Reading the OP it sounds like a mistake was made and the maneuver training was applied to both CMB and CMD
I had been doing the same thing. Thanks for the catch.
A player in my group had a devastating build, I can only remember loosely how it worked, a classic half orc monk build, all the grapple feats, he would have himself "Enlarged" (from the spell, usually from a cheap 'uses per day' item from the Magic Item Compendium), "Bull Strength". He taken some magic gloves from the Magic Item Compendium that gave him a generic bonus to Grapple rolls and he had the Clever Wrestling feat from the Draconomicon.
Everyone nicknamed him "Mr. Squeeze" (Half Orc Monk/Tattooed Monk) on account of his habit of turning people into pretzels Zohan style. Only things he hated?...Freedom of Movement and Oozes who by their very definition made their living off of 'touching/engulfing' stuff.
A grappler character was devastating in 3.5 and in Pathfinder they can be equally deadly, thats why I started giving my bad guys the Close Quarters Fighting feat I posted above, it helped but not much...lol, but it still damaged the Monk a little, enough that it'd count over a period of time.
Well I didn't read the whole thread, but I have a Dwarven monk in my party that is level 5 and he has a CMB at 13 and a CMD at 26!
He has a 14 in str, a 16 in dex and a 18 in wis. So the stats are not overpowered. He has improved grapple of course but his CMD is equal to a Girallon and greater than a hill giants(who has 25 in str)!
That just doesn't make sense.
Don't get me wrong I love Pathfinder, but the monks CMB and CMD, I think, is too powerful. And it only gets better as he adds his level instead of his bab.
Where's the dwarf's extra +4 coming from?
Oh I see he added his Wis mod to his CMB, that's not right is it? But he gets it to his CMD
By my calculations:
5 BAB + 2 str + 2 IG = +9 CMB
3 BAB + 2 str + 2 IG + 3 dex + 4 wis + 1 monkAC + 10 = 25 CMD
What am I missing?
On an unrelated note: remember that all grappled creatures take a -4 to Dex. That lowers CMDs by 2, which means that someone trying to break or maintain a grapple always has it a little easier.
The lack of a concentration skill in pathfinder makes grapple much deadlier for casters.
Note that the spellcaster would have been almost as powerless to break free in 3.5, so this isn't really a 3.5 vs. Pathfinder issue.My 2 cents: let the grappling guy have his moment in the spotlight. There will be plenty of encounters in the future where grappling isn't a good option.
Let's suppose we have a 7th level wizard with 14 Con and 20 Int who is trying to cast Dimension Door to get out of a grapple.
3.5: Concentration +12 vs. DC 24 to cast successfully
PFRPG: Concentration +12 vs. DC 14 + CMB (= 27 in the original poster's case) to cast successfully
That's somewhat more difficult (55% vs. 40% chance of success), but it doesn't seem like a huge difference to me, although there could certainly be some cases where the grappler's CMB is very high.
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Getting grappling is thing that can happen to a caster, especially weak strength wizards and the like. This was intended by the developer as part of the "don't let your caster get into melee combat" rebalancing of magic-users.
Monks, as a class, are probably the best caster-blocks in the game. They can move about the battlefield with unparalleled ease, they have a lot of synergy with grappling, and they have evasion, awesome saves, and massive touch ACs. Really in the example of the OP the cards were majorly stacked against the cleric. Which is not the poster's fault. They game was designed for 3.5 and grappling's complications discouraged people from using it. Any 3.5 era adventure is going to need tweaking for PF, if just for the fact that PCs have more powerful class features and more HP.
If your caster BBEG is facing a monk he generally has ONE real chance to escape and that is to cast something in the round that monk initiates the grapple (and remember that melee monsters can also full attack the monk in the 1st round of grappling). At least then the cleric is making a check with his level and highest stat bonus and hopefully combat casting.
I would encourage the original poster to not try to houserule grappling or try to limit the player who has built his character by the RAW. Instead, try to limit the enemies vulnerability to grapples, but still give this character who grapples reasons to use the feats and tactics he/she has chosen. Perhaps the next caster will be in a very difficult to reach position, and the monk is going to have to take several rounds to get there. Perhaps the next caster has a ready dimension door, or perhaps some damaging or compromising spell ready, with combat casting, or quickened. In any case try not to be too punitive as the player may feel like your are trying to get revenge.