ooc

[Mr. Handy]

I'll be leaving for a convention on Thursday afternoon and won't be back until Sunday night, though I might not be able to catch up and post until the following night.

[Tabs]

Okay. Board games or Star Trek?

[Mr. Handy]

Board games, but also roleplaying games (live action and tabletop), including several Call of Cthulhu games.

[Tabs]

I did live action roleplaying once, years ago, it was D&D, and I played a zombie and then a goblin! I presume you could be "larping" as an investigator in CoC?

[Mr. Handy]

Yep, I'm signed up for four Call of Cthulhu LARPs, as well as four tabletop CoC games and a couple of board games. I've also played in some Firefly LARPs at these conventions, but they didn't have any this time.

[Tabs]

Actually, the CoC LARP does sound cool, like a murder mystery dinner.

[DSIGFUSS]

Hey Handy,

You ever try that CoC LARP game at the convention you were talking about above. I'd love to hear about it. What was it like? How does a CoC LARP work. Did everyone go insane? lol

[Mr. Handy]

I played in all four CoC LARPs there, and they were fun. The best one was set in Mayberry with characters from The Andy Griffith Show and "guest stars" from other shows from the same era. I played Barney Fife, a centuries-old zombie in service to Nyarlathotep (AKA Andy Taylor). Not everyone went insane in these, at least not completely. I don't have time to describe them in detail tonight, but I should be able to during the weekend. They used the Cthulhu Live 3rd edition rules (which I helped playtest at another convention back in 2005).

Martial Arts is used in conjunction with unarmed combat attack skills (Fist/Punch, Grapple, Head Butt, or Kick). You roll against the chosen attack skill to hit as normal. If you roll higher than your skill, you miss. If you roll less than or equal to your skill but higher than your Martial Arts skill, you hit as normal. However, if you roll less than or equal to both skills, you roll double your damage dice (but not double the damage bonus). For instance, a character with a +1d4 damage bonus who succeeds at both skills with the attack roll will do 2d3+1d4 damage for a punch or 2d6+1d4 damage with a kick. The other benefit of Martial Arts is you do not need to declare who you are parrying at the start of the round. Instead, you can wait to decide who to parry until someone rolls a successful hit against you. To parry a weapon while unarmed, you would have to roll Grapple to grab the enemy's arm (you do not need Martial Arts to do this). If you make two successful Grapple rolls, you disarm your opponent and take the weapon.

[Cearlan]

Henry "Grasshopper" Renwick MD

[Mr. Handy]

Only one roll is made to attack. The same roll is compared to Martial Arts and your attack skill, rather than making a separate roll for each.

[Tabs]

The melee in the mill has got a little confused. Cearlan's rolls were superb, so they stand and I'll rule that the Doctor does as stated; however, DSIGFUSS needed 25% or less for Tatsuo to Grapple (parry) the bayonet, which he didn't do . . .

Mr. Handy, you're the rules expert. Regarding Tatsuo's Martial Arts skill, it s/be equal to or less than his unarmed combat attack skills (Fist/Punch, Grapple, Head Butt, or Kick)? Therefore DSIGFUSS needs to reallocate Tatsuo's skill points.

[Mr. Handy]

The Grapple rolls for Dr. Renwick were done absolutely correctly. I was just pointing out that Tatsuo only needed to make one attack and one parry roll. Martial Arts and the attack skill are both checked against a single roll.

Yes, it makes no sense to have Martial Arts skill at a higher level than your highest unarmed attack skill. It also makes no sense for a sumo wrestler to have only the base skill in Grapple. If you take 33 points out of Martial Arts and put them into Grapple, you could have both skils at 58%.

[Tabs]

DSIGFUSS didn't understand the Martial Arts skill, but neither did I! If Tatsuo's Grapple skill is 64% or higher he parried the bayonet. Okay, DSIGFUSS allocated 90 points to Martial Arts skill, if you split equally: Grapple 70% and Martial Arts 46%. . . ?

[Cearlan]

I have to say that the grapple skill has foxed many a keeper's mind, let alone players who may not be as experienced. I reckon that there are a lot of keeper's that still don't know how to use it correctly. And when you figure Martial Arts into the equation as well it becomes even murkier. I have played CoC since second edition, (early to mid 80's), and if there are two rules that I have to keep referring to, even now, then they are Grapple and Martial Arts.

I think the way the rules are explained could be better handled in the rulebook, possibly with examples showing how it can and cannot be used. But then this eats into word counts and other such production issues so Chaosium have to strike some sort of balance I suppose between over-explaining and keeping the costs down. Without derailing this into a discussion on edition wars, it is possible that the seventh edition, replacing all unarmed fighting skills with one skill may help make understanding and implementation easier

Back on track though - cracking game that I am really enjoying - it seems a pity that the good Dr may not last too much longer though, but them's the breaks.

[Tabs]

Thanks, Cearlan.

[DSIGFUSS]

OK so I totally screwed up making Tatsuo. I thought that martial art covered it cuz it started at 1% and I had to sink so many skill points into it.

I will go back in and tweak him soon. But before I do I'd like some clarification please guys. So do I need to make my punch kick and headbutt higher to even use my martial arts? I'll raise my grapple too but this will involve raising my education to get some more skill points/ reflecting his martial arts training.

Maybe I should think about what it means to be a sumo wrestler and only raise punch and grapple leaving head butt and kick where they are. Any thoughts?

[Cearlan]

I don't think you screwed up so much as it is not explained very clearly as I said earlier. The first two sentences in the skill description says

"Use in combination with an attack with fist / punch (etc). If the attack roll is equal to or less than the attackers martial arts %, that attack does double damage."

Let us say for example that your fist skill is 40% and MA skill is 60%; if you roll a 55 then you have missed, yet still have under your MA skill, so it would make sense to have them the other way round so you would do your normal 1D3 plus db. If you rolled under your 40%, then you'd get 2D3 plus db.

I think for the sake of brevity I'd try and keep Tatsuo's scores fairly close together if you plan on doing a lot of hand to hand fighting. YMMV of course, but this is the way I understand it to be

[Mr. Handy]

You can always use Martial Arts. Having Martial Arts higher than your highest unarmed attack skill gives no additional benefit, but it still benefits you if you have some of your unarmed attack skills lower. Fist/Punch always has a minimum of 50%, so if your Martial Arts skill is higher than that, you still hit on a roll of 50 or less, and every hit would do 2d3+db damage. You may of course choose to raise those other skills while you're reshuffling points.

Even having a small amount of skill in Martial Arts is useful. Sarah Carpenter in Ash has it at 25%, so she does 2d6 damage with every kick that connects - it just doesn't happen that often, as she doesn't have points in her unarmed attack skills. With a punch, she'll sometimes do 2d3 and sometimes 1d3.

[Tabs]

So do I need to make my punch kick and headbutt higher to even use my martial arts? I'll raise my grapple too but this will involve raising my education to get some more skill points/ reflecting his martial arts training.

No, but a character must succeed at unarmed combat first, and then, the same roll is compared to Martial Arts skill. Therefore, Martial Arts s/be no higher than the highest % in unarmed combat.

Personally, I think Grapple is the perfect skill for a sumo and Martial Arts is a bonus for good rolls.

[Cearlan]

I am going to be tied up until thursday, maybe friday so will probably not be able to post again till then.