Pony Tales: Aspirations of Harmony
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Grapple Rules for Pony Tales!

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Post  Hayatecooper Sun Mar 10, 2013 6:33 am

Yep. I said it, Grapple rules. The things all you old school pen and paper fans have nightmares about. Welp! Fear no more both myself and Philadelphus have created a new supplement for your favorite Pony Pen and Paper game ever! These rules are easy to pick up, fair(Though somewhat luck based like everything you need to roll dice for), interesting and mean you no longer have to worry about going into a 15 minute battle every time you want to beat that one guy into unconsciousness for being condescending.

The document introduces both grappling and a new invention called Grapple Charms! That work seamlessly along side the Weapons, Armor and Trinkets to give you the best chance to knock out the guard stealthily or with Pure. Brute. Force.

this supplement adds in an extensive* range of new features
- a quick and easy way of knocking out a creature, without any additional set up
- A full new type of Items
- Potential new game-play
- More use for your Attributes
- More supplements built by the community
- The chance to attack the big bad with a broken coffee pot and get concrete bonuses for it!

Now without further ado, we hope you enjoy and that you follow the link to all the information you need to beat a pony over the head with a chair leg.

Grapple Rules for Pony Tales: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pPKtYyblaxa5gVoQi3IiiEDdGB9Qd-jXElKA2Uqu-mg/edit?pli=1

Look and be amazed.

*extensive may be a slight extrapolation
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Post  Hayatecooper Sun Mar 10, 2013 8:24 am

So we've had our first couple of bugs.

Bug 1: Can Utilities such as Leggo! or Flame On! be used in conjunction with the Grapple Rules?

Fix: Well... yes and no. Leggo! can't, because it requires you to be rolling a skill check, which you aren't. When rolling to grapple you're rolling a Grapple Attempt if attacking or an Opposing Check if someone attacks you, which is different. Flame On! However is more interesting, seeing as it states "Anyone trying to keep you physically restrained fails and cannot attempt it while the fire lasts, unless immune to fire (like dragons)."

On this I'll probably(and now in the document do!) Rule yes. If Someone attempted to Grapple you, you could conceivably use Flame On! to automatically get out of it without rolling an Opposing check and game plays from there, also if you are currently on fire no one may attempt to grapple you.

Bug 2: What if I want to hold an enemy in place?

Fix: Eh, you have Utilities and skills for that. Grapple rules are purely to see if you can knock someone out without having to go through all the trials and tribulations of combat.

Bug 3: What about Critical Hits or Critical Failures?

Fix: Well, they isn't anything about them in the document(Yet. I will add this fix in before sleeping tonight) so I'm not going to count them. The Reason I'm not counting them is because it just adds another thing a PH and player has to prepare for. I'd much prefer it just stay a flat Roll 1D20 + your attribute(and potential grapple charms) and you succeed or fail, you already have a way of instant knocking out your opponent you don't need more.
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Post  Zarhon Sun Mar 10, 2013 2:34 pm

Hayatecooper wrote:Bug 3: What about Critical Hits or Critical Failures?

Fix: Well, they isn't anything about them in the document(Yet. I will add this fix in before sleeping tonight) so I'm not going to count them. The Reason I'm not counting them is because it just adds another thing a PH and player has to prepare for. I'd much prefer it just stay a flat Roll 1D20 + your attribute(and potential grapple charms) and you succeed or fail, you already have a way of instant knocking out your opponent you don't need more.

Aww, but now I can't use Jinx to auto-murder Celestia! Crying or Very sad

On the other hand, the lack of criticals, coupled with the charms and circumstance bonuses, can make you have such a high bonus you literally *can't* fail a grapple against an opponent (or at least, they can't break a choke-hold, meaning both are stuck in grapple limbo?).

Would "Dirty Look" (-9 to target creature check) work on grappling?
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Post  Z2 Sun Mar 10, 2013 3:30 pm

I love the theory behind this, and the grapple charms look like a lot of fun to play with. I like the relative simplicity of the rules, and can definitely see wanting to use this. I do think there are some things that could use work. Massive modifiers for particularly large foes and bosses, for instance. As it stands, I do expect Ponyhandlers will come up with something, but some guidelines might be nice. As it stands, I'm wondering how hard it will be to body slam an Ursa Major into unconsciousness.
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Post  Hayatecooper Sun Mar 10, 2013 6:08 pm

Z2 wrote:I love the theory behind this, and the grapple charms look like a lot of fun to play with. I like the relative simplicity of the rules, and can definitely see wanting to use this. I do think there are some things that could use work. Massive modifiers for particularly large foes and bosses, for instance. As it stands, I do expect Ponyhandlers will come up with something, but some guidelines might be nice. As it stands, I'm wondering how hard it will be to body slam an Ursa Major into unconsciousness.

It's not so much modifiers for particular foes, it's just what the DM sets the creatures Attribute scores to, seeing as NPCs are not players and then could technically set an Ursa Major to like 20 Brawn or something. I can defiantly put something in there about that, one thing I was thinking about was just putting a blanket ban on "Grappling anything that is a size larger then you or immortal" which would mean players can't go around grappling houses, or giants, or Celestia.

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Post  Z2 Sun Mar 10, 2013 6:24 pm

While I like the idea of those rules, I expect it should be more like:

Only things that are 'living' or 'undead' can be grappled, and no grappling enemies of whose volume you are less than 1%.

Just 'one size larger' still seems kind of manageable, and even though the first one is a little complex; it prevents players from trying to grapple golems or animated swords. Or maybe there should just be some monster traits for different grappling, I might come up with some of those later.

Celestia should TOTALLY be grapple-able, just really tough.
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Post  Hayatecooper Sun Mar 10, 2013 6:33 pm

Well, technically it's up to the PH about
A. What monster's he or she is using
B. What they want to be able to grapple
C. If they want to use this at all.

I'm tempted to leave it, and just let PH's stat monsters in such a way that it becomes pretty much impossible, and just let there players know.

I mean if I chuck an Ursa Major in front of a player, or a giant Golem made out of Lava and you attempt to grapple it and fail, well... common sense should have dictated to both the player and the PC that it wasn't a good idea in the first place. As to grapple traits, I thought about those but I decided that it would just add another layer of stuff and the items do effectively the same thing. Build monster stuff though if you like, not going to hurt.
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Post  sunbeam Sun Mar 10, 2013 8:02 pm

(some language. You have been warned.)
http://static.fjcdn.com/large/pictures/05/1e/051ea4_3893794.jpg

Common sense is not always what dictates the targeting of one's grapples. So yeah, things that are a certain size and whatnot really should be impossible to grapple. Just making it stupid to grapple them isn't enough.
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Post  Hayatecooper Sun Mar 10, 2013 8:18 pm

Bug: But what if I want to jump an adult dragon?

Fix: PC vs Monster
A player character can grapple a lot of things, but even in Equestria, most sentient peaceful creatures aren't the biggest or strongest things around. All player creatures, for ease of use when using the grapple rules, are counted as medium sized creatures and may not grapple anything that counts in a larger size category.

Examples of Large creatures:
Dragons
Celestia
Ursa Major
Giant Lava Golems
Discord

For further clarification. Player characters may not attempt to grapple anything that is not sentient(Houses, Brooms etc), A size category larger them themselves or that would instantly kill them if they tried(A golem that is made of lava).

Also as a PH don't forget you control how high the monsters attributes are set. Due to the fact that crit-fails or cit-successes aren't a thing in this system, provided you set all attributes to 40 your players will not be able to grapple your creatures. Not from lack of trying however.
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Post  sunbeam Sun Mar 10, 2013 9:35 pm

Hayatecooper wrote:Not from lack of trying however.

Can the story of el tiburon get linked at the end of that sentence?
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Post  Hayatecooper Sun Mar 10, 2013 9:43 pm

if you can find me the link, sure why not?
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Post  sunbeam Sun Mar 10, 2013 9:48 pm

sunbeam wrote:(some language. You have been warned.)
http://static.fjcdn.com/large/pictures/05/1e/051ea4_3893794.jpg

I'm guessing you wanted a link you can credit to someone...
http://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/3894238/4chan+tg+Los+Tiburon/
Funnyjunk doesn't much count, but this is where I got it. Admittedly, it's clearly from 4chan, so I don't think there's such a thing as the reserved right to use it or anything.
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Post  Hayatecooper Sun Mar 10, 2013 9:53 pm

And in.

What do you think of the Grapple stuff by the way?
Thoughts, opinions, suggestions always helpful. I've so far had one fairly positive review and one fairly negative review. so I'm looking for a Meh or a Meme at the moment.
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Post  sunbeam Sun Mar 10, 2013 10:27 pm

I promise to get beyond my current skimming of the document at some point but right now I have way too much work that I've been putting off, so I'll just say that I think it looks more complicated than most of Pony Tales but loads better than standard D&D grapple rules.
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Post  Philadelphus Sun Mar 10, 2013 11:19 pm

Mmm, yeah, size categories are something we forgot to think about for this system, since we were mostly thinking about pony-sized creatures grappling other similarly-sized creatures. It was mostly created for Hayate's upcoming campaign, but we thought we'd put it out on the forums in case anyone else was interested.

@sunbeam: If it looks complicated, I'm afraid it's more a failure on our part to communicate it clearly than the system itself, which we worked hard to keep simple and quick to handle. Two creatures make an opposing roll, factoring in a few penalties and bonuses, then after a possible second opposing roll based on the result of the first one, one of three things happens: the defending creature is knocked out, the attacking creature is knocked out, or standard combat begins. That's really the heart of it, everything else is details.
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Post  Xel Unknown Sun Mar 10, 2013 11:23 pm

The biggest thing is, WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS? That's what I've yet to see. Why would anyone really want to try this out? I just don't get it. ALSO I only see this messing up the combat/non-combat devide that I've come to understand is one of the many things that helps keep this system running as good as it can go.
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Post  Hayatecooper Sun Mar 10, 2013 11:47 pm

Xel Unknown wrote:The biggest thing is, WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS? That's what I've yet to see. Why would anyone really want to try this out? I just don't get it. ALSO I only see this messing up the combat/non-combat devide that I've come to understand is one of the many things that helps keep this system running as good as it can go.


>The biggest thing is, WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS?
To give an option so you don't have to spend 5-10 minutes setting up and then another 15 minutes fighting a guy to get through a door if you decide you want to go a combat route, as well as giving simple and easy rules to do just that without your PH having to come up with them on the fly.

>Why would anyone really want to try this out?
If you're playing in Shadow Walkers you get to be my Beta testers now that Alpha is done

>ALSO I only see this messing up the combat/non-combat devide that I've come to understand is one of the many things that helps keep this system running as good as it can go.
Eh, not really. We already have Utility talents that effect combat, Maddening Mockery, and there are plenty of ways of RPing yourself into a combat situations. This just gives you a better chance of defeating an opponent without having to go through all of the set-up.
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Post  Philadelphus Mon Mar 11, 2013 5:16 am

To answer your questions, this supplemental system expands the range of storytelling opportunities in Pony Tales in a (hopefully) fair and balanced manner.

We're all familiar with the stealthy secret agent protagonist who has to infiltrate the bad guy's lair. He sneaks up to an inattentive or distracted sentry, and clobbers him with a blow to the head, making sure to catch his body before the noise attracts attention. Then he is gone like a shadow, advancing further into the evil lair on his mission.

Hayate's upcoming campaign is a stealth-oriented, secret agent-type campaign, so it makes sense to have a system like this in place. You could do similar things without a system, but questions arise: do I make an Athletics check to knock out the guard? What's the DC? What if I'm built for Precision or Knowledge, and am terrible at Athletics? The guard should probably get some sort of change to dodge or respond to the attack, but what would be a fair chance? It's to answer those sorts of questions that we worked out this system.

We first considered simple Athletics and Acrobatics checks, but that gave people who specialized in those Skills a significant advantage compared to those who didn't. Skills, after all, can range from 3 to 18 at level 1, a significantly wide spread. We decided instead to make it based off of Attributes, and to allow the creatures involved to choose the attribute, so they could always use their highest one. This decreases the potential spread significantly; the lowest value for a highest score that a player character can have is 7 (if they allocate their points 7-7-7-7), and the highest is 12 (and only if they took Overachiever). That way, the Knowledge or Horse-Sense specialist can be just as useful as the Precision or Brawn specialist.

The grappling system is meant to work mainly in fairly specific situations, when you have multiple options to proceed. It's kinda like an acceptable shortcut for combat; sure, you'd have no problem beating that sentry in combat, but it'll take ten minutes for everyone to roll initiative, pick their talents, and take their turns before he finally goes down, and that's assuming he doesn't call for backup in the process. May as well send someone to try knocking him out, accomplishing basically the same thing a tenth the time. Of course, it's not without its risks; the creature initiating the grapple can be knocked out by the defender if the dice fall badly, and there's a pretty large chance that combat gets initiated anyway if neither side succeeds in knocking out the other.

It's an optional supplement so people can use it if they want to, and if you're in a game with it, you can pretty much ignore it unless the GM has NPCs attempt it against you, in which case it gives you a (hopefully) balanced means to defend yourself. Otherwise, you don't have to initiate grapple attempts if you don't want to. It's just another avenue for those who want to role-play their way around a fight.
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Post  Hayatecooper Mon Mar 11, 2013 7:53 pm

That.. is actually a fairly awesome way of putting it. Thank you.
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Post  Xel Unknown Fri Mar 15, 2013 7:41 am

Hayatecooper wrote:>ALSO I only see this messing up the combat/non-combat devide that I've come to understand is one of the many things that helps keep this system running as good as it can go.
Eh, not really. We already have Utility talents that effect combat, Maddening Mockery, and there are plenty of ways of RPing yourself into a combat situations. This just gives you a better chance of defeating an opponent without having to go through all of the set-up.
The fact you add "Grapple Charms" to combat items is what I mean... That is basically adding RP bonus to combat items, how isn't that mixing combat and non-combat in ways this system was NOT meant to have happen? I strongly don't agree with that in spirit...
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Post  Philadelphus Fri Mar 15, 2013 2:31 pm

Xel Unknown wrote:
Hayatecooper wrote:>ALSO I only see this messing up the combat/non-combat devide that I've come to understand is one of the many things that helps keep this system running as good as it can go.
Eh, not really. We already have Utility talents that effect combat, Maddening Mockery, and there are plenty of ways of RPing yourself into a combat situations. This just gives you a better chance of defeating an opponent without having to go through all of the set-up.
The fact you add "Grapple Charms" to combat items is what I mean... That is basically adding RP bonus to combat items, how isn't that mixing combat and non-combat in ways this system was NOT meant to have happen? I strongly don't agree with that in spirit...
But the out-of-combat bonus only applies to very specialized situations, namely grapple attempts. It's not like they also give you +5 to Heal or something like that. You can only use them in grapple attempts just like you can only use items in combat, and it seemed most natural to tie them in with a pre-existing system, since we didn't want to have to come up with a whole new item system.

Edit: After thinking about it more, the whole point of the system is that you don't need to pick between having a cool, flavorful, character and one who's powerful in combat. I'm fairly confident we've stuck to that principle in designing this system, but we'll see how it goes in our beta test and adjust appropriately, if necessary.
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Post  Hayatecooper Fri Mar 15, 2013 7:33 pm

We did beta test, and it works. This is just beta testing in a group enviroment.
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Post  Xel Unknown Sun Apr 21, 2013 1:29 am

Now that I've played a session with these rules... It's a lot simpler then the doc implies. And was a hell lot fun to do Grapple Combat in between players, was a LOT more a fun option to use then having to deal with, then for explain PvP in this system. :3
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Post  Zarhon Sun Apr 21, 2013 3:19 am

Xel Unknown wrote:Now that I've played a session with these rules... It's a lot simpler then the doc implies. And was a hell lot fun to do Grapple Combat in between players, was a LOT more a fun option to use then having to deal with, then for explain PvP in this system. :3

To be frank, you were playing with the dude that made the rules and knows exactly how they work. Simplicity would pretty much depend on how well the DM understands it. It would likely be a bit slow at start, but gets easy once you get it into "practice".

Gameplay/mechanics wise - yeah, it seems to work pretty well, and allows for an alternative to PiPs combat between PCs (since PVP with PiP abilities is pretty broken), or non-combat skill checks.
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Post  Xel Unknown Sun Apr 21, 2013 3:24 am

Thanks for that added info Zarhon, I did kinda forget about those important factoids.

Still stand by what I said and I totally support the system.
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