I recommend this video to look more into OSR philosophy regarding the rules: https://www.youtube.com/live/bCxZ3TivVUM?si=aZ-y2U_AVjn9a6Ua
this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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I don't think that's in the rules. Like, at all. The unarmed fighting style allows you to deal damage to a creature grappled by you, the grappler feat allows you to pin a creature you grappled (which is just fucking useless since both of you become restrained), and you can make a shove attack to push a creature prone. But there's nothing in the basic rules about an unarmed attack that deals damage and knocks the target prone.
The alternatives for flavoring are:
Of course a more permissive DM (like me) could allow you to make a fairly hard athletics check once you have grappled the orc and have two free hands, then resolve it as a 2d6+STR bludgeoning damage attack.
That's actually really clean ways to handle it. I am impressed. Any chance you would have ideas about more basic wrestling moves? Choke hold? Arm bar?
I'm not a wrestler or a wrestling fan, so no clue for most of them. Bars and holds... well, I think the automatic damage to the grappled creature that is dealt with the unarmed fighting style is meant to symbolize damage dealt by various holds and bars, so that would apply here.
Airway chokes are extremely impractical in D&D; every creature can hold their breath for a number of minutes equal to their CON modifier with a minimum of 1, and that means 10 rounds. I wouldn't bother trying to simulate that, just deal the 1d4 damage and move on.
Blood choke... well, that's a different matter entirely. I would most definitely require the grappler feat and the unarmed fighting style for this. Say, you forgo the automatic damage to the grappled target and instead force the target to make a CON save, DC = 8 + your PB + your STR mod. If the target fails, it gains a level of temporary exhaustion (that lasts while you're choking it), if it fails by more than 5 then it gains 2 levels, and if it hits 6 levels it falls unconscious.
That is probbaly the way to do. It doesn't feel right to me. I think. Like, I can find you a video of a six year old choking a processional fighter unconscious in 6-12 seconds. The only strength involved would be getting into that position you know. The air choke thing kinda fits with what we observe in realmlife better than what I woudl ahve thought though. For stuff like arm bars or joint hold manuvers it is almost trivially easy to break someone's arm with a well placed move. Pro fighters often get injured in training when they are trying not to you know. Which would interfere with somatic components at least. The numbers you talked about make sense in terms of a low-level fighter and a peasant with 1d4 hp. But realistically an arch magus would be just as vulnerable to being triangle chocked by a farm boy as the other farmers he us used to wrestling with at festivals.
The problem with this is combat balance. I wouldn't want to give players an ability that can take out an archmage in 2 turns, no save, without any resources used.
It is unbalanced, but it is realistic. It is like those old tired discussions about a little kid with a gun vs a high-level warrior.
It's a game, not a simulator. I mean, how would I handle fireballs then? Would I roll for lung damage due to the targets breathing in hot air (enforcing realistic consequences), or would I just disallow the spell because magic is not realistic? Or if the enemy gets shot by an arrow, would I roll for organ damage?
And of course you have to account for the fun of all players. Would it be fun for the wrestler player to take out any humanoid in two turns? Probably. Possibly. Would it also be fun for the archer and the swordsman who still have to play by the normal game rules instead of the power fantasy of a "hurr durr wrestling is da ultimate martial art" player, and have to actually use their attacks to overcome the enemies' AC and whittle down their HP? Doubtful. What's the point of having them around if the wrestler can just choke everything because that's the part of combat that the DM suddenly starts simulating realistically?
Either enemies can survive a dozen arrows, being roasted alive in their armor for a minute, being stabbed with a rapier a lot, etc... and they can last long enough versus a wrestler that just choking them doesn't become the dominant strategy, or they can be choked out in a realistic timeframe but they can also be instakilled by an arrow or a sword.
If you only take one element of the game and turn it "realistically" OP while the rest remain fantasy, you're liable to fuck up the whole game for everybody else. Now there could be a merit in playing "dark and gritty, all damage is super lethal" games but then that's not really D&D anymore, something like Mörk Borg might be better for it.
I think there's a rules oversight on the choking side of things; while a creature can hold it's breath for a minimum of 30 seconds (if it has a negative con modifier, which hardly ever comes up), the next paragraph of that rule says: "When a creature runs out of breath or is choking, it can survive for a number of rounds equal to its Constitution modifier (minimum of 1 round)." (emphasis mine) So I'd say that there's a difference between holding your breath, and being actively strangled- the latter I'd probably rule as a second opposed athletics check during a grapple instead of dealing damage, which puts the creature down after Con Mod consecutive successes.