Tell Me About A Tiger's Full Attack...

[Kmart Kommando]

Situation:
My g/f's druid is Wildshaped into a tiger.

Then she charged, utilizing Pounce to do 5 attacks. Claw, Claw, Bite Rake, Rake.
First claw hits, does damage, then starts a grapple as a free action due to Improved Grab, and succeeds, target is grappled, she does a rake attack, and hits.
Then lets go of the target, second claw hits, does damage, she starts to initiate another grapple.
Then the DM says 'you can only do that once per round.'
'It says right here in the DMG that you get to do this anytime a claw or bite hits' I say, adding 'it's a free action'.
'only one free action per round' the DM says.

Last combat, there were enemies doing a full attack with a 2-handed weapon, casting a quickened touch spell, and waiting for someone to try to grapple them each and every round. Shifting grips on their weapon as free actions twice per round.

Would anyone else be kinda ticked off? I was.


Also, if a tiger charges a line of enemies and uses Pounce, and its first attack kills one creature, can it continue with its full attack on the next creature?

 

[Runestar]

Also, if a tiger charges a line of enemies and uses Pounce, and its first attack kills one creature, can it continue with its full attack on the next creature?

Yes, you don't have to announce who you are attacking before making your full attack, you can select each target as you make that attack.

Would anyone else be kinda ticked off? I was.

In the very least, he should have had the decency of informing me of such a change before I made the full attack, so that I would have the time to factor in this change into my assumptions and adjust my strategy accordingly.

He probably instituted that limitation on you to avoid what he perceived to be an abusive scenario, though that still makes it no less annoying. Might be for the best, but yeah, still a pain in the ...

 

[Jhaelen]

Then lets go of the target, second claw hits, does damage, she starts to initiate another grapple.

How did she let go of the target?
Once you've initiated a grapple, both opponents are considered grappling. It doesn't matter at this point who initiated the grapple. You cannot easily disengage, especially not as a free action.

 

[frankthedm]

Situation:
My g/f's druid is Wildshaped into a tiger.

Then she charged, utilizing Pounce to do 5 attacks. Claw, Claw, Bite Rake, Rake.
First claw hits, does damage, then starts a grapple as a free action due to Improved Grab, and succeeds, target is grappled, she does a rake attack, and hits.
Then lets go of the target,

Breaking grapple is its own attack action that you have to use BAB based iterative attacks for. When an improved grab grabs, claw, claw, bite is over.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Yes, you don't have to announce who you are attacking before making your full attack, you can select each target as you make that attack.

Pounce isn't just any full attack, though... it's a variation of a Charge, and with a Charge, you do announce who you're attacking before the attack occurs. So the relevant question is "Does Pounce restrict the full attack to the target of the Charge"? Can you charge foe A, bite adjacent foe B, and rake adjacent foe C? Can you charge ten feet to the closest square from which you can attack A, then rake C who was too close for you to charge as part of your Pounce?

How did she let go of the target?
Once you've initiated a grapple, both opponents are considered grappling. It doesn't matter at this point who initiated the grapple. You cannot easily disengage, especially not as a free action.

It depends on whether or not Step 4: Maintain Grapple is considered compulsory.

Step 3: Opposed check. If you win, you're now grappling, and you deal damage.
Step 4: To maintain the grapple for later rounds, you must move into the opponent's space. If you can't move into your target's space, you can't maintain the grapple and must immediately let go of the target.

So does "To maintain, you must" mean "You are obliged to move into the opponent's space, and this maintains the grapple", or "If you intend to maintain the grapple, here is the requirement you need to satisfy"?

If the latter, then by declining to move into the opponent's space, the grapple ends automatically, without a need to escape. If the former, then the tiger has no choice but to maintain the grapple.

-Hyp.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Situation:
My g/f's druid is Wildshaped into a tiger.

Then she charged, utilizing Pounce to do 5 attacks. Claw, Claw, Bite Rake, Rake.
First claw hits, does damage, then starts a grapple as a free action due to Improved Grab, and succeeds, target is grappled, she does a rake attack, and hits.
Then lets go of the target, second claw hits, does damage, she starts to initiate another grapple.
Then the DM says 'you can only do that once per round.'
'It says right here in the DMG that you get to do this anytime a claw or bite hits' I say, adding 'it's a free action'.
'only one free action per round' the DM says.

Last combat, there were enemies doing a full attack with a 2-handed weapon, casting a quickened touch spell, and waiting for someone to try to grapple them each and every round. Shifting grips on their weapon as free actions twice per round.

Would anyone else be kinda ticked off? I was.


Also, if a tiger charges a line of enemies and uses Pounce, and its first attack kills one creature, can it continue with its full attack on the next creature?

First off, Imp. Grab is off of the bite attack ONLY. This solves some of the problems already. Also, she didn't need to grapple to get rake attacks, she gets them on a charge anyway. If she was trying to do something like get a new set of rake attacks each new grapple, then that would not work.

As for the DM, yeah, I hate it when they have double standards like that.

Finally, no. Once you attack, the movement of your charge ends. She'd have to attack other foes near her.

 

[frankthedm]

As for the DM, yeah, I hate it when they have double standards like that.

The OP's DM was just putting the kibosh on something he knew was not kosher though not in the ''proper manner". The DM is within his rights to set reasonable limits on free actions. Changing grips on one's sword handle is hardly the equal of an attack’s grapple manuver.

Finally, no. Once you attack, the movement of your charge ends. She'd have to attack other foes near her.

Well, that is why the OP mentioned the charge would be on someone part of "a line of enemies", rather than a column of enemies.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

The OP's DM was just putting the kibosh on something he knew was not kosher though not in the ''proper manner". The DM is within his rights to set reasonable limits on free actions. Changing grips on one's sword handle is hardly the equal of an attack’s grapple manuver.

The DM said the druid could only take one free action per round (I assume the same kind of free action, and not one free action total), and then had enemies taking the same free action multiple times per round. It is definitely hypocritical, and even if what the druid was doing were legal (which I believe has been shot down now), that's not a great way to restrict it. In general, when a specific item is broken it's bad to fix a larger category it falls under instead of it specifically.

And I don't understand it. If the other guy WANTS to let go (or is dead), why can't a person just release his grip on another person as easily as he does his sword? If the other person resists, it'd take a grapple check (and attack action), but it seems reasonable to allow a free action release if neither party resists.

Well, that is why the OP mentioned the charge would be on someone part of "a line of enemies", rather than a column row of enemies.

Look at that! I can argue semantics, too!

I don't know what the OP meant by line, so I both said the tiger couldn't keep moving AND that she could attack foes nearby (like say...in a row. Sorry, I mean a "line.")

 

[Kmart Kommando]

First off, Imp. Grab is off of the bite attack ONLY. This solves some of the problems already. Also, she didn't need to grapple to get rake attacks, she gets them on a charge anyway. If she was trying to do something like get a new set of rake attacks each new grapple, then that would not work.

As for the DM, yeah, I hate it when they have double standards like that.

Finally, no. Once you attack, the movement of your charge ends. She'd have to attack other foes near her.

A Lion has Improved Grab with the bite only, a tiger has it with bite and claws.

The Row of enemies I mentioned was 3 enemies in a line perpendicular to the druid's line of movement, with the same square, the one in front of the middle enemy, being the closest legal square to end a charge, which was one of the 2 squares the druid's 'front' face was occupying after the charge. It wasn't like a Ride By Attack sort of thing.

The Target was clawed, then grabbed, then held (with a grapple check as a free action per the SRD), then attacked with a rake, then let go by not moving into the opponent's space to maintain the grapple, or pulling the opponent into the tiger's space (per a line in Improved Grab), then continued on with the full attack, resolving each attack in order, then going on to the next, as the SRD says to do.
If you never reach step 4 of the grappling rules, then your full attack would not be interrupted.
It's not like it is anything broken, since a normal grappler gets to automatically do damage on the initial grapple check, and a tiger gets to attack with a rake. Other creatures with similar abilities, such as a squid, grapples and automatically deals some damage (bite), and it says "automatically deals bite damage". the tiger entry just says ".. establishes a hold and can Rake..".
The snake's entry says "..establishes a hold and can constrict", then says "with a successful grapple check, a constrict deals XdX amount of damage"
Rake says " +x attack, 1dx+x damage"

Having 3 cats living here in my house, they fight just like the tiger's entry says.

maybe that's why commoners are so scared of cats.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Oh, wow. I never noticed that it was only lions restricted to bites, my mistake.

I don't think that's how rake works, though. I'm pretty sure it's limited to those two rakes each round, and the mention of grapple is merely stating a condition you can use it in. I don't know if I like d20srd's wording -- it doesn't even mention using it on a charge for one thing -- though it does contain an interesting line...
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#rake
"A monster with the rake ability must begin its turn grappling to use its rake—it can’t begin a grapple and rake in the same turn."

EDIT: Ok, MM doesn't mention charge, either. Guess it's not universally true for all things with rake. Still, aside from the quoted line, I think it's supposed to always be two rakes and no more per round. "...gains two additional claw attacks that it can use only against a grappled foe." To me that implies you're getting a total of two extras, only to be used on a grappled target, as opposed to two rake attacks per grappled target.