[A&A] If You Can't Hit, Grapple

Greg Christopher, author of Ambition & Avarice, posted these tips on Google+ yesterday. I thought I would share. It helps for those who might be stuck in a combat rut. Read on and open your imagination:
This was asked in the Ambitions & Avarice community, but I thought I would share publicly because it says a lot about how people think. It was brought up by [Jim].
Jim noticed that since my monster model also incorporates a very low rate of attack bonus progression, a PC in heavy armor would be very formidable. If your troll (you are running the game) has no attack bonus and the knight has an AC of 22, you are going to be flailing and doing nothing, right?
A lot of times in traditional RPGs, we think of combat as people standing next to each other just bashing away. That's why this seems to be a problem. And I'm not picking on Jim here, TONS of gamers think this way.
But in the A&A rules, you can initiate a grapple with a touch attack. So that knight with a 22 AC is getting 8 points of AC from his +1 Full Plate. That is ignored. So now you are just rolling vs a 14. On a success, you grab that little pipsqueak and begin strangling him. Watch him dance in that shiny armor.
Now his party members might come to his defense. They might jump on you and try to pull you off him. There are a flurry of contested rolls and eventually they end up pinning you down. Then the weakling wizard jumps up on top of you and pours flaming oil down your throat.
Wasn't that more fun than just swinging over and over?
There is a lot of nuance in these old school rule sets. A lot of people don't realize that. This is just one of the nuances in A&A. I hope you can find the rest of them.
Ciao

Popular posts from this blog

[D&D 5e] Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden 17

The party left the ice fortress to check out the dead body we heard was frozen in the ice halfway up the island. The body was of Nas. It turned out she was still there in spirit, and she possessed Vael. In Vael’s body, she went after the Codicil that Ylenn had her face stuck in. When Vael couldn’t get to Ylenn, Nas possessed Prax instead. Prax also couldn’t get there, as Ylenn cast Hold Person on him, and the rest of the party dragged him away from Nas’ dead body. After he was far enough away, the spirit had to return to the dead body…which Morgan had burned to a crisp. We got the orb containing Professor Scant from Nas’ dead body. We circled the island, looking for the whale or another good way off. We couldn’t find one. Ylenn said she could summon the whale, if we could just last the night. We made a lean-to to sleep in and keep cover from the roc. As an octopus, Morgan was able to get some sail from a sunken ship to cover our lean-to. He also was able to find a huge treasure che...
Read more

Thoughts on Stalwart Adventures 7

We were quite surprised at how we found our new party member, and exactly what race/class he was! I kept hearing there were witches outside of town, so I kept trying to recruit village folk to go adventuring with us, figuring that’s where our new party member would come from. Begrudgingly I was forced to leave town without anyone, only to find the new guy hanging from a tree in a cage.  The DM kept letting Zak try to climb the tree and pick the lock, no matter how badly I failed. Mostly it was to find out how long it took and what zany stuff happened while I was trying, including falling from the cage, and then also standing in Thanin’s saddle while she rode to stand under the cage.  Searching for the dwarf hold entrance, we were reminded once again how out of our element these characters are. I can see the benefit of a stable of rolled up characters, and then choosing the one used to the wilderness for this particular adventure. Zak is an in-town dude. He really needs to snap...
Read more

Thoughts on Stalwart Adventures 3

I think we were all done with fighting goblins. The DM had the pack leader in the next room. He gave himself up and assured us the goblins (and his ogre) would leave us alone. The rest of the night (until the end) was exploring. It’s really good to mix in the exploring after so much fighting. I still need to get better at Find/Remove Traps, as one blasted me pretty good.  I played the character a little more chaotic, and it was kind of fun. Probably not the type of fun that the other PCs feel they can rely on to watch their back, though. The fun thing about chaotic neutral is I can lean into it whenever I’m looking to spice things up. The rest of the time I can be more reasonable and reliable. The cleric held its own again. I really think he may be the best option for fighting the alpha werewolf. We’ll have to talk it over and see what the others think. I know Zak isn’t the best choice! If we can defeat the alpha wolf, it should wrap up this little adventure nicely. 
Read more