Improved Savage Grapple Clarification


Rules Questions

Grand Lodge

1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.

Improved Savage Grapple:
At 5th level, the brutal pugilist takes no penalties to Dexterity, attack rolls, and combat maneuver checks when she has the grappled condition. She also is treated as one size larger than her actual size when determining whether she can grapple or be grappled by another creature.

Related to the bolded section: is this supposed to mean when determining what you can pin? Because there is currently not a size limit on what can be grappled. If the ability is as written, it does basically nothing.

Liberty's Edge

There's no size requirement for pinning either. On it's own, it does nothing.

Grand Lodge

Feral wrote:
There's no size requirement for pinning either. On it's own, it does nothing.

You are 100% right. I had been told you could not pin a larger body, but there is no RAW for that. Must have been a GM thing.

So, a part of a class ability which does nothing. Interesting, and FAQ worthy, in my mind.

Liberty's Edge

It's not entirely useless.

You could argue it makes you could as larger for purposes of grab since grab has a size requirement.


Perhaps I am trying to just read purpose into this feat, but perhaps it increases your CMB/CMD as if you were a size larger for the sole purpose of grappling. I agree that this is something of a stretch read, but it's the only way I can see to make sense of that sentence.

Grand Lodge

Even then, going up in size (based on Enlarge Person) gives you +2 STR, -2 DEX, and -2 AC, which equates out to -1 to CMD. Which seems even worse than aweful.

This is definitely FAQ worthy.

Grand Lodge

Aydin D'Ampfer wrote:

Even then, going up in size (based on Enlarge Person) gives you +2 STR, -2 DEX, and -2 AC, which equates out to -1 to CMD. Which seems even worse than aweful.

This is definitely FAQ worthy.

Erm, no. First, Enlarge Person's only indicative of what Enlarge Person does. Increasing one size category changes your stats differently depending on how you're doing it. Second, if what the ability did was make you count as one size larger for CMB/D for grappling all you'd change is +1 CMB and CMD, nothing else, as that's all going up one size actually does for them (the -1 AC from being bigger does not apply as a penalty to CMD).

Third, I'm pretty sure that part of the ability actually does nothing, and was written by someone who thought there was a size limit on grappling (there was a limit in 3.5).

Liberty's Edge

You seem to be quoting an incorrect or out-dated source. The current PDF (mine is dated 8/13) and the PRD for Brutal Pugilist do not have that wording.

APG wrote:
Improved Savage Grapple (Ex): At 5th level, the brutal pugilist takes no penalties to Dexterity, attack rolls, and combat maneuver checks when she has the grappled condition. She also is treated as one size larger than her actual size when determining whether she can be grappled using the grab ability or swallowed by another creature. This ability replaces improved uncanny dodge.

(Feral was on the right path in his guess about the intent of the rule.)

Grand Lodge

Jeff Merola wrote:
Aydin D'Ampfer wrote:

Even then, going up in size (based on Enlarge Person) gives you +2 STR, -2 DEX, and -2 AC, which equates out to -1 to CMD. Which seems even worse than aweful.

This is definitely FAQ worthy.

Erm, no. First, Enlarge Person's only indicative of what Enlarge Person does. Increasing one size category changes your stats differently depending on how you're doing it. Second, if what the ability did was make you count as one size larger for CMB/D for grappling all you'd change is +1 CMB and CMD, nothing else, as that's all going up one size actually does for them (the -1 AC from being bigger does not apply as a penalty to CMD).

Third, I'm pretty sure that part of the ability actually does nothing, and was written by someone who thought there was a size limit on grappling (there was a limit in 3.5).

True, so it may just add +1 to CMD. This is unclear, though.

Also, the wording I have is older, so the changes must have been made to make it actually do something.

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