Paradigm Concepts

[soullos]

During character creation, one of my players expressed interest in the Grapple skill. Upon reading the rules he came to me asking some great questions that I wasn't too sure about. I have an idea, but would like to see if anyone can clear any misunderstandings.

Now, starting a grapple and exchanging successes is pretty straight forward. Escaping a grapple causes some confusion. It says you can escape the grapple altogether with just 1 success (or 1 successes to reduce a Hold to grappled or 2 to reduce a Pin to grappled). But it doesn't really define what "Grappled" means in the same way Pin and Hold are. What's to stop the victim from just moving away when he's not in a Hold or a Pin? ATM, I'm thinking that they can still move, but since the two combatants are interlocked in a grapple still, the opponent matches the victims movement as a free action (may rule only cautious movement in this way). Essentially, the one moving is either guiding the other, or the other is making sure he doesn't escape so easily, but if he wants to move freely, he needs to escape altogether.

Lets assume the victim attempts to free himself from a Hold and rolls badly, only getting 1 success, while his opponent in the opposed roll gets 3 success, giving him a net of 2 successes. Can the opponent then use those successes to further his control, perhaps putting the victim into a Pin or damaging him to show the error of his ways?

Also, am I assuming correctly a non-pinned victim can spend his Defense points to help in his escape of a grapple? So in the above example, if the victim had 3 Defense, he can negate the 3 successes of his opponent, leaving him with 1 net success, allowing him to reduce the Hold to a grapple?

[Milandir]

What would be the grappled condition in other systems is held in this one. The issue lies in the description of escaping, which I will issue errata for.

If you are grappled, you can't move away unless you escape, but unless you are held or pinned, you can do actions other than escape.
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Eric Wiener
Paradigm Concepts, Inc.

[soullos]

Ok, let me see if I have this right. Grappled is meant to prevent any actions dealing with movement, but everything else is fair game. However, doesn't the Hold condition currently do that? Does that mean Hold and Grappled are one in the same - you're not truly grappled unless you initiate a Hold maneuver? Or are they meant to be separate conditions (based on your second paragraph, it seems like Hold now prevents any action other than escaping)?

Sorry if I'm complicating things further than they should be.

[Milandir]

I am just not answering as well as I could and it is not worded as well as it could be. We are going to look at errata for this in the near term.
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Eric Wiener
Paradigm Concepts, Inc.

[soullos]

We all make mistakes, so no worries there. Thanks for your time; I'm looking forward to the errata.