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Kalirren
2007-04-06, 11:27 PM
I haven't seen much talk about this on the Wizards board, but it came up in one of my latest gaming sessions, so I'll pose the question to the community, as we had the strangest and most difficult time resolving it.

Basic situation: Large ooze monster is grappling my brown bear animal companion (10 HD). My animal companion attempts to get out of the grapple.

Question: 1) How do you resolve grapples that involve creatures who attack with a natural attack progression? 2) Assuming one such creature gets out of the grapple, how many attacks may this creature make in the remainder of the round, if any?

Details:

Brown bear's natural attack progression is 2 claws (primary) and 1 bite (secondary).
Brown bear's Base Attack Bonus is +7 from 10 animal HD.

Ooze monster is 15HD, has +11 BAB, natural attack progression is 1 slam.

For reference:


To start a grapple, you need to grab and hold your target. Starting a grapple requires a successful melee attack roll. If you get multiple attacks, you can attempt to start a grapple multiple times (at successively lower base attack bonuses).
If You’re Grappling

When you are grappling (regardless of who started the grapple), you can perform any of the following actions. Some of these actions take the place of an attack (rather than being a standard action or a move action). If your base attack bonus allows you multiple attacks, you can attempt one of these actions in place of each of your attacks, but at successively lower base attack bonuses.

Escape from Grapple: You can escape a grapple by winning an opposed grapple check in place of making an attack. You can make an Escape Artist check in place of your grapple check if you so desire, but this requires a standard action. If more than one opponent is grappling you, your grapple check result has to beat all their individual check results to escape. (Opponents don’t have to try to hold you if they don’t want to.) If you escape, you finish the action by moving into any space adjacent to your opponent(s).


Manufactured Weapons: Some monsters employ manufactured weapons when they attack. Creatures that use swords, bows, spears, and the like follow the same rules as characters, including those for additional attacks from a high base attack bonus and two-weapon fighting penalties. This category also includes “found items,” such as rocks and logs, that a creature wields in combat— in essence, any weapon that is not intrinsic to the creature.Some creatures combine attacks with natural and manufactured weapons when they make a full attack. When they do so, the manufactured weapon attack is considered the primary attack unless the creature’s description indicates otherwise and any natural weapons the creature also uses are considered secondary natural attacks. These secondary attacks do not interfere with the primary attack as attacking with an off-hand weapon does, but they take the usual –5 penalty (or –2 with the Multiattack feat) for such attacks, even if the natural weapon used is normally the creature’s primary natural weapon.



Natural Weapons: Natural weapons are weapons that are physically a part of a creature. A creature making a melee attack with a natural weapon is considered armed and does not provoke attacks of opportunity. Likewise, it threatens any space it can reach. Creatures do not receive additional attacks from a high base attack bonus when using natural weapons. The number of attacks a creature can make with its natural weapons depends on the type of the attack—generally, a creature can make one bite attack, one attack per claw or tentacle, one gore attack, one sting attack, or one slam attack (although Large creatures with arms or arm-like limbs can make a slam attack with each arm). Refer to the individual monster descriptions.Unless otherwise noted, a natural weapon threatens a critical hit on a natural attack roll of 20.
When a creature has more than one natural weapon, one of them (or sometimes a pair or set of them) is the primary weapon. All the creature’s remaining natural weapons are secondary.
The primary weapon is given in the creature’s Attack entry, and the primary weapon or weapons is given first in the creature’s Full Attack entry. A creature’s primary natural weapon is its most effective natural attack, usually by virtue of the creature’s physiology, training, or innate talent with the weapon. An attack with a primary natural weapon uses the creature’s full attack bonus. Attacks with secondary natural weapons are less effective and are made with a –5 penalty on the attack roll, no matter how many there are. (Creatures with the Multiattack feat take only a –2 penalty on secondary attacks.) This penalty applies even when the creature makes a single attack with the secondary weapon as part of the attack action or as an attack of opportunity.



Thoughts? Remember, a complete answer must also address the issue of what happens to a) PCs or other creatures with manufactured weapons, and b) crazy illithid body tamers with both manufactured and natural weapons.

Clementx
2007-04-06, 11:31 PM
The only thing that is clear is that the bear gets two grapple checks per round to perform maneuvers or damage his opponent, and the ooze gets three. Beyond that, you are dealing with rules that were not written with natural weapons in mind. Even the rules for Improved Grab do not answer how creatures with natural attacks function when they are acting as if not grappling. I've been trying to figure out a good rule-set, because we aren't given anything at all. I could tell you how I think should be, but that's it.

Jasdoif
2007-04-06, 11:41 PM
I'll quote the FAQ here:
Under normal circumstances, a creature can can attack with only one of its natural weapons while grappling (and it takes a –4 penalty on such attacks; PH 156). A grappling dire bear can
attack with either a claw or its bite.
The rake special attack gives the creature “two additional claw attacks that it can use only against a grappled foe” (and which don’t take the normal –4 penalty to such attacks; MM
314).
A creature that chooses to make grapple checks in place of attacks—that is, to damage its opponent, escape from the grapple, move, pin its opponent, or use its opponent’s weapon—is allowed one grapple check for every attack that its base attack bonus would allow (even if it doesn’t normally make multiple attacks in this manner). These attacks deal damage as an unarmed strike made by a creature of that size (1d3 for Medium, 1d4 for Large, 1d6 for Huge, and so forth, plus its Strength modifier).
A creature with BAB +0 to +5 may make one grapple check in place of an attack, BAB +6 to +10 two, BAB +11 to +15 three, and BAB +16 to +20 four. The dire bear, for example, may make two grapple checks in place of attacks, thanks to its base attack bonus of +9: one using its full BAB
and the second using its BAB –5.Emphasis mine.


As for escaping...the section on grappling says if you succeed on a grapple check to escape the grapple, you end up in a space adjacent to your opponents. Given this, and that you get a number of grapple checks equal to the number of iterative attacks you could make...I'd say that if you escape using a single grapple check (or an escape artist check), you've used a standard action, and still have a move action to work with. If you've used multiple grapple checks, that's like a full-round action, and you're done for the turn.

Clementx
2007-04-06, 11:43 PM
You forgot to quote the part of the FAQ and RotG that says that animals get one attack with each of their natural weapons in a grapple. The complete opposite of what it says in your quote. That is why the FAQ is a wash, except for the part that quotes an exact PHB text, like what you bolded.

Jasdoif
2007-04-07, 12:02 AM
You forgot to quote the part of the FAQ and RotG that says that animals get one attack with each of their natural weapons in a grapple.I don't see anything to that effect in the FAQ...do you have a quote out of the latest FAQ to that effect on hand?

Clementx
2007-04-07, 10:58 AM
It was the RotG, which has the same source as the FAQ. http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20050322a
It has been redacted since I last read it (and died laughing), because it was even worse before. I wish they would do that for all the times the text explicitly contradicts a rule. Like when the FAQ states Tiny creatures can never flank, even if two are sharing a creature's space, and the DMG states flat-out that is how Tiny creatures flank.

But anyway, the fixed RotG also states a creature can use all its natural weapons as a full-attack when "attacking your opponent". That is a sensible way to handle it, but nothing in the RAW points to that solution specifically, and it contradicts the FAQ text you quoted. Still messy.

It does completely ignore how to mix grapple checks/attacking grappled and using Improved Grab to act normally.

Lord Lorac Silvanos
2007-04-07, 11:08 AM
The RotG articles are not a primary source for rule queries.

They are certainly helpful and can clear things up, but if they contradict either the RAW or the FAQ, the RAW/FAQ takes precedence.

That does not help much when teh FAQ is contradicting itself, of course....

Counterspin
2007-04-07, 12:10 PM
I'm afraid that you've stumbled into one of the ugliest parts of the RAW. You're going to have to pretty much houserule an answer. The original grapple entry is horrible, and the "explanations" have been unwilling to throw it overboard and rewrite it, just adding to the confusion.

Clementx
2007-04-07, 12:24 PM
The RotG articles are not a primary source for rule queries.
Neither is the FAQ. Neither has any more weight than the other. RotG are just expanded FAQs on a specific subject.

Matthew
2007-04-08, 11:05 PM
Not sure that's true, actually. The FAQ always has the 'official' thing associated with it explicitly, whilst the Rules of the Game stuff don't. Nothing explicit, though.