Grappling a grappler and force moving allies

[Mister Owlbear]

I have run into a weird situation, and all of my google-fu and PHB indexing has not been able to help me.

One of my players is running a monk and has on several occasions attempted to use grappling or pulling to get allies out of danger. I approve of the creativity but I'm not sure how it comes out rules wise.

There have been a couple scenarios that have come up so far.

1. A mudlord had an ally grappled and covered in mud while the ally was unconscious. The monk wanted to know if he grappled the mudlord and moved the mudlord away from the monk's grappled ally, would the mudlord lose his grapple on the his target. I ruled yes at the time (I figured the mud holding him would get pulled away) as I wasn't able to quickly find an answer with the resources on hand.

2. A large water elemental rose up behind the party and thanks to greater cleave it began to beat the crap out of the squishies. The sorcerer was looking particularly bad, and because of the reach of the elemental was unable to easily get out of range without provoking AoO. The monk, who has pretty good defenses, wanted to know if he could grapple the sorcerer and force his movement away from the large water elemental, taking the AoO on himself. This one I was a lot shakier on, and said that while grapple and pull actions exist, and forced movement doesn't provoke, I'm not sure about targeting an ally with either of those actions. It was a moot point because the creature had already taken an AoO that round, but as the monk is being played as being a selfless combat maneuver guy I suspect it will come up again.

So my questions are:

1. Can a grappler lose their grapple if they themselves get grappled and pulled from the target?

2. Can an ally be the target of a grapple or pull combat manuever, and if so, would only the person forcing the movement be a valid target of an AoO?

3. If an ally is a valid target of maneuvers like grapple or pull, can the voluntarily not resist? So the grapple/pull automatically succeeds?

4. Side question, I have not been able to find a good definition for "foe" or "opponent" or "enemy" as far as Pathfinder is concerned. Is it entirely subjective?

5. What actions can be done to move an unconscious hero in battle? Say, if they are actively drowning in water and mud, or taking area damage?

Thanks in advance for any help. I've been DMing Pathfinder weekly for 3 or more months now and once a month for almost a year and I still feel like there's a lot to learn.

[zrandrews]

#1. I don't think so. This is under the "Multiple Creatures" part. Basically, when that 3rd guy enters the grapple, he's just giving one of the other people a +2 bonus to the grapple check, he's not actually going to do any of the grapple actions. You aren't doing some strange two grapples at once, it's always one grapple between the two people, and everyone else that piles on is just doing an Aid Another Action for one of the people in it.

#2: Why not? It might not be good for them though. Round 1, Monk starts the grapple, both of them get the grappled condition. Round 2, Monk makes another grapple check (as a standard action) and moves half speed, then ends the grapple as a free action.

#3. Again, i'd let it happen, but there's nothing in the rules I know of for it.

#4. Foe, opponent, and enemy are all words for people attacking you. I think it's subjective. We rule that if the person dosen't grant you a flanking bonus, they are not your ally. If they are not your ally you can call them the enemy (and as such you can't move through their space, and AoOs can happen and such)

#5: An unconscious hero is stuff. If the body is unattended, anyone can pick it up (assuming a high enough strength) otherwise there would be an opposed check of some kind (like, a giant is holding your unconscious ally, you need to make a disarm check to get him away)

[Mister Owlbear]

Thanks for the reply, kind of seemed like what I thought, though I was definitely wrong on the grapple thing.

What about the pull maneuver, which I believe can be achieved on the same turn it's initiated? Conceptually I'm fine with it as it's sort of a "Get Down Mister President" move as he'd be taking any potential hit.

[Lamontius]

I started a thread on a similar topic a while back

hope some of it helps

[StrangePackage]

Re-position Combat maneuver.

[zrandrews]

So, I looked over the combat maneuver rules again, and grapple and drag both call out the target as a foe, so RAW, I don't think you could do it to an ally.

I'd still let it fly though. Seems pretty cinematic to me, one guy pulling his friend out of harms way just before the enemy can land a finishing blow. Happens all the time in Movies and such. Might make the players aware that it's not really in the rules, so keep it in the spirit of the game and don't abuse any potential loopholes.

It still requires one character to sacrifice almost all of his turn to do, so I can't see it being too bad, especially if it'a making memorable encounters and everyone is still having fun.

[StrangePackage]

I believe I know the exact module this comes from:

Spoiler:

this was level 5 of the Emerald Spire, innit?

I played it just a few weeks ago with my monk. I used the reposition combat maneuver to get a squishy gnome out of the line of the great cleave chain.

The question comes down to- can you target an ally as if they were an enemy?

Well, of course you can. What constitutes an ally versus a foe is inherently subjective, and can change based on circumstances. If the party fighter fails a save versus confusion, is he an ally or a foe? Bable incoherently- probably still an ally. Attack nearest creature? If that's his party member, then probably counts as a foe. Likewise, in home campaigns, sometimes the LG Paladin and the CN Fighter may have to have a "Come to Iomedae meeting" that could end in a fight. They were allies, they're foes for that duration.

Long story short, there's no PvP in PFS, but there are always exceptions to the rule. The GM ruled I had to ask the player if he was okay being the target of the maneuver. He said "Of course" since he was getting destroyed. I rolled, I succeeded, the gnome was saved, and I had spent my standard action for the round and couldn't attack the elemental.

[Mister Owlbear]

Yup, that's the module. I am loving the ES from a "It's super easy to prep because all the maps are done up and it's fairly linear" standpoint, but the levels are all small so positioning is super important at the moment :)

Thanks for all the help everyone, this had me scratching my head for a while.

[Taenia]

I would say that moving an ally around is one thing, getting an ally out of grapple is something completely different.

I am not sure how it works if you grapple someone that is already grappled. It already seems to make sense that if you grapple somebody you are immune to be grappled by anyone else. I would assume you could either aid one grapple or simple start a grapple daisy chain where he grapples your ally, you grapple him and you resolves the effects separately.

So if you are trying to grapple a target while you are grappled you take a -4 because you can't use both hands. If you get pinned while grappling a foe you can't maintain the grapple on your turn and you release the subject automatically.