Grab a stirge and tear it off?

[Kershek]

If you can grab it at AC 12, then you can rip it off easily, but it will do normal attack damage to you for ripping its pincers out of your skin.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

stirges have what, like 5 hit points? if you have a decent STR bonus, just attack the thing unarmed and pop it, like a mosquito ;-) I always figure stirges are like ticks...the easiest way to remove them is to kill them.

Ken

 

[smetzger]

maybe I just missed it looking through the books, but how would you as a DM handle this action?

Would you treat it as a grapple sort of? I would think that the Stirge would be harder to tear off than an opposed grapple check would indicate.

I would have it be a grapple check to grab the stirge and then a pin move to remove it.

 

[baradtgnome]

That sounds good. I wasn't sure how to handle it when the situation arose for me, so I just let them make attack rolls without any strength bonus ('tis hard/dangerous to swing a Bastard sword that close to your person).

Well if you go by the grapple rules, you could only use a light weapon yourself. And if someone else was trying, they would have a chance of hitting the character instead of the stirge. No need to adjust strength.

 

[baradtgnome]

stirges have what, like 5 hit points? if you have a decent STR bonus, just attack the thing unarmed and pop it, like a mosquito ;-) I always figure stirges are like ticks...the easiest way to remove them is to kill them.

Ken

Well as the DM, I don't tell what to do, just how foolish they looked after they have done it.

So I think that killing it is more effective that tearing it off, but hey heroes aren't necessarily smart!