Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 1756422" data-attributes="member: 3146">I already did. The wyvern reduces the amount of damage he takes per round by a small margin (more if the party spreads out and can't immediately close into melee range) without (in the example) reducing his damage output very significantly. In the first turn, he increases the amount of damage he does because he gets to make a free stinger attack when he succeeds on the grapple and, otherwise, he would have been limited to a single talon attack during his dive.If, in the second turn (when he full attacks taking the -20 to grapple), he still reduces the amount of damage he takes because the fighter needs to spend an action excaping from the grapple rather than attacking and may increase his damage (by making a full attack leading with the stinger and wing buffets and then following up with the claw, improved grab, and free stinger attack for successfully grappling a foe). Doubling up on the stinger attack is a bit cheesy and I'm not sure I'd do it as a DM but even if he doesn't, the wyvern has two foes grappled at the end of its initiative (the fighter and the foe he clawed the second round). The fighter probably escapes on his initiative but doesn't get a full attack.If he does the same thing in the third turn, the wyvern will be able to keep two foes from damaging him (since they have to spend their actions escaping the grapple rather than attacking) each round. (Each round one escapes and is then regrappled before his normal initiative). That will enable him to survive for 3-5 rounds instead of 2-3 rounds. Since he's poisoning at least one person every round (maybe more depending upon how much one is willing to cheese the improved grab special description for the wyvern), that's quite significant.However, this is still an example of a poor situation for grapple not because the wyvern is just OK at grappling but rather because it is a single foe against an entire party. Grappling works best when it can either take everyone out or when it can shift the balance of actions towards the grappler's side. If there were two wyverns, they would be able to grapple the entire party in this manner. Without the rogue dealing damage in turn 2 and without anyone dealing damage from outside the grapple in turn 3+, the wyverns would be reduced to taking maybe 5 points of damage per round if its foes gave up on escaping and just attacked from inside the grapple. At that rate, they could easily kill the party. The party would just have to hope that their claw attack would miss sooner or later (or they would fail the grapple check) and the fighter or the rogue would manage a full attack or two.For cases that demonstrate the strength of grappling, you want:A dragon with the snatch featA remorhaz with its swallow whole abilityAn annis hag facing summoned monsters (take the AoO as the creature closes, deal damage and improved grab, then on the annis' turn, use her special rake rules to make two claw attacks and rend the creature--with the net effect that the creatures die without ever getting to attack).A crit-immune creature with constrict (like a shambling mound, tendriculos, or huge animated rug)A party of PCs against a single sorceror, wizard, or cleric--once grappled, either by a PC, Evard's Black Tentacles, a summoned monster, or Bigby's Grasping Hand, unless that caster has a dimension door, etc available, the fight is over.A party of PCs against a single tough monster with minions--one PC can grapple the tough monster and keep it occupied while the rest of the PCs dispatch the minions.A large group of NPCs and/or monsters (with improved grab) against PCs. If a majority of the PCs are grappled, their effectiveness will go downhill really quickly. A pride of dire lions will ruin a lot of PCs' days.</blockquote>

Verification