Basic Action Super Heroes!

I had an idea for a revision on the Wrestling rules. As is, the attacker and defender can both choose to use either Brawn or Agility to defend against the initial grab, and after that, it is strictly a matter of Brawn.

Some people like this, but enough have an issue with it (too easy for the Hulk to grab Spidey) that I think it is worth addressing.

What I thought of as an alternative is for Grabbing use Brawn or Agility- whichever is Lower. You get the difference between the two as a Dice Bonus. So if someone has Brawn 5 Agility 2, they'd roll x2 with a +3 Dice bonus. Someone with a Brawn of 3 Agility 4 would roll x3 with a +1 Dice Bonus.

After the initial Grab, everything goes to strictly Brawn based, again.

The Grappling Style martial art increases your multiplier by 1 with all Wrestling rolls (to a max of x5).

Thoughts? Do people think this works better/worse than the original rules?

I like how this evens things out. It does add another layer to the process; but not by too much. Roll 2d6 and add the difference between the two Stats as a +X bonus to the result. Sounds good to me.

I actually liked the original way better. Not sure, I'd have to play test it.

Bearded Dork made this post on his blog a while ago regarding wrestling: http://www.beardeddork.com/?p=127

I can see the appeal of balancing it out, but I like the simplicity of the original.

I may be too late to this party, but for what it is worth, I like this new alternative. I understand that not everyone will like the added complexity of the first grab, but it is a mechanic that Bash already uses (piloting jumps to mind, probably others).

Of course, it could be offered as an optional rule in a sidebar, letting groups pick which version to use.

My problem has always been that it goes strait to Brawn versus Brawn. The Hulk only needs to get lucky once then all the luck in the world won't help Spidey.
Allowing a character to escape from grappling with Agility has worked fine to balance things and it's elegant and simple in keeping with the flavor of the rest of BASH.

From a realistic side though, if the Hulk actually grabs spidey, it's not likely he'll escape.

I would disagree with that in general, an agile person (Spidey) can escape the grip of a strong person (The Hulk). Besides, realism sucks for game play, you've heard me make that argument before elsewhere.

Scenario 1 Bulky hero grabs scrawny villain, hero wins no challenge, no chance of failure, no fun. Players are bored.

Scenario 2 Bulky Villain grabs scrawny player Villain probably wins, overwhelming challenge, little chance of success, frustrating. GM is an A-hole.

When you have something like the current wrestling rules where a character either must be built to exploit it or defend against it, or they will routinely be defeated it is clearly broken and must be re-evaluated. BASHMAN's solution doesn't really address the problem getting into a wrestling situation is already pretty fair, flows smoothly, and is fun. When it reverts to pure Brawn versus Brawn, it breaks down the combat becomes extremely one sided and the stronger character will almost always win without much challenge.

EDIT: To be fair though Grappling rules are the hardest part of any game design project.

Problem is, with the current dice mechanics, a situation where the chance of success (or failure) becomes very unlikely is too easily achieved.

My experience so far has shown that if one character has a DM of 2 or more than his opponent when doing opposed rolls, the other character is pretty much screwed. This not limited only to breaking out of a Grab.

BeardedDork wrote:My problem has always been that it goes strait to Brawn versus Brawn. The Hulk only needs to get lucky once then all the luck in the world won't help Spidey.
Allowing a character to escape from grappling with Agility has worked fine to balance things and it's elegant and simple in keeping with the flavor of the rest of BASH.

I could see allowing "Escapology/Contortion" to do it...

Making it be that specific roll (as opposed to an agility roll) still punishes a character for not building to wrestling. Meaning that it still doesn't address the problem. We've been using the better of agility or brawn to escape a grapple throughout the contest for a while and it's worked great, it has alleviated the problem we've been having.

I agree with Bearded Dork on this one; I like the player getting to choose between Brawn or Agility for the entire contest. Why not? It's more fun, could be argued either way, and you're less likely to end up getting creamed every time you get grappled (if you're not built for wrestling).

Hmmm. What about using the fix I proposed earlier for the whole contest? Use the lower of the two as your multiplier, and take the difference as a dice bonus?

So Agility 2 Brawn 5 = +3x2

Brawn 3 Agility 3 = x3

BASHMAN wrote:Hmmm. What about using the fix I proposed earlier for the whole contest? Use the lower of the two as your multiplier, and take the difference as a dice bonus?

So Agility 2 Brawn 5 = +3x2

Brawn 3 Agility 3 = x3

Sounds good to me.