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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Patryn of Elvenshae" data-source="post: 2243206" data-attributes="member: 23094">I disagree.  It is clearly not a melee attack which inflicts damage.  A grapple attempt is a melee attack (the touch attack) which allows you to enter another subsystem of rules.  The grapple check itself is not a second melee attack.Which, if it were cut-and-dried a melee weapon, would not need to be explicitly spelled out.You may subsititute a grapple attempt for a melee attack in an attack of opportunity.Unproven.Similarly unproven.No, and the FAQ is wrong when it supports this.  Note that the other half of the FAQ does not support this.  We wash.Only inasmuch as they affect your BAB, Strength modifier, etc.  Anything that specifically references attack rolls only affects the initial touch attack to begin a grapple.  It does not affect your grapple checks (excepting the above, of course).No, no, and no.Note that, even if you were right and grapple checks *are* attack rolls, the Charge bonus would not apply.Since the Charge bonus is used in Step 2, it is no longer available in Step 3 - just like it doesn't apply to the full-attack made by a Pouncing creature.Nope.Nope.Only in Step 2, so no again.My answer to all of these questions is NO; bonuses and penalties that affect attack rolls do not also affect grapple checks.  Thus is easy to run, it's consistent with PH rules, and consistant with the parts of the FAQ I care about.No, because a grapple check to do damage is not a melee attack roll, and the damage is not a melee damage roll.  It's a grapple damage roll.Rather, they'd have a damned hard time starting a grapple with all the penalties, they couldn't Combat Expertise or Fight Defensively once they were in a grapple (denied their Dex = denied Dodge bonuses to AC, and can't choose the "Attack" or "Full Attack" actions).By my reading, they could do any or all of these and get no appreciable benefit for quite a large penalty.  And that's in the spirit of the rules as I see them.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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