Why is it always grappling?


Rules Questions


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Can someone please help shed some light on grappling and armor spikes?

My interpretation is: if you make any sort of successful grapple attack (IE start a grapple, maintain a grapple and perform a valid action) you should do armor spike damage + your strength bonus in addition to whatever else you are doing.

Scarab Sages

Yes. If you are wearing Armor Spikes, any successful grapple check applies damage, much like constrict.


I always assumed that "successful grapple attack" in the item description meant choosing to take the deal damage grapple action instead of on a successful grapple check. In that way the spikes are just a good weapon that does not need to be drawn and does not give you a penalty for not having two hands free.

But I see that if you consider the grapple check a successful attack, cause it is an attack roll and such, that makes a lot of sense, and it means I've been missing a lot of damage over the years.


Are you guys saying that the armor spikes would do additional damage on top of whatever you deal with your unarmed strike, Bite, etc while grappling? If so I never noticed that and wonder exactly what damage you'd deal. I mean, armor spikes do 1d6 damage, but would you add your Str mod? Half your Str mod? No Str mod?

Scarab Sages

Devilkiller wrote:
Are you guys saying that the armor spikes would do additional damage on top of whatever you deal with your unarmed strike, Bite, etc while grappling? If so I never noticed that and wonder exactly what damage you'd deal. I mean, armor spikes do 1d6 damage, but would you add your Str mod? Half your Str mod? No Str mod?

1d6 + STR mod piercing. Just like constrict.


Grapple wrote:

Once you are grappling an opponent, a successful check allows you to continue grappling the foe, and also allows you to perform one of the following actions (as part of the standard action spent to maintain the grapple).

...

Damage: You can inflict damage to your target equal to your unarmed strike, a natural attack, or an attack made with armor spikes or a light or one-handed weapon. This damage can be either lethal or nonlethal.

Unfortunately it looks like you can only choose one of these attacks to do in a given turn, and the damage only applies as part of the standard action to maintain the grapple with the damage option, not for the other options available during a maintained grapple (e.g., pin, move, tie up). As for the amount of damage, Imbicatus is right that attacking with the armor spikes during a grapple should be 1d6+STR piercing since that would count as your primary weapon, rather than an off-hand weapon.

Scarab Sages

Mjolbeard89 wrote:
Grapple wrote:

Once you are grappling an opponent, a successful check allows you to continue grappling the foe, and also allows you to perform one of the following actions (as part of the standard action spent to maintain the grapple).

...

Damage: You can inflict damage to your target equal to your unarmed strike, a natural attack, or an attack made with armor spikes or a light or one-handed weapon. This damage can be either lethal or nonlethal.

Unfortunately it looks like you can only choose one of these attacks to do in a given turn, and the damage only applies as part of the standard action to maintain the grapple with the damage option, not for the other options available during a maintained grapple (e.g., pin, move, tie up). As for the amount of damage, Imbicatus is right that attacking with the armor spikes during a grapple should be 1d6+STR piercing since that would count as your primary weapon, rather than an off-hand weapon.

No, the damage applies in addition to any successful grapple check. The option to grapple to damage would allow you to inflict damage twice.


Armor spikes do EXTRA damage

Armor spikes as a grapple wrote:
Armor spikes deal extra piercing damage (see “spiked armor” on Table: Weapons) on a successful grapple attack. The spikes count as a martial weapon. If you are not proficient with them, you take a –4 penalty on grapple checks when you try to use them.
Armor spikes as a weapon wrote:
You can also make a regular melee attack... with the spikes, and they count as a light weapon in this case.

So if you do a grapple and chose the damage with a weapon option and choose armor spikes to deal damage and deal weapon damage with there, where is the EXTRA damage?

And a successful grapple is what lets you choose to then take the damage option.
So on a success you damage with armor, then you can choose damage to do it again.


Grapple rules can get complex when you add other things as it's an attack action sequence unto itself.

PRD wrote:
Armor Spikes: You can have spikes added to your armor, which allow you to deal extra piercing damage (see "spiked armor" on Table: Weapons) on a successful grapple attack. The spikes count as a martial weapon. If you are not proficient with them, you take a –4 penalty on grapple checks when you try to use them. You can also make a regular melee attack (or off-hand attack) with the spikes, and they count as a light weapon in this case. (You can't also make an attack with armor spikes if you have already made an attack with another off-hand weapon, and vice versa.) An enhancement bonus to a suit of armor does not improve the spikes' effectiveness, but the spikes can be made into magic weapons in their own right.
Grapple wrote:
You can inflict damage to your target equal to your unarmed strike, a natural attack, or an attack made with armor spikes or a light or one-handed weapon. This damage can be either lethal or nonlethal.
PRD wrote:
Attacks: Some spell descriptions refer to attacking. All offensive combat actions, even those that don't damage opponents, are considered attacks. Attempts to channel energy count as attacks if it would harm any creatures in the area. All spells that opponents resist with saving throws, that deal damage, or that otherwise harm or hamper subjects are attacks. Spells that summon monsters or other allies are not attacks because the spells themselves don't harm anyone.

clearly the Grapple text reads as an "exclusive OR" condition with the Grappler getting one attack (not normal iterative attacks). So it's unarmed strike or natural attack or armor spikes or light one-handed weapon. The PRD Armor Spikes entry supports this.

The trick is when you make a single attack action you can use two weapons (or flurry), primary and off hand attack, which is not an iterative attack in and of itself. Spikes do not have the monk weapon qualifier.

It is not a special ability like Constrict.

so you have choices;
1) attack with the spikes as a primary doing (1d6+Str)dmg P.
2) attack unarmed (1d3{med}+Str)dmg B as primary then {spikes} (1d6+(Str/2))dmg P as secondary. As it's a grapple, the text isn't too clear on if you make two grapple attempts or one... normally to hit bonuses/penalties will be as two-weapon attacks, so usually -4,-8 without feats which implies two grapple attempts, one for each damage primary and secondary.
2b) you cannot use spikes as a second secondary weapon. So this precludes a Bite(primary) claw(secondary) then armor spike(additional secondary) attack.

as an option you can take some grappling feats... which effectively increase the number of attacks.

some other threads on this...
Aug 2011
Apr 2013
Aug 2014


as a separate comment, you could do the same primary/secondary option with any light or one-handed weapon in hand.

Armor spikes add some action economy as you don't have to pull out a weapon or discard the falchion you were holding. They still require normal weapon enhancement to get bonuses to hit and damage (armor bonuses don't count).

If you have a suitable enchanted weapon I'd use that rather than the spikes. It already has a to hit & dmg bonus and you probably have feats that work with it for a higher to hit than the spikes. Some weapons also have blocking, disarm, and trip for a more effective combo. You've also already paid to enchant the weapon which is cheaper than enchanting it AND the spikes.

All of that being said, there are some builds that focus on using CMB, CMB feats, and armor spikes. So there it's all gravy (as in good).


I don't think that any of the previous threads really seemed to reach a satisfactory conclusion, so I've clicked the FAQ button.


Not quite a full REZ here, but I'm interested in this as well.

I've always interpreted it to mean an extra 1d6 in piercing damage just for succeeding on the Grapple check.

So initiating would include 1d6 of piercing damage and any following checks to maintain would include that 1d6 plus whatever other damage you are doing with the Damage option.

So in a way I saw it sort of working like Constrict.

Liberty's Edge

It is additional damage to the damage you are already doing with your grapple check.
So you add 1d6 piercing to the kind of damage you are already delivering thanks to your grapple check.

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