Combat Stuff.

[Mathias Smith]

At game last night I experianced an interesting way a certain brawl maneuver was used to take down and Incapacitate 3 kindred. Having reviewed the rules for the maneuver I think that some clarity should be made so I will quote the manuever out of the book then explain what it means. (ST's feel free to let me know if you guys do it differently here) here goes, "PG 211 VtM -Clinch: On a successful attack roll, the attacker goes into a clinch with the target. In the first turn, the attacker may roll strength damage. In the subsequent turn, combatants act on thier orders in initiative. A combatant can inflict strength damage automatically or attempt to escape the clinch. No other actions are allowed until one breaks free. To escape a clinch, make a resisted STR+Brawl roll against the opponent. If the character escaping has more successes she's free; if not the characters continue to grapple in the next turn."
So for those of you who are not grapplers in real life, basically a clinch is when two people are rolling around on the ground trying to inflict pain and damage on eachother using only strength and leverage to bend their opponent into holds maybe punch them a few time in the kidneys ect. Now as it was explained to me last night if Billy Brujah grabs Gary Gangrel and puts him in a clinch he can inflict his STR damage automatically every round and all Gary Gangrel can do is try to escape the hold. HOWEVER, in a grapple you can be severly injured even if you have the upper hand decidedly. The rules reflect this by allowing each combatant to inflict their damage automatically each round on iniative order. So if Gary Gangrel happens to be a strong mo'fo and have alittle potence too, Bily Brujah is gonna find himself getting hurt just as bad. Because even though the two are grappling, a Clinch does not immobilize your opponent in any way! so they WILL be able to hurt you back. Now a -Hold will immobilize your opponent (which means anyone gets two extra dice to attack them) but a hold inflicts NO damage at all, merely letiing someone else gang up on them because you have to spend your energy keeping them from moving. Now that I have said my peace any feed back would be fine, and of coarse judgement calls should always go through and ST, and I hope to hear what you guys (especially those anarchs) have to say about it.

[Rex Fisher]

For a reverse clinch the player who is grapled, must be able to make a sucsesfull clinch upon his aggresor.....thats they way the system works...IE Billy Brujah has Gary Gangral in a full nelson, Gary Grangel is stuck....at this point clinch i dont think is the old two wrestlesrs facing off in a bear hug...my two cents...but the ST calling the combat should make that discion...

[Justin]

Reminds me of UFC fighting.

[O'Keefe]

As your Quotes are directly out of the book, they can not be disputed and as far as I understand that was how we were playing them. It should be noted however that there were some actions taken that would not fit into either the Clinch maneuver or the Hold Maneuver. These should be ajudicated as needed and will take some interpritation. An example is when Chris the Brujah attempts to Hook the arm of O'Keefe the Gangrel and then kick the back of his knee. The Hook maneuver is not in the book, but there is no reason that one combatant should not be able to do so, therefor a dicision could be made that it is similar to a Clinch.

So when O'Keefe attempts to turn the Clinch Maneuver into a Hold maneuver based on the description of the original Clinch, there you have it. Not quite in the books, but both players agread with the results and played it through. The hold was also combined with a Body Slam mineuver, also not in the books, but reasonable to do in the situation.

We could remove the element of creativity and reduce combat to just what is in the book. I personaly will have just as much fun either way cause the combat was mearly a prelude to RP, the real reason we all come to LARP.

[The-Most-Compact-of-the-Kyles]

The Full Nelson would be a hold and not a clinch. The description out of the books says that the combatants are able to inflict strength damage. Going into a clinch should be a dangerous maneuver, after all once you are in, you can do nothing but try to escape or inflict the damage.

If O'Keefe wanted to turn the clinch into a hold, he would first have to "break out" of the clinch. It would have to be done in multiple actions. Breakings free of your opponent's grasp so that you could then keep their arms, legs and teeth away from you.

The "hook" maneuver you described would be the decription of a take-down. The maneuver would be a sweep technically, because he tried to kick your leg out. The arm was just him showing how is character was going to do it.

By all means, the creative descriptions of the maneuvers Chris and O'Keefe used were very cool, but didn't need to be described with rules.

[Joseph Mayek]

I'd point out, that a full nelson is a Hold, so is used to immobilize the target, and while yes, it can be painful, it's not really damaging.

I think the concept of grappling for an example of a clinch is a fairly good one, usually.

Good examples of clinches are things such as Choking someone, you get the first round to inflict damage, And from there, they have a choice. They try to break the clinch, stop them from straggling you, or you reach up and straggle em back, or hit em, etc. Once a clinch is enacted, both individuals can inflinch strength damage. As the clinch is done successfully by one opponent or the other, and from there it's a matter of who lasts the longest, or breaking the clinch.

I don't think there's anything wrong with being creative in yer combat rp, especially when it's a 'combat' for rp purposes (aka, dun plan on killing no one , usually if death is on the line, the working the system fairly is what matters to most, over RP) After all, most 'creative moves' can be simplified into the maneuvers. Like the Hook maeuver Okeefe was talking about, having a simple roll to dictate the Rp'd move, though I personally would have made that a Sweep. Or, if you really wanted to get into the nitty gritty, it'd really be multiple actions, first roll being to perform a Hold, the second to perform a sweep (with bonuses of immoblizing someone applying), though, if I'm picturing this correctly, the hold would have to be released after the kick to the back of the knee. Or turning the clinch into a hold, multiple again, first a block (Or dodge, depending on how you're turning the clinch into a hold), then a hold for your second.

Overall, I'm a firm believer that most any 'maneuver' you come up with in yer mind, can be applied with the simple ones they've got listed (yes, I'm sure there are exceptions, but exception proves the rules, right? lol)

But to the original comment, I believe it was a simple mistake. Holds are the ones that the person beind held can do nothing till they escape it. Unless the ST's here do clinches differenly, which I don't believe so, as they are pretty by the book for the most part of what I've seen.

Edit:
One other thing.. Three people incapped by -bashing- damage? *blinks* damn. Either that's a bad ass strength dicepool, or you kindred haven't ever heard of healing yerselves *shakes head*

[Mathias Smith]

Don't get me wrong we were just foolin around so I have no beef against anyone who participated in the scene, but the clinch was being used improperly and I just wanted to clear up how clinches and holds work and how they are different. I certinly don't want to take the creativity out of the combat but as Mr. Mayek said most things your character wants to do can fall into one of the manuevers from the book. You can still describe it as a crippler cross-face if you want to, as long as the mechanics of the manuever are used properly. I intend to do more foolin around and it would be nice to have the system work the way its suppose to. Lots of good input all around guys thanks!

[Gorf]

Let me start off that, prior to being brought on as a Vamp AST, I was a Vamp Rules/Combat advocate.

As has been stated, the quote in the initial post is quoted directly from the book (I went and checked prior to writing this, for accuracy). I also checked the WoD: Combat book for Clinch, but it has done away with it and gone into more detailed styles of close combat maneuvers; also, we only take a couple cues from that book, we don't run by it.

That being said, I'm going to make it very basic as to how Clinch works:
1. Attacker declares Clinch.
2. Defender may declare dodge (if better initiative, if worse, then must "change action", as per rules).
3. If Clinch is successful, Attacker does damage to Defender for the first turn.
4. Each subsequent turn, both the Attacker and the Defender may either deal damage to the other combatant or may attempt to break free of the Clinch.
5. The damage is dealt from both players to the other player until one is incapacitated, one stops Clinching (in the case where the other person is close to dead/torp/whatever), or the Clinch is broken.

That is how it works in Vampire: The Masquerade and that is how we run it. If it is run differently in Werewolf, then Jeffrey is free to do so, but until such time as White Wolf changes the rules for 3rd Edition (which we run by), then that is how it will work in the Vampire sphere.

[Kevin K]

Thanks Gorf, I've got a couple questions for you as followups:

How does the clinch maneuver work if one of the combatants is armed, either with something pointy, or with pointy things they've grown themselves from either hands or mouth?

That seems to be the nasty thing about clinching a Vampire. It either sprouts claws and rakes your back open, or "oops" fangs-in-the-neck. Or if anybody's holding a knife, they promptly stick it into you.

Real-life has "holds" which immobilize, does our system have such a thing?

[benime]

If you beat someone in an honest-to-god grapple check, they have two options. ONE, they can attempt to escape. The roll for escaping is standard (your STR+ BRAWL or DEX+BRAWL vs their STR+BRAWL) at a standard difficulty. If they are incapable of escaping from the hold, then they're effectively "immobilized," i.e., your skill has proven to be superior and you have your opponent at a disadvantage. The alternative for your opponent is to try to reverse the grapple, which can only be done with STR+BRAWL (or a Martial Arts maneuver) at Diff 8 for them, normal difficulty for you. If they refuse to attempt to escape from the grapple, you deal standard damage to them (if you are just using your body, it's bashing, if you have a knife out, it's lethal, if you're using Protean Claws, it's aggravated, etc) without tests because you're just putting pressure on them.

Effectively, the "Clinch" maneuver is not finesse-based at all. You simply grab your opponent without seeking to immobilize, and they grab you, and the two of you beat the crap out of each other with whatever is at hand (or just your hands, or claws, or whatever).

The thing with a grapple is that it's a situation, not a maneuver, really. People who are certain that they can win (or the crazy/stupid) put themselves and their opponents in grapple situations because they find it optimal for fighting that way. For instance, my Gurahl has a horrible DEX+BRAWL, however, his STR+BRAWL is, honestly, obscene. I would seek to put myself in grapple situations with my opponents as often as possible to capitalize on this.

Now one thing that I've really been pondering is the whole "STR+BRAWL" vs "DEX+BRAWL" to start grapples, and I honestly think it's supposed to be STR. There is a major difference in most games between whether you hit your opponent or if you're just trying to touch/grab him. In the former instance, you have to swing your fist through the air first to ensure a good impact and proper damage. You have to time your blow and aim for the sweet spot so it doesn't just get shrugged off. When grappling, however, you're not intending to deal any damage immediately, you're looking to get ahold of the other guy first. Some people still believe it's DEX mainly because "It should represent you having to touch the other guy, so it should be a DEX maneuver.", but I think that's actually represented by the STR+BRAWL (if they would enjoy being part of the grapple but want to be in control of it), or DEX+DODGE/BRAWL of your opponent (if they don't want to be part of the grapple), since it's by their skill alone that your action goes from simply grabbing an immobile object to grabbing a person who doesn't want to be. Thus, it's your STR+BRAWL (your grip), VS the opposing action of your opponent to either evade you or gain the upper hand in the grapple situation.

[David Price]

Just for a few random points/clarifications:
You can declare you're spending your action dodging even if you have a lower initiative and nobody's declared they're attacking you yet. You only have to do the "abort action" bit if you've declared an attack and want to switch to a dodge.

"Dodge" tends to be our vocab word for any defensive action. There's also block and parry.

If you're attacking with brawl against somebody who is holding a melee weapon, you lose one dice to attack them as you need to get within their range safely. This also happens if you've got a melee weapon and are attacking somebody holding a larger melee weapon than you.

Here at SBC we do not allow Potence to apply to attack rolls. As stated in the book, in regards to combat, Potence applies to damage rolls. Clinch and the other brawl-type holds are the only attack rolls that use strength, so this is all that this ruling applies to. When attempting to escape or initiate a clinch, roll Str+Brawl with no potence. When rolling to do damage, you can use your potence. Potence does not make dodging you harder. That would be silly. And also broken. (I'd feel more comfortable if it was still Dex+Brawl to initiate and only Str+Brawl to try to break free/contain them within a brawl, at which point I'd actually be okay with potence being used, but I didn't get to print the book)

One of the requirements to attack with fangs is that the other person is in a hold of some type, although I can't recall what the specific hold type is listed in the book off hand. Clinch might be specifically listed. I don't have the book with me right now so can't check for sure. Will check tonight when I get back home to look at the book. Will also answer the "hold" question then.

[Kevin K]

Benime and Gorf have said two different things, by my reading. Gorf makes no mention of holds, just clinches.

Holds that allow you to do damage while the opponent must break them does sound very powerful. You do damage, they do (something that isn't damage). Not for or against necissarily, but I see the power in it.

[O'Keefe]

You can indeed do damage while Holding. You can Bite during a Clinch, Hold or tackle.

[Gorf]

astkevin said:

Benime and Gorf have said two different things, by my reading. Gorf makes no mention of holds, just clinches.

Sorry, Kevin, I was simply addressing the initial question regarding Clinch and not any of the other responses to the thread. If you'd like me to go into more detail on Grapple moves in general, I can do so, but that's why we have books that any player can pick up and read at the sign-in table.

Also, Broney, thanks for making the clarifications on my post. I had made assumtions while writing that those points were already clear to the player-base, but since not all of our players are as familiar with our combat system, I can see the need to get the most detailed material possible to them.

[Kevin K]

Darrin: Right, my question is can you bite when you're the clinch-ee? I think yes for clinches, no for holds. Which asks the question: What do you get in a clinch that you lose with a hold? Why do clinches at all if you can do a hold and prevent retaliation?

Gorf: Can you give a quick rundown of how to put someone in a hold, and what you can do to someone when they're there? The thing I'm curious about is that losing the initial hold roll would seem to fortell the end of the conflict altogether.

[O'Keefe]

As far as I can tell a Hold is for immobilizing only, although it does say that you can bite following a Hold. I don’t believe that you can do damage with a standard Hold, but there are situations based on description that could allow the exceptions (This is not a rule I had found, but an opinion).

There are so many possibilities that we will need to have combat advocates to deal with this and yes there are going to be options taken that are not in the book. Tell me were there is a rule in Revised for pushing? There rules contradict themselves and are incomplete and should be regulated based on logic of the situation. The rules in the book should be used as guide lines, story is the most important as noted on page 21 of the basic rule book.

[Joseph Mayek]

As far as I've seen with holds, the point of doing it is when you have a buddy to beat on em while you hold them. OR, say, you're hold'n them cuz they're frenzying and ya dun wanna hurt them. Generally to go from a hold to hurting them, you'd have release the hold, is the way I've always played it. Usually the immbolizing dice only applies if you did it with multiple actions.

As for pushing, there is a manuever that can be applied to that, I think. Tackle. Doesn't fit perfectly.. but *shrugs* is best for applying to it, I think.

[O'Keefe]

Unfortunatly that is the problem. There are tons of things people want to do that dont quit fit into the maneuvers. Tackle says that you rush at your apponent. This in no way is a simple push, but the basic idea could be used. Same with Clinch, Hold and several other maneuvers. These are guide lines and the basis, but should not be so stricktly adhearedc to that there is no room for creativity. The Vampire combat system is lame and limited, but that doesnt meen that we cant have fun and do a little improvising.

[Gorf]

Darrin: You're right, our system is very much a 'guideline' and fluid such that it can be molded to the situation at hand. As you said, this is why we need our ST's and combat advocates to know our system to the best of their ability, so that they can tell a story while running within the general guidelines of the rules.

To Kevin, et al: I know it's been mentioned, but clinch is very much like two people in a wrestling/judo/UFC match, or when two boxers wrap up in each other, they can do damage to each other, but they can't prevent damage to themselves. In a hold, you immobilize a target such that there is no damage dealt, at all. There is no roll for damage and the only way you can do damage after that is to allow someone else to do it, or to Bite.

Now, having taken quite a bit of martial arts (including judo) myself, I know that there are immobilizing holds that can do some nasty damage (see: break someone's arm or choke; seen it happen at a tournament in Mesa, AZ) but by our simplified rules, you'd have to clinch and allow the other person a chance to hurt you back or attempt to escape. Honestly, this is quite realistic, as if the guy that had his arm broken had broken the rules of Judo and just punched the guy's shin, breaking it, he would have freed himself, but that's illegal in Judo. The arm break was unintentional and avoidable; he could have tapped-out or yelled "Mate" (pronounced: mah-teh).

Oh, and I also realize, for all you wrestlers (roman-greco, not fake) out there, that a full nelson can potentially snap someone's neck, once successfully landed, and they are very immobilized. But again, I can personally show you how I could do damage to you if you had me in a full nelson; Kenpo is great for knowing diverse maneuvers.

[The-Most-Compact-of-the-Kyles]

The difference between holds and clinches is this:

Clinches: Two people in a grapple and beating each other.
Holds: One person restraining another.

Clinch: The only thing you may do in a clinch is apply your strength damage to your opponent or break free.
Hold: The only thing the victim can do is try and break free. The aggressor may continue the hold or release the hold.

Those are the differences between clinches and holds.

The rules do call for a grapple check to be made to initiate a bite attack, but that is not covered under the rules for clinch and grapple. If anyone has/knows where the particular rules are for the maneuver, please let us know.

Yes, losing the initial throw is disastrous. However, the only thing the aggressor may do is restrain the victim. However, if the attacker has any friends with him, you're screwed.

-Kyle