Best way to effectively grapple large, high-level creatures

[Behold_the_Void]

I remember awhile back I was trying to figure out how to make a good grapple-based build, one in which your lone fightery-dude could flip dragons on their back with nary a care.

My cursory check didn't come up with anything that impressive, so I decided to homebrew this guy (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=78920) to at least have something that can conceivably do it (so long as I found a DM that'd let me run my homebrew of course).

Even still, I'm coming up a bit short, and that's with a class I built specifically to grapple huge things (assuming base strength of 18, he's coming out with a grapple check of around +52 at level 20, just shy of a CR 20 black dragon and not enough to contend with a CR 22 black dragon, and assuming an optimized party or a boss encounter it's not unreasonable that that's the level of dragon that would be encountered).

Am I just missing things that can make grapple awesome? Thus far aside from the feat, increasing size category (artificially, in the case of the class which means he's out about +16 strength/+8 grapple, which a real size increase would give him), and boosting the hell out of strength. What am I missing?

[Dervag]

Wow. You don't think small, do you?

I cannot help you, but I am awed by your ambition in attempting to develop a character who can singlehandedly sieze and wrestle the largest and most powerful of monsters to the ground. And you're almost there, even if you can't make it any farther. I hope you can.

[FlyMolo]

Best way to effectively grapple large, high-level creatures:

Nets. Big ones.

[Nebo_]

Polymorph into a Firbolg.

[Keld Denar]

Magic Items. Armbands of Might and Gloves of Fearsome Grip increase Str checks. Also items like Torc of the Titans and any Str increasing items. Magic like a spell stored Righteous Might, Righteous Fury, or a targeted Valiant Fury would also work.

[monty]

Get a level 19+ Wu Jen to cast Giant Size on you (+32 Str in addition to the grapple bonus from size), maybe?

[Farmer42]

Well, I'd start by abandoning the idea, and instead making a sammich, since it'll take less time, and in the end you won't be hungry anymore.


What? Seriously, though, start adding things like luck and divine bonuses to grapple. They exist, and by 20 you should be able to afford them as enchantments to items.

[JaxGaret]

Step 1: Be a Planar Shepherd.

Step 2: Have your home plane be native to some Colossal creature with a ridiculously high Grapple check. Perhaps the Tarrasque.

Step 3: Profit

[Darkantra]

I started a thread a while ago to ask for help on grappling builds, and I got some really good suggestions from it. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=60698

A couple people thought up builds that exceeded +50 on a grapple check at ECL 10 :smalleek:, and my versions could only out-grapple a measly Storm Giant. I'll try to sum up my main ideas towards awesome grappling.

For starters you want your character to have the Powerful Build trait, which as far as I know is only given to Half-Giants and Goliaths. Essentially, in any situation where there is an opposed roll that can be modified by size, including grapple checks, they are treated as one size higher than they actually are.

At that point your best friends are the Psychic Warrior class from the Expanded Psionics Handbook, and a couple of powers called Expansion and Grip of Iron. Expansion functions like Enlarge Person, only you can augment it with extra power points to push your size up an extra category, meaning up to Gargantuan with Powerful Build. Grip of Iron gives you +4 to grapple checks and can be augmented to add even more. Gloves of Titan's Grip, also from the EPH, give +8 to grapple.

You should also check out the Combat Form feats in the Player's Handbook II. Specifically there's one that gives a +4 bonus to resisting, among other things, grapple checks, which doubles if you take a few other very good feats from that tree. The kicker is that it applies any time your opponent initiates a grapple check, including trying to break out of the grapple or a pin on their turn.

In Complete Warrior there are a couple of interesting feats and a pretty neat PRC. The PRC is called the Reaping Mauler, and overall it gives an extra untyped +2 to grapple checks plus a few cool maneuvers to use while pinning. The Clever Wrestling feat gives a scaling up bonus to escape grapples or pins against creatures large than Medium size and Earth's Embrace adds extra damage while pinning.

Oh, and before I forget, Scorpion's Grasp from Sandstorm let's you enter grapples as a free action after hitting with an unarmed strike. And, if you want to be really, really sneaky :smallamused: see if you can get your DM (if you end up playing your grapple character) to allow you to take Improved Natural Weapon (grapple). I successfully argued with a DM that since every creature has a grapple modifier and that grappling is a special attack then technically it can be considered a natural attack for every single creature, thus applicable for INW.

[Cuddly]

The Bites of line of spells give you ludicrous amounts of str enhancement bonuses.