Ran a fight with a couple froghemoths tonight. One grabbed most of the part and then Greater Constricted, knocking out 3 of the four grappled characters. But the unconscious condition says:
"If you’re unconscious and have more than 1 Hit Point (typically because you are asleep or unconscious due to an effect), you wake up in one of the following ways. Each causes you to lose the unconscious condition.
You take damage, provided the damage doesn’t reduce you to 0 Hit Points. If the damage reduces you to 0 Hit Points, you remain unconscious and gain the dying condition as normal.
You receive healing, other than the natural healing you get from resting.
Someone shakes you awake with an Interact action.
There’s loud noise going on around you—though this isn’t automatic. At the start of your turn, you automatically attempt a Perception check against the noise’s DC (or the lowest DC if there is more than one noise), waking up if you succeed. If creatures are attempting to stay quiet around you, this Perception check uses their Stealth DCs. Some magical effects make you sleep so deeply that they don’t allow you to attempt this Perception check.
If you are simply asleep, the GM decides you wake up either because you have had a restful night’s sleep or something disrupted that rest."
Having a battle seems like it would pretty much automatically cause enough noise to wake people, at least with perception modifiers above level 1. So does this really matter? Is there likely to be any effect most of the time beyond making the target go prone and drop what they are holding? I suppose it leaves you vulnerable to other attacks until your turn begins, but the creature most likely to attack you is already choking you out and doesn't care that your AC got lower.
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Captain Morgan, did you have any other/new thoughts on this problem? I just had the same thing come up in the game I was playing. The party fought a Black Scorpion which also has Greater Constrict. But it felt weird that the person constricted unconscious only to awaken again on their turn while they were still being constricted in the Black Scorpion's pincer.
So does this really matter? Is there likely to be any effect most of the time beyond making the target go prone and drop what they are holding? I suppose it leaves you vulnerable to other attacks until your turn begins, but the creature most likely to attack you is already choking you out and doesn't care that your AC got lower.
I felt the same way: "does it really matter?"
For a CR 15 Black Scorpion it's probably going to be the party versus that one monster as it's a really high CR and the monster moves 50 ft with a 30ft range. In my case it was four vs the one.
For the unconscious player, I ended up letting them make the fort save again instead of just insta-awake because the unconscious rules didn't really make sense. However this made it feel the greater constrict wasn't really worth the actions. The Black Scorpion would have been better served making the two actions to get three attack with its stinger instead of using strike with pincer, grab, and then greater constrict one of the party members, only for the player to wake back up immediately after he falls unconscious. Granted the player dropped its weapon, had to spend an action waking up and was still grappled and would need to escape; but didn't feel as the ability was intended.
Revisiting this thread because I'm trying to figure out Noise DC stuff and just seeing the response. I'm considering just lifting the PF1 Notice DCs straight up. But maybe there's something cleaner that could be done with Simple DCs.
Captain Morgan, did you have any other/new thoughts on this problem? I just had the same thing come up in the game I was playing. The party fought a Black Scorpion which also has Greater Constrict. But it felt weird that the person constricted unconscious only to awaken again on their turn while they were still being constricted in the Black Scorpion's pincer.
So does this really matter? Is there likely to be any effect most of the time beyond making the target go prone and drop what they are holding? I suppose it leaves you vulnerable to other attacks until your turn begins, but the creature most likely to attack you is already choking you out and doesn't care that your AC got lower.I felt the same way: "does it really matter?"
For a CR 15 Black Scorpion it's probably going to be the party versus that one monster as it's a really high CR and the monster moves 50 ft with a 30ft range. In my case it was four vs the one.
For the unconscious player, I ended up letting them make the fort save again instead of just insta-awake because the unconscious rules didn't really make sense. However this made it feel the greater constrict wasn't really worth the actions. The Black Scorpion would have been better served making the two actions to get three attack with its stinger instead of using strike with pincer, grab, and then greater constrict one of the party members, only for the player to wake back up immediately after he falls unconscious. Granted the player dropped its weapon, had to spend an action waking up and was still grappled and would need to escape; but didn't feel as the ability was intended.
I am reasonably sure a creature is going to wake up at the start of their turn, but I can see a few advantages.
1) Knocks enemy prone.
2) Enemy drops what they are holding.
3) Enemy takes a -4 penalty to AC and reflex saves until their turn begins or they are woken by damage or someone wasting actions. Combined with the -2 from flatfooted, that is really dangerous.
Number 3 is less relevant when fighting a solo boss, but it can still be used to set up a crit. If a creature begins its turn grappled (hard to avoid if you began your previous turn prone and grappled) the scorpion can:
Constrict >> Crit Fish with the stinger >> Grab
Which seems like a pretty potent combo. Even better if it has a creature in each claw. Greater Constrict is already a pretty good ability, and I'm not sure it needs to be better than strictly running it RAW. Especially when you consider other monsters with abilities like Improved Grab can do it more efficiently.
Yeah, Greater Constrict would be ruinous if it could knock out a series of enemies for multiple rounds. It's strong straightforward and tactically stronger before a series of attacks, i.e. w/ a Marilith.
I'm unsure if a boss would even use a Grab after that, as it might likely have the ability to snatch up a new victim to try again next round. Or it might carry them into dangerous territory.
Add minions that can snatch up weapons or dogpile on the unconscious PC and it's quite brutal an ability, even if only one round. Terrain too can make this extra rough. Drop your sword in the sandstorm, icy crevasse, or while flying? Good luck.