I have a Feral Gnasher with the Grab ability. He's also the Intimidating Glare rage power and is very excited about the change in Unchained which allows you to use Str rather than Cha for intimidate while you're raging. Since he'll be much more likely to succeed at demoralizing foes now it seems like Hurtful might be a good feat for him to take. Getting an extra attack as a swift action seems nice since this PC usually just makes 1 bite attack per round and nobody in our party knows the Haste spell. I wonder how all of this would interact with Grab and subsequent grapple checks though.
After intimidating an adjacent foe as a move action the PC could make a melee attack as a swift action. He'd choose to use his bite, and that has Grab. Assuming that the PC succeeded on his CMB check he'd now be grappling the foe. At that point he could use a standard action to attack the same foe or another one with an unarmed strike, but I'm not sure whether or not he could use a standard action to grapple the grappled foe again without letting it go first.
I know that if you grapple a foe with a standard action you need to wait until the next round to "maintain" the grapple with a Move action using Greater Grapple. This is even pointed out again in the Combat Trick for Greater Grapple in Unchained. In this case I'd be using a standard action to perform the grapple maneuver as normal. I'd just be doing it against a foe I've already got grappled. I'm not sure if that's legal. I'd assume that it would be legal to perform other maneuvers like disarm on the foe without releasing him from the grapple, but using the grapple maneuver against somebody who is already grappled might be an exception I suppose (like you can't Trip somebody who is already prone)
What do folks think? Can you grapple a grappled foe? If so would you be able to use options like damaging or pinning the foe, or would you just get Constrict damage? (assuming you have that ability)
Initiate a Grapple (Attack; 2 Acts): You initiate a grapple against a creature within your melee reach.
Continue a Grapple (2 Acts): You continue a grapple. If you initiated the grapple, you must either take this action at the start of each subsequent turn or end the grapple as a free action. When you take this action, you attempt a grapple combat maneuver check with a +5 bonus. If you’re successful, you can either move, deal damage to, or pin the creature you are grappling. Alternatively, you can attempt to tie up the creature with a rope.
Similarly to you your post in the other thread this above show that you must maintain in the next round but doesn't say you have to wait unlike the stamina greater grapple. Now since both of these are "houserules" per say they don't help except in one aspect, I don't recall seeing the stamina greater grapple rules text anywhere else so unless it is somewhere else then no rules are stopping you from maintaining the same round. In fact it doesn't make any sense at all to have to wait.
Also my character I spoke of in the other thread is a bushwhacking feral gnasher, w/ a modified goblin race to be tiny. So he uses go unnoticed to get the jump on them to take them down.
Also if you want more attacks as a gnasher you should look at the animal fury rage power, it lets you bite before each grapple check.
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As a standard action, you can attempt to grapple a foe, hindering his combat options. If you do not have Improved Grapple, grab, or a similar ability, attempting to grapple a foe provokes an attack of opportunity from the target of your maneuver. Humanoid creatures without two free hands attempting to grapple a foe take a –4 penalty on the combat maneuver roll. If successful, both you and the target gain the grappled condition (see the Appendices). If you successfully grapple a creature that is not adjacent to you, move that creature to an adjacent open space (if no space is available, your grapple fails). Although both creatures have the grappled condition, you can, as the creature that initiated the grapple, release the grapple as a free action, removing the condition from both you and the target. If you do not release the grapple, you must continue to make a check each round, as a standard action, to maintain the hold. If your target does not break the grapple, you get a +5 circumstance bonus on grapple checks made against the same target in subsequent rounds. 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).
I see nothing in the description of the combat maneuver from the prd that disallows any more grapple checks that round.
Maintaining a grapple is second nature to you.Prerequisites: Improved Grapple, Improved Unarmed Strike, base attack bonus +6, Dex 13.
Benefit: You receive a +2 bonus on checks made to grapple a foe. This bonus stacks with the bonus granted by Improved Grapple. Once you have grappled a creature, maintaining the grapple is a move action. This feat allows you to make two grapple checks each round (to move, harm, or pin your opponent), but you are not required to make two checks. You only need to succeed at one of these checks to maintain the grapple.
Normal: Maintaining a grapple is a standard action.
The feat itself implies that once grappled, which doesn't prevent other grapple checks that round, the cost to grapple is reduced to a move. So you're original work around should be fine as well.
Now it could be that the designers felt all this was too powerful so they added in the "must wait a round" but so far that's only passing intent from some authors. I feel this is yet just another cast of paizo failing at making some explicit in the rules because as is "maintaining" a grapple is only passingly defined in the grapple rules, unlike in the NAE which it's a totally separate action.
I'm sorry for the slow response, but I got really busy with work. I'm also kind of sorry for the long post, but here it goes...
The game I'm in is not using the new action economy presented in Unchained. so "Acts" won't factor into this at least for me. Whether or not you can use the grapple maneuver on an already grappled foe as a standard action during the same round when you initiated the grapple has rarely been addressed since typically you wouldn't have a standard action left during a turn when you establish a grapple. It could be important to understand outside of my Hurtful corner case though, especially since the FAQ which says you can use Grab on an AoO. I suppose it could also have implications for Mythic play with the extra standard action from amazing initiative.
I think that the combat trick for Greater Grapple is at least a little off base since maybe it should have said you can't that you can't maintain a grapple until you start a new turn while grappling instead of that you can't maintain a grapple until the round after you initiate it. By a very strict reading of the combat trick's rules one might assume that when a monster after you in the initiative order grabs you during an AoO and gets a turn in the same round one or more of the following might apply:
1 - Since it isn't the next round yet when the monster's turn comes up the monster can't maintain the grapple and therefore has to drop you (which seems very silly)
2 - Since a round hasn't passed the monster doesn't need to make a CMB check to maintain the grapple but also can't make a CMB check to damage, pin, or move you with the grapple since those are all options associated with maintaining the grapple (which the monster can't do since a round hasn't passed)
3 - The monster would be able to grapple to establish a grapple (not maintain one) as a standard action though that would have no effect at all unless the monster had Constrict.
4 - If the monster has Swallow Whole that might work
Those results seem silly to me, so I'll assume that whoever wrote the rules for the Greater Grapple trick probably just wasn't thinking of ways you might get foes grappled when it isn't your turn. Clearly he or she believed that there's an existing rule which says you can't maintain the grapple during the same turn you initiate it though. I believe I've seen such a ruling before though I haven't had much luck finding it. I'm aware of James Jacobs saying that you can maintain the grapple immediately after starting it, but I'm also aware that his posts are sometimes overruled by more official rulings. In a game I'm running I'd allow the monster who established a grapple during an AoO to maintain the grapple on its next turn. I guess that there's a chance this is incorrect though. In any event, it is a slightly different issue than potentially grappling twice with Hurtful + Grab, which I think is less likely to work since it is all being done during the same turn.
I suppose that some clarification on what the Greater Grapple trick really means and where the ruling that you can't maintain the grapple until the next round came from would probably help sort all of this out.
@Onyxlion - Animal Fury seems like a very interesting rage power for a Feral Gnasher, but I seem to recall that the DM for the game in question said I wasn't allowed to use it to double my damage while grappling. I'm also honestly not quite sure how it would work when maintaining a grapple established by grabbing with a Bite, especially when using the Improved Lockjaw ability to grapple with just the mouth. That's important to my PC since he uses Crane Style/Wing/Riposte to raise his AC while grappling (and while not grappling too for that matter). Improved Lockjaw says that you can't use your mouth for anything but grappling. I'd think that would include making free Bite attacks. I guess at worst Animal Fury would let me get a free Bite attack when I'm trying to break a grapple, but I've already got Ankle Biter for those situations (though the more attacks I can make on big grapplers the better I suppose). Right now the next rage power I'm planning to take is Terrifying Howl.
The only really explicit rule on this I've seen is on page 121 of Pathfinder Unchained, which states the following:
Greater Grapple (Combat): After you take a move action to successfully maintain a grapple, you can spend 5 stamina points before the end of your turn to maintain that grapple as a swift action. This allows you to make up to three grapple checks to maintain a grapple during a round, but you still can’t maintain a grapple until the round after you initiate it.
The part about "you still can't maintain a grapple until the round after you initiate it" seems pretty clear to me. It could be argued whether or not that's a mistake, but I think the intent and expectations expressed by that sentence seem pretty clear.
Regarding the lack of FAQ for the James Jacobs post, "no reply needed" doesn't always mean that the opinion stated in the post is right. It also doesn't mean it is wrong, but I seem to remember another developer saying at some later time that you can't "maintain" a grapple on the turn when you establish it. All I can find on that is a quote from Bruno Breakbone which attributes the following statement to Mark Seifter:
Even if the enemy moved up to the tetori, you can't maintain during the same round you established. The only way I can think of to pull it off is with Snapping Turtle Clutch to establish off turn and then maintain on your own next turn for the pin and tie up.
To me it seems like we've had two Paizo developers saying two completely different things on the issue of maintaining a grapple in the same round when it was established. Now a new book has come out which seems to implicitly or even explicitly agree with the more restrictive interpretation. I don't have any problem with that. I'd just like to know the official intent since it might help me decide which feats are fun for my PC and avoid using a bunch of tactics which later are revealed to be illegal.
It does sound like Mark Seifter would probably support the idea of being able to maintain a grapple on your turn after establishing it as an AoO. I'm not sure what if anything he'd have to say about using a standard action to grapple a foe who you grabbed during a swift action attack on your turn though. Obviously by RAW I could perform the somewhat cheesy "catch and release" attack where I let the foe go and then Bite or simply grapple it again. The latter would use the same CMB check I'd use if it is possible to grapple the foe again without letting go first. Since I have the Raging Grappler rage power I'd even get to do damage again while establishing the second grapple. The difference for me is pretty much purely in whether I can pin or move the opponent (or render it prone using the other aspect of the Raging Grappler ability)
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The only really explicit rule on this I've seen is on page 121 of Pathfinder Unchained, which states the following:
Greater Grapple (Combat): After you take a move action to successfully maintain a grapple, you can spend 5 stamina points before the end of your turn to maintain that grapple as a swift action. This allows you to make up to three grapple checks to maintain a grapple during a round, but you still can’t maintain a grapple until the round after you initiate it.The part about "you still can't maintain a grapple until the round after you initiate it" seems pretty clear to me. It could be argued whether or not that's a mistake, but I think the intent and expectations expressed by that sentence seem pretty clear.
Regarding the lack of FAQ for the James Jacobs post, "no reply needed" doesn't always mean that the opinion stated in the post is right. It also doesn't mean it is wrong, but I seem to remember another developer saying at some later time that you can't "maintain" a grapple on the turn when you establish it. All I can find on that is a quote from Bruno Breakbone which attributes the following statement to Mark Seifter:
Even if the enemy moved up to the tetori, you can't maintain during the same round you established. The only way I can think of to pull it off is with Snapping Turtle Clutch to establish off turn and then maintain on your own next turn for the pin and tie up.To me it seems like we've had two Paizo developers saying two completely different things on the issue of maintaining a grapple in the same round when it was established. Now a new book has come out which seems to implicitly or even explicitly agree with the more restrictive interpretation. I don't have any problem with that. I'd just like to know the official intent since it might help me decide which feats are fun for my PC and avoid using a bunch of tactics which later are revealed to be illegal.
It does sound like Mark Seifter...
When I came to work at Paizo, I asked Jason and the others about grappling and discovered some things I hadn't known before. In any case, though, despite being a designer, messageboard posts are unofficial. The clause in Unchained actually came about because I told everyone that most people were not seeing that part of maintain at the moment when they read the CRB, so it was worth calling out specifically if that was how the combat trick was intended to work. I have a draft of a grappling FAQ blog out there to clear up everything that I found surprising (plus explain the parts that the expert players and GMs already know but are confusing to others), but FAQ blogs are hard to do, and it's behind the ones that have higher FAQ clicks like simulacrum and divinations.
Pathfinder Unchained wrote:As I understand it, Pathfinder Unchained does not represent a revision of the rules, only a set of alternatives that can be used by GMs. We can still use the Core Rulebook.
Yep it's basically a house rules book. In fact I also listed another example of a rule, in unchained, for grapple that doesn't have the "restrictions" and is more explicitly defined than normal grapple rules. Yet it was completely dismissed.
Intimidating Glare and Hurtful got used in last night's game. The enemy in question couldn't be grappled though, so this particular issue didn't come up.
@Mark Seifter - Thanks for responding to my thread. It is nice to know that there's a grapple FAQ coming. In the meantime I'd like to echo Aydin's request for clarification on your earlier post about people missing part of maintain since I'm not 100% certain what you meant there.
I also hope the grapple FAQ includes some guidance on whether or not you need to choose the "Pin" action each round while maintaining the grapple if you also want to keep the enemy pinned (like it worked in 3.5, when a pin explicitly had a 1 round duration)
@Onyxlion - I dismissed the rules about grappling with "Acts" since none of the games I'm playing in will be using Acts. I got the impression that the text in the Greater Grapple combat trick was referring to some existing rule outside of Unchained though. Mark Seifter's post seems to imply something similar since he mentions people "not seeing" something about maintain when they read the CRB. If he can clarify that we'll probably gain some useful insight. If not I guess we'll have to wait for the FAQ blog.
@Aydin D'Ampfer - I'm not sure if going from a 1 round kill to a 2 round kill should necessarily be cause to abandon a PC. If something you've called "absurdly powerful" were reduced to just "powerful" I'd think that would might be an improvement. I didn't really start this thread to advocate for nerfs to grapple though so much as to find out what the rules on certain grapple situations are actually "supposed" to be. I'm actually trying to squeeze a little more out of grappling for my PC (though not as much as you have for yours)
Being a 1 trick pony can be a bit of a problem with Grapple focused PCs since grappling really well requires a lot of feats and grapple doesn't work on all foes. I'd say that around half of the stuff my grappler fights isn't a good target for grappling. Our last combat was with incorporeal outsiders. The one before that was with a Gargantuan fish. We haven't started meeting too many foes with Freedom of Movement yet, but I'm guessing they'll increase in numbers as we level. I kind of wish FoM gave you a bonus against grapple attempts instead of outright immunity, but that's obviously in the realm of house rules.
As another potential item for the FAQ blog, I've noticed that there doesn't seem to be any specific size limitation on what you can grapple like there is with what you can use Grab on. This seems a little odd since many other combat maneuvers like Bull Rush and Trip do have such limitations. Obviously a lot of folks will (perhaps quite rightly) say that if the rules don't have a limitation then you shouldn't assume there is one, but I've seen this subject come up at tables more than once and even generally try to avoid grappling creatures more than 1 size category larger as kind of a matter of decorum (though I do consider the increased size limit of my Feral Gnasher's Grab ability and therefore let him grapple stuff 2 categories larger, soon to be 3...)
I don't really mind the size restrictions on maneuvers. I'm just not sure if Grapple is supposed to have one.
... Obviously a lot of folks will (perhaps quite rightly) say that if the rules don't have a limitation then you shouldn't assume there is one, but I've seen this subject come up at tables more than once and even generally try to avoid grappling creatures more than 1 size category larger as kind of a matter of decorum (though I do consider the increased size limit of my Feral Gnasher's Grab ability and therefore let him grapple stuff 2 categories larger, soon to be 3...)
That reminds me, I saved Evil Lincoln talking about a houserule for small grapplers, a post on an alternate maneuver "Cling" a while back. Obviously, Sharky would be clinging on with his teeth, causing constrict damage and not being grappled, but I thought it looked cool. Even without that, though, you should feel free to grapple big things if you want -- if you try to move them it might be silly, but just holding on and doing damage isn't undecorous. (Not for a goblin, certainly!)
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@Scott Wilhelm - Stuff like the removal of size restrictions or the need to spend an action maintaining a pin from round to round seem like obviously intentional changes to some people but like potential mistakes or oversights to others. Sure, the size restriction isn't in the RAW, but from what I can see neither is the restriction about not maintaining the grapple with Greater Grapple in the same round when you establish it. Mark apparently put that language into the combat trick for Greater Grapple because of something people were "not seeing" in the CRB though. I guess the FAQ will tell all.
@threemilechild - I'd be interested in knowing the "official" rules for Grapple despite any house rules we might decide to use. You also might find official rulings helpful for your own grappling PC since she'll probably be establishing a lot of grapples during AoOs and might be facing some very big enemies (judging from the DM in questions's general tendencies and recent discovery of Awesome Blow). I guess the question of whether Awesome Blow breaks a grapple is an entirely separate thread though.
I'm not sure if Mark's post is a good FAQ candidate since it doesn't really ask a question. My post asks several questions and isn't really clear enough for a FAQ request.
Mark said he's writing a grapple blog, so I don't think the various issues around grappling will get forgotten. I guess like you I'm just eager to find out how this stuff should work since it affects one of my current PC. In the meantime I'll probably just play it conservatively. At worst I can use my left over standard action for another attack.
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In terms of RAW, there are an unfortunate number of instances where the rules have been written by someone with a misconception about the rules of grappling. Take the level 9 Brawler Strangler ability. It lets the Strangler threaten while grappling, even though you already do that. With a set of rules as powerful and undefined as grappling, even the rulebooks get it wrong.
I don't know about the Strangler ability, but normally when geappling both the grappler and their target have the grappled condition. The grappled condition prevents you from taking attacks of opportunity.
A grappled creature is restrained by a creature, trap, or effect. Grappled creatures cannot move and take a –4 penalty to Dexterity. A grappled creature takes a –2 penalty on all attack rolls and combat maneuver checks, except those made to grapple or escape a grapple. In addition, grappled creatures can take no action that requires two hands to perform. A grappled character who attempts to cast a spell or use a spell-like ability must make a concentration check (DC 10 + grappler's CMB + spell level), or lose the spell. Grappled creatures cannot make attacks of opportunity.
As a standard action, you can attempt to grapple a foe, hindering his combat options. If you do not have Improved Grapple, grab, or a similar ability, attempting to grapple a foe provokes an attack of opportunity from the target of your maneuver. Humanoid creatures without two free hands attempting to grapple a foe take a –4 penalty on the combat maneuver roll. If successful, both you and the target gain the grappled condition. If you successfully grapple a creature that is not adjacent to you, move that creature to an adjacent open space (if no space is available, your grapple fails). Although both creatures have the grappled condition, you can, as the creature that initiated the grapple, release the grapple as a free action, removing the condition from both you and the target. If you do not release the grapple, you must continue to make a check each round, as a standard action, to maintain the hold. If your target does not break the grapple, you get a +5 circumstance bonus on grapple checks made against the same target in subsequent rounds. 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).
Bolding mine. EDIT: And I can see where that bolded line might also be interpreted as only applying to humanoid creatures without 2 free hands, which is just another example of why clearing up the rules would be a good thing.
The grapple rules are fairly complex and not easily understood. This thread is a good example of that. So a grapple blog is a good thing, and I'm glad it's in the works.
Mark, would it be possible for you to provide a link to the particular thread where the FAQ total is being watched for the grapple FAQ? That way we'll know which post to FAQ to get the total up. I think what you've been doing with the FAQ process is great, and you've helped resolve many longstanding issues. It's not always obvious to us, though, where issues stand in the FAQ priority or even which post we should go to in order to try to push an issue up the priority list.
Not being able to take AoOs isn't necessarily the same as not threatening an area. If two PCs are flanking an enemy and one grapples him the folks I play with would mostly agree that they're still flanking him since there doesn't seem to be a rule saying that you can't threaten while grappling. I suppose there could be some rule we're missing or some intent which isn't expressed as clearly as the developers might have hoped though. For what it's worth we'd even expect that you'd get the +2 flanking bonus on your grapple checks.
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Ah, I see the distinction now. I would think then, yes, you do threaten, because you are still able to attack the square (though with a -2). The 9th level Strangler ability is not useless, however, because it also allows you to make Attacks of Opportunity. Thus my confusion. I could see it being ruled that you only threaten on your own turn, though, since that's the only time you can attack.
Whether or not someone threatens when they can't make attacks of opportunity is worthy of its own FAQ, as there are threads arguing both sides. That's not necessarily an issue with the grapple rules specifically. Threatening has lots of other issues as well, like whether you threaten when you're invisible.
I agree that limbs which count as hands should count as hands for grappling. I'd also kind of expect that a creature with the Grab ability should be able to conduct a grapple using that ability without a penalty. That's just conjecture though. In the case of the Feral Gnasher you get a special ability leaving your hands free while you grapple with your mouth.
I assume that to grapple foes with ranged weapons you need to have a rope or cable attached. In fact, after some research I see that the description for the harpoon mentions the rope explicitly. The barbed arrow/bolt not only mentions rope but specifies silk rope. The Sibat doesn't mention a rope but does say that if you move "far away" to be out of the Sibat's reach you end the grapple. Since the Sibat is a light weapon without the reach quality this statement seems doubly mysterious to me (and how far away is "far away"?) I'll go ahead and guess that the problem here is with the Sibat description rather than the grapple quality. Something, possible a trailing rope, is missing from the description. Maybe the Sibat is meant to be a light harpoon-like weapon. Certainly some Google searches can turn up images of sibats meant for fishing which look like that.
I find the harpoon rules kind of disappointing since you don't have much chance of getting the harpoon to attach. I wonder if something which worked more like a Net which has to hit regular AC instead of touch AC might have worked better. It seems like something grappled on the end of a rope should be able to move "only within the limits that the rope allows" (as the Net description states) rather than being unable to move at all (as per the Grappled condition stating, "Grappled creatures cannot move"). I guess that "I wish this certain weapon quality worked differently than the way it does" is really not a Rules Question though.
As another brief tangent, I seem to recall the White Haired Witch being pretty disappointing mechanically despite the cool Bride With White Hair flavor. My girlfriend has a Scarred Witch Doctor with the Prehensile Hair hex though, and that seems to work pretty well.
The froghemoth isn't humanoid and therefore wouldn't suffer the -4 penalty for grappling, but I suspect that the "two hands free" restriction was likely written considering "normal" humanoids who have two arms with hands as their only grasping appendages. I'd also guess that the penalty applies to creatures with a humanoid shape, not necessarily those with the humanoid creature type, such as a human PC polymorphed into a lion, a constrictor snake, or a giant octopus.
I have a different PC with the Tentacle discovery, and he actually wears his buckler strapped to the Tentacle (which is styled as a prehensile "devil tail") to keep his hands free for a heavy flail. He's focused on Trip and Dirty Trick rather than grapple, so questions about how well he can grapple with a hand and a tentacle or even just a tentacle haven't come up yet.
Since the froghemoth doesn't have to meet the 2 hands requirement I don't think there's any need to assume that its natural attacks count as hands for any purpose. A megalodon's Bite probably doesn't count as a hand either. In any event, it certainly doesn't have 2 of them or any other grasping appendage which might serve the purpose of a hand.
I'd like to think that having a natural attack with Grab should be sufficient to permit grappling even without any hands and that the rules for Grapple simply failed to take PCs with natural attacks and Grab into account. I'm sure other folks feel otherwise though.