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Do the Rules As Written support the idea of the cinematic hostage-take?
Specifically, the Bad Guy grapples someone from behind (usually around the throat or upper chest) and stands behind them for cover.
Could a villian make a grapple check, maintain the grapple one handed, then say point and fire a loaded hand or light crossbow with the other hand?
Do the Rules As Written support the idea of the cinematic hostage-take?
Specifically, the Bad Guy grapples someone from behind (usually around the throat or upper chest) and stands behind them for cover.
Could a villian make a grapple check, maintain the grapple one handed, then say point and fire a loaded hand or light crossbow with the other hand?
who is the someone? If its someone relatively easy to grapple (lower level) yes. If its a PC, no. After like level 2 a crossbow bolt is no longer a real concern, you will try to break the grapple. Hostages can be taken because they DONT struggle out of fear of death. As a PC you literally laugh at the idea of a single light crossbow bolt.
There's nothing in the rules about using a grappled creature as cover.
Simply grappled doesn't give the BG enough control. Have him continue the grapple to give the pinned condition.
Pinned: A pinned creature is tightly bound and can take few actions. A pinned creature cannot move and is flatfooted. A pinned character also takes an additional –4 penalty to his Armor Class. A pinned creature is limited in the actions that it can take. A pinned creature can always attempt to free itself, usually through a combat maneuver check or Escape Artist check. A pinned creature can take verbal and mental actions, but cannot cast any spells that require a somatic or material component. A pinned character who attempts to cast a spell must make a concentration check (DC 10 + grappler’s CMB + spell level) or lose the spell. Pinned is a more severe version of grappled, and their effects do not stack.
I imagine it going something like this:
Surprise round:
BG:(standard action) BG grapples target. Assume success.
First round (assume BG wins initiative)
BG:(standard action) BG maintains grapple, voluntarily using only one hand (-4) but getting a +5 because of the existing grapple for a net +1. Assume success, allowing the BG to apply the pinned condition.
BG:(move action) Draw weapon and point it at pinned target.
Even better if BG has Greater Grapple and Quick Draw. In that case, he can improve his grapple to a pin as a move action, draw a weapon as a free action, and use his standard action to declare a "held action" to attack his pinned target on some triggering condition ("Stay back or I'll cut her !").
Just in case its suggested, Pinned <> Helpless, so Coup de Grace won't work. As a Coup takes a full round action, it can't be prepared as a "held action" either.
The problem is, the grappler wont have both hands free so is taking a penalty to his grapple, so unless the grappled character is not good at grappling they are very likely to break free, which would really screw up the dramatic hostage moment.
I think what you are describing should be pulled off through magic
ghoul touch
paralysis poison
hold person (possibly extended)
etcand a threat to coup de grace
utilizing the paralyzed PC as cover......
Could also be done with some drow poison, or whip up a poison that causes paralysis instead of unconciousness.
There is also a feat from one of the old splat books either song and silence or complete scoundrel that lets you perform a Coup De Grace as a standard action. Thus, the CDG could be done as a readied action.
Combine this with paralyze poison and give the person holding the hostage levels in rogue.
Helpless target + readied CDG + sneak attack damage = almost certain death if the PCs do something.
Yeah, what makes the "hostage situation" work so much more poorly in D&D is the inability of doing a lot of damage with a single action. Rather than a crossbow bolt, though, you could have a villain ready to use a powerful ray spell against the helpless target.
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It can be done, but only with a wink and nudge by the DM. I ran into a hostage situation a while back in a game that I was running. It happened right as we were breaking for the night, so I left it as a nice cliffhanger, then spent the next day trying to figure out how the hell I could make it work mechanically.
The best way I could come up with was to make a person helpless and then threaten to perform a coup de grace on them. The tricky part is the "helpless" bit.
A helpless character is paralyzed, held, bound, sleeping, unconscious, or otherwise completely at an opponent's mercy.
The last bit about being "completely at an opponent's mercy" is key. All of the other requirements are specific conditions that have their own rules. The last is a nice catch-all for situations that may not normally arise.
As written, so long as the DM feels that a character is completely at the mercy of an opponent, then that character is considered helpless to that opponent. Where it gets complicated is that the situation of grabbing someone and holding a gun to their head (so to speak) looks like it involves existing rules. Specifically grappling which, as the people above me have mentioned, doesn't work very well in practice.
What I did was create a new combat maneuver, similar to a grapple, called Cinematic Hostage Taking:
It worked well that night, and we've since used it several times. As a "cinematic rule", it isn't something players can initiate on their own. I treat hostage situations the same way I treat chase scenes; it isn't one unless the DM says it is.
We try and use common sense to figure out when a hostage situation would and wouldn't work, and I trust my players to "play along" with it once it unfolds. Especially if a PC is being taken hostage.