Grab a stirge and tear it off?

[baradtgnome]

maybe I just missed it looking through the books, but how would you as a DM handle this action?

Would you treat it as a grapple sort of? I would think that the Stirge would be harder to tear off than an opposed grapple check would indicate.

 

[Crothian]

It'd be a grabble and yes the Stirge would get a nice curcumstance bonus.

 

[dcollins]

Um, sure, except it's a "grapple".
(And the first vowel of that bonus type is an "i".)

 

[Jeremy]

It'd be a grabble and yes the Stirge would get a nice curcumstance bonus.

Bad day Crothian?

 

[CRGreathouse]

Bad day Crothian?

Give him a break, it's easy to mis-type a long word like surkumstanse.

 

[baradtgnome]

No, no, I asked about tearing off stirges not dismembering the language.

 

[Dragongirl]

Unless the stirge was willing to let go and move, would not grabbing something attached to your body be automatic? I mean, if a leach was on you, you could grap it (might slip because of the slime) but at least could get an automatic attack on it with a lighter.

 

[baradtgnome]

Well, that is what we were thinking. You could grab it, and then to tear it off with an opposed grapple check. Give the stirge a +2 circumstance bonus for being 'attached'. With the stirges small size and weak strength you have a pretty good chance of doing so, and maybe that is correct for a 1/2 CR monster.

I guess the real danger is multiple stirges.

 

[Spindel]

That sounds good. I wasn't sure how to handle it when the situation arose for me, so I just let them make attack rolls without any strength bonus ('tis hard/dangerous to swing a Bastard sword that close to your person).

I figure the stirge wouldn't get an AoO though, it's to busy going for a suck.

But then, stirges are always better in large groups!

Edit: Spelling corrections!

 

[Saeviomagy]

An attached stirges AC drops to 12, so you don't need any further changes. The real problem is that once you've grappled it, there are no real mechanics for tearing it off.
I'd suggest that once you pin the stirge, you can remove it, possibly for some hitpoint damage.