D&D 3E/3.5 3.5 Question About Grapple

[the Jester]

GAH.

3.x grappling rules are enough of a mess without adding yet more complications, imho.

OTOH the simplified Conan system may be much smoother- I don't actually know.

 

[Water Bob]

OTOH the simplified Conan system may be much smoother- I don't actually know.

You tell me. This is the Conan 2E Grapple rule:

Player: "I"m going to grapple my opponent."

GM: "OK. He gets an Attack of Opportunity first. He hits, and he damages you. Your grapple attempt failed."





Or this...

Player: "I"m going to grapple my opponent."

GM: "OK. He gets an Attack of Opportunity first. He hits, but cannot penetrate your armor. No damage to you. You get to attempt your grapple."

Player: "Let's see, the Grapple check is basically an unarmed strike--d20 + STR Mod. In order to grapple, all I need to do is win an opposed grapple check toss with my opponent. I win!"

GM: "You are now grappling your opponent."





Or this...

GM: "On the NPC's turn. He will attempt to break out of the grapple. He can use his grapple check or his Escape Artist skill vs. his opponent's grapple check. He loses. The NPC is still grappled."


If you think that is simple, then, yes, the Conan 2E grappple rules are simple. Mainly, they're opposed unarmed strikes, but the unarmed strike is called a grapple check.

 

[the Jester]

Hmm, I guess it's simplified enough, if not entirely simple.

I can see applying armor check penalty to grapple checks, but this tends to greatly favor larger monsters, which- in vanilla 3.x D&D- are really pretty common. OTOH since most adversaries in Conan are (presumably) human-sized, it may not be that big of a deal.

However, even without applying ACP to grapple, big monsters tremendously outclass pc-sized morsels, er grapplers. So proceed with caution, if you expect the pcs to ever fight a giant constrictor snake or squid or whatever.