Wings and dropping people

[Taran]

I have a new player who's never Rp'd before.  She watched one of our sessions and this is what she wants:

"I want to be emotional"
"I want to kick ass!"
"I want to fly... oh and grab someone and fly up and drop them onto fences and stuff."  (When I was describing Declarations, she asked "So, can I say that there is a hot air balloon filled with dogs and the dogs attack the thug?")
 "I want to be a fairy"
"I want to be empathetic"

O.k...so most of this is pretty easy, except for the flying and dropping people.  How would you do that?
-Start with a grapple
-supplemental in next exchange to carry a person up one zone
Might vs appropriate skill (Endurance to hold on?)
Failure = falling damage.  1 zone = roughly 5 stress.  (use the athletics roll to minimize damage)
OR
-Use a Might or Fists attack to represent the damage of falling?  Defend with Athletics?

If it matters, we're Feet in the Water

[InFerrumVeritas]

I have a new player who's never Rp'd before.  She watched one of our sessions and this is what she wants:

"I want to be emotional"
"I want to kick ass!"
"I want to fly... oh and grab someone and fly up and drop them onto fences and stuff."  (When I was describing Declarations, she asked "So, can I say that there is a hot air balloon filled with dogs and the dogs attack the thug?")
 "I want to be a fairy"
"I want to be empathetic"

O.k...so most of this is pretty easy, except for the flying and dropping people.  How would you do that?
-Start with a grapple
-supplemental in next exchange to carry a person up one zone
Might vs appropriate skill (Endurance to hold on?)
Failure = falling damage.  1 zone = roughly 5 stress.  (use the athletics roll to minimize damage)
OR
-Use a Might or Fists attack to represent the damage of falling?  Defend with Athletics?

If it matters, we're Feet in the Water

That seems to work well enough.  I'd allow either Might to defend against the grapple/action as normal (trying to hold on) and Athletics to mitigate damage (so stress would be 5/zone -Athletics roll result). 

I think the grapple makes sense.  You'd have to have the character in your hands.

[Mr. Death]

I'd add that Might should restrict it--human beings are heavy, and most of the monsters in Dresden are heavier. I'd look up the lifting table for some idea of how much of a Might score the character would need to pull this off. Probably somewhere around 4 or 5 would be appropriate, I'd say.

Of course, if the character's going to work through grapples, a high Might score is a must anyway, but it's something to keep in mind.

[Taran]

I think she's going to take Inhuman or Supernatural Strength, so I don't think lifting regular sized creatures will be much of an issue.

Here's another situation:

She grapples and pulls the person up into the air.  While up in the air, on the opponents turn, he chooses to grapple her.

On her turn, she releases the grapple to drop her opponent.  Unfortunately, the opponent is hanging on to her...maybe choking her out.

How would you run this?  It's easy enough to say, "I use endurance/Might to hold on so she can't release me"  But what about actively trying to grapple someone who already has you grappled?  Technically a grapple blocks all actions...would it block a grapple attempt?  They already have the "grappled" aspect to tag....

[Mr. Death]

We had a discussion about this before, I think, and it was determined that just being grappled wasn't a suitable aspect for putting a grapple on yourself. I'd say in that case, the victim would have to put an aspect on her (Reversal or something) that beats her grapple block, and then tag that for the grapple.

[Richard_Chilton]

How would you run this?  It's easy enough to say, "I use endurance/Might to hold on so she can't release me"  But what about actively trying to grapple someone who already has you grappled?  Technically a grapple blocks all actions...would it block a grapple attempt?  They already have the "grappled" aspect to tag....

This recently (well, within the last six months) happened in Canada.  Of course it wasn't a flying creature dropping someone but a trajic error in strapping someone into a tandem hang glider.

After the strap let go both the passenger and pilot did everything they could to keep the passenger on the glider - and couldn't keep her there for more than 30 seconds.  See http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/06/hang-gliding-accident/ for  the real world result of not being secured to a flying object.

Of course, real world "Bang you're dead" results are rarely enjoyable in a game... So maybe an Epic might roll would be enough to hang on?

Richard

[admiralducksauce]

Once the flier got the grapple and we worked out whether they could carry their victim, I'd say each exchange flying up adds the flier's Athletics score to the potential damage. That'd be in lieu of any fixed stress-per-zone-fallen numbers.

If you ARE going with a fixed stress per zone fallen, then I rule that flying up while wrestling is a supplemental move, moving you up 1 zone and imposing the normal -1 penalty to your primary action. By contrast, however, if your victim is not fighting back, you can roll Athletics and cover WAY more altitude per exchange.

[Taran]

Once the flier got the grapple and we worked out whether they could carry their victim, I'd say each exchange flying up adds the flier's Athletics score to the potential damage. That'd be in lieu of any fixed stress-per-zone-fallen numbers.

If you ARE going with a fixed stress per zone fallen, then I rule that flying up while wrestling is a supplemental move, moving you up 1 zone and imposing the normal -1 penalty to your primary action. By contrast, however, if your victim is not fighting back, you can roll Athletics and cover WAY more altitude per exchange.

1 zone above the combat area doesn't need to be that high.  It just needs to be higher than people can reach.  5 stress every 10 feet is the rule, so I was going to rule that you can only go up about 10 feet while carrying something heavy (that's actively trying to escape).

So, a 10 foot fall *shouldn't* kill anyone outright.  The people on the hand-glider were considerably higher.

Also, I probably wouldn't allow anyone without a STR power to do this.  SHe's going to have a Might Score of 4 and Inhuman STR, which gives her a lifting capability of 7 (a motorcycle...around 400lbs?).  Now, just because she can lift it, it doesn't mean she can fly with it, which is why I was going with the 1 zone movement as a supplemental which is part of the grapple rules.  I don't think she'd be able to to take-off 3 zones with an athletics roll...maybe if the person wasn't fighting, as you say.

The issue I have is this:

Exchange 1:She gets an aspect and tags it for a grapple
Exchange 2: she moves as a supplemental and then has the choice to drop the victim (Might vs Might) or continue to grapple (block)
Exchange 3: she moves up another zone as a supplemental.
What can the victim do?  If he holds on, she'll just keep moving up and if he breaks the grapple, he will suffer a 10 stress fall. 

She'll probably be able to control most grapples anyways.  Do you think it's fair to do it this way?  She's essentially taking herself and one other target out of the fight.  She's not doing any damage until she drops them...it also takes her several exchanges just to do damage.

[Centarion]

First, in order to start a grapple there must already be an aspect on the target, so unless you have allowed a free declaration it will take a full round to place such an aspect.

Second, you cannot do a supplemental movement the round you initiate a grapple, you can only do that in subsequent rounds. So it will take her 3 rounds to get off the ground (unless she got a free declaration of Surprised or something before/in the first round) and the Opponent will have at least one round to try to break the grapple (with pretty much any skill that makes sense, the book even says it may be possible to use Intimidate to break a grapple). If she does not start with an aspect to tag to start it the opponent can also spend their turn trying to clear the aspect.

5 or 10 stress wont take out a major villain, so 3-4 rounds to take out a mook seems fairly weak. Against a villain, it will take much longer. Inflicting one 10 stress hit after 4 rounds seems weaker IMO than just doing two 2 stress hits and allowing mele members of your party to be involved also. In any circumstance where a PC can easily grapple your villain you will have this type of issue and this does not seem to exacerbate it, so if that is what she wants her character to do seems fine to me.

[Taran]

First, in order to start a grapple there must already be an aspect on the target, so unless you have allowed a free declaration it will take a full round to place such an aspect.

Second, you cannot do a supplemental movement the round you initiate a grapple, you can only do that in subsequent rounds. So it will take her 3 rounds to get off the ground (unless she got a free declaration of Surprised or something before/in the first round) and the Opponent will have at least one round to try to break the grapple (with pretty much any skill that makes sense, the book even says it may be possible to use Intimidate to break a grapple). If she does not start with an aspect to tag to start it the opponent can also spend their turn trying to clear the aspect.

5 or 10 stress wont take out a major villain, so 3-4 rounds to take out a mook seems fairly weak. Against a villain, it will take much longer. Inflicting one 10 stress hit after 4 rounds seems weaker IMO than just doing two 2 stress hits and allowing mele members of your party to be involved also. In any circumstance where a PC can easily grapple your villain you will have this type of issue and this does not seem to exacerbate it, so if that is what she wants her character to do seems fine to me.

You have it right, I just didn't describe it properly, I guess. So it doesn't seem overpowered.  Is it a fair way of doing it?   In a situation where you'd use a grapple anyways, it seems useful to bring the person up.  Once you've got someone up, you're guaranteed to do damage.  You're effectively doing 2 things:  Neutralizing one enemy, then doing damage to them even when they succeed.  There's an advantage of being in the air as well:  melee can't hurt you.
I'm thinking of making it a supplemental to stay in the air every round.  That way you can't fly someone up, then do stress in consecutive rounds as your supplemental.

I wonder, though, about making the "drop" an attack...or if that's just more complicated.  Or just flavour a fists or Might attack as a grab and drop - but that seems cheesy.

Edit:  @Centarion:  I should have read your whole post.  You specifically stated you thought it was fine.

[Lamech]

I would make it a grapple. You can then move them straight up after grappling them. It takes three rounds to do any damage, but the fall builds quickly...

Also the falling rules are way harsh. Even with athletics 3 and endurance 2 its got about a 50/50 chance of a take out for people who aren't special enough to take consequences.  That's a bit harsh.

[Centarion]

I think 3 rounds to take out mooks is absolutely fine, maybe underpowered. In my Up to your Waist game most of the combat focused characters 1 shot mooks with their normal fists/weapons attacks (at least the type of mook where you have 7 per fight and they take no consequences). This seems like an option the character would only want to use on a tougher bad guy (with inhuman strength she probably already one shots the normal mooks).

I like making staying in the air a supplemental, for the reasons you stated. Also, I agree that it may be better to model the falling as an attack, but I am not sure how I would do it. If they are falling any significant distance the attack certainly shouldn't miss.

[Taran]

Also, I agree that it may be better to model the falling as an attack, but I am not sure how I would do it. If they are falling any significant distance the attack certainly shouldn't miss.

That's a good point.

Here's one problem I see, but maybe it's just me being paranoid:

End of Adventure Boss:  "I grapple, then start flying up...I keep flying up....I keep flying up..."  Meanwhile, if the boss can't get out of the grapple within the first couple rounds, he's pretty much screwed.

Is it paranoia?  Or is it an issue?

Lastly, would there be some kind of penalty for allies to shoot grappled enemies while they are airborn?

[Centarion]

The question you have to ask with your scenario is: "Is grappling the boss and then flying up with him actually better than just grappling him and staying on the ground?"

My answer is that he would be screwed either way if he cannot break out of a grapple for several turns. The only problem with this that I see is that flying away with him puts the spotlight squarely on one person while having everyone beat him up while one person holds him seems to highlight everyone more. In any case if my players were prone to using high strength grapples I would make sure my challenging fights had a way to interact with that. Remember that breaking the grapple (on the boss's turn) does not require him to win a Might vs. Might, just to beat the grapple strength with something that could reasonably break a grapple. This could be fists, weapons (if he has some small weapon he can get), intimidate, spell casting, really anything if you are creative.   

I know that in D&D shooting any ranged thing into a mele carries a penalty and attacking someone who is grappled can cause you to hit the grapple and vice verse, clearly this is not D&D, we do not have strict mele engagements like that. On the other hand, it could make sense to impose situational modifiers or other effects if someone tries to attack a grappled foe, either in mele or range (or both). Nothing about this subject is actually in the rules afaik but whenever something like this comes up we discuss how best to handle it at our table and just do that, if you ahve a method you like just tell your players before it comes up so you all have the same expectations.

[Tedronai]

We had a discussion about this before, I think, and it was determined that just being grappled wasn't a suitable aspect for putting a grapple on yourself.

(bolding added)
I do not recall this being concensus.  I do recall some members stating this to be their opinion.