Grapple questions

[David Spaar]

I like the basic ideas behind combat maneuvers, but in our game the other night we still had questions arise related to grappling. Specifically, the rules seem to adopt the concept of one creature as the initiator of the grapple and the other as the resistor, with those roles maintained throughout the struggle. However, we had a situation in which a skum grappled a dwarf PC, and rather than try to break the grapple, the dwarf wished to move both creatures in a particular direction, as part of a successful grapple maintenance check.

Since the dwarf hadn't started the grapple, but was indeed grappled by the skum, how exactly is this resolved, and more importantly, what happens when the dwarf fails to "maintain" the grapple?

The way it played out, the dwarf used a standard action to attempt to maintain the grapple and move both creatures. The attempt failed, but clearly the grapple wasn't broken since the dwarf hadn't attempted to break free and neither had the skum. On the skum's turn, it too failed to maintain the grapple, at which point I ruled the grapple was broken. But it seemed to me the rules default to the position that there will always be one creature attempting to maintain the grapple and another always trying to break free. That wasn't the situation we had in our game. The resulting situation got me to thinking about how you determine unequivocally if a grapple is broken due to failure of the roll, and I still don't understand how to make that determination. Thoughts? Suggestions?

Thanks! :)

[hogarth]

My two cents: I don't think that grappling is "commutative" any more, so the fact that the skum is grappling the dwarf doesn't mean that the dwarf is grappling the skum (even though they both have the "grappled" condition).

So the dwarf would first have to get a hold on the skum on Turn 1, and then the next turn he could try to move the grapple on Turn 2. If the dwarf fails his CMB check against the skum, then his grapple against the skum ends but it doesn't affect the skum's grapple against him.

(Note: This is based on my reading of the rules together with what makes sense to me. It's certainly possible to come up with a reading of the rules that doesn't make sense, for instance where the dwarf's failed grapple check means that skum's grapple ends.)

[David Spaar]

Thanks for the thoughts, Hogarth, I'm pretty sure we'll be running this as you suggest. I still get a kind of skeevy feeling like the situation ain't quite right with grappling in general, but I suppose that as long as the thing is balanced mechanically it's survivable.

[hogarth]

David Spaar wrote:

Thanks for the thoughts, Hogarth, I'm pretty sure we'll be running this as you suggest. I still get a kind of skeevy feeling like the situation ain't quite right with grappling in general, but I suppose that as long as the thing is balanced mechanically it's survivable.

I definitely liked the 3.5 version better (e.g., the grapple continues until someone breaks out or no one wants to grapple any more), but I think the new way should be O.K.