Grapple Check Question

[ragnar99]

Hi, I had a question about what bonuses you can stack on a grapple check. Besides strength or size increasing spells, can spells like Bless or Prayer affect your grapple check? Can anything besides a strength or size increase (and some feats of course) affect your grapple check?

 

[Pinotage]

Hi, I had a question about what bonuses you can stack on a grapple check. Besides strength or size increasing spells, can spells like Bless or Prayer affect your grapple check? Can anything besides a strength or size increase (and some feats of course) affect your grapple check?

Bless and Prayer would affect the touch attack to start a grapple, but not the grapple check itself. A grapple check is specifically defined at BAB + Str + Size modifier, so only those are used, along with the occassional bonus from a feat, such as Improved Grapple. I don't think there are many other ways to improve your grapple check other than perhaps racial bonus (I believe darkmantles get this) or increasing size and strength.

Pinotage

 

[Elephant]

Pinotage, that's what I thought at first, but then I looked again at the definition for a grapple check. It says it's "like a melee attack roll" and is calculated by adding BAB + STR + special size modifier rather than being "like an ability check" and using STR.

In addition, the definition for attack rolls is simply BAB + STR + size modifier. It's quite a neat parallel, don't you think?

Also, contrast this with Trip, where you make a touch attack and then an *opposed Strength check* to pull someone down (the target can make a Dex check instead, if that's better than their Str).

 

[Sejs]

Pinotage covered it. Modifiers to your attack roll would help you land the initial touch attack, but not with the subsequent grapple checks. Grapple checks are a seperate thing.

 

[IcyCool]

You make a melee touch attack to start the grapple, and then an opposed grapple check. Your grapple check = BAB + Str + Size Mod + Misc. I can only think of five things that fall into the miscellaneous category off-hand:

Improved Grapple gives you a +4 bonus to grapple checks.

Clever Wrestling gives you a bonus to your grapple checks based on your enemy's size.

Close-Quarters fighting lets you make an attack of opportunity on someone attempting to grapple you, and add the damage you do to your grapple check to avoid being grappled.

The Grip of Iron psychic power grants a +4 enhancment bonus to your grapple checks.

The "Aid Another" action should grant a +2 bonus in this case, though I'm not sure on the details.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

The question you need to answer is, "According to the rules, grapple checks are like melee attack rolls. Exactly how 'like' are they?"

My answer is that grapple checks are, in many ways, similar to melee attack rolls, but they are not, however, attack rolls. Anything that provides a modifier on attack rolls, then, does not modify grapple checks.

Others disagree, believing that when the rules state "like melee attack rolls," they really mean "are melee attack rolls, with a couple of different modifiers."

 

[Stalker0]

Anything that affects a check would also affect this.

I believe good hope affects checks does it not?

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Myself, I fall into Patryn's second camp. Grapple checks are like melee attack rolls but with a different size modifier. Anything that applies to a melee attack roll applies to a grapple check. (When Skip was writing, the FAQ seemed to agree with me, now that Andy is writing it disagrees, oh well).

The basic question comes down to which of the following situations you'd rather see come up in play:

1. I've taken eight negative levels, I'm shaken, and I've been hit by both bane and prayer, and I'm prone. Ordinarily this would mean that I'm -16 to attack, but I know, I'll start a grapple. If I can make the touch attack (and touch attacks are easy), I won't have any penalty to my grapple check because grapple checks aren't attack rolls (or strength checks) and thus none of the penalties apply to grapple checks.

2. Ouch! That blow hurt a lot--he must be Power Attacking for a ton. Well, at least it will reduce his grapple check; I'll start a grapple and seeing as he must be at -12 or so, I'll have a good shot at getting him (at least until he stops power attacking).

Myself, I prefer to have the penalties from Power Attack (and Combat Expertise though that's a little less intuitive) as well as fear, bane, prayer, negative levels, etc (really, the last two SHOULD apply to grapple checks, but according to the "neither quite strength checks nor attack rolls so no penalties from either" logic of the FAQ, even penalties that apply to everything else in the game (skill checks, ability checks, attack rolls, etc) don't apply to grapples) as well as the bonuses from such effects change grapple scores. Some people apparently like it differently.

From a rules standpoint, it's also worth noting that both attack rolls and grapple checks are described the same way in the PHB: d20 + BAB + size modifier so the fact that the grapple check description doesn't include all the odd bonuses that can affect it means no more than that the attack roll description doesn't reference them.

 

[Infiniti2000]

From a rules standpoint, it's also worth noting that both attack rolls and grapple checks are described the same way in the PHB: d20 + BAB + size modifier so the fact that the grapple check description doesn't include all the odd bonuses that can affect it means no more than that the attack roll description doesn't reference them.

Not true. The attack roll does mention them. The specific reference is: "(Other modifiers may also apply to this roll.)" The grapple rules do not have this statement. The question, as Patryn noted, is does the "like a melee attack roll" include this statement? If so, as you propose, then why? Also, if it does, then you must necessarily (to be consistent) include the automatic misses and hits. Yet, that creates a paradox and paradoxes are to be avoided.

Now, to be clear on my stance per the rules, I think you do not add any of the modifiers besides those stated in the grapple rules or for when such bonuses to grappling are specifically stated. However, IMC I (house)rule the opposite way and treat opposed grapple checks as melee attack rolls (applying all modifiers as relevant) and specifically rule that automatic hits and misses do not apply (nor crit threats). For example, if you power attack in a grapple, you get -N on the touch attack and every subsequent opposed grapple check that round, but you get +N on damage. This is obviously better for larger opponents (where the size modifier actually helps alleviate the penalty as opposed to for regular attacks), but it seems to play well.

 

[Pinotage]

Hmm. I agree with Infiniti2000 and Patryn on this one. Bless and other effects give a morale bonus to attack rolls. By naming along it's a grapple check, not an attack roll. A melee attack has an attack roll, a grapple has a grapple check. They similar in that you can grapple in place of an attack, but two completely different beasts from a mechanics point of view otherwise.

Pinotage