Can a monster with a grab ability continue to collect grappled creatures if it continues to hit with its grab attack? In the specific scenario I'm asking about, the monster in question is a Behir. Behirs have three pairs of arms. Could the Behir have three independent grapples active at once if he continued to make successful attack/CMB rolls?
Thanks in advance!
I would say yes, but he has to use the special grab rules for only using part of his body:
The creature has the option to conduct the grapple normally, or simply use the part of its body it used in the grab to hold the opponent. If it chooses to do the latter, it takes a –20 penalty on its CMB check to make and maintain the grapple, but does not gain the grappled condition itself.
May be wrong, but that is my interpretation at least and how I run those situation.
|
The Behir can ESTABLISH as many grapples as it has attacks each round but maintaining a grapple is a standard action so he can only hold onto 1 target each following round.
In general creatures like this will split all their attacks up to hit->grapple->constrict as many targets each round that it can and then on the following round release every grapple and start over.
Lets it pile on tons of damage and keeps all those targets grappled without it affecting their actions on their turn.
|
Yes, as Mathwei puts it, maintaining a grapple is a standard action, so only one grapple can be kept, but the Behir can technically be in a grapple with multiple opponents at the same time after making all of its attacks.
Only a couple creatures (the Kraken?) can maintain more than one grapple at a time.
Yep, pretty much what Mathwei ap Niall said. It is something I have seen a few people houserule differently, but the creature can make a full attack, and "grab" a target with each attack. Next round it can use a standard action to maintain one of those grapples, but it can't keep more than one going (without extra feats/actions). It is important to remember, though, that the creature in question gains the grappled condition after its first grab lands, so it will get -2 on each subsequent attack.
The Houserule version of this is as follows:
A creature with Grab that takes the -20 to CMB can continue to take the -20 to CMB, make a full-attack on round 2, and maintain the grapple on any number of grabbed opponents. To do this, it must sacrifice the natural attack that has the grab ability which is holding a target. Instead of making that attack, it makes a CMB check to maintain the grapple. If this check is successful, the creature deals damage equal to that natural attack's damage (aka it can't move, pin, tie up).
Thank you for the clarification!