Greetings:
A Small Dire Rat has a Medium size character grappled and has moved him inside a small sized tunnel. The dire rat intends to keep using grapple checks to move itself and its prey towards the other side of the tunnel, where her lair (and master) is.
While the Dire Rat wins grapple checks, is she moving half her encumbered speed (as per Grapple rules) or a quarter of that (as if she was squeezing)?
Or would the squeeze rules only apply to the medium PC if he managed to get free and tried to run away of the dire rat?
Thank you for your insight!
The wording is not exactly the same, that's why I doubt on "thirding":
Squeezing: "Each move into or through a narrow space counts as if it were 2 squares"
Grappling (after winning a grapple check): "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."
Thus... a Spd 40' dire rat with a heavy load would move half of 30' (reduced speed for 40'), that's 15', which while squeezing would amount to just 1 square per grapple check?
One square or five feet does seem right. Over encumbered & squeezing as said, but also under Lifting/Dragging, "A character can generally push or drag along the ground as much as five times his maximum load. Favorable conditions can double these numbers, and bad circumstances can reduce them by half or more."
That's if it's ruled to be possible in the first place. I'm trying to imagine attempting to drag a horse into a 5 foot tunnel. Not the exact same I know, but it makes me wonder.
Seems a bit too unfair to the victim as well. At -4 AC for squeezing he's even less likely to resist. Then even if he does, he'll be moving slowly trying to escape. Then the penalty to attack makes any option for the victim just terrible. All b/c a rat moved him five feet.
Fairness says they both move as squeezing, although the other penalties carried by squeezing only apply to the medium character in the small sized tunnel.
Also, at a 5' per round rate, he's going to have some time to try escaping... The rat would have an easier time damaging him to uncounciousness first, then just moving as if squeezing encumbered but without the half-speed from having to grapple. But it's not THAT intelligent, and it was ordered to "grab the first living being" it found and "bringing him back through the tunnel". It may chew a little if the victim gives it a tough time, but it's not its #1 priority.