Grapple a mounted opponent

[brehobit]

Yes, I'd like to know some good answers for this too, as I'm playing a Knight who had three scrubs recently try to grapple her off her heavy warhorse. I thought the horse should get an AoO as the grapplers would be coming into her (and the horse's) square.

I also think she should get some kind of bonus to avoid being grappled while she's on the horse (as the horse just isn't standing still).

Someone who's excellent with the rules (Hyp, I'm looking in your directon ), please reply.

Thought I'd bump this in the hope that someone else has an idea about how to handle this...

 

[frankthedm]

Thought I'd bump this in the hope that someone else has an idea about how to handle this...

If you fail your grapple check against an Improved grab it yanks you right out of your space, and puts you into the grabber's space. A kind DM might let you use your ride bonus in place of you BAB and let you claim the Military saddle's +2 bonus on that grapple check as well.

For simplicity, assume that you share your mount’s space during combat.

So if you get grappled they go into your space, a space that you also happen to share with you mount. As it happens they also draw an AoO from the mount as they move in too though that won't stop the grapple if it hits. The mount if trained for fighting will likely lash into the foe on it's next action. If your foe has any sence though they will use the move grapple option to move the grapple away from the mount and thus enacting.

Without you to guide it, your mount avoids combat.

Once again a kind DM might let you use your ride bonus in place of you BAB and let you claim the Military saddle's +2 bonus on that grapple check as well.

 

[Izerath]

Along the house rules line of thought, but sticking to the principles in the RAW:

Similar to a few recent replies, let's assume that the grappler moves into the target's space. If the target was mounted, I would ask for a free Ride check to stay mounted, with the DC being set at the attack roll of the grappler (opposed by the attack roll). Success and the grapple is on top of the mount. Failure and bouth grapplers fall to the ground IN THE SAME SPACE as the mount taking 1d6 damage from the fall (avoid with tumble, yada yada yada).

In any case, the mount could do as it pleases - attack, move, etc. I would not allow a mount to attack the grappler if he and the target remained mounted. The grappler would have to dismount the target before that could happen.

Now to Frank's point, Improved Grab (Ex) changes things a bit - the grappler would pull the rider into his space, thus dismounting the target if the grapple succeeded.

 

[brehobit]

I hadn't realized the (large) difference between improved grapple and improved grab.

I agree, something with improved grab could dismount a rider, though I'd try to get some kind of a ride skill in there.


So best I can get from RAW:
Without improved grab,
the grappler does steps 1-3 normally. After that if he performs step 4 he draws an AoO from the mount. At that point he is probably considered to be co-mounted. Not sure after that if the mount could attack the grappler or not.

With improved grab, nothing changes by being mounted.

In house-rule land I'd probably allow the target to make a ride check in place of a grapple check if he so desired. I'd allow the mount to make a bite attack or some such.

Mark

 

[Jhulae]

The issue stems from the fact, I think, that there's *already* a method to dismount riders in the rules, via Trip.

It doesn't seem Grapple, in any way, was designed to dismount a rider.

 

[brehobit]

The issue stems from the fact, I think, that there's *already* a method to dismount riders in the rules, via Trip.

It doesn't seem Grapple, in any way, was designed to dismount a rider.

Yeah,
But improved grab _is_ designed to pick up and move a character. If the grabber is capable (from a weight viewpoint) of picking-up/dragging the character AND mount, having them just grab the character is pretty kind. Can you imagine the dragon grabbing the paladin and having the horse come with? One broken paladin I'd say.

Without improved grab, I don't see any argument that the mounted character is unmounted. The only debate in my mind is exactly how the mount can attack the grappler. As a DM I'd probably play it by ear. As a player, I'd like a concrete answer...

Mark

 

[kjenks]

But, now my DM is saying that since I "share the same space as my horse", the grappler can achieve Step 4, as "moving into my space" would be the same as moving into the horse's space.

But in order to move into a horse's square, your opponent would have to grapple the horse. Or he'd have to be at least two size categories smaller than a horse, in which case he's not a serious grappler. And the grapple attack, like most other attack forms, only applies to one opponent at a time, so he can't grapple both you and the horse at the same time. He can join an ongoing grapple, but a rider on a horse is not grappling the horse.

On the other hand, there isn't a rule preventing more than one rider on a mount, and there isn't a rule preventing you from mounting a hostile mount. (Isn't that strange?) So your opponent could mount your horse then grapple you, but he can't grapple then mount. The order is important because of step 4. First, he'd have to follow the rules for mounting (move action, or free action with DC 20 Ride check) then he'd have to follow the rules for grappling (steps 1-3, skipping step 4 since he's already sharing squares with you).

 

[Jhulae]

Yeah,
But improved grab _is_ designed to pick up and move a character. If the grabber is capable (from a weight viewpoint) of picking-up/dragging the character AND mount, having them just grab the character is pretty kind. Can you imagine the dragon grabbing the paladin and having the horse come with? One broken paladin I'd say.

Without improved grab, I don't see any argument that the mounted character is unmounted. The only debate in my mind is exactly how the mount can attack the grappler. As a DM I'd probably play it by ear. As a player, I'd like a concrete answer...

Mark

But, we're not talking about Improved Grab, and never were. Honestly, I don't know why Frank_the_DM even contributed that. Improved Grab has it's own rules that weren't part of the original question.

We're talking about a scrubs trying to unmount a mounted character via Grappling.

Which, as the rules point out, is a Trip, not a Grapple.

 

[brehobit]

But, we're not talking about Improved Grab, and never were. Honestly, I don't know why Frank_the_DM even contributed that. Improved Grab has it's own rules that weren't part of the original question.

We're talking about a scrubs trying to unmount a mounted character via Grappling.

Which, as the rules point out, is a Trip, not a Grapple.

Yep.

I'm currently at the point my ruling would be that you can't do step 4 against a mounted opponent because it violates the "sharing a space with an opponent" rule. But that seems a bit too powerful and unrealistic. So the other option is that the grappler is _on_ the mount with you. I think I'm okay with that, I'm just not sure if/how the mount should be able to attack the grappler once the grapple has started...

 

[Izerath]

On second thought

But, we're not talking about Improved Grab, and never were. Honestly, I don't know why Frank_the_DM even contributed that. Improved Grab has it's own rules that weren't part of the original question.

We're talking about a scrubs trying to unmount a mounted character via Grappling.

Which, as the rules point out, is a Trip, not a Grapple.

We were talking about Improved Grab because it allows a free grapple attack.....I still stand on what I said earlier about that Special Attack.

However, as I thought about this a bit more - Jhulae makes sense. The action is "I want to dismount the rider" not "I want to jump on the horse, grapple the rider then pull him from his horse."

We should really consider the OUTCOME of the action to find the appropriate rule instead of beginning with the player's description and working towards the rule. It's a fine art yes, but that's the first question every DM unconsciously (or consciously) asks himself when behind the screen.

If I were judging this (and now here comes the groan from my player who has the grappling monk) I would agree that the attack is a trip attack.

If the player really leapt at the rider, it's a move action - make a Jump or Ride to get on the horse). Then he makes his trip attack to dismount the rider. If he misses, the rider gets a trip attack against the attacker. If the rider succeeds, the attacker is thrown from the horse. Failure means both attacker and grappler are mounted on the back of the horse. This latter result may collide with the attacker/defender in same square rule, but two people ride horses all the time - logistically so can enemies (see DMG p29 under Mixing it Up, first paragraph). In this case I would ignore that rule because it makes "cinematic sense." Eventually someone will fail a ride check when they are attacked (and hit) or they will get thrown from the horse by their opponent.

Also the mount can attack within its own space, and thus can attack a rider with a bite, but not hooves. Now, if someone was thrown from the horse, it could use hooves or bite.....oh and only a warhorse gets a bite attack.....