imp_fireball
2009-10-26, 01:26 AM
If a vehicle is speeding in a hollywood movie, and the hero is holding onto it, the antagonist driver will want to drive faster to obviously shake off the hero. In this case, speed alone (and turning, etc.) is what poses a danger for the hero due to air resistance, violent motion, etc.
It doesn't necessarily matter what part of say, a car, the hero is holding onto... what matters might be the fact that the car is more difficult to hold onto than if it were not moving at all.
The stages of grappling involve touch attack, grapple check (followed by opposed grapple check) and room left over for a move action. For simplicity, I rule that the opposed grapple check is the DC for all further grapple checks against the same opponent for each round (for every new round, another opposed check is rolled to set a new DC, assuming the grapple continues in further rounds).
Touching a moving car is easy - The car applies the AC of a moving object (usually 5 if inanimate when ranged or 1 for melee) + its size modifier + the bonus AC due to exceptional speed (in d20 modern there's a small bonus due to speed dependent on relativistic velocities). What would be the grapple DC for a car that's speeding, however? The same for balancing on top of such a car?
Usually the difference between balancing and grappling can be compared with crouching on top of a car spider-man style versus holding onto a car door and dragging the soles of your feet ala grand theft auto.
There's also the matter of the villain shaking off the hero. This assumes that the villain is aware of the hero on top of the car. A simple rule would be the villain making a drive check (or whatever skill applies if not using modern) versus the hero's balance or grapple check.
If the villain is flatfooted to the hero however, what would be the grapple/balance DC? That's the main question.
It doesn't necessarily matter what part of say, a car, the hero is holding onto... what matters might be the fact that the car is more difficult to hold onto than if it were not moving at all.
The stages of grappling involve touch attack, grapple check (followed by opposed grapple check) and room left over for a move action. For simplicity, I rule that the opposed grapple check is the DC for all further grapple checks against the same opponent for each round (for every new round, another opposed check is rolled to set a new DC, assuming the grapple continues in further rounds).
Touching a moving car is easy - The car applies the AC of a moving object (usually 5 if inanimate when ranged or 1 for melee) + its size modifier + the bonus AC due to exceptional speed (in d20 modern there's a small bonus due to speed dependent on relativistic velocities). What would be the grapple DC for a car that's speeding, however? The same for balancing on top of such a car?
Usually the difference between balancing and grappling can be compared with crouching on top of a car spider-man style versus holding onto a car door and dragging the soles of your feet ala grand theft auto.
There's also the matter of the villain shaking off the hero. This assumes that the villain is aware of the hero on top of the car. A simple rule would be the villain making a drive check (or whatever skill applies if not using modern) versus the hero's balance or grapple check.
If the villain is flatfooted to the hero however, what would be the grapple/balance DC? That's the main question.