How would you like to see Grapple changed?

[Baby Samurai]

It doesn't even have to go to the ground. I remember watching this guy who was a champion tiakwando fighter get in the ring with this 350 lb used car salesman, and the used car salesman just bullrushed him up against the fence, pinned him with his bellly, and proceeded to hammer fist the poor kid's face like it was a bongo drum. Not very elegant, but very effective (and very brutal). Also, fairly typical of what happened in the early days to martial artists from a background that didn't emphasis grappling.

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

But it's also probably not a good idea to take someone on who is more powerful than you with a martial art designed to unseat horseman…

Kicks above the waist are risky.

 

[Felon]

Honestly I never understood the problem everyone seems to have with 3rd editon grappling. Sure the writeup in the PHB is pretty cumbersome, but read through it once or twice and its pretty clear cut. Once you grasp the basics, everything else is just gravy.

ie.
1) make a touch attack against your target.
2) opposed grapple checks are made (basically a modified strength check)
3) if you win your grappling..if not the target twists away.

on subsequent rounds

1) make more checks to inflict damage or pin your opponent
2) attack with a small weapon (with a small penalty, -2 i think)

and of course casting spells is virtually impossible, as it should be if you cant wiggle your hands or speak.

I know, I know, there are more options and modifiers available, but basic grappling is handled as listed above.

See, it's that expansive stuff that's problematic. Resolving the basic check is not a big deal. It's remembering the criteria for being able to cast spells or attack with a weapon or use Escape Artists or perform maneuvers that intuitively seem like an option but in game terms it simply isn't.

 

[ruleslawyer]

So here's a random question:

Should Escape Artist ignore size modifers to grapple checks? Would that "simplify" the process at all?

 

[JVisgaitis]

So here's a random question:

Should Escape Artist ignore size modifers to grapple checks? Would that "simplify" the process at all?

I have honestly thought of removing size modifiers altogether. Problem is, I can't come up with something elegant that different sized creatures would get in place of that. The only thing I can think of is reach and I'm not sure if removing size modifiers would be a good thing as they do make a lot of sense.

Edit: Now that I think about it, it could just be a straight penalty to defense with no attack roll bonuses or penalties.

 

[mmadsen]

See, it's that expansive stuff that's problematic. Resolving the basic check is not a big deal. It's remembering the criteria for being able to cast spells or attack with a weapon or use Escape Artists or perform maneuvers that intuitively seem like an option but in game terms it simply isn't.

I'm not sure I understand you, because casting spells and attacking with a sword or spear do not intuitively seem like options at all for someone who's in the middle of wrestling.

 

[Celebrim]

Should Escape Artist ignore size modifers to grapple checks?

Yes. It was a suggestion made earlier in the thread, and I think it is a very good one and I immediately stole it. One of the problems with the current rules is that they don't factor in skill enough into the grappling equation. This would be one way to help deal with the question of what it means to be a good grappler.

Let's imagine a stone giant vs. 10th level rogue. For whatever reason (maybe the rogue is clinching, see above), the stone giant wants to grapple the rogue and squish him flat. Having been grabbed, the rogue wants to escape before serious harm is done. The rogues escape artist check is +17, versus the giants grapple of +22. The rogue only has about a 25% of beating the giant here, and once pinned its probably all over for the scoundrel. I'd like this sitatuation to be closer to even, and negating the size bonus in this case seems like a good way to do it.

Dropping the size bonus entirely is less attractive because it intuitively makes sense for it to be there, leading me to think that other situations would come up where its absence would feel wrong. But in this case, its absence feels right to me, because conceptually the rogue is skillfully thwarting the giant's advantage in strength and size.

Would that "simplify" the process at all?

It doesn't simplify the process, because you have to adjust the grappler's bonus in your head rather than just reading it off of a sheet of paper, but it does make it more fun for slippery rogues to be able to wiggle out of the big dumb giants clutches using thier skill. It makes escape artist much more effective against brute grapplers, it has nice synergy with some of my house rules (see above), and it makes for actions that are relatively exciting to decribe.

 

[Imp]

In a very broad sense, it would be better if things like giants typically grabbed little adventurers, and instead of just holding them in their grip round after round, threw them a great distance with great force, and the rules supported that as a pretty good tactic for the giant to pursue. It seems more giantlike to me.

Escape artist should probably work a lot better vs. grapples, especially vs. larger creatures. My sense is that the 10th level master escape-artist - a guy capable of Houdini-style stunts (ok, maybe 15th in 4E) - should have a 60% chance of escaping a giant's grip, and it should get worse for the giant as he gets bigger. (Bigger cracks to squeeze through.) But that may be hard to translate into elegant mechanics.

 

[Celebrim]

In a very broad sense, it would be better if things like giants typically grabbed little adventurers, and instead of just holding them in their grip round after round, threw them a great distance with great force, and the rules supported that as a pretty good tactic for the giant to pursue. It seems more giantlike to me.

I agree. Picking someone up and throwing them shouldn't take a feat (there is one in Savage Species, IIRC).

Escape artist should probably work a lot better vs. grapples, especially vs. larger creatures. My sense is that the 10th level master escape-artist - a guy capable of Houdini-style stunts (ok, maybe 15th in 4E) - should have a 60% chance of escaping a giant's grip, and it should get worse for the giant as he gets bigger. (Bigger cracks to squeeze through.) But that may be hard to translate into elegant mechanics.

In a way, having escape artist negate the grappler's size bonus does exactly that, because the bigger you are the more bonus you are losing. Of course, the escape never actually gets easier because HD and Str are probably also increasing. To solve this would require something like my earlier suggestion that you have a table showing what percentage of your strength you can use when grappling a smaller opponent, where bigger opponents can use a lower and lower percentage of thier strength.

I don't however care enough about this particular problem to deal with that extra complexity. I'm more interested in giving player's lots of cinematic options in the fight. Since I want to give them alot of options, if the resolution system gets too complicated the combat system would get overwhelming.

This is one of the reasons why I'd never create a feat that allowed you to do a manuever that intuitively 'any 5 year old on the play ground ought to be able to do'. If you create feats like that, you ask players too choose between freedom (being a generalist) and effectiveness (being a specialist) and being a specialist is almost always more effective in any game system than being a generalist. What you therefore end up with is very repeatitive play. If you don't need feats to do things, then the player doesn't give up freedom in order to be effective and as he becomes more generally effective (higher BAB for example) he can still choose to do things he doesn't specialize in if the tactical situation arises (which it will, because I design encounters so that they do).

And this is another reason why 4e looks like 'it will suck' (ei, isn't going to be what I want from a game system).

 

[Crazy Jerome]

When playing 3E, our group uses the house rule that escape artist ranks add to the grapple check, only to escape the grab. The grabbed character can do that, or he can make a standard escape artist check. It's kludgy, but it means that low level little guys still have the standard escape artist option, while high level little guys get to at least count their BAB into checks against things that aren't that much tougher than them. Plus, it explains why a character modeled as an experienced grappler would take a few escape artist ranks.

I like the proposed change to size modifiers to make them -2/+2 per size difference, as well.

For 4E, I'd like to see something more abstract, though. The problem with grappling, as already said, is that it is overly detailed for the heroic, hit point system. Perhaps the solution is that grappling stays just as nasty for the wizard or little guy, but there are more options to avoid it in the first place? To my mind, it's not the base grapple rules that are completely wrong, but all the monsters that have improved grab. Since hit ponits are supposed to represent some of your "luck" and ability to avoid things, why not allow the defender to avoid a grapple by taking hit point damage? You could still have some of the penalties for being in a grapple, but only for that round.

So the wizard is beset by the kraken. Rather than submit to the grapple, he twists out of the way (wrenching his back), falls, and rolls. If he tries to cast a spell on his next action, he has to make a Concentration check (or whatever). He takes damage from the tentacle, as if he had been hit, but is not grappled. Sure, the kraken can follow that up and continue to attack, but that's taking his actions. That's a lot better than taking his -20 on one tentacle to completely nullify the wizard. Sure, the wizard will spend some fights avoiding grapples, but now it's useful and heroic.

 

[mmadsen]

Since hit ponits are supposed to represent some of your "luck" and ability to avoid things, why not allow the defender to avoid a grapple by taking hit point damage?

I've been saying for some time that D&D needs to get away from the notion of hit points representing toughness against damage and admit that they're "plot protection" points.

If we allowed hit points to be used, after the fact, to add to any defensive roll, we'd be getting somewhere. Got hit by the ogre's touch attack to grapple? Spend a few hit points to avoid it entirely. Got disarmed by the master fencer? Decide whether it's worth the hit points to keep your sword in hand.