You grab someone, now what?

[komi]

So let's say you successfully grab someone. Now what? In what ways are you limited if you want to maintain the grab?

 

[Boarstorm]

You hold on and you never let go.

Until they get a restraining order.

Err... I mean, I think you can maintain the grab as a standard action, force 'em to move and maybe do some squeeze damage, but that last may be my mind's partial formatting with the 3.X OS.

No books on hand, atm.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Discussion

-Hyp.

 

[malacapricornis]

It appears you can attack as a standard action with your non grabbing hand. You can pull the target with you as a standard action.

Pg 290 of PHB as the info. Sustain is a minor action.

 

[Eyada]

Discussion

-Hyp.

A question I have that I haven't seen addressed is this: As far as I can tell, there is nothing stopping a Wizard from grabbing an Orc and then proceeding to cast Meteor Swarm while still maintaining his hold on the Orc. Can the "grab-er" cast spells (use Arcane powers) while still maintaining his hold on the "grab-ee"?

It seems to imply that one-handed Powers can be used; two-handed or two-weapon Powers cannot be used (one hand is busy grasping the foe); but what do spells count as? Do Wizards only need 1 free hand to work their magic? What about Warlocks and Clerics?

 

[komi]

It seems to imply that one-handed Powers can be used; two-handed or two-weapon Powers cannot be used (one hand is busy grasping the foe); but what do spells count as? Do Wizards only need 1 free hand to work their magic? What about Warlocks and Clerics?

This was my main question; I probably could have been clearer. Where does it say that one hand is consumed in maintaining the grab? That makes sense, but from my reading, all you have to do is stay next to the guy, spend a minor action to maintain, and succeed on subsequent escape attempts. Otherwise you're free to do whatever you want.

 

[komi]

And a bit of a scope shift since I have the grab experts here

If I want to move my grabee, after succeeding on the check it says that I move myself and then pull my target along. A pull is a forced movement that brings the target one square closer. So is this legal?

.....
.tmM.
..T..
.....

t is target start, T is target end. m is me start, M is me end.

By the rules as I read them, it seems legit. But then I could knock people off cliffs with this. I don't know why I'd use that instead of bull rush, but I guess I'm just thinking out loud so to speak.

 

[DLichen]

Grabbing and throwing someone off a cliff or holding them over dangerous terrain seems a reasonable use, so I think it works.

The only thing that suggests that grab requires a hand to maintain is that you need a free hand to start a grab. This does not suggest that you need a freehand to maintain the grab - you can just as easily the guy in a leg lock or something while hacking away with a twohander.

 

[fivepopes]

...you can just as easily the guy in a leg lock or something while hacking away with a twohander.

Unless you have more than two legs, this would most likely render yourself prone. Applying some common sense here, it's fairly obvious that you need a free hand to maintain the grab, when that's what it took to do a grab in the first place.

Can a caster grab an enemy, and on the next round maintain the grab an bomb the enemy with a spell? This is a good question and renders a cool picture in the minds eye, but it is really a question about how spellcasting is performed. A grab-ee is immobilized, and this only keeps him from leaving his square; there's no granted combat advantage or defense penalties from being immobilized, so there would be no immediate advantage for a caster to grab his enemy first.

grab, now what

is in my opinion very interesting question, though. The pin is gone, so it seems you actually need shackles + combat advantage if you want to restrain someone.

 

[illwizard]

I can't really see anyone performing any sort of technical power while maintaining a grab.

In fact, I'd probably rule as a DM that only basic attacks can be performed.

I think that perhaps one could create 'grab specific powers' which would certainly work and be quite cool.