Grappling with Grappling

[Gort]

The fact that there's a magic item that completely excises this section of the rules from the game (ring of freedom of movement) coupled with the fact that every character in our high-level party bar one possessed this magic item speaks volumes on the subject.

And almost every adventure, the character without the ring of freedom of movement got grappled or swallowed with no way to effectively avoid it speaks a large amount, too.

Grappling's fine at low levels and when both parties have a reasonable chance of winning the opposed roll. When you get higher, it's just "oh, I rolled a 2 so I hit your touch AC, now I've rolled a 1 on my check and you've rolled 20, I win".

They really need to divise seperate rules for actively participating in a grapple and simply trying to avoid a grapple. The idea that you use the same rules for arm-wrestling a titan as you do for escaping from it is just silly.

Edit: Huge monsters ALREADY have huge strength due to their size, how come they get a size modifier to grappling on top of this?

 

[kensanata]

We like grappling. We usually limit grappling to characters with Improved Grappling or monsters with Improved Grab. We don't join grapples. When grappling, all we care about is opposed grapple checks to do damage, pin, move, or silence the opponent, or to escape the pin or hold.

We also like to hit grappling enemies since they no longer enjoy their Dex bonus.

Basically grappling works very well, but it's the little details that are confusing. We just don't do these.

I think pulling a light weapon has been used once. Casting a spell has never been used.

 

[frankthedm]

Edit: Huge monsters ALREADY have huge strength due to their size, how come they get a size modifier to grappling on top of this?

Mass and leverage. Similar reasons why Bigger monsters use bigger, more damaging weapons and why they get a big bonus on busting down doors. Real life sports use weight classes because of the advantages even modest weight differences have on clinches.

 

[Festivus]

I haven't had too much trouble understanding grapple, but I used it a lot to really learn it. I usually end up with a grapple at least once per game, occasionally we have multiple grapplers but I have never had trouble understanding it.

My weakness is Dispel Magic... man do I hate dealing with that.

 

[DragonLancer]

I find the grapple rules as written to be too unweildy and (as others have said) favour certain opponents too much. From the next time I DM a game, I will be using the Pathfinder grapple rules.