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All,
Currently, I have a quadraped eidolon with Bite and Trip. I've just leveled and considering adding Grab to the Bite. If I hit with the bite, do I have to choose between making a free trip or a free grab, or do I get to make both a free trip and a free grab? The relevant language is as follows: "Whenever the eidolon makes a successful bite attack of the selected type, it can attempt a free combat maneuver check. If successful, the target is knocked prone" and "Pick bite, claw, slam, tail slap, or tentacles attacks. Whenever the eidolon makes a successful attack of the selected type, it can attempt a free combat maneuver check. If successful, the eidolon grapples the target." I first went to the definition of free actions and all it says is: "Free actions don't take any time at all, though there may be limits to the number of free actions you can perform in a turn", without providing for when these limits occur. Core/ p. 188. I read the entry in the Core Rulebook about combat maneuvers to see if it discussed multiple combat maneuvers arising from the same attack and it was silent on the issue. Perhaps the Bestiary can shed some light on this issue, but I don't own that book. Any assistance from judges or players who play summoners with this combination of evolutions would be greatly appreciated.
Erich L.
This is an interesting question. Most (probably all) monsters that have one of these abilities are written so that they can trip or grab, not both. The <Combat Maneuver> Strike series of feats also explicitly states that you can only perform one combat maneuver, even if you have multiple feats.
As written, I do not see a reason why you could not do it. It probably was not intended to be allowed (as I do not know of a monster that can do both).
Whether it is balanced or not, I do not know. If you succeed on the trip, that gives the target -4 to CMD to resist the grapple. On the other hand, taking this evolution also means that you are not taking some other evolution (of presumably equal power) like rake or ability increase (strength). On the other other hand, the target will likely have -4 to CMD until it escapes the grapple. (Can you stand up while grappled?)
It looks like a legal and effective combination. I would expect it to be strong, but probably not overpowered. If I was the GM, I would allow it, with the warning that I might change my mind once I saw how strong it was. If I did change my mind, you would be able to reassign the evolution immediately to anything else that you could have taken at the time you took trip.
Personally, I don't know why we wouldn't be able to do both trip and grapple on one turn. But I may be mistaken.
As a Judo practitioner (again), I sometimes see Ippons (victories) given to people who successfully do that: in one move, they grab the opponent and slam them on the ground, already pinned. In PRPG terms, that would be a Greater Grapple because initiating a Grapple is a standard action and they can roll again to pin them as their move action. But pinning an opponent isn't the same as tripping them.
I would house-rule the trip+grab attempt as a "greater grab" doing the same as greater grapple.