Attacking a Monster's Natural Weapon


Rules Questions


A giant octopus with 20 foot reach attacks a PC with a tentacle attack which has grab and constrict. The PC is hit and grappled. On the PC's turn he tries to attack the tentacle with his weapon. Is this a sunder combat maneuver or is it an attack against the creature? Whatever it is, what are the rules regarding it such as CMD/AC and HP?

Sovereign Court

Giant octopus, don't have separate body parts to target. But well, the pc can still attack tentacles with a light weapon, unarmed attacks as well. He can decide to do it instead of a grapple check. He takes a -2 penalty to the attack roll.

Some adventures, sometime for dramatic effects, give hit points to tentacle, but nothing official by RAW.

Grand Lodge

Based on Sunder rules, you can only Sunder an item your opponent is holding or wearing. Anything else is just an attack against the monster.

EDIT:To the point above. He would actually not take the -2, as he is attacking the creature he is grappling with/against. But I found a problem:

"A grappled creature takes a –2 penalty on all attack rolls and combat maneuver checks, except those made to grapple or escape a grapple."

This can be read two ways, one that does and one that does not make him take a -2.


Okay, so this approaches what is either an oversight or a design flaw, depending on your opinion. First, you can totally sunder body parts... of the hydra, and it's the only one, and unless you tell your players they can sunder a head there's no way they'll ever think of it. Because there's no other creature where you can just automatically cut off their head with a single check. Second, and this is very important, why does the player have to target a tentacle?

Grapple wrote:
If you successfully grapple a creature that is not adjacent to you, move that creature to an adjacent open space (if no space is available, your grapple fails).

They can just beat up the octopus itself. The only time this is not true is if the player is a tiny or smaller creature.


Bob Bob Bob wrote:
They can just beat up the octopus itself. The only time this is not true is if the player is a tiny or smaller creature.

If someone is grappled they cannot move. The octopus has 20 foot reach so it can grapple them and effectively hold them at bay unless they can escape its grasp.

I guess for simplicity's sake, it's best to just allow them to attack the octopus by attacking its arm. The arm has the same AC as the octopus and shares its HP and cannot be severed.

Grand Lodge

Shaun wrote:
Bob Bob Bob wrote:
They can just beat up the octopus itself. The only time this is not true is if the player is a tiny or smaller creature.
If someone is grappled they cannot move. The octopus has 20 foot reach so it can grapple them and effectively hold them at bay unless they can escape.

This is a common mistake, but is incorrect:

Grapple wrote:
As a standard action, you can attempt to grapple a foe, hindering his combat options. If you do not have Improved Grapple, grab, or a similar ability, attempting to grapple a foe provokes an attack of opportunity from the target of your maneuver. Humanoid creatures without two free hands attempting to grapple a foe take a –4 penalty on the combat maneuver roll. If successful, both you and the target gain the grappled condition (see the Appendices). If you successfully grapple a creature that is not adjacent to you, move that creature to an adjacent open space (if no space is available, your grapple fails)...

Bold is my point. If the octopus grapples 20 ft out, it still has to drag the target in to keep grappling.

Liberty's Edge

Eltacolibre wrote:

But well, the pc can still attack tentacles with a light weapon, unarmed attacks as well. He can decide to do it instead of a grapple check. He takes a -2 penalty to the attack roll.

That is another common mistake. Pathfinder ahs changed that rule.

PRD - Grappled condition wrote:
In addition, grappled creatures can take no action that requires two hands to perform.

You can use a 1 handed weapon without problems. Even a bastard sword or similar weapon if you have the feat to use it in one hand.


-2 to all attacks. (-4 to dex also if it matters)
The octopus would have to move the target adjacent to itself or fail the grapple.
You can't sunder natural attacks.

Thats an interesting point about hydras...huh...


The best your player could do is try to use called shot rules on the tentacle, but it's not going to be effective since it has 8 legs/arms. The octopus likely has more than a single tentacle on the character.

Outside of called shot rules there aren't rules for targeting individual body parts. And you certainly can't sunder creature's body parts, with one exception of the hydra.

Sczarni

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Thematically, you (or your GM) can describe the action however you want.

  • Stab the creature in the eye, and it withdraws its tentacles.
  • Slice them off you one at a time.
  • Rip them off with a gurgling scream of bubbles.

Mechanically, you're rolling a d20 and adding modifiers.

Grand Lodge

This is one of those cases where the rules don't match up to intuition. In the movies when the tentacled beast grabs you your best action is to sever the tentacle to get away. Just today someone got grabbed by a Froghemoth and 2 of the players wanted to attack the tongue to free their comrade until the GM told them it wouldn't work.

Sadly in pathfinder you have to kill it to get away (or beat its CMD which is nigh impossible at higher levels).
But if anyone has a good system for this i would love to hear it!

Sczarni

As Claxon mentioned earlier, you could rely on the Called Shot rules.

It's a gamble, though. Those rules can be incredibly overpowering in regular play.

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