Steel Scarf - Spell (Clarification)

[Barbarian Horde]

Steel Scarf (Su): As a swift action, you can harden a scarf, sleeve, cloak, or other piece of your clothing into something as hard as steel that stretches out to be up to 30 feet long. You can then strike outward with it as if it were a weapon making a melee attack. For the purpose of this ability, you are proficient with this weapon. You can use the weapon to perform combat maneuvers. Make a melee attack roll against a creature within 30 feet; you may use Weapon Finesse with this attack. If you hit, the weapon deals 1d8 points of slashing damage + 1 point for every two oracle levels you possess. After this attack, the clothing returns to its normal length and hardness. You do not threaten an area with this weapon and cannot use it to make attacks of opportunity. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Charisma modifier.

Oracle basically gets a ranged grapple, but with the way grapple rules works im basically forced to teleport my npc over to the player for the grapple to be resolved. Is there a better way to resolve these grapples, or did one of my players create Scorpion from mortal kombat?

[Kurald Galain]

Normally, the only combat maneuvers that can use a weapon are Trip, Disarm, and Sunder. Although the text is somewhat ambiguous, I'd argue that it means that you can use the scarf to use combat manuevers that use a weapon, as opposed to all combat maneuvers in the book.

[Rynjin]

It's just like if an giant squid (30 ft. Reach) Grapples you. It then draws you in.

Both mechanically and fluff-wise I see no issue with this. You throw your scarf out. You wrap up the target. You pull them to you.

Not really sure what the issue is, it's pretty cool and not super overpowered either. They could do something similar at-will if they took the Whip Mastery Feats.

[Barbarian Horde]

Yes, it has the cool factor. I was more concerned with RAI vs RAW. Was it intended to be "Weapon Maneuvers" or "ALL Combat Maneuvers?" Difference between just grappling your enemy and force teleporting them into the party versus just tripping them with what is essentially a 30ft whip.

[Rynjin]

Yes, it has the cool factor. I was more concerned with RAI vs RAW. Was it intended to be "Weapon Maneuvers" or "ALL Combat Maneuvers?" Difference between just grappling your enemy and force teleporting them into the party versus just tripping them with what is essentially a 30ft whip.

Well, it says all combat maneuvers, and it's not out of line (power-wise) with other options.

It's not much different than getting a nerfed version of Strangling Hair (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/strangling-hair/) a few times per day. This one can be Metamagic'd, so you could potentially slap Reach Spell on this bad boy and do it up to 300 feet away. And it has a duration.

Basically, RAW and RAI seem to line up just fine.

Keep in mind that at the end of the Oracle's turn, the opponent will be un-Grappled anyway (the scarf returns to normal at the end of the turn), so they have essentially just teleported an enemy directly into their face who will often be able to full-attack them on their next turn.

So it's already a tradeoff between "apply a lasting debuff" (via Trip or Dirty Trick) or "futz with enemy positioning" (Grapple).