Grapple Combat: Is it Balanced?

I agree.

There's a few ways to fix this issue. Firstly, chrome for non combatants to use, like the forearm thing.

Secondly, Adding more stamina drain for the grappler. If you've ever done Juda or BJJ, then you know exactly how exhausting it is to maintain and kind of hold for any period of time (until you get a joint lock or something, yes, I see you other couch ninja's. lets stay on topic)

Thirdly -And this is the big one-

I think that grappling should roll your highest physical attack stat, mixed with endurance, at the very least. This means, if your agility is F and your strength G, you will roll Agility+remaining endurance vs Enemies Highest stat+remaining stamina.

@villa

Just for clarification just so I don't take this the wrong way.

Are you insinuating that the player problem is because of me the victim, or the killer?

Neither, just that no RP deaths will occur with or without grapple because players will optimize their fun out of a roleplaying game with whatever system works, so we shouldn’t use that as an argument to refactor grapple, it’s a straw man argument. There really isn’t a reason to change it considering it’s already pretty balanced and uses 3 different stat checks.

I agree with villa. There are already multiple checks involved and it isn't just strength.

What makes you think resisting while held doesn't degrade things? I see a lot of assumptions here in what stats are rolled, what skills are checked, and how the system works tbh.

Playing devil's advocate would imply I also agree that grapple is broken. I don't think it is. If people don't want to sit down, then that's on them, and it's a choice to be paranoid in a place like the Mix where someone can and will kidnap you if they can and is pretty themely IMO. You believe that grappling costs no stamina, that it checks only STR, that there are no skills involved. All of those are false assumptions.

Not going to weigh in on this other than to say that I dislike the fact that sitting means you don't counter a grapple. People in this thread have admitted to not having their characters sit because of this mechanic, which hurts RP and discourages interacting with the ambiance of the scene. What if it was possible to have the chance to counter a grapple even while sitting?

Also grapple doesn't -always- end in death. It can be a start to many plots including dismemberment and kidnapping plots.

Refusing to sit because of grapple mechanics is more a sign of players being unwilling to put themselves at risk and losing now and then purely for the sake of RP, rather than a sign that grapple is broken. That's why it exists the way it does afaik. It's kind of a ultimate @holdback to guarantee you'll be grabbed if someone tries. It's you the player saying, I'm risking this because of the RP I might get out of it. Come and get me.

Other than that, I'm on the same page as villa and cowbell here. There's more than raw stats that go into grapple. More than raw stats that go into your ability to see someone trying to stealth grapple - or to stealth anything. There are ways to practically never get grappled if you're standing.

Like all things stat/skillwise, you might have to sacrifice something else to achieve that kind of security of your personal space.

But to those thinking that a nerf or change to grapple is going to save you from the kind of RP (or the perception of no RP) that you're trying to avoid, you're wrong. Villa is spot on here about the meta changing. What happens when people realize they can't grapple you? They shoot first next time and every time after.

Do I feel for people that think they're getting no RP deaths? Yeah, I do. But svetlana is right. It isn't always that way. Plenty of good RP has come out of people being dragged away and surviving to tell the tale.

I do like some of the ideas discussed in the pulse arms thread though. Having equipment to make grapple have consequences is a totally different and cool thing than wholesale changing how grapple works. Buying security is +1 over making the need for security obsolete.

Logic: but that's the thing, why should sitting down at a bar stool be such an insane statement? It's just… sitting.

And as already pointed out, in this thread and in reality, people just @tp it instead, despite it being not exactly by the rules. Should be strong enough indication that people do want to sit and use those spaces, and the penalty is too much maybe?

I'll keep doing it, but that's me, I rarely see other people do, and I get why, you possibly give up entire character agency by... Sitting down at a bar.

I was personally reprimanded once by Johnny for doing that in my pre-staff days.

Seen people use @tp to sit instead of sitting down, mechanical-wise, lately though.

So we're all on the same page, I'm not saying I agree with the no-defense-while-sitting thing myself. It's strange to me to. I'm just articulating why it exists.

For the sake of argument though (and before I say this, yes, I know there are more kinds of chairs in the world than bar stools), how likely do you really think it'd be to avoid someone coming from behind while you're facing away with a drink in your hand? On a bar stool, your back is facing away from nearly every person in the room except the bar tender 9/10 times. This isn't a real argument, but it makes me chuckle a little bit to think about people spinning around on their stool at the last second like "nah too slow!"

@svetlana That optimization thing is kind of what I'm trying to draw attention to. I've said before that people play the game to win despite one of our biggest OOC themes being play to lose and cooperative competition. I don't blame people for that - it isn't in our nature to willingly lose. But it doesn't change the fact that there were functions built into the game to facilitate that. Could it change? Maybe? I'm not opposed to raising player issue with no-grapple sitting, but I don't expect there will be any changes going in to grapple itself right now. It's honestly pretty well balanced if you ask me.

Besides, if you hire huscle or hang out with allies in public, you're less likely to stay grappled even if you can't escape on your own. Strength in numbers has always been the name of the game.

Anyway, I do need to ask people to stop being meta with your @lp/@tp stuff. Posing that you're doing something you're not doing in order to avoid the consequences of IC mechanics is metagaming. If you see people doing it in your area, please politely OOC them the same.

But those reactions are mostly while you are -held- in a grapple, no? Martial arts might help you get out of holds IRL, but how does it help you avoid someone going for a hold on you in the first place while you're sitting down and aren't being held down yet?

Thanks for the response! Also chuckling at the image of someone spinning around in their barstool. I’m not directing my comments at you in particular, Logic, but just for the purposes of having a conversation that both staff and players can discuss.

Keep in mind that players do choose to get their characters drunk for the sake of RP, which has mechanical disadvantages too. Yet we still do it! I think it’s just the fact that characters are passive while being grappled while seated - no chance to fight back - that seems a little “gamey” to me. Also, there can be lots of fun RP around convincing a character to drink in order to decrease their inhibitions, but it doesn’t really make as much sense to have a whole RP scene about convincing a character to sit down just so someone can do a one-and-done grapple on them based on meta knowledge of the mechanic.

What if sitting gave a slight decrease to perception and agility, sorta like disguises do?

I think what Aida said about both being grappled makes sense.

What if we made it significantly harder for the grappler to move while grappling someone? I am not sure if these mechanics are already in the game, but if they are could make it even more so. Make them move across rooms much slower, and have a buildup to when the person is inevitably released regardless of stat differences (similar to how disguise has a pool too)

This would also make it much easier to intervene and follow someone being grappled, and I think is pretty realistic IMO. Would also make it drastically less common for people to be snatched in crowded bars. Would also mean less people grappling someone and dragging them across the entire sector, it'd make more sense for kidnappings to happen by dragging them into nearby vehicles (pretty realistic)

Just my take on things.

Appreciate it!

You don't need to be 'leagues above', at least not in Sindome terms. They can be pretty close. You can be losing a fight, then get out of there by grappling your opponent.

If you hit that mythical difference? You can reliably grapple that character and choke them out. There seems to be pretty much zero risk involved and no equipment required.

If there's ways to defend against the initial grapple, the knowledge isn't widespread. Try to find out IG? You'll get some advice. But dodge, agility and perception (these things that would make sense…) all seem to be pretty useless. Grapple never fails to deliver.

It's cool that there's three different checks involved and you all seem to be aware of the mechanics, but to unaware plebs? It seems like an "I win" button.

Like I said, if you are being grappled by your opponent, then it wasn't as close as you thought and there's a significant gap in your build compared to theirs that had them win the various contested rolls involved, one after another, to land a grapple on you.

You're assuming what's useless and what isn't. I really do suggest speaking to a character who has experience with combat and then learn from them.

@logic: Yeah, kind of the hilarity of using RL examples for game mechanics, it just never works and… that's fine.

Thanks for raising it with the other staff though, as purely mechanically speaking I just think going from 100 to 0 due to... sitting is just not working as intended.

I mean…. It seems balanced to me but I didn't know about the sitting auto grapple thing, I kind of don't like that existing.

Like if you are aren't a gun toter guns can seem overpowered too.

We all build our characters in our own ways with strength and weaknesses.

Something that I'd like to comment on is that to the victim, the inability to escape is what seems to make it overpowered.

Like it seems to me that once grappled, it doesn't really matter how much of a grandmaster Ace McKool you are at hand to hand combat, once that grapple is locked in, if there is even one or two letter difference in STR… you die. There is no way to break out of said grapple so your death scene is just spamming resist repeatedly because nothing else is happening in terms of RP.

It's why I suggested using the pulseguards as a "Get out of Jail Free" card if someone wants to invest the significant chyen/flesh/pds sink to not be insta-choked in the sewers. It's a very specific investment to counter against a very specific type of attack.

Also having a synthetic throat should at the very least buy significantly more time before going night-night.

I personally would like to see implemented a reversal mechanic based more around agility that would allow the victim to suddenly be the one in charge with the locked in submission hold about to snap some necks. This wouldn't put an unfair advantage to AGI though in grappling because STR can always be used to end the grapple. You grapple someone and find yourself being reversed, you can always just break free with your overwhelming STR and fight without the grapple system. And if you suddenly find yourself not having as much overwhelming STR to break out of the grapple... maybe you should've researched your target a bit more.

But I've often been accused of talking out of my ass and maybe STR means nothing. Who knows?

Only really at late stages. What about early play.

I'm talking about time investment of the letters. Two letter difference is different depending on where the letters are. If you are D and your target is B that is a substantial amount of UE. but for say from M to N not as much.

Jesus, you think I haven't tried to find out in character? I got answers from multiple characters, mostly vague. Tried that shit, it did not change a thing.

It's also pretty easy to estimate a max UE difference based on when they entered the game. There's UE rollover and all that, but there's a hard limit.

Imagine Alice and Bob. Alice is an unarmed fighter, with brawling/martial arts. Bob is using a long blade/short blade/melee, it doesn't matter. They're both lowbies. Everything else (stats and skills) is completely equal. I'm pretty sure that Alice would succeed in grappling Bob the vast majority of the time, because Alice has an unarmed skill and Bob does not, with everything else being equal.

Am I wrong?

This quickly goes into the hardship of reliable IC data, especially if you cannot verify it easily (aka anything combat). You can ask tons of people, get tons of different answers, some intentionally misleading, some just wrong as the person just doesn't know well themselves. How do you figure which is which, I do not know, maybe puppet and pay to get answer from really authoritative source.

It's kinda silly but… It's what it is, where it pays to be vet who have mechanics all figured out oocly vs our not vet players.

Let me just clarify how the system works, based on just refreshing myself on all the code for it.

1. Bodyguarding does account for grapple (protector can block it)
2. Fatigue is generated by both people in a grapple (in each stage)
3. Distance places a part (if you are shooting at someone and try to grapple them, or vice versa you will be at a disadvantage as they see you coming and get a bonus). But if you're close (two people hand to hand fighting), the victim has less time to react and there is a bonus to the grappler succeeding. If it's a neutral situation, there is no bonus applied in either direction.
4. Perception plays a big part in avoiding grapples (you see the person coming and get a dodge bonus). This gets a modifier based on distance, and if you were recently or are currently in mortal peril (combat)
5. Aiming also comes into play, if you are aiming at someone and they try to grapple you, you get a big bonus to avoiding it. The same goes for if you're aiming at someone and then try to grapple them, you will get a bonus.
6. Agility plays a bit part along with the Dodge Skill (with bonus from perception and modifier based on distance and the aiming bonus) in avoiding a grapple

If someone makes it through all those checks and successfully grapples someone else, we move immediately to strength based checks (this is the same thing that happens when you 'resist').

1. Unarmed combat skills play a part in the strength checks. If you have brawling or MA, those skills are being rolled by both parties to determine the results of the strength check
2. There are exoskeleton cyberware that give a bonus to either attacker or defender when making the strength checks. These are already on sale in game and have been for a while.
3. Fatigue will also penalize strength/unarmed checks of both attacker and defender.
4. The fatigue penalties are assessed based on the endurance stat of the person. The same code is run for both attacker and defender, meaning that each resist cycle, the same amount of fatigue is being applied to each character. Obviously they might have different modifiers due to their endurance, or how fatigued they were when the grapple started.
5. The greater the fatigue (closer to 0 your fatigue pool gets) the greater the penalties applied to the rolls happening.


Most of the first part agility checks are indeed skipped if you are sitting down. That is considered to be essentially prone, and we just jump to the strength checks. Though I think the bodyguarding checks would still take place.

(Edited by Slither at 1:22 pm on 7/22/2025)

You can read about the release of this code in this thread.

@Slither

Thank you so much for your response. Your transparency in how the system works lets me see that yes this grapple system may actually be fundamentally unbalanced to be biased AGAINST martial artists over brawlers, even though you would think martial artists would be all about the grapple combat.

The problem is the 1st step in the choke out process once grapple has been established has zero alternative stat other than strength. And this runs into a problem in how characters are built because of the combat systems and the differences between brawling and MA.

So, the way it's kinda been explained and how I've inferred from the help files is thus. When is comes to combat, the only real difference between brawling and MA is what stat is really useful in the fighting. As in, when someone throws a brawling punch, their STR is a stat that heavily factors in whether or not they hit. Just as when someone throws a Judo chop, their AGI is a stat that heavily factors in whether or not they hit.

While apparently minor, to me this forms the reason why brawling is known for its forward offensive capabilities and MA is known for being more for self defense. The more STR you have when brawling, the more of a success probability your opponents dodge has to compete with. And when you connect, that focus on STR means more damage behind your punch. With MA the more AGI you have when fighting, the more of a success probability your opponents dodge has to compete with. However when you connect your STR is different so you're most likely going to be doing less damage. The trade off for less damage though is having AGI really comes in handy for dodging out of the way of incoming attacks. Thus MA is less about destroying your opponent and more about staying alive long enough to escape the situation.

And that is what MA is about. Escape. Even the most aggressive MA's like krav maga take a stance of using the most effective tools at your disposal to defuse a situation ENOUGH FOR YOU TO ESCAPE.

So when you have players who come in not really knowing the game or how combat works, those choosing the non-combatant lifestyle are most likely going to choose the MA lifestyle, probably for the Dodge synergy and running away.

And because of this, this is why grappling honestly feels like a death sentence 95% of the time for anyone caught in it because the system is inherently flawed at the struggle part because it breaks MA combat.

When someone is in the brawling posture, and they say GRAPPLE CHOOM, numbers are rolled behind the scenes. Numbers that probably involve their STR and their Brawl.

When someone is in the MA posture, and they say GRAPPLE CHOOM, numbers are rolled behind the scenes. Numbers that probably involve their AGI and their MA.

However when a grapple has been established, suddenly it is opposed combat skill checks. The Brawler rolls numbers that utilize their Brawl and their STR. The Martial Artist also rolls numbers that utilize their skill of Martial Arts, BUT UTILIZING THE STRENGTH STAT.

In grapples, the form of combat that you think would fall under martial arts, the martial artist has trained AGI heavily is forced to use a completely different stat to be able to break free in time to not die. Meanwhile the brawler who has trained STR heavily just keeps on trucking with much more effective Brawl & Strength rolls waiting for the MA to go night night.

And the opposite does NOT hold true. If the MA gets the jump on the brawler, even on the offensive the MA is still forced to use STR as opposed to their AGI. Wesley can easily jump onto Fezzik's back, but by our system Fezzik would easily break that grapple and hurl that stableboy to Guilder.

This would explain why others commented on grapples as being only for "early to mid game" and falling off drastically at a certain point. Well, this is because when you target non-combatants who foolishly skilled into MA thinking they'd be able to fend people off and escape, you win. But when you target an actual fighter who has brawl, the higher STR rating means higher probability of breaking out of that grapple and suddenly not being an effective form of killing someone. Insanely effective method of killing newbies and non-combatants suddenly doesn't work when you pick on people your own size? SHOCKER!

Can you investigate this and whether or not the system forcibly kneecaps the MA at the attacking section? This is one of the few times I'd LOVE to be told I'm wrong.

"

When someone is in the brawling posture, and they say GRAPPLE CHOOM, numbers are rolled behind the scenes. Numbers that probably involve their STR and their Brawl.

When someone is in the MA posture, and they say GRAPPLE CHOOM, numbers are rolled behind the scenes. Numbers that probably involve their AGI and their MA."

This is also wrong. If you attempt to grapple someone, it rolls your stats. Brawling and MA doesn't matter whatsoever in the initial attempt to grapple. Those skills come into play when it comes to /holding/ onto someone, once you have grappled them, and it doesn't roll the stats associated with the skill. It simply rolls strength + the amount of points you have in that skill.

Yes, it is true that someone statted for brawling will likely have an easier time holding onto people due to the STR investment once they grapple someone, however that comes with the trade-off that someone statted towards agility will be much faster than said brawler and they'll have trouble grabbing them in the first place.

There are always two sides.

You could say the same about various mechanics. MA are agility based builds that rely on evasion. Brawlers are STR based builds that rely on sheer power.

This is like arguing that guarded posture is useless against guns because you can't get counter attacks. Well, yeah. That's just how builds are. You can't be good at everything.