Forums of the Megaverse®

So I noticed the 'Hold' rules only involve a character's PP to escape from them. Is there anywhere that covers super strong characters grappling?

Not that I'm aware of. It was a great way to keep super strong characters in check.

It doesn't really make any sense though.

There is no doubt in my mind that my 6 year old has a higher PP than I do (at least gross dexterity, maybe not so much hand-eye coordination). But there is no way she could lock me down in a grapple. I know, she's tried.

Conversely, how could a 10 PS 30 PP character hold down a 30, 40 PS superhuman or supernatural Str character? That doesn't make any sense.

PS: That game screen you have in your sig is awesome!

Rifter 3 has some optional rules for grappling that work a little better than the standard ones.

Could you tell me a bit about them?

Well for escaping/maintaining holds you would add each opponents' PS, PP, grappling bonus (if any), and the escapee's grappling penalty (again, if any) to a d20 roll, with ties going to the holder.

Remove PS from the equation.

How would a human grapple with a dragon to pin it down? assume the Dragon doesn't even have SN PS, it's still a 30 foot tall, 30 ton beast, and you're maybe 6' 180lbs. And yet nothing stops a human from grappling with a dragon and using Wrestling to pin it in Rules as Written.

That, and your question about super strong, falls under the "GM's should use common sense" rule Kevin keeps repeating. He didn't bother saying that you can't use Holds on Dragons or super strong characters because he assumed the GM would be smart enough to disallow it. Kevin is still stuck in the 80's when game design rules had gaping holes it was simply expected GM's to fill in blanks for on their own.

The problem with assuming a GM is "smart enough" to disallow something is that it makes it too all-or-nothing. Not all examples are as easy as "can the ant hinder the whale?". At some point you're going to move on a spectrum of normal strength to super strength at which some point, a character will be strong enough to slow up a dragon.

GURPS had this problem for a long time too (equal penalties to people who are grappled regardless of grappler strengthened) where a high strength only helped in escaping grapples, but it still took time dedicated to each escape so swarms could constantly distract a strong guy unless he wanted the brutal grappling penalties. I'd love to see Douglas Cole write a "Palladium Grappling" sourcebook, his Control Points system addressed it pretty well.

I don't mind filling in the gaps, or rulings not rules design philosophy. However, grappling is pretty integral to super's genre so I'd expect some clarity, especially with 5 kinds of strength. Can a 30 PS normal hold down an extraordinary with 5 PS? Can a superhuman with 80 PS hold a supernatural str of 15? Where does Robot Strength fall into this?

Like those are some pretty key distinctions and DO NOT fall under the concept of 'common sense'.

In the game I'm running a couple of characters with around 40ish Supernatural Strength fought (and attempted to grapple) a villain with a 70ish Superhuman strength. Who wins? Who knows!

in regards to holds or joint locks -

a lot of times, depending on the specific hold or lock, strength has no thing to do with it.

YOu can be strong enough to bench press cars, but if you have no way to leverage your strength, it wont do you any good..

Simplest thing to do in these situations is to look at the max lifting weight for each person.

PS 30 = 600 lbs (PS times 20 due to example's PS being >16)
EPS 5 = 1000 lbs (PS times 200)
SNPS 15 = 7500 lbs (PS times 500)

It might also be prudent to then down-convert the higher strength category to that of the lower person's scale. So for your first example there your EPS of 5 is equal to a normal PS of 50 (1000/20). Your SNPS of 15 is equal to a normal's 375, which would mean you might not even bother with that d20 roll I mentioned above, 'cause you ain't gonna get out of it by strength alone.

As for robot PS, page 204 considers it to be equivalent to superhuman PS, which gives you PS times 300 for lifting weight.

Looking at the HU 2 Hold rules, it seems that Strength is irreelvent. It's purely a PP-based thing. So no matter how strong you are someone slippery can always slide out of your grasp unless your also super agile.

This works for me, as I perfer my Super hero fights to focus on blasting and punching and guns and swords rather than grappling, but YMMV. You can always make a rule they have to at least be of the same strength teir or higher to escape.

I admit I've never had a party who cared about taking villians alive, so that might be a part of it.

Sure, that's true, but when is that the case versus when it is brute strength holding a thing down? Also, if you can't move a target's joint to put it into position, it's kind of moot.

I know, that's what I said in the OP and is the problem I'm looking for solutions for. The rules for Holds were clearly written with human v human conflict in mind and as usual simply copy and pasted from one game to the next. To me, that's a problem.

Thanks, that's probably a workable answer!

I preposed a houserule in the same post to fix it.

True. I was just responding to the main thrust of your post.

That said your solution works when the numbers are similar, no need to compare. But I guess I feel like a 50 superhuman should trump a 3 supernatural, for example. But we really have no idea of what is intended.

As you say, I imagine most house games of Heroes Unlimited don't involve much attempted grappling either, hence the scarcity of rules on the subject.

If you want a more direct comparison, simply use Carry weight, and require the compartive Carry weights of the two to be within a certain range.


So a normal person with a PS of 10 carries 100 and a person with Ex. PS of 20 carries 1000. A person with a supernatural PS of 40 carries 12,000 while a Superhuman PS of 60 carries 18,000

Doing that should give you a coherent baseline across all Strength types. Just compare carry weights and decide that only people within X of each-other can realistically grapple on even terms and beyond that range the stronger always holds the weaker or at least gets bonuses to do so.

Strength ALWAYS has something to do with it, it's just that proper leverage multiplies/divides strength so the difference would have to be crazy-high.

If for example, a joint lock leverages PS to a factor of 10 then a PS5 vs PS20 guy would be like 50 v 20 or 5 v 2 or something like that, so you're effectively twice as strong as them, but it still wouldn't be enough to overpower a PS100 guy.