In chapter 13, Gracie briefly explains level four banes and how that makes you Helpless. I went over this briefly in the Chapter 10.1 Addendum, but I wanted to explain it here further. There are six levels of disorienting banes: Charm, Daze, Stun, Paralyze, Unconscious, and Death. Paralyze is level 4, and anything at level 4 or higher makes you helpless.

There are also Grappling Banes. They are:

1 Entangled

2 Grappled

3 Securely Grappled

4 Pinned

Entangled is like walking through thick weeds or loose spiderwebs. You get a -5 to all movement-based actions like attacking, defending, or combat maneuvers but not to saving throws. Grappled means something is holding you. It could be ropes or someone’s hands or tentacles. When you are grappled, you cannot attempt any maneuvers until you are free. You can’t attack or Dodge or move on your own. At any time, you can try to free yourself.

To escape from a Grapple, you need to add your Athletic skill to your Resist skill and roll a D20. If you beat the Grapple score, you are free and have immediate initiative against what was Grappling you. If it was a character, they are considered flat-footed if you attack them. If you lose, you become Securely Grappled. Once you are Securely Grappled, you are trapped for several rounds. The base is four rounds, but that can be increased if the Grappler is significantly higher in level or got several criticals in the grapple attempt. Also, if the person being grappled is at a higher level or has specific feats, this can be decreased but is always at least one round. Once the duration is over, you can attempt to free yourself again. Once someone is Securely Grappled, you can Pin them against a wall, pole, or the ground. This will take them to a level four bane, and they will be Helpless. You can do nothing when you are Helpless. However, if you are Helpless because of a Grappled condition, you can attempt to free yourself once the Secured Grapple time is up. If you try and fail, you are Secured again.

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Your Grapple score is your Athletic skill plus your Grapple ability. If you don’t take the Grapple feat, it is just your Athletic score. Since the defender gets to use their Athletic skill plus their Resist skill and they get to roll a D20, you can’t expect to successfully Grapple someone unless you have a really high Athletic skill and/or a really high Grapple ability. The Grapple feat adds +5 to your Grapple ability, and you can take the feat multiple times. It is a Strength feat. There is also the Improved Grapple feat, which is only available to certain classes and occupations. This allows you to force someone into a Secured Grapple position whether or not they want to resist. It also adds +5 to your Grapple score.

You can also use ropes or shackles to Grapple someone. Each item has its own Grapple score, and, depending on how good you are at tying knots, you can increase the item’s Grapple score. There is also an Escape Artist feat, which gives you a bonus to escaping Grapples. Very soon, Esther will show up in the story, and she is good at all these things, but I probably don’t explain it very well since I’m more interested in telling the story at that point.

There is also the Prone condition when the victim lies on the ground. This elevates the bane by one. So, if you are Stunned (level 3) but lying on the ground, you are considered Helpless.

You can also combine banes. In Chapter 12, Jace defeats the demon by stunning him and getting him Prone on the ground. Since he is Helpless in this state, Jace can put his foot on him, and he has no defensive ability to resist, so he is also considered Pinned.

In this Module, Jace will be Charmed, Grappled, Pinned, and Helpless at different times. While the names are descriptive enough, I just wanted to let everyone know there are game mechanics controlling these interactions, and they aren’t just open-ended. Once again, as many numbers and dice rolls as I show, others are working behind the scenes.