(3.5) Bone Breaking and Unarmed Wrestling

[ShakeHandsMan]

We all know it, grappling is basically worthless unless your shutting down a caster, or several sizes larger than your opponent. But for some reason i love the idea of a bone crusher whos primary method of settling an argument is to snap his conversational partners elbows.
I played in lvl 20 game a while back, and my DM house ruled it that if i got an enemy in a grapple, i could attempt to break a bone or dislocate a joint by making opposed strength checks, with me adding my knowledge (anatomy) against my enemy making an opposed dex or strength and adding their escape artist (whichever was higher) and my DM applying modifiers depending on the joint / bone i wished to break.
I looked into Torn Asunder, an old 3.0 book, but while it didn't cover this particular mechanic, it was the closest i've seen so far.
Is there an official rule or precedent to cover this? Or is it homebrew from here on in?

[ShakeHandsMan]

Well, don't everyone jump up and reply at once. :smallsmile:

[nekomata2]

I'm not familiar with any mechanic or variant that covers rules for this....

[Telonius]

There's a feat in Dragon 309 called "Stone Monkey" that allows you to disable an opponent's arm or leg while grappling. Only for a certain amount of rounds though, not something more permanent like breaking it.

Dragon 336 has a "Pressure Point Strike." It's a straight-up attack, no grapple necessary.

Complete Warrior has a bunch of Stunning Fist feats that allow you to deliver various status ailments (nauseated, str penalty, etc) to targets.

EDIT: Just in general, any mechanic for breaking bones would have exactly the same problem with "called shots" mechanics. Namely, how to judge the difficulty, how to make the effects balanced, how to make it so it doesn't bog down the combat, and how to prevent it from devolving into mutually assured destruction.

[Fenix_of_Doom]

Well, don't everyone jump up and reply at once. :smallsmile:

Oh ,no! We didn't reply within 40 minutes, how dare we!



Anyway, variant rules like this would seem to be either house ruled or from a 3rd party supplement. Complicated variants are unusual in regular WotC D&D books, but you could try the dragon compendium.

[ShakeHandsMan]

There's a feat in Dragon 309 called "Stone Monkey" that allows you to disable an opponent's arm or leg while grappling. Only for a certain amount of rounds though, not something more permanent like breaking it.

Dragon 336 has a "Pressure Point Strike." It's a straight-up attack, no grapple necessary.

Complete Warrior has a bunch of Stunning Fist feats that allow you to deliver various status ailments (nauseated, str penalty, etc) to targets.

EDIT: Just in general, any mechanic for breaking bones would have exactly the same problem with "called shots" mechanics. Namely, how to judge the difficulty, how to make the effects balanced, how to make it so it doesn't bog down the combat, and how to prevent it from devolving into mutually assured destruction.

Exactly, although when we played using it, it served to close the chasm between melee and casters by about 17 inches. I'll have to look into those dragon issues tho, i knew about the stuff in CW but it didnt really fit was i was looking for.
@Fenix_of_Doom
Its not really so much a variant, as just elaborating on a situation WOTC left out of their books, since there is no standard method of handling this situation, there is nothing for it to be a variant to. :smallwink: