being GRABBLED : do number of hands matter?

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Axelmania
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being GRABBLED : do number of hands matter?

Unread post by Axelmania »

Pg 58 under 7. Avoiding the grasp of a zombie mentions:
    The player of the fleeing character rolls 1D20 and the zombie rolls 1D20 - high roll wins, defender always wins ties. If the character wins, he dodges past the zombie without getting grabbed - dodge bonuses may be applied to this roll to avoid being grabbled.

This appears to imply a couple interesting things about this aspect of zombie combat:
    1) strike bonuses aren't mentioned as being applied, which draws into question whether a Sloucher's +2 to strike would help them here... although if you allowed strike penalties (a -10 for a zombie to grab what he can't see) allowing the bonuses would seem fair to me
    2) parry bonuses aren't mentioned as being applied, implying a parry which may work against a zombie's punch would not work against a zombie's grab, which sucks for those who rely on auto-parry to defend without losing attacks

I love the word grabble. It's like a portmanteau of grab and grapple. If you are grabbed/grappled at the same time, you are grabbled!

Anyway I'm wondering about the mechanics of this, which continues on 8. Pulling someone from the grip of a zombie is difficult.

    It requires a combined P.S. 50% higher than the zombie's own P.S.

Very different from an Entangle, which isn't a guaranteed success/failure and isn't influenced by PS, you just roll to dodge to get un-entangled, and friends can't help!

What I'm wondering though is... does this change depending on whether the zombie is grabbing with 1 hand or 2 hands? They appear to alternate between them 50/50 here.

I would think it would make sense to require 50% higher than HALF the PS of a zombie if they were only doing a 1-handed grab. This could also create situations where you might just cut off 1 hand, and then be able to wrestle away the zombie's victim without needing to cut off the other.

I'm wondering if there's any precedent for a ruling like this, of PS being 50% with just 1 hand being used. I know GURPS had something like that with "one hand lift" and "two hand lift" stats, but I can't remember if I saw it in any Palladium games.

In spite of what I said earlier about the parry, pg 59's top paragraph (a continuation of 11. Blast them and bash them to get zombies to move out of your way does mention:
    If the zombie wins the high roll, the defender must dodge to avoid being grabbed in its iron grip or parry the grasping attack.
    ..
    A successful roll on parry or dodge means the character slipped past and keeps on running

This appears to indicate that parries are allowed against grabs in 1 specific situation: if the zombie wins the D20 contest when you tried to bash him out of the way.

If you're willing to spend a melee attack bashing a zombie with a blunt weapon (this could eat into attacks you'd rather spend on dodging) this seems like the superior option, since a defense roll is only a back-up plan if you fail the D20 contest, and even then you can use your auto-parry so you're still out 1 action just like if you had tried to dodge past them.

The only way I can see this being bad is if you are a better dodger than you are hitter (assuming GM allows dodge/strike penalties for the 7. and 11. options on 58. IMO if you did, you should allow zombies their strike bonuses on 7. and parry or entangle bonuses for 11...) and lack combat training for an auto-parry. A bad striker would more often have to make a defense and without auto-parry they're out 2 attacks for each zombie grab they're trying to avoid.
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