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Jason,
We just bumped into one of the thorny issues with 3.5 grapple while running Chapter 4 of Red Hand of Doom. Looking at Alpha 3, I do not see the issue addressed, so I thought I'd kick it out for discussion.
First, let me set the stage.
The party encounters a Huge Red Dragon. The L10 gnome druid antagonizes is by casting Binding Winds, which momentarily holds the dragon in place. The gnome fails a subsequent concentration check and Binding Winds drops. Having pissed off the dragon, it turns it's full attention on the gnome. On his next pass, he successfully bites and grapples the gnome; pulling him into his square/mouth.
This is where things break down. According to 3.5 rules, the dragon is now flat-footed to anyone not in the grapple, no longer threatens others for AoO and cannot do anything but maintain the grapple or go for the pin. Any other action breaks the grapple.
While you’re grappling, your ability to attack others and defend yourself is limited.
No Threatened Squares
You don’t threaten any squares while grappling.
No Dexterity Bonus
You lose your Dexterity bonus to AC (if you have one) against opponents you aren’t grappling. (You can still use it against opponents you are grappling.)
No Movement
You can’t move normally while grappling. You may, however, make an opposed grapple check to move while grappling.
<snip>
Attack Your Opponent
You can make an attack with an unarmed strike, natural weapon, or light weapon against another character you are grappling. You take a -4 penalty on such attacks.
You can’t attack with two weapons while grappling, even if both are light weapons.
This is a Huge creature holding a Small creature in it's mouth; which with big pointy teeth effectively forms a jail. ;) And, this does not take into account the fact that the dragon could just swallow or breath. Once grappled, keeping the gnome in his mouth is trivial. There is no way for the gnome to overcome his grapple check. As a druid, he cold have wild shaped into a tiny bird and flown out, but he did not think of that. :)
The druid made a concentration check and threw up Binding Winds again. The dragon failed the save and was effectively stuck in place to await the enlarged, charging, leaping, raging barbarian death machine behind him. Binding Winds aside, the dragon could not have moved (taken flight) effectively anyway while maintaining his grapple. In the end, the Barbarian dispatched the dragon with two timely critical hits that were unchallenged because, due to the grapple rules, the dragon could not take an AoO as he came in.
I don't begrudge the player his crits; was the saying goes, "crit happens". ;) But, the broken grapple rules set the table for making a major boss fight very, very anti-climactic.
One way to address the problem is with a feat specific to huge creature. Improved Grapple does not do the trick, as all it does is negate the AoO. Maybe, something like ...
Trivial Grapple
Upon successfully grappling an opponent two or more sizes smaller than itself, this creature can use one appendage (hand, foot, mouth, etc.) to maintain the grapple and use their remaining attacks on other opponents. It can also move normally while maintaining this grapple. This creature may also take attacks of opportunity with any appendage not engaged in the grapple.Trivial Grapple can only be applied to one creature at a time.
Then, authors and monster designers could apply the feat where it makes sense; dragons, giants, titans, tendriculous and so forth. Alternatively, this could simply be written into the PF-RPG grapple mechanic, but that might invite abuse.
In either case, I think this, or some more elegant solution to the problem, is important enough to be part of the PF-RPG core.
Thanks,
Doug Daulton
PS1: Preemptive apologies if this issue was previously raised and addressed. I did a cursory forum search and did not find it.
PS2: For experienced RHoD nit-pickers ... Yes. I advanced the dragon. :) The party was over APL and needed more of a challenge.
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stuff about not being able to do anything in a grapple...
Check out this text from Improved Grab:
The creature has the option to conduct the grapple normally, or simply use the part of its body it used in the improved grab to hold the opponent. If it chooses to do the latter, it takes a –20 penalty on grapple checks, but is not considered grappled itself; the creature does not lose its Dexterity bonus to AC, still threatens an area, and can use its remaining attacks against other opponents.
A huge or larger creature can get access to this through the Snatch feat:
The creature can choose to start a grapple when it hits with a claw or bite attack, as though it had the improved grab special attack.
I think this should fix your problem nicely. Should still be easy for something really big to grapple something puny. For example, I've had great fun using this with a Great Red Wyrm. Just hold one guy automatically in his mouth (something like +55 grapple after the -20) and lay waste to everyone else. When it's time for the breath weapon, well that guy in the mouth is toast.
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Also, if you want to look at savage species(which sadly is not OGL and thus not available for PRPG) there are some feats similar to this in there. As was mentioned above, with improved grab you could take a -20. In savage species there is a feat to reduce that to -10, and then I believe a greater version that negates the penalty altogether.
-Tarlane
I think this should fix your problem nicely. Should still be easy for something really big to grapple something puny. For example, I've had great fun using this with a Great Red Wyrm. Just hold one guy automatically in his mouth (something like +55 grapple after the -20) and lay waste to everyone else. When it's time for the breath weapon, well that guy in the mouth is toast.
Note, however, that grappling in Pathfinder is much harder in general. A young adult red dragon has a CMB modifier of +31 in Pathfinder (vs. a grapple bonus of +37 in 3.5E); a -20 modifier would reduce that to +11. A level 10 gnome druid has a CMB of maybe +5 (+7 BAB, -1 str, -1 size).
The only difference in +17 vs. +5 and +11 vs. +5 is that it goes from being a sure thing to being an almost sure thing. A +11 to +5 still heavily favors the dragon.
Grapple is like any other CMB maneuver, it's vs a DC of 15 + the opponent's CMB. Basically, the defender gets a high average roll automatically.
So what we are looking at is:
3.5e
Avg rolls, 11+17 vs 11+5
28 vs 16
Pathfinder
Avg rolls, 11+11 vs 15+5
22 vs 20
It's actually much, much, much closer than before.
The -20 rule for Improved Grab may need to be reviewed or tweaked for the new grapple rules.
I can understand making things not necessarily "always land, short of a 1", but this is about making something able to grapple something and maintain his mobility. Leave the CMB the way Pathfinder is now doing it, but maybe reduce the penalty for splitting attention, so that it doesn't basically mean you're unable to hold any grapple (short of extremely beastly grapple creatures).
A dragon holding a weak creature in it's mouth while still maneuvering around the battlefield shouldn't be that hard for it. The -20 rule was made when taking obscene grapple scores into account.
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The -20 rule for Improved Grab may need to be reviewed or tweaked for the new grapple rules.
I can understand making things not necessarily "always land, short of a 1", but this is about making something able to grapple something and maintain his mobility. Leave the CMB the way Pathfinder is now doing it, but maybe reduce the penalty for splitting attention, so that it doesn't basically mean you're unable to hold any grapple (short of extremely beastly grapple creatures).
A dragon holding a weak creature in it's mouth while still maneuvering around the battlefield shouldn't be that hard for it. The -20 rule was made when taking obscene grapple scores into account.
My initial thought - (without actually trying it out yet mind you) is the equivalence of -10
DC 25 + CMB to perform this feat.
10th level small sized druid probably had a CMB of about +7; that would be DC 32. A Dragon would add BAB of about 13, Size of +4 and Str of about +9 means the dragon would need to roll a 6 (or so) to be able to do this. Certainly within means - but not automatic.
Robert