Dragons and grapple

[Shard O'Glase]

Hehe. Your grasp of the rules is undaunting. What does a monk using spring attack have to do with dragons and snatch? These are so unsimilar, it's baffling. At least not in the way your skewed example is trying to present.

Now, if you gave the monk improved grab, and he took a -20 to continue to act and move, then maybe. Good luck pulling that off though.

Not to mention the size conditions. I'm assuming your monk and wizard are both Medium. The Sage has made recommendations regarding moving a grappled opponent. It isn't automatic, to say the least. Unless, of course, you can sight a rule to show how this can be done as you suggest? I didn't think so.

The only difference between snatch and an ordinary grapple attempt is instead of oppening with a touch attack, a successful ordinary attack auto gives you a grapple check, it is still the same number of actions. As for the -20 under improved grab which is all snatch is that isn't for adding movement it seems to be just for if you want to not be considered grappled yourself. Now if I missed a line uner grapple that said if you successfully grapple you can't move unless you succeed at the grapple at a-20 well lah-dee-dah I missed a line.

Yeah. All those rules regarding dragons not being able to fly when carrying anything...

Oh wait, that's not true at all.

Have you seen the rules for encumberance affecting flight maunueverability? With the dragon's strength, they can easily carry a full sized person without remotely approaching medium encumberance. The point at which they can no longer fly at all (per DotF errata changing it from being OK with Medium encumberance down to Light only).



Wow.

Did you read my post where I was talking about maneuverabilty and not encumbrance. Onve they are biger than flying rats, they have maneverabilty of poor, and they eventually reach maneuverabilty clumsy. Swooping down and snatching a target is difficult to pull off at this maneuverability because of the turn radius. Not impossible, but tough.

First, as the Sage has recommended (and we do this in our group), larger creatures can chose to draw the smaller grappled target into their square instead. Seems intuitive to us, anyway.

Second, AFAIK, the only AOO that spoils a grapple is ther one from the target anyway. None of this applying since the dragon has reach and draws the target into its square.

I missed that sage recomendation, it sounds logical to me.

Yeah. Same can be said for death spells, well hidden poison traps, assassins, etc., right? Silly.

Depends on the DCs, if they are well beyond what the PCs could logically defend against yeah it is a problem. Especially considering the DM holds all the cards. If the DM makes the task to survive a encounter virtually impossible to survive, everyone minds as well put down there dice and sit back and listen to story telling time.

I'm sure the vehement opposition you present has nothing to do with the problems you have with me. Because that would be childish. I'll assume you really do have a problem with this issue on its merits and not your strong dislike of me.

You are the only ones with problems with people. Though if you decide to keep attacking me I might develop a problem with you.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Who says that food is the goal? Intelligent dragons are usually more greedy than hungry. The average adventurer carries some very valuable items, mostly in the form of magic. Snatch one mid-level fighter and you've got a nifty suit of armor at least, as well as a weapon or two for the display case, plus whatever buffing items and cash he happens to carry.

If the party is powerful enough to actually threaten the dragon, then Snatch makes even more sense. Instead of hanging around and getting whacked by the whole group, the dragon just nabs a single character, and proceeds to have a one-on-one battle with him in midair. That should be a pretty lopsided fight, which leaves the party with one fewer member and makes it less of a threat.

I think fly off and eating the target at his leisure was in the begining of the thread. It may be a generalized comment, it may not. The problem is we get one very narrow topic can dragons fly-by and snatch, would they do it. Well yeah they would in some circumstances, but certainly not all. And depending on how it was palyed out the palyer might or might not have a legitimite beef.

 

[KarinsDad]

So spring attack= instant death to all mages then. The monk runs in grapples the mage, runs back to the party which then promtly beats the mage to death.

If a Wizard resists, there are no rules for creatures without special abilities (e.g. Monks). I would attempt to use the Bull Rush rules from the book in conjunction with the Grapple rules for your example here.

Round one: Monk Grapples Wizard. Monk does not get another action that round unless he is hasted, so Spring Attack does not help.
Round two: Monk attempts to Bull Rush Wizard in party direction.

"The combatant and the defender make opposed Strength checks. The combatant adds a +4 bonus for each size category that the combatant is above Medium-size or a -4 penalty for each size category that the combatant is below Medium-size. The defender gets a +4 stability bonus if he has more than two legs or is otherwise exceptionally stable.

Bull Rush Results: If the combatant beats the defender, the combatant pushes the defender back 5 feet. If the combatant wishes to move with the defender, the combatant can push the defender back up to a distance of an additional 1 foot for each point by which the combatant exceeded the defender's check result. A combatant can't, however, exceed his or her normal movement limit."


What this means, though, is that spring attack != instant death to mages. You might be able to "grapple rush" a Wizard back 5 or 10 feet towards your party per round (after the first grapple round), but that is the best you could do.

Note: the difference between this and a normal Bull Rush is that the opponent is not grappled with Bull Rush, hence, he can just move away if he wishes. But with "Grapple Rush", it takes 2 actions to accomplish as opposed to one. And, of course, the Wizard can always attempt to break free or cast spells or whatever.


I think there is a significant difference between an immensely large creature like a Dragon grabbing a medium sized Wizard and a medium sized Monk doing it. Hence, the rules to handle it can be significantly different, especially when the Dragon has special abilities.


And, I have absolutely no problem with a Dragon snatching up someone and flying away.

That's why they call it Dungeons & Dragons.

 

[Corwin]

You are the only ones with problems with people. Though if you decide to keep attacking me I might develop a problem with you.

I'm sure I'm the only one with problems with other people. [shrug]

And my comment stemmed from the fact that you seemed to be presenting illogical and fallacious points to counter my post. I probably wouldn't have had a problem if your arguments were reasonable. But you appeared to be really stretching to get anything to use against my point.

Anyway, lots o' people here have been presenting excellent points. I'm sure it's easier for me just to ask you to re-read everyone's replies here rather than resort to arguing with you about it.

---

In a general comment regarding moving stuff while grappling...

We've been using a Sage recommended house rule. In order to move your opponent, you need to make a successful grapple check and get one movement rate's worth (including incumberances for the weight of the opponent). This would forgo the monk's ability to spring attack the mage back to the group in one round.

I also think I saw the hint of a comment from Shard that the monk could jump in and out of a group of opponents, stealing the mage from within them. Except that spring attack only protects against AoOs from the target, not those around him. SO that monk might still take a peppering of blows from the mage's friends.

But a dragon with reach can just fly above the group, out of sword reack, and snatch up someone. With fly-by, he can continue on his way.

Yes, it's a nasty tactic. That's why you don't want to ever face a dragon out in the open. This is a rule our group has learned to live by. Dragons in the open are devastatingly powerful and dangerous.

I don't see this as any different from other situations that may prove less than ideal: Don't fight an iron golem in a lava pool. Don't fight a water elemental under the ocean. And whatever you do, never, ever, never, take on Halaster Blackcloak down in the Undermountain!

 

[Shard O'Glase]

I would prefer to use bull rush for the monk situation as well. I'm just pointing out that it appears to me by the rules if snatch which is basically just grappling on a successful attack can do it, just grappling could do it. Would it entail the -20 penalty on the grapple check, I honestly don't know. If the sage clarified grapples I'd be happy to go with that, because I feel the PH grapple rules were a bit unclear. Heck one of my problems with grapple is that is seems to be the better version of all the various extra maneuvers, trip heck no once I got some skills, i'll grapple you and toss you to the ground, bull rush heck no I'll grapple you and run with you. Though I personaly prefer the AB based method of handling situations like grapple as opposed to the attribute bonus method like trip.

Now if grapple can't be sued to pick some-one up and run away, the question is why? Snatch doesn't seem much different than grapple in rules effect. And if grapple can be used, when can it be used, only when grappler is one size category larger, all the time, only if have improved grab type powers?

And yes dragons should be able to snatch, and fly. I was at 1st ?ing the ability to snatch and fly-by. Because I was unsure of the number of actions needed to attain a level of hold where you could carry someone off. Now I don't think it should be easy though, as I mentioned they have poor maneuverability. I was surprised at how much of a limiter that can be if you actually bust out the math durring there moves. One of my players who is much more math oriented than me did that during an encounter, I ended up missing the party in fly-by attacks because if I picked any more direct of an angle on the party I would have to either land or crash, neither of which seemed like a good idea with all their fighters on the ground. (side point I can't comprehend how little some parties devote to ranged combat, especialy after facing some ariel opponents.)

 

[AuraSeer]

I think fly off and eating the target at his leisure was in the begining of the thread. It may be a generalized comment, it may not.

Well, once you peel off that nice shiny armor and mount in on a stand, you've got to do something with the bits of fighter that are left over.

The problem is we get one very narrow topic can dragons fly-by and snatch, would they do it. Well yeah they would in some circumstances, but certainly not all. And depending on how it was palyed out the palyer might or might not have a legitimite beef.

From reading the OP, it doesn't look that way. The player read a MM quote saying that dragons don't "favor" grapples, and based on that, tried to argue that a dragon would never grapple. Unfortunately for his PC, he simply hasn't got a leg to stand on.

First off, even if dragons don't "favor" grapples, nothing says they won't use them in an appropriate situation. My sorcerer PC doesn't favor hand-to-hand combat, but if he ever ran out of spells and got trapped in melee range, he'd draw his mace and try to crack some skulls.

Second, as far as monster behavior goes, the MM only describes the baseline for any species. There are bound to be exceptions to every rule. You might encounter a city of civilized trolls, or a tribe of pacifist hobgoblins, or some dragons who think that grapple attacks are just the most fun ever. All that is for the DM to decide, because it's his world. The players have no standing to say "those monsters can't behave that way."

Third, this specific dragon has the Snatch feat, which grants him a special attack using the grapple rules. Trying to claim that he will never use the special ability is just silly.

The player's being a weenie, trying to retcon his PC's death by finding a rules-lawyery loophole. Aside from the sheer tackiness of it, his attempt is a failure, because the occurrence is not prohibited by either the rules or even common sense.

 

[Dr_Rictus]

You are the only ones with problems with people. Though if you decide to keep attacking me I might develop a problem with you.

This is not a useful addition to the discussion. You may not consider it a problem, but being pugnacious when threatened is not really a solution, either.

I don't suppose it would work if I suggested that everyone take a deep breath, would it?

 

[KarinsDad]

We've been using a Sage recommended house rule. In order to move your opponent, you need to make a successful grapple check and get one movement rate's worth (including incumberances for the weight of the opponent). This would forgo the monk's ability to spring attack the mage back to the group in one round.

What I do not like about this, if I'm understanding it correctly, is:

1) Your opponent's Strength is not taken into consideration for resisting movement, only for avoiding the Grapple.

2) You get to force your opponent back further from a Grapple and Move in one round than you could from a Bull Rush on round one and a Grapple on round two. Being even heavily encumbered for a medium sized character would result in moving your opponent 15 feet automatically (i.e. 5 to move into his space and 15 more for a total of 20). The normal Bull Rush rules would require that you make your roll by 10 in order to move someone 15 feet. This appears to make this house rule more potent than two segregated (by round) actions from the normal rules. It sounds feat-like in power for free.

3) You get to move 5 feet into the opponent's space, grapple him, and then move afterwards. Very few other attacks (Bull Rush being an exception) allow you to move both before and after your attack. Usually, you need a feat to do this (e.g. Spring Attack or Shot on the Run) and typically, such a feat would not be low on a feat chain.


Now, if I am misunderstanding it, then ok. But, it seems extremely potent to me.

 

[Corwin]

Now, if I am misunderstanding it, then ok. But, it seems extremely potent to me.

Yeah, I think you may be misunderstanding (and/or I was not clear enough).

Basically, you can choose to try and move with the opponent. TYhis requires a standard action to initiate the grapple check. If successful, you can move.

So you don't really "spring attack" them. Moving them effectively becomes another option in the list of things to do while grappling. Rather than pinning or damaging, you are moving. That's your action.

 

[KarinsDad]

Yeah, I think you may be misunderstanding (and/or I was not clear enough).

Basically, you can choose to try and move with the opponent. TYhis requires a standard action to initiate the grapple check. If successful, you can move.

Actually, I think I understood completely.

You are still doing everything I said in my post above.

You are combining the Grapple and Bull Rush abilities into one ability.

So in the core rules, you can grapple. But, the opponent will not be moved.

Or, you can Bull Rush. But, the opponent will not be held.

By combining the two, you allow a character to do two core actions (Bull Rush and Grapple) with one opposed check in one round as opposed to two opposed checks in two rounds. So, you can do it much faster and with a single opposed roll.

And, regardless of how much you make the Grapple roll by, being allowed to automatically push the opponent by 15 feet (or more if not heavily encumbered) in a round, you are ensuring that the non-existant Bull Rush roll is made by 10 or more automatically.

You are also getting to move (into the opponent's space), attack, and move (out of the opponent's space) with this ability which is typically the province of feats (with the exception of Bull Rush).

All of this combined is very potent. In fact, it would even be very potent for a feat.

This is nowhere near the potency of pinning.

Compare this with my suggestion above of Grappling the character in round one and then Bull Rushing him while held in round two. Totally different levels of potency.

Course, that's one of the reasons I often took the Sage's advice with a grain of salt. He often seemed to have a difficult grasp of game balance IMO.