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So my question before my DM goes crazy and tells me no I cant, does a ninja with strangler and greater grapple get two sneak attacks in a round while grappling.
Here is my character for those who wish to see it.
NINJA GUNSLINGER CR 8
Female Human Ninja 9
NN Medium Humanoid (Human)
Init +7; Senses Perception +14
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DEFENSE
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AC 23, touch 16, flat-footed 18. . (+6 armor, +5 Dex, +1 natural, +1 deflection)
hp 56 (9d8)
Fort +5, Ref +13, Will +7
Defensive Abilities Improved Uncanny Dodge (Lv >=13)
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OFFENSE
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Spd 30 ft., Light Steps
Melee +1 Brass Knuckles +10/+5 (1d3+4/20/x2) and
. . Unarmed Strike +9/+4 (1d3+3/20/x2)
Ranged +1 Holy Pepperbox +12/+7 (1d8+1/20/x4)
Special Attacks Ki Attack Speed, Sneak Attack +5d6
Spell-Like Abilities Vanishing Trick
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STATISTICS
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Str 14/16, Dex 18/20, Con 10, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 14
Base Atk +6; CMB +11 (+15 Grappling); CMD 28 (30 vs. Grapple)
Feats Agile Maneuvers, Deadly Aim -2/+4, Defensive Combat Training, Greater Grapple, Gunsmithing, Improved Grapple, Improved Unarmed Strike, Strangler
Traits Magical Talent: Ghost Sound (1/day) (Sp), Reactionary
Skills Acrobatics +17, Bluff +10, Climb +15, Craft (Alchemy) +10, Diplomacy +10, Disable Device +15, Disguise +10, Escape Artist +17, Knowledge (Local) +7, Knowledge (Nobility) +7, Perception +14, Sense Motive +10, Stealth +17, Use Magic Device +6 Modifiers Ki Jump (Running Start), No Trace +3
Languages Common
SQ Ki Movement, Ki Pool (Su), Ki Stealth, Poison Use
Combat Gear +1 Brass Knuckles, +1 Holy Pepperbox, +2 Mithral Chain Shirt; Other Gear Amulet of Natural Armor +1, Belt of Giant Strength, +2, Cloak of Resistance, +2, Gauntlets of Incredible Dexterity, +2, Ring of Protection, +1
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SPECIAL ABILITIES
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Agile Maneuvers Use DEX instead of STR for CMB
Deadly Aim -2/+4 Trade a penalty to ranged attacks for a bonus to ranged damage.
Greater Grapple +2 to grapple, maintaining a grapple is a move action.
Gunsmithing You can use a gunsmithing kit to craft/repair firearms and ammo.
Improved Grapple You grapple at +2, with no attacks of opportunity allowed.
Improved Unarmed Strike Unarmed strikes don't cause attacks of opportunity, and can be lethal.
Improved Uncanny Dodge (Lv >=13) (Ex) Retain DEX bonus to AC when flat-footed. You cannot be flanked unless the attacker is Level 13+.
Ki Attack Speed (Su) By spending 1 point from her ki pool, a ninja can make one additional attack at her highest attack bonus, but she can do so only when making a full attack.
Ki Jump (Running Start) (Su) Jumping is always counted as being at a running start.
Ki Movement A Ninja can spend 1 point to increase her speed by 20 feet for 1 round.
Ki Pool (Su) You have a ki pool equal to 1/2 your monk level + your Charisma modifier.
Ki Stealth A ninja can spend 1 point from her ki pool to give herself a +4 insight bonus on Stealth skill checks for 1 round.
Light Steps (Ex) When moving up to twice your normal movement, you may ignore difficult terrain and can move over any surface.
Magical Talent: Ghost Sound (1/day) (Sp) Choose one 0-level spell - it becomes a 1/day spell-like ability for you.
No Trace +3 (Ex) Survival DCs to track you are at +3, gain +3 to Disguise and Stealth when you are stationary and not acting.
Poison Use You don't accidentally poison yourself with blades.
Sneak Attack +5d6 +5d6 damage if you flank your target or your target is flat-footed.
Strangler Deal sneak damage to grappled opponent
Vanishing Trick (Su) As a swift action, the ninja can disappear for 1 round per level. This ability functions as invisibility. Using this ability uses up 1 ki point.
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So my question before my DM goes crazy and tells me no I cant, does a ninja with strangler and greater grapple get two sneak attacks in a round while grappling.
No, for two reasons.
(a) It takes a swift action and you only get one swift action per round.
(b) You can only use it when maintaining a grapple, and (IMO) you can't "doubly maintain" a grapple twice in one round.
But greater grapple allows you to do damage twice in a round does it not?
Here's the wording of the feat:
Whenever you successfully maintain a grapple and choose to deal damage, you can spend a swift action to deal your sneak attack damage to the creature you are grappling.
So (a) you need to spend a swift action, and (b) it only works "whenever you successfully maintain a grapple". Even if you wanted to argue that you can maintain a grapple twice in the same round (I disagree, but it's debatable), you're still faced with the fact that it takes a swift action and you only get one swift action per round.
I can maintain a grapple twice in a round, but I typically do it by grappling more than one creature at a time. Even then I would only get to swift action for sneak attack once.
With that said if you pin them then they are flat footed and you can sneak attack to your heart's content.
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Good to know, I will be pinning as much as possible then when I am in a grapple.
But should I even take strangle then?
That would allow you to do sneak attack damage on the first round of grappling, while Greater Grapple would require waiting likely until the second round to do any sneak attack damage. They both have their uses.
Mergy I don't think that's right since you have to make the grapple check to maintain the grapple. So the grapple check to start the grapple wouldn't allow you to apply strangler.
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Mergy I don't think that's right since you have to make the grapple check to maintain the grapple. So the grapple check to start the grapple wouldn't allow you to apply strangler.
Greater Grapple lets you grapple to maintain as a move action. So the way I see it:
Grapple target as standard. -> Greater Grapple to maintain (damage) as a move action -> Strangle as a swift action.
If I can use Greater Grapple on the first turn, why can't I use Strangler?
Mergy I don't think that's right since you have to make the grapple check to maintain the grapple. So the grapple check to start the grapple wouldn't allow you to apply strangler.Greater Grapple lets you grapple to maintain as a move action. So the way I see it:
Grapple target as standard. -> Greater Grapple to maintain (damage) as a move action -> Strangle as a swift action.
If I can use Greater Grapple on the first turn, why can't I use Strangler?
Ah okay that would work. You can't use it off the initial grapple check but if you move action grapple as well then of course you could strangle too.
Though truthfully I would use the move action to pin so that they are really screwed on the following rounds.
Greater Grapple lets you grapple to maintain as a move action. So the way I see it:
Grapple target as standard. -> Greater Grapple to maintain (damage) as a move action -> Strangle as a swift action.
If I can use Greater Grapple on the first turn, why can't I use Strangler?
I don't think you can use Greater Grapple on the first turn (e.g. "doubly maintaining" the grapple).
But as I noted above, it's debatable.
You can only use greater grapple after you have already grappled. The next round greater grapple can be used. But why not get strangler twice? You can technically get two attack off with greater grapple?
Taking strangler twice isn't possible or helpful because:
1. It doesn't say you can take it more than once.
2. You still only get a single swift action a round.
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Hogarth I read and agree with something you wrote in another thread of not greater grappling to pin the same round you started the grapple. But, what says I can not use two swift actions the next round to use Strangler? Also why should I pin to get them flat footed when Strangler says I get it anyways? Also when I am pinning I have to maintain the grapple does that mean he stays pinned and I get two actions? Thanks for your help.
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So if a swift action is only once per round no matter what then Strangler is no good at all if you have greater grapple? Because you can pin the next round and damage twice from then on sneak attacking anyways.
Can anyone give me a good reason why Strangler is even useful in the least. I cant imagine taking Strangler over Greater Grapple ever. Let alone both.
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Hogarth I read and agree with something you wrote in another thread of not greater grappling to pin the same round you started the grapple. But, what says I can not use two swift actions the next round to use Strangler? Also why should I pin to get them flat footed when Strangler says I get it anyways? Also when I am pinning I have to maintain the grapple does that mean he stays pinned and I get two actions? Thanks for your help.You only have one swift action per round. So you can't double swift action to do anything.
I understand this now. But my question of why take Strangler if you have greater grapple remains. Anyone?
You only get one swift action a turn. Even on a turn where you make two grapple checks due to Greater Grapple, you only have a single swift action to activate Strangler.
Standard action - grapple check to maintain grapple, choose to do damage
Move action - grapple check with Greater Grapple, choose to do whatever
Swift action - activate Strangler and deal sneak attack damage
On the upside, even though you can't activate Strangler twice to deal sneak attack damage after making two grapple checks on your turn, that means you can use the second grapple for another purpose (like moving your opponent, choking with a garrote, pinning them, grappling a secondary target, etc.) and still sneak attack them.
Just as a sidenote, Strangler also allows you to use a garrote and circumvent the, "sneak attack damage does not apply to a garrote," issue since you are independently dealing damage with the feat, not adding bonus damage to the garrote weapon damage. The choke option of the garrote is useless, but preventing verbal components/command words may be worth it.
With that said if you pin them then they are flat footed and you can sneak attack to your heart's content.
I've never really paid attention to this before because you don't see many sneak attacking grapplers, but can you even apply sneak attack damage while grappling without the Strangler feat?
Damage
You can inflict damage to your target equal to your unarmed strike, a natural attack, or an attack made with armor spikes or a light or one-handed weapon. This damage can be either lethal or nonlethal.
The rogue's attack deals extra damage (called "precision damage") anytime her target would be denied a Dexterity bonus to AC (whether the target actually has a Dexterity bonus or not), or when the rogue flanks her target.
As part of maintaining a grapple, you are allowed to take an action to damage your opponent. That damage is equal to an attack with a particular weapon, but is never called an attack itself. Sneak attack may only be applied to an attack, so it's possible it's not able to normally be used in a grapple.
The author of Strangler may have felt this way, as it would explain the feat's peculiar situational wording. Not saying that I necessarily agree with this interpretation, just food for thought.
WRoy -- there is a difference between grappling and pinning. Grappling normally won't allow you to deal sneak attack damage as they aren't flat footed. Pinning them makes them flat footed (and gives a -4 penalty to their AC to boot).
I personally think that you should get sneak attack damage while pinning from the maintain/damage option as it is an attack, but this could be iffy and not the method I would use anyways.
The way I would go about it is with greater grapple. You use the move action to maintain/pin them and then your standard action to actually attack them. If you have swift grappling you can be even worse to them by swift action maintaining the pin and then full attacking them.
Remember that you can still full attack while grappled (or grappling) and so forth, you simply take penalties to doing so (pinned removes a lot more options and is more useful that way).
This means you'll probably take the -4 penalty for not having both hands to grapple with (unless you are unarmed striking...) but combined with the +5 bonus for having maintained the grapple last round that means you'll still be +1 on your grapple check.
I should have done this step by step earlier and I didn't, I apologize for that.
As to the usefulness of strangler:
You would be getting extra damage from simply maintaining a grapple which is always useful and if they were decent enough to be fighting back on the grapple you have a means of adding damage in the mean time. There are a couple of other situations where it could be useful too. Overall I would tend to try for the pin and beat them up with greater/swift grapple if I could but for the interim strangler can help you keep things moving.
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Here is the way I see it, once again.
First turn:
Grapple enemy (standard action)
Greater Grapple to damage (move action); Strangler to sneak attack (swift action)
Second turn:
Pin enemy (standard)
Greater Grapple to damage pinned enemy with sneak attack (move action)
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Strangler lets you do sneak attack on the first turn to things you grapple. That's potentially a lot of extra damage, especially if there's multiple targets. Greater Grapple + Strangler means first turn sneak attacks as long as you start next to your opponent.
I should have done this step by step earlier and I didn't, I apologize for that.
No worries, you seemed completely clear to me. :) The only thing I was questioning was if you could actually apply sneak attack damage to the, "maintain a grapple-damage," option directly, regardless of the opponent being pinned (no Dex) or just grappled.
As to the usefulness of strangler:You would be getting extra damage from simply maintaining a grapple which is always useful and if they were decent enough to be fighting back on the grapple you have a means of adding damage in the mean time. There are a couple of other situations where it could be useful too. Overall I would tend to try for the pin and beat them up with greater/swift grapple if I could but for the interim strangler can help you keep things moving.
Yeah, I tried to fiddle with Strangler but it never got past the theorycraft stage. The best I came up with was a garrote-user (thug rogue) who used Strangler, Body Shield and archetype SA debuffs to hobble one opponent at a time. It probably wouldn't kill as rapidly as a tetori or other top-line grappler build, but could possibly hold its own.
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Though truthfully I would use the move action to pin so that they are really screwed on the following rounds.
It depends, if the opponent is likely to try to escape on their action, they likely have an easier time to do so if you pin them (as the pinning character's CMD decreases due to them losing their Dex bonus to AC when pinning someone, and the pinned character is no longer taking a Dex penalty (instead simply loses Dex bonus to AC and takes a further -4 AC) meaning their Escape Artist modifier is higher.
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Though truthfully I would use the move action to pin so that they are really screwed on the following rounds.It depends, if the opponent is likely to try to escape on their action, they likely have an easier time to do so if you pin them (as the pinning character's CMD decreases due to them losing their Dex bonus to AC when pinning someone, and the pinned character is no longer taking a Dex penalty (instead simply loses Dex bonus to AC and takes a further -4 AC) meaning their Escape Artist modifier is higher.
To add to this, even if the opponent managed to free themselves, they're still only a move action away, and would provoke during their movement. If they only took a five-foot step away, we're back at the Grapple + Greater Grapple to Strangle stage.
Though truthfully I would use the move action to pin so that they are really screwed on the following rounds.It depends, if the opponent is likely to try to escape on their action, they likely have an easier time to do so if you pin them (as the pinning character's CMD decreases due to them losing their Dex bonus to AC when pinning someone, and the pinned character is no longer taking a Dex penalty (instead simply loses Dex bonus to AC and takes a further -4 AC) meaning their Escape Artist modifier is higher.
You don't lose your dex bonus to AC while pinning someone.