What's wrong with grapple?

[DrunkonDuty]

Thanks for the clarifications. I think I'l put this to my players at tomorrow night's session, see what they think about it. I certainly like it.

cheers,
Glen

 

[Piratecat]

Grapple: Made from the best stuff on Earth. (tm)

 

[lobsterGun]

One part of the 3X rules that gets a lot of criticism is grappling. It seems to be even less popular than attacks of opportunity for a lot of different reasons. So what's wrong with it? And how do we fix it?

The BIG problem with Grapple is that it isn't cinematic. Combat should be cinematic.

How to fix it? Just don't do it. Seriously, get an x-acto knife and cut the grapple rules out of your PHB. You'll find you don't miss it at all...of course you might miss the rules for Feint and Disarm...they're on the back side of the grapple page....so maybe an x-acto knife is a bad idea....so maybe you should just use a marker instead and just black those rules out.

...as for those creatures that have Improved Grapple, nobody really liked fighting them anyway. But if you insist, just remove that ability and drop their CR by one.

 

[frankthedm]

Big monsters have realistically better abilities to grapple smaller victims. A big creature should be picking up a victim, pinning his sword arm and then squeezing him until he goes POP!

I did tweek grappling in my house rules though.

Grappling: Those in grapple can use their light and natural weapons without penalties along with two weapon fighting {at TWF's normal penaties]. One handed weapons can be wielded at -4 [the PHB limitations are still used during constriction & swallowing]

Constrict: The damage is usually 50% nonlethal .

Armor spikes: Threat range is 19-20 in a grapple. May still attempt to damage foe while pinned. When a creature constricts you, you deal damage of your spikes + the creature’s STR bonus in place of your own.