Why Grab Does Not Work

[FadedC]

You did not simply stab with the dagger, but grappled first. The dagger was mostly only for finishing the enemy of. You had to get inside the reach of the enemy, stay there and force the enemy to expose one of his joints or line up a stab through the helmet. And that was done through grappling.

And you don't simply swing a long sword at somebody, you have to block their own sword thrusts, knock away their guard and find a weak point of their armor to run your sword through. Whenever you attack somebody with a weapon your assumed to be using the most effective method of doing so.

Thats why most knights were trained in it.
Grappling was not a act of desperation, but a well used technique when fighting heavily armoured enemies. So "no one used it in real life" is not the reason that grap in 4E is so underwhelming.

It's unquestionably true that there are times in the real world when a grapple is effective. But even in your perfect example of 2 knights in medieval plate fighting each other (which may or may not happen much in an actually fantasy campaign), it's sitll a specialized technique, and one that can be modeled just as easily by simply assuming that a dagger attack against an armored foe inclued some attempt to grapple.

 

[Fifth Element]

You did not simply stab with the dagger, but grappled first.

D&D combat is abstract and simple. An attack roll does not simply mean a single blow with a weapon. What you've described is how you could describe someone using a dagger to attack a plate-armoured fighter.

 

[Xorn]

Game Day 2008:

I'm running the Young White Dragon for a table, and after doing a fairly effective job of catching them with her breath weapon, then blowing an action point and stunning most of them, the cleric was unstunned.

So next turn, she moved over to him, grabbed him, then used her second action point to fly off with him. She flew 5 squares diagonally and dropped him as a free action, flying out off of the cliff. It was 30 feet down where the dragon had him, released as a free action, and used her actual move action to fly out of line of site of the rest of the group.

Suffice to say, with the cleric dashed across the rocks below, it didn't go well for the rest of them.

Grab has uses.

 

[KarinsDad]

So I wanted to test your Mind Flayer example

Yup, you convinced me. The problems with Grab / Escape is:

1) Grab as a Standard Action vs. one or more Escape as a Move Action is unbalanced (especially when one considers that the chance to Escape for anyone who takes one of two skills is typically > the chance to Grab, 2 vs. 1 and better chances, Grab in this case basically sucks as an option).

2) The +5 for a Skill combined with heavily loading an Ability Score can by mid-levels quickly overwhelm not having a +5 for a Skill combined with never loading an ability score (and moreso by high level). The character who never loads the Ability Score is going to rely on alternative means of Escape. So, the two concepts are never going to be balanced and it's not worth trying to.

3) The designers added Grab as part of an Attack for some Monsters which relegates it to the equivalent of a Free Action in those cases. The main attack is the damage, the secondary attack is the Grab.

So in point #3, it doesn't matter too much if a PC is good at Escape, the Grab is a secondary effect and the main effect of the attack still occurs. It only matters for #1. So, the solution is to not put a penalty on Escape which affects #1 and #3, rather it is to decrease the amount of Action required for the Grab in #1. Effectively, changing a Grab to a Move Action would balance #1 and not affect #3 at all.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Vaeron]

Yup, you convinced me. The problems with Grab / Escape is:

1) Grab as a Standard Action vs. one or more Escape as a Move Action is unbalanced (especially when one considers that the chance to Escape for anyone who takes one of two skills is typically > the chance to Grab, 2 vs. 1 and better chances, Grab in this case basically sucks as an option).

I disagree with your math, but even if you were right you'd better hope you have a better than 50% chance to escape that mind flayers grab, because its next move is going to be to daze you and eat your brain or turn you into a thrall. Dazed people aren't too good at escaping, since they only get one action, period, per round and grant combat advantage. Even worse, the attack is against the character's Fortitude - which is typically only exceeded by Will as their worst defense. Given that the weakest mind flayer in the MM has a Reflex of 27 and a fort of 25, I'd say chances of escaping his clutches are pretty slim. If you had an acrobatics of 7 (untrained, no dex modifier), you'd still have to roll a natural 20 to get away from him. If you were a rogue, trained in acrobatics with a +5 dex modifier, you'd only then have a +17 to escape, and you'd *STILL* have to roll a 10 or better to match his reflex.

I'd say that's a pretty overwhelming ability, myself.

Edit: Should have specified that the mind flayer is level 14, and that I was assuming a dex of only 20 or 21 in my calc's for the character.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I'm very happy that grappling in general has been reduced in effectiveness to a point where, while it may very occasionally prove tactically useful, it is typically not a primary tactic.

In 3.x, being grappled sucked, and being a good grappler basically meant any foe in melee range of you would die without acting, unless it was a monster, in which case it would cause significantly less damage to you than if you hadn't grappled it, and die anyway.

Grab looks like a good alternative. I can certainly imagine situations where a grab will be a tactically superior option to making an attack.

 

[Iron Sky]

There was something wierd that I noticed a long time ago, and I think I mentioned at some point, but I'm not sure regarding the Choker's grab.

So, a Choker makes a reach 2 attack, hits, and the PC is immobilized. The PC says, "So the Choker is grabbing me? I attack." By RAW, they can't unless they have a reach weapon since the Choker is 2 squares away, even though the Choker is physically immobilizing them.

So... do you allow the PC to attack anyway or say "well, it's 2 squares away and so you can't attack it even though it's holding on to you"?

 

[Plane Sailing]

There was something wierd that I noticed a long time ago, and I think I mentioned at some point, but I'm not sure regarding the Choker's grab.

So, a Choker makes a reach 2 attack, hits, and the PC is immobilized. The PC says, "So the Choker is grabbing me? I attack." By RAW, they can't unless they have a reach weapon since the Choker is 2 squares away, even though the Choker is physically immobilizing them.

So... do you allow the PC to attack anyway or say "well, it's 2 squares away and so you can't attack it even though it's holding on to you"?

Of course I'd allow the PC to attack the choker, since it is actually holding on to him. Slashing at the grabbing appendage is a fantasy staple (as well as being common sense).

Cheers

 

[Cadfan]

The correct weapons to use against knights are not daggers, but katanae.

Because they cut tanks in half.

 

[KarinsDad]

I disagree with your math, but even if you were right you'd better hope you have a better than 50% chance to escape that mind flayers grab, because its next move is going to be to daze you and eat your brain or turn you into a thrall. Dazed people aren't too good at escaping, since they only get one action, period, per round and grant combat advantage. Even worse, the attack is against the character's Fortitude - which is typically only exceeded by Will as their worst defense. Given that the weakest mind flayer in the MM has a Reflex of 27 and a fort of 25, I'd say chances of escaping his clutches are pretty slim. If you had an acrobatics of 7 (untrained, no dex modifier), you'd still have to roll a natural 20 to get away from him. If you were a rogue, trained in acrobatics with a +5 dex modifier, you'd only then have a +17 to escape, and you'd *STILL* have to roll a 10 or better to match his reflex.

I'd say that's a pretty overwhelming ability, myself.

Edit: Should have specified that the mind flayer is level 14, and that I was assuming a dex of only 20 or 21 in my calc's for the character.

You quoted #1 in my message and then talked about #3.

I agree with you. Escape needs to stay as it is for #3. Hence, (Standard Action) Grab needs to change for #1.