I hosted a solo game for one of my players (a dwarven paladin). While sleeping near a swamp at night, he was beset by a tendriculous.
The 20-foot tall hug-sized tendriculous grappled the stumpy dwarf in its tentacles from 15-feet away and attempted to swallow him whole.
As per the grapple rules, he was dragged adjacent to the tendriculoous. Then he escaped.
My player asked me if, because he was ~20 feet in the air, he would take falling damage from having escaped.
Because he was having enough trouble with the monster and because I didn't think a successful check should have negative consequences I ruled that he did not fall and would not take damage (essentially sliding down the creature's trunk and vines to land roughly, but unharmed).
Still, I was curious if anyone would have ruled differently. What would you do if an unusually tall creature grappled a PC and the PC escaped? Would you cause them to fall as a result?
Still, I was curious if anyone would have ruled differently. What would you do if an unusually tall creature grappled a PC and the PC escaped? Would you cause them to fall as a result?
No. But I could understand if another GM ruled that way. I tend to think big grappling critters are scary enough with their vore fetishes without them hurling you into space for nigh guaranteed damage.
How did he get into the air? Is the tendriculous attacking from tree-tops?
Or did you ´choose´ to move him to a square 20´ high for whatever reason?
(by the rules, I would say it is a choice of the grappler which square they are moved to, and since this is an effective tactic, it´s reasonable to choose to move them into the air... on the other hand, if you don´t really want to play that tough, you shouldn´t make that choice)
Moving him to the adjacent square on the ground, if the the tendriculous is on the ground (or 5´ above) is the shortest movement path after all, and doesn´t have this problem.
If he WAS 20´ high and fell, I would apply falling damage, though count it as a purposeful fall letting him reduce the damage (and if it´s a swamp, it seems plausible the ground is soft, further reducing the falling dmg... though it seems like it should also count as difficcult terrain if that´s true)
I guess that depends, if he's dragged to the base of the critter, and hasn't specifically been lifted yet to the mouth in order to be swallowed whole, then technically he'd still be at ground level. If you ruled the character was lifted along hypotenuse rather than the distance and then then the height, 1) I'd wager there'd be a different "drag rate" to calculate and 2) you'd be informing the character he's off the ground, prior to him making the escape attempt.
As a side note I find it odd that it's usually easier to do damage and kill a minster from inside, than from outside, as long as you have a dagger. Which usually leads me to say critters won't try to swallow prey until it's been softened up.
If the tendriculous had him up in the air, banging him on a tree or whatever, then yea, I'd have him take some falling damage. 15 feet isn't that big of a deal, the first 5 are "free" so he'd be taken the 10 foot damage, and if you think about it, if the creature is 15 feet tall it's self, would it be holding him at or above it's own head, or would it be at "chest level" and then it would lean forward to stuff it in his mouth?
Most people don't really lift the food to mouth level and then put in in their mouth along a level plane (unless you go to military school) so there is some bending and stooping involved to eat something.
Therefor, The prey may only be at 10 foot height, with the first 5 feet being "free" and he's only taking damage from falling 5 feet, so what are we talking about 1d6?
Another way to rule, to opposed grapple is for him to wriggle free, but since it's a huge creature and could technically be "ridden" the character could make a "ride" check to see if he could stay "mounted" being on the critters tentacle, shoulder, whatever rather than falling off.
If he had one hand free to hold on with, and made good ride checks, I'd let him hold on and attack it with a weapon in the other hand, with the creature trying to 'buck' him off or throw him or hit him.
We do alot of "riding" giant things like an amphibaena(sp?) we encountered in serpents skull.
I had a character once attacked by a giant praying mantis that was hanging off a pillar 40 feet above ground.
It used it's lunge ability to reach down to grapple me.
The next round, I escaped and fell 20 feet. I took 1d6 falling damage and went prone, then stood.
It then lunged back down and picked me up again.
This would have gone on infinitely until I was dead.
The point is that being locked into a permanent-grapple is lame and it sucks. It's very much alike being trapped in an infinite combo in a fighting game.
It's funny because my players were fighting a trapdoor spider and the groups sword monkey tore its door to pieces wiht his sword before diving down the saft to slam into the spider sword first. He didnt get the sword in but i did give him a bullrush that forced the spider to descend with the inquisitor on top of it. The ensuing closequarters grapple, melee, then bard sleeping the guy because he didnt think spiders were immune, thunderstone and life or death grapple with the spider was probably one of the more badass moments ever seen out of first level characters.
Quandary: I never clarified where he was while grappled, short of saying he was adjacent. It was the player who brought up the idea that, since he was almost swallowed whole, he was likely near the mouth. Looking at the picture in the Bestiary II, his mouth is at the top of the stalk, and the text says he is 20 feet tall.
Cranewings: I actually told him that if he was highly dextrous like some elves (he's anything but) he could have surfed down the tentacles, but since he was a 10 Dex dwarf, he tumbled down instead (to the same effect, if not thematically the same).
Pendagast: He had indeed almost been swallowed already before the issue came up.
Ice Titan: Becuase he was alone, and because the tendriculous had multiple tentacle attacks, this very much was a back and forth. If he didn't have (and use) hero points, he may well have been swallowed whole and died (he didn't even have a light weapon).
It's funny because my players were fighting a trapdoor spider and the groups sword monkey tore its door to pieces wiht his sword before diving down the saft to slam into the spider sword first. He didnt get the sword in but i did give him a bullrush that forced the spider to descend with the inquisitor on top of it. The ensuing closequarters grapple, melee, then bard sleeping the guy because he didnt think spiders were immune, thunderstone and life or death grapple with the spider was probably one of the more badass moments ever seen out of first level characters.
wait, spiders are immune to sleep?
It's funny because my players were fighting a trapdoor spider and the groups sword monkey tore its door to pieces wiht his sword before diving down the saft to slam into the spider sword first. He didnt get the sword in but i did give him a bullrush that forced the spider to descend with the inquisitor on top of it. The ensuing closequarters grapple, melee, then bard sleeping the guy because he didnt think spiders were immune, thunderstone and life or death grapple with the spider was probably one of the more badass moments ever seen out of first level characters.wait, spiders are immune to sleep?
They're mindless vermin. Sleep is a compulsion effect. The fact that the bard even did it was hilarious in the extreme.
They're mindless vermin. Sleep is a compulsion effect. The fact that the bard even did it was hilarious in the extreme.It's funny because my players were fighting a trapdoor spider and the groups sword monkey tore its door to pieces wiht his sword before diving down the saft to slam into the spider sword first. He didnt get the sword in but i did give him a bullrush that forced the spider to descend with the inquisitor on top of it. The ensuing closequarters grapple, melee, then bard sleeping the guy because he didnt think spiders were immune, thunderstone and life or death grapple with the spider was probably one of the more badass moments ever seen out of first level characters.wait, spiders are immune to sleep?
Oh yea, i guess, never tried to use sleep on a spider, guess it's never come up....
Not all sleep effects are compulsion.
I hosted a solo game for one of my players (a dwarven paladin). While sleeping near a swamp at night, he was beset by a tendriculous.
The 20-foot tall hug-sized tendriculous grappled the stumpy dwarf in its tentacles from 15-feet away and attempted to swallow him whole.
As per the grapple rules, he was dragged adjacent to the tendriculoous. Then he escaped.
My player asked me if, because he was ~20 feet in the air, he would take falling damage from having escaped.
Because he was having enough trouble with the monster and because I didn't think a successful check should have negative consequences I ruled that he did not fall and would not take damage (essentially sliding down the creature's trunk and vines to land roughly, but unharmed).
Still, I was curious if anyone would have ruled differently. What would you do if an unusually tall creature grappled a PC and the PC escaped? Would you cause them to fall as a result?
Swampy, soft yielding ground no falling damage? Adjusting the difficulty on the fly because your player was having difficulty? Hey! You're in danger of being a real GM! :)
You absolutely made the right call imo. Falling damage would have been an unecessary complication to an already tense situation imo. Some rule-hounds might disagree but player fun > rules imo. Within reason of course, up to each GM to draw the line that works for them.
I was subjected to almost the exact same situation in our Kingmaker PbP (link)
In that case, the GM had me take falling dmg from 20 ft, with an acrobatics roll to negate some of it. I agreed, and felt it added to the cinematic struggle.
Btw, I recommend taking the time to read through the entire combat, as it was a very epic fight.