Creatures with multiple limbs and grapple.

[Scottlang]

Hi all,

I am having trouble grasping creature who have multiple attacks with grabs. I am running the Dragon's Demand game for my players, and they are now going to be coming up against a Yangethe:

Yangethe CR9
XP 6,400
CE Large aberration
lnit + 4 ; Senses darkvision 120ft. ; Perception +19
DEFENSE
AC 23, touch 13, flat-footed 19 (+4 Dex, +10natural, -1 size)
hp 115 (11d8+66)
Fort +9, Ref +9, Will + 12
DR 10/slashing or piercing; Immune cold, fear, mind-affecting effects; SR 20
OFFENSE
Speed 40 ft.
Melee 2 claws +14 (1d6+7), 4 tentacles +13 (1d6+3 plus grab)
Space 1O ft.; Reach 1O ft.
Special Attacks: feeding tentacles
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 1 0th; concentration +13)
Constant-air walk
At will-darkness, telekinesis (DC 1 8), tree shape
3/d ay-fear (DC 1 7), quickened true strike
1/d a y-demand (DC 2 1 ), psychic blast (DC 1 8)
1 /yea r-interplanetary teleport (self plus 50lbs. of objects only)
STATISTICS
Str 24, Dex 18, Con 22, Int 17, Wis 21 , Cha 17
Base Atk +8; CMB +16 (+20 grapple); CMD 30
(can't be tripped)
Feats Combat Casting, Combat Expertise,
Lightning Reflexes, Multiattack,
Quicken Spell-Like Ability (true strike),
Weapon Focus (tentacles)
Skills Knowledge (arcana) +14,
Knowledge (geography) +14,
Knowledge (engineering) +17,
Perception +19, Sense Motive +16,
Spell craft +17, Use Magic Device +14
Languages Aklo; telepathy 60 ft.
SQ no breath
ECOLOGY
Environment outer space or cold forest
Organization solitary, pair, or cluster (3-8)
Treasure standard
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Feeding Tentacles (Su) As a standard action as part of maintaining
a grapple, a Yangethe can use its mouth tentacles to feed on a
helpless or grappled creature by making a +14 melee touch attack.
If it hits, the feeding tentacles siphon away the victim's emotions and
deals 1d4 points of Charisma drain . The Yangethe heals 5 points of
damage for every point of Charisma it drains in this manner. As long as a
creature continues to suffer this Charisma drain, each time it attempts to
sleep it is affected by a nightmare spell (CL 10th, DC 20), experiencing
terrifying dreams in which it relives the feeling of being fed upon over
and over. All effects from the feeding tentacles are mind-affecting effects.
Psychic Blast (Sp) This spell-like ability functions as
confusion, and also deals 10d6 points of nonlethal
damage when it first affects foes (Will DC21 half). This
ability is the equivalent of a 5th-level spell .


Now, if it grapples the creature, on the next round, if it tries to maintain the grapple (as a standard action), would that be it's turn finished, or would it still be able to attack with it's other appendages??
I have tried to follow the links I have found with this, the only thing I have found, is that you would have to drop the grapples each round, as a free action, and just attack and grapple each round, but as they said, this is coming more from a bi-pedal creature, and not really form creatures with multiple grapple abilities.

Or is this the case, where you attack multiple times, and leave the grapple to last, or attempt to just grab one creature, and attempt to hit the other targets. Next round you focus just one attack per round, and be attacked by three others as you focus on just one??

This just really confuses me, as it states while grappled you take a -2 to attack, but the Yangethe has a total of 4 remaining attacks.

[Kurald Galain]

Now, if it grapples the creature, on the next round, if it tries to maintain the grapple (as a standard action), would that be it's turn finished
Yes. Well, it still gets a move and swift action, but it cannot attack with its other tentacles.

If it's a sole creature against a party of PCs, then keeping one PC grappled is not a smart move. However, it's useful to grab a PC to essentially negate his next turn, then release him at the start of your own turn and full attack again. This is especially true if half the PCs are feared or confused.

[Psyren]

Rather than maintain the grapple, you can simply have the creature full-attack every round - since it has the grab ability, any successful hits let it attempt to re-grapple as a free action. It can then finish its attack routine with the remaining unoccupied limbs. In this way, you can theoretically keep a foe (or foes) locked down through all of their turns without sacrificing your attacks against other foes you don't want to grapple.

The downside to this strategy is that you're never actually maintaining a grapple - rather, you're starting new ones every round - so you never get the bonus for continuing a grapple that you've already won, and you also don't get to use your Feeding Tentacles ability.

An alternative strategy might be to modify the monster with some grappling feats; after all, it's pretty intelligent. The specific ones to keep an eye on include Greater Grapple and Rapid Grappler - these will let it maintain up to two grapples without giving up all its attacks.