06-10-2019, 01:37 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Saint Paul, MN
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Grave of the Pirate Queen - Grappling question
I'm going to mention an early encounter from "Grave of the Pirate Queen" (Pyramid 3/98) as a prelude to some questions about when monsters use grappling attacks with unusual appendages. If you're likely to be a player in this adventure at some point, you may want to skip this thread, though it's not a particularly consequential encounter.
The Giant Crab in David Pulver's adventure tries to grapple foes with its claws. Here's the pertinent text from its description: "It enjoys grabbing prey and pulling them apart. . . . Any hit counts as a grapple, regardless of whether it penetrates DR." Bizarrely, after multiple decades of playing GURPS, I have almost never used the grappling rules, and I haven't used them in DFRPG yet. (I've read Douglas Cole's Fantastic Dungeon Grappling, but haven't used them yet either. For shame, I know.) As I've considered the crab battle, I've been mulling over the following questions (assume the standard grappling rules (Exploits, p. 40-41):
Last edited by Dalin; 06-10-2019 at 10:00 PM. Reason: Adjusted framing of the question since my players don't have to avoid it anymore. |
06-10-2019, 09:59 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Saint Paul, MN
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Re: Grave of the Pirate Queen - Grappling question
Well, we played through the encounter first thing. As expected, the party mopped the floor with it, but it did knock a PC unconscious in its first surprise attack. The party made enough noise that the crab came out of its lair, catching one of the characters from behind. It attacked with both claws, hitting twice, and immediately knocking him unconscious. I described it as grappling him with the first claw, so the player (and the rest of the group) worried that he would be torn to shreds in short order. The crab dodged the scout's shot to the eye. Then the holy warrior took a move and attack. She was lucky, hitting twice (she has Extra Attack), once on each "arm." The crab failed to defend, had both claws crippled, and failed its unconsciousness roll. Down!
I am still curious about the questions I raised on the OP, just from a rules perspective. The opening attack was exciting enough that I'm inclined to have other clawed grapplers in the future, perhaps hunting in packs... |
06-13-2019, 06:57 AM | #3 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
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Re: Grave of the Pirate Queen - Grappling question
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