Improving Grapple Checks... less conventionally

[Arkusus]

Basic question is, what are some ways I can improve my grapple check?

The two easiest answers I know are: Strength and Size.

However, right now I'm focusing less on making a serious build, and more on making an amusingly effective build. This build has some rather... imposing restrictions.

I cannot wear armor, posess items, use magic, or be affected by spells or spell-like effects (even when cast by a party member). (See Vow of Poverty, Forsaker, and Monk/Fist of the Forest)

Mostly this is just for amusement to build an invincible wandering hobo, but I thought it would be amusing to make it so he could grapple enemies, pin them down, and then use disarm to take all their items without actually hurting them (Vow of peace), so he can donate all their armor and items to charity (Hope you like this +1 vicious long-sword Timmy!).

What I CAN use without compromising half my build are:
Feats, and non-magical class features. (I cannot use spell-like abilities)


My build is centered around Wisdom and Constitution primarily, but I DID pick up Dex for the AC and Reflex. I may shuffle those points into Strength, but right now the ONLY thing Strength does for me is grapple checks. (Widsom is used for attack rolls, AC and all Saves)


I originally made him as a level 12 build, but figured I'd bump it up to 15 to see how much of a difference it made, so I have 3 class levels avalible, and one feat if anyone knows how to get extra grapple out of that. (If you know a way that uses more than that, I'm still interested, but may have to re-arrange my build some)

[eggs]

You might want to check this (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=585.0) first.

Two omissions that might be notable for a VoP build are a plant graft from Magic of Eberron whose name I'm blanking on, which turns some GP into Improved Grapple + Improved Grab + Constrict at a range, and a section in Sword and Fist (3.0, probably overruled by 3.5 stat blocks, but maybe relevant?) which discussed adding arms to add to a grapple score.

[Arkusus]

That guide is just what I needed, thanks!
Looks like I can get my human treated as large for checks, and treated as huge for one round after a jump.

Or maybe I could get an octopus... Decisions decisions...

[Urpriest]

Most of a Totemist's melds are SU, not SLAs, including the ones that give hefty boosts to grappling. I'd at least take a look there.

[Keld Denar]

Forsaker and VoP are more or less mutually exclusive. VoP requires you to give items away. Forsaker requires you to smash them to gain benefits. Smashing them is a type of "using them for benefit", which is not allowed per RAW.

That said, most things that buff grappling that aren't size, magic, or strength are feats. Aberrant Blood (Flexible Limbs) gives +2, and Deepspawn gives another +2 (requires 3 feats total). Hope you have lots of feats.

I assume Psionics are out?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Forsaker and VoP are more or less mutually exclusive. VoP requires you to give items away. Forsaker requires you to smash them to gain benefits. Smashing them is a type of "using them for benefit", which is not allowed per RAW.

That said, most things that buff grappling that aren't size, magic, or strength are feats. Aberrant Blood (Flexible Limbs) gives +2, and Deepspawn gives another +2 (requires 3 feats total). Hope you have lots of feats.

I assume Psionics are out?

VoP doesn't say you must give away your portion of the treasure, only that you can't own or carry magic items.

The section describing the ramifications of taking the feat says you should give away your share of the treasure, because you being an ascetic doesn't mean the rest of the party should get extra treasure.

Destroying or at least disenchanting the magic items from you portion of the loot, while still donating the rest, doesn't interfere with your VoP, unless your DM is a dill-hole.

If your DM is a dill-hole, you probably shouldn't be picking any mechanical options that come with any kind of "fall" clause.

[TopCheese]

If you are going VoP I can't recomend Totemist enough.

It was almost like the class was made to take that feat since its binds stop magic items from working.

At level 3 you can have a grapple mod of + 15 ish...Which is more than enough. Actually I forgot about powerful build....Hmmm

Without to much hassal. Eventually you could grapple a tarrasque.

[Arkusus]

Forsaker and VoP are more or less mutually exclusive. VoP requires you to give items away. Forsaker requires you to smash them to gain benefits. Smashing them is a type of "using them for benefit", which is not allowed per RAW.

You aren't REQUIRED to 'smash-all-magic' to be a forsaker from what I can see (though it is encouraged), as long as you never make use of or benefit from magic. You DO need to smash magic items periodically to benefit from their damage reduction, but since you already get DR from VoP, I think it's not that big a deal unless you just really wanted a backup-DR (not that low DR does much at level 12-15 anyway)

And yes, I would consider Psionics to be out. I suppose you could debate it, but when they're counting spell-like abilities, I think magic-psionic transparency should be obvious.


I forgot about the Totemist... I'll have to look into that. Probably some good things there. Depending on the perks I may be able to move some other classes around to keep up the prereqs and benefits. I guess I thought it still had to use items, magical or not.

[Keld Denar]

If you smash a magic item to gain a benefit, you are violating your vow. Just like you can't give a wand that was part of your share to an ally to use on you, as this is indirectly benefiting from the item (explicitly disallowed), so too could you not indirectly benefit from smashing the item. You are required to tithe the item, our sell the item and tithe the proceeds. That is where your power comes from. Its not the not having, its the giving away. If it were the not having, you could simply give away your share of the treasure to your allies. Thus, it must be something else, and that something else is the tithing.

DR/Magic is pretty worthless though, everyone and their great aunt Millie has a magic weapon by the time you get high enough level to gain it.

[jmelesky]

If your GM allows PF material, the Tetori (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/monk/archetypes/paizo---monk-archetypes/tetori) archetype of the monk is probably a better grappler than Monk/Fist of the Forest (though I could be mistaken, being unfamiliar with the latter).

Generally speaking, PF Monk is better than 3.5 Monk, and Tetori is the grapple-king of PF Monks.

That said, the grapple rules may have changed enough to make conversion nontrivial.

[Arkusus]

If your GM allows PF material, the Tetori (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/monk/archetypes/paizo---monk-archetypes/tetori) archetype of the monk is probably a better grappler than Monk/Fist of the Forest (though I could be mistaken, being unfamiliar with the latter).

Generally speaking, PF Monk is better than 3.5 Monk, and Tetori is the grapple-king of PF Monks.

That said, the grapple rules may have changed enough to make conversion nontrivial.

Interesting. I hadn't seen that monk variant before. Originally I just dipped Monk for the two handy level 1 feats and the Widom AC. It looks like the Tetori monk gets all the same things I needed, and focuses more on what I was intending to do in the first place.

Fist of the Forest was only added in because it has virtually identical restrictions as the Monk (no armor to benefit from a CON based AC) and I suppose it slightly increased unarmed attack damage, and increased base landspeed, but those were just bonuses. It does also have some amusing flavor with it too.



On an unrelated note, does anyone know if it's possible to have an Octopus familiar out of the water? (I suppose I could just move one from puddle to puddle and leave him at the entrance to dungeons [assuming they're less than a mile deep], but I don't think I can even own an aquarium.)

[Darrin]

If you smash a magic item to gain a benefit, you are violating your vow.


Isn't that kind of circular, though? If you give up all your items (or destroy them), you gain a benefit... namely, VoP itself. So VoP violates its own vow?

(I'm having trouble parsing the Vow itself... but I think you can argue that the benefit doesn't come from the magic item. It's destroyed, so how can it provide a benefit? In fact, BoED even mentions that the DM might need to award extra XP to VoP for destroying "antithetical" magic items... and for Forsakers, all magic items are antithetical. Wouldn't gaining XP be a benefit? In fact, the benefit comes from Forsaker, not the magic item... kinda splitting hairs, I suppose, but a literal reading of VoP doesn't really say anything about class abilities violating the vow.)

[Darrin]

Whoops. Double post.

[Keld Denar]

VoP is selfish. You are only allowed to sacrifice WBL to it. Otherwise, it cries, packs up is toys, and goes home. :smallbiggrin:

[Arkusus]

Isn't that kind of circular, though? If you give up all your items (or destroy them), you gain a benefit... namely, VoP itself. So VoP violates its own vow?

(I'm having trouble parsing the Vow itself... but I think you can argue that the benefit doesn't come from the magic item. It's destroyed, so how can it provide a benefit? In fact, BoED even mentions that the DM might need to award extra XP to VoP for destroying "antithetical" magic items... and for Forsakers, all magic items are antithetical. Wouldn't gaining XP be a benefit? In fact, the benefit comes from Forsaker, not the magic item... kinda splitting hairs, I suppose, but a literal reading of VoP doesn't really say anything about class abilities violating the vow.)

*shrug*
Some of the confusion comes from mixing it with the Forsaker.

VoP: You cannot own magic items.
Forsaker: You cannot use magic items or effects, or benefit from magic in any form.

From what I read and how I understand it, Vow of Poverty means you have to voluntarily avoid acquiring wealth for yourself in the form of possessions. Since you are expected to be CHARITABLE, and not just a complete germaphobe who refuses to touch anything, I presume this means you are capable of carrying items from point A to point B, so long as you are not doing it to benefit from the item.

The Forsaker as a CLASS simply refuses to USE magic items, spells, or magic-like/spell-like things and effects. (I read this to mean Magic, Psionics, Item enchantments, vestiges, and hell, even words of power). He has one trait however that, just for benefiting from this one trait (not all class features) requires him to regularly destroy a magic item or items worth X gold, but that never requires you to actually POSSESS the item (You could sunder an item an enemy is using for instance, or Vow of Peace has a chance of having weapons shatter upon contact with your skin... debatable, but worth considering).

Furthermore, Vow of Poverty never prevents you from benefiting from magic effects, it's the Forsaker class that does that, so since it's one of it's own class features, I presume it's not banned.

[Kelb_Panthera]

If you smash a magic item to gain a benefit, you are violating your vow. Just like you can't give a wand that was part of your share to an ally to use on you, as this is indirectly benefiting from the item (explicitly disallowed), so too could you not indirectly benefit from smashing the item. You are required to tithe the item, our sell the item and tithe the proceeds. That is where your power comes from. Its not the not having, its the giving away. If it were the not having, you could simply give away your share of the treasure to your allies. Thus, it must be something else, and that something else is the tithing.

DR/Magic is pretty worthless though, everyone and their great aunt Millie has a magic weapon by the time you get high enough level to gain it.

This is just plain wrong. How long has it been since you actually read the entries for VoP?

You explicitly -can- benefit from expending magic items. It uses the example of an ally giving you a potion.

The part about tithing isn't even in the text for the feat itself. It's attached to the section labeled voluntary poverty after the mechanical aspects of the vow, and is given as a suggestion on how to keep the other party memebers from having more treasure than they should.

Should =/= must.

The DM could simply give 1/X less treasure where X is the total number of members in the party. The VoP character doesn't have to tithe a blasted thing in that case. Being charitable doesn't necessarily mean anything related to money at all. You can be charitable by giving your time and effort, and as an adventurer by spilling the blood of the enemies of the innocent.

TL;DR: the vow specifically says you cannot -own- magic items, and not only does it not specifically say you cannot benefit from magic items, it goes out of its way to say you can.

[tyckspoon]

TL;DR: the vow specifically says you cannot -own- magic items, and not only does it not specifically say you cannot benefit from magic items, it goes out of its way to say you can.

You misread Keld's statement a bit, I think. He didn't say an ally cannot use an item on you; as you say, the Vow does permit allies to use their own items on you. What he said was you cannot hand them an item to use that came from the Vow-taker's share of the treasure. A Vow of Poverty character cannot bypass the restrictions on benefiting from owning items just because somebody else was the one to take the action that activated it; any item that is used on him basically has to be used as charity, coming out of somebody else's pocket.

[Keld Denar]

Exactly. A VoP character can get hit by a Wand of Cure Light, for example, as long as that wand was purchased by someone elses fund. No part of that wand is allowed to be purchased with money that was that characters portion of the treasure.

Again, its not just about not having. If it was, you could simply give all of your portion of the treasure to your party. But you explicit can't do that, so it must be something more.

[Kelb_Panthera]

You misread Keld's statement a bit, I think. He didn't say an ally cannot use an item on you; as you say, the Vow does permit allies to use their own items on you. What he said was you cannot hand them an item to use that came from the Vow-taker's share of the treasure. A Vow of Poverty character cannot bypass the restrictions on benefiting from owning items just because somebody else was the one to take the action that activated it; any item that is used on him basically has to be used as charity, coming out of somebody else's pocket.


Exactly. A VoP character can get hit by a Wand of Cure Light, for example, as long as that wand was purchased by someone elses fund. No part of that wand is allowed to be purchased with money that was that characters portion of the treasure.

Again, its not just about not having. If it was, you could simply give all of your portion of the treasure to your party. But you explicit can't do that, so it must be something more.

But it -is- just about having. The section on tithing is saying that your party shouldn't -have- your share of the treasure, naturally you can't either. However, you don't have the magic items you smashed, they're destroyed. Yes, you gain a -temporary- benefit from it, but that's no different from an ally handing you a potion of CLW because you look badly wounded, or better a potion of resistance since it has a duration longer than instantaneous.

A VoP character can get temporary benefits from a magic item.

And again, the tithing is a -suggestion- it's not an absolute rule. If it was it would've been included in the text describing how to break the vow.

Your vow is only broken if you own an item not on the prescribed list. Game balance (such as it is) is broken if you let your allies keep your (possibly non-existant) share of the treasure.


Having a character in the party who has taken a vow of poverty should not necessarily mean that the other party members get bigger shares of treasure! [...] The majority of her share of party treasure should be donated to the needy, directly [...] or indirectly [...].

Should/should not =/= must/must not.

And unless I've mistaken the nature of forsaker, such a character would be of the view that noone should have the magic items she smashes? Thus she is smashing them for the greater good and getting a (temporary) benefit as a side effect.

[Metahuman1]

So, here's a curiously hilarious idea.

Make the smallest PC you can. Race, Items, powers, what ever, just aim for pocket sized. Smaller if you can swing it.


And at the same time, this PC is AMAZING at grappleing, and maybe one or two other combat maneuvers like trips and disarms and bullsrushes. And it works RAW.


Anyone got any ideas to make this one work, or is it just flat something that is homebrew/house-rules or No-go?

[tyckspoon]

So, here's a curiously hilarious idea.

Make the smallest PC you can. Race, Items, powers, what ever, just aim for pocket sized. Smaller if you can swing it.


And at the same time, this PC is AMAZING at grappleing, and maybe one or two other combat maneuvers like trips and disarms and bullsrushes. And it works RAW.


Anyone got any ideas to make this one work, or is it just flat something that is homebrew/house-rules or No-go?

I think you could probably get it to about where it would be as good at those manuevers as an average medium-sized character, but probably not to excelling- the size penalties (and probable Strength penalties) for being so small would be quite significant, and that's assuming you already found some way around the limits so you can actually try your trick on most enemies- with standard rules, you can't grapple anything 2 sizes larger than yourself and you can only trip 1 size larger.

[Arkusus]

I think you could probably get it to about where it would be as good at those manuevers as an average medium-sized character, but probably not to excelling- the size penalties (and probable Strength penalties) for being so small would be quite significant, and that's assuming you already found some way around the limits so you can actually try your trick on most enemies- with standard rules, you can't grapple anything 2 sizes larger than yourself and you can only trip 1 size larger.

Where you CAN get creative and amusing, are the mechanics that change height without changing size category. With a few creative item and feat choices, you can create 9-10 ft tall medium creatures without breaking any rules (maybe taller, never looked into it very much), I imagine you could go the other way if you wanted.

Dwarf + Hat of Disguise to look 1 foot shorter, and voila! You're just as short as the shortest halflings, but still qualify as a medium creature.

Better yet, create a human (females are shorter, so go for that) at the shortest starting height for humans, pick the Jotunbrud starting feat (lets you grapple as if you were one size category larger) and THEN start shrinking yourself. Hat of disguise alone could get you to just about 3'5'' tall while grappling like a giant.

[Metahuman1]

Hmmm, you know, Item Familiars and affiliations allow custom tricks if you DM will agree to them, start with say a Pixie (Or other Tiny creature, though I don't know off the top of my head what makes the list for that.) and a Ring of Reduction, and I can now see with a cooperative DM A way to make this work.

Oh, this will be a fun character in the right game.

[hex0]

Stirges get a +12 racial bonus to grapple. Turn into one then increase your size?

[Keld Denar]

Stirges get a +12 racial bonus to grapple. Turn into one then increase your size?

Choker would be better. Huge racial bonus, dual actions, and the constrict special ability.