Pinning Knockout vs. Vital Strike and the inanity of Stunning Pin


Rules Questions

Grand Lodge

So the Grapple Rules are rather "intricately" written - here are the disputes in question.

If you're using Greater Grapple (which is a pre-req for Pinning Knockout anyway) and/or Rapid Grappler to maintain a grapple or pin in a way that doesn't spend your your standard action for the round, that standard action can be used to roll a normal non-two-handed attack (unarmed strike included) against any target you threaten, including the one you've grappled.

If that's the case, why would anyone take Pinning Knockout, when it's a situational and only non-lethal version of Vital Strike (double damage, nonlethal only, only if you've established a pin)?

By the same token, why take Stunning Pin, when you can just use that same preserved standard action to use Stunning Fist in the normal fashion?


steven_mallory wrote:
If that's the case, why would anyone take Pinning Knockout, when it's a situational and only non-lethal version of Vital Strike (double damage, nonlethal only, only if you've established a pin)?

You can deal damage to your target as part of the same action used to maintain the grapple, so it's "free" damage that gets doubled if you choose to have it be nonlethal. You can then Vital Strike them with the standard action you preserved.

Quote:
By the same token, why take Stunning Pin, when you can just use that same preserved standard action to use Stunning Fist in the normal fashion?

If I'm reading it right, you don't have to roll to hit with the Stunning Fist attempt from Stunning Pin. I freely admit I may be entirely wrong on this one. Even if I'm incorrect, though, it means you get to attempt to Stun them as a swift action and then punch them in the face as well.


for one, vital strike does not "double damage"...it lets you roll the damage more, Pinning knockout actually says "double damage" so you would double the entire amount you did, not just roll the dice again.

Also, if you having Pinning Knockout along with greater grapple and rapid grapple, thats 3 grapple checks in one round, all doing x2 the total damage.

As with ALOT of feats, it depends on what you feel might come up in your game and how your character would use that feat. I played in a game where we had a monk that refused to deal lethal damage to anything "living". Exception were outsiders and undead, some others too. So for him PK was a good way for him to knockout the people he wanted out of the fight without killing them

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