Subdue rp good or bad?

[Quirk]

let me say that first, getting ahold of somebody who is armed and ready for you (knives, broken bottles, clubs) is not all that hard to do, keeping hold of them is also very easy if you are a reasonable amount larger then them, or skilled

There aren't a lot of them out there, but I suspect, X-D, were you to come up against someone who knew something about knife fighting and had one in their hand, and tried one of those grabs, you'd be gutted like a fish. There's a world of difference between a drunk with a broken bottle and a skilled knife-fighter.

Quirk

[jmordetsky]

let me say that first, getting ahold of somebody who is armed and ready for you (knives, broken bottles, clubs) is not all that hard to do.

Don't take this as flame, but that honestly strikes me as nonsense. I don't care how big you are if someone is has two firm hands on basatrd sword and you try to use one on one bulk to over power them your are going to get one in the gut.

You ability to wrap them is going to be based on finess and speed or getting the drop.  I trained to fight people with weapons and none of the techniques introduced to disarm and subdue an aponent with a blade or club have anything to do with directly engaging a ready target and over powering the person unless you think you'll be wearing heavy armor and/or are heading toward them in armed pack prison guard style. (which may be the case on zalanthas)

It's way to dangerous and you will open yourself up to injury.

[EvilRoeSlade]

I'm not against the idea of an attack of opportunity for somebody attempting to subdue an unarmed opponent.

What I am against is the real reason you all want this to be implimented.  To penalize half-giants.  You don't like it that half-giants are so good at subdue, and even though all your example of so-called realism involve humans, its half-giants that you're really after.  And none of your examples would really apply quite so well if you used half-giants.

If this proposition took into account the size, strength, and toughness of the attacker, then I wouldn't mind it so much.

But what you suggest is that the defender gets a free attack if somebody attempts to subdue them.  If the attack hit, then the subdue would fail.  Lets drop all pretenses.  The attack would never miss, because of the way unarmed combat works.

That would mean that some dagger-wielding dwarf would be just as defensively capable as a human with a halberd.

If you can factor in all the variables, then hell.  Why not?  But if you're going to continue your misguided quest to balance a race that was never intended to be balanced, then I say forget it.

[Lerl]

I have no idea where this discussion is really going, but since we are all sharing:

As someone who works part time at a mental hospital, if you have enough even minimally trained people you can -almost- always subdue anyone and often do it safely for all involved.  Subdueing someone without injuring them is harder than just subdueing someone by the way.  I do not specifically know about a six foot sword in the hands of someone well trained, but I expect once surrounded he'd be subdued just as easily as a person with a small sharp object or a sock with change in it, a professional boxer, or someone with his nails filed into points.  Ten people with twenty hands, twenty eyes, ten brains, and 1500+ pounds of flesh are just too much to handle.  One person gets an opportunity to get a hand on you, and then rest grab you in a split second.  And thats without them doing -very- effective things like throwing a blanket over you(risk of suffication though) or distracting you.  Once you get grabbed no matter what you see in combat movies you aint doing shit except spitting, trying to bite, or trying to wiggle your torso a little.  Do any of those and you will quickly find yourself sprawled on the floor with the 1500+ pounds of flesh on top of you in addition to holding you.   You end up in a bed with your arms, legs, and waist ("5 point") strapped with padded leather to the bed for a few hours and injected with some real good drugs to help you calm down.

Anyway.. just wanted to join the crowd and throw out some more details to pointlessly argue about.

Rick

[jmordetsky]

What I am against is the real reason you all want this to be implimented.  To penalize half-giants.  You don't like it that half-giants are so good at subdue, and even though all your example of so-called realism involve humans, its half-giants that you're really after.  And none of your examples would really apply quite so well if you used half-giants.

I'm sorry you feel that way. Feel free to suggest which examples that don't hold up for a half giant...or another we've failed to point out. I'm open to suggestions.

Ten people with twenty hands, twenty eyes, ten brains, and 1500+ pounds of flesh are just too much to handle. One person gets an opportunity to get a hand on you, and then rest grab you in a split second.

No arguements there, I'm been strictly considering 1 on 1 examples. I don't know where to even begin in reference to a swarm of individuals all trying to subdue one person. Maybe when consectutive attempts are aimed at the same person in given peroid could give a bonus? But no doubt, the mob rules in all these scenarios.

[EvilRoeSlade]

I'm sorry you feel that way. Feel free to suggest which examples that don't hold up for a half giant...or another we've failed to point out. I'm open to suggestions.

Oh, don't be sorry.  You're acting as if I hate you more than I hate everyone else in the world.

Anyway... here are the examples I've seen on this page alone, after scanning it briefly.

I don't care how big you are if someone is has two firm hands on basatrd sword and you try to use one on one bulk to over power them your are going to get one in the gut.

If you're skilled enough, sure.  But as I've already pointed out, skilled warriors generally aren't vulnerable to being subdued by half-giants as it stands right now.  In my opinion, nothing needs fixing.

Besides, that statement conveniently overlooks the inherent difficulty in stopping a half-giant with just one blow.  Maybe you'll get a single attack in, but that's all your getting.  After that, you belong to the half-giant.

You ability to wrap them is going to be based on finess and speed or getting the drop.

The poster in this instance refers to their experience in a training facility that I can only assume doesn't cater to any half-giants.

There aren't a lot of them out there, but I suspect, X-D, were you to come up against someone who knew something about knife fighting and had one in their hand, and tried one of those grabs, you'd be gutted like a fish. There's a world of difference between a drunk with a broken bottle and a skilled knife-fighter.

Good for you.  You have now stabbed a half-giant in her palm with your highly inadequate dagger.  Now what?  That's a good example of a situation where even a skilled warrior couldn't effectively do anything besides getting the fuck out of Dodge.

[I Have Steel]

Good for you. You have now stabbed a half-giant in her palm with your highly inadequate dagger. Now what? That's a good example of a situation where even a skilled warrior couldn't effectively do anything besides getting the fuck out of Dodge.

Take perhaps a sharp shard of glass to make it more arm-like, about the size of a knife.

That'll be about the size of a sword sticking into a half-giant's hand.

Stab it into your palm with all your strength, or stab it into the palm of any of the world's toughest men while they're reaching for you...

I -seriously- doubt that their reaction is going to be to keep reaching.

What I am against is the real reason you all want this to be implimented. To penalize half-giants. You don't like it that half-giants are so good at subdue, and even though all your example of so-called realism involve humans, its half-giants that you're really after. And none of your examples would really apply quite so well if you used half-giants.

Penalize half-giants? No, it's to put things in a fair perspective.

If someone is going to break away from combat and come back to subdue you, they're putting you at a major disadvantage right there. Because you're no longer attacking, you're standing there in the room thinking this opponent just fled, only to see them march back in and subdue you, while your trained warrior doesn't do what he would do, (Because in all effect, he's still in combat right? I mean, they didn't really flee down the road, they only fled so they could get that subdue attempt in during combat.) and strike out against it.

[X-D]

I -seriously- doubt that their reaction is going to be to keep reaching.

No, if it is a half-giant, they are going to reach for your head instead and pull it clean off...but oh, code does not support this either.

Penalize half-giants? No, it's to put things in a fair perspective.

Yes penalize half-giants, because there should be -nothing- fair about a tiny little human with his little toothpick sword fighting something 10+ times his size with hands, thumbs, weapons as big or bigger then the man and a brain, not a very good brain to be sure, but better then any animal's.

You want a fair perspective, Fine, make subdue harder, but let half-giants be able to rip a humans limbs off once he does have him, or let him ep that human that is smaller then his normal weapons and lay about him smashing that bit of bone and flesh into whatever he wants, and then throwing it at something/somebody with all the force 2,000 pounds of muscle can manage.

Thats a fair perspective.

Fact is, nobody in game uses subdue to kill (or extremely rarely) Except Muls and half-giants or other races working in groups. one on one two humans, one armed, the other subdues, if the subduer attacks subdued, he gets a hit, odds are the subdued is not out cold, he then gets a couple free rounds of attack against an unarmed person before the other's attack lag wears off. So, it is rarely, if ever used by anything but half-giant and mul.

So, this thread -is- directly targeting them.

There aren't a lot of them out there, but I suspect, X-D, were you to come up against someone who knew something about knife fighting and had one in their hand, and tried one of those grabs, you'd be gutted like a fish. There's a world of difference between a drunk with a broken bottle and a skilled knife-fighter

yes, there is, but in the real world, skilled knife fighters are rare in the extreme, though I have met some that claimed it (snort).

And on zalanthas, news flash, The People Do Wear Armor....imagine that.
The giants wear especialy heavy and thick armor, something else nobody bothered mentioning when they talked about a human lopping off a giant's head or hand...--Well, somebody did, ERS or malifaxis I think mentioned it was silly, specialy if wearing neck armor--

I really wonder why I bother sometimes though, for the in game stuff or the real world stuff, real world, most the people talking do not have -near- enough if any real experiance in what they are attempting to talk about, book reading only goes so far, training in a nice safe gym/dojo, whatever is near meaningless, I can't even begin to remember how many "deadly martial artists" I've crushed in jail/bars/street.

Injuries, Bet your sweet ass, I got them, scars, joint damage, bone damage, teeth damage, but taking the damage does not mean that you fall on the floor and cry, or stop what you are doing and hold the injury, no, it means you Fuck them up beyond all recognition.
Wanna see something funny sometime, watch the reaction from somebody with a can of pepper spray when you don't stop, don't flinch when sprayed and take the can away and beat them with it right after slamming your forhead into thier nose, basicly causing thier face to explode, Another one is when you do get stabbed in the chest with a broken bottle and you grab the stupid wannabe mugger's arm pull him forward and slam your elbow into his throat causing this neat wet cracking popping noise.

Bah.

[I Have Steel]

Quote:
I -seriously- doubt that their reaction is going to be to keep reaching.



No, if it is a half-giant, they are going to reach for your head instead and pull it clean off...but oh, code does not support this either.

Half giants are dumb, not numb. If you stab a sword into their hand, they aren't gonna be like. "Uh oh, antbite!" They're mroe than likely going to feel a very real pain in their hand, and withdraw it...

But then again, they might not, which means an attack to stop the subdue would have obviously failed...

But instead of having a chance to defend against that, the victim doesn't get a chance. He's all of a sudden stopped combat so this big bastard can grab him, and isn't going to raise his swords to stop it.

----

As far as your point on equiping a human, smashing, ect ect... I think that'd be great, and very likely. (would be funny from a watching down the street perspective too  :lol: )

[spawnloser 2lazy2login]

I do believe that everyone is forgetting something...

From 'help race_human'

humans stand between around 65 to 75 inches in height

From 'help race_half_giant'

stand roughly between 120 and 150 inches tall

A half giant is not 10+ times anyone's size.  A half-giant is at MOST under 2.5 times the size of a human...that is the largest half-giant versus the shortest human.  They should not be as advantaged as some people think.

[Tamarin]

I do believe that everyone is forgetting something...

From 'help race_human'

humans stand between around 65 to 75 inches in height

From 'help race_half_giant'

stand roughly between 120 and 150 inches tall

A half giant is not 10+ times anyone's size.  A half-giant is at MOST under 2.5 times the size of a human...that is the largest half-giant versus the shortest human.  They should not be as advantaged as some people think.

Yep.  Has anyone here tried to subdue a raging child?  It is -not- easy.

[EvilRoeSlade]

I do believe that everyone is forgetting something...

From 'help race_human'

humans stand between around 65 to 75 inches in height

From 'help race_half_giant'

stand roughly between 120 and 150 inches tall

A half giant is not 10+ times anyone's size.  A half-giant is at MOST under 2.5 times the size of a human...that is the largest half-giant versus the shortest human.  They should not be as advantaged as some people think.

The helpfiles don't mention that a half-giant weighs ten times as much as a human, on average.  Please don't confuse the issue further, it was bad enough when Quirk falsely stated that you could subdue somebody and then strip them naked.

Besides, if you think that being twice as tall as a human isn't a significant advantage, you're dead wrong.  Why does unarmed combat suck so bad?  The answer is reach.  A blade can extend farther than a fist, and that forces the poor guy using his fists to stay on the defensive.  On the other hand, the difference between a half-giants reach and a humans reach is vastly greater.  If the code was consistent, then a half-giant would get the same bonus against everybody that everybody already gets against unarmed opponents.  Only on a greater scale, since a half-giant has a superior reach.

[X-D]

Makes you wonder sometimes, I know I've never said a Half-giant was ten times taller, only ten times larger.

What is the range for human, 7-10 tenstone? range for giant is what, 75-95 tenstone? lets see, little math here.

ave would be 8.5 for human and 85 for half-giant, now, 8.5 goes into 85...hhhmmm, GASP, OH MY GAWD, TEN TIMES!!

Grumble.

[EvilRoeSlade]

What is the range for human, 7-10 tenstone? range for giant is what, 75-95 tenstone? lets see, little math here.

6-9 tenstones versus 75-90.

[Carnage]

Fanboy.

Sit back and think about that one for a bit, Slade.

[EvilRoeSlade]

That's harsh, man.

[Quirk]

I'm not against the idea of an attack of opportunity for somebody attempting to subdue an unarmed opponent.

What I am against is the real reason you all want this to be implimented.  To penalize half-giants.  You don't like it that half-giants are so good at subdue, and even though all your example of so-called realism involve humans, its half-giants that you're really after.  And none of your examples would really apply quite so well if you used half-giants.

If this proposition took into account the size, strength, and toughness of the attacker, then I wouldn't mind it so much.

But what you suggest is that the defender gets a free attack if somebody attempts to subdue them.  If the attack hit, then the subdue would fail.  Lets drop all pretenses.  The attack would never miss, because of the way unarmed combat works.

That would mean that some dagger-wielding dwarf would be just as defensively capable as a human with a halberd.

If you can factor in all the variables, then hell.  Why not?  But if you're going to continue your misguided quest to balance a race that was never intended to be balanced, then I say forget it.

This was never meant to be a discussion about half-giants, and didn't even mention them until the second page. My own experiences of subdue abuse came against elves. The last time I had subdue-flee pulled on me was against an elf who'd challenged my (human warrior) PC to a duel outside 'Nak. Getting a royal drubbing, he ran and my PC chased him to just outside the gates of 'Nak, where my PC foolishly attacked him again. This resulted in my PC being wanted, so I retired a little distance. The elf came in and tried the subdue-flee trick. Despite being a considerably better fighter than the elf, I think I landed only one pair of blows when he was slow to subdue after entry, and on the fifth or sixth attempt the elf landed his subdue and pulled me back to the guards at the gates.

An alternative possible means of dispatching someone subdued would be to throw them off the Shield Wall or some similarly high cliff, I suppose. My point is that it's not something that can be twinked only by half-giants.

Nonetheless, since we've brought up half-giants, let's talk about them briefly. Every single argument I've seen here in favour of half-giant subdue would apply even more to a half-giant punching someone, and most of them vastly more to a half-giant whose range was extended by a huge club. Fighting this battle on subdue is clearly silly when it's always going to be harder to grab someone than to land a punch - no matter how big you are. No matter what position you take on the subdue debate, I'm sure you'd agree that the likelihood of hitting someone with your fist and the likelihood of grabbing, pinioning and immobilising them should be within a pretty close range.

So why do half-giants suck so much at landing their blows? The docs suggest that they're very malcoordinated and very slow. They have drawbacks by design. If they didn't have the downside of that immensely poor agility, they'd probably be up there with muls in karma and we wouldn't be seeing many PC half-giants in game.

Incidentally, giants are unlikely to be ten times stronger despite their tenfold increase in mass.  Weight is proportional to volume and hence increases with the cube of the dimension, but strength is proportional to the cross section of muscle for any particular limb and hence goes up with the square of the increase of the dimension. Very big creatures are often slowed in acceleration of their limbs by the difficulty of moving their own weight with the available muscle mass. In short, given a half-giant with a wrist 4 times thicker than the human, the half-giant is likely to be 4 times stronger, not 10, and this is an upper bound given the need to shift the extra weight of the limb.

Quirk

[spawnloser]

I have subdued a raging child...as another child, smaller than my younger brother who has been a colossus since I was five and he was four.  I whooped my brother on a regular basis.  Why?  Because I was quicker than he was.  He had reach, sure, which was an advantage.  I'm tired of the Half-Giant debate, however, and that is all I will say on that subjet any more, especially considering it was a derailment.

Now, to the subdue/flee/repeat issue...that in itself is not twinky, but how and why it is done is.  I would suggest anyone trying that tactic to have an emote prepared before-hand so that anyone on the receiving end has a picture of what is going on.  That would end their concerns on your possible twinkiness.

[EvilRoeSlade]

This was never meant to be a discussion about half-giants, and didn't even mention them until the second page.

That's exactly my point.  You're avoiding mentioning them even though they are the real issue.

My own experiences of subdue abuse came against elves. The last time I had subdue-flee pulled on me was against an elf who'd challenged my (human warrior) PC to a duel outside 'Nak. Getting a royal drubbing, he ran and my PC chased him to just outside the gates of 'Nak, where my PC foolishly attacked him again. This resulted in my PC being wanted, so I retired a little distance. The elf came in and tried the subdue-flee trick. Despite being a considerably better fighter than the elf, I think I landed only one pair of blows when he was slow to subdue after entry, and on the fifth or sixth attempt the elf landed his subdue and pulled me back to the guards at the gates.

Well damn.  That seems like its abusing the gate guards as much as its abusing subdue, but the bottom line is that it's pretty twinkish.  A long time ago I had an elf try the same thing against my complete bad-ass of a dwarf warrior, and I kicked his ass to high heaven.  I guess that kind of abuse just doesn't concern me as much.

An alternative possible means of dispatching someone subdued would be to throw them off the Shield Wall or some similarly high cliff, I suppose. My point is that it's not something that can be twinked only by half-giants.

Throwing somebody off the Shield Wall.  That doesn't seem so much like abuse to me, so much as it sounds like a really good idea.

Nonetheless, since we've brought up half-giants, let's talk about them briefly. Every single argument I've seen here in favour of half-giant subdue would apply even more to a half-giant punching someone, and most of them vastly more to a half-giant whose range was extended by a huge club. Fighting this battle on subdue is clearly silly when it's always going to be harder to grab someone than to land a punch - no matter how big you are.

Yes, that's true.  I think the real inconsistency is not with a half-giants ability to grapple, but with a half-giants inferior unarmed combat ability.  Realistically, I feel it should be closer in power to their grappling, and thus can't be accurately judged in comparison.  The reason being is of course, reach.

No matter what position you take on the subdue debate, I'm sure you'd agree that the likelihood of hitting someone with your fist and the likelihood of grabbing, pinioning and immobilising them should be within a pretty close range.

Yes, that I agree.

So why do half-giants suck so much at landing their blows? The docs suggest that they're very malcoordinated and very slow. They have drawbacks by design. If they didn't have the downside of that immensely poor agility, they'd probably be up there with muls in karma and we wouldn't be seeing many PC half-giants in game.

All the documentation suggests is that they have a lower agility than humans.  Need I remind you that the documentation also suggests that dwarves have a low wisdom?  I don't see anybody RPing them as raving idiots (outside the Byn, anyway).  All it is, in my opinion, is a balancing factor, and while I don't think it should be removed, it can't be taken too seriously.

[X-D]

My last two posts were meant to have been last posts, sigh, but I have to take this one on, since again somebody feels the must only look at one facet and argue that point without looking at the rest of the picture.

Incidentally, giants are unlikely to be ten times stronger despite their tenfold increase in mass. Weight is proportional to volume and hence increases with the cube of the dimension, but strength is proportional to the cross section of muscle for any particular limb and hence goes up with the square of the increase of the dimension. Very big creatures are often slowed in acceleration of their limbs by the difficulty of moving their own weight with the available muscle mass. In short, given a half-giant with a wrist 4 times thicker than the human, the half-giant is likely to be 4 times stronger, not 10, and this is an upper bound given the need to shift the extra weight of the limb.

I will take your statement as basicly true, Now, let us use a real estimate of half-giant's shall we?

A half-giant is twice the height (approx) of a human, now, even going with all the rules to figure mass and such for a human 12 feet tall, we only come up with a weight of around 1000-1200lbs, while a half-giant starts at around 1800lbs, this suggests that they have an insanly HUGE amount of muscle verses their height, so given "proportional to the cross section of muscle for any particular limb and hence goes up with the square of the increase of the dimension" then a half-giant has 50% more muscle then needed putting him at 6-8 times stronger at least. To put a bit of perspective on that, if the ave human male can lift 200lbs, that means that a half-giant can lift at least 1,200lbs, so, swinging a 300lbs arm around is easily done.

Another thing to be taken into account, even if a half-giant was only twice as strong, nobody ever thinks about mass/inertia when they talk about escaping from the grasp of such a thing. Ever try to move a 300 pound person? How about pushing two 300 pound arms off you?

As far as the elf is concerned, you admitted to getting some hits off on him before  he managed to subdue your char, the elf took the hits and the risk and he won, shrug.

[Tamarin]

Another thing to be taken into account, even if a half-giant was only twice as strong, nobody ever thinks about mass/inertia when they talk about escaping from the grasp of such a thing. Ever try to move a 300 pound person? How about pushing two 300 pound arms off you?

However, an arm is a lever, and as such, it does not take 300 pounds of pressure to move one.

[X-D]

However, an arm is a lever, and as such, it does not take 300 pounds of pressure to move one.

Well, for the person who owns the arm at least:)

[Carnage]

No matter what position you take on the subdue debate, I'm sure you'd agree that the likelihood of hitting someone with your fist and the likelihood of grabbing, pinioning and immobilising them should be within a pretty close range.

I don't.

When I took martial arts for a bit, there was a guy about the same size (6'2") as me and we were practicing grappling. He was a slippery fuck, bended like rubber. While we were tumbling on the ground (to the point where I had no clue what was up and what was down), I could have easily been able to punch or hit him. The problem was getting him into an immobilized position, however.

Like I said before, this guy must have been made of rubber. I was able to wrap my arm around his neck several times (setting up for a choke or sleeper-like position) and have my forearm close enough to touch his throat. No matter what, he'd still be able to slip out of it. Now, part of it was due to the fact I wasn't trying to kill him. If I was going all out, I'd most likely have gotten him. But the problem was that I wasn't trying to strangle him -- merely immobilize him, such as one can do with the subdue skill. This happened repeatedly. So yes, I could have hit him punching him. But could I subdue him? No.

To put a bit of perspective on that, if the ave human male can lift 200lbs

'Lift' is a vague term. From what position? Carrying it? I highly doubt many men can lift and carry two hundred pounds from the ground.

[Tamarin]

However, an arm is a lever, and as such, it does not take 300 pounds of pressure to move one.

Well, for the person who owns the arm at least:)

Primarily, yes, but no matter who's arm it is, its still rotating in a socket.

[Krath]

To put a bit of perspective on that, if the ave human male can lift 200lbs

'Lift' is a vague term. From what position? Carrying it? I highly doubt many men can lift and carry two hundred pounds from the ground.

While I agree with all of Carnage's Post, this comment I do not. Lifting 200 lbs from the ground is not that difficult, depending on what the item is. For instance, a 200lb Ball of rock, easily lifted, now, a 200lb 10ft by 10ft plank..That would be a pain in the ass. It all depends on the dimensions of the object you are trying to lift.