(Sneak) Attacking into a grapple

[Felix]

I must be off my toffee this morning... can't seem to remember where the rules that cover this are.

So, what are the rules that cover attacking into a grapple? Is there a penalty to attack, or perhaps a straight miss chance? A 50-50 miss chance? 3-person grapple mean you have a 1/3 shot at hitting any given one of them?

Just curious since this is one of the only ways bad dudes can get me to lose my Dex bonus, and I don't like being sneak attacked. Heh.

Thanks

 

[Rugger]

When attacking someone that is in a grapple with a MELEE attack, there is NO chance to hit anyone other than the target, and they lose their DEX bonus vs you.

Firing a ranged attack into a grapple means you have to roll the chance to hit anyone else in the grapple (unless you have Improved Precise Shot)

Don't have the SRD handy for quoting, but I'm sure someone will...

-Rugger

 

[MichaelH]

I must be off my toffee this morning... can't seem to remember where the rules that cover this are.

PH, page 151, Table 8-6, Grappled plus footnotes 1 and 3.

 

[The Souljourner]

What they said.

-The Souljourner

 

[HellHound]

Our all-rogue campaign saw a lot of this...

Two or three rogues would jump someone in an alleyway with intent to grapple... If they didn't have surprise at least. The target would AoO against the first, but would typically have no defense against the second grappler...

Then the third would step in with his dual-wielded daggers.

 

[Darklone]

Time to cast Blur

 

[Felix]

Hrmmph. I guess I'll just have to make sure I stay out of grapples...

One of the neatest characters I saw was a fighter twinked for grappling. Weapon Focus and Spec: Grapple, Imp. Unarmed Strike, Imp. Grapple. The man was stoopidly good at grappling. The party rogue loved him, enemies did not. That player didn't like it when enemies started showing up with Freedom of Movement cast on them. Heh heh.

 

[robberbaron]

Heh heh, indeed.

As DM, I have always taken great pleasure in trying to out-twink the twinks.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Whoops!

Running a Conan d20 1-off last night I accidentally applied the "25% chance of hitting wrong target" to melee attacks into a grapple as well as missile attacks. It worked well (the rogue was doing subdual damage into the grapple as a result and clonked his pal round the head) but seems wrong by the rules.

However, I think I'll continue to use that as a house rule - if someone is pinned then you can automatically hit the right target, but if it is an ongoing grapple... (like in all the films - two people are grappling, one person is standing by with the chair - will they hit the right person or not?)

Cheers