Getting out of "swallow whole"

[Hand of Evil]

House Rule - grappled in belly aka wrapped in blanket and acid attack.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Quaal's Feather Token: Tree.

 

[diaglo]

Quaal's Feather Token: Tree.

in the revision they specifically nerfed that...

 

[VirgilCaine]

in the revision they specifically nerfed that...

Which revision? 1e to 2e? 2e to 3e? 3e to 3.5e?

 

[Hjorimir]

Okay, chew is awesome! YOINK!

 

[Ulrik]

I once had a Ranger in a one-on-one fight with a T-Rex. He got swallowed, cut his way out, got swallowed again, and repeat about three or four times.

Slightly ridiculous, not to mention annoying...

 

[Desdichado]

Yeah, rather than "cut your way out," I've usually interpreted the damage just to mean that the creature vomits you back up. Unless you kill it in the blow, because ripping your way out of a dying creature *is* pretty sweet.

Ah, yes. The "spits whole" routine.

 

[Felon]

I can't remeber who suggested it, but I have seen someone on these boards suggest changing 'swallow whole' to 'chew'. Keeping the same mechanics, but changing the flavour text. Works for me.

Someone had a variant on here the swallow whole rule in which they changed it to more like chew so that hte person stays in the mouth of the beast and retains the believablity

It doesn't sound like a house rule is needed for chewing. Swallow Whole follows an Improved Grab attack. If your Improved Grab attack is a bite, you can simply choose not to swallow and instead continue to inflict bite damage: From the SRD regarding Improved Grab:

A successful hold does not deal any extra damage unless the creature also has the constrict special attack. If the creature does not constrict, each successful grapple check it makes during successive rounds automatically deals the damage indicated for the attack that established the hold. Otherwise, it deals constriction damage as well (the amount is given in the creature’s descriptive text).

With some monsters, it's not hard to believe that muscle force or something along those lines might hold the wound shut to prevent massive bloodloss after they PC has cut his way out of the monster's belly. After all, if the monster has evolved to swallow large creatures whole, it certainly must have evolved some protection against this sort of damage.

There are a couple of things that affect suspension of disbelief here, and they're at odds with each other. First is the notion that a monster can survive a big-ass hole cut in its gullet, with a human being bursting forth like a Bizarro-World version of Alien. For some critters that makes sense--a purple worm or a tendriculos, for instacne. But not for a shark or T-rex. They should die.

That's where the second issue comes in. DM's seem to assume that a monster should swallow an opponent at the first available opportunity, and that the act of being swallowed should be inherently fatal, or at least take the character out for the duration of the fight. But that's not how it works. That shark or T-rex is well-advised to chew its meal well before swallowing.

The whole bit about the character cutting his way out after 25 points of damage is actually a cap there to avoid providing canny PC's with a means of dispatching these creatures that would not only be fairly easy, but it would be even more of a strain on credulity. A gullet should not be the safest place on the battlefield.

Of course, it would make more sense to simply give monsters like sharks and T-Rexs some Constrict damage so they bite their prey in half, but I guess that would make them less challenging against groups. They'd get a hold of one character, and the rest of the party would tear it apart while its mouth was full.

 

[Quasqueton]

I really hope that moderators will choose to edit the above posts rather than closing the thread. I'm interested in the appropriate information and discussion.

Quasqueton

 

[jgsugden]

Easy fix for those of you that are having trouble ... to cut your way out, you must deal the specified damage, but it only works if the creature is dead.

I had a PC swallowed by a T-Rex. He had no way to cut himself out. He was going to die (though hsi acid resistance was keeping him going for a while, IIRC) ... but the interesting thing was how he died. The other PCs killed the T-rex, which caused it to fall over. Unfortunately, it was on a cliff and had no place to fall, but *waaaaaaaay* down. 20d6 damage for me.