So a friend of mine is considering building a grappler for a campaign that we're playing in. Currently we're 8th level and the DM has hinted that bigger and badder monsters await us in the future (of course.) My friend is considering a few different builds to get what he wants, but he's concerned about the ability to grapple creatures at higher levels due to size and other factors. He's heard from multiple sources that combat maneuvers are increasingly difficult at higher level play. This is probably at least partially true.
My friend is consideringly a Tetori Monk. He's also considering taking 4 levels in Druid with the Shaping Focus feat to get to huge size, which would allow him to use the Tetori Monk's grab ability on larger creatures. I also mentioned the Lore Warden fighter archetype which would get him combat expertise without needing to meet the int prerequisite of 13 as well as a +2 bonus to CMB & CMD and full BAB. for a 4th level, you can grab weapon specialization for unarmed strikes in order to up your damage a bit when creatures are encountered that are difficult to grapple.
I have mentioned to my friend that the idea of taking class levels in 3 different classes (Tetori Monk 4/Druid 4/Lore Warden Fighter 4) will result in a character that misses out on a lot of the high end abilities. For example, the Tetori Monk gets some cool stuff at levels 9 and up. So this is something that I'd like other people's opinions/suggestions on as well.
So I'm curious if anyone has experience with any of the proposed builds. Maybe there are some better ideas out there that haven't been mentioned/considered. Keep in mind that this build will likely go into the mid to high teens, so it needs to maintain a level of effectiveness against most creatures at those levels. There will, obviously, be certain creatures (sizes gargantuan & colossul, for example) where combat maneuvers are all but out of the question, but I'd expect those to be the minority. Even so, a "backup plan" of what can be done in these instances is always a bonus.
I'm not an expert on the subject, but I briefly played a lore warden who got up to level 13 and was taking out huge dragons and giants. She was a very focused trip/grapple build and though I don't have her sheet handy, I think her trip CMB was upwards of +30 before buffs, and usually around +35 or more after buffs(we had a great bard in the group who really helped out). Her Grapple CMB was about 5 points lower, but she usually made up for this by grappling tripped opponents, who suffer a -4 penalty to CMB and CMD for being prone.
Her CMD was upwards of about 50 for both trip and grapple, which often made it mathematically impossible to escape a grapple through non-magical means once she latched on. With Greater and Rapid grapple and a few other choice feats she could have a giant pinned and hogtied in 1 or 2 rounds without much trouble. After the pinning, the party rogue would go to town.
A friend of mine also played a halfling tetori who was a similarly insane grappler. It got the point where it was kind of stupid imagining this little halfling pinning monsters that were literally hundreds of times his own weight.
In general I actually advise against grappling builds, despite the success I've had with them. The trouble is that, in order to pull it off at medium to high levels you have to completely specialize and optimize, and that weakens you in other areas. It also puts you in many situations where you essentially can't fail and the encounter is rendered moot (when you're up against a single opponent who you can automatically grapple), and other situations where you are of almost no use (up against something you simply can't grapple). This forces your GM to alter encounters to counter your build, which sort of defeats the purpose of making it in the first place.
Instead, I suggest that more people include grappling as an option, but not your only trick, or even your best one. It's still very handy when an appropriate situation arises (grappling a medium-sized caster who was foolish enough to cross you without preparing freedom of movement) without the need to be overspecialized.
oink oink oinkHow did you overcome the size limitations of a Lore Warden to grapple Huge creatures. I know the size does not prevent grapple, but it limits you in the number of options you could take. Certain cool grappling abilities, like grab, constrict, chokehold, etc. require the same size or only one size larger.
I used Hamatula Strike with enchanted armor spikes in place of a grab ability. It's actually superior to grab in a lot of ways, including the fact that it has no size restrictions and can be used with a weapon (which is easier to enhance than an unarmed strike or natural weapon). The major component it's missing over grab is the sexy +4 bonus to grapple, but I found that getting my CMD up was usually more important than cranking my CMB.
I didn't have constrict, either, so my damage was pretty low, but damage wasn't my job: tying people's butts to their faces was. I'd just move from target to target, turning them into pretzels so that they could be dealt with later. The party rogue was best at this, as he was a TWF build and loved nothing better than stabbificating pinned opponents; our GM also ruled that anyone I'd tied up who couldn't escape their bonds even with a natural 20 was "bound" and thus helpless and subject to a coup de grace. (We joked around the table that he wore a t-shirt under his armor that said "if it bleeds I can kill it", where as my character had a matching one that said "if it's corporeal I can pin it".)
Chokehold has never really interested me as a counter to spells, as my CMB was always way too high for any caster to beat the concentration check to pull off a spell. I figured it would be useful for taking guys down stealth-style, but my character had such a garbage stealth check that the situation never came up.
So, the only time size came up was when I was tripping, which was my preferred lead-in to grappling. A wand of Enlarge took care of that to some extent, if I recall, and thankfully we never encountered anything larger than Huge that we didn't run away from anyway. lol
OH, and if you're interested, somewhere around here I have a semi-functional Barbarian build centered entirely around the Body Bludgeon rage power. As a Brutal Pugilist, you can grapple a creature your size and start swinging them around as a weapon! It's perhaps less optimal than the tetori or a fighter in a few ways (I'd really miss dumping those favored class points into grapple CMD) but your non-grappling damage is probably a bit better and by god, it just sounds like so much fun.