Roll w/ impact question

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donJulio
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Roll w/ impact question

Unread post by donJulio »

I sort of get the feeling that Palladium dropped the ball on some of the combat stuff w/ the second edition. I'm not saying the first edition is better, but that some information appears to be missing.

I would imagine that a high P.P. (16+) would add bonuses to roll w/impact and maybe pull punch as well. Also, there isn't much on disarming or entangling an opponent except a one paragraph blurb on each in the combat glossary. I actually was very intrigued by these options, but felt they just weren't fleshed out like they could have been. I recall reading about holding your opponent and the rules on breaking a hold, and I would have liked to know more about that. These types of actions (hold, disarm and entangle) I think would have some sort of attribute bonus. My thinking would be this:

Roll w/ impact: Same bonus as P.P. bonus to parry
Disarm: Same bonus as P.P. bonus to strike
Entangle: Same P.P. bonus as to strike
Break Hold: Same P.S. bonus as to damage (though it is only to break the hold).

Do you have any house rules regarding these combat actions?
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J. Lionheart
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Re: Roll w/ impact question

Unread post by J. Lionheart »

In terms of breaking holds, I give a bonus (or negative) equal to the difference in the P.S. of the two parties. If a person with a P.S. of 18 is breaking from the hold of a person P.S. 12, they roll against each-other, with the breaker at +6. If the holder has a P.S. of 21, and the breaker a P.S. of 14, the breaker is at -7.

I agree that Roll could be justifiably affected by P.P. If I were to institute that, however, I would reduce the bonuses elsewhere, in order to keep it from getting out of hand with dextrous characters. It's already possible to quickly build an obscenely high Roll bonus, and I'd love to keep that in place.

It is far, far easier to hit a person, than it is to pull a weapon out of their hand against their will, or wrap their arm up so severely that they can't move it. I would not, under any condition, give PP bonuses to Disarm or Entangle. Those are very specific trained actions, based on HtH training, and disarm in particular is meant to be very hard to do. A Cirque de Soleil acrobat, though dextrous beyond belief, couldn't knock the sword out of a warrior's hand without being trained specifically to do so.
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azazel1024
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Re: Roll w/ impact question

Unread post by azazel1024 »

I believe somewhere, though not in PFRPG, it mentiones that to break a hold you compare strengths to determine a bonus or penalty to break a hold. I've at least always done that. Everything else I agree on with J. Lionheart. I do think there should be a bonus to critical strike with people who are highly dexterious though as it does make it a bit easier to make a critical hit. I wouldn't use it as a simple bonus, I'd just say anyone with extrodinary (16 and over) PP has a normal critical strike or knock-out roll of a natural 19-20 and if superhuman (PP25 and over) it is a natural 18, 19 or 20. In either case it is 1 lower if a skill gives them a natural crit/knock-out strike of the same or lower level (example some hand to hand skills give a crit on an 18, 19 or 20, so if you have extrodinary it would be 17, 18, 19 or 20).

The knock-out only if you have a skill that provides it.
-Matt
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