Grappling Fighter

[DiesALot]

Right, so I've designed a pretty cool grappling fighter (brawler) I reckon.

9 feats to choose from, since I'm human and all.

Anyway, I'm a little confused about AC vs my damage against opponent while grappling?

Does it go off flat foot or touch? (Using a bayonet).

Got pretty good damage (1D6+6+6+6 with power attack)

Also, while grappled and attacking, I don't have any negative to hit do I? (with the below mentioned feats)?

CMB to initiate grapple is 18
CMD is like, 31.

I've also specced into Bull rush, just to get around the battlefield quicker while causing havoc (plus if I succeed I get an AOP).

Which leads me to my next question. Am I able to initiate a grapple during an AOP?

Feats I've taken are:
Improved Unarmed
Improved Grapple
Body shield (this will come in handy A LOT)
Sleeper Hold (just cause it could be fun running around knocking everybody out) :D

Improved bull rush
Greater bull rush (important in our group - a lot of melee fighters - but not necessarily essential.
Quick bullrush (this actually sounded like a good idea, cause I could bullrush twice in a round?)
Power attack (more so cause it was a requirement - but the extra damage is pretty good).

Stats are:
Str 23
Dex 14
con 16
int 10
wis 10
cha 8

Thoughts?

[Matthew Downie]

DiesALot wrote:

Anyway, I'm a little confused about AC vs my damage against opponent while grappling?

Does it go off flat foot or touch?

No.

"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."
Both you and your grappled opponent will have the grappled condition. (Unless you have some ability I'm not seeing.)
So you grapple them as a standard action. Next round, you maintain the grapple as a Move action, thanks to Greater Grapple, and then can attack him once as a Standard action. He gets a -2 to AC (due to his Dex penalty) but you get a -2 to attack, which cancels it out.
Meanwhile, if they're not reliant on a two-handed weapon, they can full-attack you every round.
This assumes you're not pinning your opponent.

[DiesALot]

Well that's unfortunate. But luckily I can pin. Which by the look of it I will do.

[Bob Bob Bob]

Well, first, I think you need to organize your thoughts a little and have a clearer request. That being said, I'll try to unpack it.

If you succeed on your grapple check to maintain the grapple and chose to damage, you just cause the damage. The attack roll was the grapple check. Keep in mind, if you're planning on power attacking on that damage roll you would take the penalty on your grapple check.

I'm not seeing where the extra 6 damage is coming from. I see 1d6+6(Str)+6(PA)+6(?) Presumably weapon training is worth +2 damage, magic weapon maybe another +2 or 3, but I don't see where a flat +6 is coming from. Edit: Ah, brawler, not just fighter, nevermind.

You don't get Attacks of Opportunity from Bull Rush you perform.

Greater Bull Rush wrote:

Whenever you bull rush an opponent, his movement provokes attacks of opportunity from all of your allies (but not you).

A grapple is a standard action, not an attack action. You cannot substitute a grapple for an AoO normally. There are some feats that let you use a grapple off-turn, but the only one I can find right now is Snapping Turtle Clutch.

You're missing Greater Grapple on your list of feats.

Overall: It's not that good. You've tanked your mental stats on a class with a bad Will save and 2 skill points a level. The character is at least level 8 (for Sleeper Hold). Average CMD at that level is 28, meaning you only have a 55% chance of actually grappling or bull rushing anything. Unless you power attack, and then it's even lower. Body Shield isn't too bad except your chance of success isn't high. Sleeper Hold is just awful. I don't have a handy resource for Con modifier like I do for CMD but I'm guessing it averages at least +3, if you've damaged someone twice a round (Greater Grapple) for three straight rounds and they're not dead, you're not doing enough damage. Oh, and Fort is generally always a good save for monsters. Quick Bull Rush lets you perform one bull rush in place of your highest BAB attack. Since bull rush can normally only be done as a standard action, the only way you're getting two bull rushes a round is if you can both make an attack and take a different standard action in a single round. Possible in mythic, not possible anywhere else.

Then there's another fundamental problem I'm not sure you're aware of. Freedom of Movement completely shuts down grappling builds and becomes quite common at higher levels. There is no way for a fighter to get around it without being a dwarf and punching it out of people (Shatterspell). So if you plan to play at high levels you'll need a plan for that.

My advice? Switch classes. Tetori is pretty much the grappling class and includes a way to shut down freedom of movement. It also gives you access to most of the grapple feats and easy access to the style feats (for Snapping Turtle style). As well as a bunch of other stuff focused around being a good grappler.

[DiesALot]

We don't face a lot of monsters. Currently were in the middle of a war with gnomes and dwarves ;)

Damage was off by 2.

Its 1d6 +6+6+4

I think I might ditch the bullrush feats for the snapping turtle feats.

I'm just looking at it for a bit of fun. This way I get to be a pretty good tank and deal a reasonable amount of damage to grappled enemies.

Cmd on a lot of our enemies has been really low. We had a guy that was using a trip build. He succeeded quite well and had a lot of stats similar to mine. Only difference was he sacrificed ac for additional damage.

So that's not much of a concern. I'm just after ideas for ways to increase my grappling chances/method of play.

But thanks for the suggestions! :)

Edit: but checking out that tetori class it's pretty beasty.