Question about trick attack

[Demon Knight1434]

i have been looking at *trick attack for the operative and i have a question

It says on page 93 "you can trick or startle a foe and then attack when she drops her guard. As a full action, you can move up to your speed.

whether or not you moved, you can then make an attack with a melee weapon with the operative special property or with any small arm.

just before making your attack, attempt a bluff, intimidate, or stealth check (or check associated with your specialization; see page 94) with a dc equal to 20 + your target's CR.

IF you succeed at the check, you deal 1d4 additional damage and the target is flat-footed this damage increases to 1d8 at 3rd and ect ect."

Ok ok the long text out the way i because i want to run the Adventure path. i was watching some people "Lets Play" it and saw a operative use a Grapple as part of the action and also got the trick attack damage....

i found it odd due to the fact that grapple is a standard action and this ability super seeds it by being a full action that allows only one attack and that attack being with the weapon.

I ASSUME to do damage am i wrong in thinking it was just a miss play on the players part for it being a new game or am i over thinking it here and you can trade the attack ..... with the attack of a grapple and still get the trick?

any and all feed back please so i can nip it now before i sit down to play it with players

[QuidEst]

Yeah, that's not something you can do by the rules.

[doktorJung]

I agree, a grapple is not a 'melee weapon with the operative special property'. ( Nor a small arm, but the melee comparison seems more apt :D )

[Venti5]

I suppose this changes with the new garrote that is an opperative weapon

[HammerJack]

That is correct. With a garrote, it is possible to trick attack with a grapple.

[Pantshandshake]

What’s your feeling on whether the added garrote damage and grappled condition is worth the slightly higher difficulty in landing the attack and trick attack attempt? Worth it?

[HammerJack]

Since it's easy to stack enough bonuses for grapple to not be harder to land than a normal attack, it's extremely strong.

[HastyMantis]

HammerJack wrote:

That is correct. With a garrote, it is possible to trick attack with a grapple.

Are you certain? The grapple weapon property says "When wielding a grapple weapon, you can use it to perform a grapple combat maneuver without having your hands free." The grapple combat maneuver is still a standard action, which I think means it doesn't work with trick attack.

[HammerJack]

Grapple is not the relevant property. Throttle is.

Throttle
A throttle weapon deals damage only when it is used to grapple a foe, automatically dealing damage with every successful grapple combat maneuver. These are considered attacks for abilities that can increase a weapon’s damage (such as trick attack). All throttle weapons are also grapple weapons. While a target is successfully being grappled with a throttle weapon, it cannot use its airways to speak or make vocalizations of any kind (though other forms of making noise work normally).

Throttle is also badly written, because it ends up creating weapons that can grapple as part of trick attack or overcharge, but can't grapple as part of clever attack, and can only be used with Improved Get 'Em if you spend resolve.