basicly what the topic says, but let me elaborate:
Years ago when we played pathfinder, we encountered a barbed devil. We thought that ok the barbed devil does his thing and is all barby and tries a grapple.
Turns out GM had been inspecting the grapple rules throughout and he used the attack sequence mentioned in topic,
summary:
1. barbed devil attacks, hits and does normal damage
2. Uses grab ability and initiates grapple
3. gets to do barbed damage on top of that
4. releases his grip
5. tries to repeat for the second attack of barbed devil (I recall him succeeding)
I think this is by the rules, but this whole thing still seems fishy, your thoughts on the matter?
Also, could there exist a build that could also exploit this?
It's absolutely legal. It makes no sense in "reality", but that's because in reality grappling would be much more complicated. Octopodes should get a massive bonus to grappling for attaching all eight tentacles to you... but at the same time they probably don't really hinder you. On the other hand an angry tiger can only hold so much of you... but you're doing whatever the angry tiger wants, as it has a great deal more leverage and power. Basically, an "accurate" grappling simulation would be an entire subsystem on it's own (and people have problems with this one as it is).
As for whether it's expected, probably. The stats and abilities of the Horned Devil make it out to be a beatstick. The high average damage for CR 11 is 50 (low is 37). Even if both claws hit and get max damage, we're only at 44 damage. If we actually look at averages we're at 30 (below the low damage). Throw on an impale and we're at 52 (again, average). An extra impale pushes us to 74. But that's all assuming both attacks hit and both grapples succeed. If one attack misses the average becomes 37 (assuming the grapple succeeds). I'm guessing it was built assuming sometimes both hit, and sometimes one hits (for the average of 37 and 74, ~55).
For a player you need constrict and grab to pull it off. I think they recently nerfed the item that gave constrict, so I can't tell you the easy way to do it. Tetori was used for grab. Any animal with both? Beast Shape can give it to you (preferably as a druid, I'd think).
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Bob Bob Bob, the official rule for evaluating the damage against the CR say: "Average Damage: This is the average amount of damage dealt by a creature of this CR if all of its attacks are successful. To determine a creature's average damage, add the average value for all of the damage dice rolled (as determined by Table: Average Die Results) to the damage modifier for each attack.
A creature that relies on melee or ranged weapons in combat should have average damage within the range of high and low damage.
A creature with higher than normal attack bonuses will often deal lower damage, while a creature with lower than normal attack bonuses will often deal higher damage."
The average damage of a Barbed devil [a Horned devil is another creature] is 52.5, above the high damage for a CR 11 creature.
Add the high attack of 18 vs a high value of 19, when the same set of rules say: "Creatures with a higher than normal average damage typically have a lower attack value to compensate." and wee see that increasing its average damage by another 22,5 points put it way off the scale for a CR 11 creature.
As an added bonus every time he damage a creature with its claw he applies his fear ability. Gifting him a 40% increase in average damage for "reasons" based on cheesing the game isn't a good idea.
currently the accepted view is yes. attack, grab, constrict/rider on successful grapple, release, repeat.
Diego Rossi wrote: Bob Bob Bob, the official rule for evaluating the damage against the CR say: "Average Damage: This is the average amount of damage dealt by a creature of this CR if all of its attacks are successful. To determine a creature's average damage, add the average value for all of the damage dice rolled (as determined by Table: Average Die Results) to the damage modifier for each attack.
A creature that relies on melee or ranged weapons in combat should have average damage within the range of high and low damage.
A creature with higher than normal attack bonuses will often deal lower damage, while a creature with lower than normal attack bonuses will often deal higher damage."
The average damage of a Barbed devil [a Horned devil is another creature] is 52.5, above the high damage for a CR 11 creature.
Add the high attack of 18 vs a high value of 19, when the same set of rules say: "Creatures with a higher than normal average damage typically have a lower attack value to compensate." and wee see that increasing its average damage by another 22,5 points put it way off the scale for a CR 11 creature.
As an added bonus every time he damage a creature with its claw he applies his fear ability. Gifting him a 40% increase in average damage for "reasons" based on cheesing the game isn't a good idea.
I agree with you in theory. In practice, this monstrosity has an iterative attack above the high attack and its flat damage (no dice) is higher than the high average damage. So I don't have much faith in their ability to follow the guidelines.
In this specific case, because after the first round (of claw/claw/impale) if it maintains the grapple it can only get claw/impale. So at the very least, it only maintains high average damage by claw/claw/impale and either dropping or not maintaining the grapple the next round. My supposition was claw/impale/drop/claw/impale followed by maintain (claw/impale), but I'm willing to accept claw/claw/impale followed by drop/claw/claw/impale. I did say probably, not definitely.
Several creatures have questionable CR, but I have checked a few creatures with the grab ability and multiple grappling appendages. If you apply the attack, grasp, constrict, release, repeat, tactic the damage always go way over the suggested limit.
As the number of grasping limbs increase that become more and more noticeable.
GM discretion on number of free actions. I don't allow any further grapple checks once you've successfully grappled an enemy this turn, and it goes both ways.
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