Evasion when you are actively grappling someone


Rules Questions


I have looked over the evasion threads and I am not finding what I am looking for. If what I have been looking for is out there feel free to link to it so I can look it over.

The scenario is this: There is a character that has evasion and grapples his opponent. Said opponent in an air elementalist and uses Lightning Flash. Does said evasion character get to use evasion as he is actively attempting to maintain physical contact with the air elementalist?

I have read the grappled condition and it only applies penalties to the "victim". It ignores the fact that the attacker is equally penalized to a third party who comes upon the two grapplers. The attacker has to focus on his victim and maintain physical contact.

Lightning Flash clearly does not take into consideration the scenario where you are in forced physical contact with your opponent. It says that the you unleash a flash of electricity... to all creatures in 5' radius of you.

It seems to me that if you as the attacker are actively maintaining contact with a dangerous source, like a hugging a fire elemental or something similar then you get "burned".


You still get evasion. Grappling is not something that is able to stop it by the rules. A penalty to dex also does not stop evasion. The rules often ignore what makes sense for the sake of balance. As an example, if you are completely paralyzed you still get a reflex save.


lordrichter wrote:
I have read the grappled condition and it only applies penalties to the "victim". It ignores the fact that the attacker is equally penalized to a third party who comes upon the two grapplers. The attacker has to focus on his victim and maintain physical contact.

Actually, a grappling combatant would suffer the same penalties as the one being grappled.

Combat: Grappling 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.

/.../


wraithstrike
Thanks, I thought I was missing something. It seemed I had to be missing something.

wonderstell
Thanks, I had missed that.

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