Grappling and Two handed weapons / items


Rules Questions

Silver Crusade

In last night's game we were attacked by stirges and "effectively grappled." The bard uses a bow and he tried to break the grapple. The DM argued that he had to drop the bow to do so. My counter argument is that he could still hold on with one hand while trying to break the grapple. We decided to go with his ruling and have me research between games.

So can you hold on to a two handed weapon and try to break a grapple?


While grappled you can hold any item in one hand and perform a grapple to break loose with the free hand.

Silver Crusade

Is there a rule or errata I can point to. The grapple rules say you can attack with a one handed weapon or try to break the grapple. Which my DM takes to mean that both hands are needed to break the grapple while I infer the opposite.


The rules say that "breaking a grapple" is a combat maneuver check against the opponents CMD.

So it's not even a specific grapple check. Nor is there any mentioning that you'd need a free hand. Actually, being armed might be an advantage as well - smash the bow into his teeth and wriggle your way out of the opponents grip would be a possible way to picture it.

Edit: Differently stated: Normally (as a humanoid) you need free hands to effectively grab someone. If you want to tear yourself loose, there's no good reason why a free hand might be needed. Remember that grappled (as opposed to pinned) is not that serious a condition in PF.

Edit 2: Of course that leads to another question - are grappling boni applicable when trying to break a grapple? Apparently not, which sounds strange considering you may also turn the tables (becoming the grappler) instead of breaking loose. Maybe a grappling CM check to break a grapple is RAI after all.

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