3E Grab Action...

[Paragon]

Ah, I see, so you weren't saying that it was a bad thing to give Parry a reason to be bought up to PL. (Obviously, as you alluded to, Dodge being used to resist Area effects means it's less likely to be stinted on anyway.)

More the case that everyone has to, to one degree or another, deal with ranged attackers, whereas its at least theoretically possible to minimize your contact with close attackers (though as I note above, its difficult at best).

I've been playing around with a Parry/Dodge secondary tradeoff, but have been pretty conservative about the ranges (+/- 2 from average) so far.

I can't make up my mind whether it'd be a good idea or not, mechanically, but there's a certain aesthetic part of me that kind of hates to have the avoidance stats be separate but have no reason not to lockstep them.

[saint_matthew]

Who says its only two guys? Teams go up against teams often enough, that its not a given that you can afford to have someone bail you out of a situation constantly

Sure you can, thats why you're a team.

Heck, even if he's trying he may not help, since the grab will make the target really vulnerable to being power attacked while held. It may well be over before your teammate can do anything other than annoy the grappler. Its very likely the target won't, in either case, be doing anything to prevent an additional villain from pounding on himself or whatever teammate is attempting to rescue him, certainly.

Ok, assuming the teams are of equal size, a second villain is not going to be able to do anything to the grappled hero, as he'll be to busy fighting his own attacker. However a single blast from any member of the party should be enough to convince the villain to drop the grappled hero... after all the only way you can damage a grab opponent is by squeezing them for str damage, which can be a slow form of attack. Also considering you can use both Athletics or Slight of Hand versus the opponents routine strength score to break out of a grab, you've actually got a fairly good chance of escape.

Except powerhouses, being Toughness shifted, generally care less about being grabbed in the first place...and that's assuming they haven't invested in, oh, say, Grabbing Finesse. He may not care about the Dexterity option, but it makes any vulnerability go away and is pretty much one of the first things people who want to use grab as a common attack buy.

I dont understand any of what you just said... In fact i think you may just be putting random words together. However the original statement still stands. "if a power house grabs one of the heroes that can actually be considered a good thing if you have had trouble fighting him: You are hindered and vulnerable while grabbing and holding an opponent".

Yes Grab Finesse means an attacker using dexterity for a grab & is not vulnerable... This advantage is meant to be used by martial atists, as no powerhouse in his right mind would take that advantage... nor would pretty much any character other then an unpowered martial artist. Whats more someone with the dexterity based option is not as likely to have the strength to squeeze you for damage, as they would be more invested in the dexterity side of things.

1. If a GM has to avoid using an effective technique for a broad swath of characters (i.e. anyone who is based on Strength or Move Object) against another broad swath (anyone who doesn't have a high Strength) because doing so would make him a dick, that's a sign on the face of it that there's a technique that is too damn effective for game balance.

2. Players can do this too, and it works every bit as well for them. Same statement above applies here.

1. Does Spiderman fight Venom every single issue? But Venom doesn't set off Spidermans spider-sense, which is a very effective technique for taking out Spiderman. Because its not cool to continue to use the same trick over and over and over again. Before long spiderman just thinks screw it, i'll tag him with a spider tracer. Done.

Same goes for an actual Game. Theres only so many times one can use the same technique before someone wanders into dick DM territory. Theres also only so long before players figure out how to circumnavigate it.

2. Players can, but they wont. MnM 3E is not D&D. The point of DCA/MnM is to play the game, not play the system. If you want to sit around making a statistically perfect character you can, but the rest of us will be over here having fun playing the game.

That only works if he elects to actually engage with the party's powerhouse. If he doesn't care to, short of the party's own trying to grapple (which is far less likely to work given the situation) there's nothing he can do to force the opponent not to ignore him.

If only you knew of some sort of tactic that a power house could use, that you think is overpowered that would hold the enemy powerhouse in place. alas such a tactic could not exist... *stage whispers* i'm being sarcastic, the answers in the threads title.

In the end there are a myrid of ways to escape a Grab attack, most of which can be used by anyone with relative ease. Grabs not nearly as powerful as you seem to think it is. There will be few characters in any given group that can't get passed a grab in some way or another.

SHOWCASING THE GREAT ESCAPES
Okay, so heres the math for you. Using the the Powerhouse template, with a strength of 12 versus the other templates.

Battlesuit: Also has Str 12
Construct: Also has Str 11
Crimefighter: Uses his "Slieght of Hand" at +10, so he only needs to roll an 12 to escape
Energy Controller: Spark up that Energy Aura
Gadgeteer: Power Stunt an emergency power spike through your Forcefield, ala Energy Aura.
Martial Artist: Athletics +14 means a succes on a roll of 8
Mimic: Hey look, i'm as strong as you.
Mystic: your mystic, 'nough said
Paragon: Also has Str 12
Power House: Also has Str 12
Psionic: Mental Blast, because if something has to resort to Grab it's probably not to smart to start with
Speedster: Athletics can do it, but if you want to do it fast, start to vibrate & stunt a vibrationary Energy Aura off of your super speed.
Shapeshift: I'm not even going to glorify that with an answer
Warrior: Athletics at +15 means a roll of 7
Weapons-Master: Why bother to escape, you've got regenerate.

-M

[Paragon]

Who says its only two guys? Teams go up against teams often enough, that its not a given that you can afford to have someone bail you out of a situation constantly

Sure you can, thats why you're a team.

That doesn't magically ensure that you have enough spare people who don't have someone in their own face to be able to take time out to help you without getting themselves in a worse situation than what they were bailing you.

Heck, even if he's trying he may not help, since the grab will make the target really vulnerable to being power attacked while held. It may well be over before your teammate can do anything other than annoy the grappler. Its very likely the target won't, in either case, be doing anything to prevent an additional villain from pounding on himself or whatever teammate is attempting to rescue him, certainly.

Ok, assuming the teams are of equal size, a second villain is not going to be able to do anything to the grappled hero, as he'll be to busy fighting his own attacker.

He can probably spare one attack, and sometimes that's about all is needed in that case, since the target may well have no Defense at all (a fairly likely result if you're talking a 4 against a DC 12, since he only has to miss by six and he's got an eight point gap). Heck, in that situation the attacker can chose to do an automatic crit if he cares to roll normally. Combine that with a power attack and the target may not be able to stay functional even with a Hero Point.

However a single blast from any member of the party should be enough to convince the villain to drop the grappled hero... after all the only way you can damage a grab opponent is by squeezing them for str damage, which can be a slow form of attack. Also considering you can use both Athletics or Slight of Hand

Why? His target is presumably as offensively dangerous as the one who attacked him, and barring crits or power attacks, he's doing as much damage squeezing the target as he would any other way, and doesn't even have the chance of missing.

versus the opponents routine strength score to break out of a grab, you've actually got a fairly good chance of escape.

Again, look at the examples I gave. None of those archetypes have any of those above their Strength scores. There's no particular reason to expect any similar characters would, either.

Except powerhouses, being Toughness shifted, generally care less about being grabbed in the first place...and that's assuming they haven't invested in, oh, say, Grabbing Finesse. He may not care about the Dexterity option, but it makes any vulnerability go away and is pretty much one of the first things people who want to use grab as a common attack buy.

I dont understand any of what you just said... In fact i think you may just be putting random words together. However the original statement still stands. "if a

Grabbing Finesse is an Advantage. It has two properties: it allows you to chose to use Dexterity instead of Strength in grabs, and it eliminates any defensive penalty for the grabber. As such, it eliminates the downside you're referring to.

Since the penalty for doing a grab is being Vulnerable, its less of a problem for most Powerhouses, because they've traded off Defense for Toughness; as such, they'll take less of a raw penalty.

Is that clear enough, or (since we're apparently going to snark from your "random words" comment) do I need to use words with less syllables?

power house grabs one of the heroes that can actually be considered a good thing if you have had trouble fighting him: You are hindered and vulnerable while grabbing and holding an opponent".

Yes Grab Finesse means an attacker using dexterity for a grab & is not vulnerable... This advantage is meant to be used by martial atists, as no powerhouse in his right mind would take that advantage... nor would pretty much

No, actually, any one in his right mind will take it. Note you don't have to use Dexterity with it, its an option, and nothing requires you to do so to get the other benefit. So its taken all the time by grappling specialists for just that reason.

any character other then an unpowered martial artist. Whats more someone with the dexterity based option is not as likely to have the strength to squeeze you for damage, as they would be more invested in the dexterity side of things.

The worst thing about grappling isn't doing the damage; its setting you up for others to take you down by murdering your defense. The damage is almost gravy (and in fact, if you take Improved Grab, you can get most of the same benefit yourself; leave someone Defenseless and then clobber them yourself. In fact, never mind the Grabbing Finesse, that'll eliminate your own defensive problem too, so there's no need to even take the Finesse.)

1. If a GM has to avoid using an effective technique for a broad swath of characters (i.e. anyone who is based on Strength or Move Object) against another broad swath (anyone who doesn't have a high Strength) because doing so would make him a dick, that's a sign on the face of it that there's a technique that is too damn effective for game balance.

2. Players can do this too, and it works every bit as well for them. Same statement above applies here.

1. Does Spiderman fight Venom every single issue? But Venom doesn't set off Spidermans spider-sense, which is a very effective technique for taking out

That's an odd property of venom (effectively a specialized Concealment). This isn't. Strongman types are extremely common, to the point of being one of the single commonest supers types around, and this works well to one degree or another for all of them. In addition, ones that spend at least some of their time wrestling are also common. This isn't a hyperspecialized operating procedure, but a thing you would expect to see present in virtually every opposing villain team, perhaps more than once (the ones with the grappling advantages may not be, but there's no particular reason for them not to be either, and even without those this is a problem if the average resistance for a large swath of opponents expects to be more than about five downhill).

Same goes for an actual Game. Theres only so many times one can use the same technique before someone wanders into dick DM territory. Theres also only so long before players figure out how to circumnavigate it.

In this case they circumnavigate it by avoiding common character types or buying abilities that make little sense to do. And I don't believe for a moment that having strongman types grapple--something that occurs pretty frequently in the comics--is out of the character for many of them. So at that point, the GM is having to avoid something in-genre and rational because its too good. That was exactly the case in 2e, and I have no doubt at all why the rule was changed.

2. Players can, but they wont. MnM 3E is not D&D. The point of DCA/MnM is to play the game, not play the system. If you want to sit around making a statistically perfect character you can, but the rest of us will be over here having fun playing the game.

Good to know you speak for every player in every game. Especially since this is a perfectly reasonable trick to do conceptually, so you're, in essence, now asking players not to do it because its too good--even though you see characters like (for example) Ben Grimm do so with some frequency.

That only works if he elects to actually engage with the party's powerhouse. If he doesn't care to, short of the party's own trying to grapple (which is far less likely to work given the situation) there's nothing he can do to force the opponent not to ignore him.

If only you knew of some sort of tactic that a power house could use, that you think is overpowered that would hold the enemy powerhouse in place. alas such a tactic could not exist... *stage whispers* i'm being sarcastic, the answers in the threads title.

Except as I said (perhaps you can see it up above) its far less likely to work. There's a rather huge difference between needing to roll an 18 on a D20 and needing to roll a 10, and that's the difference we're talking about here).

In the end there are a myrid of ways to escape a Grab attack, most of which can be used by anyone with relative ease. Grabs not nearly as powerful as you seem to think it is. There will be few characters in any given group that can't get passed a grab in some way or another.

And more than can. I've pointed at examples of each of them. Short of insubstantials and teleporters, no one gets to just blow them off, and if Strength is the only resistance, then the only people likely to escape them are other strength types, and a few specific kinds of skill monkeys.

SHOWCASING THE GREAT ESCAPES
Okay, so heres the math for you. Using the the Powerhouse template, with a strength of 12 versus the other templates.

Battlesuit: Also has Str 12
Construct: Also has Str 11
Crimefighter: Uses his "Slieght of Hand" at +10, so he only needs to roll an 12 to escape

It doesn't stop him from being effected in the first place, however, so he'll be vulnerable until at least his action rolls around. As far as I know, it also requires him to use up a standard action trying.

Energy Controller: Spark up that Energy Aura

You mean the one at 3 that even the rather weak Impervious in 3e can pretty much blow off most of the time? The 18 Toughness save that requires a 6 or better for anyone with a 12 or better Toughness to ignore? That one?

Gadgeteer: Power Stunt an emergency power spike through your Forcefield, ala Energy Aura.

Same problem (because its going to be tiny) and now you've thrown away most of your Toughness on top of your other problems.

Martial Artist: Athletics +14 means a succes on a roll of 8
Mimic: Hey look, i'm as strong as you.
Mystic: your mystic, 'nough said

So? Short of a teleport or insubstantial, that doesn't mean there's much you can do here, and unless you already have one of these, that still means you've essentially had to power stunted against it every time it was used on you, which could easily be multiples per fight.

Paragon: Also has Str 12
Power House: Also has Str 12
Psionic: Mental Blast, because if something has to resort to Grab it's probably not to smart to start with

Doesn't mean its going to fold up right away. Note the Mental Blast is 5; against the Powerhouse that means he needs to roll a 14 to completely ignore it, and a 9 not to be Dazed--and even that won't make him let go if he doesn't want to.

Speedster: Athletics can do it, but if you want to do it fast, start to vibrate & stunt a vibrationary Energy Aura off of your super speed.

You clearly seem to think Energy Aura is some solution here. You really need to look at the numbers more if that's the case.

(A better choice would be Insubstantial if he's going to take this route--but again, this means needing to power stunt this every time unless he already has it as an AP).

Shapeshift: I'm not even going to glorify that with an answer
Warrior: Athletics at +15 means a roll of 7
Weapons-Master: Why bother to escape, you've got regenerate.

That's not the all purpose solution, even if you're the type that does (not all will). In fact, regenerators are a particularly good target to do this to, as it allows your teammates to drown out their healing.

[saint_matthew]

He can probably spare one attack, and sometimes that's about all is needed in that case, since the target may well have no Defense at all (a fairly likely result if you're talking a 4 against a DC 12, since he only has to miss by six and he's got an eight point gap). Heck, in that situation the attacker can chose to do an automatic crit if he cares to roll normally. Combine that with a power attack and the target may not be able to stay functional even with a Hero Point.

[...]

Why? His target is presumably as offensively dangerous as the one who attacked him, and barring crits or power attacks, he's doing as much damage squeezing the target as he would any other way, and doesn't even have the chance of missing.

Ok, i refuse to argue hypotheticals, because people who believe a rule is over powered have a tendency to move the goal posts by constantly adding everything the character needs in question to show that a rule is broken & at the same time making there character unplayable in a real game. For this reason i am going to only use the archetypes at the front of the book.

As written the Powerhouse can Grab pretty much any character, but holding on to them is a different story. If the Powerhouse were to try and squeeze the Crimefighter he needs to succefully make the grab the likelyhood of the powerhouse actually hitting is low (if he's using his built in stealth). But saying that he succeeds, the Crimefighter still has an entire round to squeeze out of the grab. To squeeze out of the grab he only needs to roll a 12 (or just uses a hero point for an imporved roll and suddenly a 2 is enough to succeed). Upon a success he slips out of the behemoths hands & swings into the darkness, using his grapple gun & mastery of stealth (at which point he'd probably just use trickery to pull the old "Spiderman running the Juggernaut into deep wet cement trick"). This is just using the Crimefighter, possibly the least combat effective characters in the entire book.

In this case they circumnavigate it by avoiding common character types or buying abilities that make little sense to do. And I don't believe for a moment that having strongman types grapple--something that occurs pretty frequently in the comics--is out of the character for many of them. So at that point, the GM is having to avoid something in-genre and rational because its too good. That was exactly the case in 2e, and I have no doubt at all why the rule was changed.

It can make a lot of sense to have something that can bypass a grab if the DM does it too often: Super Scientist makes nueral scambeller for just that occassion, the Crimefighter develops a special entangle net just for powerhouses, the mystic develops a strength draining enchantment, the Weaponmaster Archer develops a arrow that blinds ones foe... There are many ways to achieve this that are in character. If the DM does it to often the players will come up with an answer, as they should. Until they do, they will come up with creative responses by power stunting.

Secondly, Power Houses rarely resort to grab attacks all that much in the comics. Mostly they just break shit... Its kind of there home run swing.

Good to know you speak for every player in every game. Especially since this is a perfectly reasonable trick to do conceptually, so you're, in essence, now asking players not to do it because its too good--even though you see characters like (for example) Ben Grimm do so with some frequency.

Oh no, i dont speak for every player in every game... I only speak for the good ones. I don't for instance speak for power gamers. I'm not saying don't do it, i'm saying don't try to build a character that tricks the system by being perfect & unbeatable at everything... Kind of like i'm not saying you can't make pun-pun in 3.5 rules, i'm saying you shouldn't make pun-pun.

Except as I said (perhaps you can see it up above) its far less likely to work. There's a rather huge difference between needing to roll an 18 on a D20 and needing to roll a 10, and that's the difference we're talking about here).

Succeed or fail i promise you've got the guys attention. Unless of course you play in one of those games where the DM uses meta-gaming as a crutch to punish his players, in which case he's also guilty of playing the system not the game.

And more than can. I've pointed at examples of each of them. Short of insubstantials and teleporters, no one gets to just blow them off, and if Strength is the only resistance, then the only people likely to escape them are other strength types, and a few specific kinds of skill monkeys.

Sure they can. As i pointed out earlier, spend a hero point & the crimefighter can escape on a roll of 2. Heck the martial artist who spends the hero point to reroll can do it on a roll of 0.

It doesn't stop him from being effected in the first place, however, so he'll be vulnerable until at least his action rolls around. As far as I know, it also requires him to use up a standard action trying.

This is true, but why wouldn't it be effective? Its meant to be effective otherwise no one would do it. But theres a difference between effective & encounter-breaker. I think i've shown pretty conclusively that its not the encounter ender that you thought it was. So my quick run through of the archetypes isn't perfect, but its pretty clear to see that every single one of them has some way out of the grab situation. Grab is not as problematic as you seem to think it is: Its by no means an Encounter-Breaker.

-M

p.s your right the Gadgeteer would be better of blasting a dazzle into his face & the psion would actually be all right as he's got an impervious force field & the ability to pull nightmares out of the powerhouses head. Just goes to show Grab is not as powerful as you'd like to think.

[Paragon]

Ok, i refuse to argue hypotheticals, because people who believe a rule is over powered have a tendency to move the goal posts by constantly adding everything the character needs in question to show that a rule is broken & at the same time making there character unplayable in a real game. For this reason i am going to only use the archetypes at the front of the book.

Its fine to use just the archetypes, since that's largely what I've been doing, but I'm also not going to, for example, ignore the presence of standard Advantages in the rules just because an archetype doesn't happen to have it, nor am I required to accept that your definition of "unplayable" is what's going to happen in real games. That said, note I've never said every single opponent is vulnerable to this, just that a rather large number are.

As written the Powerhouse can Grab pretty much any character, but holding on to them is a different story. If the Powerhouse were to try and squeeze the Crimefighter he needs to succefully make the grab the likelyhood of the powerhouse actually hitting is low (if he's using his built in stealth). But saying that he succeeds, the Crimefighter still has an entire round to squeeze out of the grab. To squeeze out of the grab he only needs to roll a 12 (or just uses a hero

Except, he doesn't; its entirely possible that someone will have taken advantage of the problems that the Grab causes him long before his action rolls around. You'll also note I did not, at any point, mention the Crimefighter in my examples. This was not an accident. Even in 2e, skill monkey's had some ways around this, including in some cases having Grappling Finesse and enough Dexterity to make it hard to succeed at in the firs place.

And honestly, the difficulty in hitting in the first place is irrelevant, since that applies to anything else the Powerhouse is doing to that target, too. If you want to argue that a Crimefighter isn't a good target for a Powerhouse mostly, you're at the wrong address if you're looking for an argument from me.

point for an imporved roll and suddenly a 2 is enough to succeed). Upon a success he slips out of the behemoths hands & swings into the darkness, using his grapple gun & mastery of stealth (at which point he'd probably just use trickery to pull the old "Spiderman running the Juggernaut into deep wet cement trick"). This is just using the Crimefighter, possibly the least combat effective characters in the entire book.

But one that is relatively hard to grapple. Overall combat effectiveness has nothing to do with vulnerability to this tactic. That's kind of the point.

In this case they circumnavigate it by avoiding common character types or buying abilities that make little sense to do. And I don't believe for a moment that having strongman types grapple--something that occurs pretty frequently in the comics--is out of the character for many of them. So at that point, the GM is having to avoid something in-genre and rational because its too good. That was exactly the case in 2e, and I have no doubt at all why the rule was changed.

It can make a lot of sense to have something that can bypass a grab if the DM does it too often: Super Scientist makes nueral scambeller for just that occassion, the Crimefighter develops a special entangle net just for powerhouses, the mystic develops a strength draining enchantment, the Weaponmaster Archer develops a arrow that blinds ones foe... There are many ways to achieve this that are in

None of these are especially useful at avoiding grabs; at best they're especially useful at taking out powerhouses (and probably not just those). This is a common problem in arguments about a specific mechanic; people bring up things that either aren't any more successful against those using the tactic at hand, or are useful against anything. All the things you've described either work just as well on anything else (and as such don't address the extraordinary effectiveness of this) or ignore the ability of opposition to develop their own countermeasures. The only things that specifically address this are things that are specific to avoiding grapples and snares, and some of those aren't things all character types can do--further, the fact they'd be forced to do them because this is overpowered is a problem in and of itself. Having to buy specific countermeasures rather than being able to count on the things that protect against, oh, everything else in the game, is not a virtue.

Secondly, Power Houses rarely resort to grab attacks all that much in the comics. Mostly they just break shit... Its kind of there home run swing.

I quite disagree. I've watched Ben Grimm, among others, do so any number of times in the comics. The fact the suggested change overrewards doing so and might make it even more common is, in fact, one of its problems.

Good to know you speak for every player in every game. Especially since this is a perfectly reasonable trick to do conceptually, so you're, in essence, now asking players not to do it because its too good--even though you see characters like (for example) Ben Grimm do so with some frequency.

Oh no, i dont speak for every player in every game... I only speak for the good ones. I don't for instance speak for power gamers. I'm not saying don't do it, i'm

No, you don't. You speak for the ones who fit your own ethos on this and are trying to extend it to everyone else, just like the people who will try to defend any other broken mechanic by waving around "concept" like its the perfect answer. If that's all that's needed, no mechanic is ever broken, ever, and game balance in design is irrelevant.

saying don't try to build a character that tricks the system by being perfect & unbeatable at everything... Kind of like i'm not saying you can't make pun-pun in 3.5 rules, i'm saying you shouldn't make pun-pun.

And I'm saying this isn't an odd, corner case like a Concealed Multifire user. This is a perfectly reasonable build for a powerhouse and similar characters (both Killer Croc and Bane are example of low powered characters built around this concept); making it so the system overrewards it is not a virtue, and even less so after the designers went out of their way to fix the problem when it was a notorious bug in the system in 2e.

Except as I said (perhaps you can see it up above) its far less likely to work. There's a rather huge difference between needing to roll an 18 on a D20 and needing to roll a 10, and that's the difference we're talking about here).

Succeed or fail i promise you've got the guys attention. Unless of course you play in one of those games where the DM uses meta-gaming as a crutch to punish his players, in which case he's also guilty of playing the system not the game.

Not enough attention to guarentee it'll stop what he's doing. If that was all that was needed someone would change targets every time someone landed a hit on him. Assuming otherwise is the metagaming as far as I'm concerned.

[/quote]

And more than can. I've pointed at examples of each of them. Short of insubstantials and teleporters, no one gets to just blow them off, and if Strength is the only resistance, then the only people likely to escape them are other strength types, and a few specific kinds of skill monkeys.

Sure they can. As i pointed out earlier, spend a hero point & the crimefighter can escape on a roll of 2. Heck the martial artist who spends the hero point to reroll can do it on a roll of 0.

[/quote]

So your solution to an overpowered mechanic is constant burn of fatigue and hero points? Riiiiight.

It doesn't stop him from being effected in the first place, however, so he'll be vulnerable until at least his action rolls around. As far as I know, it also requires him to use up a standard action trying.

This is true, but why wouldn't it be effective? Its meant to be effective otherwise no one would do it. But theres a difference between effective & encounter-breaker.

Find another attack that is that effective, that reliably, even for short periods. I'll wait. Hint: An Affliction that would do what grappling does is not particularly cheap, and doesn't get to get resisted by an attribute only a subset of targets have at anything but a low level. Its not a coincidence that the lowest defense you normally see anything resisted with is a 6 at PL 10. If only Strength or Fighting is used (the original option I responded to) you see plenty of characters at 4, and if its only Strength its even worse.

I think i've shown pretty conclusively that its not the encounter ender that you thought it was. So my quick run through of the archetypes isn't perfect, but its pretty clear to see that every single one of them has some way out of the grab situation. Grab is not as problematic as you seem to think it is: Its by no means an Encounter-Breaker.

And all your examples are largely dependent on someone power stunting something, usually anew every time someone does this to them; the grappler, on the other hand, just has to try again. I don't consider something less broken if its a hero point/fatigue vaccuum.

p.s your right the Gadgeteer would be better of blasting a dazzle into his face &

Not particularly. While a Powerhouse isn't exceptionally likely to be missed and resist, as written the first level of Dazzle doesn't actually do much to cause him problems (all it does is penalize his Perception rolls) and in any case it won't harm his grapple continuation at all.

the psion would actually be all right as he's got an impervious force field & the ability to pull nightmares out of the powerhouses head. Just goes to show Grab is

The impervious is largely irrelevant (as it is against any serious attack) and the fact he can keep attacking the Powerhouse doesn't make his defensive situation any better.

not as powerful as you'd like to think.

[/quote]

No, it goes to show that for the most part, you're not getting it. If you don't understand why something that, after a hit expects to leave a lot of targets defenseless until their turn comes around is problematic, I really don't know what to say to you.

[Taliesin]

He can probably spare one attack, and sometimes that's about all is needed in that case, since the target may well have no Defense at all (a fairly likely result if you're talking a 4 against a DC 12, since he only has to miss by six and he's got an eight point gap). Heck, in that situation the attacker can chose to do an automatic crit if he cares to roll normally. Combine that with a power attack and the target may not be able to stay functional even with a Hero Point.

[...]

Why? His target is presumably as offensively dangerous as the one who attacked him, and barring crits or power attacks, he's doing as much damage squeezing the target as he would any other way, and doesn't even have the chance of missing.

Ok, i refuse to argue hypotheticals, because people who believe a rule is over powered have a tendency to move the goal posts by constantly adding everything the character needs in question to show that a rule is broken & at the same time making there character unplayable in a real game.

Just stop right there. You've done nothing but argue hypotheticals with your archetype examples, and you've argued them very poorly (e.g., spark up a low rank Damage Aura, burn a HP every time, etc.), so please don't insist that you require actual gameplay examples in a discussion.

You're only using the actual gameplay argument as a crutch when your hypothetical argument fails you, and then you're denigrating the arguments from people who actually have a lot of gameplay experience.

Oh no, i dont speak for every player in every game... I only speak for the good ones. I don't for instance speak for power gamers. I'm not saying don't do it, i'm saying don't try to build a character that tricks the system by being perfect & unbeatable at everything... Kind of like i'm not saying you can't make pun-pun in 3.5 rules, i'm saying you shouldn't make pun-pun.

Now you're deciding who's a good player and who's not? A player who takes advantage of a useful tactic isn't automatically a power-gamer. Nor is a power-gamer necessarily a "bad player."

But your statement here suggests that your fix for problematic rules is to all agree not to take advantage of them, or at least not too much, which you will apparently decide ad hoc.

Seriously, is your own only recourse to "undermine, undermine, undermine"?

[grimmshade]

Once again, going back to the original argument, its the use of Dodge that seems completely wrong. It makes no more sense thatn using Will to escape a grab. Its the ranged defense. How does it remotely make sense to use it to escape a grab (which by that point you are already in)? Its a random nonsense rule.

I have had a weekly game since the DCA pdf was available, and so far I have never once had a grab end in success. Our powerhouse characters player got so frustrated he is playing an energy controller now.

It just seems like there should be a middle ground between uber powered 2E Grab, and totally useless 3E Grab. So far the best solution I have seen on paper is the use of Athletics or Sleight of Hand to escape the original Grab just like the escape maneuver. Why should it be different the first round you are grabbed? I admit, this hasnt been playtested yet, as my players have given up ever attempting to grab anyone.

[saint_matthew]

@grimmshade I agree that its not the most logical defence to hit. I also agree that Grab is not very useful in actual play as all characters can pretty easily escape with the application of a single hero point & thats if the grab works at all.

However i dont see Grab not working as well in 3E as a reason not to play a powerhouse... The powerhouse is still a fun characterto play (then again so is an energy manipulator).

[Foreshadow]

If you build a power house with higher fighting and/or close combat feat he will be good at grabbing and holding.

A character like The Iron Ball Buster who can grab you and keep her steely grip on you. Give her 14 Fighting and 14 Strength and she'll be scary. In other words, if you want to be good at Grab you can build it, plus you can buy up Close Attack (Grab).

[saint_matthew]

So what exactly is the point of view of the anti-grab side? Can someone distill it down for me, because as i've read it, that side thinks that Grab is some sort of over-powered Encounter Breaker.

As far as i can see, this is not the case. All the base archtypes have some way to escape, with the simple application of a Hero Point. Now there seems to be a misunderstanding about hero points. When one uses a hero point to reroll one is not fatigued afterwords. Extra Effort causes different level of fatigue, normal application of a Hero Point does not. So Power Stunts cause fatigue, but a reroll does not. Also keep in mind that another Hero Point can always be spent to recover from fatigue

Whats more Hero Points are infinite, the better you play the game (rather then playing the system) the more Hero Points you will recieve. What i'm saying is that the old maxim "Use them or lose them" is entirely accurate with Hero Points.

There is no archetype character that one way or another cannot break out of the Powerhouses Grab attack. As for using Hero Points, thats what they are there for, you can't take them with you from one session to another, at the end of every single session your hero point numbers base line back to 1. So if you aren't going to use them in a fight, whats the point of having them at all. The point of Hero Points is to use them to be (as the doctor would say) "a little bit brilliant."

To take it one step further, if you are playing with the "describe it rule" used by many MnM DM's including our resident podcasters, you'll find its even easier to break a Grab. I mentioned in a previous post that the Gadgeteer should have just blasted a dazzle in his face, as a way to escape. What i meant by that was that if the powerhouse wasn't expecting it, the first thing he would have done in any game i was DMing would be to drop the gadgeteer & grab for his now blinded eyes (after all from the point of view of the powerhouse he just got shot in the face with a ray gun). Same goes for a powerhouse punching another powerhouse, to keep him away from the less Grab compatible characters. Its about playing the game, rather then playing the system.

So is grab useful? It sure is
is Grab an encounter breaker? nope

-M

@foreshadow You can also build a character with Intangibility that can completely derail that character... Whats your point?

[Foxiekins]

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, hopefully, but this is my understanding of the process:

Once you hit with the Grab, the target resists a DC 10+Strength (or Dex if the attacker has Grabbing Finesse) with his Strength or Dodge, and the result has typical degrees of failure.

Yes, but on page 176 the effects are described in terms of degrees of success, not in degrees of failure...

I suspect that's carry over language from earlier vesions of the rule (since 2e Grab was an opposed check). The rest of the process is described pretty clearly as a flat resistance check.

Okay, so I should take the rule as written, except that the result depends on the degrees of failure of the Resistance Check...?

[Taliesin]

Isn't the anti-grab "side" actually those who want it opposed by a lower stat than Dodge? Because we're actually more or less okay with resisted by Dodge, which is how it's written in the RAW. That makes us the pro-grab "side."

And the gist of the pro-grab side was basically Paragon's 2nd post of this thread: Str is usually a stat that is PL-average (moreso than nearly any other stat--the exceptions being Fighting and to a lesser extent Stamina). So is Dodge. This puts them on a nearly equal footing.

[saint_matthew]

And the gist of the pro-grab side was basically Paragon's 2nd post of this thread: Str is usually a stat that is PL-average (moreso than nearly any other stat--the exceptions being Fighting and to a lesser extent Stamina). So is Dodge. This puts them on a nearly equal footing.

Really? are you sure? It seems like there are a whole heap of people here complaining that Grab is some sort of encounter breaker, which it clearly isn't.

[grimmshade]

Isn't the anti-grab "side" actually those who want it opposed by a lower stat than Dodge? Because we're actually more or less okay with resisted by Dodge, which is how it's written in the RAW. That makes us the pro-grab "side."

And the gist of the pro-grab side was basically Paragon's 2nd post of this thread: Str is usually a stat that is PL-average (moreso than nearly any other stat--the exceptions being Fighting and to a lesser extent Stamina). So is Dodge. This puts them on a nearly equal footing.

Really not trying to be an argumentative dick, but none of my PC's have PL rank Str. If it doesn't make sense for a character to have any higher than normal human possible Str, then they don't have it just for PL purposes. Dodge however is a stat that is almost always at approx. PL. I can honestly say that Grab as written has only once worked in our games, and that was on a PC who is great at Close fighting, but not exceptionally super strong. You should have seen their face when I said they could get out of it with Str or DODGE! The next round they escaped when able to bring Athletics to bear. Dodge just seems like a way too commonly high stat, and also is the Ranged defense, so it makes no RP sense either.

[saint_matthew]

I am suprised that its dodge based and not parry based. Though on some level it makes sense. But considering how easy grab is to squirm out of for anyone with ahtletics ot the correct power set (& in this game every power set is the correct power set), its not much of a problem.