How can grapplers survive in the harsh world of D&D?!

[Ruvion]

grapplers seem decent at low levels to mid levels but once he/she faces big bad beasts with monsterous grapple checks and/or creature with access to freedom of movement, his career looks grim at best. how can a 20th level fighter who focuses on grappling survive in such a world?!?

 

[hong]

With a sword.

 

[LazerPointer]

buy a greatsword.

 

[LazerPointer]

dammit! 1 minite too late with my terribly witty comment! confound and confusticate that hong!

seriously, tho, he can't hope to be a one trick pony; against things he can't grapple, he's gotta have another plan, plain and simple.

 

[arwink]

Or you go looking for unarmed-focused prestige classes. Or you start taking monk levels.

 

[Gez]

He's gonna need bigger arms. Now I could refer you to some in-joke about 100-ft.-long arms, but I'll refrain and suggest getting the help of the party wizard to get polymorphed into a monster with larger size and big, brawny arms.

 

[Thanee]

The simple truth is, he cannot.

If one is not able to adapt, one is going to get eliminated. The law of evolution.

A fighter who can do nothing but grapple by 20th level certainly deserves that fate.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Romnipotent]

Theres a feat for doing 2d12 or something while pinning someone, Earthbound or such from Races of Stone I believe. It does make things interesting. that and while pinning casters are FUDGED LIKE CHOCOLATE, so its all ok.

Another point to be made, Spikers, from the Planar Handbook make half decent Fighter grapplers with there natural armour spikes, which you can put into a mithril breastplate and run around as a barbarian in. Theres a few builds for grappling, but the trick is that for larger creatures, you're boned. Psychic Warrior takes care of part of this by Expansion, a nice power, but getting the power points you need can be a hassle. Dont fear the grappler being a weak build, it IS but theres many ways to make it work.

 

[Gez]

Deserve that fate, Thanee. It's clerics and paladins who deserve to have faith.

But I stand by my first statement -- you'll need magic to be an efficient high-level grappler. Enlarge person is the first boon (getting a +4 bonus), then polymorph self and eventually shapechange.

 

[Thanee]

Deserve that fate, Thanee. It's clerics and paladins who deserve to have faith.

Oops! I knew it did not look right for some reason...

Trust in the faith!

But I stand by my first statement -- you'll need magic to be an efficient high-level grappler. Enlarge person is the first boon (getting a +4 bonus), then polymorph self and eventually shapechange.

Yep, you'll need that to keep it useful, but it won't always help. Better to have some other tricks handy, as well.

Bye
Thanee