How should I have handled this? (Grappling Question)

[TripleD]

I'm DM-ing a game where my players are out in a desert town, gladiator-ing in some highly illegal fighting pits. Newbie DM, a few newbie players. They got to the final match which was a 2-on-1. On our side was our Fighter and Scout, against them was "Brother Leoneus", an Armand Monk that had turned apostate among the barbarian tribes of the far north (tl;dr -> Monk 3/ Lion-Totem Barbarian 1).

The match went badly. The monk pounced into a flurry of blows, and next turn went into his defensive stance. They just couldn't hit him, and eventually the scout went down. Fighter got in a lucky hit, which made the BL start raging. Low on health, the fighter decided to grapple.

At which point the fight ground to a halt.

See, Armands are small creatures, so the fighter asked if she could lift him off the ground. I said she could, and that the Armand would take a penalty on his grapple check. For four or five rounds (15 minutes real life time) the monk couldn't make an escape artist check, nor could the fighter make an unarmed strike (she had a greatsword originally), that would allow them to escape/damage their opponent.

Eventually she just threw him prone to the ground, attacked him, then hit again when he stood up for a K.O.

There was nothing really wrong with the grapple-lock, but I could feel my other players getting bored and was wondering what would have been a better course of action in that situation?

[Devronq]

I'm DM-ing a game where my players are out in a desert town, gladiator-ing in some highly illegal fighting pits. Newbie DM, a few newbie players. They got to the final match which was a 2-on-1. On our side was our Fighter and Scout, against them was "Brother Leoneus", an Armand Monk that had turned apostate among the barbarian tribes of the far north (tl;dr -> Monk 3/ Lion-Totem Barbarian 1).

The match went badly. The monk pounced into a flurry of blows, and next turn went into his defensive stance. They just couldn't hit him, and eventually the scout went down. Fighter got in a lucky hit, which made the BL start raging. Low on health, the fighter decided to grapple.

At which point the fight ground to a halt.

See, Armands are small creatures, so the fighter asked if she could lift him off the ground. I said she could, and that the Armand would take a penalty on his grapple check. For four or five rounds (15 minutes real life time) the monk couldn't make an escape artist check, nor could the fighter make an unarmed strike (she had a greatsword originally), that would allow them to escape/damage their opponent.

Eventually she just threw him prone to the ground, attacked him, then hit again when he stood up for a K.O.

There was nothing really wrong with the grapple-lock, but I could feel my other players getting bored and was wondering what would have been a better course of action in that situation?

Ok sorry just a nitpick first a monk is lawful only and barbarian is chaotic only, not that there's anything broken about mixing the two its just not allowed.

Also why didn't the players just attack the monk while he was in the grapple while the fighter was holding him? I assumed that the players did nothing during their turns? If so why would it take 15mins should have only the monk and fighter had turns?

[eggynack]

@ Devronq: I'm pretty sure that a monk can switch alignment to become a barbarian. It's uncommon, but it's possible. Also, this was an arena setting, so there were no allies involved, except for the scout who was down for the count.

Anyway, on to the topic at hand. First off, I probably wouldn't allow the weird lifting thing, because grappling is complicated enough as is. It's not a big deal, but it's a thing of some kind. Second, and more importantly, you probably should have just had the monk punch the fighter in the face. The attack your opponent option only has a -4 penalty to hit, so the monk probably had a decent chance of doing that, and the monk's unarmed strikes could probably outdamage the fighter's unarmed strikes handily. That would have forced the fighter to try a different method.

[prufock]

Low on health, the fighter decided to grapple.

At which point the fight ground to a halt.

See, Armands are small creatures, so the fighter asked if she could lift him off the ground. I said she could, and that the Armand would take a penalty on his grapple check. For four or five rounds (15 minutes real life time) the monk couldn't make an escape artist check, nor could the fighter make an unarmed strike (she had a greatsword originally), that would allow them to escape/damage their opponent.

Eventually she just threw him prone to the ground, attacked him, then hit again when he stood up for a K.O.

1. Lifting the opponent off the ground should count as either a Pin or a Move grappling action, which requires a second successful grapple check.

2. The fighter doesn't need to make an unarmed strike to damage the monk, you can deal your unarmed damage in a grapple with a successful grapple check.

3. Throwing the opponent prone should be a Trip check.

4. The other players could have assisted in the grapple, making it more difficult for the monk to escape, since he would have to beat all opponents' grapple checks. Then they each could have made grapple checks to deal unarmed damage as in #2.

[KillianHawkeye]

A) Prufrock is right, lifting somebody off the ground probably should require pinning them.

B) Getting lifted off the ground really shouldn't instill a penalty on grapple checks at all.

[TripleD]

Thanks for all the advice. I realize now that the arbitrary penalties were what slowed the match down. I should have just let the monk punch/kick/elbow the fighter until he thought of another method. Or, conversely, advise my player how a pin works and see if she could neutralize the monk.