Grapple v Readied Action

[Felix]

Unless you have Improved Grapple or something similar, you incur an attack of opportunity when you make a touch attack to initiate a grapple. If that AoO hits you, you fail to initiate a grapple, and if you have iterative attacks, you can make another attack.

If you do have Improved Grapple, you don't incur an AoO, and instead make a touch attack, then an opposed grapple check.

Consider: someone readies an action to attack you if you attempt a grapple (and you have the Improved Grapple feat). You incur no AoO, but the defender still makes an attack on you.

Let us suppose that the readied attack hits.

Does this mean that you fail to initiate the grapple because you were damaged in the attempt of grappling? Or do you continue with the touch attack because it was not the AoO you would incur had you not the IG feat that damaged you.

In other words, can you ready an attack to ward off a grapple? Or must the warding come from an AoO?

Pedantic, yes, but it would be nice to know ahead of time if ever neccessary. Heh. Thanks fellas.

 

[Norfleet]

Ruleswise, it would appear that it must be the attack of opportunity that does it. Otherwise, this would imply an equivalence between a readied action against another action, in the case of actions which, due to character mods, no longer provoke attacks of opportunity, and an attack of opportunity provoked by that action.

However, if your readied action is one which makes your opponent's action now invalid, the opponent's action would fail anyway. If you readied an action to get out of the way, for instance, your opponent's grapple would fail since you wouldn't be within range to grapple anymore. Another good one would be if you readied an attack, which helpfully killed said opponent, causing all future actions he could perform to be invalid, other than, possibly, decomposing.