Grappling and moving while mounted


Rules Questions


So, I'm about to run a modified Carrion Crown pt. 5, Ashes at Dawn. The PCs are a bit OP and there are 8 of them, and I want to offer a challenge. I plan to tweak the encounter with the Dullahan. Instead of the flail with reach, I plan to add a fighter level and give him a scorpion whip with all the whip mastery feats (changing a number of the default feats). The plan is to move in, initiate a ranged grapple (against the cleric, hehehe), and use the flight movement of the Nightmare to drop him on his righteous bum from high up.

The grapple rules state you can movewith a grappled foe up to half your movement speed. But the nightmare isn't involved in the grapple. Using Ride-By Attack, can the Dullahan theoretically fly in, initiate the grapple, and take to the sky (so long as the total movement doesn't exceed 180 ft.)? Or does the grapple somehow limit the movement of the mount?


As a side note, I'm also adding two near-normal Dullahan (albeit, with the advanced creature template), and doubling the number of dire ghoul wolves (again, with the advanced creature template).

Yes, these characters are THAT over-powered. :-P


Oh, it doesn't limit the movement of the mount at all.

But it does limit his movement. He would simply be ripped off the mount once you tried to move more than half his speed :D

To fix this problem, add some abilities like expeditious retreat or haste to increase his land speed.


In order to move someone you have grappled (ie: due to grappling and not some other rule) you must make a maintain check. There are no provisions in the grapple rules for doing what you want.

Of course, as the GM you may house-rule it, but I don't recommend it.


@Carl: I don't see why this would dismount the rider. That seems ridiculous to me. If you can site a rule that states this, that would be great. The grappling rules obviously did not take mounted combat into consideration. Now, if the rider were to attempt to ride by an enemy and become the TARGET of a (successful) grapple, it would make perfect sense to me to become dismounted.

@Gauss: I don't have a problem with a maintain check. The rules already state moving a target into a potentially dangerous location forces another grapple check with a (I believe -4) penalty, and I accept that as part of the risk. I'd like to avoid house-ruling the scenario as much as possible. I prefer to use rules which, theoretically, the PCs could employ themselves in similar circumstances.

How would one rule a mounted cowboy lassoing an enemy and dragging them behind their horse? Maybe there is some rule for quickly wrapping a portion of the lasso/whip around the saddle horn???

Again, I want to make this as legit as possible.


You already cited the rule. The grappler is not allowed to move more than half his speed. Period. By any means. Including a mount. If you want to see how mounts and riders movement works together, look up the ride and charge rules. There's a reason you can't make a full attack after your mount moves.

There are no explicit rules for this. You're in GM-fiat territory.


Ok, there are two aspects being discussed here and I think they may be getting conflated.

1) Can grapple someone then you use the mount to drag that someone without a maintain check. The answer should be no.

2) Can you exceed 1/2 your movement speed by using the mount's movement speed. The answer here is a maybe. Since you are using the mount's movement in place of your own it could be interpreted that it is 1/2 the mount's speed.

How I would run this:
Grapple check, next round maintain check to move at 1/2 the mounts speed.


I believe you can benefit from Whip Mastery's Reach and the auto-move-adjacent rule for Grapple checks
to effectively move the target an extra distance equal to your Reach with the Whip (-5'?).
You can probably use Lunge along with this, but it's still going to be a fairly short distance. (Enlarge helps)
Expeditious Retreat boosting the rider's own speed means even their half-speed is still significant,
certainly when combined with an extra 10'-15'from Whip Reach (+ Lunge/ Enlarge).

That might not be enough height to do lots of falling damage in the very first round, but they are significantly off the ground/out of reach of allies,
and since you already made the extra check to move them into dangerous area, you shouldn't have to make an extra check the next round...
And if you fail next round, they still get dropped likely for SOME falling damage (if they didn't manage to Reverse it mid-air).
(if the Mount is intelligent or trained, it might want to Aid Another to CMD if worried they can Reverse, CMB if not worried)


I appreciate all the feedback on this.

Since there really seem to be no rules governing the utilization of a mount to move a grappled target, I'm going to defer to: A. "The Rule of Cool"... I think it's a clever, cool approach to utilizing an otherwise lackluster weapon. B. It doesn't seem all that unreasonable, and I'd allow a player to pull off this tactic if they had randomly presented it on the fly. And C. I don't think it's a huge stretch to envision a powerful, magical Nightmare dragging a person into the sky, when it's quite easy for a regular horse to drag a person who's been lassoed.

Sometimes you've just gotta say "What the heck..." ;)


Technically, you can't use grapple with Ride-By Attack. Ride-by Attack says "When you are mounted and use the charge action, you may move and attack as if with a standard charge and then move again..."

Grapple is a standard action that can't be swapped in for a normal attack (some combat maneuvers can, but grapple is not one of them). Charge takes a full round action, which means you can't take a separate standard action on that round.

Note that Flyby Attack says you can take a standard action during your move, so you can use Flyby Attack with a grapple--but that would be the mount's feat, I think.

You could give him Grabbing Drag which lets him move the opponent his full movement instead of half.

FWIW, the cowboy lassoing and dragging a target behind his horse might be using the drag maneuver. Or he's using something like:
Round 1) Ride up and make a grapple check
Round 2 through x) Maintain the grapple, and use guide-with knees to have his horse move half his speed.

That's how I would do it, probably. And honestly, I wouldn't worry about house-ruling it too much: as long as you let the players use the same rule tweaks you use for the monsters, you're being fair.


If he grappled and tied up his victim, the Nightmare could just carry them both away.

Gwen's suggestion of Grabbing Style Feats is a good suggestion.


Thanks for the advice, Gwen.

I didn't get back to the forum before I ran the encounter last weekend, so I played it a bit fast and loose. My entire group (myself included) was unaware that you couldn't perform a grapple at the end of a charge (or as part of one, in the case of Ride-By Attack), so it happened. (I personally think there are sometimes TOO MANY rules... and too many feats. Specialties within specialties. Ugh!)

So, yeah. I charged in, snagged the cleric (he's a beacon of holy goodness! He must die! Mwahahaha!), and proceeded to drag him some 260 ft. into the air. He did manage to pull off one Flame Strike against the dullahan, but it wasn't even close to enough to make the horseman flinch (or kill the nightmare). So, 26d6 damage from falling, no save. Good times. Dropped the cleric to literally 1 hp from death in a mere 2 rounds.

In the end, I killed the heaviest fighter and the most clever wizard in the group, the cleric was unconscious for the majority of the encounter, the ranger ended up paralyzed, the sorceress had to play a mostly defensive game (until dullahan started in on her... Blindsense sees past your Greater Invisibility), the paladin spent her night tied up with wolves (she wasn't targeted by the initial drag and drop maneuver because she's one of those Asimar with wings), and the Slayer spent her night dueling it out with one of the other dullahan (party of 7... I had to up my game.)

In the end, everyone had a great time. Nobody got bored like they always were with the previous chapters in this saga (run by other GMs), and I let the players know that I ain't messing around. They need to step up their tactical game!

Good times! >:)

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