Thoughts on this grappling houserule

[Atalius]

My GM has house ruled this for grappling, what are your thoughts? Will this help or hinder my Tetori? (I'm still learning the game)

"Attacking while in a grapple is a standard action. Breaking a pin only reverts the target to being grappled. It requires another grapple check to break free."

[Bob Bob Bob]

It really depends on what that first part means. The second is all good for you (just go for pin with the first maintain). If the first part means that you need to spend a standard action to do damage in a grapple separate from the maintain, well, then you need to get Greater Grapple as fast as possible. Otherwise you're never going to damage enemies without pinning them, tying them up, releasing the grapple, and then just punching them. Which is... a weird way to play a grappler, for one. If instead it means that you can only use a standard action to attack while in a grapple (instead of a full attack) then that's all good for you. Means opponents can't just ignore the grapple and maul you to death (lions and tigers are great at this).

So it all comes down to whether this is preventing the grappler from causing damage with the maintain or the grapplee from ignoring the grapple to full attack. The first one is bad for you (eventually fixed with Greater Grapple but still hurts your damage), the second one is good for you.

[Atalius]

Thank you he said its to prevent full attacks while grappling which is great.

[wraithstrike]

Atalius wrote:

Thank you he said its to prevent full attacks while grappling which is great.

So you mean the person being grappled can't full attack the person controlling the grapple?

[Scott Wilhelm]

wraithstrike wrote:

Atalius wrote:

Thank you he said its to prevent full attacks while grappling which is great.

So you mean the person being grappled can't full attack the person controlling the grapple?

He must have. If you are the one in control of the Grapple, breaking the Grapple is a Free Action. It doesn't even require a Free Action. You just have to decide not to Maintain the Grapple next round, and the Grapple ends.

[wraithstrike]

Scott Wilhelm wrote:

wraithstrike wrote:

Atalius wrote:

Thank you he said its to prevent full attacks while grappling which is great.

So you mean the person being grappled can't full attack the person controlling the grapple?

He must have. If you are the one in control of the Grapple, breaking the Grapple is a Free Action. It doesn't even require a Free Action. You just have to decide not to Maintain the Grapple next round, and the Grapple ends.

I think that is the case. I was just making sure there was not a misunderstanding of the actual rule.

[LoudKid]

Those changes buff grapple in favor of the controller.
The controller can't full attack anyways, and if someone somehow manages to get out of a pin, they can't choose to leave the grapple or become the controller according to this.

[Claxon]

This is really good house rule for the one who wants to grapple. Really bad for the target.

And grappling is already overly powerful.

Generally speaking the only option most characters have against a grappler is to try to burst damage so high that it kills the grappler, because they have no chance at beating the CMD of the grappler to reverse or escape.

And with your GMs house rule you don't escape after breaking a pin and you can't full attack. Being successfully grappled is even more of a death sentence than it used to be.

It's great house rules for you, but bad for the game IMO.

[Atalius]

I thought it made a lot of sense actually. Its silly to be able to full attack while someone is clearly grabbing onto u and you are being hindered somewhat. Furthermore going from a pin to totally free seems sketchy also. Should be back into grappled condition if person escapes the pin. It does take time to get a person pinned, it should be equally as difficult to become totally free.

[Bob Bob Bob]

Sense has no place in rules systems! No, seriously, applying "common sense" will almost always lead to something terrible because people's "common sense" is wrong. For instance, did you know people can do cartwheels in plate mail? And that it was super effective against bullets?

For your specific example that was already covered by the grappling rules: "you can take any action that doesn’t require two hands to perform,". So you're not completely free but you're not completely restrained (that's what pinned is meant to represent). Grappled is not "half nelson" it's "grabbed by the collar/elbow". The grappler is in a position to disable them but they haven't/can't yet. And controlling a single arm, unless you twist it behind their back and push them into something solid (pinned), isn't enough to stop someone from stabbing you. Repeatedly. You know, a full attack with a light or one-handed weapon (explicitly allowed by the rules and disallowed by your GM's houserules).

It doesn't take time to pin someone. It takes two rounds (12 seconds). And that's in the absolute worst case. Pinned is also intentionally vague about what it is to represent the many ways that you can disable people. Some holds the grappler can maintain something even if the grapplee breaks the hold. Others the grapplee would escape immediately. And realistically, some would be impossible to break at all. Do we want player/GM knowledge of holds to allow holds which are just impossible to escape no matter what modifiers or rolls are made? Because I don't. The system is an abstraction, that abstraction assumes that holds skew more towards "break them and you escape" instead of "break them but the grappler still has a hand on you". That's why it works the way it does.