Can a snail escape a grapple?

[NRSASD]

I have a weirdly specific ruling question for all of the playgrounders. Last session, the party decided to attack a group of hill giants. The giants thought the PCs were friendly, so the PCs got a surprise round. As their first action, the bard polymorphed the giant leader into an African Giant Snail and the artificer sent his homonculus to pick it up. The homonculus was instructed to fly as fast as it can for an hour straight up, then fly back down to the party over the course of the next hour.

As a DM, I have no problem with the giant leader being disposed of so efficiently. It happens. That said, I’m curious if the playground thinks the giant leader should get a grapple check every round to see if she can escape the homonculus’ clutches. The reason I’m unsure is because the homonculus has grasped the snail by the shell, and thus the snail has no points of contact with its grappler or anything else that it can manipulate. My gut reaction is no, the giant leader gets no chance to escape, but I know if a PC were the snail I would be trying to humor all the stupid ideas they would be throwing at me.

As always, thanks for your help!

[Ralanr]

By RAW, if it’s with the grappled condition it has a way to get out. Remember that grappling just stops movement, it’s not like you can prevent spellcasting with it.

But it’s also your table. If you want to flavor it so that the snail can’t rock itself free, you can.

[Townopolis]

Ask your DM players.

Get a tape recorder (see also: an app for your phone). Very obviously start recording, then tell your players that you were going to rule that creatures polymorphed into giant snails are helpless against grapples, but that you then thought "what if a PC gets polymorphed?" and so you wanted to hear from them if escaping is even possible. Despite the fact that you're clearly recording their responses, they will say that no, the giant is screwed. Grin evilly, stop recording, and say "thanks."

But really, the giant/snail is screwed. I checked, and snails cannot shed their shells. The way you defend against this as a PC is that either the rest of the party breaks conc on the enemy mage, or (wait for it...) the wizard fixes it--either dispelling the polymorph or standing directly below you so that they can cast Feather Fall the moment your fall brings you within 60'.

Actual answer, though, based on the tone of your question and what that tone implies about your group: the giant dies, and you're never going to polymorph a PC into a giant snail, so the other side of the question is moot.

[JNAProductions]

RAW, the snail definitely can.

But, the question is "What would be best for the table?"

If I were the DM, I'd probably make the following call.

The snail CAN attempt to escape the grapple. But, the giant leader, not being prepared for this and not wanting to fall a considerable distance, as well as having a snail's intellect, does not attempt to.
If a player gets caught in a similar situation, they can be crazy enough to try escaping and falling. But most people are more sensible than that-that's why they're not adventurers.

[Composer99]

Since the target retains its personality as per the spell description, despite its ability scores changing, your polymorphed giant is still somewhat capable of making decisions consistent with its character instead of only being consistent with a snail's instincts. Also the homunculus is the same size category.

As such, I think it's fair for it to attempt to escape. Based on your description, though, I am not sure it's possible for it to succeed.

At best, I would allow the attempt, but the giant-turned-snail would have disadvantage based on the circumstances, and maybe the homunculus has advantage, too. (In effect, the giant's escape is not so much a result of its own will as the homunculus accidentally dropping it.)

[BullyMaguireWug]

Falling damage maxes out at 10d6 or 20d6, right? The giant might survive….?

[OvisCaedo]

By RAW, there is technically no RAW on the subject, because a mundane snail is not a creature for which any official stats exist. And as a homebrew creature, a mundane snail could easily have some trait to the effect of "this creature is incapacitated when it is not anchored to a surface". Though it might be better to avoid going too far down that road (or at all down it) since that might just drive people to always making sure they try to choose the most helpless animal possible for this kind of tactic. Which... a snail is probably pretty high up the rankings.

[Composer99]

Falling damage maxes out at 10d6 or 20d6, right? The giant might survive….?

20d6; at 70 damage average the giant is highly likely to survive, especially if as a leader it has above-average hit points. (Anydice suggests a result of 105 or higher is very rare.)

[Unoriginal]

I have a weirdly specific ruling question for all of the playgrounders. Last session, the party decided to attack a group of hill giants. The giants thought the PCs were friendly, so the PCs got a surprise round. As their first action, the bard polymorphed the giant leader into an African Giant Snail and the artificer sent his homonculus to pick it up. The homonculus was instructed to fly as fast as it can for an hour straight up, then fly back down to the party over the course of the next hour.

As a DM, I have no problem with the giant leader being disposed of so efficiently. It happens. That said, I’m curious if the playground thinks the giant leader should get a grapple check every round to see if she can escape the homonculus’ clutches. The reason I’m unsure is because the homonculus has grasped the snail by the shell, and thus the snail has no points of contact with its grappler or anything else that it can manipulate. My gut reaction is no, the giant leader gets no chance to escape, but I know if a PC were the snail I would be trying to humor all the stupid ideas they would be throwing at me.

As always, thanks for your help!

The snail may not be able to break the grapple if you want them not to be able, but the snail can attempt to hurt the homonculus, and if it hurt itself attempting that the Polymorph ends.


The giant might survive….?

Indeed, it's possible.

Having your band slaughtered by adventurers you thought were friendly, surviving their magic shenanigans... IMO that would be a great start for a nemesis.

[Grim Portent]

RAW yes, it can probably try to escape a grapple, but as someone who owns a giant land snail I'd rule no it can't because the idea is laughable. Nor can it hurt someone, merely lick them maliciously, it takes a while for a GAL to inflict as much damage as a scraped knee with their radula.

[Willie the Duck]

This doesn't work for a real snail, but I can imagine a fantasy snail being able to jerk it's ventral foot back and forth like a pendulum enough to shake itself loose from the grip of a similar size and strength creature.

As others have said, by RAW there are no snails, nor exclusions to the standard escape-grapple rules; and also as others have said do what is best for your campaign.

In general, I like the idea of players thinking outside game terms ('the box', as it were), so part of me wants to support this. On the other hand, I am leery of leaning into/agreeing with what I call 'but realism' arguments. Firstly because it can be applied inconsistently, oftentimes completely innocently. Other times, people can, through blindered thought process, miss completely reasonable assumptions, nix genuinely reasonable realistic things*. Another issue I have is that I don't know that we really want everything to be realistic. At least not if the other option is something akin to cinematic realism (action movies where people regularly make ten meter leaps off collapsing buildings onto helicopter landing skids, etc.) or maybe even folklore/mythic 'realism' (this mythic character is mortal born, so as such can't fly without magic, but carry a horse over each shoulder or something like that? sure). D&D never quite lands on where it wants to be there, and whenever it does, we tend to have big fights about martials (plus mundane monsters like snails, I guess) vs casters. Even beyond that, I worry that enforcing such realism makes every flavor choice a harder one. Like, once you do this, no one is ever going to ask if they can have a familiar with normal stats, 'but can we say it is a snail, for flavor reasons?').
*I'm thinking of a 3e incident where a DM argued that armless animals, like horses, should not be able to escape a grapple ('what are they going to do?'). The rest of us brought up that there is an entire cultural event (https://thatswhatshehad.com/texas-rodeo-food/) where people pay tickets (and serve brisket and funnel cake) to watch (people attempt to prevent) horses and similar animals break grapples. Obviously he had only conceptualized grappling as the most wrestling-like subset of what it could be.

Still, it is inventive, so maybe I'd go with it.

Side issue (if we're going to go all-in on the realism) -- if the homunculus flies straight up for an hour (two times 40' times 600 rounds) they will be at 48000 feat. That snail will die of hypoxia and revert to a giant (and then fall and take damage, but then start heading back to the scene of the fight) well before the hour is up. Better to go 200' up, and then head in one direction or another (maybe into another monster's territory) for the rest of the hour.

[newbie padawan]

I have a weirdly specific ruling question for all of the playgrounders. Last session, the party decided to attack a group of hill giants. The giants thought the PCs were friendly, so the PCs got a surprise round. As their first action, the bard polymorphed the giant leader into an African Giant Snail and the artificer sent his homonculus to pick it up. The homonculus was instructed to fly as fast as it can for an hour straight up, then fly back down to the party over the course of the next hour.

As a DM, I have no problem with the giant leader being disposed of so efficiently. It happens. That said, I’m curious if the playground thinks the giant leader should get a grapple check every round to see if she can escape the homonculus’ clutches. The reason I’m unsure is because the homonculus has grasped the snail by the shell, and thus the snail has no points of contact with its grappler or anything else that it can manipulate. My gut reaction is no, the giant leader gets no chance to escape, but I know if a PC were the snail I would be trying to humor all the stupid ideas they would be throwing at me.

As always, thanks for your help!

"If multiple effects impose the same condition on a creature, each instance of the condition has its own duration."
And:
"A condition lasts until its countered"
In this case countered by the escape a grapple rule. You spend an action to break each individual grapple.

[Rukelnikov]

Look at it this way.

If someone grapples a Shrieker, which as most plants is incapable of self motion, do you think it should be allowed to take an action to break the grapple? It can't move, how would it resist the grapple? I think most DMs would agree a creature without the capacity of motion has no way to escape a grapple.

So, if motionless creatures can't attempt to escape, but locomotive ones can, then it stands to reason that there is a point somewhere in that range where creatures should start being able to contest a grapple. A snail has a speed of about a meter an hour, so, it moves 5 feet in about an hour and a half, that's 900 rounds. For game purposes, thats a speed of 0, personally I don't see how a creature so slow and weak compared to humans, even children, would be able to contest a grapple.

[Chronos]

If someone grapples a Shrieker, which as most plants is incapable of self motion, do you think it should be allowed to take an action to break the grapple? It can't move, how would it resist the grapple? I think most DMs would agree a creature without the capacity of motion has no way to escape a grapple.
You know what else is incapable of self-motion? Anything that's grappled.

And it's not just about speed: A slug, for instance, is about the same speed as a snail, but can escape a grapple (you try to cup it in your hands, but it squirms and oozes out between your fingers). It's about the snail (presumably) not having any way of interacting at all with something holding onto its shell.

Although... If it can squirm enough, maybe it can rub part of its foot on its shell? Maybe rub some slippery slime onto it?

[Battlebooze]

Falling damage maxes out at 10d6 or 20d6, right? The giant might survive….?


20d6 is terminal velocity damage RAW. Aside from house ruling them dead, the Hill giant would almost be guaranteed to survive. The basic Hill Giant has 105 hps, the Sub-chief has 126 hps. It would take a really amazing roll to kill the basic, the Sub-chief would survive for sure, unless you wanted them to die. As others have said, this sounds like the perfect opportunity to create a minor party nemesis.

[da newt]

Grim Portent - as our expert on big old snails, how much of it's shell can your snails reach with their foot, radula, etc? I'd assume (I use that word specifically) that a big old snail could pretty much reach every bit of it's shell - aka it can reach anywhere the little homunculus is touching it and 'attack' it's hands ...

There's not much of a point to this line of thinking other than to point out that I bet the snail can reach the holder's hands with no problem giving it a chance to do something about it's predicament.

A homunculus is TINY and has a ST of 4 with no athletics proficiency. Even if the snail has a 1 ST and 1 DEX if it attempts to escape the grapple it has a just less than 50-50 chance to succeed using the rules as written.



Me personally - I think the ruling that the snail can't break free is just fine, but I'd be sure to roll the 20d6 to see how injured the giant will be after the fall, and how far away from the party. I also realize that the idea a 2 lb snail could fall with enough force to cause 70 hp damage is unrealistic too, but them's the rules so I'd follow them for the sake of precedence. If it was my homunculus I'd tell it to fly diagonally up and away, and at the 59th minute, bite the snail so it turns back into a giant before falling - makes for a much more satisfactory splat and you can probably see it from further away too.

And hypoxia would probably take out the homunculus somewhere around 20,000' - ish too ...

[rel]

Clever trick and there are easy ways to guarantee it (like putting the snail in a bag before handing it off to the carrier) give this one to the PC's.

If they try and make a habit of the tactic, start enforcing grapple rules, fall damage caps and so on.

[Hytheter]

RAW there are no snails

This is flail snail erasure!

[Rukelnikov]

You know what else is incapable of self-motion? Anything that's grappled.

They can still move their limbs and operate perfectly fine, they can move.


And it's not just about speed: A slug, for instance, is about the same speed as a snail, but can escape a grapple (you try to cup it in your hands, but it squirms and oozes out between your fingers). It's about the snail (presumably) not having any way of interacting at all with something holding onto its shell.

Although... If it can squirm enough, maybe it can rub part of its foot on its shell? Maybe rub some slippery slime onto it?

I mean, I guess a slug can try to escape once you pick it up, but its so slow, it would take it a lot of time.

The slippery thing is true, but I don't think its enough to even grant it a roll.

[Mork]

So this does not answer the questions if snails "can" escape but..
Snails.. when threatened retreat into their shells, and do not try to fight back, or wiggle free. As far as I know.
And since the polymorph spell also gives you the intellect of a snail, I would say that the question if it "can" escape is moot, as it wouldn't.

[Grim Portent]

Grim Portent - as our expert on big old snails, how much of it's shell can your snails reach with their foot, radula, etc? I'd assume (I use that word specifically) that a big old snail could pretty much reach every bit of it's shell - aka it can reach anywhere the little homunculus is touching it and 'attack' it's hands ...

There's not much of a point to this line of thinking other than to point out that I bet the snail can reach the holder's hands with no problem giving it a chance to do something about it's predicament.

Not sure, my snail has never tried to touch it's own shell as far as I can tell. The back part of the foot is decently long, but doesn't seem very dextrous so it probably can't touch anything. The head and front part of the foot are much more flexible but it never moves it at any extreme angles. When picked up while out of the shell it tends to adopt a concave curve with it's head waving about while the foot is just sort of stiff and arched.

For me it's a matter of certain creatures being what I would consider inherently defenseless, such as newborn babies, maggots, clams, caterpillars and indeed snails. There's no reasonable method by which these creatures can protect themselves from other animals, which in D&D terms means they cannot grapple, escape grapples, attack or otherwise take actions beyond moving, and even then their movement is so slow that it can't be measured in D&D's grid system.

RAW strictly speaking let's these creatures make checks to avoid or escape grapples, but RAW also let's elephants jump and climb trees.

My interpretation does allow Polymorph spells to be used to disable a target, but they already do that anyway, being turned into a snail doesn't get any less bad because you can make a -5 test to avoid being picked up and put into a pocket.

[Unoriginal]

So this does not answer the questions if snails "can" escape but..
Snails.. when threatened retreat into their shells, and do not try to fight back, or wiggle free. As far as I know.
And since the polymorph spell also gives you the intellect of a snail, I would say that the question if it "can" escape is moot, as it wouldn't.

Polymorph specifically doesn't change the transformed creature's mindset, even if their mental stats are reduced (or improved, for that matter).

If you turn a berserk gnoll into a bunny, they'll still try going into a rage-filled rampage.

[Mellack]

I agree with all the responses that say a snail would RAW get to make checks to break the grapple. I would like to point out that there is a PC race that also has shells, the Tortle. There are no rules stating that they are unable to escape a grapple if someone can grab their shell. Would PC's really want such a rule? I doubt it.

[Carlobrand]

What I'm getting from all this is that:

1. RAW allows a grapple resist, but it's hard to see a snail doing it. Maybe it curled its little sluggy body up and slimed the foot holding it so the grip was slippery.
2. A homunculus has a maximum altitude, assuming the world's atmosphere is like ours.
2. The maximum altitude is pretty well irrelevant because the falling critter hits terminal velocity above about 200 feet.
3. The giant most likely survived the fall.
4. This too is probably irrelevant since the homunculus could have flown horizontally far enough away in an hour that the giant was out of the combat - and probably far enough away that running into the characters again would be unlikely unless he made a deliberate effort of it. Though, wouldn't that be a fun encounter. Giant: "You! You turned me into a snail!" Players: "Poof." Homunculus: "Yeah, yeah, I know the routine."

[NRSASD]

Thanks everyone for the input! After much discussion with my players, we've agreed that the giant doesn't deserve a check. Same rules will apply to a PC when it happens to them.
Our reasoning is that if you get polymorphed into a snail, you need a teammate's assistance if you want to survive.

[Imbalance]

This is flail snail erasure!

Truth! Not to mention the Avernus bone whelk and the giant snail in the forthcoming Witchlight.

[Unoriginal]

Thanks everyone for the input! After much discussion with my players, we've agreed that the giant doesn't deserve a check. Same rules will apply to a PC when it happens to them.
Our reasoning is that if you get polymorphed into a snail, you need a teammate's assistance if you want to survive.

Gotta ask, though: will the giant chief survive the fall and become a recurring antagonist?

[Mellack]

What I'm getting from all this is that:

1. RAW allows a grapple resist, but it's hard to see a snail doing it. Maybe it curled its little sluggy body up and slimed the foot holding it so the grip was slippery.
2. A homunculus has a maximum altitude, assuming the world's atmosphere is like ours.
2. The maximum altitude is pretty well irrelevant because the falling critter hits terminal velocity above about 200 feet.
3. The giant most likely survived the fall.
4. This too is probably irrelevant since the homunculus could have flown horizontally far enough away in an hour that the giant was out of the combat - and probably far enough away that running into the characters again would be unlikely unless he made a deliberate effort of it. Though, wouldn't that be a fun encounter. Giant: "You! You turned me into a snail!" Players: "Poof." Homunculus: "Yeah, yeah, I know the routine."


I don't believe #4 is irrelevant because of #1. The polymorphed snail should get grapple checks to escape. Since it has about a 40% chance to succeed, it would only be a couple of rounds away from the fight. The fall will be enough to break the polymorph but not to kill the giant.

[Carlobrand]

I don't believe #4 is irrelevant because of #1. The polymorphed snail should get grapple checks to escape. Since it has about a 40% chance to succeed, it would only be a couple of rounds away from the fight. The fall will be enough to break the polymorph but not to kill the giant.

Well, it's a Rules As Written versus Logic situation. The DM would have to come up with some logical reason that would allow the snail some chance at escaping the grip of a homunculus holding it from above, or else his players are just going to feel cheated and he's going to look silly. It's hard to see how a snail applies strength or dexterity to escape the situation. ...

... and I just spent a disgusting few minutes looking at videos trying to figure out if a giant African snail can reach the sides of its shell to "grapple". Think I'll leave it up to the DM. If the players want to surf snail videos to debate him, more power to them.