GRELL and the thousand grapples. Please help!

[floorweasel]

Hey guys!

I wanted to run over a scenario that happened in the group i was playing in tonight. After the end result, everyone was a bit confused about how to resolve it. Any advice (and citations, please please please) would be much appreciated.

According to Lords of Madness, a grell has ten attacks, improved grab, expert grappler and constriction. According to the improved grab description, they can use this ability on any creature their size or smaller.

The party druid was polymorphed into a medium sized bat. He flew up to a grell and attacked it. After hitting it, the grell made its 10 attacks. I think it hit with 4. The following things happened:

-The grell missed 6 times and hit 4 times, doing normal tentacle damage
-The druid succeeded on his paralysis saving throw.
-the grell used improved grab to grab that same character with the same four tentacles after doing tentacle damage
-The grell then used those same four tentacles, now grappling, to do constriction damage
-The druid took something like 30-odd points of damage overall, rendering him unconscious and in negative hit points
-Shortly thereafter, another character killed the grell holding the druid
-The druid fell from the sky along with the grell, 40 feet to his death.

The DM didn't want to slow down play, and to be honest it was a little late to go spelunking through a bunch of different books to resolve this topic. He's a good, fair DM and wanted to review the rules before making a final decision. I wanted to throw myself upon the mercy of the wise sages who haunt these boards. Please help! A druid and friend's life hangs in the balance!

I know grappling is a hairy beast, and I just wanted some clarification. Can a character be grappled by the same creature multiple times at the same time? Can those four grappling tentacles then do constriction damage? Isn't there some modifier for making attacks while grappling? Isn't there a base BAB consideration in regard to the number of grappling checks allowed? Can a character be hit by a damaging tentacle attack and THEN be constricted?

Thanks guys. I truly appreciate your help. Can someone run through exactly HOW this scenario should have been run, by RAW? Anything I can bring back to the DM that is properly cited will make some other players very happy. (Or unhappy, lol!)

Floorweasel

[Rabidmuskrat]

Was this step:
'The grell then used those same four tentacles, now grappling, to do constriction damage'
on the Grell's next turn? Or as a consequence of grappling the Druid on his first?

If the first, correct (I think). If the second, nope. A character can only be grappled once (by a single creature).

[SiuiS]

The mistake you made was resolving every attack and then going back and interrupting that attack sequence with grapple.

It should have been;

Attack 1: if a hit, then

roll grapple check: if successful then

grell can use it's natural attacks to constrict instead of making additional attacks

If a miss: proceed to next attack

Attack 2: if a hit, then

roll grapple check: if successful then

grell can use remaining attacks to deal damage instead of attacking


Attack 3: if a hit, then...

Etc.

Constrict is useful because it allows damage on alternate actions; you deal constriction damage if an enemy attempts to escape and fails, if the monster uses an alternative action to pin, or if the monster rolls a grapple check to move.
Constrict does not just let you make your attacks again.

Natural attacks are also weird in that you can use them against a grappled opponent like a separate weapon or by making a roll; constrict doesn't do anything special if you roll to inflict damage because constrict just adds that damage to other rolls.

[floorweasel]

Was this step:
'The grell then used those same four tentacles, now grappling, to do constriction damage'
on the Grell's next turn? Or as a consequence of grappling the Druid on his first?

If the first, correct (I think). If the second, nope. A character can only be grappled once (by a single creature).

Rabid, thanks for replying! It was the second. He was grappled several times by the same creature.

I really appreciate your response, but can't find anything specifically stating this in the rules. Where should I look?

[floorweasel]

The mistake you made was resolving every attack and then going back and interrupting that attack sequence with grapple.

It should have been;

Attack 1: if a hit, then

roll grapple check: if successful then

grell can use it's natural attacks to constrict instead of making additional attacks

If a miss: proceed to next attack

Attack 2: if a hit, then

roll grapple check: if successful then

grell can use remaining attacks to deal damage instead of attacking


Attack 3: if a hit, then...

Etc.

Constrict is useful because it allows damage on alternate actions; you deal constriction damage if an enemy attempts to escape and fails, if the monster uses an alternative action to pin, or if the monster rolls a grapple check to move.
Constrict does not just let you make your attacks again.

Natural attacks are also weird in that you can use them against a grappled opponent like a separate weapon or by making a roll; constrict doesn't do anything special if you roll to inflict damage because constrict just adds that damage to other rolls.

Sius, thanks for your response! You're also trying to help keep my druid alive.

I agree. I think the sequence should have gone hit, then check for grapple. However, I'm not sure I understand the rest of your response... grappling makes my head go sour.
You said: "If successful (with the grapple) the grell can use its remaining attacks to deal damage instead of attacking".

Lets say the grell hit and grappled with the first tentacle strike. Are you saying it could then use then constrict with that tentacle strike, and then use the other tentacle strikes to automatically do constriction damage? How would this be resolved?

Thanks again!

[Keld Denar]

Grapple gets really grey in situations of creatures with low BAB but a high number of natural attacks. By the grapple rules, a creature in a grapple only gets a number of grapple actions based on its BAB. Thus, a 4ish HD grell should only get one grapple action, which means that as soon as it latches on, it's turn should be done. Also interestingly enough, since grapple actions aren't technically a full attack, you don't get extra grapple actions from Haste or from abilities like Flurry of Blows.

That said, the grapple rules reside in the PHB, a book for characters who are primarily bipedal and lacking in multiple natural attacks. They didn't print any extra rules for grapple in the MM for awkward creatures other than the very short bit on Improved Grab which doesn't mesh well with the existing grapple rules and never got fully classified in the RC.

[nedz]

Grapple gets really grey in situations of creatures with low BAB but a high number of natural attacks. By the grapple rules, a creature in a grapple only gets a number of grapple actions based on its BAB. Thus, a 4ish HD grell should only get one grapple action, which means that as soon as it latches on, it's turn should be done. Also interestingly enough, since grapple actions aren't technically a full attack, you don't get extra grapple actions from Haste or from abilities like Flurry of Blows.

That said, the grapple rules reside in the PHB, a book for characters who are primarily bipedal and lacking in multiple natural attacks. They didn't print any extra rules for grapple in the MM for awkward creatures other than the very short bit on Improved Grab which doesn't mesh well with the existing grapple rules and never got fully classified in the RC.

We have 6 rules dysfunctions relating to Grapple documented, the natural attacks feature is probably a 7th. The Grapple rules are quite poorly written, and are hard to comprehend also.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Rules of the Game archive (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/rg)
All About Grappling (Part One) (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20050301a)
All About Grappling (Part Two) (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20050308a)
All About Grappling (Part Three) (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20050315a)
All About Grappling (Part Four) (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20050322a)

From Part Two:


Attack Your Opponent: You can make an attack with an unarmed strike, natural weapon, or light weapon against another character you are grappling. You take a -4 penalty on such attacks.

You can't attack with two weapons while grappling, even if both are light weapons. If you have multiple natural weapons, however, you can use all of them while grappling. In many cases, though, you're better off making an opposed grapple check to damage your opponent rather than making an attack with a natural weapon (see the section on damaging your opponent for details).

Damage Your Opponent: You can make an opposed grapple check to deal damage to your opponent when grappling. If you win the opposed check, you deal nonlethal damage equivalent to an unarmed strike (1d3 points for Medium attackers or 1d2 points for Small attackers 2d6 for Colossal attackers, 1d8 Gargantuan, 1d6 Huge, 1d4 Large, 1d3 Medium, 1d2 Small, 1 Tiny or smaller; plus Strength modifiers). If you want to deal lethal damage, you take a -4 penalty on your grapple check.

Monks (and a few other characters), deal more damage with unarmed strikes than other characters, and the damage is lethal. However, a monk can choose to deal their damage as nonlethal damage when grappling without taking the usual -4 penalty for changing lethal damage to nonlethal damage.

If a creature has natural weaponry, it deals lethal natural weapon damage with a successful opposed grapple check (its natural weapons are just like unarmed strikes). A creature with natural weaponry can choose to deal nonlethal damage in a grapple by taking a -4 penalty. Even if a creature has natural weaponry, it doesn’t use those natural weapons as part of this action. It must use the “Attack Your Opponent” action (described above) to do so.

Note that a Grell can use its Expert Grappler ability to hold the opponent with just the tentacle that grabbed them by taking a -10 to its grapple checks. In this case its other tentacle attacks are considered to be coming from outside the grapple, thus they don't suffer the -4 penalty and the target is even denied his Dex bonus to AC, as though he's grappling and being attacked by a creature outside the grapple.