I Wanna Grapple Like Batman

[BarnabasBailey]

So, I've been playing a bit too much Arkham City and thought I might take a few cues from watching the way he deals with baddies in Predator Mode when designing my Ninja. Particularly, one of the moves he has is the ability to grapple an enemy from behind and put them in a sleeper hold silently choking them into unconsciousness. In the game, this only takes a few seconds, can be performed from stealth, and is completely silent.

My question is: does this translate at all into Pathfinder mechanics? I looked at the negatives for grappling opponents, and clearly missing from them is the inability of the grappled to do things like call for help. Add to it, the fact that it might very well take several rounds to grapple an opponent to submission using simple unarmed strikes, and it seems to me that if I attempted a similar thing, I would just be standing there with my opponent for upwards of thirty seconds while he described in great detail what I was doing to every guard in earshot. Unless, of course, there is something that I'm missing, and there's a feat or some other mechanic that could facilitate such a concept.

[Gavinfoxx]

Here you go:

http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19870826/Black_Blood_Cultist_Handbook:_A_Grapplers_Manual

http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=585

Oh wait. Pathfinder. I believe Pathfinder nerfed grappling pretty hard... um...

[Serin]

Pathfinder has several options that I know of for this.

Ultimate combat has a feat specifically called Strangler that lets you apply sneak attack dice to the deal damage option of maintaining your grapple.

UC also has the Jawbreaker feat that allows you to deliver bleed damage and prevent speech if you succeed on a stunning fist attempt vs grappled opponents.

Strangler could easily apply to 3.5, not sure about jawbreaker as I am unfamiliar with stunning fists existence or effects there.

You could also use a garrote. Its a 2 handed weapon. 1d3-1d6 damage depending on size and type. In 3.5 I think they prevent speech entirely and in pathfinder they prevent spell-casting that contains verbal components by forcing a concentration check at 20 + your CMB + the level of the spell they are trying to cast. I would think if it impedes casting like that it would impede normal speech. It also allows your to suffocate them via strangulation which I would think implies you can't speak if you can't breathe.

Combine Strangler and a decent magic garrote and a Ninja could probably strangle someone down in a few rounds without them being able to call for help if you can maintain the grapple. Bonus points for using rogue talents to do Strength damage every round as well.

[Kelb_Panthera]

OA has the chokehold feat in 3.5. IIRC it's just a matter of maintaining a pin for one full-round then they have to save vs unconcious for 1d3 rounds.

Suprise round: initiate grapple, opponent gets no AoO against the attempt because he's flat-footed. DM ruling whether he can call out at this time. (I wouldn't allow it)

Round 1: if you win initiative, roll to pin. If succesful, the enemy cannot speak if you don't let him.

Round 2: if round one went according to plan, enemy must make a fort save vs being knocked out. If successful, CdG with non-lethal weapon to keep him down (minor house-rule) or deliver non-lethal damage via grapple while maintaining the pin until he's good and out.

If your DM calls the CdG houserule I suggested a no-go, take a level in something with death attack so you can use it to paralyze them for 1d6 + [class level] rounds after only choking them for 3. (maintaining a pin against an unconcious character doesn't require any action since they can't try to escape.)

[Serin]

Pathfinder is actually a little tougher than what Kelb suggests. I am not sure if there is a feat specific way to speed up choking someone, as the Chokehold feat in pathfinder is pretty worthless.

The feat lets you attempt a grapple at a -5 penalty to prevent all speech and choke your opponent. A garrote does the same thing without the penalty, you're just relying on the DM to assume that impeded spell-casting and having to hold your breath means you can't speak since the weapon doesn't explicitly say that. (Garrote stats are on the pf srd btw I cant find them in the books ive got)

That being said, its going to take upwards of 20 rounds to suffocate someone in PF. They can hold their breath for 2x their consitution score. So even a level 1 commoner with 10 Con can hold his breath for 20 rounds. After that they have to make a DC 10 con check every round to continue holding their breath, DC goes up by 1 point per round. Once they fail the first time they are dead in 3 rounds. Anything other than a move action or free action burns 1 additional round. So if they are actively fighting back trying to break free they can only hold their breath for rounds = con score.

So even someone with only 10 con you will have to choke them out for 25 rounds or so to kill them. (24 if you just want them knocked out).

Even a non magic garrote on a level 1 rogue will give you 3d6 dmg per round with the strangler feat. (1 for grapple maintain, 1 for garrote, 1 for SA) That means you can get in 30-60 d6 of dmg before most people will even begin to start suffocating. If the garrote is even a +1 magic item that adds 30-60 dmg. They will likely die of damage before suffocation.

Mind you, 20 rounds is still only 2 minutes. So while it seems forever in combat its perfectly reasonable that it would take you 2 minutes to choke someone to death in combat with them trying to fight you off.

*edit* spelling

[Kelb_Panthera]

Seriously? :smallconfused:

A properly executed blood choke should have the target unconcious after a few seconds and not breathing on their own inside 30. A garrote -always- causes a blood choke if it's being used properly.

Research fail, paizo. :smallsigh:

[BarnabasBailey]

Actually, the way I'm reading it, Kelb might be on to something.

Chokehold is maintained as long as the grapple is maintained, and every time the hold is maintained, I can still make an attack to damage him. Combine it with Strangler, and there's an effective combination to quickly wear down an opponent without their calling for help (by this level, my ninja's sneak attack damage is beast), and being able to do it in situations where I might not have a garotte on hand (actually a viable scenario, given my character's back story). Most importantly, it fits the title of this thread, as I'm choking a person out exactly like Batman would do it, without piano wire assistance. :smallbiggrin:

[Serin]

RE: OP

Yea that could work. The only downside is the -5 penalty to grapple for attempting the choke hold in PF. On the upside, the feat does let you grapple opponents larger than yourself to some degree.

If you'd rather go with the feat so you don't have to carry the garrote and be caught without it that's a pretty legit choice. It all comes down to SA dice as far as being able to do it quickly though.

RE: kelb

Yea I would think the garrote should be *much* faster in its own right. I'm no expert but I thought the intent of a garrote IRL was to use as thin a wire as possible that would increase the choke pressure as well as cut into flesh.

But if you apply SA dice to the hold or the garrote it kinda makes more sense....kinda. Maybe. It's kinda stupid that the feat's imply that Chokeholds and Strangling someone are two different things though.

[Cirrylius]

It'd be easier if the rules distinguished between knockout by suffocation (preventing the victim from oxygenating his blood) and knockout by choke hold (preventing blood from reaching the brain/ramping up blood pressure).

[Maginomicon]

For other ways to grapple like batman, there's a grappling hook crossbow in Song and Silence (3.0).

[BarnabasBailey]

It'd be easier if the rules distinguished between knockout by suffocation (preventing the victim from oxygenating his blood) and knockout by choke hold (preventing blood from reaching the brain/ramping up blood pressure).

I think for my purposes, if can hit on the three primary factors of this (being able to grab from stealth, sequestering the enemy's ability to call out, and reducing them to an unconscious or otherwise defeated state relatively quickly), then it doesn't matter whether it happens because of the rules on nonlethal suffocation or because I did enough unarmed damage in the second or third rounds of grappling. I could just say for fluff's sake that my grab was a typical sleeper hold and that I didn't need to actually hit the enemy for it to do damage.

Also, a grappling hook crossbow sounds absolutely awesome. Although, it does make me regret not putting something in the title saying I was hoping for rules in a Pathfinder game.