Brawler Style, free hands, and having a target grabbed

[Chzbro]

Agreed.

I can't imagine why the class feature would grant a Fort bonus if that bonus wasn't intended to make the grabs more difficult to break. It makes me think the designers' intent may have been for the AC and Fort bonuses to persist even during a grab.

However, the carefully worded rules make it pretty clear that it doesn't work this way regardless of what they may or may not have intended.

In my opinion, this build has the potential to be very powerful. It's not first-incarnation-of-the-Battlerager broken or anything, but the brawler has the ability to take a move action away from an opponent every turn at worst--or more than once a turn if he gets OAs--and to possibly immobilize as an at-will. It's a (very) poor man's daze, so it doesn't seem out of line to make the player choose between grabbing and getting a bonus to defenses on any given turn--at least it doesn't to me.

But if the player can get around that by simply picking the right weapon...well, I'm less inclined to force him to jump through that particular hoop. Perhaps if spiked gauntlets required a feat to use, I'd feel differently...but they don't.

 

[DracoSuave]

Well, I guess it depends on how having a hand free gives the player added defence - if its because he's using it to push away the enemy's weapon arm or otherwise trip them up, it makes sense that he loses it when he no longer has a hand free to do it with.

That said, such a ruling does promote a certain way of arming brawling fighters, with all others being mechanically inferior.

Personally, I find the above reasoning convincing - from both a RAW and a fluff perspective, it makes sense to me that he would lose the bonus. That said, it does make what I think would be the coolest and most evocative builds inferior - the ones where you have a guy who grabs people and pulls them onto his blade. And it does so for one that I find conceptually kidn of "blah" - the two spiked gauntlets route strikes me as rather too "marvel super hero" for my liking.

So I don't know how I would rule on it.

Spiked Gauntlet doesn't do the same damage as a versatile bastard sword.

1d6 vs 1d10+1... that difference makes losing -1 AC and -2 Fortitude sometimes to not be as mechanically inferior as you'd think.



In fact, Brawler is a build that not only makes spiked gauntlets look interesting, it gives a -very real- benefit to the versatile property. It's really two builds in one- TWF fighter, and Versatile weapon fighter.

 

[Derulbaskul]

RAW I agree with your DM... but I would never use that interpretation.

There is probably a stronger argument for the AC bonus when the brawler has an opponent grabbed because the opponent ("the grabbee") can effectively becomes a shield.

In fact, maybe there should be a feat to boost the AC bonus further when the brawler has an opponent grabbed?

 

[Prism]

By RAW as far as I can tell you don't need to have a free hand at all in a grab to maintain or sustain the grab. You only need one to make the first grab attempt. So you could make the grab, then leave go and then draw a weapon and attack with it or in this case get your bonus for having a hand free. All this while grabbing with your imaginary third arm. So by RAW you keep your bonus.

I'm sure the intention is that you can't use your grabbing hand for anything else but I also think the intention is that you still keep your bonus unless you have an item in your hand

 

[Radiating Gnome]

One of the things that I find interesting in the whole debate is that it's impossible to use a RAW interpretation of free hand to support the RAW reading of the class feature.

Here's what I mean -- the idea that a hand that is grabbing a target is not free is an interpretation, not RAW. No where in the rules on grab does it say that a hand that is grabbing a target is not free. It comes damn close to it, sure, but it does not explicitly say it. It says that if you have one hand free, you can grab one target. That's the sidebar in MP2 p6. No where else that I have found are the grab rules that explicit about free hands. The idea that the free hand used to grab an enemy is no longer free is an interpretation, not RAW.

So, to make a case for the very literal, specific RAW reading of the class feature, the argument depends upon an interpretation that cannot be supported with RAW.

I think it's interesting to note that the insubstantial property does not explicitly grant immunity to grab attacks, for example. I think any self respecting DM would rule 0 that and I'd do it too, but what we're talking about in the case of the brawler class feature is a very literal reading that, at least in my opinion, disregards the intent of the authors.

Now, I'm not a total jack@$$. It's damn hard to go to sleep at night hanging my hat on such a thin distinction, and arguing against the idea that a hand grabbing a target is, by RAW still "free". I think the real question is about the intent of the feature and the rules.

So, towards intent (sorry I'm covering some ground that has already been covered):
1. I have a hard time imagining a reason for the bonus to fort for having a hand free if that bonus is only available when the fighter is not grabbing someone. Does having that hand free somehow make him more resillient? So, I think the boost was clearly intended to make the figthter's grabs harder to escape, which would strongly imply that the intent was that the bonus would persist while the fighter is grabbing the target.
2. The inescapable grab feat makes far less sense if the intent was that the brawler would not have the bonus to fort. Sure, the fighter's fort defense will still certainly be higher than the reflex defense, but if the difference may not be enough to justify taking this feat.
3. The RAW interpretation essentially punishes the brawler for grabbing targets -- "tactical choice" or whatever else you call it, this applies a penalty to the character for doing something the class is designed to do -- it is very much like a rule that would have rogues granting combat advantage every time they used their sneak attack damage. Building a class around a certain behavior and then punishing the behavior is not fun play, IMO.

So, if it were my game, I would interpret the rules so that the bonus would persist. I can't speak to the game balance issues -- I've played my brawler twice, and I don't have enough experience with brawlers to weight the advantages and disadvantages yet. And, as I said when I started the thread, I'm biased.

-rg

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Another point. cribbed from my email conversation with Chzbro, who is my DM:

"Your "poor man's daze" comparison is really overstating the case. The grab does not remove a move action, only limits the options that the creature has for that move action. The creature still has the action, and can use it for a variety of other things. I also have to hit with my attack every round to sustain it (every power that grants the grab states that the grab ends at the end of my next turn, so they can't be sustained indefinitely).

Also, don't lose sight of the idea that what the brawler is doing is totally available to any other character. ANY character can grab a target and limit it's ability to move. The brawler is better at it, because of the build's investment in being good at it, but that doesn't mean that the gnome rogue in the party can't grab a target with HIS free hand and prevent it from moving away.

Compare this to Combat Superiority. Now, it's entirely possible that you could have a brawler style fighter with combat superiority rather than combat agility, but even so -- is a grab that prevents a single target from using a move action to move away really so much more powerful than a class feature that allows the fighter to attack ANY target that moves away from him, do damage AND stop that movement. In that case the fighter DOES negate some or all of the move action (because the target can't choose to do something else with it, he's used it) and gets to do damage.

Also, the grab attacks are limited by situation and target. Combat Superiority and other fighter builds work against all sorts of targets -- an Ooze or a swarm, for example. Now, there's no RAW that prevents a brawler from grabbing an ooze or a swarm, but I don't think any DM would allow it. But there's no question that combat superiority would work against it. Is it really that much more powerful?"

-rg

 

[Piratecat]

I think what bothers me about the bonus going away is that it's penalizing you for doing the most cool, cinematic thing. You want to encourage people to grab their foes, not ding them for it. I love the image of the fighter wading through combat with a struggling kobold in one hand, using him as a shield. I want mechanics that support that.

Which doesn't mean a damn thing to RAW, really. It's more of a design philosophy.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Preach it, PC!

 

[Mort_Q]

Preach it, PC!

So say we all!

 

[Chzbro]

I agree that the intent of the rule seems to be that the defense bonuses persist during a grab, and that's why I'm going to let that happen in my game.

However, I feel compelled to point out that there is a line in MP2 which states: ""However, if a power requires you to have a hand free, you must keep that hand free for the entire attack or until you use the hand for something that is part of the attack, such as grabbing an enemy."

If by RAW the hand is free during the grab as some have suggested, would this line even be necessary? If it has to be free until it grabs an enemy, that certainly seems pretty explicitly indicating that once the grab begins the hand is no longer free.

And this is why I'm so unhappy with the current iteration of the rules. I think it's very difficult to reconcile the rules they printed with the rules I "think" they intended.