"You smile like Death when your hands find a soft and squishy area under the Tarrasque's carapace. You grab hold and wrench the sensitive area, rewarded by a roar from the mighty beast."
Next turn Tarrasque breaks your grapple and turns you into jelly. Congrats! :)
Sorry Evil Lincoln, but I'm totally okay with something like this happening. :)
That said, I had some quick and dirty rules for clinging onto someone (think Shadows of the Colossus or Dragon's Dogma).
Pretty much, you grappled them. You were considered grappled, not the enemy. You can't pin him. However, now the enemy is flat-footed to you, representing that you are looking for his weakspot and attacking it. Worked really well. Rogue player liked it a lot too.
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I also seem to recall reading something somewhere about other ways size affects grappling. Maybe it was a 3.5 rule? At the very least, I think there should be something about pinning, moving and tying up foes that are much larger. While I can see a goblin grabbing an ancient dragon's foot in order to bite his ankle, it's a bit harder to imagine a single goblin pulling the dragon across a cave, pinning him and tying him up.
These things are cool, but are they grappling?
Are they physically restricting the movement of another creature? Then it's probably grapple.
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Here's some more wood for the fire maybe...
I got to thinking about the Drag and Reposition maneuvers. Both only allow you to move a target one category larger than you, whereas Grapple lets you move a target of any size category (albeit with at least one more check.) Grapple also lets you move the target alot further. They all allow similar actions in different ways but, for whatever reason, Drag and Reposition have a size clause. If a GM or player can come up with a colorful explanation for how a ratfolk tied up a cloud giant, couldn't they also claim the ratfolk used some sort of aikido move to Drag or Reposition the giant? What's the diff?
I'm thinking it really does come down to description. Otherwise, I think we'd see a size clause added to Grapple so these three similar-but-different maneuvers would have a closer connection. What the rules for Drag and Reposition seem to be saying is that the attacker is relying more on sheer force, size and strength to move their opponent while a small grappler might be using leverage, confusion or salsa dancing to get their opponent from point A to point B (or to pin them, tie them up, etc.)
I'm not really against letting Diminutive grapple gods jerk Colossal brutes around. I've seen plenty of media featuring David vs. Goliath contests, and I've seen real men wrestle real bulls, bears and alligators. I've yet to see an actual dude grapple, pin and rope an actual elephant or an actual hippopotamus, but, as others have pointed out, Pathfinder isn't really about actual dudes.
Grapples happen alot in my game, and I use the grapple rules as written. Bigger and smaller creatures are already penalized or given advantage based on size so whatever. I definitely see where Evil Lincoln is coming from and can understand his wanting a new Combat Maneuver to cover Clinging. If I was going to houserule it, I'd just have Grapple follow the precedent set by Drag and Reposition. I'm not going to do that though because I've already got enough to keep track of without adding houserules.
So I take it that you can use telekinesis to grapple colossal sized vehicles.
Or for that matter, the character itself can grab any sized vehicle. Heh.
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Here's some more wood for the fire maybe...
I got to thinking about the Drag and Reposition maneuvers. Both only allow you to move a target one category larger than you, whereas Grapple lets you move a target of any size category (albeit with at least one more check.) Grapple also lets you move the target alot further. They all allow similar actions in different ways but, for whatever reason, Drag and Reposition have a size clause. If a GM or player can come up with a colorful explanation for how a ratfolk tied up a cloud giant, couldn't they also claim the ratfolk used some sort of aikido move to Drag or Reposition the giant? What's the diff?
I certainly agree that choosing one maneuver to be immune to size differences is very strange. I suspect they just left the size limitation out by accident and then tried to spin it as intentional in hindsight. But I'm a cynic like that. :-)
I've yet to see an actual dude grapple, pin and rope an actual elephant or an actual hippopotamus, but, as others have pointed out, Pathfinder isn't really about actual dudes.
It's not the hippo that I have trouble with — that would fall well in the category super heroism that I am ready to accept.
It's grappling something 5 or 10 times the size of a hippo.
Now, I'm really an advocate of Pathfinder as a superhero game. I have no problem with that. But I am still going to have to house rule this for my own sanity. I make no judgement about the people who decide to keep it in their own games, the arguments are just a little too weak to convince me.
Most colossal monsters get like 60+ CMD, it's not like you can just suddenly grab whatever you want, now.
I believe there is a distinct difference from grapple and drag or repposition. Grapple is limiting movement in any way you can, whether with holds, bars, or pressure points. Also, grappling in real life allows using an opponents momentum and movement against them. Drag and repposition on the other hand consists of you using your own strength to maneuver the targets mass a set distance.
I picture a grapple against a larger creature being similar to many of the aforementioned plots of grabbing nosehair, hangnails, or other sensative spots to control movement as much as possible. Take the idea of grappling an airplane (that should be large enough for everyone!). By wrestling with the tail flap, a person should be able to force the plane to spin in circles until the person is removed. Similarly if a gnome was on a dragons face pulling an eyelash aggressively to the left, I would think the dragon would move to the left instinctively attempting to lesson the pressure and pain. However, a gnome picking up the dragon is completely foolish.
As a final note I support no size limits because that would make nearly every Combat Maneuver based character very very limited in end game play against such large creatures.