Okay, I guess I have something to add. We have a rather long running campaign of D20 Modern going on with our particular group, in which I play a 5 Tough/1 Fast who tends to fight by grappling and tripping (especially tripping, now that he has Imp. Trip). At any rate, I still end up coming to grips with damn near everyone I fight.
Now, if you’re in a group and one of your number grapples an enemy, what springs to mind?
<h2><i>FREE HITS!</I></h2>
So, if I get my hands on someone with any team member in striking range, it effects something like an attack of opportunity on the unlucky soul who wasn’t agile enough to escape me.
I should mention that one of our number (Frame) is playing a sniper.
This all began shortly after DarkPower joined our group. His character made a bum deal with Cyric (stupidity goes all around though, I’ve got one going with Malar, Jo the Mighty’s stuck with Tymora; only Frame got anyone good: Correlan), which results with him going up against us. He’s been chartered by Cyric to kill people and cause mayhem, you see, so he does this as soon as he wakes up in the basement morgue of the secret government agency that Jo’s character conscripted us to work for (long story), killing both lab attendants and any security guards unlucky enough to try and earn their keep.
Now comes the silly. Apparently the armory and the morgue are on the same floor, maybe even in the same hallway, so DP puts on the clothes of one of the less disemboweled guards and proceeds therein, attempting to requisition a gun. Unlike the higher-ups in this organization, the crazy german guy we have keeping track of our equipment is no fool. He trips the silent alarm and puts his shit on lockdown. Now, of course, being the agency’s crack gofer squand and secret Ace in the Hole, we end up going down to investigate.
Now, DP’s got some serious unholy aura type stuff going on, so he just looks Frame in teh eyes and he’s seriously intimidated; has to throw Will in order to take a decent shot. Still, he and our other firearms people manage to take him down after I’ve traded a few punches with him. We go in close to take a look, and Frame sees that DP is wearing an amulet. He touches it, there’s a big spark, and boom, DP is back at full health. So what does he decide to do?
Run. That’s right. He decided to run with a grappler within arm’s reach. Naturally, this provokes an AoO, and I get him in a bear hug. At this, another melee dude in our party (he was playing with our group experimentally, a kind of one-night-stand) walks up with his longsword and calls a headshot. Makes it handily, and thud dud dud dud goes the head. This is not the first time DP will die this campaign, nor is it the first time that this particular character will die, even in this session.
“Never do that again,” says Norris, my character (Yeah, Norris Kidd. He’s a descendant of the pirate).
Later on, we’re up against a few Driders. They’re only one size class above me, so I can still grapple 'em. We got in a brief skirmish with them eariler, in which I and it were wounded. Later on, it brings back friends. We’ve managed to find the secret door that we were looking for, and Jo trips the mechanism. Hears an announcement.
<i>“This door will now open in 60 seconds”</i>
Yep, we now have to last ten rounds against four Driders if we want to escape.
Frame takes out one, but is hit and passes out, PSG-1 in hand. Another finds out why it doesn’t pay to grapple a grappler. I’m feeling pretty good, having just Gallaghered a Drider’s melon, so I go and lock horns with the fourth Drider while Jo lays covering fire on the injured one from before.
I grapple him. I succeed. He pins me. He succeeds. He attacks twice (dual katars and eight legs are <i>naaaaaaasty</i>) and misses on both counts. I break his pin. I pin him (Norris loves this stuff. Makes him feel like he’s in charge). We’re kinda deadlocked now. I can’t roll high enough to hurt him, but he can’t, despite size and godly dexterity, break my pin for two rounds. On the second round, something awsome happens.
Frame wakes up.
Shaking off the dizzyness and blurred vision, he raises his head and sees his drinking buddy on the ground with a Drider in a choke hold.
“Should I go for the headshot?” Frame asks, to no one in particular.
“No!” I object. “You’ll hit me.”
“He’s pinned, right?”
“Yes.”
“That counts as immobile, right DM?”
“Yes,” affirms the DM.
“I’m going for the headshot.”
So, just when Norris is about to try and slam this Drider again, the Drider’s head explodes, and Norris is once again finds himself wiping goo off of his face after yet another near miss.
“Could people just STOP DOING THAT!?” Norris asks, to no one in particular.
Later on, I’m playing spotter to Frame’s hard drinking, fast driving ex yakuza sniper in a long ranged rifle battle. Frame thinks he’s gotten a kill shot, but when I march up there and tear up the hide I find a hot water bottle and two <i>un</i>broken bottles of very fine wine.
“WHAT IS THIS, SOME KIND OF SICK JOKE!?” I ask, to no one in particular.
<h2><i>BANG</i></h2>
Okay, <i>one</i> unbroken bottle of very fine wine.
Norris knows better than to say anything more; he gets his ass behind a tree and stays there.
On at least one other occasion, which was not as funny, Norris has been pinned down by gunfire that was too accurate for it’s own good. He’s got a love-hate relationship with snipers.
Norris is currently trying to reconcile the fun-loving, bear-hugging, hard-drinking lifestyle he had heretofore led with the knowledge that he has been turned into a werewolf by Malar himself so as to do good deeds and improve Malar’s image so he can get himself out of the divine slammer. He’s being taught to cope by none other than Jon Talbain (Gallon, the werewolf from <i>Darkstalkers</i>.
And he’s starting to really dislike being shot at.
