Conan 2d20: GRAPPLED!

The blackness of the abomination rears up above you lashed out with inky blobs.  Your shield barely defends against the horrific attack warding off any serious damage, despite this you find yourself hopelessly entangled in the things grip!

**WHAT DO YOU DO?**

Player: Umm.  Can I try and break the tentacles from my friend so they can fight this round instead of having to break free?

GM:  Ummmmmm.  Not directly....the rules say you can assist their effort, or you could attack it and hopefully gain some momentum to allow them to roll better.....but no....there is no direct way to help....

Yes.  This was an actual encounter in my groups last game.  My response was correct as per the rules, yet it took a little direct agency away from the player.  They couldn't directly lift a finger to help their friend.  Sure they could have done a few things that might have lent some help to the player, is their attack ferociously struck into the abomination creating a momentarily opportunity to escape its grasp (Gain 1 momentum from the attack, grappled player uses that to create an opportunity to break free.

For the players though, it would have been *COOLER* if he could have directly assisted, directly attacked the thing with the express purpose to break his ally free.  

If you go back a few posts I make mention of being too rigid in my decisions, too literal to the rules.  Clearly this has not changed in the meantime.  Since then I have come up with three different house rules that work within the existing game mechanics to help break someone free of a grapple when you are not the one being grappled.

Each of these are a skill roll and take a standard action and you could adopt one or more of these ideas to your game.

Idea 1: Spend Momentum to tear the character free.

1) Must be in reach of the player/creature
2) Grapple value is the difficulty of the grapple, ie the number of effects rolled.
3) Choose the skill - Melee or Athletics.
4) Roll - Reduce the grapple effect by 1 per Grapple Value, additional momentum can be spent as normal.

Idea 2: Tear your opponent free!

1) Must be in reach of the player/creature.
2) Grapple value is the difficulty of the grapple, ie the number of effects rolled.
3) Choose the skill - Melee or Athletics.
4) Roll - Succeed in the test to break the grapple, additional momentum can be spent as normal.

Idea 3: Strike your blow!

1) Must be in reach of the player/creature.
2) Grapple value is the difficulty of the grapple, ie the number of effects rolled.
3) Roll Melee & succeed.
4) Reduce grapple by each point of damage.  Damage over and above is inflicted onto the enemy.

Looking forward to getting back around the table with everyone!  

Till next time, don't forget to Keep it Weird!