The brick who couldn't be tied up

An Entangle attack has been in the combat engine for a while. It rolled to hit, it rolled dice, it wrote a number to the database. Every test passed. It was also wrong three separate ways, and the only reason any of them surfaced is that we sat down to build the other half of the mechanic — what being Entangled actually does to you — and that meant reading the rules pages end to end instead of skimming them for formulas.

The worst of the three: the code subtracted the target’s PD from the Entangle’s rolled BODY. That looks reasonable — defenses reduce damage, an Entangle rolls damage dice. But 6E1 p.217 says the BODY rolled is the Entangle’s BODY; the target’s defenses play no part. Under the old code, a brick with PD 25 shrugged off a 6d6 Entangle entirely — wrapped in nothing, ever. The book’s version is better game design too: the brick gets caught like everyone else, he just tears his way out faster. Second: the dice were summed as pips rather than counted as normal-damage BODY, roughly tripling every Entangle that did land. Third: a second Entangle stacked additively, where p.217 says highest BODY plus one per extra.

None of this was visible from the tests, because the tests were written against the code. It became visible against the book.

The victim’s side now exists, and it’s all cited. Entangled means DCV 0 and an action menu that collapses to the escape ladder (p.217): tear out with STR, blast the Entangle with your own attack — no attack roll needed, it soaks against the Entangle’s defenses — or Teleport out, the one movement power an Entangle doesn’t stop (p.218). Unless the Entangle was bought with Cannot Be Escaped With Teleportation, which closes that door — unless your Teleportation is Armor Piercing, which cancels it level for level (p.220). The margin rules from 6E2 p.126 are in as well: break out with twice the remaining BODY and you keep a full Phase to act.

The detail I’d forgotten from thirty-odd years of play: Casual STR. Escaping an Entangle is the canonical use of it (6E1 p.133-134) — half your STR, as a Zero Phase Action. Win or lose, you still have your Phase. Which means a genuinely strong character doesn’t spend a turn tied up at all: he shrugs, the webbing tears, and he was never really caught — exactly the way the comics draw it.