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Message: <blockquote data-quote="eamon" data-source="post: 4471384" data-attributes="member: 51942">For maximum thread derailment, something similar bothers me about bull-rush - it's a str-attack against a defense.  However, since it's non-magical and gains no bonuses from proficiencies or anything, that means it's hard to do initially, and becomes impossible at high levels.Grabbing can actually work out, action wise, if you manage to keep it up a round - once you've grabbed someone it's just a minor action to sustain.The only real trouble I see is the skill vs. defense things.  I don't have a problem with the unbalanced actions - that disadvantage is real, but it's OK to have a disadvantage, as long as it doesn't get out of hand.As for the skill-thing, well, the problem here isn't so much just the training, it's the total variability of skills.  Skill training is +5, but weapon proficiency is +2 or +3, so this isn't completely uncomparable.  Also, skills are less "crucial" if you will, and characters can't keep them all at a reasonable level, so there's a solid amount of arbitrariness - one player can easily have a much higher skill check than another, whereas that's unlikely with   If skill training were the sole extent of the difference, it'd be acceptable.  Unfortunately, it isn't; the attacker gets to choose from two skills (which is an advantage), and he might have racial or feat bonuses (not that hard to get).  So, all in all, there are bunch of factors when mean the escaping character has several choices which he can easily boost and of which he can choose the "best" one, whereas the grabber has no choices, and he need to boosts three values (attack, fort and ref), all of which are hard to boost. All in all, it means it's exceptionally easy for someone to escape, fairly reliably.  I think the grabber should choose which defense the grabbee needs to beat, just like the grabbee gets to choose the skill, and there should be some feat to "fix" the imbalance caused by skill training (say, improved grapple?).  Then, just like Bull Rush, the attack should scale with level, unlike now.  Finally, potentially a third alternative for escape is needed to allow for those that just use brute force to escape.  Allowing a grappler to have an honest chance to keep hold is great, but the consequence should not be that a strong cleric or paladin can never escape just because they're not trained in acrobatics or athletics.Frankly, I'm not convinced that all this is any better than 3.5's grapple.</blockquote>

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