Multiple Grapplers and "Aid Another"?

[Garden Tool]

Hello!

A quick(ish) question about multiple grapplers.

I'm looking for RAW - or failing that, RAI - answers. Not houseruled solutions (nothing against houserules, that's just not what I'm after, here).

Question: Fred Fighter, Wally Wizard, and Bob Barbarian are fighting an ogre with a penchant for grappling. Our heroes have tangled with this ogre before, and they know he's deadly in a grapple. Unfortunately, he's heading straight for poor, scrawny Wally Wizard...

Fred Fighter's initiative count is up. He knows this ogre is a deadly grappler, so Fred grapples Wally himself. Multiple creatures can only grapple a single creature via the aid another action to assist the original grappler. So if the ogre wants to grapple Wally now... is the best he can do really just to use the aid another action to "help" Fred grapple Wally?

If so... can Fred, as the initial grappler, release Wally as a free action on his next turn, if he so chooses? The ogre was only "aiding" Fred, so would Fred's failure to maintain the grapple simply free Wally?

Could Wally Wizard's familiar (Herbie Hedgehog) grapple Wally in order to protect him from the ogre's grapple? Better yet, could Wally simply use summon monster I to summon a celestial creature to "grapple-and-release" him, to protect him from being grappled by the ogre? Could he summon a handful of summoned monsters or use animate dead in order to protect his whole team in a similar fashion?

Would these tactics work against a shoggoth? The tarrasque?

Would these tactics prevent the use of the engulf ability?

[hogarth]

Heh, interesting. Actually, it doesn't sound too unreasonable to me in the base case; if Wally has Fred in a headlock, it would be hard for the ogre to get Fred in a headlock, too. But note that (as far as I know), you can't let your ally "auto-succeed" on a grapple; so, for instance, it would be hard for Herbie to successfully grapple Wally in the first place. Of course, it gets somewhat ridiculous when you're talking about the tarrasque.

That reminds me of similarly silly incident in a 3.5 game. My psion was being attacked from range, so he started grappling his psicrystal. Suddenly, all ranged attacks into the grapple had a 50% chance of hitting the psicrystal instead. ;-)

[Garden Tool]

Hm... so if you cannot lower your CMD voluntarily... then can a character grapple a sleeping creature automatically? Can you carry your new wife across the threshold without a CMB check? Do you have to roll in order to hug your grandma?

: P

In all seriousness, though:

Can you voluntarily decide to offer no resistance to a grapple? If you - the tricksy rogue - want to get grappled by the big bad bully because you're secretly an Agile Maneuvers build with a big CMB modifier and you're about to kick his butt - does the other guy really have to roll in order to get his hands on a willing opponent?

Is it harder to voluntarily get grabbed the stronger, faster, and better trained you get?

And:

Is there any way to grapple a character who is already grappling?

Come to think of it, this opens a bit of a can of worms, if not.

Can I make an animal companion or summoned minion invisible and have them grapple me in order to keep me safe from grapplers and the Grab and Engulf special abilities... AND waste my attackers' turns and actions as they try to grapple me while my invisible minion has me grappled already?

Actually, this can get even sillier...

Theoretically, I could have my animal companion or summoned wolf (50 ft. speed) or what have you grapple me, and use it's action every round to "move the grapple" half it's speed (25 feet). I get a free move and immunity to grapple, Grab, and similar attacks in exchange for a -2 on most actions. Not bad on a spellcaster. And if I'm Small sized, a dwarf, or wearing medium armor, that's a speed increase!

Unfortunately, I can't easily cast spells while being dragged around (although my minion isn't likely to have TOO high a CMB, so the check will be easy). And if I really need to ditch the penalties to take an action, my minion can let me go as a free action, then ready an action to grab me after I cast my spell, or attack, or whatever.

OR I can just order my companion (or familiar, or summoned minion, or animated undead, or cohort) to ready an action to grapple me if I am attacked by a grappling beastie.

And if my grapple-buddy is invisible, all the better!

Thoughts?

[hogarth]

Garden Tool wrote:

Unfortunately, I can't easily cast spells while being dragged around although my minion isn't likely to have TOO high a CMB, so the check will be easy.

But the lower your minion's CMB, the more likely it is to drop you and end the grapple. Then it'll have to waste one or more actions trying to pick you up and restart the grapple.

If this were 3.5, where one could start a grapple and then it would continue indefinitely without requiring any actions and where there was no penalty for a failed grapple check, it might be more useful.

All of this is kind of hypothetical, of course. I suspect most GMs wouldn't let you get away with anything really weird.

[Garden Tool]

hogarth wrote:

All of this is kind of hypothetical, of course. I suspect most GMs wouldn't let you get away with anything really weird.

Kind of. Silliness aside, the question remains: can you prevent a grapple by BEING in a grapple, and does that tactic really work across the board for monsters and characters of all sizes?

As a fragile-but-important character like a wizard, having someone's animal companion or summoned minion hold me in a grapple each round (or attempt to do so, if I can't fail my CMB voluntarily) sounds like a REALLY great (and important, if it works) tactic against a lot of monsters. Have you noticed how many monsters have improved grapple, grab, constrict, engulf, or swallow whole? It's a lot.

And making said companion or minion invisible nets me the added benefit of wasting some of an opponents actions (barring see invisibility) for a round (or more) without a spell or a save.

[hogarth]

Garden Tool wrote:

Kind of. Silliness aside, the question remains: can you prevent a grapple by BEING in a grapple, and does that tactic really work across the board for monsters and characters of all sizes?

Yes (until your GM says it doesn't work).

Garden Tool wrote:

As a fragile-but-important character like a wizard, having someone's animal companion or summoned minion hold me in a grapple each round (or attempt to do so, if I can't fail my CMB voluntarily) sounds like a REALLY great (and important, if it works) tactic against a lot of monsters.

As noted above, I think it's more inconvenient than you're making it out to be; either there's a lot of failures on behalf of the grappler, or a hefty penalty for the grapplee (a concentration check for spellcasters, the inability to use 2-handed weapons for non-spellcasters, the inability to move without using a standard action to move the grapple for everyone).

[thepuregamer]

Aren't people who are grappled flatfooted to attacks from people outside the grapple?

If so, wouldn't said ogre just pound on the wizard for a round while you 2 are rolling around on the ground choking each other?

[hogarth]

thepuregamer wrote:

Aren't people who are grappled flatfooted to attacks from people outside the grapple?

If so, wouldn't said ogre just pound on the wizard for a round while you 2 are rolling around on the ground choking each other?

The ogre is probably a weird example. But there are a number of creatures where a full attack (even with the AC/Dex penalty for being grappled) is preferable to being by the creature itself (e.g. a behir has only a single attack, but can swallow whole or rake when grappling).

[LazarX]

Does the ogre have two cells in his brain stem to roll together?

If so, he'll realise that Fred and Wally are virtually defenseless against any weapon attack imposed from outside the grapple and he'll mash with his club or slam attack and hope he rolls on the 50 percent chance to hit the target he desires.

[thepuregamer]

to be honest, if I were dming and whenever I had a big grappler out the pc's starting hugging each other I would probably laugh. at first.

Then I would eventually design an encounter that would make this tactic turn ugly... and then I would laugh.

[Irthos]

It'll take longer than usual, but the ogre can still grab Wally using the RAW. Here's how it'll go down:

The ogre uses Aid Another action to help Fred hang onto Wally. With his CMB of +9, the ogre is pretty much guaranteed to succeed. He's now part of the grapple, and gains the grappled condition. On his next turn, the ogre can attempt to reverse of the grapple. (This doesn't require him to be the defender in a grapple; only to have the grappled condition- see "If You Are Grappled" in the combat rules.) He rolls his grapple check against the current controller, Fred's CMD rather than Wally's; if he succeeds, he's now in control of the grapple until Fred gets a chance to take control again.

Fred's free to release Wally at any point, but it'll leave Wally and the ogre grappling with no controller How things resolve themselves at this point is unclear in the RAW; Id' suggest either an opposed grapple check, or giving each grapplers a roll against the other's CMD.

Of course, this could also happen the other way around: if the ogre grabs Wally first, Fred can join and reverse the grapple, then immediately release his buddy. However, he'll also be giving the ogre a +2 on grapple checks for a round, which Wally may not appreciate...