osmium's page

4 posts. No reviews. No lists. No wishlists.


RSS


I'm going to chime in in opposition.

Jason Bulmahn wrote:


I think folks need to remember that the grappled condition is not as severe as it once was. You are no longer draped all over the target. It is more like you got a hold on them, typically an arm (hence the restriction). The pinned condition is more of your greco-roman wrestling hold.

So grappling in this context means more you've got a hand on someone, in the case of the raking cat you've got an arm in your claw or mouth and are free to use your other limbs.

I think your interpretation is correct for the "pinned" status, that if you are pinned you cannot rake unless you break free of the pin first. The "controller" of the grapple is not in as significant control as would be required, I think, to deny rake attacks.

However I think that you'll find that if you ignore the grapple and try to natural attack and rake the opponent you have just granted them a +5 circumstance bonus next round without any opposition and they will likely just pin you with it.

I think that some abilities should make you not want to grapple with a target unless you can pin them. To me, unarmed strikes like a monk's, lots of natural attacks and the ability to rake should all be reasonable deterrents to grappling with an opponent you cannot reasonably except to pin which makes sense, why should a standard human be somehow "magically" better than a large cat in a grapple simply because he is the one that has control over one of the cat's limbs?

-O


I've changed my thinking slightly. I think if you are *still* in "control" of the grapple on your second turn (i.e. opponent fails to or doesn't try to reverse/escape the grapple) you get the +5 circumstance bonus.


It seems to me that you get the grapple status bonus only if you win two "consecutive" grapple checks. i.e. initiate and then maintain you get the bonus in the next round.

What is unclear is whether fending off an attempt to win the grapple by the opponent on their action counts for the purposes of the circumstance bonus or not i.e. if they just take their single action with a light weapon rather than fight the grapple do you get a +5 on the std action to maintain the grapple on your next action or do you have to initiate the action that calls for a grapple check (in one case you have to beat their CMD with your CMB and then defeat their CMB with your CMD or you have to do the former twice... they *are* different checks with some built in asymmetry so it's not clear what was intended).

-O


I'll chime in not sure I have anything super useful to add.
I think these are the important parts of the rake ability:
"A creature with this special attack gains
extra natural attacks under certain conditions, typically
when it grapples its foe."
(the typically comes from pounce which also activates rake)
AND
"A monster with the rake ability must begin its turn already
grappling to use its rake—it can’t begin a grapple and
rake in the same turn."

To me this implies that when you start a turn and you have an opponent in the grappled status you immediately take the rake attacks as they are "extra" natural attacks. What is unclear to me is what action do these rakes count as... is that a swift action or a free action?

I think the utility between the -20 option and the standard grappling option is when you have more than one grab attack. If you land a grab attack and decide to grapple I feel like you lose the ability to use the other grab attack, whereas if you land the grab and take the -20 you can use the other grab on a different target potentially giving multiple target's the grappled status(all at the -20). What's unclear to me in this case is if you get the rake damage on all targets or just one. It seems like you need either free limbs or the limbs need to be involved in the grapple to deal the rake damage but perhaps 2 claw attacks are actually with the same actual appendage(a lot can happen in 6 seconds in a grapple)?

What is also unclear to me is if the creatures fight back do you have to try to fend off the reverse/escape/take an action attempt on the target's turn at -20? It seems sort of weird that if it's that much harder to initiate that it would be exactly as easy to maintain, but perhaps they are just lumping the difficulty of fending off the counter attempts into the difficulty to land the attack (because why make things more difficult when you only *need* to change one of the numbers to have statistically the same effect?).

If you're only grappling one opponent I think both cases turn out more similar.
initiate grapple at -20, start round grappling use rake then use full attack reinitiating grapple with grab
OR
initiate grapple normally from grab, gain grappling status, start round grappling use rake then drop grapple as free action and full attack.

Both cases start the round with the opponent grappled so rake apparently hits in both cases. I suppose the advantage is again with multiple grab attempts you can have one land and try the grapple at -20, if it works presumably the other attacks are free to land on whoever (same target even) and you don't gain grappled so until the next round you are less vulnerable, and if the -20 attempt fails you can always do a normal grapple attempt off of the other grab.

-O