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First, the relevant definitions from the glossary:
Pinned: A pinned creature is tightly bound and can take few actions. A pinned creature cannot move and is flat-footed. A pinned character also takes an additional –4 penalty to his Armor Class. A pinned creature is limited in the actions that it can take. A pinned creature can always attempt to free itself, usually through a combat maneuver check or Escape Artist check. A pinned creature can take verbal and mental actions, but cannot cast any spells that require a somatic or material component. A pinned character who attempts to cast a spell must make a concentration check (DC 10 + grappler's CMB + spell level) or lose the spell. Pinned is a more severe version of grappled, and their effects do not stack.
Prone: The character is lying on the ground. A prone attacker has a –4 penalty on melee attack rolls and cannot use a ranged weapon (except for a crossbow). A prone defender gains a +4 bonus to Armor Class against ranged attacks, but takes a –4 penalty to AC against melee attacks.
Which AC penalties apply when a creature is both pinned and prone?
For example, say you've got a creature with a normal AC of 26. He should lose 4 points of AC due to being pinned (and also loses Dex bonus to AC, but let's assume there isn't any). The last clause of Prone says the defender would take a -4 AC penalty against melee attacks.
Neither one is typed, but it seems to me (from a "logic" standpoint) that both are due to the same thing: restricted movement. Yet it appears that by RAW they stack.
Opinions?
(I ruled that they do, in fact, stack for last night's game. But it may change for the next session.)
Yes they stack. They're untyped penalties.
IMHO, pinned does not mean necessarily that you are on the ground. You could have your libs blocked by a monk or a tentacle, or a tentacled monk.
If prone and pin happen in the same time, I'd say they stack (penalties always stack IIRC).
They stack, but pinned doesn't mean that they are prone. It can be a bear hug, a full nelson, jaws around the body etc.
penalties always stack IIRC
They follow the same rules as bonuses, so you can't curse someone twice to give them a -12 strength.
This is from the rules:
Penalty: Penalties are numerical values that are subtracted from a check or statistical score. Penalties do not have a type and most penalties stack with one another.
They stack, unless you are basically trying to apply the same penalty twice. This means that indeed you cannot stack two -6 penalties by cursing someone twice, but the penalties from the pinned and prone conditions are different penalties, so they should stack.
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This is from the rules:
Penalty: Penalties are numerical values that are subtracted from a check or statistical score. Penalties do not have a type and most penalties stack with one another.They stack, unless you are basically trying to apply the same penalty twice. This means that indeed you cannot stack two -6 penalties by cursing someone twice, but the penalties from the pinned and prone conditions are different penalties, so they should stack.
We've always played that pinned superceeds prone.
Pinned means you can't move. Prone means you are horizontal on the ground instead of vertical standing up.
These are two completely different things, so I'm not sure why you'd want to "supersede" one with another.
You can be unable to move and on the ground. For people shooting at you, that's a -0 modifier to AC, and for people attacking you in melee that's a -8 penalty to AC (can't move and the "standing over you as you lay flat" bonus).
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Pinned means you can't move. Prone means you are horizontal on the ground instead of vertical standing up.
These are two completely different things, so I'm not sure why you'd want to "supersede" one with another.
You can be unable to move and on the ground. For people shooting at you, that's a -0 modifier to AC, and for people attacking you in melee that's a -8 penalty to AC (can't move and the "standing over you as you lay flat" bonus).
I've never seen a situation where one could be pinned without being grappled by another creature.
I've never seen a situation where one could be pinned without being grappled by another creature.
Who is talking about being pinned and not being grappled? Do your grapples happen on the ground, prone, all the time?
For one, Grappling in Pathfinder is simply holding onto the person, messing them up a little. It's not "draping all over them". Pinning, by an extension, involves simply making the opponent unable to move anymore.
Examples of this have been literally given earlier in this thread:
You could have your libs blocked by a monk or a tentacle, or a tentacled monk.
It can be a bear hug, a full nelson, jaws around the body etc.
Bear hugs and full nelsons rarely happen with the grapplers on the ground, for instance (at least not to start, you might then do the "move your victim" action and make them prone).. a T-Rex grabbing you in it's mouth and lifting you in the air, not exactly prone.
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But that's all besides the point. Pinned = can't move, therefore the AC penalty is a factor of "not moving".
Prone = low to the ground, which is more of a "higher ground" bonus for the melee attacker standing over you, and a "smaller target" bonus against the ranged attacker trying to shoot you from a distance.
If Pinned were a more severe form of being on the ground, then it doesn't make sense that ranged attacks would be affected completely differently than melee combat (going from +4 to -4, an 8 point difference, whereas melee stays at the same -4?).
Remember, being Pinned isn't like being Pinned in the real-world, WWE sense. It's not someone laying on top of you waiting for a three count.
Pinned is just held immobilized.
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Remember, being Pinned isn't like being Pinned in the real-world, WWE sense. It's not someone laying on top of you waiting for a three count.
Pinned is just held immobilized.
We've always assumed that being pinned was a result of being pinned to the ground by another creature. We never thought to apply the prone penalties as well.
I've never seen a situation where one could be pinned without being grappled by another creature.
Tie Up: If you have your target pinned, otherwise restrained, or unconscious, you can use rope to tie him up. This works like a pin effect, but the DC to escape the bonds is equal to 20 + your Combat Maneuver Bonus (instead of your CMD). The ropes do not need to make a check every round to maintain the pin. If you are grappling the target, you can attempt to tie him up in ropes, but doing so requires a combat maneuver check at a –10 penalty. If the DC to escape from these bindings is higher than 20 + the target's CMB, the target cannot escape from the bonds, even with a natural 20 on the check.
Get your target "otherwise restrained or unconscious" and then tie him up. Pinned without being grappled by another creature. Even if this uses the grapple rules...
I have another question related to the Pinned condition.
I always thought that when you pin a foe (giving him the Pinned condition) you have to renew the Pin every round (well, since the rule was this in 3.x: "You can hold your opponent immobile for 1 round"). The text is not completely clear (well, at least for me) if this is still true, however:
"Once you are grappling an opponent, a successful check allows you to continue grappling the foe, and also allows you to perform one of the following actions (as part of the standard action spent to maintain the grapple).
(...)
Pin: You can give your opponent the pinned condition (see Conditions). Despite pinning your opponent, you still only have the grappled condition, but you lose your Dexterity bonus to AC."
Again, I've played for a bit with this assumption in mind (that you have to perform the Pin action every round in order to keep the foe pinned); however, most people assume that once you have given the Pinned condition, you have simply 'changed' the condition of your enemy and on following rounds you can opt for other maneuvers (in this case, Damage, Move or Tie Up). The text for Tie Up seems to conferm this reading, since it makes a difference whether you are trying to Tie Up a pinned character or simply a 'restrained' character.
"If you are grappling the target, you can attempt to tie him up in ropes, but doing so requires a combat maneuver check at a –10 penalty."
I'm reading this as 'all right, if the target has the Pinned condition you can Tie him Up with a regular check, if he is not you have to take the -10'; in this case, if the Pinned condition has to be renewed every round (as my original reading), only a character with the Greater Grapple (or a creature with the Grab ability which has chosen to take the -20 penalty not to be considered Grappled itself) could try the Pin without the -10 penalty (standard action to 'renew' the Pin, move action to Tie Up). But this seems a bit too harsh. (or maybe I've gotten all this totally wrong)
So, what is your idea? Was my first impression wrong (the 'must renew the Pin every round')? Once the Pinned condition has been given, is the target Pinned until he succeeds in a check to free himself (or until you fail a subsequent Grapple check in later rounds)?
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Okay, so the penalties stack for Pinned and Prone. I'm cool with that. :)
But does the grappler need to be prone to maintain the pin? In PF the grappler does not enter the grapplee's square, so a grappler could pin a creature who was 5-ft above them and one square to the side (essentially one 5-ft cube away in an upward diagonal direction). Does this make sense?
If the answer is "no", then perhaps it also doesn't make sense to be able to pin someone on the ground when the grappler is standing up?
"Once you are grappling an opponent, a successful check allows you to continue grappling the foe, and also allows you to perform one of the following actions (as part of the standard action spent to maintain the grapple).
This answers your question. You must make a grapple check each round to maintain the grapple, which means you can apply the Pinned condition to the target if your check succeeds.
If your check fails, the target is no longer grappled. If you have Greater Grapple you can attempt to grapple them again but you won't get the +5 bonus for maintaining the grapple.
This answers your question. You must make a grapple check each round to maintain the grapple, which means you can apply the Pinned condition to the target if your check succeeds.
If your check fails, the target is no longer grappled. If you have Greater Grapple you can attempt to grapple them again but you won't get the +5 bonus for maintaining the grapple.
Hmm, maybe I wasn't able to explain my doubts well enough. I completely agree with you on what you said - you have to make a Grapple check each round (or at least succeed in one check, if possessing the greater Grapple feat), otherwise your opponent escapes from your Grapple/Pin/whatever.
What is not clear for me is if you have to make a "Grapple check - Pin action" every round in order to give the Pinned condition to your opponent (like it was clearly stated in 3.x, since the Pinned condition had the duration of 1 round only back then), or if the Pinned condition, once 'triggered', becomes the new 'fixed' status on your opponent (which is, on following rounds you can, for example, make a 'Grapple check - Damage action' and your target is still Pinned after that) until either you fail your check, release your opponent, or he succeeds in his own Grapple check made to escape.
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What is not clear for me is if you have to make a "Grapple check - Pin action" every round in order to give the Pinned condition to your opponent (like it was clearly stated in 3.x,
Nope, I understood you. :)
You make a single "maintain" check each round. You may perform one of the following: Move, Damage, Pin.
Sounds to me like you need to use that action to keep the pin going. If you choose to do one of the others then you are, by definition, not maintaining the pin.
So you have my same readings of the rules. Well, at least I'm not alone on that idea (although now I'm a little confused).
I asked this because some months ago I made the assertion that in order to keep pinning your foe every round, you have to actually use an action in order to do so (and by consequence, the only way to damage a pinned opponent was the use of the Greater Grapple feat - one action to keep the pin and one action to damage the foe). However, many people were of a different advice.
Actually, as far as I can tell, you don't need to keep pinning someone every round, you just need to maintain the grapple. This also allows you to damage your pinned foe as a part of maintaining the grapple.
Getting pinned is super-duper bad. It can lead to helplessness which quickly leads to coup d'gras and death. As such, when someone starts grappling you, you get to respond with a full round action to make them regret it.
Thats how I read it too, once the pin is made the grappler can subsequently do any of the other grappling activities. So that by making a check to maintain the grapple/pin he can deal damage to the pinned creature.
THIS was the original thread back then.
Judging from the fact that the whole thread was of that advice, I thought that it was an established rule and basically that I was wrong; however, I was never totally convinced by that explanation (maybe I'm a little stubborn), so I decided to try to ask it again (since a lot of time has passed since then) in order to have a 'final' answer to my question. However, since I see that I'm not alone in thinking what I thought... I'm a little confused.
And again, I think that yours (and mine) reading is still the more reasonable...
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Okay, so the penalties stack for Pinned and Prone. I'm cool with that. :)
But does the grappler need to be prone to maintain the pin? In PF the grappler does not enter the grapplee's square, so a grappler could pin a creature who was 5-ft above them and one square to the side (essentially one 5-ft cube away in an upward diagonal direction). Does this make sense?
If the answer is "no", then perhaps it also doesn't make sense to be able to pin someone on the ground when the grappler is standing up?
Any further comment on this?
I wouldn't keep beating a dead horse like this but grappling is the favored schtick of one of the PCs so I'm sure this will come up again...
Okay, so the penalties stack for Pinned and Prone. I'm cool with that. :)
But does the grappler need to be prone to maintain the pin? In PF the grappler does not enter the grapplee's square, so a grappler could pin a creature who was 5-ft above them and one square to the side (essentially one 5-ft cube away in an upward diagonal direction). Does this make sense?
If the answer is "no", then perhaps it also doesn't make sense to be able to pin someone on the ground when the grappler is standing up?
Any further comment on this?
I wouldn't keep beating a dead horse like this but grappling is the favored schtick of one of the PCs so I'm sure this will come up again...
I don't think a Pinner needs to be prone himself to keep a prone target pinned.
Visually, think of 'While standing, I firmly put one of my feet on his throat while simultaneously holding one of his arms towards me.'
Mechanically, nothing in the rules say that a Pinner must be prone to keep his target pinned (of course, some people could object that in order to make prone a target you would need a Trip maneuver, not a Grapple maneuver; however, I personally believe that the 'Move' action could reasonably allow the Grappler to move his target from a standing position to a prone position. Of course, other GMs could disagree).
I am particularily interested in these rules too, since one of the players I'm GMing with has a 'grappling machine' as a character :)
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Visually, think of 'While standing, I firmly put one of my feet on his throat while simultaneously holding one of his arms towards me.'
Ah, that works for me. :)
(of course, some people could object that in order to make prone a target you would need a Trip maneuver, not a Grapple maneuver;
And this was the case IMC. The target was already prone by a PC specialized in shield bashing ;-)
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Visually, think of 'While standing, I firmly put one of my feet on his throat while simultaneously holding one of his arms towards me.'Ah, that works for me. :)
Yeah, they are not always the easiest ways to pin a foe, but they are definately doable, indeed when I was learning the kata of shoulder dislocations one involved having the opponent face down on th floor while I stood over him and had his arm pinned around my leg and side so that I had both hands free and if I shoulder rolled forward I would dislocate the foes shoulder :)
So definately doable :)