New player mechanics question about Armor Spikes

[gdanes7766]

Hello, thank you for taking the time to read this question. I was wondering if there was any possible way to do the following.

lets say I am using a Gore attack piercing and Bite attack piercing as well. I have the feat Hamatula Strike, Improved Grapple and Greater Grapple. Would there be any scenario in which I could do this.

Hit with my Gore weapon tusks. Deal damage. Then make my grapple check from Hamatula Strike. If that succeeds I would deal them 2D8 damage from my armor spikes? Is that how that works? Then as a free action I could break the grapple and now attempt to hit with my Bite attack. If that was to hit I can make another grapple check and if that succeeds I hit for another 2D8 damage from my weapon spikes?

Here is What Hamatuka Strike says.
Benefit: Whenever you damage an opponent with a piercing weapon, you can immediately make a grapple check; success means the opponent is impaled on your weapon and you both gain the grappled condition. While the opponent is impaled, as an attack action you may make a grapple check on your turn at a -4 penalty to damage the opponent with your weapon, even if your weapon cannot normally be used in a grapple.

I posted a question post on the advice section and a poster told me it was in the wrong section so that's why I'm asking here. He/She answered the question but worded it with a "Not as I read it, no." I also, didn't post that the character would have Improved Grapple and Greater Grapple if that makes any difference to the previous answer of the question.

Thank you
Greg

[Claxon]

I think you would need to use the weapon that you used with hamatula strike. In your example, you would have to use your gore.

[Hendelbolaf]

Hamatula Strike says that "as an attack action you may make a grapple check on your turn", but since you already made the initial attack that round, the grapple attempt will be in subsequent rounds.

In your scenario:

Round 1: Use an Attack (melee) as a Standard Action or a Full Attack as a Full-Round Action and, if you hit with a piercing weapon, deal damage as normal for the weapon and make a grapple check to see if the opponent is impaled on your weapon, ie Grappled.

Round 2: Unless the opponent broke the grapple on his turn, he is grappled and you can now deal damage as per a normal grapple. Claxon is thematically correct to say that the damage should come from the weapon the opponent is impaled upon, but, as a game mechanic, grapple is handled as normal so you could use your armor spikes at that time.

That is how I read and would adjudicate Hamatula Strike unless I am missing something (and if I am, I am sure somebody will point it out on the message boards ;) ).

[Scott Wilhelm]

Hendelbolaf wrote:

Hamatula Strike says that "as an attack action you may make a grapple check on your turn", but since you already made the initial attack that round, the grapple attempt will be in subsequent rounds.

But the Hamatula Strike Feat says the Grapple initiates immediately, in conjunction with the strike, though.

[Hendelbolaf]

Scott Wilhelm wrote:

Hendelbolaf wrote:

Hamatula Strike says that "as an attack action you may make a grapple check on your turn", but since you already made the initial attack that round, the grapple attempt will be in subsequent rounds.

But the Hamatula Strike Feat says the Grapple initiates immediately, in conjunction with the strike, though.

Yes, but that initiates the Grapple and no damage is done. It is only on subsequent rounds that damage can be applied with a successful Grapple check.

Basically it gives you something like the Grab ability where you attack, deal damage, then grapple, but no more damage from the grapple on round one.

Edit: I should have said "the grapple attempt to deal damage at a -4 on the attempt will be in subsequent rounds" as the initial grapple check is to begin a grapple once you have hit the opponent.

[Imbicatus]

How are you getting 2d8 from armor spikes? Spiked Armor only does 1d6.

[Deighton Thrane]

The thing with Hamatula strike is that it states "as an attack action". An attack action is a specific Standard Action and can't be combined with a full attack. So how it works is you attack with a piercing weapon, and get a free grapple. If the grapple succeeds, on following turns you may take an attack action (standard action) to grapple and deal damage with the weapon used with hamatula strike, instead of the weapons normally allowed to deal damage in a grapple (unarmed strike, armor spikes).

[Deighton Thrane]

Also, if you're looking for a way to deal damage after every grapple, you're looking for a constrict build, as they do allow for grapple->constrict->release several times in a round.

[Scott Wilhelm]

Deighton Thrane wrote:

The thing with Hamatula strike is that it states "as an attack action". An attack action is a specific Standard Action and can't be combined with a full attack.

That attack action must be referring to subsequent rounds.

Hamatula Strike wrote:

Whenever you damage an opponent with a piercing weapon, you can immediately make a grapple check; success means the opponent is impaled on your weapon and you both gain the grappled condition.

The initial Grapple check is made in conjunction with the attack with the Piercing Weapon.

Hendelbolaf wrote:

Yes, but that initiates the Grapple and no damage is done.

No Grapple Damage is done. But Armor Spike Damage IS done.

Core Rulebook, Armor Spikes wrote:

Armor spikes deal extra piercing damage (see “spiked armor” on Table: Weapons) on a successful grapple attack.

The Grapple Check to Initiate a Grapple granted by Hamatula Strike is a Grapple Attack, and if successful, does extra piercing damage if the attacker is wearing Armor Spikes.

Imbicatus wrote:

How are you getting 2d8 from armor spikes? Spiked Armor only does 1d6.

I'm not certain of the exact damage the OP is referring to and at which level under the influence of which buffs, but he is talking about a Warpriest who is taking Weapon Focus Armor Spikes so that he does Sacred Weapon Damage with his 'Spikes, and he almost definitely intends to use Size Buffs on top of that.

[Scott Wilhelm]

Deighton Thrane wrote:

Also, if you're looking for a way to deal damage after every grapple, you're looking for a constrict build, as they do allow for grapple->constrict->release several times in a round.

Constrict does that, but it's easier said then done.

2 levels in White Haired Witch do that, but only for the Hair, and it's unlikely that White Hair Constrict will allow you to take a Feat like Final Embrace and apply Constrict to all your other Natural Attacks.

There is the Anaconda Coils Wondrous Item (belt), which you could then use as a prerequisite for the Final Embrace Feat, I'm pretty sure, but that is extremely expensive.

You could take levels in Druid and Wildshape into an animal with Constrict. I am quite fond of Giant Octopus and making a Monktopus Build. You could also take levels in a class that lets you cast Beast Shape, which is better in some ways, worse in others, but either involves a very committed build.

Meanwhile, Armor Spike Damage stacks with Constrict Damage, so there's no reason not to go with both. I would have Giant Octopus-shaped Armor made for my Monktopus character, and have Armor Spikes on that!

[Deighton Thrane]

The problem with that interpretation is similar to the rogue trying to apply sneak attack damage on an attack that doesn't deal damage. The wording of armor spikes states that it does extra damage on a successful grapple attack. If you're not dealing damage in the first place, you can't deal "extra" damage. I'll admit that the armor spikes entry is not worded very well, and could mean that you deal an additional 1d6 damage on a grapple to damage, or that you could use the armor spikes instead of a unarmed strike (like the grapple section alludes to) which would normally be an increase in damage.

I have never seen GMs rule that you get automatic armor spike damage when succeeding at a grapple, though I will admit there's enough ambiguity here that reading how you do is a fair interpretation.

[Scott Wilhelm]

It's an interesting analogy, but I don't think it particularly demonstrates that the rules for Armor Spikes don't say what I said they say.

I could make the argument that when you use Hamatula Strike, you did indeed do damage with the Piercing Weapon to begin with, so the Armor Spike "additional" damage is an addition to that.

But remember that most Grapple Attacks do Damage at all. There are a lot of effects that you can impose upon your target in a Grapple: Initiate, Damage, Move, Pin, and Tie Up. Armor Spikes say they add on damage "on a successful Grapple Attack. The writers knew that only 1 out of 5 Grapple Actions normally Inflict Damage, but they didn't say,

Armor Spikes did not wrote:

When you make a Grapple attack to inflict damage, your Armor Spikes do additional Piercing Damage

They said you do additional piercing damage on "a successful Grapple Attack," knowing that 4 out of 5 Grapple Attacks do no damage at all!

[Deighton Thrane]

Scott Wilhelm wrote:

I could make the argument that when you use Hamatula Strike, you did indeed do damage with the Piercing Weapon to begin with, so the Armor Spike "additional" damage is an addition to that.

But you didn't do damage with the grapple attack. Doing damage with the piercing weapon just allowed you to make a grapple attack. Armor spikes say they do extra piercing damage on a successful grapple attack, so if you follow that you can't do extra damage where no damage was done in the first place, the armor spikes don't do anything here.

Scott Wilhelm wrote:

But remember that most Grapple Attacks don't do damage at all. There are a lot of effects that you can impose upon your target in a Grapple: Initiate, Damage, Move, Pin, and Tie Up. Armor Spikes say they add on damage "on a successful Grapple Attack. The writers knew that only 1 out of 5 Grapple Actions normally Inflict Damage, but they didn't say,

Armor Spikes did not wrote:

When you make a Grapple attack to inflict damage, your Armor Spikes do additional Piercing Damage

They said you do additional piercing damage on "a successful Grapple Attack," knowing that 4 out of 5 Grapple Attacks do no damage at all!

A big problem with how the way armor spikes are worded is that they took the same wording from 3.5, where grappling worked differently. In 3.5, a successful grapple attack always did unarmed strike damage when initiating, and you didn't require a grapple check every round to maintain, only to perform certain actions, like dealing your unarmed strike damage again. So in that case it makes sense to have armor spikes worded the way they do, without further explanation.

So now with Pathfinder, they changed the way grappling works, but copy pasted the armor spikes entry from 3.5. But it should still work the same because of the extra damage wording. You get extra damage when you damage someone with a grapple attack, if the grapple attack you perform does no damage (which, yes is most of them) there's no damage to add extra to.

All of this, of course, depends on whether you believe "extra" damage works how they've explained it to for the rogue's sneak attack.

[Scott Wilhelm]

Deighton Thrane wrote:

But it should still work the same because of the extra damage wording. You get extra damage when you damage someone with a grapple attack, if the grapple attack you perform does no damage (which, yes is most of them) there's no damage to add extra to.

All of this, of course, depends on whether you believe "extra" damage works how they've explained it to for the rogue's sneak attack.

This might be a problem created by treating 3.5 as boilerplate language that they copied and pasted in large blocks without considering how their changes affect things.

"Additional" suggests there should have been damage to begin with, but it doesn't mean that definitively: 0 + X = X. But "on a successful Grapple Attack," clearly does not mean only "on a successful Grapple Check for the purpose of inflicting damage, because lots of things are Grapple Attacks, but few inflict damage.

It would have been better if they had dropped the word "additional," which makes the text weaker, or if they had said "additional piercing damage on successful Grapple Attacks made to damage your opponent." Either would have been clear. But at the time of the writing of the Core Rulebook, they didn't consider character builds with Grab and Hamatula Strike, and they have a tendency to use nonstandard language in a frustrating way.

But we are stuck with the rules as written. And the rules as written have always been frustratingly unclear as they were in the days of Ernie Gary Gygax; may the good times roll ever on.