Attacking into a Grapple

[AGGEMAM]

Boy they pick interesting places to put rules like that.

That is just one example, there are several others ..

 

[Christian]

The hardest part is counting the darn asterisks. I had to look at it twice to pick up that there were three asterisks for melee attacks (which is 'lose Dex bonus to AC) and four asterisks for ranged attacks ('roll randomly to see who is hit, plus lose Dex bonus to AC'). Could this possibly be more confusing?

Uh, "y'all"?

 

[Jeremy]

LOL

Love that sig. er, "pardner"

 

[AGGEMAM]

The hardest part is counting the darn asterisks. I had to look at it twice to pick up that there were three asterisks for melee attacks (which is 'lose Dex bonus to AC) and four asterisks for ranged attacks ('roll randomly to see who is hit, plus lose Dex bonus to AC'). Could this possibly be more confusing?

Come to think of it, I actually also overlooked that the 'roll randomly etc' only count for ranged attacks. Doh.

 

[Stalker0]

Come to think of it, I actually also overlooked that the 'roll randomly etc' only count for ranged attacks. Doh.

I still don't see where it says only ranged attack have that roll randomly rule. Maybe its my bad eyes, but I thought it says any attack.

 

[Christian]

Hard to complain at ya', Aggeman-it's not easy to decipher that text.

Stalker0, there are three columns in the table, Circumstance, Melee, and Ranged. For circumstance 'Defender Grappling (Attacker Not)', the Melee column has three asterisks and the Ranged column has four. Really, it does. I think. (/me looks again) Yep, sure does.

Thanks, Jeremy. That's a rough transcript of an exchange from a session a few weeks ago. Sadly, despite his obviously well-developed instinct for self-preservation, the character is now deceased. Sigh.

 

[AGGEMAM]

I still don't see where it says only ranged attack have that roll randomly rule. Maybe its my bad eyes, but I thought it says any attack.

Ok, I'll simplify the table then:

Still from the SRD

Table: Attack Roll Modifiers

Circumstance Melee Ranged

Defender
grappling
(attacker not) +0*** +0****

***The defender loses any Dexterity bonus to AC.

****Roll randomly to see which grappling character is struck when an attack is made against two or more grappling characters. The character attacked also loses any Dexterity bonus to AC.

 

[Jeremy]

In the SRD version if you look up a couple posts its got 3 stars by melee and 4 for ranged. Meaning the random only applies to ranged. I assume the PHB is the same but I don't want to dig it out again.

Again, they shoulda put this in the text.

 

[Jeremy]

I gotta learn to type faster.

 

[godfear]

But at least they can still apply their Dex bonus to AC vs ranged attacks. according to the chart. Heh...

I know, I know... grappling in and of itself denies your Dex bonus to the world outside the grapple. I'm just looking for a little completion. I didn't think it was asking too much.