Why Grab Does Not Work

[Dausuul]

If you use a standard action and a move action in the effort to escape a grab, you might as well not bother. Because guess what? You've just spent all the actions that would have allowed you to move away! Unless you're willing to burn an action point, your opponent can just grab you again and you're stuck where you are, having spent a round to accomplish nothing.

Now, assuming you only spend a move action, consider the following:

#1: You might fail, in which case you're not going anywhere.
#2: You might succeed and then use a standard action to move away, provoking an OA.
#3: You might succeed and then use a standard action to shift away, but that only gets you one square.
#4: You might succeed and then attack, in which case you still don't go anywhere.

Compare to if you weren't grabbed, which would let you shift and then move to get away from your enemy without provoking OAs.

The point of grabbing is to keep the opponent from escaping, and it does that pretty well, but isn't an absolute show-stopper. It's not a tactic you use against every monster that happens along, nor should it be. I'm one hundred percent cool with Grab as written.

 

[Evilhalfling]

As for grab being to weak, while building Pregen PCs (ancient greek athletes) I tried a fighter focused on grappling. I HR a feat that allowed unarmed damage as a str vs fort attack vs a grabbed foe. I figure monks may have a similar at-will ability when they see print. Hmm 2d4+str mod may be a more balanced attack.

Anyway PC's grabbing others didn't work well in 3e either, with the exception of monks.

 

[Blackbrrd]

Being immobilized doesn't grant combat advantage.

 

[Alkiera]

Being immobilized doesn't grant combat advantage.

No, but if I grab a guy, and my rogue partner comes up on the opposite side, we're flanking; and that does grant CA.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Think about this for a minute - if you were fighting someone equipped with any kind of sharp, pointy thing who was approximately your equal in fighting skill, would you honestly try to rush him and grab him? Personally, I would also use my sharp pointy thing to sharply stick the point in him before he does so to me.

The situation that is more reasonable to envisage is this:

The party are in a bar. One of them spots Jake the Peg and they want to stop him getting away. Neither you nor Jake have weapons drawn at the moment. Which seems the most reasonable thing to do?

a) draw weapons and smash away at him, and declare him unconscious when he reaches 0hp

b) grab him, wrestle him to the ground and pin him down.

?

I'd prefer for (b) to be a viable option, at least.

Cheers

 

[Mort_Q]

What powers work within a grab? The rogue has one very powerful one if memory serves... are there any others?

 

[Keenath]

What powers work within a grab? The rogue has one very powerful one if memory serves... are there any others?

You can use any attack power once you're sustaining a grab; sustaining is only a minor action, so you can do it while also using standard action powers.

As far as powers that specifically use grabbing:
Garotte Grip - Rogue 15; standard action attack that initiates a grab, or you can use it as a minor action on a pre-grabbed target.

Stab & Grab - Rogue 17; initiates a grab and deals damage. If you use it on a pre-grabbed target, it makes him restrained instead of just immobilized (and thus grants combat advantage) until he escapes.

Bigby's Icy Grip - Wizard 5; the hand grabs a target and deals cold damage, sustain minor. You can attack a new target as a standard.

Bigby's Grasping Hands - Wizard 15; two hands grab targets. You can grab a new target as a move action, and if both hands are grabbing at once you can use a standard to slam them together for damage.


Other than that, no, nothing.

 

[Kesh]

A fun aspect of Grab is the ability to drag your opponent as a move action at half your normal speed. This could be very useful for bringing them into range of your friend's attacks, or bringing them into a zone that damages enemies while not harming allies.

I'm sure someone will also try to use it to drop their opponent into a pit/throw them off a cliff/toss them into a fire/etc.

 

[Maximillian]

As written, btw, if the grabbed individual or any other creature can use a power that slides, pulls or pushes the grabbing creature away from the individual they've grabbed, the grab is ended.

In the last combat I ran, we learned that the fighter can be grabbed, sure, but he's just going to use Tide of Iron when his turn comes around, invalidating the grab.

Mind you -- I'm happy with these rules. There's plenty of room for powers and monster abilities that do interesting things. I think this is most for a way of repositioning foes and slowing down their escape.

 

[Felon]

So, there's no longer an option to pin an opponent? Not even a weak option?

I can't say that I mind the notion that grappling isn't a consistently effective option for shutting down enemies. I'm fine with grapple being more suitable for subduing inferior foes. But I don't agree with the design sentiment that no option is better than a complex option. Heroes need a way to represent pinning a guy's limbs because, well, it's something that a person can physically do. One of the advantages of tabletop RPG over computerized games is that you aren't prevented from physically interacting with things just because the developer didn't encode a way for you to do it.