Grappling with Combat Grapnel or similar

[r1q2]

Last session one of my players who plays a barbarian wanted to attach a rope to their javelin in order to utilize it to try and pull flying enemies within the javelin's range penalty. Almost like a Harpoon, I ended up adjudicating it as an improvised shoddy combat grapnel, considering if you were to grapple the enemy you could then reposition them as a way to pull them towards you.

But after researching the combat grapnel further, I realized by RAW you can't even use it to grapple in the first place considering grapple only interacts with reach, not range. It's almost like there should be a Ranged Grapple trait just like Ranged Trip. Although there is some kind of interesting interaction that could be adjudicated with giving the rope-javelin in this case the Tethered trait and *maybe* allowing Reposition to be used with that.

I also looked into more options to improvise this idea on and I saw the Harpoon Bolt. Would the Harpoon Bolt be fair in the case of this? It would definitely still be improvised/shoddy and it's range would be reduced greatly to the javelin's range or possibly lesser. I also think the DC would have to be adjusted and penalized, but what it should exactly be I don't know either.

So now I'm stumped on how to effectively rule the rope-javelin AND how one would try to grapple someone with ranged, like the combat grapnel as an example. This question is more focused towards how you could pull an enemy towards you, not just a flying combatant, because I know you could use something like a bola on a flying enemy to trip them and have them fall because of that, but I'm more focused on how to PULL an enemy by range, not trip. Would it hurt the game balance by allowing the Combat Grapnel to grapple at range? Does any one have any other advice on how to grapple at range?

[Finoan]

It is a hole in the rules.

Technically the Grapple trait does need to be use within the standard reach of the weapon. Not within range of the Thrown trait.

Also the Grapple action is different from the Reposition action and the Grapple trait only allows you to use the Grapple action, not Reposition. There isn't a Reposition trait for weapons. So by RAW, you also couldn't Reposition an enemy with a Gill Hook weapon to pull them closer to you or move them around - only grapple them in place.

So I would say houserule it so that the hole is plugged. Rule that having the Grapple trait, a range increment, and the Tethered trait allows Grapple attempts within the length of the tether, and that having both the Grapple trait and the Tether trait allows Reposition actions as long as you move the target closer to yourself.

[r1q2]

Finoan wrote:

It is a hole in the rules.

Technically the Grapple trait does need to be use within the standard reach of the weapon. Not within range of the Thrown trait.

Also the Grapple action is different from the Reposition action and the Grapple trait only allows you to use the Grapple action, not Reposition. There isn't a Reposition trait for weapons. So by RAW, you also couldn't Reposition an enemy with a Gill Hook weapon to pull them closer to you or move them around - only grapple them in place.

So I would say houserule it so that the hole is plugged. Rule that having the Grapple trait, a range increment, and the Tethered trait allows Grapple attempts within the length of the tether, and that having both the Grapple trait and the Tether trait allows Reposition actions as long as you move the target closer to yourself.

Yeah I was talking about Reposition purely for the pulling factor, because once you have some grappled (grabbed condition) you can then reposition them, which I would rule as the pulling

[Easl]

Javelins don't have hooks or prongs. Why would pulling on it not just pull it out of the body?

It's a fun concept and seems like exactly the sort of thing a GM should let the PC do some sort of roll for, but...buy a harpoon first? Barbarians have access to martial weapons and the harpoon does more damage and has the same range anyway.

[Finoan]

r1q2 wrote:

Yeah I was talking about Reposition purely for the pulling factor, because once you have some grappled (grabbed condition) you can then reposition them, which I would rule as the pulling

The Reposition action without any restrictions - especially if used with something with more than a 5 foot reach - would allow movement other than 'pulling'.

You could Reposition someone sideways. Or even Reposition them to be farther away from you similar to a Shove.

So if you want to use Reposition to do this harpoon trick to pull enemies out of the air, then Reposition has to be modified to only allow the one direction of movement.