how do i do this?

[truesidekick]

if i have a creature grappled with a harpoon, how do i pull it to me.

the grapple "move them" action makes me move with the target, so it wouldnt get any closer. its the same with drag i have to move with the target.

so how do you win a tug of war in this game? opposed strength checks? cmb check? just ignore the requirements of moving with the target? a feat or rule i over looked?

[Talonhawke]

I would say nothing stops you from pulling them closer with a grapple check.

Move
You can move both yourself and your target up to half your speed. At the end of your movement, you can place your target in any square adjacent to you. If you attempt to place your foe in a hazardous location, such as in a wall of fire or over a pit, the target receives a free attempt to break your grapple with a +4 bonus.

Nothing says you move relevent to each other just that you both move up to half your speed. You simply have to keep them within the reach of the harpoon which is your reach so in fact when you start the grapple it moves them adjacent to you as with a normal grapple.

Grapple

As a standard action, you can attempt to grapple a foe, hindering his combat options. If you do not have Improved Grapple, grab, or a similar ability, attempting to grapple a foe provokes an attack of opportunity from the target of your maneuver. Humanoid creatures without two free hands attempting to grapple a foe take a –4 penalty on the combat maneuver roll. If successful, both you and the target gain the grappled condition. If you successfully grapple a creature that is not adjacent to you, move that creature to an adjacent open space (if no space is available, your grapple fails). Although both creatures have the grappled condition, you can, as the creature that initiated the grapple, release the grapple as a free action, removing the condition from both you and the target. If you do not release the grapple, you must continue to make a check each round, as a standard action, to maintain the hold. If your target does not break the grapple, you get a +5 circumstance bonus on grapple checks made against the same target in subsequent rounds. 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).

Bolding mine hope it helps.

[truesidekick]

Talonhawke wrote:

I would say nothing stops you from pulling them closer with a grapple check.

Move
You can move both yourself and your target up to half your speed. At the end of your movement, you can place your target in any square adjacent to you. If you attempt to place your foe in a hazardous location, such as in a wall of fire or over a pit, the target receives a free attempt to break your grapple with a +4 bonus.

Nothing says you move relevent to each other just that you both move up to half your speed. You simply have to keep them within the reach of the harpoon which is your reach so in fact when you start the grapple it moves them adjacent to you as with a normal grapple.

here is my confusion... grapple special weapon ability says:

Grapple: On a successful critical hit with a weapon of this type, you can grapple the target of the attack. The wielder can then attempt a combat maneuver check to grapple his opponent as a free action. This grapple attempt does not provoke an attack of opportunity from the creature you are attempting to grapple if that creature is not threatening you. While you grapple the target with a grappling weapon, you can only move or damage the creature on your turn. You are still considered grappled, though you do not have to be adjacent to the creature to continue the grapple. If you move far enough away to be out of the weapon’s reach, you end the grapple with that action.

so do i get to choose if the target is adjacent to me? it says i can move or attack during the grapple so do i just take a 5 foot step back and its flys to me magically?

oh one more thing, a harpoon is a 10 ranged weapon with a 50ft rope attached. so my "reach" is 50ft technically after the sucessful grapple on a crit.

[Talonhawke]

No reach is talking about the game term here and you have none except your natural so you harpoon a guy and crit you immediatly drag the guy over to you(his movement doesn't provoke.)

Basicly you have 50ft range but 5ft reach here its akward but thats how it is.

[truesidekick]

"reach" was referring to the last line of the grapple special weapon feature. meaning once i pass 50 feet i can no longer maintain the grapple.

i think im to the point where ill just go with a fighter with a great sword. i like the flavor of using a harpoon, but the mechanics are so clunky.

[Talonhawke]

Reach is a game term with a specific meaning when weapons talk about it.
It doesnt matter how much rope is on that harpoon you still only have 5ft of reach.

[truesidekick]

Talonhawke wrote:

Reach is a game term with a specific meaning when weapons talk about it.

It doesnt matter how much rope is on that harpoon you still only have 5ft of reach.

then by that logic the harpoon dosent work at all...

once i toss the weapon at something it would hit, crit, the grapple would be roll, on a success i grapple the target, then all of a sudden the weapon no longer grapples since it is out side of my reach.

and the bolded statses they dont need to be adjacent to be grappled, but that last line would negate the grapple?

WHAT?

[Talonhawke]

No when you get a grapple with the harpoon you then move them adjacent to you if possible if not the grapple fails.

Meaning you throw it 50ft away and crit you drag the guy you hit to you and begin grappling. Though I agree with you and in a house game would probably allow you to manage it at a longer distance but realize that at that point they are just gonna attack the rope not fight the grapple.

[truesidekick]

so basically a harpoon is just the worlds worst deathgrip/grappling hook (if you play starwars) lol

[Sekret_One]

By RAW it kind of makes the harpoon a 'GET OVAR HERE' weapon.

If you succeed the grapple, you in effect succeed on the reeling it in portion I guess. But that seems like an abuse of the rules, seeing as there isn't any RAW requirement for a rope to even be attached to the harpoon to get that grapple going.

Tying a rope onto something normally increases the reach...