#216 – Body Block and Tackle

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So there I was. In the dark alley and the mook jumps out and I throw myself at him. Body block tackle. Wait, what is that supposed to mean?

Okay, let's take 10 minutes to look over the rules. Okay, everybody, smoke break. Uh, okay, so, okay, body block, body block tackle.

Uh, wait, it's a combination move. It counts as 2 melee attacks. Wait, 2 melee attacks? Oh, but it does damage. And then a successful strike. Hold up here. What does this mean? They lose an attack and initiative?

Why are we bringing percentages into this?

Yeah.

Where's the percentages? The ultimate— what, what's going on here?

Knockdown.

Knockdown. So as you may have heard from some of the previous episodes, certain attack types do some very interesting things to initiative. and actions. They aren't used that often, but they show up all over the Palladium rule set in every version. And maybe we should look at them a little bit more and see what they actually do.

And discuss why you're not using them in your games.

Because you should be. Yeah, I think maybe we'll see. We'll discuss that more.

So folks, if you have not listened to our Glitter Boys Play Rifts series, Body block slash tackle. One of the most heavily used combat tactics in our group. I am pretty sure in the very first combat of the very first session, like 2, if not 3 of us just tackled that guy to the ground and just bashed his face in.

2 of you did. I spent my time hiding behind an altar.

It's like they're a bunch of free safeties or, you know, Yeah, running around taking people out at the knees. So it's an interesting action. It counts as 2. Well, actually, hold on. It really depends on which version you're reading. If you look at the Rift main book, the Butts Edition, on page 30—

Oh, I don't have that one open.

It is super stupid simple. Like stupid simple. The entire text—

Mom's stupid simple.

Well, and first of all, in the Rift's In the, uh, the Butts Edition, you only get it—

I'm sorry, what page?

Uh, I think it's page 30.

I'm on page 30 and that's Rogue Skills.

Oh, okay. Um, it's on page— no, it's on page 30. Uh, well, on my version it's page 30. Um, it's wrestling. It just describes it under wrestling.

Oh, I see. I see. Sorry, I was looking for combat options.

Because Body Block Tackle in Butts Edition pretty much has this only write-up. Body block/tackle does 1d4, and the opponent must dodge or parry to avoid being knocked down. Lose— in parentheses— lose 1 melee attack if knocked down. That's it. Yet every other hand-to-hand has a bonus for this. It's kind of interesting just written that way. I attack you, I do a d4 damage, and you lose a melee attack. That's kind of scary.

Pretty simple, but pretty cool.

Yeah. Now, if you run over to the Ultimate Edition, it actually has a combat description for it. It has 4 paragraphs on page 344 as opposed to a sentence. Right. And it gets more— I'm not going to read all this because, you know, we don't need that, but it gets way more in depth. First of all, it does a d4 plus your physical bonus. It takes 2 actions to do. So it's not just a simple, like, I'm going to knock you down. No, I'm going to sacrifice 2 actions to do this. Yeah.

It's not just, I'm going to knock you down, mama. She's going to join me because she said knock you down.

That's right.

Okay. That was real bad. I'm sorry. I apologize. Send your complaints to [email protected].

You also have a bunch of rules on whether or not you actually fall down. Like if you have gymnastics, it might help you not fall down. But the penalty section, being knocked down causes the character struck to lose initiative. Please see the previously recorded conversation about initiative and what that means. And 1 attack/action for that melee round. The knock— plus he is knocked a d6 feet away where he was standing at the moment of the attack. A roll with impact can reduce this damage, but counts as a 1 melee action.

Hmm.

Now, it becomes really interesting. So I've used 2 attacks, 2 actions to knock you down. You've lost initiative. You've lost, you've taken some damage and you've lost the initiative.

I would also note that there is an opportunity to defend against the attack, but you have to decipher this from the way it's worded. And it implies that dodge is the only opportunity.

Yes.

You cannot parry a body Body block, which in Buttts' edition, it specifically says you can.

Parry?

It says dodge or parry.

In this, it simply says unless his opponent dodges.

Yes. So it does change it. So they're probably using an action to try to dodge. So they're losing an action probably either way. They might lose 2, which can be just devastating.

They might lose 3.

Oh.

No, wait, wait, wait, wait, no. Sorry, the roll.

They might lose 2 and initiative.

They might lose 3. A roll with impact can reduce damage by half. Oh, excuse me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if they try to dodge but fail, if they get hit, they lose 1 or another one. And then finally, if they try and roll versus impact, that's 3 damage, 3 actions that they have spent to resist this. So, oh, if you have 2 attacks to spare, go ahead and spam that shit. Yeah.

I mean, and people go, well, why would they roll? Well, if I'm a big bruiser and I have a physical strength of, you know, in the mid-20s, I'm doing a d4 plus 4 or 5. And in some games you can get even more, excuse me. And if you have certain hand-to-hands, that goes up even higher.

Remind me, in Palladium, compared to a lot of other role-playing game systems, is there any action or movement cost to going from prone to standing?

I don't think so. I don't think there is one specifically, but if I remember correctly, a lot of people do a single— it might be under trip attack. It might take an attack to get up. That is— that's a good question.

That's a really good question. I don't recall any. I've personally always hated those systems that, like, like D&D, in my opinion— I think it's 5th edition, maybe 3rd edition and 5th edition— is the most atrocious, is that it takes half your actions to stand, or half your movement to stand back up. So if you're really fast and have a really great movement, you're actually penalized more for standing up, and it bugged— it's always bugged the hell out of me. Unless you spend a feat and have Kip Up or something ridiculous.

Interesting. Prone appears exactly once in the book, and that's under the description of Prowl.

Yeah.

Oh, here's more wrestling special moves. We're going to look at page 317 of the same book. Body block tackle does 1d4 damage. This adds more. Double if the wrestler is 8 to 12 feet tall and 3d6 damage if larger.

Right.

The opponent must dodge or parry. Okay. To avoid being knocked down. If knocked down, the opponent loses one melee action and initiative for the rest of the round.

This is immediately a different attack with the same name. That never happens in Palladium, boys and girls. They never have things that are the exact same, but not.

No, I'm curious now. I'm very curious.

Uh, So while NPC looks something up, why might you use this, Jacob?

Oh, simple. I'm a huge fan of this one. First of all, while it is not directly stated in the rules, there's heavy implication that there's things you cannot do while you're prone.

Right.

And at the very least, it forces an interrupt reset in whatever train of attacks the individual has. Now, I mean, a lot of this comes out of the fact that I used to be a grappler. I have done takedowns and been done takedowns hundreds of times. And the slamming into someone, knocking them to the ground, even if they know it's coming, if they don't plant for it, their, their whole plan and series is being reset. And especially if you have the wrestling skill, you can then roll into pin incapacitate.

Yep.

You can then roll into other things. If you're playing Ninjas and Super Spies, where this also exists, and Oh my God, you need to understand this one real well in Ninjas in Super Size for a couple of the martial arts forms. You, once you've knocked someone down and forced that loss of action and loss of initiative, especially if you're going to against someone whose attacks are more long range and you're suddenly close range, you've really nerfed their ability.

Yeah.

To do a lot.

My assumption based upon what I'm reading here in the various skills descriptions is that the wrestling move is a special one that is exclusive to the wrestling skill. Body block slash tackle as described in the combat options section is the same body block slash tackle that is listed with each of the hand-to-hand combat skills. For example, hand-to-hand basic note. Basic combat training enables the character to use any basic slash common attacks, including punch, elbow, kick, knee, disarm, dodge, entangle, body block slash tackle, and then others.

Right. Which is one of those things with Palladium. I wish they wouldn't have done that, but, and because in many ways wrestling could almost be its own hand-to-hand. They just chose not to have it be that. Like boxing is the same way, in my opinion. Like it could be a, it can be a combat version. Now, uh, that aside, the example for me is if I'm the quick, quick stealthy, or just super quick melee guy and I body block the person in the back line that's using his freaking heavy plasma rifle, Mm-hmm. there's a good chance that that plasma rifle is no longer in that person's hands, right? And they've lost an action, they're prone, they've taken a little damage, and now they're not shooting actively into combat.

Right.

It becomes a great thing for that person who has that high movement, right?

You would have to convince your GM to let you combine body block and disarm, which is a separate action into the same thing. Sure.

Okay.

But they're still knocked down.

Yeah. Then that, that in and of itself and losing the initiative, depending upon what that means in your game, if you follow my bubble theory, then losing the initiative is heinous. Your next attack, your next action, your next turn is skipped.

Without even going into the bubble theory, I have never, ever, ever run across a barroom and tackled someone on the other side of a counter. So even though they're prone with a Winchester, they no longer can see the rest of my party and be sniping from partial cover.

Absolutely. Yeah, knock them below their cover position. Like, I can't see anything.

I might, I might be at risk. You might be able to shoot me if the GM's feeling ornery, but it is 100%.

Sorry. It is not just mechanical.

Yes, absolutely.

Like you can create all kinds of cool narrative things just like that. Versatile, powerful ability.

And it's simple. It's a really simple, straightforward, uh, well, it's mostly straightforward. The whole description of like the knockdown modifiers, that's ugly as hell. To be honest, I've read that 5 times and my brain Doesn't like it. Just read the first paragraph and then go directly to the second paragraph.

Yeah.

Basically it's comparative strength, but do you also have gymnastics and acrobatics? Okay. But do, what about other things? Okay. What have you maintained sense of balance? That paragraph is a little weird. You could just cut that out.

I probably would.

You could just cut that whole paragraph out.

I also, I'm very torn on whether or not I would allow parry to be used. I honestly see in this situation, it's not really a parry. It's much more of a dodge scenario. Oh, I, I could almost make it— I could almost handle parry depending on what you're using to parry with. But that's my own thought.

My personal take is I would 100% allow parry.

Okay. I would find a middle ground and that would be you can parry if you also have the wrestling skill. If you have that, then you're used to like moving, maneuvering, and getting past that. Like that's your whole thing.

Right. Okay.

I mean, it— I could meet him halfway is that if the— if you were at the point in the hand-to-hand combats, if you had wrestling or you were at the point in the hand-to-hand combat skill where you had a bonus, well, you had body block tackle.

Well, I think it's almost the default. For every hand-to-hand. So, okay. Yeah. I don't know. I think I wanted to make it, I guess that makes it even more nasty, doesn't it?

Yeah.

Right.

So anyway, so, but all in all, body block tackle is a very interesting special attack or unique attack style that people don't use that many games in that many games and give it a try, especially if you're playing a game that's much more melee hand-to-hand focused, or if you have that one player that is the speed demon, and they always feel like, oh, what, what's this high speed doing for me anyway? Well, now you can clear the field. You can do some really interesting things to those guys in the back line or that are hanging out there that normally no one can touch until way later.

So listen to our Rifts episodes, folks. We use it extensively.

And for those of you out there who aren't playing, playing stoner techno wizards, but Regular techno wizards, don't pass up the options that, uh, your leyline glider can give you to launch a fast, high-speed body block tackle from.

Fascinating. Yeah, it could be fun.

I mean, you could fly off your— yo, how did, uh, Matt's character never do flying body blocks off of his tarantula jump chopper or whatever the heck he was using?

He was a grenade lobber. That's right.

That's why.

Or he would, yeah. Yeah.

So he wasn't so much of a melee guy. He wanted to lob grenades.

That's right.

Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Anyway, uh, short and sweet.

Yeah.

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