Attacking into a grapple from the outside

[Magus Coeruleus]

I see no indication that there is any penalty for trying to attack someone who is in a grapple when you are outside of the grapple. All I see is that the grapplers are denied their Dex bonus to AC against those outside the grapple. The lack of a penalty seems a bit odd to me because I would think that if your buddy is grappling a foe and you try to stab the foe, you would run some risk of stabbing your friend. Somehow, my common sense tells me that if you don't have a chance of hitting your friend, you should at least suffer some penalty, akin to the -4 for firing into a melee with a ranged weapon.

Am I missing anything here?

 

[Caliban]

I see no indication that there is any penalty for trying to attack someone who is in a grapple when you are outside of the grapple. All I see is that the grapplers are denied their Dex bonus to AC against those outside the grapple. The lack of a penalty seems a bit odd to me because I would think that if your buddy is grappling a foe and you try to stab the foe, you would run some risk of stabbing your friend. Somehow, my common sense tells me that if you don't have a chance of hitting your friend, you should at least suffer some penalty, akin to the -4 for firing into a melee with a ranged weapon.

Am I missing anything here?

Ranged attacks randomly strike one of the people in the grapple, you can't aim at a specific target.

Melee attacks do not have this limitation.

 

[DrSpunj]

Re: Re: Attacking into a grapple from the outside

Ranged attacks randomly strike one of the people in the grapple, you can't aim at a specific target.

Melee attacks do not have this limitation.

Right. Our group thought this was a bit silly as well, so we pulled over the Bull Rush text about a 25% chance to hit your ally, unless your target is pinned, of course, then there shouldn't be any problem hitting'em. That's totally a house rule, though.

DrSpunj