’d probably like it: Krakens in the bestiary are noted as drowning grappled targets, but there don’t seem to be any rules for how to adjudicate movement while grappling something even vaguely your own size (Kraken vs dinosaur, man vs frog-man). Did I miss something or is the GM supposed to make the rules up himself?

>>97492866
>had
Operative word anon

>>97490584
Because grappling and wrestling are the worst combat skills to use against non-human enemies. Even with magic powers, even with anime powers.

>>97494832
Not a movie, but Attack on Titan has great grappling when Eren fights the armored titan

>>97497643
My thoughts, as a person who's involved pretty extensively with both.

>Treat it kinda like Death Saving Throws.
>Successive saving throws as party 'in dominant position' has to move through five positions, the first being standing grapple, to pin and submit a foe so they're entirely helpless.
>Meanwhile, non-dominant foe is rolling against.
>If dominance changes (non-dom beats dom in roll off), you go back one position.
>Person in dominant position can use grapple check to attempt to disengage and return to standing and un-grappled, while non-dom remains prone.
>At position(s) 3+ out of five, instead of making a grapple roll to advance in position, the dominant fighter may elect to make an unarmed strike at +10 to hit, +1 to wound. Ki, wraps, class features, gloves or gauntlet effects do apply.
>Or, to speed things along, a melee attack at +10 to hit, +1 to wound.

Ground and pound is NO fucking joke.

>>97494832
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT6mFjdbBAw
Probably THE greatest modern martial arts movie ever made.
Gritty, realistic, frantic, stressful, and deeply emotional.
It gets not just the feeling of fighting, but also the emotions and motivations behind everyone involved at every stage.
It's a tiny bit exaggerated for the screen, but the feels are 110% there.

And it has superb grappling material in the fights.

>>97498282
That's similar to how I've seen it done in an unarmed combat hack for Genesys. It's all about positions of advantage - two fighters start at Neutral Position and do opposing Brawl checks. Whoever wins advances to Advantageous Position; if they win again, they advance to Superior Position. In Advantageous, they get boost dice to Brawl checks, and in Superior, they upgrade Brawl checks against the opponent while the opponent on bottom has upgraded difficulty on Brawl checks. It's as you say - the better a grappler's position, the worse it gets for the opponent.

>>97490584
If you make it too elaborate, then it becomes "Why use weapons?", if you don't make it strong enough it becomes "Why use fists?", the issue is that weapons tend to just be stat sticks rather than giving access to a range of different abilities.

>>97498350
>then it becomes "Why use weapons?"
Working on a martial arts shonen RPG and had this discussion with my IRL group.
You either go unarmed focus with weapons being specialised optional choices, or focus on weapons with specialised unarmed options. You can't balance both perfectly.

>>97498350
I tend to make things on the side of "too elaborate", but I'd like to think I give proper incentive to using a style incorporating all three among unarmed strikes, melee weapons, & some form of ranged offense.
I'm not really out to impress anyone but myself, but if it comes down to whether or not something can be done, I still like to share my experiences just to possibly inspire someone.

The benefits to unarmed attacks are:
>little/no reflex penalty
>high chance to repeat if they aren't blocked/punished
>can follow up literally anything the user or their allies use (still following the rule of 1 follow up per costed action), as long as there's a target at close range or they strike the same target their ally struck
>power bonus & reflex bonus when user shares a space with the target
>build both special & magic resources quickly, due to having high "score modifiers" & high chance to move targets around
>some classes can ignore defensive traits or even deal increased damage to rock constructs/rocky armor with unarmed strikes
>grappling can tear off equipment or shells
>grappling totally forbids action of the target if they're small enough, or forbids action of a feature for larger targets
>slams end a grapple, but cause full-body damage to the target
>throws cause collision damage to the thrown enemy and possibly to another target in the destination space
>allies can be thrown to either gain a tactical edge, or for a super cool combined attack that adds the thrower's strength to the ally's attack

While the drawbacks to unarmed attacks are:
>low immediate damage
>reduced reflex against a weapon user 1 space away
>receive punishment when hitting a feature with spikes, spines, horns, claws, fangs, thorned armor, etc; can't grapple such features either
>blocking might negate unarmed damage
>grappling & slamming/throwing styles are multi-step processes; target gets an escape check with each action the grappler uses & can neuter a high-damage strategy

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Bringing up grappling is such a red flag.

"I'm too cool to be a normal adventurer with a sword, I want to run up and initiate some weird unbalanced mini-game with every opponent I encounter".

>>97499765
>Wrong
I'm playing a grappler with a pet that does melee grapple too. It's one roll, and all it basically means is that they can't run away. I don't even RP stupid shit about "how I punch." Just a game, senpai.
>Grapple and Unarmed are kino.

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>>97499765
>Nerd with no idea how to fight detected.

>>97499765
How about
>I am holding him to leave him open to easier attacks

>>97491679
Tizoc...

>>97490584
They're not.

>>97491753
Why would the other players stop taking turns?

>>97492188
No, not really.

>>97497124
Not underpowered, not bloated, not clunky.

>>97497740
swinging from a chandelier is a combat stunt, and your successes determine how effective it is, not whether you can do it at all.

>>97494817
Hand to hand combat can't possibly be as good or worthwhile as guns or swords, so it should be weaker and not as effective. Hence why we give soldiers guns and knives irl.

>>97498194
hardly.

>>97502469
The UFC could drop the US military any day as long as they aren't put at a stupid long range. Hand to Hand is superior in every way.

>>97498282
>d20
yeesh.

>>97498350
then just make it balanced. are you stupid?

>>97498458
you can balance both perfectly.

>>97499765
not weird, not unbalanced, not a minigame.

>>97502469
It's less effective than weapons, especially guns, but that doesn't mean it should be so ineffective that even attempting it in a game is treated as an afterthought or a tedious chore. Punching someone in the face might not hurt as much as a gunshot, but generally speaking, a good punch to the jaw is a lot more effective than many games pretend it is. It's not about which is objectively better, but the fact that there is so little consideration given to the option at all.

>>97502475
"A stupid long range" is across a room. In any combat situation that isn't an elevator, a weapon beats bare hands. Even there, a knife is very likely to win, and usually does.

>>97502560
equally as effective.

>>97502567
anyone who buys ranks in Strike or Martial Arts can be as deadly with their hands as any weapon.

>>97502609
Why though? That's not very realistic. It doesn't create verisimilitude.

>>97502477
Anon I made that at 2am.
You're free to port the basic principle to any d100 system you want.
>>97502469
It's good because it can tie up the other person's ability to use a gun or knife.
>Trying to wrestle a knife/gun.
It's not easy for sure, and if you mess up it's going to hurt a lot more than it would unarmed. But I've also done a heap of kali and knife combat/defense stuff in London, and there is absolutely a reasonable procedure for grappling a person with a knife or gun to negate or reduce its usefulness.

>>97502485
Not if you want unarmed to be anything but another weapon type

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>>97497643
>It's not exactly a condemnation of all unarmed combat (people make D&D monks work), but I can see how that could be a gap in knowledge.

Yes, but also no.

There's more overlap with nerds and Traditional martial arts (TMA) than there is wrestling.
Standup arts you can literally step away from and be safe, and a lot of TMA either have fantastic elements, and/or don't pressure test (see most things chinese these days).

But even there, you can see that it's implemented poorly, and not thought of very much at all.

>Monks, which are basically the fistfighter guy, is often outmatched by a guy who just sees red, or a guy who does a bit of unarmed stuff to complement his sword stuff.
>"Getting really angry and seeing red" is actually a power up in practically every comic or /tg/ media, and not an immediate precursor to jobbing like it is IRL.
>A DnD monk can throw a calculated strike to an opponent's jaw, only a certain amount of times a day. Often LESS than a WIZARD can cast a full fucking spell.
>KI points is some serious retardation.
>A fighter, or any person who does melee stuff, somehow has no greater capacity at reading the intended actions of others, than a Wizard or Priest.
>There's no charisma bonus, from either the confidence of knowing how to fight, the repeated training emphasizing bone features often found attractive in men, or the resulting build looking sexy and powerful.
>There is no Fighter's cant, Monk's cant or Barbarian's cant, despite there being a fighters cant IRL, much more then there is a thieves cant.
>Again, wizards and clerics get bonus capacities to know extra skills and abilities, while martial classes, who would have incentives and causes to know things, get nothing.

TTRPG's, all the way back to Gygax and Arneson, have always done martial shitty. If DnD had been co-invented with someone like Bill Wallace, you wouldn't have the 'martial vs caster disparity' stuff you see today.

>>97490584
Mostly due to the fact most systems don't bother with the need to add rules and abilities towards it as it's not something they spent much time on. Hell even how weapons work is limited at best and often magic is the focus of their system.

You might get some WWE moves thrown in, however like with weapons. It's less moves you use like spells and more of just describing how you are doing a "unarmed attack." So doesn't matter if you do a flicker jab, haymaker, uppercut, or swing wildly like a toddler. It's just going to be the same damage.

>>97503293
What I actually like, is that a lot of WoD actually does pretty well at representing unarmed combat.

If you have enough dice in brawl or Martial arts, you can unlock certain moves, with specific roll modifiers and damage modifiers.

It's still a bit kung fu, given the dating, but it's a solid effort for an RPG ruleset that's not altogether combat focused a lot of the time.

>>97502465
Trying to guess what daddy DM thinks your heroic character can and can't do on a whim isn't gameplay.
It's up to the rules of a game to establish what a character can do, and then up to the group to agree which of those rules are used, removed, or changed before the campaign starts. Then, once the campaign has started, these rules should be strictly followed. Following a consistent set of challenges to player skill and luck is gameplay, and setting vague standards that you can later backpedal on because reasons goes against that consistency.
And no, being consistently inconsistent doesn't count. Failing at fail isn't a win.

>>97502628
It's a fantasy world, with beings who have capabilities beyond humans. Why would it be realistic?

>>97502860
why did you assume that the alternative is d100? lol

>>97502886
unarmed is a weapon type, dumbass

>>97503179
Fighters do not have a system of coded marks used to indicate the presence of traps or secret doors in real life lmao

>>97504009
Fortunately, I didn't say "Trying to guess what daddy DM thinks your heroic character can and can't do on a whim". I said the dice determine how effective you are (you know, rules? dumbfuck?), and I didn't say you're inconsistent.

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>>97490960
Real niggas remember Angry Dog

>>97504111
Depends on how the game is written. Talking about the mechanics of it

>>97504209
Yeah. So am I.

>>97504134
Look at what I said in >>97497740.
A total of 9 allows me to swing from a chandelier, while months later on, a total of 18 fails to swing from an effectively indistinct chandelier. If the dice determine how effective you are, then there's no way a failure would result at double the effectiveness of a passing roll.
According to what's in the rules, beating the DC of a task allows a character to perform the task. If that isn't the case, then yes, I do have to guess at what the DM is thinking, because he did something that wasn't a part of the rules we agreed on, he was inconsistent and did something on a whim.

It isn't too hard to understand
>beating a DC lets you do the thing
>9 beats DC
>9 < 18

>>97504429
>months later on, a total of 18 fails
And this is why I hate PF2e scaling DCs

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I don't recall the last time I've seen grappling come up in a ttrpg.

>>97504584
Natural outcome of making grappling such a waste of time in most RPGs. Either there aren't rules for it and it seems like it would be a pain in the ass to work out, or there are rules for it, and they are so suboptimal that it may as well be a punishment to try and use them, so players think
>I don't want to waste everyone's time doing this. I should just do a basic attack instead.
And they're usually right to think so, because games like D&D punish players for not being as brutally efficient as possible and ending the fight as fast as they can.

>>97504429
Why are you using d20 trash?

>>97504429
Now let's look at how it actually works in practice. The resolution of an action depends on the effect the player wants to achieve. Using the chandelier swing as an example :

You're in the penultimate encounter of the bandit fortress assault from qfg1. You want to swing from a rope, and then drop the circular chandelier on the three bandit chiefs to function as an improvized cage. Power stunt ensnare vs the chiefs' averaged defense roll.

You get to the top of the staircase, and you want to swing from the chandelier to reposition yourself between the sheriff and the side door, before he can escape with Maid Marian. An opposed movement challenge roll using Agility, with a bonus from starting from a height and using gravity to propel yourself.

None of these arbitrarily become more difficult for no reason, and they don't depend on DM whim. You just use the rules, same as for anything else you do in the game.

>>97504646
Or you could just use as system where there are rules for it, it's not a pain in the ass, and it's neither suboptimal nor overpowered.

>>97504817
What I use is irrelevant to the discussion of what the worst aspect of any tabletop game is, which I mentioned in >>97497680.

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>>97491107
So the second sounds like…. Actual grappling. Because if you try to grapple with someone significantly stronger or better trained you will almost certainly die

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>>97490584
Grappling is easy in my opinion.
Simply opposed rolls comparing might and training. Winner gets narrative control over what they do when they grapple. If you want to extend the fight make a minimum number of successes before you get to do something exceptional (limb lock, choke, etc).

Grappling should be one of the most effective way to kill fully armored foes.

>>97505253
Of course, it's not the worst aspect.

>>97505712
Yes, it is.
Games are about using one's skill or luck to face challenges according to consistent rules, not guessing what some dungeon master up his own ass wants.

>>97498020
>Did I miss something
Nta, but you missed this bit
>with a penalty equal to the Size rating of his opponent
has it covered already in the default rules
If it means nothing to you:
Dog is size -2. Humans are size 0. T-Rex is size 4. All things in the bestiary have their size always stated, since it's part of HP and defense calculations.

Which means all grappling mechanics are a single fucking paragraph, accounting for size disparity with ease.

>>97507138
And like I said, there's no guessing involved, just the rules. Glad we agree.

>>97504584
For me it was two weeks ago, comes up fairly often in GURPS

>>97504885
Sounds like what you described isn't left up to the arbiter, but established in the rules.
Did you read the posts you were responding to?

>>97507535
Did you? I'm the one explaining that grappling isn't up to GM whim. Other people are claiming that it is. What are you having trouble with?

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>>97490584
Pathfinder 2e has some decent mechanics and feats for grappling but there's not enough there for your whole character to be built around grappling alone. You can definitely make an MMA unarmed guy though and its pretty fun, assuming you can roleplay.

>>97490584
Martial arts in anima are pretty strong but most will only find uses in one or two of them unless if they're a Tao where they get martial arts for cheap and can do shit that other classes would need ki/magic/psychic powers for.

>>97507484
>comes up fairly often in GURPS
I'm sure it does. Can't believe it has already been 10 years...
https://shootingdiceblog.wordpress.com/2016/02/04/tactical-shootingmartial-arts-john-wick/

>>97507610
>I'm the one explaining that grappling isn't up to GM whim.
Okay, so you didn't read my post.
Next time you want to respond to someone, it would help if you actually read what they said.

>>97507221
That’s for the difficulty to get into a grapple, not for how moving while carrying the target works.

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>>97490584
i saw it like this first and thought a beholder is kissing her butt

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>>97499765
goddamn that's alot of self-harm scars

>>97509136
You didn't read mine, you mean.

>>97509463
Ah, he's ust givin it a respectful lil smooch.

>>97509253
Again - it's covered under size rules.
To explain better: when you reach the grappling rules of this game, you already know how:
- size
- size differences
- difficulty of rolls
- combat subrules to difficulty
operate
Meaning that single paragraph, in the context of the game, provides you all informations you need.
Which is why the grappling rule itself can be so short and to-the-point: everything else was already covered elsewhere, here you have just the stuff related directly to the grapple itself.

>>97509483
Or one very bad accident, and a lesson about not riding motorcycles in booty shorts.

>>97509779
Sure, sure, but none of that has anything to do with movement. Nowhere does it spell out that you can or cannot move while grappling – fair to a degree, we can infer that moving while pinning someone to the ground is going to be hard. We might even infer that you can lift someone up and hold him over your head if you beat the same difficulty as for pinning, which factors Size in, although this isn’t written anywhere so I am complaining. And I get really annoyed when I want to simply add the total weight of the guy/T-Rex lifted overhead to my Encumbrance to calculate how much I can move with him and I can find neither a weight for any creature nor an actual Encumbrance table that goes beyond human character Strength values. And no, the human table doesn’t follow any simple calculation that I could expand to my STR12 Kraken, either.
TL;DR: I don’t think the system is bad or inelegant but I do think there are some holes that I’d like to be patched.

>>97509986
This is where proper DM discretion comes in. You're not wrong, but there's a reason we have a DM in the first place. I'm not afraid to call Bullshit on my players when they're doing something stupid, even if it is RaW. There are holes, but for the most part you can get over them without much trouble.

>>97492866

As full of freakshow fights as Pride was, I don't think they ever had a 4-on-4 battle.

>>97490584

Unless your game is specifically about martial arts and entirely designed around it, it's a safe bet that unarmed fights are an extremely rare occurrence and thus don't get a lot of design effort put into them. Like, how many times are you realistically going to fight unarmed in an RPG? Once out of a million fights? Ten thousand fights? It's just not worth focusing on.

>>97490584
Man just seeing shermie's stupid haircut gives me flashbacks of being combo grappled to death. Joe save me!

>>97510547
Every single fight, if your character concept doesn't rely on weapons. And you don't need a specific subsystem for it, so there's no more or less focus than on anything else. Dumbfuck.

>>97510547
Uhh you'll get unarmed fights the moment someone makes a monk in D&D? I think it's got to be a little more common than that

>>97510547
It's not complicated. This is shit bait, or at best, delusion.
>>97510705
>>97510712
System in place is fine.
>Evidence

>>97509463
It should be.

>>97498282
That's all fine and dandy, but that's already 3 rounds before you even start dealing damages. And that's just one opponent. When a typical combat session often ends at round 2 and involves more opponents than PCs.
That's exactly what people mean when they talk about the issue with grappling rules.

On top of that, it still lacks cool combat stunts which arguably could be part of grappling, like tripping someone up, or disarming. Or climbing on top of a large monster to be able to hit a weak spot.

I agree that wrestling is cool and belongs in a good combat system, even a realistic one, but there has to be a way to do that which fits the overall game flow.

Honestly, they just do not fit in the usual combat logic and flow found from TTRPGs.
Unarmed I guess can be treated just as same as regular weapons, though even that has the issue with gear cycles unless you implement some silly shit like magical handwraps. And honestly that is boring solution, but having more complex mechanics than that would generally go past what any character could choose and into specialist territory aka full-fledged classes or similar. Or alternatively full autist ruledump that nobody bothers reading because it would be separate from the general combat system.

Grappling is a whole another can of worms because it is obviously restraining ability, but also logically forces the grappler himself remain with the target which basically removes the grappler from combat as long as he is grappling. Then you try mitigate that issue by adding more layers into grappling so that PC can actually separate himself from the target, but that becomes an issue of how long that should take player turns -wise. If you make it too short, it becomes an "instant kill" ability that might bypass the usual restrictions on such abilities. And if you make it too long then we are back at issue of PC removing himself from combat.
Alternatively you could have grappling as support ability where you just inflict debuff on enemy so that you and the party can hit them better, but that again is a boring solution.

In short, I think grappling belongs better into those long-form 1vs1 combat simulation games rather than the usual party based games.

the funniest thing with threads like these are people like >>97513902 who go full on, it would be a different minigame with too much investment yada yada and it's so unrealistic and so on and so forth.
what do you n'hwas think martial combat is, realistic? it's as fake as grappling and in most systems it's actually more fake. but your modern martial arts knowledge have made you people aware of the one fact and not the other.

Also one of the simple facts that people tend to gloss over probably because they are nogames, is that grappling is mostly used in systems like dnd against monsters because a lot of them have the tendency to grab you in some way of form and you have to resist that and vice versa having a guy that is grappling the monster.

Grappling doesn't need to be elaborate. It doesn't need to have positions. In fact it shouldn't in 99,9 percent of games.
All of you approach grappling like it's only brajilian jiu jitsu, mma or grecoroman wrestling like it's fucking ufc or the olympics while especially in armed combat with armored opponents grapples would be simple grabs to either drop an opponent or to hold him to stab him or prevent him from stabbing you. A grappler monk should be doing something between judo and aikido throwing around or disarming people.
It should be a simple roll and not a fucking minigame of 6 different positions before you get to do anything. This is the worst oldschool dnd sacred cow that i see other systems kinda universally adopt to a degree as well

>>97514333
>simple grabs to either drop an opponent or to hold him to stab him or prevent him from stabbing you. A grappler monk should be doing something between judo and aikido throwing around or disarming people.
Those are whole different maneuvers separate from grappling

>>97514352
and still these are exactly what would be used in martial combat and fall directly under the umbrella of grappling martial arts

>>97509986
>I read a single paragraph without reading the actual rules
>Now I will project a metric fuckload about the rules that I don't know and also show myself as clueless moron who needs 15 step instruction to open the door, in a bid to claim the rule is bad or poorly explained
What the other anon said already: pick up HEX, read it and stop being such a bitchfag

Big reason why typically grappling rules are such a mess is that they are trying to explain the whole process, rather than the variable needed to solve the grapple itself.

>>97513687
>Wrong
Not to get into different systems, but PF2e has great wrestling mechanics. I get a free grapple every other attack at level 4 and at level 6 I can spend an action to suplex for extra damage. All while taking no extra time for my turn.
>>97513902
You can unarmed strike in ever ruleset while grappling, just take a roll every turn to maintain the grapple and your opponent has a penalty to AC.
>>97514333
No wrestling mini game. That would be silly. Still, I let my players tell me exactly what they're doing and sometimes it warrants a small bonus here and there.

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/thread.

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Statistically speaking, global fight scientists determined that literally 99% of all combat ends up on the ground.

Why don't you train BJJ for tabletop RPGs?

>>97517668
Ground fighting sucks if you're outnumbered

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>>97517668
>literally 99% of all combat ends up on the ground.
In any one on one fight, the goal is for 50% of the combatants to end up on the ground.

>>97517668
>BJJ
>opponent just refuses to grapple and gets up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4ZW4389EeM

>>97517668
Because it's the most advantageous position for any attacker.

>>97491877
I mean the way grappling works IRL is that it's insanely OP 1v1 if they're not stronger than you. But if they are, they're just going to SMASH AND SLAM you into the ground, which if it's hard (pavement) will kill you. If it's soft (dirt) you're fine.
However, grappling is slow as fuck and leaves you absolutely defenseless to the guy's friends, which is why it's never used in combat outside of sports really.

>>97517668
One >>97517755
Two BJJ is a sport, not for combat

Basically there are a few rules that people don't realize are preventing BJJ from looking anything like a real fight. The first is the mat. If you fight on asphalt, hitting your head or being on your back is a death sentence, sometimes literally. The next is no striking. Closing the gap is hard, guard is not a defensible position (head slammed into ground/headbutted). The back of your head is extremely vulnerable. If you get a takedown stuffed, you should expect hammer fists and elbows into your head, not the chance to recover or grapple back up. The final is clothes. Gi is a better fit than no Gi, but it still ignores strikes. Watch a hockey fight to see how this goes.

>>97490584
Barbarians of Lemuria has fun grappler options, but it requires going all in with the concept.

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>>97497659
>YWN ride the Shermie Spiral

Why live, bros

>>97518392
you also have a lot of rules designed to avoid long term injuries, ankle locks being banned in most circuits for example. If you were in absolute danger and not thinking straight you could do life changing damage and keep going not even realizing.
Same with any combat sport when the trained person is panicking and the other dude is unprepared.

>>97517795
He is literally a BJJ purple belt...

>>97508036
>but there's not enough there for your whole character to be built around grappling alone.
I almost made it there on a Kineticist in a 1-20 campaign.
>archetype (wrestler)
>fire/wood kineticist
The idea is to use Furnace Form and Thermal Nimbus. The grapple gets extra damage from Furnace Form as long as it hits(3d6 fire), and keeps them stuck in your thermal nimbus aura(1/2 level per turn). Fire's aura junction increases both of these values by half your level. Crushing Grab and Bracers of Strength bring your strength mod into the damage twice. If your GM is based, every escape attempt also triggers furnace form's damage.
The end result is that you do consistent damage to your enemy while being the only person they can really target because you're hugging them to death. Sometimes your party's mages conjure up a field of death and you whirling throw(RIP) some poor sucker into it.
Whenever I couldn't grapple, I was still a kineticist and could rain death on them from any range.
Wood is there mostly for the armor impulse, and can be swapped freely with earth (or metal but their armor impulse is terrible).

>>97519018
it's hilarious how many stupid hoops you have to jump thru in that system to do something so simple

>>97518547
Which clearly taught him that BJJ is weak to just standing up.

I think my party is mad at me for my Grapple build because I just go grab the biggest baddest mother fuckers and hug them until they pass out. I think I might talk to my DM about changing my playstyle, I don't want to trivialize my other party members. I still think grappling and unarmed are cool though.

>>97519897
I thought it was cool.

>>97520190
that's not what I'm disagreeing with lol

>>97520073
Sorry, but it's your character, and while taking into account the fun of the group, you don't need to tow to their demands all the time.

>>97520073
Why are you playing a game that's so bad that grappling can trivialize the other players?

This thread makes me wonder if one of those HEMA autist RPGs has grappling and knockdowns as a prerequisite for actually killing a fully armored man.

>>97490584
>Why are they the worst aspects of any ttg battle system?

>Grappling
It runs best at a different timescale to how combat is usually conceptualized im ttrpgs.

>unarmed combat.
Same as grapplling but ad to it that many systems are conceptualized as armamants being what weapons normally are, rather than body larts being weapons, and weapon properties being integral to how effective or anodine you are in generating combat power.

>>97523278
No, it works just fine on the same time scale.

>>97494832
I dunno, John Wick 1 - 4 did pretty fucking well.

>>97518392
Kinda yes, but also kinda no.
While BJJ ALONE is a bad method to train for the mythical 5v5 street fight, and it's definitely taught around a point score system, it's still probably the best single grappling art to learn for reasonable open conflict.

Especially for the good number of BJJ people who also practice a striking art, as the crossover is incredibly high next to other grappling arts.

While fighting on and off mat is very different, ultimately a person with good BJJ skills will have an advantage, as a lot of street fights very quickly progress to wrestling because most people can't punch for shit and it only takes a short while to get close and grab the guy, where of all modern grappling arts, BJJ is generally the most comprehensive and well rounded.
Other arts struggle in that they don't train for extensive periods on the ground, or in a clench. Sambo, wrestling and judo all have stand up rules, which isn't a thing in an open fight.
Compared to those, BJJ is a better option to train with. Especially as some competitions literally roll to submission.

>Stuffed takedown.
Odds are that; the other person is not trained, and will not land effective hammerblows in the time it takes the BJJ person to move to a second guard pass attempt, or the other person is trained, and will fall back to their training, which doesn't allow for elbows to the vertebrae.

>Guard isn't defensible.
It is remarkably defensible though. You may need to adapt a little bit to prevent G&P, but you're already controlling a lot of their body, you're in contact, and any striking he might attempt offsets his balance and gives you an opening.

>>97499765
I don't care about your boring 5e liking opinion but who is that bpd cutie in the picture?

>>97510705
>>97510712
Please don't pretend Monk isn a real character class. It's an incompatible concept awkwardly jammed into a system meant to model swordfights in heavy armor and it has never worked properly in the game's history.

>>97524497
Stop playing dndogshit.

>>97525409
DnD isn't the most offensive example.

>>97520867
>Correct
>>97520919
My brain is just too big and I always end up trivializing my allies... jk, but for real though too a little bit.

>>97528519
Doesn't matter. dndogshit refers to all bad games.
>>97529430
Like I said, if it's possible for one character to make another of the same power level irrelevant, the game is bad.

>>97509483
Oh sweet summer child.

>>97504120
>>97503179
In theory the MILITARY would. Code words, hand signals, markings, etc, but fighter =/= soldier necessarily.

That said, Monk and Warlock have always been my favourite 5e classes, seconded only by Fighter and Barbarian, because they've got the most flexibility and potential for over-powered nonsense without being a ridiculous bookkeeping minigame (wizards and sorcerers) or a blunt force trauma simulator where I stack dice 80% of the game waiting for combat (Usually Fighter and Barbarian.

>>97490584
And that's the worst thing in ANY battle system whatsoever. Waiting. If it's turn-based, you should be able to sit forward and go "alright I'm gonna do this" immediately. If your next move isn't either intuitive or very easily decided, then every second you spend going "uhhhh OK and he's how far? and I can move like... four... UHM.... UH.... OK if I cast a... no, that won't work..."

So my favourite systems are the ones with as few barriers to action as possible, so you can JUST DO THE FUCKING THING. I can't stand the waiting during combat, it SUCKS.

>>97515212
/thread.

bυmp

>>97490584
They're not.

>>97504120
>>97532949
No, but fighters have their own learned method to communicate and read others by body language, movement patterns and weight distribution, as well as a whole lot of spoken jargon that makes sense to a martial artist, but not to anyone else.

"Blue whizzer's me and I got in an omoplada" is a coherent sentence. I tell it to another Martial Artist, and he knows what happened.

I can also fake a punch, and he doesn't flinch, because he sees it's a fake, while someone else would flinch.
I can, and have, fought people I couldn't speak a word to, and learnt things about their character, personality, and emotional state in a handful of minutes. You go to a gym, you barely talk to people, but you know their ins and outs pretty damn well, because you talk with your bodies, feet and fists and choices.

But apparently, according to WotC and Gygax and fat fucking nerds, that doesn't count enough to have a class cant or shared pseuo-language.

Yet apparently thieves have enough of a shared lingo to qualify for one.

It's fucking dumb as shit. And it's because rpg players and devs on the whole do not fight people under pressure.

>>97541596
That's not at all the reason fuckwit.
Fighters have jargon, but it's not hidden. The entire point of thieves' cant is that it doesn't sound like jargon, it sounds like normal speech.
It's not listening to a scientist use words you don't understand to communicate meaningful ideas. It's listening to a normal ass dude talking about his kid's baseball game without realizing he's discussing his prostitution ring and gang hits.

>>97541596
Do you know what "cant" means?

>>97541596
>>97541915
Its like saying

>baseball players can use sign language because they can signal when to bunt

>>97541915
Which is an even more unrealistic thing for a fucking burglar to know, while an experienced fighter apparently can't communicate without notice by subtle shifts of bodyweight.

But if you want to be pedantic, and you don't think people can subtly communicate with each other by body language, fighters should then have bonuses to communication and perception checks. Both in how to communicate with others, but also especially in how to read and interpret the mannerisms of others.

...Which they still don't have. Which is the issue.

>>97542369
>Which is an even more unrealistic thing for a fucking burglar to know,
False assumption. They're organized criminals, not some meth head looking for a TV.

>But if you want to be pedantic, and you don't think people can subtly communicate with each other by body language, fighters should then have bonuses to communication and perception checks. Both in how to communicate with others, but also especially in how to read and interpret the mannerisms of others.
This isn't a fighter trait. It's a human one. A fighter can and should have bonuses to things like noticing being flanked (Wind River). And hey--they do! They have perception and initiative bonuses!

>>97490584
A good test which determines whether a game is detailed enough is to ask one of the following questions:
1: What happens if I try to grab an object out of someone's hand?
2: What happens if I try to damage an object that someone is holding?
3: What happens if I place my weapon above the ribcage of an immobilized person, and push it down a few feet?
If none of these questions can be answered, or if they are answered with redirects to the same abstracted rules used for everything else, you're not playing a fantasy combat RPG, you're playing an icebreaker board game.

>>97491107
That's what grappling is like IRL, depending on the circumstances.

>>97543257
Where exactly do you see the problem if all of these were variants of the same attack action? Sure, a shield doesn’t help you defend against an attack with the intent to grab the shield and an immobilised person cannot dodge and so on and so forth, but why do we need to split the rules up?

>>97543482
If they are different branches off of the attack action, that is fine as long as the effect is meaningfully different (for example, if grabbing, damaging, and coup-de-graces all count as "a melee attack" but have significantly different consequences). I am criticizing games like 4e or narrativist games which flavor attacks as something which should be really consequential, but all that happens is a dice of damage with a condition from the list of stock attack riders. In 5e, you can't even attack someone's weapons without houserules, and you can only disarm with spells or with fighter maneuvers that are castrated by making them use resources.

>>97543257
No, you're playing a fantasy combat RPG. Simulationism will never be a valid preference.

>>97543553
Flavor is consequential. How an attack is described and functions in the world is far more important than its mechanical results.

Bizarrely I actually like how Chronicles of Darkness does it

>Starting a grapple is basically an unarmed attack
>Once you're grappled with someone, each side basically rolls an unarmed attack against the other each turn
>The winner gets to choose actions from a list, like breaking free of the grapple, inflicting damage, controlling a weapon, etc.

>>97543927
Simulationism is the reason why RPGs exist in the first place, otherwise you would just be playing chess and card games. The entire argument of
>muh fantasy combat RPG
only exists because Blizzard and Square Enix raped the rpg genre into an aesthetic.
>>97543934
If the attack having any consequences at all other than damage requires GM fiat, flavor and gameplay are mismatched. In video games, if you spend millions of dollars on creating extremely vibrant and shaded visuals for a walking simulator where you occasionally shoot at monsters that just walk straight towards you, that doesn't make it not a walking simulator with extremely simple combat.

>>97544153
No, simulationism is inferior, sorry.

>>97543257
Modern games are too soft, tbhqwty.

>>97497124
>Nerds, by and large, do not do martial arts.
You don't know many fighters, do you.

>>97492250
Yeah, but he's a Heel. His homies are going to interfere.

>>97497124
>But even there it's mediocre and needs a full spec meme build with three different splatbooks and a specific race and mods to make it work.
You mook. Pump STR, Get Proficiency with Athletics. If you're a total scumbag, get Expertise.
You can now wrassle most of the RAW Monster Manual.

>>97497124
Just purchase ranks in might, toughness, and willpoower. You don't even need to buy powers to be an effective grappler.

>>97543553
Ah I see, that makes sense. In the homebrew I’m currently testing, an attack can have all of these results, although the defender can and usually will opt to take an injury rather than losing their one weapon. At least you can aim for a specific result as attacker.

>>97543553
Brainless.

>>97497124
F.A.T.A.L. was made by wrestling nerds, some of which actually professionally wrestled. Yet another F.A.T.A.L. victory.

>>97546333
Explain in your own words why not having a dedicated system for targeting held items (5e even guarantees that they are unaffected by AOEs, unlike in 3.5e where the wielder can try to make a saving throw for the item, but if that fails the item was in the AOE), and specifically removing the pre-existing rules for that as well as disarming, and replacing them with a resource-gated and worse version, is good.

>>97543553
4e has class neutral rules for disarming, grappling, disarming and coup de grace. You're out of luck for sundering, but heck 3 out of 4 ain't a boardgame. Also Sundering ducked because
>>97546511
It punished melee fighters and destroyed potential loot.

>>97546511
>still stuck in dnd brainrot mode
yep, brainless.

>>97515212
/thread.

>>97515212
Yeah, these are pretty neat. Easy to remember. Yoink!

Too much complexity and they tend to be "if your character is built to abuse it, they win, otherwise there's no point trying" because it basically boils down to one successful check to win
same as social combat where you just intimidate a guy into exploding

>>97552961
You haven't used good systems, clearly.

>You haven't used good systems, clearly.
I don't think you could name three that did it well even in your own opinion, let alone three where it being done well is the general opinion.

>>97553157
>>97515212
Why would I need more than one objectively perfect system with zero flaws?

>>97553157
Well?

>>97557879
dnd, gurps, fatal

>>97561165
Not what I asked.

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>>97490584
See >>>/vg/snk