A slew o' questions

[noeuphoria]

My group threw down last night and a number of situations presented themselves.

1) Can you grapple with an AOO? If you can, do you provoke an AOO from the person you are trying to grapple? I'm pretty sure the first part is right, since you can trip as an AOO, I don't see why you couldn't grapple.

2) Do you still get a reflex save if you are grappled? (in this case, casting flamestrike on someone in a bigby's grasping hand). Mechanically, I'd say yes(w/o your dex bonus), although I think flavor wise it makes sense that they didn't.

3) If someone resists damage, can you tell? I know the SRD says players can tell if a monster has DR, but what if you cast scortching ray on a monter with fire resistance 30? I think it would be readily apparent that your 3 burning rays didn't hurt him at all. What about flamstrike, a little harder since 2 types of damage, could you tell if the creature had fire resistance then?

 

[LazarusLong42]

1) Can you grapple with an AOO? If you can, do you provoke an AOO from the person you are trying to grapple? I'm pretty sure the first part is right, since you can trip as an AOO, I don't see why you couldn't grapple.

Yes, and yes.

2) Do you still get a reflex save if you are grappled? (in this case, casting flamestrike on someone in a bigby's grasping hand). Mechanically, I'd say yes(w/o your dex bonus), although I think flavor wise it makes sense that they didn't.

Yes, you do... you're grappled, not helpless, paralyzed, held, or sleeping. Both of the grapplers are moving around in the grapple--even the grasping hand. While grappling, you lose your Dex bonus to AC but not on your Ref saves.

3) If someone resists damage, can you tell? I know the SRD says players can tell if a monster has DR, but what if you cast scortching ray on a monter with fire resistance 30? I think it would be readily apparent that your 3 burning rays didn't hurt him at all. What about flamstrike, a little harder since 2 types of damage, could you tell if the creature had fire resistance then?

This is more flavor than anything else, and DM's option. IMO, good fighters should be able to make determinations like this after a couple rounds of fighting, especially if they had specific knowledge of the creature. I often drop hints of this nature to my players, because the characters aren't stupid.