Rulings/FlurriesInGrapples
Date asked: Aug. 10, 2006
Rule set: Second Edition
Rules area: Flurries during grapples
What actions can you flurry with a clinch contest? What limits or drawbacks exist on the possibility? Can either participant attack, for example?
The following rules may help in resolving this:
- Exalted Second Edition, pg. 157
- "For as long as a character maintains a clinch, he can do nothing else without a flurry, and he must use every subsequent action to renew the clinch." Also, the rest of the Grapple rules on pgs. 157-158.
Resolution
(Waiting for resolution.)
Discussion
I posted this up because it developed as a side question in TrialBySchmendrick/TerrestrialHeroVsFiveDragon, but I didn't think my thoughts belonged there lest they appear somehow biased. By a strict reading of the rules, it would appear that the aggressor is free to flurry as many actions as s/he likes in a flurry, including attacks on his/her atarget or other combatants, but the victim is pretty much just stuck there, per the rules on being inactive. What's worse, this argument suggests that, since grappling denies both parties both their DVs, it would further seem that the aggressor can grapple a target and then beat them senseless with a flurry against which the target has no defense whatsoever... - Hapushet
In looking at "what the rules say", the result depends entirely on which of the (at least) four different meanings the rules assign to the word "action" is being used here, which you can't really tell. In looking at "what the rules intend", its also a little fuzzy. It seems like all they are really trying to convey is that you can grapple more than one target at once, but the phrasing leaves open the possibility for wailing on a held target. Another factor: it may be that the "crush" option in the rules is more abstract than it sounds, and is intended to cover things like wailing on your target (though, if so, it does a poor job). As for "how it should work", I think a) that it is perfectly possible to wail on a target you are clinching and b) if you do so, you will not be holding him as well as you would if you were not wailing on him. I'd allow it under the following house rules:
- You must flurry to do so
- Your flurry must contain actions to control all your clinches before any attacks are made.
- If you intend to attack a clinched target as part of a flurry, this must be declared ahead of time and you loose two successes from your control check.
- You can only attack if you control the clinch
- The target can use parry DV, but subtracts the additional successes from the control roll from its value.
I might also toy with the idea that if the target manages to parry the attack, they get some bonus to the next control roll or something. - Wordman
