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When a stirge uses its attach ability followed by successive rounds of draining con from its prey, it must make a grapple check each round to maintain its blood drain.
In society play recently, a druid summoned stirges several times in the scenario and when they attached to opponents, the player insisted the opponent of the stirges obtained the "grappled condition" after the subsequent rounds and the successful grapple checks by the stirges to continue sucking blood (and draining con).
I think that is wrong. I do not think that the stirge's opponent gains the grappled condition, only the stirge.
In his favor, the stirge description in the Beastiary says that after the second round grapple check, the stirge is "effectively grappling its prey". Specific rule trumps general rule.
In my favor, the general description of Attach in the Beastiary says only the creature with Attach gains the grappled condition and not the opponent. The specific description under stirges does not say the opponent gains the grappled condition only that the stirge is "effectively grappling its prey". Also, common sense if you think about a tiny creature attacking a medium (or even a large creature).
I could not get through the PRD quickly enough (its in my phone and I have fat fingers) to help the GM and he went with the other guy's interpretation. I'm GM'ing this group this week, is there any clarification on this?
Thanks,
Andy
I've no answer to your actual question, but I would suggest sticking with the original GM decision. The game benefits from consistency more than from correctness.
You're right. You've read the attach ability description and it fully supports you. That's all there is. The ttirge description doesn't say anything that specifically overides the general case.
And while it's good you didn't slow the game down and went with the ruling in play, there's nothing wrong with going forward using the correct rule
No GM is right 100% of the time. But at the table the GM is always right. And so we learn.
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Thanks guys.
I lean towards Ximen Bao's advice being correct. And as Avianfoo said, nobody has a perfect understanding of the rules. For me, the onus is on correctly applying things as I understand them and learning from the past. If the rule did not have game breaking potential I probably would not make a big deal of it. But, you should have seen how this turned the boss fight into a rout. No fun for anyone but the stirges.
Andy