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<blockquote data-quote="ZansForCans" data-source="post: 1403600" data-attributes="member: 8059">Why do you need to even reach that far, though?&quot;You make a melee touch attack to grab the target.&quot;There is no hint of unarmed strike in there at all. No damage is dealt by delivering the grab and &quot;unarmed&quot; isn't even in there at all. Although the Grapple attempt as a whole provokes an AoO (success of which negates the entire attempt), the touch attack to grab does not.Let's pretend that instead the grab was really an unarmed melee touch attack, and thus the grab instead of the Grapple attempt as a whole provoked the AoO. Now monks and anyone with IUS would not provoke an AoO when starting a Grapple. This is certainly not the case (only Improved Grapple or Improved Grab prevent that AoO). Thus, the grab touch attack is intentionally a melee, not an unarmed melee, attack. As for any other Grapple action, you are making grapple checks which are &quot;like a melee attack roll,&quot; but only in the bonus calculation. They are opposed checks, which are nothing like attack rolls. And again, they are most deliberately not even &quot;like&quot; unarmed attacks for the same reason as the grab--making a grapple check does not provoke an AoO. Normally this would be a moot point since your foe doesn't threaten anyway while grappling, but a monster with Improved Grab has the option to not be considered grappling and thus could threaten you. If grapple checks were like unarmed melee attacks, now the monster gets an AoO against you when you do one of your grapple actions--say, try to escape. They are not unarmed attacks and for good balancing reasons. Allowing them to be considered anything like unarmed attacks or variants of an unarmed strike changes more than just allowing the monk to Flurry with them. At least, that's my take. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="ZansForCans, post: 1403600, member: 8059"] Why do you need to even reach that far, though? "You make a melee touch attack to grab the target." There is no hint of unarmed strike in there at all. No damage is dealt by delivering the grab and "unarmed" isn't even in there at all. Although the Grapple attempt as a whole provokes an AoO (success of which negates the entire attempt), the touch attack to grab does not. Let's pretend that instead the grab was really an unarmed melee touch attack, and thus the grab instead of the Grapple attempt as a whole provoked the AoO. Now monks and anyone with IUS would not provoke an AoO when starting a Grapple. This is certainly [b]not[/b] the case (only Improved Grapple or Improved Grab prevent that AoO). Thus, the grab touch attack is intentionally a [i]melee[/i], not an [i]unarmed melee[/i], attack. As for any other Grapple action, you are making grapple checks which are "like a melee attack roll," but only in the bonus calculation. They are opposed checks, which are nothing like attack rolls. And again, they are most deliberately [b]not[/b] even "like" unarmed attacks for the same reason as the grab--making a grapple check does not provoke an AoO. Normally this would be a moot point since your foe doesn't threaten anyway while grappling, but a monster with Improved Grab has the option to not be considered grappling and thus could threaten you. If grapple checks were like unarmed melee attacks, now the monster gets an AoO against you when you do one of your grapple actions--say, try to escape. They are not unarmed attacks and for good balancing reasons. Allowing them to be considered anything like unarmed attacks or variants of an unarmed strike changes more than just allowing the monk to Flurry with them. At least, that's my take. :) [/QUOTE]

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