3 Step Grapple
Yet another grapple refactor!

It's a popular topic for Townhalls and we've been doing a lot of noodling about the right answer. This is what we've come up with.

3 Step Grapple

1. Setup - the aggressor moves into position according to the rules of held weapons and combat distances (i.e. a person with a firearm is trying to keep distance, a person with a knife is trying to close distance, etc). Distance between aggressor and victim play a role in the victim noticing something is about to happen. Recent combat makes the victim wary, boosting their ability to get the head start they need.

2. Closing the Distance - the aggressor needs to move across the room from whatever distance they're at in order to grapple their victim. If the victim noticed the aggressor's movements previously, they'll be able to act sooner and likely evade the grapple.

3. Overpowering the Victim - much like the old grapple system, your ability to overpower depends largely on your physical strength and your potential skill at holds.

Over all of these, fatigue, aiming, stealth, encumbrance, are all now being factored into the algorithm too.

We've written all this on a new object and rewritten the master grapple code so we can better support future modifications:

* more nuanced messaging (why you evaded, overpowered vs out-finessed, etc)

* more variables affecting the outcome

* reverses / counters

* shit I can't even think of right now.

So we're almost done with the new grapple system and its ready for you to help us test it out. This requires opt-in right now. You must type @options grapple to enable the new grapple system. The new grapple system will be used when the person being grappled (Bob, not the person typing 'grapple bob') has enabled this option. If you like to grapple people, beware that you will be subjected to the victim's preference, not yours. This new system will become what everyone uses when all the kinks are worked out. Try it out in the course of your RP (wanna spar at the gym?!) and let us know your feedback.

Game on!

Awesome!

For those who cannot appreciate why this is important, it used to be that grapple relied on too few skills/stats to be evade-able, making it an instant combat ender for anyone who didn't focus on that one aspect.

With this change, as Johnny as described, there's more checks involved, which give people the opportunity to defeat grapple not with one aspect of themselves, but given the whole of their relevant skills and stats. This means if you do get grappled, it's because the person really is faster/stronger/luckier/whatever than you are, and that means people who focus on areas other than just that one aspect stand a fighting chance in combat.

1. you could lift something that someone was grappling (IE: a corpse) and walk away with it.

2. you could grapple something someone else was grappling and you would both be grappling it instead of you breaking their grapple and taking the thing.

The code has been fixed, but I need to refactor the entire set of grapple verbs to better account for all of this and be more clear, sadly.

For now, please report any issues with grapple you encounter.