Activating a Magic Item while maintaining a grapple

[Learn34]

By my reading of the SRD, once the grappling state has been established, it requires no further action on my part to maintain it. As such, I could activate a magic item without automatically letting someone I've grappled escape. Correct?

[denthor]

Depending on the magic item.

A ring. Necklace, boots 👢 of flying, cloak(so long as your not trying to magical move dimension door or teleport the unwilling) helm sure no problem.


Drinking a potion, oil or anything involving your hand to manipulate no.

[Learn34]

Yeah this one's just a Cmd-word activation item of Balor Nimbus. Cool beans.

[Vaern]

"You can activate a magic item, as long as the item doesn’t require a spell completion trigger. You don’t need to make a grapple check to activate the item."
Spell completion items are defined as being like a spell stored in item form and primarily refers to scrolls.
Spell trigger items like wands, use-activated items like potions, continuous passive effects, and command word activated effects appear to all be fair game. Based on this bit of the grapple rules, at any rate.

[Learn34]

Again: I knew I could activate the item in a grapple. I just wanted to double check that I don't have to burn my standard action each round just to maintain the grapple. This is for a PC-NPC and I'm trying to figure out a baseline set of tactics. The goal is to activate the item after grappling one of my players without automatically allowing that player to escape.