Penalty for one-armed combat maneuvers?


Rules Questions


So, my Party is eagerly looking forward in knivesies in CotCT, in which the opponents have to fight on a table with one hand tied behind their backs. While one combatant will likely get the dagger placed between them, are there any suggestions for running one-armed combat maneuvers by the unarmed combatant? For example, if they try to grapple in order to move their opponent off the table, what's a reasonable penalty to the CMB, -2, -4, or is it possible at all? Are there maneuvers that would be unaffected, perhaps bull rush?

Just looking for ways to run this and make it exciting. Haven't run a lot of unarmed combat. Thanks in advance!


For grapples:

Combat wrote:
Humanoid creatures without two free hands attempting to grapple a foe take a –4 penalty on the combat maneuver roll.

Other maneuvers have no penalty.


blahpers wrote:

For grapples:

Combat wrote:
Humanoid creatures without two free hands attempting to grapple a foe take a –4 penalty on the combat maneuver roll.
Other maneuvers have no penalty.

Geez, I should have seen that. Thanks!


Having one hand tied behind your back may impose the entangled condition.


GM discretion on that one, and I wouldn't impose a 50% reduction in movement speed for tying a hand behind my back. YMMV.


Thanks all! I think the -4 penalty for grapples should be sufficient. If they're smart they'll have their monk do the knivesies combat, although the barbarian is chomping at the bit to do the fighting.


Our monk . . .

CotCT Spoilers:
. . . absolutely dominated knivesies when we played. : ) Though the last round probably could have gone either way.


I always found it weird that a human grappling with one hand gets a -4, but a creature with the natural ability to grapple "grab", gets a -20 to maintain the grapple with one limb.


Merm7th wrote:
I always found it weird that a human grappling with one hand gets a -4, but a creature with the natural ability to grapple "grab", gets a -20 to maintain the grapple with one limb.

well, that's because unlike the human the creature also gets to treat it's self as not being grappled, allowing it to still threaten the area around it and attack as normal while hanging on to it's tasty treat.

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