Minions, Inc.

[Ezram]

Fast Headcrab (Animal — ? XP): Init IV; Atk IV; Def VII; Resilience IV; Damage Save: II; Skills: Acrobatics IV, Notice III, Sneak II; SZ T; Spd 50 ft.; Qualities: damage resistance 5 (contagion), feats (Lightning Reflexes), fleet +20 ft, inferior attribute (Str 5, Con 8 ), low-light vision, natural attack (bite I), superior attribute (Dex 17), undersized (Tiny).

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I've decided to just stat the headcrabs for now, and deal with their possessing ability later.

[Antilles]

As far as I understood, once a headcrab had possessed a human, they were essentially joined.  So why not make it simple? Make a special ability along the line of "Zombification: With a successful [I dunno, a derivative of grapple attack?], target character is stunned. After X rounds, the character dies and becomes a headcrab zombie. If standard NPC, use NPC type headcrab zombie. If special NPC/Player, the zombie uses his stats, with the following modifier: [stuff]" Dunno how much XP that'd give it, though...

[Ezram]

What abilities can I give them to represent them being adept grapplers, despite their size?

[mouthymerc]

What abilities can I give them to represent them being adept grapplers, despite their size?

Boost their Athletics higher to make up for the negative modifier they will most likely endure.  Take it from the Iv you have now to about VII or VIII.  You could even boost it right to X if you want, since they have a negative Str modifier.  Also, I would give them Wrestling Basics, for sure, and maybe even Submission Basics.

[meadicus]

One issue is that the grappling rules (page 357) state you may grapple "opponents whose Size is up to 1 category bigger" than yourself. Which means these Tiny creatures may only grapple up to Small people.

[Antilles]

So, no grappling. How about a Leap attack, where the result is some damage and you've automatically pinned the opponent. Then a zombifying bite attack or somesuch that can only be used while pinned. Maybe make it so it deals damage to CON directly, and when it reaches zero you're zombified?

[Leeking208]

Really I think that the puppeteer quality which allows control of a host body with a successful coup de gras.

Thus making your headcrabs have not too dangerous, also as far as I've seen in-game headcrabs really don't seem to grapple or pin anyone, they mostly just leap attack at their prey until it dies then take over it's corpse. At least as far as I remember from Half-Life 1, Opposing Force, HL2, and HL2: Episode 1.

Also it appears to be a pretty long process as to my knowledge Mr. Freeman never see anyone actually get taken over or turning. He just seem to stumble upon either head crabs or zombies. Instead of headcrabs in the process of making zombies.

[mouthymerc]

If the creature is a leaper, then I would go with the Rolling Moves feat.

As to the creature being tiny and grappling.  If you want to keep this as an option, then use the size to determine how many must be included to do a successful grapple.  If you look at the Squares line on the size chart, you can see that four tiny creatures can be in one square.  I would just rule that at least four of the creatures must be included in any attempt to grapple.  Or, maybe, just two creatures since that will equal a small creature and you can be only one size smaller.  Just imagine the visuals as you describe these creatures swarming your characters, pulling them to the ground, and then trying to kill them.

[Toccata]

I agree with Leeking.

I would personally save myself the trouble of figuring out the transformation mechanism and, since it always happened off screen in the games, I'd leave it off screen in the game and just use the puppeteer quality.
Then it's just a matter of stating up the three kinds of headcrabs and the four kinds of zombies for the headcrabs to puppeteer.

[Ezram]

That's kind of...bunk. Perhaps their ability lets them exclude that limitation and let them go up to Medium in grappling?

Also it appears to be a pretty long process as to my knowledge Mr. Freeman never see anyone actually get taken over or turning. He just seem to stumble upon either head crabs or zombies. Instead of headcrabs in the process of making zombies.

There is at least one occasion where a scientist is wrestling with a headcrab that's already on his shoulders, and if he fails, it goes over his head and he falls over.

If you wander by the area later on, it rises to attack you.

[Antilles]

Again, if it was up to me, I'd give the headcrabs a special Leap-attack to be able to attach to heads, then a CON-damaging attack. If they die, they'll rise after a while as a headcrab zombie NPC. Easy, handwaves that whole puppeteer problem, and can make a single headcrab dangerous... which they should be, if they get the chance to ambush you .

[Ezram]

Headcrab (Animal — ? XP): Init III; Atk IV; Def VI; Resilience V; Damage Save: III; Skills: Acrobatics IV, Notice III, Sneak III; SZ T; Spd 20 ft.; Qualities: damage resistance 5 (contagion), feats (Ghost Basics), inferior attribute (Str 9), low-light vision, natural attack (bite I), sluggish (-10 ft), superior attribute (Dex 15), undersized (Tiny).

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Thanks for the suggestion, Antilles  . When i'm done with the zombies, i'll go back and revise the headcrabs and add what I feel works best.

[Toccata]

That's kind of...bunk. Perhaps their ability lets them exclude that limitation and let them go up to Medium in grappling?

Also it appears to be a pretty long process as to my knowledge Mr. Freeman never see anyone actually get taken over or turning. He just seem to stumble upon either head crabs or zombies. Instead of headcrabs in the process of making zombies.

There is at least one occasion where a scientist is wrestling with a headcrab that's already on his shoulders, and if he fails, it goes over his head and he falls over.

If you wander by the area later on, it rises to attack you.

I must have forgotten that part...
But even so, the actual turning from human to zombie happens off-screen.

It just seems more graceful to pull an npc-switcheroo than to make a whole new mechanic that still is basically doing the same thing--especially when the zombies clearly have different statistics than the humans they were made from.

[Ezram]

Actually, in that case, I was arguing for their being able to grapple Medium size targets.

[Toccata]

Actually, in that case, I was arguing for their being able to grapple Medium size targets.

Oh, yeah, definitely. My mistake, and I totally agree in that regard. I believe the ususal OGL rule is that smaller creatures can indeed grapple larger ones, they just have a -4 per size category difference between them.
I don't know if there's anything overruling that in the Spycraft combat chapter off the top of my head, but I don't recall anything like that...
[edit]Though I seem to recall a rule about the maximum number of participants in a grapple by size, though that might be general OGL, too