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Re: Weapons for pulling you down / off balance.



I've only ever done method 1 (ignore) in TFT. In GURPS, I've used the existing rules or improvised some, which were all method 4.

I'd do 4, and not 2 or 3, for weapons where it makes sense. I'd probably assign a different DX penalty for each weapon depending on how good a hook it provides, and then create one or more special attack types, which would all include some sort of resistance by the target using their ST and/or DX and/or talents, so it's not just an automatic "messes anyone up" attack, which I think is the weakness of the existing peculiar weapon rules such as those for Lassos, Whips, Bolas, Nets, etc.

I don't like method 2 or 3 because they are random bonus effects, and it seems to me that hooking people to pull them about is usually a deliberate and different thing from trying to kill them with the same tool, and the attacker should get/need to choose which, not randomly pull people around because they rolled a 7. Also, a fixed roll number meaning a pull attack would be a flat chance ignoring even the attacker's ability and circumstances, and would for low-adj-DX attackers mean a proportionately high chance that you were trying to kill someone but hooked them instead, which is just a weird artifact of a lazy mechanic.

I think it would only be unbalanced if it's really very effective, which is another reason to take the defender's abilities into account. I think it should be balanced with the other techniques that can knock someone down into account, such as the peculiars I mentioned above, shield rush, and HTH combat. It shouldn't be as effective as a peculiar weapon attack (which I'd also add some target defense chances to).

PvK