Great Wolves: Strike, Lock, and Strike and Lock

[Marullus]

Greetings all! I am learning the system, and we just were playtesting with a Great Wolf. I could use some expert opinion.

The Crushing Jaws trait of a Great Wolf says they can perform a strike and lock simultaneously on an opponent. Having read the Strike rules and the Lock rules seperately, this seems like a great maneuver (which is good, because as the book admits, wolves seem to be a one-trick pony). The mechanics presented for it are different, however, on page 242 of the MonBu, under the Locking Bite subheading of the Wolf Tactics section.

In that section's example, rather than performing a strike, and then a follow-on lock, it appears that they did the Strike and then just re-used the same successes from that to also perform a lock.

I'm interpreting this as....

Strike:
Tests Skill
Modified by distance / Weapon is Short
No change in Distance

Lock:
Tests Power, Resisted by Power
Needs to be performed when Inside (?)

Strke and Lock:
Does not need to be Inside
Becomes Inside upon success
Tests Skill, resisted by Power

This makes a very large and significant difference - the Brawl skill check isn't necessarily a like-for-like comparison to the victim's Power check for resistance.
Use this PC for an example. (http://burningwheel.org/forum/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=4347)

In this example, we're only rolling three dice for a Strike with the Brawling skill. Conversely, we have Seven dice for the Lock check based on Power. If the Strike and Lock are rolled consecultively, it is a much better situation, whereas if the single skill roll is reused for the lock check, it is moot and almost useless, depsite the power of the jaws in question.

How would more experienced players handle this? How do you normally work the Strike and Lock concurrent maneuver for your Great Wolves? Given this scenario, when would you Strike, when would you Lock, and when would you Strike and Lock?



Some other miscelaneous questions that I have:

* Does performing the Strike and Lock maneuver release your existing Lock to try and Strike/Lock again? (And thus losing the previous lock penalties?) Or does it maintain the Lock as a Lock would?
(I'm confused, as a newbie. If I plot strike&locks for several volleys, is that ok?)

* When performing the Lock maneuver in the above example, would you roll 7 for the Power in the Lock, or 10 for the Lock+Jaws bonus, or 7 and FoRK an extra die in for the Jaws for 8?

* Do weapon traits (see the jaws above) add anything to the Brawl maneuver of the Strike action? The Strike and Lock action? Or do they just add to the damage?

I'm new. Thanks for the patience and explanations!

[luke]

Good question. You got it right, though. Strike and Lock is like a special wolfie maneuver that uses the conditions you described above.

1: Multiple Strike and Locks are ok for the same target. Imagine a dog fixing its jaws on something.

2: Huh? Roll Savage Attack or Brawling.

3: Weapons add Power and VA and sometimes Length to an attack.

Does that help?
-L

[khelek]

his one trick wonder was able to charge me (power) and bowl me over without much of an issue. my shield kept me alive long enough to fail a steel check and then be torn in half when he got inside.

The second test worked much better when he committed suicide while I dance and dodged out of range like a ninny while calling upon my god.

I decided that a 6 hesitation was just too much...

[Marullus]

...yes. In our test session the fall-out from casting Fear and then Ancient Grip killed me without his character ever having to come into range. A sobering first encounter with the use of Sorcery. :)

Back to the question...



* When performing the Lock maneuver in the above example, would you roll 7 for the Power in the Lock, or 10 for the Lock+Jaws bonus, or 7 and FoRK an extra die in for the Jaws for 8?

* Do weapon traits (see the jaws above) add anything to the Brawl maneuver of the Strike action? The Strike and Lock action? Or do they just add to the damage?

2: Huh? Roll Savage Attack or Brawling.

3: Weapons add Power and VA and sometimes Length to an attack.

Question misunderstood. I'll rephrase.

Due to the dice pools in question, it behooves me to move to a regular Lock action as quickly as possible, instead of a Strike and Lock action. This is because my Brawl is 3 dice and my Power is 7+.

Having to rely on raw power instead of the finesse of skill means that I can Charge and/or Strike-and-Lock to get Inside without facing the challenge of rolling the low Speed dice. Once inside, the regular Lock action based on the Power score comes into play. It's a limited pathway, but makes sense for someone with low skill and little speed to rely on the factors of Overbearance that raw Power scores provide.

So, the rephrased question is: The Lock action says it rolls Power. Do I include the power of my weapon (i.e. the +3 from my jaws) in that roll, or is it just the base Power? That's the difference of 7 vs. 10, which is significant one in a contested roll.

[Kublai]

Base Power only.