The Cling Feat

[PsicoVic]

So, in the (great) Advanced player´s guide one new ancestry feat is available to Goblins. The Cling feat

CLING �
FEAT 9
GOBLIN
Requirements Your last action was a successful Strike.
You hang onto a foe to harry them into submission. If your
target moves while you’re hanging onto it, you can choose
to move with the target. The target is released if you
choose not to move with it, at the start of your next turn,
or if the target Escapes. Attempts to Escape from a Cling
follow the rules for Escape, but use your Acrobatics DC and
end the Cling instead of the conditions normally ended by
the Escape action.
Special You can use this action without a free hand
if your preceding Strike was made with your jaws or a
similar unarmed attack you could use to hang on. The GM
determines which unarmed attacks apply. Hanging on in this
way prevents you from using that unarmed attack.

So... What exactly does this one do, exactly? You just move when your clinged target moves? Does this apply any condition? How do you harry them into submission?

Thanks in advance!

[HammerJack]

You're just holding on so that they can't get away from you. What you do to Harry them into submission is whatever you do with your actions to a creature that can't get out of your reach, not a special effect of Cling. No conditions are applied.

[Wheldrake]

It's a cool ability... but level 9??? This is something I'd like to see on a group of low-level goblin adversaries, but the "feat 9" descriptor puts it out of their reach.

For a PC goblin, it's kind of cool, and kind of slapstick. I don't know how much goblin comedy a group of level 9+ adventurers need.

[Grankless]

NPCs don't have feats, so you can give even the lowliest of Level -1 goblins this, if you're brave enough.

[Callin13]

Fighter with Snagging Strike and Combat Grab, last action Cling. If the enemy wants you gone it takes 2 actions with the attack trait so second one has MAP. Just a good way to make your opponent waste actions.

[HammerJack]

It's only slapstick until the shark totem barbarian latches onto you. Then it's a problem.

[Cordell Kintner]

Callin13 wrote:

Fighter with Snagging Strike and Combat Grab, last action Cling. If the enemy wants you gone it takes 2 actions with the attack trait so second one has MAP. Just a good way to make your opponent waste actions.

Seems like you would only be able to do that if you attack with a bite or something. I'm also unsure how it would interact with Combat Grab, since technically the last action wasn't a Strike but a grab.

[Kennethray]

The tick swarm has a very similar effect and I used it to great effect.

[shroudb]

Cordell Kintner wrote:

Callin13 wrote:

Fighter with Snagging Strike and Combat Grab, last action Cling. If the enemy wants you gone it takes 2 actions with the attack trait so second one has MAP. Just a good way to make your opponent waste actions.

Seems like you would only be able to do that if you attack with a bite or something. I'm also unsure how it would interact with Combat Grab, since technically the last action wasn't a Strike but a grab.

Combat Grab's "grab" is not an action though.

note the difference between those two:

Combat grab:

Quote:

You swipe at your opponent and grab at them. Make a melee Strike while keeping one hand free. If the Strike hits, you grab the target using your free hand. The creature remains grabbed until the end of your next turn or until it Escapes, whichever comes first.

Flurry of maneuvers:

Quote:

You flurry is a combination of maneuvers. You can replace one or both of your attacks during a Flurry of Blows with Grapples, Shoves, or Trips.

Combat grab lacks the upper case Grapple "action" language, it simply imposes the grabbed condition to the target.

It's very similar to other feats that don't "Trip" the target but instead simply "knock the target prone"

[theservantsllcleanitup]

Combat Grab's "grab" is not an action, but Combat Grab is itself an action that has a subordinate strike. So if you use combat grab, your last action was not a successful strike, it was a successful combat grab.

Just to be clear:

CRB page 461, Subordinate Actions wrote:

Using an activity is not the same as using any of its subordinate actions. For example, the quickened condition you get from the haste spell lets you spend an extra action each turn to Stride or Strike, but you couldn’t use the extra action for an activity that includes a Stride or Strike. As another example, if you used an action that specified, “If the next action you use is a Strike,” an activity that includes a Strike wouldn’t count, because the next thing you are doing is starting an activity, not using the Strike basic action.

[shroudb]

theservantsllcleanitup wrote:

Combat Grab's "grab" is not an action, but Combat Grab is itself an action that has a subordinate strike. So if you use combat grab, your last action was not a successful strike, it was a successful combat grab.

Just to be clear:

CRB page 461, Subordinate Actions wrote:

Using an activity is not the same as using any of its subordinate actions. For example, the quickened condition you get from the haste spell lets you spend an extra action each turn to Stride or Strike, but you couldn’t use the extra action for an activity that includes a Stride or Strike. As another example, if you used an action that specified, “If the next action you use is a Strike,” an activity that includes a Strike wouldn’t count, because the next thing you are doing is starting an activity, not using the Strike basic action.

Combat Grab's success has a Succesful Strike though.

It's the weird way that subservient action text is written that throws off people:

The Strike in Combat grab, is a Strike full and through. Everything that modifies a Strike modifies it BUT Combat Grab isn't a Strike itself, so if you were, as an example Hastened, you couldn't do a Combat Grab.

Your bolded part plays right into that:
If somethng calls for you to make a Strike, you can't use a different ability that simply has Strike as a subservient action.

But the subservient action itself (the Strike that's within the activity) is indeed a Strike. And that can be succesful or not depending on what you roll.

To use an example a little bit more complicated:

Knockdown feat:
An activity that combines a Strike, and If the Strike is succesful it does a Trip.

Both Trip and Strike are subservient actions, if something calls for you to use a Strike or a Trip, you can't do a Knockdown instead.

But, the Strike within the Activity can both succed and Fail. And if you had something that modified a Fail to a Strike, you could use that, or if you had something that modified a Trip, you could use that (barring rules about having to finish up an activity, so usually free actions only).
Similarly, if you had something that triggered off a succesful Trip, you could follow Knockdown with that since the Knockdown Activity did indeed a "Trip".

[theservantsllcleanitup]

I think you are overthinking this. Cling says "Your last action was a successful Strike"

If I use Combat grab, that was my last action. Full stop. I used an action, and that action was called combat grab. I made a strike as part of combat grab, yes, but in terms of the actual action I used, it was combat grab, and thus, my last action was not a successful strike.

You can say I'm being overly litigious, and that may be true, but that's how this game purports to be written. And most ability interaction questions get gunned down like messerschmitts anyway, so that's the way I tend to lean.

edit: and actually, no, look at this right here

“If the next action you use is a Strike,” an activity that includes a Strike wouldn’t count, because the next thing you are doing is starting an activity, not using the Strike basic action.

Replace the first bold with "If the last action you used was a strike" and the meaning is exactly the same. They are calling out that those kinds of requirements are specifically talking about the Strike Basic Action. It's pretty clear I think. But I could be wrong.

[shroudb]

theservantsllcleanitup wrote:

I think you are overthinking this. Cling says "Your last action was a successful Strike"

If I use Combat grab, that was my last action. Full stop. I used an action, and that action was called combat grab. I made a strike as part of combat grab, yes, but in terms of the actual action I used, it was combat grab, and thus, my last action was not a successful strike.

You can say I'm being overly litigious, and that may be true, but that's how this game purports to be written. And most ability interaction questions get gunned down like messerschmitts anyway, so that's the way I tend to lean.

edit: and actually, no, look at this right here

“If the next action you use is a Strike,” an activity that includes a Strike wouldn’t count, because the next thing you are doing is starting an activity, not using the Strike basic action.

Replace the first bold with "If the last action you used was a strike" and the meaning is exactly the same. They are calling out that those kinds of requirements are specifically talking about the Strike Basic Action. It's pretty clear I think. But I could be wrong.

The subordinate actions are still actions.

They are even called as such.

The bolded part of yours is the exact opposite of the question with Cling.

You use Combat grab Activity-> it Does a Strike action.

That's distinctively different than Do a Strike-> It is a Combat Grab.

[Cordell Kintner]

Combat grab is an activity, which includes the Strike action. It's not a Strike action, and doesn't fulfil any conditions that require you to use a strike action.

If you can't use Combat Grab to fulfil conditions that require your next action to be a Strike, why would you be able to use it to fulfil the requirement of your last action being a strike?

If Cling were a free action it would work, but it's not so you have to wait for the Combat Grab activity to finish, and since the last action was the Combat Grab activity you can't Cling.

[shroudb]

Cordell Kintner wrote:

Combat grab is an activity, which includes the Strike action. It's not a Strike action, and doesn't fulfil any conditions that require you to use a strike action.

If you can't use Combat Grab to fulfil conditions that require your next action to be a Strike, why would you be able to use it to fulfil the requirement of your last action being a strike?

If Cling were a free action it would work, but it's not so you have to wait for the Combat Grab activity to finish, and since the last action was the Combat Grab activity you can't Cling.

Order of operation should be:

You do the activity
You do the action that was inside the activity.

Last action was a Strike, even if it was a subordinate action.

Idont think you need to overcomplicate things more than that.

Again, Combat Grab is most definately NOT a Strike action, that isnt what i'm saying.
What I'm saying is that the last action WAS the subordinate Strike Action, which still retains all and every traits and modifiers on it per the rules, and is still called an action.

[theservantsllcleanitup]

I see the logic of your argument, certainly, but it's just hard for me to believe that it's the intent based on how the rules are written and how often abilities don't interact the way you want them to.

[mrspaghetti]

I had a girlfriend with this feat once.