Bullrushing and Movement

[Goodlun]

Judo Mastery
Gravity hurts!
Prerequisites: Judo Basics
Benefit: Your threat range with the trick attack action increases by 1
Also, you gain a trick.
Judo Throw (Trip Trick): On a successful trip attack your opponet becomes sprawled, you also inflict double
your unarmed damage .

Judo Supremacy
Size and strength mean nothing
Benefit: Bigger opponents lose the 1st +4 bonus for trip and grapple checks and gain a trick
sacrifice throw(trip trick): You can use your opponents strength bonus in place of yours.

[Mister Andersen]

Ugh. The idea that you need a trick to tackle hurts my brain

Never done any wrestling, have you? Or even rugby for that matter... 

Actually I have played rugby (league and union). If someone can walk onto a field and tackle someone without having played rugby/grid iron/etc a day in their lives -- that is, chase someone down and put them on the ground just as easily and unpreparedly as charging someone and shoulder-checking them -- then that is pretty concrete bloody proof that a specially learned trick is utterly unnecessary.

A regular tackle is just a move then sprawl.  You can use Trip or Bullrush, but you make them go down - thats all that tackling is.  My trick is representative of a technique used by wrestlers (and adopted by Jiu-Jitsu practicioners, among others) that completely different from just a tackle - it is a specialised technique that requires special training.

By your own admission then, your trick misses the entire point of the discussuion

Besides, from a purely mechanical point - if you end up grappling, use the grapple rules (ie. Full Action - ends in grapple advantage).  You want to add to free movement it has to cost the player something, just from a balance perspective.

And again you miss it entirely: that's what going prone on success and sprawled on failure is.

Finally, unless I'm thinking about Spycraft (which is possible), you can combine half actions to make a full action and therefore should be able to use Charging Mastery to can make a grapple check while running.  Otherwise, you have Surge of Speed + Grapple.

Two feats? Two feats to replicate what any noob with ranks in Athletics can do? Now you're missing the point so much I'm afraid you're starting to break orbit.

[LordKruelos]

Point 3) Moving and grappling is incredibly hard, and requires more then rocking up and having some general atheticism - try talking to some actual grapplers and suggesting that a runner (ranks in athetlics) could take any of them down without any specialised training.  Even better, go do some actual grappling and see how little crossover you get from any existing atheticism.

Point 4) There is no need to be an asshole here.

Easy there guys. Let's ratchet down the tension a little bit -- let me see if I can restate things here to make sure we're talking productively rather than gearing up for a flamewar.


Let's look at this from a Game Effect vs Narrative Effect perspective for a moment.

Let's start with what we have as written:

Code:

BULL RUSH
1 Full Action • Attack Action
The character attempts to shove an opponent in a straight line.
He moves up to his Speed directly toward 1 opponent whose Size
may be up to 1 category bigger than his own. When he enters the
opponent’s square, the characters make an opposed Athletics check.
If the bullrusher is mounted or operating a personal vehicle he uses
the Ride skill instead. The bigger combatant gains a +2 bonus with this
check per Size category of difference between them.
If the bullrusher loses this opposed check, he moves back 5 ft. and becomes
sprawled; otherwise, his opponent is pushed directly back 5 ft. + an additional
5 ft. per 4 points of difference between the results, after which he becomes
sprawled. If this path is obstructed, [special stuff] occurs.

Game Effect = Defender Push + Defender Sprawled (Takedown)
Limited by: 1x Attacker's Speed, Size Differential
On Failure: Attacker Sprawled
Possible Narrative Effects = success "A great hit drives the runningback back and puts him on the ground" failure "Look at that broken tackle"

Code:

TRIP
1 Half Action • Attack Action
The character attempts to trip an adjacent opponent whose
Size may be no larger than 1 category bigger than his own.
The characters make an opposed Acrobatics check. The bigger
character gains a +2 bonus per Size category of difference. If the
character wins, the opponent becomes sprawled; otherwise, the
tripping character becomes flat-footed.

Game Effect: Defender Sprawled (Takedown)
Limited by: Size Differential
On Failure: Attacker Flat-Footed (Vulnerable but still on his feet)
Possible Narrative Effects = success "The running back gets tripped up at the line" failure " look at the runningback hurdle those outstretched arms trying to trip him."

Continuing the football comparison, Grappling is mostly what happens in the trenches

Open Stance (Stance): Once per round when you have 2
hands free and an opponent misses you with a melee or unarmed
attack, you may immediately Grapple or Trip him as a free action.
You may not take move actions (though you may still take 5-ft.
Bonus Steps as normal).
Could be construed to be what Olinemen do on most plays when a pass rusher's first move is unsuccessful.

Speaking first to

Point 2) To "chase someone down and put them on the ground" you only need to make either make a move and then trip action or a bullrush action.  That's it.  The game has that well covered, no need to go any further there.

This I agree with. This is a basic takedown.  However, there's definitely room to add some specialization, but maybe not enough for a full feat.

A Bullrush-specialization Trick might give a character the ability to Move 2X speed in the Bullrush and on success may choose to become Prone and inflict his unarmed damage in addition to the Bullrush effect?

Point 1) "Any noob with athletics" categorically cannot move quadrouple their speed and then initiate a grapple (so yes, that particular use costs 2 feats - obviously).
Point 3) Moving and grappling is incredibly hard

Yup. Again, continuing the NFL analogy, on a Kickoff, you see the Special Teams essentially sprinting half the field (pretty close to that 4x Speed movement) and then trying to take the ballcarrier down. To me: Hitting him high feels like a Bullrush, hitting him low and grabbing the legs feels like a Trip. When the ballcarrier gets stood-up and mobbed, with the defenders trying to rip the ball away? That sounds like a Grapple.

Rather than write a new feat to cover this, what about the Charge (Run Trick): You may make 1 free attack at any point during your movement (ignoring adjacency for that attack only).

If you really want to turn this into a feat, maybe go the route of allowing a Trip or Bullrush or even initiating a Grapple as a Free Attack as part of a Charge? Heck, since Charging Mastery already gives you access to 2 Free Attacks, maybe interact with that, so allow Half Action (Trip) as a Free Attack, but with 2 Attacks available, allow Bullrush or Grapple at the end of a charge?

It doesn't strike me as odd that many NFL Special Teams players might have the Charging Basics and even Charging Mastery feats...

[Crafty_Pat]

Thanks for the assist, LordK!

Let's please do keep it civil folks.

[Mister Andersen]

Point 3) Moving and grappling is incredibly hard

It really really isn't. Picking up an initiative action akin to Parry that works to avoid being tripped or grappled to reflect those rare few trained individuals, I'll give you. Hell, spear tackling is probably worthy of a trick. But wrestling has absolutely zip zero nothing to do with the basic tackling of folks.

Point 2) To "chase someone down and put them on the ground" you only need to make either make a move and then trip action or a bullrush action.  That's it.  The game has that well covered, no need to go any further there.

That action combo is descriptive of a soccer tackle. It has nothing to do with the running tackle of Rugby and associated endeavours. And all the targeted person has to do is double move or run, and you lose any ability to lay a hand on them because all your actions are spent just keeping up with them; the only way to break that deadlock is to break out the chase rules from 2.0 which arguably defeats the purpose of Mastercraft streamlining the Crafty experience.

A Bullrush-specialization Trick might give a character the ability to Move 2X speed in the Bullrush and on success may choose to become Prone and inflict his unarmed damage in addition to the Bullrush effect?

No. Tackling someone is a basic action, not an advanced action or a trick.

Point 1) "Any noob with athletics" categorically cannot move quadrouple their speed and then initiate a grapple (so yes, that particular use costs 2 feats - obviously).

Sigh. You really do seem to not get it. A noob, someone without any special training, can do exactly that -- and I'm speaking from personal experience here, not to mention a long and clearly successful tradition of school sports masters throwing year after year of inexperienced kids onto the pitch of a sportsday and having them successfully playing rugby/soccer/AFL after a sparse grounding in the rules. There is more effort required in the offside rule than working out how to chase the person with the ball and put them in the ground.

[LordKruelos]

A Bullrush-specialization Trick might give a character the ability to Move 2X speed in the Bullrush and on success may choose to become Prone and inflict his unarmed damage in addition to the Bullrush effect?

No. Tackling someone is a basic action, not an advanced action or a trick.
[/quote]

I'm not arguing that, If you'll read above, I agree, but a Trick would indicate someone who's BETTER AT the activity than someone who's just trained in general athletics. If you wanted to make a "Pancake Tackle" trick, it might be the different between an average brute and Ray Lewis. This is not a particularly difficult concept to grasp as a possibility On Top OF the basic action of tackling someone.

[Krensky]

Or you do the simple method of letting the bullrusher decide if he wants to send them flying, push them, or tackle them. No trick, no feat, no new action.

[LordKruelos]

Or you do the simple method of letting the bullrusher decide if he wants to send them flying, push them, or tackle them. No trick, no feat, no new action.

And a perfectly legitimate choice.

But if I had a player come to me and say "I want to specialize in bull rushing and tackling, what can I do?"  I wouldn't be against building something new for them.

[Mister Andersen]

Or you do the simple method of letting the bullrusher decide if he wants to send them flying, push them, or tackle them. No trick, no feat, no new action.

Doesn't quite cover that a tackle is also the opening move of a grapple.

A lot of the problem would go away by reducing the 1st move of a grapple from a full to a half action, or at least adding that taking the half action option results in the aggressor ending up sprawled if they fail, both parties prone if they win.

But if I had a player come to me and say "I want to specialize in bull rushing and tackling, what can I do?"  I wouldn't be against building something new for them.

We're not and never have been talking about being good at tackling, the subject is being capable of tackling in the first place.

[LordKruelos]

But if I had a player come to me and say "I want to specialize in bull rushing and tackling, what can I do?"  I wouldn't be against building something new for them.

We're not and never have been talking about being good at tackling, the subject is being capable of tackling in the first place.

Well that might have been your subject, but I was talking about more than that, including talking about "Specialization" from my very first post, and others were too. Sorry buddy, there was some subject creep, welcome to the internet.

[TheTSKoala]

But if I had a player come to me and say "I want to specialize in bull rushing and tackling, what can I do?"  I wouldn't be against building something new for them.

Lots of info wandering and point creeps make this a curvy thread, but I am going to interject with a question as I do enjoy a good Bullrush action.  Especially when I succeed more than I intend and the Orc flattens the crown prince who was 10 feet behind him, which we are there to save. 

"Specialized Bullrush".  Seems a bit of a confusing idea to me.  The heart and soul of a bullrush is.. getting a bit of steam behind you and throwing your shoulder, shield, some other blunt object into the person at the point of impact so that person is then sent back a few paces.

Besides building up the ability to break more objects, which I would think Qi feats do it, what more would they be looking for?  Anything I've tried to think of is more along the lines of allowing you to use an action or trick after running.

Example.  Professional Wrestling.  Spear!  Run + ..I dunno.. Clothesline trick?  Just trying to see what we're going for.  You peaked my interest. lol

[LordKruelos]

"Specialized Bullrush".  Seems a bit of a confusing idea to me.  The heart and soul of a bullrush is.. getting a bit of steam behind you and throwing your shoulder, shield, some other blunt object into the person at the point of impact so that person is then sent back a few paces.

Besides building up the ability to break more objects, which I would think Qi feats do it, what more would they be looking for?  Anything I've tried to think of is more along the lines of allowing you to use an action or trick after running.

Example.  Professional Wrestling.  Spear!  Run + ..I dunno.. Clothesline trick?  Just trying to see what we're going for.  You peaked my interest. lol

Actually I think you're onto something -- "Wrestling" might be a better illustration because there's so much variation compared to the homogenizing of technique in the NFL.

Not stepping on the Wrestling and Charging feat trees is important I think, so perhaps don't replicate the effects of Charge (more move) and you're going to want an effect closer in power to a Triumphant Swing than to a Wrestling Mastery(Clothesline)

Maybe something like this?

SPITEFUL TAKEDOWN
Unarmed Attack Trick: Sometimes when you put them down, you make sure to give them a little extra. Sometimes it's a lot extra!  Once per round, after an adjacent opponent becomes Sprawled, the character may spend and roll an Action Die and become Prone to make a Unarmed Free Attack on the Sprawled opponent. With a hit, the character does his unarmed damage + the result of the Action Die as subdual damage. With a miss, the character becomes flat-footed at the end of the current Initiative Count (and is still prone).

[LordKruelos]

SPITEFUL TAKEDOWN
Unarmed Attack Trick: Sometimes when you put them down, you make sure to give them a little extra. Sometimes it's a lot extra!  Once per round, after an adjacent opponent becomes Sprawled, the character may spend and roll an Action Die and become Prone to make a Unarmed Free Attack on the Sprawled opponent. With a hit, the character does his unarmed damage + the result of the Action Die as subdual damage. With a miss, the character becomes flat-footed at the end of the current Initiative Count (and is still prone).

Whether you describe this as an elbow-drop, knee-drop, face-slam or whatever, I think it comes through pretty nicely. There's a risk-reward to it, but also a teamwork bonus -- spending an Action Die to pile on to someone your buddy tripped sounds like fun to me, especially if I get to add that Action Die to the damage... but if I miss, I'm definitely vulnerable to payback.