Ok here is my question.
If a Dragon Grapples a character and then spends a round to pin the creature. It can then use its breath weapon on said creature.
My question is does the creature get any kind of save while pinned?
Well, a pinned creature is denied its dexterity bonus. It doesn't specify to what, so I would assume this would include to reflex saves.
So the pinned creature would not get their dexterity bonus to their reflex save, though they would still take a penalty if they have a negative dexterity modifier. That alone would probably be enough to make most creatures fail.
Well it says in the bestiary in the breath weapon section that a dragon can use a breath weapon during a grapple. So I assume that means that the breath weapon is normally a standard action except in that situation and doesnt require feats to pull it off?
Here is the quote
" Breath Weapon (Su): Using a breath weapon is a standard action. A dragon can use its breath weapon once every 1d4 rounds, even if it possesses more than one breath weapon. A breath weapon always starts at an intersection adjacent to the dragon and extends in a direction of the dragon's choice. Breath weapons come in two shapes, lines and cones, whose areas vary with the dragon's size. If a breath weapon deals damage, those caught in the area can attempt Reflex saves to take half damage. The save DC against a breath weapon is 10 + 1/2 dragon's HD + dragon's Con modifier. Saves against various breath weapons use the same DC; the type of saving throw is noted in the variety descriptions. A dragon can use its breath weapon when it is grappling or being grappled. "
And link to where I found it.
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/monsters/dragon.html#_dragon
Yeah, but this doesnt change the grappling rules; IE, whithout the right feats, MAINTAINING a grapple required a standard action. So he can either choose to maintain the grapple (standard, denies the guy his dex) or choose to use the breath weapon (releasing the PC and allowing him his dex).
Ok, so just to clearify so I dont do this wrong.
I was under the impression that any rules stated in the bestiary were exceptions. To which I would understand is as you follow the rules for grappling unless it states an exception in another source for a specific creature.
If this is true then a dragon shouldn't need extra feats to grapple round one and then maintain and pin round 2 and breath weapon round 3?
Or breath weapon after maintaining the grapple at round 2?
Well, this isnt a case of specific trumping general; there are a number of wepons that can be used in a grapple (natural & light weapons come to mind).
Thus, the breath weapon is a "special" weapon, in that it can be used AS A REGULAR WEAPON WOULD BE in a grapple. As far as I can tell, there is no modification to the grappling rules.
(As far as I understand it, the grappling rules are considered confusing):
1) Fighter with "greater grapple":
Round 1: Graples (standard action)
Round 2: Maintains grapple (move action)
-Attacks grappled individual (with a light weapon) (standard action) or pins opponent (standard)
2) Fighter without "greater grapple"
Round 1: Grapples (standard)
Round 2: Maintains grapples (standard) or Pins opponent (also standard)
Round 3: Maintain pined status on foe (standard)
Etc.
Without the feats, the grappler is unable to attack the grappled individual. However, the grappled individual can attack; so a grappled dragon could attack the grappler with it's breath weapon. But without the feats to reduce the time of maintaining a grapple, it can not maintain the grapple & attack.
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The bestiary entry is not giving the dragon extra actions. I feel the Bestiary clarified that because the Grappled/Pinned conditions don't always specify what actions are limited in all cases.
Combat rules must be satisfied first in this case. Any character normally only gets one Standard and one Move action in a combat round. Both maintaining a Pin and using a Breath Weapon are Standard Actions. The dragon must choose- as I and williamoak stated. All characters need special feats/abilities to maintain grapples as Move Actions.
Ok hold on
"Once you are grappling an opponent, a successful check allows you to continue grappling the foe, and also allows you to perform one of the following actions (as part of the standard action spent to maintain the grapple)."
"Move: You can move both yourself and your target up to half your speed. At the end of your movement, you can place your target in any square adjacent to you. If you attempt to place your foe in a hazardous location, such as in a wall of fire or over a pit, the target receives a free attempt to break your grapple with a +4 bonus.
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.
Pin: You can give your opponent the pinned condition (see Conditions). Despite pinning your opponent, you still only have the grappled condition, but you lose your Dexterity bonus to AC."
If this is the case then In round 2 Part of maintaining a grapple I could do one of the following. Move, damage, or Pin.
So if I decide to damage I could use any natural weapon.
Since it states in the dragon listing that a breath weapon can be used during a grapple.
Am I to understand that in round 2 after maintaining as part of my standard action I can indeed use a breath weapon?
That's how I would read that, yes.
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Under grapple:
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 (A dragon can use its breath weapon when it is grappling or being grappled). This damage can be either lethal or nonlethal.
The bold part I inserted it is not present in the entry itself.
Is that what you are saying?
Ok, so here is how it would go down
Round 1 Dragon grapples Character
Round 2 Dragon maintains grapple and uses breath weapon as a direct hit and character takes a -4 to his Dex and -2 to his roll for reflex on top of that because you take a -2 on everything you do while grappled (I assume thats correct?)
BUT
if in round 2 I decide to Pin him and then wait for round 3 to use a breath weapon
To maintain a pin is the same as a grapple and then I could as above move, or damage but his negetive would be higher?
@Corbin That is what Im trying to figure out yes
@Corbin Thats ok... muhaahha
It says that it CAN be... doesnt say that it HAS to be.
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Well I think it becomes a judgement call by this time.
Anything you do doesnt have to have the ability to do non-lethal damage.
It just gives you the option if you want to use a weapon to do non-lethal.
In the case of a breath weapon. It could NOT be considered non-lethal (unless the breath weapon is non-lethal to begin with like gas that makes you sleep etc)
I think the dragons breath weapon as it states is an exception in the sense that it can be used but obviously its not going to do non-leathal damage. But it would help the dragon deal with a say a halfing that is hard to catch or something along those lines. Or for the purpose of holding a hostage and threating to blast them with a breath weapon if the rest do not surrender.
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Well what I am getting at is, this is the Rules Questions forum. Things get very specific here.
I am trying to pin your POV down specifically(no pun intended- heh) in the context of making rulings across the board with regard to the Rules As Written.
You are saying it is rules compliant in PFS Organized Play or a home game for a individual GM to decide if a dragon can or cannot use a breath weapon as part of the damage option under maintaining a grapple. Is this correct?
The book assumes normal attacks, and normal attacks can be lethal or non-lethal. By normal attacks I mean natural attacks and manufactured weapons. The breath weapon while allowed does not allow for it to be nonlethal, and the grapple rules do nothing to modify the breath weapon. The normal weapons can be lethal or nonlethal because it is a core rule already, not because the grapple rules say so. Every once in a while the book has what I call a "reminder" rule. This is supposed to be a good thing, but sometimes it looks like a rules exception.
Yes, Since in the Bestiary it states the dragon specifically can use his breath weapon while grappling or being grappled.
So as Im reading it correctly then.
When you maintain a grapple you are allowed to Move, damage or pin. If you decide to do damage. A breath weapon falls under that catagory as per the bestiary. As it stats it becomes part of your standard action to maintain a grapple.
Furthermore It would seem that if you Pin you opponent instead you are required to maintain a grapple once again by the time the 3rd round comes up. So if maintaining a pin is the same as maintaining a grapple you could therefore use a breath weapon as part of your standard action in maintaining the pin.
Thus you would not need extra feats as the above people have stated.
My additional question was If a creature is pinned and denied his dex bonus completely does he lose his ability to make a reflex save OR does his simply take a huge penalty?
If am I reading this incorrectly in anyway I hope that someone can point me to the correct way to handle such a situation.
The breath weapon while allowed does not allow for it to be nonlethal, and the grapple rules do nothing to modify the breath weapon.....So you are saying Breath Weapon is a rules legal option under damage(grapple). IF so, is this due to the bestiary entry?
No. The breath weapon is its own thing. I was only saying that a breath weapon can't do nonlethal damage.
I also said a breath weapon despite the word "weapon" is not what is being referred to.
Can you use a breath weapon on a grappled creature? Yes.
Can you use it as part of a grapple? NO.
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The rules that specify "damage" under the grapple heading specifically call out unarmed strikes, natural attacks, armor spikes, light and one handed weapons. There is no provision in the grapple rules for a breath weapon, and nowhere in the breath rules does it say you can use a breath weapon as part of your grapple check.
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 rules only say the dragon can breath on a grappled creature. It is up to the GM to figure out how, but there are ways.
A dragon may have greater grapple which allows for him to use a move action to maintain the grapple.
The rules also don't say that the grappled victim is released as soon as you decide to not grapple so they should still be grappled when the breath weapon takes affect. After that the individual would be freed unless the dragon has greater grapple allowing him to maintain as move action.
Edit: This is for the OP.
Wraithstrike,
The dragon section specifically states that it can use a breath weapon during a grapple or while being grappled. Thus, the implication is that when it maintains a grapple it should have an option called Breath Weapon added to the other maintain options.
Now, that is not explicitly spelled out but it appears to be the RAI.
Supposing that a dragon may have Greater Grapple is a leap since there is not a single example in the Bestiary of a Dragon that has even Improved Grapple let alone Greater Grapple.
@wraithstrike
I think you missed something.
After you intiate a grapple and succeed
The next round you must spend a standard action to maintain said grapple. In the rule it states that you can also ADD to that maintainance a move, damage, or pin action. (assumeing the victim of the grapples fails to get free)
In the damage section of that list according to the bestiary a dragon specifically because most of the rules in the HANDBOOK are for players to know. It they wish to build characters. That the breathweapon count in this instance as far as dealing damage. IE it would be a natural attack and not a spell or anything like that.
So in effect a dragon after maintaining its grapple could indeed use his breath weapon in conjuction during the maintainence portion of the grapple but NOT during the intial grapple itself during the first round.
This is how Im understanding the text...
Wraithstrike,
The dragon section specifically states that it can use a breath weapon during a grapple or while being grappled. Thus, the implication is that when it maintains a grapple it should have an option called Breath Weapon added to the other maintain options.
Now, that is not explicitly spelled out but it appears to be the RAI.
Supposing that a dragon may have Greater Grapple is a leap since there is not a single example in the Bestiary of a Dragon that has even Improved Grapple let alone Greater Grapple.
That is not the same as using it as part of a grapple. If that is what they meant, then they need to rewrite it.
Breath weapons are NOT natural attacks Bane of Humanity.
Natural Attacks are listed in the book and they include things like claws, talons, bites, wings, etc.
@wraithstrike
You cant use it during the first phase of the grapple
but the rules suggest you can during the maintainence phase of a grapple. In the 2nd round of the grapple you can.
As to the "natural attack" you are correct.
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Looking at this thread here is what I see. Bold is mine.
1) 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 statement excludes all other attack forms.
Hence a dragon cannot use it's breath weapon as part of the damage option under grapple. It requires it's own standard action.
2) 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 statement does not exclude other attack forms specified in other material. The bestiary wording (A dragon can use its breath weapon when it is grappling or being grappled)should be added here.
So for organized play and home games either BOTH rulings are rules compliant or one is correct, one is not correct.
I feel one is correct one is not correct, it cannot be both.
Corbin Dallas, exceptions abound in Pathfinder. The problem here is that the breath weapon section indicates, without outright stating, that breath weapons can be used as part of a grapple's maintenance check.
Thus, people are going to either go with the RAW where no specific exception was stated or the apparent RAI where in order to make the Bestiary text work you have to assume it is an exception.
Where is a ref when you need one lol
Bane of Humanity, every game has a ref, he is called the GM. :)
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Gauss,
I understand exceptions. I understand the GM's right to referee. I understand that you post a bunch about RAI vs RAW.
So coming back around...
You are saying that BOTH are rules compliant for organized play and home games or you are not. I am not going to accept that these concepts are separate on the rules discussion forum.
I want more from you than that. Heh :) Obviously you may decline.
I'd like to point out that there are weapons that deal ONLY nonlethal damage that you could still viably use during a pin. As such, it is not unthinkable to say that the dragon (which RAW should be able to use it's breath weapon in this scenario) could only deal lethal damage.
RAW, I would put forth that a Dragon has the option to use it's Breath Weapon as part of the "Damage" option after a successful maintaining of a grapple, with the subsect that it can only deal lethal damage. So to use your latest comparison Corbin, #2 would be correct.
"2) 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 statement does not exclude other attack forms specified in other material. The bestiary wording (A dragon can use its breath weapon when it is grappling or being grappled)should be added here."
This would be accurate, or at the very least the Dragon's text should be clarified to state that "A dragon may use it's breath weapon as part of maintaining a grapple, or while being grappled." Instead of just saying "during a grapple" which is very vague.
Or you could take the Quicken Breath feat from 3.5 and upgrade to Pathfinder and allow the dragon to breath as a free action. Just saying... ;)
I'd agree with you, and not to be "that guy", but this is about Pathfinder Rules, not "how to do what I want to do".
I do so miss those feats though :'(
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FlySkyHigh,
This is the wording from the Dragon entry:
"A dragon can use its breath weapon when it is grappling or being grappled."
This is very consistent with the wording under the Combat rules for Grapple. In fact, it isn't all that vague IMO. This is why I am pressing hard for "one is correct and one is not". Initially I was somewhat dismissive of this and in favor of comparison #1. I want to be clear with regard to rules compliance in organized play or home games.
As far as the non-lethal weapons go I misunderstood what the OP was saying in a previous post. I think Bane Of Humanity and I cleared that up as a non-factor for this particular rules discussion.
Out of curiosity what weapons do you mean? I am guessing that they still fall under what the CRB wrote: "unarmed strike, a natural attack, or an attack made with armor spikes or a light or one-handed weapon".
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Ok hold on
"Once you are grappling an opponent, a successful check allows you to continue grappling the foe, and also allows you to perform one of the following actions (as part of the standard action spent to maintain the grapple)."
"Move: You can move both yourself and your target up to half your speed. At the end of your movement, you can place your target in any square adjacent to you. If you attempt to place your foe in a hazardous location, such as in a wall of fire or over a pit, the target receives a free attempt to break your grapple with a +4 bonus.
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.
Pin: You can give your opponent the pinned condition (see Conditions). Despite pinning your opponent, you still only have the grappled condition, but you lose your Dexterity bonus to AC."
If this is the case then In round 2 Part of maintaining a grapple I could do one of the following. Move, damage, or Pin.
So if I decide to damage I could use any natural weapon.
Since it states in the dragon listing that a breath weapon can be used during a grapple.Am I to understand that in round 2 after maintaining as part of my standard action I can indeed use a breath weapon?
You got it, the dragon can use his breath weapon as part of maintaining the grapple/pin, assuming the dragon succeeds in maintaining the grapple/pin.
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Yes, Since in the Bestiary it states the dragon specifically can use his breath weapon while grappling or being grappled.
So as Im reading it correctly then.
When you maintain a grapple you are allowed to Move, damage or pin. If you decide to do damage. A breath weapon falls under that catagory as per the bestiary. As it stats it becomes part of your standard action to maintain a grapple.
Furthermore It would seem that if you Pin you opponent instead you are required to maintain a grapple once again by the time the 3rd round comes up. So if maintaining a pin is the same as maintaining a grapple you could therefore use a breath weapon as part of your standard action in maintaining the pin.
Thus you would not need extra feats as the above people have stated.
My additional question was If a creature is pinned and denied his dex bonus completely does he lose his ability to make a reflex save OR does his simply take a huge penalty?
If am I reading this incorrectly in anyway I hope that someone can point me to the correct way to handle such a situation.
To answer the original question, by RAW, I would say that a PINNED character would still receive a saving throw. However, remember that he gets no bonus to due to dex, only penalties. To me this would account for the pinned character squirming and doing his best to find cover, even if that cover is the dragon's claw. Now if you want to remove the possibility of a saving throw, you need to render the target HELPLESS, PARALYZED, PETRIFIED or UNCONSCIOUS.
Now personally, if a dragon has you pinned and he breathes on you, seeing as how the dragon is immune to his own breath weapon, I would say that since the target is in the middle of the breath's area while pinned, it would have no where to hide and would thus be denied a save.
It seems to me that it would be the same as setting off a deadfall trap (ceiling collapse) in a dungeon that covers a 50' section of the hall and the character is in the center of it. The distance needed to reach safety is beyond a 5' step so there is no reasonable way he could be entitled to a save. Unless of course, you can cast a quickened dimension door or teleport type spell HAHAHA!
Thanks everyone. Im new to DMing Pathfinder and I have never run a dragon encounter. Needless to say my ruleing in the situation because the grapple situation did come up.
I ruled for the character to still recieve a saveing throw but take the penalties as listed. I always try to be impartial and fair.
I kinda wish there was rules for ability damage. Because takeing that much acid to the face should take down you CHA alittle bit....just sayin...
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This is a great thread! I, too, am a new DM for Pathfinder and am preparing for an upcoming fight between my players and a "Huge" dragon. If the dragon became angry enough why wouldn't he just grab one of the characters and bite his head off and eat him on the spot instead of wasting time with a breath weapon?
The whole dragon-grapples-character process isn't so clear/intuitive from the rules: assuming a successful grapple attack the dragon must get a HUGE attack bonus for a bite attack. I'm likening a grapple-bite attack akin to grabbing an apple and taking a bite: does a dragon really need to roll to hit the knight once he's grabbed the poor sucker in his claw?
Also, since a dragon has four legs and two wings to maneuver with (in addition to a tail to swipe with), does a dragon really acquire the grappled condition after grabbing the hapless knight?