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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Krensky" data-source="post: 5583157" data-attributes="member: 30936">It's hardly a complete shut down. Frankly, I feel there's for more meaningful options then in 3.0. It also shuts down all participants equally, while making them all flat-footed. There's a number of ways to get free actions of consequence. Quick Draw, Fencing or Flail Basics, Contempt, Misdirection Mastery, Tiger Noble all provide free actions directly usable in a grapple. For a caster, theres a few other options. Command I, the Power Word spells, or any standard action spell with Spell Conversion: Time.There are a few other number of others, but those are the directly applicable ones for PCs, the others require some creativity. For NPCs, well, Swift Attack on a grappling oriented NPC is brutal, and all the aforementioned PC tricks are available to NPCs too.One or two points into Athletics, and to be honest I find most of my players take more ranks in it primarily for Push Limit checks, and a 12 or 14 in Strength covers a lot of 'casual' grappling. Grappling against something that has it as it's schtick is harder, but it should be.But you're welcome to your opinion. The grapple mechanics work awesomely for me and my table.</blockquote>