How often does the grapple mechanic come up in your game?

[kenobi65]

Only ever comes up if there's a monster that specifically uses it.

I've never seen a PC that was built to be a grapple-monkey.

 

[Omote]

Unfortunatly it comes up in almost every game for me. A few of my players are summoners who constant summon creatures with the "bulit-in" grapple mechanic. When not performing "Rakes" and whatnot, many players use Grapple as often as they can. pretty annoying at times.

..................................Omote
FPQ

 

[JimAde]

Grapple has only come up a few times in our campaign (I'm the GM). In almost every case, the monster ended up trying to grapple the dwarf fighter. That would be the dwarf fighter with Improved Grapple.

A Fiendish Tiger jumped on him and tried to initiate a grapple. The dwarf won. I was pretty impressed.

 

[Henry]

Quite often, though not every combat. I use Owlbears, Trolls, Giant Scorpions, etc.

My personally favorite d20 Modern cinematic moment came as a result of a grapple: Sole PC in a room gets grappled & pinned by a thug, and the thug's boss walks right past him and begins activating Long Lost Evil Artifact, as the PC watches helplessly - right before the other PCs burst down the door to face the eldritch horror summoned.

Straight out of a Pulp novel, it was!

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Very often--not quite every combat, but quite frequently. In the campaign I'm playing in now, no PCs are specialized in it so it comes up less frequently than usual, but it still comes up from time to time (and not just with Improved Grab monsters). In the various Living Campaigns I play, it comes up very frequently from Evards to Bigby's Grasping Hand to grappling specialist characters to characters who aren't grappling specialists but are decent grapplers (my halfling multiclass paladin took Improved Grapple from her monk levels in order to improve her defense against Improved Grab monsters but it's turned out to be a very nice option for her even though she's not an optimal character for grappling; About once every two modules, it turns out to be a good tactic for her to grapple an enemy (usually a rogue or a spellcaster)).

 

[Oryan77]

Uhg Grapple, my worst nightmare.

One of my players is a grappling monk dwarf and uses it every combat. After a solid year of dealing with him grappling, I still can't get a grasp on the rules and steps for doing different actions during a grapple. And him grappling every round REALLY slows down combat. I think we're getting better at it now at least.

 

[Laslo Tremaine]

Uhg Grapple, my worst nightmare.

One of my players is a grappling monk dwarf and uses it every combat. After a solid year of dealing with him grappling, I still can't get a grasp on the rules and steps for doing different actions during a grapple. And him grappling every round REALLY slows down combat. I think we're getting better at it now at least.

Quoted for truth!

Grappling is a VERY popular tactic in our games. See a caster? Grapple! :\

That being said, it seems that with all that grappling going on, we still spend way too much time figuring out how the rules apply to each specific instance...

 

[Galethorn]

Generally, I have grapples fairly often IMC. It's almost always the NPC grappling the PC. I've gotten quite good with the grapple rules (as well as I care to memorize them, at least), and they don't really slow things down too much any more.

 

[maggot]

Many monsters have improved grab. Especially high CR melee types. Also every druid that turns into a dire bear or summons a dire bear. Comes up every other session at least. Not every session though because last nights battle against giants didn't have any grappling. The giants didn't get close enough before the spell barrage took them down.

 

[Slobber Monster]

It comes up pretty often in my game, but not quite every session. There are no characters specifically built for grappling. It just seems to make sense a lot of the time for monsters and PC's alike, even those without grappling related feats or special abilities. Some examples that come to mind include wights, who can greatly improve their chances of hitting and draining high AC characters by swarming and grappling them. The telekenesis attack of ghosts is often put to good use as a grapple attack against spellcasters. Sometimes the PC's or enemies want to take prisoners and grapples are usually a reliable way to do so. I'm finally closing in on having all the grappling rules commited to memory, but it's been a slog at times.