Subdue - Immobilization or Prep for Death.

Started by LoD, March 02, 2003, 12:01:56 AM

Good evening.

I come before you today to offer a suggestion.  To change the subdue skill in a way that would placate the many naysayers whom have voiced their distaste for the overbalanced and heavy handed nature of the skill for months and years upon the GDB.

In the many discussions I have read over the years, the main complaint I hear is that people feel the subdue skill is overpowered.  Usually the arguement is that they find it unrealistic that their 50-day warrior, capable of defeating gith armies bare handed, is somehow grabbed and killed by a 1-hour half-giant, barely capable of remembering his name.

My suggestion is to remove the damage bonus to the subduer.

Now, let me explain.  I propose that subdue do just as its name says and 'subdue' the opponent.  Following the subdue, the subdued PC would suffer all of the normal penatlies: inability to move, inability to attack, inabiliy to do much of anything.  The person doing the subduing would be ABLE to attack, but it would release them prior to the attack and all normal offense, defense and damage would proceed as if the person had never been subdued.

I further propose that any increased damage to a subdued person HAVE to be delivered from another source - a fellow raider, mugger, passerby or obliging carru.  This would force someone wishing to use subdue as a method of instantly killing someone to have a partner in crime, someone to back him up and kill the person while he held them.

I believe this change in the code would only promote balance and a better use of the skill as intended.  I feel as if the common Arm player feels that his biggest fear is losing a long-lived PC to a 1-hour mul or half-giant that stalks in, grabs their PC with little or no regard to their coded ability and smashes their head into roast beef.  This change would change how subdue was used and weed out the few twinks that rely upon the current code to be able to deliver a killing blow to someone of vastly superior skill.

If changes in the skill would go even further, I would propose that the fields used to determine someone getting subdued be along the lines of:

Strength + offense + subdue skill (possibly weapon skill)

vs.

Agility + defense + subdue skill (possibly weapon skill)

Anyhow - my two cents for a possible change to subdue.

-LoD

While I'm not familiar with the ongoing discussions about subdue and its relative power, I humbly hold the opinion that subdue's quirk is in its check to succeed:  Its a strength role.  While strength is required to hold a person still (check against their flee), you have to catch them first, which, to catch some o' them quick lil' buggers would take quite a move.  Once held however, It makes sense to me for the subduer to snap their neck or whatnot, ending their 50-day existence.  Remembering however that ye olde 50-day warrior is gonna be a lot quicker on his feet and will know to watch out for those encircling half-giant arms. Sooooo.... cut to the diagram.

Say you're a 200 lbs half-giant, and you wanna subdue an elfie.  Its gonna be hard to catch him, but when you do... he's toast.
Say you're a 90 lbs elf, and you wanna subdue a half-giant.. You can do it real fast like.. just jump up and wrap your arms and legs around his head- that's not problem, but he's gonna shake you off even faster like.

Perhaps my conception of the current subdue system is just totally off, in which case- disregard this post.
hang is actually...

It seems to me like I've said this many times, but I'm not averse to repeating myself.  Once a half-giant or mul has you, there is no reason why he shouldn't be able to kill you.  I don't care about game balance.  Muls and half-giants are karma races, and I trust (most) people with Karma not to abuse the power that these races grant.  I wouldn't say that they are Karma races because its difficult to RP them.  Hell, its TWICE as hard to RP a dwarf as it is a mul or half-giant.  They are karma races for the very reason that they are more deadly then their counterpart races with fewer karma requirement.  Let me add that I have seen other races attempt to subdue-kill, and they have failed miserably.  I'm not going to argue for or against a lack of damage bonus, because I don't believe that there IS a damage bonus.

For your idea of people immediately releasing somebody before they attack their subdued victim, I disagree with this very strongly.  I generally only subdue-kill (with half-giants) for one, and only one reason.  Because nothing else will keep my victims from spamming flee self until they have escaped.  Not breaking their limbs, not slamming them against a solid surface, not shaking them, not squeezing them, not tightening my grip, and not drawing a weapon to their throat and telling them that they're dead if they try one more move like that.  Only knocking them out.  If something like this were implimented, then I'd say that it would only be fair to eliminate flee self altogether, so that all that remains is the check during the initial struggle before the victim is at your mercy.

One thing you didn't mention that I wouldn't mind being implimented.  Making it impossible for the subduer to draw a weapon on the subdued victim.  Recently it was made more difficult to do this, but I'm sure its still possible.

As for your suggestion on changing the skill check, I'm suprised to find myself agreeing with this.  The way you suggest it would still give muls and half-giants the advantage they already have, but it would change things around so that skilled individuals have a better chance of survival.  There is only one slight modification that I would like.  Instead of your proposed formula it would be...

Strength + offense + subdue + size

Agility + defense + subdue + size

No weapon skill though.  I don't see how that has any bearing on subdue.
Back from a long retirement

Quote from: "LoD"Strength + offense + subdue skill (possibly weapon skill)
vs.
Agility + defense + subdue skill (possibly weapon skill)
This has been hashed out several times (ie., here), and I won't bore with repetition.

I'd only add the corollary that the victim's subdue really has no bearing in the above equation; this is not like reversing a disarm attempt.  Instead I'd suggest, assuming someone bothers to tinker with the code, that the flee skill might be measured into the equation.
quote="CRW"]i very nearly crapped my pants today very far from my house in someone else's vehicle, what a day[/quote]

Did you ever think that the half-giant is maybe breaking your neck or back and not just hitting you the way the code says?

I like the idea personally.  As for half-gaints or such breaking your neck, if thats their bag then there is nothing stopping them from emoting such.  I've never seen it personally, and I'm not just going to automatically assume thats what they're attempting to do every time.  Why would a half-giant know to snap someone's neck anyways?  They aren't trained expert killers, they're low level intelligent children or idiots typically.

It seems far more realistic to me that if a half-giant grabs someone he is going to try smash them or "squish" them alla their fist, clubs or what have you than go for a strategic neck snapping strike.
iva La Resistance!
<Miee> The Helper Death Commando is right.

Well, as always, the Princess Bride reference. In the book, Morgenstern goes into Fezzik's early "champion" days. Where basically, Fezzik would get into the ring with champions all around Europe, grab them, bear hug, and win. So the squishing and smashing would probably be a good way to think of those hits.

Thanks for the replies.

I certainly understand that a half-giant (and really only a half-giant) has the absolute size for the subdue code to work as it's presently written with respect to the damage done in the initial strike.  I could argue that of a mul, because if they free up a hand to draw a weapon or hit you - that leaves a hand free for you.

And we're not talking about wrestling here, we're talking about if you don't get away, there's going to be a club put through your face.  Kicking, biting, eye-gouging, no holds barred.  I'd say you'd have to have a pretty good grip with both hands to manage keeping them immobilized with the exception of the half-giant.

Now, once a half-giant has a hold of you I can understand him inflicting some deadly amount of force because of his size and ability, but then perhaps we should focus more closely upon the initial grab.  As stated in a few replies, it should be -more- difficult to grab someone of better skill.  As for the values I selected, here is why I would add them.

Subduer = Strength + Offense +Subdue + Size + (Weapon Skill*)

Strength - I believe this one is obvious, stronger you are, better grip.
Offense - They should be able to get past the opponent's defenses.
Subdue - Their skill in being able to -keep- someone held in place.
Size - The sheer size of them as they make their attempt.
Weapon Skill (*) - The use of their weapon in blocking the opponent's.

Victim = Agility + Defense + Subdue + Size + (Weapon Skill*)

Agility - The ability to dodge or wriggle out of their grasp.
Defense - The ability to avoid their "attack" of their arms.
Subdue - To avoid the maneuver.  If you put a trained wrestler with a non-trained wrestler, they aren't going to have the first clue about what to do when the wrestler gets ahold of them - but another wrestler would.  The more the person knows ABOUT subduing someone, the better they should be able to avoid those holds.  This is like saying that someone who fences should have the same chance to hit a fencer as a non-fencer.
Size - Again, the size should make a difference.
Weapon Skill (*) - I put this in at the request of a few others for discussion because if someone was rushing you while you had your sword drawn and could kill most people in two cuts - it should factor in to weather they still have a -hand- to grab you with.

My question to you, as players, would be would making a change so that solo-subduers (with Half-Giants excepted) couldn't make a critical strike against you help or hurt the game and the RP situations?  Would it make people have to RP more?  Would it make people consider using the skill less as a method of winning the fight over a superior opponent because the code allows them to?  Would it provide more interesting RP situations or force the players to use the skill more realistically? (i.e. with help)

Just a few more thoughts.

-LoD

Flame away but I don't think you should be able to subdue unless the person is knocked out, nosaved or asleep. No matter how you look at it, subduing, drawing weapons and attacking is twinking. If your holding your weapons than you aren't holding them anymore. Also Delerak, if you think those attacks by -weapons- when subdued represent crushing them then wouldn't it make more sense for the person to just attack without weapons in their hands, ie barehanded? Frankly I think this skill should be nerfed just to stop all the misuse. In all my time at Arm, I have never been subdued unless the person did one of these numbers... e;subdue and to me, that is rediculous. Some of you may trust those karma classes not to do this, but you probably havn't been rushed on by a group of byn subdued by a mul and attacked all in the blink on an eye, you just can't cross the distance it takes to grab someone that fast. In my opinion, its more realistic for someone to "spam flee" becuase, there -is- a certain amount of distance between characters as they enter a room on each other, whether or not people choose to ignore this or not.

Conclusion: Make it so you can only subdue sleeping, unconscious, or nosaved people. People who use the skill usually abuse it, so take it away from everyone. I guarantee if these changes occoured no one would complain about a HG or MUL rushing in and subdue killing them ever again.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

I've breached this topic before, and I brought the time of play into the equation not because I believe that a 25 day old human should suddenly be immune to the effects of strength that his target would have, but because I was saddened with the way with which subdue was used and that the end result was that a PC with a lot of playtime was lost in such a manner.

And, to be clear, subdue;hit has never happened to me.

If I, as a buff human warrior, face off with a mul and get caught in a bear hug and knocked out, then so be it, its completely realistic.  If the mul missed his subdue he would be slaughtered.

Rather, its the e;subdue target entered in quick succession which annoyed me.  I've never been killed this way before, but I've seen someone else, and it was done in a way that didn't take room size into account.

If I, as a human, am sitting atop a kank in the middle of the grasslands, I would see the trail of dust from an approaching mul a mile off.  Movement command->subdue does not take this into account.

I've talked to others about this before and the basic argument against it was "what is my raider supposed to do, ask politely to subdue?"

No, that's not my point.  But clearly, to me at least, any use of the code which is used to get around the limitations of reality is abuse.

Raiders/assassins and killers should not be relying on quick typing speed to alleviate the obstacles the encounter with their quarry, but instead on patience and utilizing those same obstacles to their benefit.

Desire on the part of the aggressor to capture someone does not give them the superhuman ability to sudden cross great distances in the blink of an eye and wrap their mul arms around an elf.

I'd prefer to see subdue left mostly the way it is, with strength the largest determining factor, but if the room is outdoors I would like to see it set so that there is a variable length delay before the subduing actually takes place along with an echo to the room.

Believe you me, I've chased many a player and I really *do* know the frustrations of poorly played targets.  I lost a several day old ranger to someone who was lying on the ground severely wounded in a tent and jumped up and ran out as I entered.  But poor play on someone else's part does not mean I should lower my own quality of play.  The game degenerates when we do that.

I would say leave it alone.  Sure, you're a 50 day warrior, but should that mean that you're utterly invincible to the point you don't have to be careful anymore?  I think if you look around and see a half-giant raider, you should have to be at least -somewhat- careful.  You don't want to die to subdue?  Have a friend ready to attack the wrestler, or run away.  Don't nerf the skill just because you don't want to have to be careful around it anymore.
She wasn't doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together. --J.D. Salinger

I would also like to state that I've never been the victim of an e;subdue;kill situation either.  I have had PC's that were subdued before and they were RP'd out rather well without having much of a problem.

My suggestion came as a result of the many people lifting their voices against the power of subdue.  Now, perhaps the change in mul karma and subsequent lack of muls playing the 'exception' to the rule has caused these voices to quiet.  Perhaps the problem wasn't subdue at all, but merely the handful of twinks that had mul karma early and figured they didn't really want to bother with slave RP so they created a 'free' background and went around subdue;killing whomever, whenever.

I don't personally feel afraid or strongly about the skill as it presently stands, but I don't think it would hurt the game if it was toned down in such a way.  It would increase the efforts made to RP as compared to worrying about quick typing.  That was my reason for the suggestion.  Not fear of a PC dying.  Not frustration with dying that way.  Not an intricate discussion on who could hit what pressure point with their thumb, just if would affect the game in a good or bad way.

-LoD

Quote from: "Armaddict"I would say leave it alone.  Sure, you're a 50 day warrior, but should that mean that you're utterly invincible to the point you don't have to be careful anymore?

Well, yes, when it comes to combat code, the entire point of the skill system is so that you *don't* have to fear the vastly less skilled than you. The way subdue is now, the subdue/flee and subdue again tactic is vastly more effective than using weapons. This leads to the paradox that the armed 50-day warrior need not fear an armed half-giant, but the bare-handed one is extremely dangerous. Realistically, if the half-giant can't hit her with a dagger or a bare fist, how is he to get through her guard with that same bare hand and proceed to take her captive? I'm very much in favour of LoD_Snarf's idea.

Quirk
I am God's advocate with the Devil; he, however, is the Spirit of Gravity. How could I be enemy to divine dancing?

I think the ability to draw a weapon while subduing someone could be done away with.  

Last summer I had a character with subdue, so I was fooling around with it and subdued a vestric or serpent . . . some little creature.  I was quite surprised that I was able to draw my weapon, especially since I couldn't keep a weapon in hand while attempting the subdue.  Ok, maybe it is plausible to hold a small creature with one hand while drawing a weapon from my belt with the other, I'd expect the creature to take the opportunity of my momentary distraction to try to escape, but nobody claimed serpents were smart.  Then I tried kill creature, and sure enough it worked!  Wow, that was neat.  I thought it would be hard to initiate combat with my hands full like that, but it was easy!  The whole thing tasted vaguely twinkish to me, so I decided not to have my hunter try to take down prey by wrestling it to the ground and then slitting it's neck anymore.

If the subduer can draw a weapon, the subduee should get an automatic flee attempt with a significant bonus when the attacker trys to draw the weapon.  It should be harder to hold onto a person with one hand than with two.  An expert subduer can still do it, but then an expert can probably roll and smoke spice while securely holding on to his victim.   :wink:

If the subduer attempts to attack, the subduee should get an automatic flee attempt, because manuvering to hit, cut or strangle the victim will give them a moment where the hold isn't as secure.  Panic/adrenaline would give the subdued a little extra speed too.  If the flee attempt succeds normal combat is initiated with only a small bonus to the attacker, if the flee attempt fails the Super Subduer Attack proceeds as usual.

This way if you put Nosave on to submit to being subdued, you would still have a chance to get away if they subduer takes one of his hands off you to try something fancy.  So nosaving to allow a raider to capture you wouldn't be suicidal, since you wouldn't be facing automatic death.  The subdue-autokill would still work with two raiders, one to hold you while the other guts you, but that makes perfect sense to me.

AC
Treat the other man's faith gently; it is all he has to believe with."     Henry S. Haskins

I'm very much in favor of AC's suggestions for automatic flee attempts (Unless nosaved of course). I'm also in favor of increasing the weight of the subduee's checks on defense and subdue during a subdue attempt.
(Aren't you glad it wasn't just an agree n/t?)

My only real opinion on the subdue->kill tactic is that the skill as it is ignores the reality that putting someone in a full nelson is nothing at all like a hold person spell. Just because you grapple someone and restrain them from running away does not automatically mean that they're standing there, unmoving and easy pickings to slit their throat.

If I can relate a story from my wild youth, there was a time when sibling rivalry went a little too far and things got all "Lord of the Flies" in the neighborhood. One night myself and a friend were harassing his older brother and his friend, and then running away when they came after us. It ended up that I got caught and the older friend essentially 'subdued' me. He had me in a half-nelson and had my other arm pinned up against my back in that way that makes professional wrestlers slap the mat and pretend to cry like babies.
After he got a hold of me, the older brother started running at us and brought his fist back to hit me. At the last second, I heaved myself forward to the result that I was the only one who ended up not hurt. The older brother punched his friend in the side of the head, and my ducking pulled his friend forward and slammed his skull against the older brother's mouth. End result? One boy on the ground clutching his head, another on the ground missing teeth, and me running away.

Now I'm not telling this story to show off what a leet ninja I am. I'm not. The point is that just because someone's in an immobilizing grip doesn't mean that they can't still squirm, wriggle and move around, making it hard or impossible to land a weapon on them in such close quarters (how do you hit someone with a club when you have your other arm entangled with theirs anyway?).
The way the code seems to work currently, as soon as a subdue lands on someone, they may as well have been hit with a hold person spell. They're not allowed to make any action except to try to break free (which is fine, except that with the delay after the fact, you probably won't get far.), and are completely at the mercy of anyone who gets in the mood to kill them. The code not factor in, at all, the raw defensive instinct of someone grabbed, held and threatened to make use of every ounce of strength and mobility to defend themselves.

Now, all of this is assuming that subdue represents standing holds. Taking someone down to the ground (like what police do to cuff someone who's trying to run) is a completely different story, but since the skill allows you to walk with the person subdued, I don't think that's what it represents.
I also don't think it represents the quick-kill Special Forces type of attack, where the subduer is sneaking up behind, grabbing someone across the mouth and slitting their throat in one motion, nor is it the 'prison style' method of grabbing someone around the shoulders from behind and sticking a shiv six or ten times into their kidney. Both of those are more like backstabs, I would think.

Just the theory of the subdue->kill tactic seems absurd to me, because it doesn't really work well unless the person is unconscious, sleeping or so drunk they don't know what's going on anyway. Subdue is a method to keep people from running away not a method to immobilize them for easy slaying, and removing the disgusting bonuses to attack and penalties to defense that the subduer and subdued respectively gain would probably help to more accurately reflect that someone can be kept from running, but they're still far from defenseless if pressed.

Really, though, in the end, I don't think anything more needs to be said about it beyond the fact that it seems to be the pkiller twink's method of choice. With that kind of endorsement, it should be glaringly obvious that it's out of balance with the rest of the game.

How do you know if it is out of balance?  Have you ever been held by a 500 lb person who is nothing but muscle?  I am quite sure that if they can bench press 700 lbs they can hold you down with one hand.  Same with half-giants, they are 2500 lbs of muscle and bone, and are 12 feet tall, they could easily grab you and do whatever they want to you.  I don't agree with what players have done in the past with subdue/kill.  Once a half-giant walked in, subdued me and killed me, that was it.  Yes it pissed me off because it was in the desert, and I had my weapons out, I could have easily dispersed him if he had attacked me, but he used subdue, which was bull shit, my character never would have let him get that close with his hand, why not just lop it off if he reaches out to me?  Well the code won't let you do that, that's the only real problem, you don't get a chance to see subdue coming because they can just type in the command and then it's all over.  There should be a countermeasure for it.  To get a hold of someone you have to be close, and if they have a weapon it's just lame and unrealistic in that sense.  But in any situations it might not be.  Like being in a jail cell or a room where you are sitting comfortably at a couch and this guy walks over and grabs you by the neck.  Not really unrealistic, and if he was strong enough he would have plenty of things he could do to you.  Subdue is not just grabbing someone and holding them, I see it has many different things in one skill.  Just like kick or disarm, its not just doing what the skill says it is, you can emote attacking with your elbow or aiming an attack at their thumb.  So I also see subdue as getting a handhold on their neck/head and then if they use kill unarmed it is sort of an attempt to break your neck or smash their knee into your stomach.  Drawing a weapon is a totally different thing, because then you HAVE to hold them with one hand while you mess with your mace or sword or whatever, it's quite bullshitty, and people who do that should be castrated and thrown out to the vultures.

The fault I have with the subdue code is that the victim being armed apparently has no effect.  Being armed should make it much harder to subdue a person, since the subduer has to worry about getting a sword in the gut.

So I would propose that your weapon skill be added into the subdue defense calculations.

And/Or

If you fail a subdue attempt against an armed person the victim gets free attacks on you (like if you pick up objects while fighting).  Not nessissarily starting combat, but just a couple free attacks.

The buff mul tried to grab the tough man, but he wrestles away.
The tough man slashes the buff mul on the chest, connecting hard.
The tough man slashes the buff mul's legs, nicking him.
Ah, the mysteries of the universe.  Try to understand them, but can you?  Nope! They're mysteries!

Quote from: "Xanous"
If you fail a subdue attempt against an armed person the victim gets free attacks on you (like if you pick up objects while fighting).  Not nessissarily starting combat, but just a couple free attacks.

The buff mul tried to grab the tough man, but he wrestles away.
The tough man slashes the buff mul on the chest, connecting hard.
The tough man slashes the buff mul's legs, nicking him.

Hmm, I don't know that I'd want an auto-attack against someone that failed to subdue me.  Most people don't walk around with nosave on all the time, and I'd hate to auto-attack a soldier who unexpectedly tried to subdue me.   :shock:  Assaulting a soldier is usually going to be a worse crime then whatever the soldier was trying to arrest me for in the first time, with a much more severe punishment.

AC
Treat the other man's faith gently; it is all he has to believe with."     Henry S. Haskins

Being armed needs to pose a significant danger to the subduer. You don't just grab someone who has several feet of sharpened bone between yours and their body mass.

Some good points being brought up, and we're taking a look at changing the code. Just wanted to let folks know that this is being addressed.

Finally someone has listened to my pleas that have fell on deaf ears for so long. I have posted many times about the subdue/kill skill being a bit over balanced an unrealistic, I was beginning to think it was just me as no matter what I posted, others would shoot it down. I think if you have a 50 day warrior, (bows to who ever stayed alive that long) you should naturally be more cautious than if you had a 2 hours charatcer, after putting all that time in I would be walkin on egg-shells, especially if I saw a giant even without the subdue/kill option. I have died twice to the subdue/kill command both to giant. no rpin players, If the staff decides to keep the code the same fine, I just implore the players of the giant variety, if you subdue someone rp with them before you smash their brains in, I gaurantee you will have more fun.... :lol:

I was only once subdued... typed flee two times, with say's and emotes. And then he drew a weapon. He left me to wield it but I thought my character would not be able to escape so didn't escape. So we played a good mugging role with that -unbalanced- subdue skill.
Whatever you do, if a person wants to abuse, he will always find a way. It's no use to talk about code balances. If everyone acts real, everything would be fine except a few codewise accidents.
Half-giants must have long arms. If you step aside from him, you can't hit him. If you come closer, he may EASILY grab you. Even an elf's whole body would move slower than just an arm of a giant. So if you're in combat distance, an idiot half-giant can grab the 50-day-old warrior. If you don't think you're in combat distance, emote it and hope to be facing a RP'er, or type flee self.
quote="Ghost"]Despite the fact he is uglier than all of us, and he has a gay look attached to all over himself, and his being chubby (I love this word) Cenghiz still gets most of the girls in town. I have no damn idea how he does that.[/quote]

This isn't precisely the subdue code, but I had an idea.

Is it possible for soldiers to change their code such that a criminal gets one free subdue resistance? I ask because while one can go peaceably by use of the nosave status, sometimes you forget to 'flip the switch' or don't have time to do so before the soldier rushes in.

ICly: A soldier runs in from the next block (maybe at your back) and 20 milliseconds after identifying him/herself, tackles you. Maybe you don't have time to register who they are and so reflexively resist before allowing yourself to be taken.

Obviously it would be possible to abuse this, so in addition to the once-per-arrest thing, perhaps limit it to 3 or so times total, assuming that after that point your description would be widely bandied about amongst the local soldiers as a known habitual resister-of-arrest.
Quote from: tapas on December 04, 2017, 01:47:50 AM
I think we might need to change World Discussion to Armchair Zalanthan Anthropology.

Quote from: "Cenghiz"Even an elf's whole body would move slower than just an arm of a giant. So if you're in combat distance, an idiot half-giant can grab the 50-day-old warrior.

Seeing a human can, with a little practice, evade grabs and punches from other humans through dodging (this being the philosophy behind a few martial arts), what makes you think a slow creature like a half-giant would have better luck against an agile elf? And I think odds would be greatly reduced if said elf was holding a sharp pointy object that he or she could jab into the half-giant's hand.

Quirk
I am God's advocate with the Devil; he, however, is the Spirit of Gravity. How could I be enemy to divine dancing?