All About Grappling (Part Three)

[Egres]

Snatch Items: You can use a disarm action to remove or grab away a well-secured object worn by a pinned opponent, but he gets a +4 bonus on his roll to resist your attempt (see the Disarm action on page 155 in the Player's Handbook). Because your pinned foe can't attack, your attempt to disarm your foe doesn't provoke an attack of opportunity from that foe.

That's a quite useless specification.

A Grappled opponent doesn't threaten any square, and thus can't make any AoO.(except for the Improved Grab special option)

Being pinned or not is irrelevant.

Should we expect other useless and/or misleading specifications in the future?

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Well, that's not as bad as last week's, right?

 

[Egres]

Well, that's not as bad as last week's, right?

Right, but I think it's due to the shorter lenght of this third article.

 

[kjenks]

It's not as bad as many of the other Rules of the Game articles.

But what's with the new movement rule for releasing a pinned character?

Release Your Foe: When you have a foe pinned, you're more or less in control of the situation. You can voluntarily release a pinned foe as a free action; if you do so, you are no longer considered to be grappling that character (and vice versa).

Once released, your foe must go to a space adjacent to the space the two of you once shared. The movement provokes attacks of opportunity from foes who threaten the space your foe leaves, but the movement doesn't count against the foe's speed for the current turn.

The PH/SRD says, "You may voluntarily release a pinned character as a free action; if you do so, you are no longer considered to be grappling that character (and vice versa)." Nothing there says you shove the character out of your squares. This RotG article invents a new kind of movement for your formerly-pinned foe, rather than using the movement rule from escaping a grapple, "If you escape, you finish the action by moving into any space adjacent to your opponent(s)."

If you use this new rule, a grappler can grapple another creature, move the grapple to the edge of a cliff, pin the creature, then drop the creature over the cliff as a free action.

The PH/SRD rules don't allow this maneuver.

 

[Hypersmurf]

If you use this new rule, a grappler can grapple another creature, move the grapple to the edge of a cliff, pin the creature, then drop the creature over the cliff as a free action.

No, he can't.

He grapples, he moves, he pins, he releases... and then the creature moves to an adjacent square. The creature chooses which square he ends up in, not the grappler.

Though as far as I can tell, the grappler would get an AoO, since he's no longer grappling, and thus threatens the square the creature is leaving - his own.

-Hyp.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Though as far as I can tell, the grappler would get an AoO, since he's no longer grappling, and thus threatens the creature is leaving - his own.

Of course, if the pinner isn't a monk (or IUS user) and hasn't drawn a weapon, he may not be able to take advantage of that AoO ...

EDIT: Not reminding Hyp, of course ... Just bringin' it up!

 

[Hypersmurf]

Of course, if the pinner isn't a monk (or IUS user) and hasn't drawn a weapon, he may not be able to take advantage of that AoO ...

True. Or natural weapons - lots of monsters have good grapple checks!

-Hyp.

 

[atom crash]

Once released, your foe must go to a space adjacent to the space the two of you once shared. The movement provokes attacks of opportunity from foes who threaten the space your foe leaves, but the movement doesn't count against the foe's speed for the current turn

Though as far as I can tell, the grappler would get an AoO, since he's no longer grappling, and thus threatens the square the creature is leaving - his own.

So moving out of the square always provokes, even if its a 5' step?

 

[Hypersmurf]

So moving out of the square always provokes, even if its a 5' step?

No, moving out of the square always provokes, unless it's a 5' step.

But this isn't a 5' step; it's movement that doesn't count against your speed.

-Hyp.

 

[atom crash]

That was my question: When released from a pin, moving out of the square always provokes and doesn't count as a 5' step.

That wasn't in the rules before, was it?