Kellus
2008-03-28, 10:56 PM
Grappling
So here's the deal: grapple rules suck. Huge time. They don't account for all of the AWESOME stuff you can do while holding on to other people. And they're really complicated. So here's a set of reasonably simple rules that allow you a whole bunch more options with grappling!
Grappling Basics
A grapple check is really simple. It’s basically a Strength and size check. What’s more complicated, though, is that there’s actually two kinds of grapple checks. There’s Grapple checks, and Reverse Grapple checks. Grapple checks help you use size and strength to your advantage to establish holds and hold people. Reverse Grapple checks let you evade grapples and evade attempts to get you off.
Grapple check: d20 + Str + size modifier + Base Attack Bonus
Reverse Grapple check: d20 + Dex + size modifier + Base Attack Bonus
Table: Size Modifiers to Grapple and Reverse Grapple Checks
{table=head]Size|Grapple Modifier|Reverse Grapple Modifier
Fine|-16|+16
Diminutive|-12|+12
Tiny|-8|+8
Small|-4|+4
Medium|+0|+0
Large|+4|-4
Huge|+8|-8
Gargantuan|+12|-12
Colossal|+16|-16[/table]
There are three different types of grappling, each with different features: wrestling, colossus-fighting, and gnat-fighting.
Wrestling
Wrestling involves individuals within 1 size category of each other. It’s also by far the most complicated of them. The procedure for wrestling is fairly complex, yet intuitive:
1) Initiate a Wrestling Contest: One of the individuals (the initiator) uses a standard action to try to establish a hold on an adjacent individual (the target). This requires a Grapple check, opposed by a Grapple or Reverse Grapple check. Grappling opponents occupy the same space.
If the target chooses to use a Reverse Grapple check to resist the wrestle attempt, the initiator may immediately make a new roll (if he desires) using his own Reverse Grapple check instead of a Grapple check.
If the target succeeds with a Reverse Grapple check, the wrestle attempt fails (4).
If the target succeeds with a Grapple check, he may either cause the wrestle attempt to fail (4) or to gain dominance in the grapple (3).
If the initiator succeeds, a grapple is established and he has dominance (3).
2) Grapple Established: Nondominant: With a grapple established, one of the people involved has dominance. The nondominant wrestler has very limited actions. He may attempt a Reverse Grapple check as a standard action to escape a grapple, opposed by the dominant wrestler’s Grapple check. He may attempt a Grapple check as a move action to gain dominance, opposed by the dominant wrestler’s Grapple or Reverse Grapple check.
Being nondominant in a wrestling grapple causes you to lose your Dexterity bonus to AC and causes you to automatically fail Reflex saves. All of your speeds drop to 0ft; you cannot move. By making a Sleight of Hand check (opposed by the dominant wrestler’s Grapple check), you can take a single attack with a drawn melee weapon at a -4 penalty as a standard action. You may not make somatic gestures to cast spells while nondominant in a wrestling grapple.
3) Grapple Established: Dominant: With a grapple established, one of the people involved has dominance. Maintaining a grapple requires a move action each round, but no check. If you choose not to maintain the grapple, the opponent is moved to an adjacent space and is left flat-footed until his next turn. Although wrestling with dominance is better than not having dominance, you still lack combat options.
Being dominant in a wrestling grapple halves all of your speeds, to a minimum of 5ft. However, the nondominant wrestler moves with you. You may attack with a drawn weapon in a grapple at no penalty. You may use a standard action in a wrestling grapple to make a full-attack with unarmed strikes only. If you use any other weapon, you may only make one attack with a standard action, as normal.
While wrestling with dominance, you gain a +4 circumstance bonus on trip attempts and disarm attempts made against the nondominant wrestler. While wrestling with dominance, you never provoke attacks of opportunity from the nondominant wrestler. You can cast arcane spells with somatic gestures while wrestling with dominance, but you take a 30% arcane spell failure chance due to being preoccupied. This stacks with armor failure chance, if applicable.
While wrestling with dominance, you may end the grapple as a full-round action by hurling your opponent. The opponent is flung in a direction chosen by you, to a distance of up to 5ft. per Strength modifier you posess. The target falls prone, but may make a Balance check opposed by your Grapple check to avoid falling prone.
4) Failure: A failed wrestling attempt leaves the initiator flat-footed until his next turn. He moves back into the square he initiated the grapple from.
Colossus-Fighting
Yes, everyone wants to be able to replicate Shadow of the Colossus. The good news is, now you can! Colossus-Fighting is whenever you try to grapple a target two or more size categories larger than you.
Colossus-Fighting is very different from normal grappling. In this case, Grapple checks simply let you get hold of the target. They don’t pin or disable the opponent severely, but they let you hang on.
Initiating a grapple in this style is a standard action that requires a Grapple or Reverse Grapple check (your choice) opposed by the adjacent target’s touch AC. This is a case where being small is better to evade notice.
You can ready an action to grapple onto a target when he moves near, causing him to be forced to use Gnat-Fighting techniques (see below) against you instead of the attack he might have been going to use.
If your grapple check succeeds, you grab onto the target. At this point you’re presumably at ground level, but hanging onto him. A target you’re hanging onto adds your weight and the weight of all of your posessions to his load for determining encumbrance.
While hanging onto a target, you cannot take normal move actions; you move on the target’s initiative count, with him. Climbing is the basic way to move around on a target. Climbing around on a target is just like any other use of the Climb skill. The ‘wall’ base DC is equal to 25 - the natural armour bonus to AC the target posesses. Climbing a target is always treated as climbing a wall instead of a slope no matter what the actual inclination of the target’s body at any one point.
While climbing a target, you can use the location to your advantage in finding vulnerable points of attack (see below).
Gnat-Fighting
Gnat-Fighting is the term for when you try to grapple a target that’s more than two size categores smaller than you, or when someone is climbing on you.
Active Grappling: Active Gnat-Fighting requires a Grapple check against an adjacent target. The target attempts a Reverse Grapple check to resist the attempt. If you fail, there is no penalty. If you suceed, the target moves into your square and is considered (for all intents and purposes) helpless. A grappled target may attempt a Reverse Grapple check as a move action to escape a grapple and fall to the ground in an adjacent space. While grappling someone in this manner, you may treat them as a thrown weapon with a range increment based on the difference in size categories between you.
Table: Range Increments of Grappled Targets
{table=head]Difference in Size Categories|Range Increment
2|10ft.
3|20ft
4|40ft.
5|80ft.
6|160ft.
7|320ft.
8+|640ft.[/table]
Targets thrown take damage from falling and land prone unless they can make a successful Balance check opposed by your Grapple check. They deal damage based on their weight, as described in Complete Warrior.
Reactive Grappling: When someone’s climbing on you, you can attempt a Grapple check as either a standard action or as part of a movement to shake them off. Either way, this is opposed by a Reverse Grapple check. If you spend a standard action, you gain a +4 circumstance bonus on the check. If you attempt it as part of a movement, you take a -4 circumstance penalty on the check; you’re just trying to jostle them off as opposed to grabbing at them. If you succeed with a standard action to get them off, they are considered grappled by you through active grappling (see above). If you succeed as part of a movement, they simply fall in an adjacent square, and may attempt a Balance check against your Grapple check to avoid falling prone.
You may try to attack a target climbing you normally, but you take a -4 penalty on the attack roll. In addition, they are treated as having full concealment. If you fail to bypass the concealment, you accidentally target yourself instead.
Vulnerabilities
As a DM, climbing around on targets presents a difficulty. It’s a totally awesome idea, but there’s no benefit per the rules to doing it. In general, you should consider your monster before the PC begins climbing on it. What parts of it might reasonably be vulnerable? A good idea is to figure out the dimensions of the monster, and pick a few vulnerable locations. Allow the PC to make Knowledge or Spot checks to notice these locations, and apply a reasonable bonus to attacking these spots; anything from a +2 circumstance bonus on the attack and damage roll to automatically dealing sneak attack damage is a nice bonus. Nothing overwhelming, but enough to make the PC feel like he’s done something impressive. After all, that’s why he’s climbing around on monsters to begin with!
If you want exact rules, try these. Pick a few vulnerable locations on the monster. If the climber is occupying the same square as a vulnerable point when he attacks, he gains special bonuses on the attack as shown on the following table.
Table: Vulnerable Strikes
{table=head]Difference in Size Categories|Bonus
2|+2 circumstance bonus on attack roll
3|+2 circumstance bonus on attack roll and damage roll; automatically qualifies as a sneak attack or sudden strike
4|+2 circumstance bonus on attack roll and damage roll; automatically qualifies as a sneak attack or sudden strike; automatically confirms if a critical threat
5|+2 circumstance bonus on attack roll and damage roll; automatically qualifies as a sneak attack or sudden strike; automatically confirms if a critical threat; 1d4 Con damage
6+|+2 circumstance bonus on attack roll and damage roll; automatically qualifies as a sneak attack or sudden strike; automatically confirms if a critical threat; 1d4 Con damage; ignore natural armour bonus to AC[/table]
What Has Come Before
Monsters with racial bonuses to grapple checks still have these bonuses, which they apply to Grapple and Reverse Grapple checks alike. Similarly, items and feats that grant bonuses apply to both types of checks. Grappling no longer ever provokes attacks of opportunity. Abilities like Improved Grab still work normally, allowing you to initiate a grapple with a successful attack.
So here's the deal: grapple rules suck. Huge time. They don't account for all of the AWESOME stuff you can do while holding on to other people. And they're really complicated. So here's a set of reasonably simple rules that allow you a whole bunch more options with grappling!
Grappling Basics
A grapple check is really simple. It’s basically a Strength and size check. What’s more complicated, though, is that there’s actually two kinds of grapple checks. There’s Grapple checks, and Reverse Grapple checks. Grapple checks help you use size and strength to your advantage to establish holds and hold people. Reverse Grapple checks let you evade grapples and evade attempts to get you off.
Grapple check: d20 + Str + size modifier + Base Attack Bonus
Reverse Grapple check: d20 + Dex + size modifier + Base Attack Bonus
Table: Size Modifiers to Grapple and Reverse Grapple Checks
{table=head]Size|Grapple Modifier|Reverse Grapple Modifier
Fine|-16|+16
Diminutive|-12|+12
Tiny|-8|+8
Small|-4|+4
Medium|+0|+0
Large|+4|-4
Huge|+8|-8
Gargantuan|+12|-12
Colossal|+16|-16[/table]
There are three different types of grappling, each with different features: wrestling, colossus-fighting, and gnat-fighting.
Wrestling
Wrestling involves individuals within 1 size category of each other. It’s also by far the most complicated of them. The procedure for wrestling is fairly complex, yet intuitive:
1) Initiate a Wrestling Contest: One of the individuals (the initiator) uses a standard action to try to establish a hold on an adjacent individual (the target). This requires a Grapple check, opposed by a Grapple or Reverse Grapple check. Grappling opponents occupy the same space.
If the target chooses to use a Reverse Grapple check to resist the wrestle attempt, the initiator may immediately make a new roll (if he desires) using his own Reverse Grapple check instead of a Grapple check.
If the target succeeds with a Reverse Grapple check, the wrestle attempt fails (4).
If the target succeeds with a Grapple check, he may either cause the wrestle attempt to fail (4) or to gain dominance in the grapple (3).
If the initiator succeeds, a grapple is established and he has dominance (3).
2) Grapple Established: Nondominant: With a grapple established, one of the people involved has dominance. The nondominant wrestler has very limited actions. He may attempt a Reverse Grapple check as a standard action to escape a grapple, opposed by the dominant wrestler’s Grapple check. He may attempt a Grapple check as a move action to gain dominance, opposed by the dominant wrestler’s Grapple or Reverse Grapple check.
Being nondominant in a wrestling grapple causes you to lose your Dexterity bonus to AC and causes you to automatically fail Reflex saves. All of your speeds drop to 0ft; you cannot move. By making a Sleight of Hand check (opposed by the dominant wrestler’s Grapple check), you can take a single attack with a drawn melee weapon at a -4 penalty as a standard action. You may not make somatic gestures to cast spells while nondominant in a wrestling grapple.
3) Grapple Established: Dominant: With a grapple established, one of the people involved has dominance. Maintaining a grapple requires a move action each round, but no check. If you choose not to maintain the grapple, the opponent is moved to an adjacent space and is left flat-footed until his next turn. Although wrestling with dominance is better than not having dominance, you still lack combat options.
Being dominant in a wrestling grapple halves all of your speeds, to a minimum of 5ft. However, the nondominant wrestler moves with you. You may attack with a drawn weapon in a grapple at no penalty. You may use a standard action in a wrestling grapple to make a full-attack with unarmed strikes only. If you use any other weapon, you may only make one attack with a standard action, as normal.
While wrestling with dominance, you gain a +4 circumstance bonus on trip attempts and disarm attempts made against the nondominant wrestler. While wrestling with dominance, you never provoke attacks of opportunity from the nondominant wrestler. You can cast arcane spells with somatic gestures while wrestling with dominance, but you take a 30% arcane spell failure chance due to being preoccupied. This stacks with armor failure chance, if applicable.
While wrestling with dominance, you may end the grapple as a full-round action by hurling your opponent. The opponent is flung in a direction chosen by you, to a distance of up to 5ft. per Strength modifier you posess. The target falls prone, but may make a Balance check opposed by your Grapple check to avoid falling prone.
4) Failure: A failed wrestling attempt leaves the initiator flat-footed until his next turn. He moves back into the square he initiated the grapple from.
Colossus-Fighting
Yes, everyone wants to be able to replicate Shadow of the Colossus. The good news is, now you can! Colossus-Fighting is whenever you try to grapple a target two or more size categories larger than you.
Colossus-Fighting is very different from normal grappling. In this case, Grapple checks simply let you get hold of the target. They don’t pin or disable the opponent severely, but they let you hang on.
Initiating a grapple in this style is a standard action that requires a Grapple or Reverse Grapple check (your choice) opposed by the adjacent target’s touch AC. This is a case where being small is better to evade notice.
You can ready an action to grapple onto a target when he moves near, causing him to be forced to use Gnat-Fighting techniques (see below) against you instead of the attack he might have been going to use.
If your grapple check succeeds, you grab onto the target. At this point you’re presumably at ground level, but hanging onto him. A target you’re hanging onto adds your weight and the weight of all of your posessions to his load for determining encumbrance.
While hanging onto a target, you cannot take normal move actions; you move on the target’s initiative count, with him. Climbing is the basic way to move around on a target. Climbing around on a target is just like any other use of the Climb skill. The ‘wall’ base DC is equal to 25 - the natural armour bonus to AC the target posesses. Climbing a target is always treated as climbing a wall instead of a slope no matter what the actual inclination of the target’s body at any one point.
While climbing a target, you can use the location to your advantage in finding vulnerable points of attack (see below).
Gnat-Fighting
Gnat-Fighting is the term for when you try to grapple a target that’s more than two size categores smaller than you, or when someone is climbing on you.
Active Grappling: Active Gnat-Fighting requires a Grapple check against an adjacent target. The target attempts a Reverse Grapple check to resist the attempt. If you fail, there is no penalty. If you suceed, the target moves into your square and is considered (for all intents and purposes) helpless. A grappled target may attempt a Reverse Grapple check as a move action to escape a grapple and fall to the ground in an adjacent space. While grappling someone in this manner, you may treat them as a thrown weapon with a range increment based on the difference in size categories between you.
Table: Range Increments of Grappled Targets
{table=head]Difference in Size Categories|Range Increment
2|10ft.
3|20ft
4|40ft.
5|80ft.
6|160ft.
7|320ft.
8+|640ft.[/table]
Targets thrown take damage from falling and land prone unless they can make a successful Balance check opposed by your Grapple check. They deal damage based on their weight, as described in Complete Warrior.
Reactive Grappling: When someone’s climbing on you, you can attempt a Grapple check as either a standard action or as part of a movement to shake them off. Either way, this is opposed by a Reverse Grapple check. If you spend a standard action, you gain a +4 circumstance bonus on the check. If you attempt it as part of a movement, you take a -4 circumstance penalty on the check; you’re just trying to jostle them off as opposed to grabbing at them. If you succeed with a standard action to get them off, they are considered grappled by you through active grappling (see above). If you succeed as part of a movement, they simply fall in an adjacent square, and may attempt a Balance check against your Grapple check to avoid falling prone.
You may try to attack a target climbing you normally, but you take a -4 penalty on the attack roll. In addition, they are treated as having full concealment. If you fail to bypass the concealment, you accidentally target yourself instead.
Vulnerabilities
As a DM, climbing around on targets presents a difficulty. It’s a totally awesome idea, but there’s no benefit per the rules to doing it. In general, you should consider your monster before the PC begins climbing on it. What parts of it might reasonably be vulnerable? A good idea is to figure out the dimensions of the monster, and pick a few vulnerable locations. Allow the PC to make Knowledge or Spot checks to notice these locations, and apply a reasonable bonus to attacking these spots; anything from a +2 circumstance bonus on the attack and damage roll to automatically dealing sneak attack damage is a nice bonus. Nothing overwhelming, but enough to make the PC feel like he’s done something impressive. After all, that’s why he’s climbing around on monsters to begin with!
If you want exact rules, try these. Pick a few vulnerable locations on the monster. If the climber is occupying the same square as a vulnerable point when he attacks, he gains special bonuses on the attack as shown on the following table.
Table: Vulnerable Strikes
{table=head]Difference in Size Categories|Bonus
2|+2 circumstance bonus on attack roll
3|+2 circumstance bonus on attack roll and damage roll; automatically qualifies as a sneak attack or sudden strike
4|+2 circumstance bonus on attack roll and damage roll; automatically qualifies as a sneak attack or sudden strike; automatically confirms if a critical threat
5|+2 circumstance bonus on attack roll and damage roll; automatically qualifies as a sneak attack or sudden strike; automatically confirms if a critical threat; 1d4 Con damage
6+|+2 circumstance bonus on attack roll and damage roll; automatically qualifies as a sneak attack or sudden strike; automatically confirms if a critical threat; 1d4 Con damage; ignore natural armour bonus to AC[/table]
What Has Come Before
Monsters with racial bonuses to grapple checks still have these bonuses, which they apply to Grapple and Reverse Grapple checks alike. Similarly, items and feats that grant bonuses apply to both types of checks. Grappling no longer ever provokes attacks of opportunity. Abilities like Improved Grab still work normally, allowing you to initiate a grapple with a successful attack.