# Attacking into a Grapple?



## MacMathan (Mar 7, 2004)

Okay so two people are grappled and you want to attack one of them with a melee attack? How does it work? Is there Cover? Is there a chance to hit either one? Does Size Matter? 

What about a ranged attack?

A Melee Touch Attack?

A Ranged Touch Atttack?

A spell effect that touches only a larger grappling creature? Is that even possible?

Thanks


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## MichaelH (Mar 7, 2004)

MacMathan said:
			
		

> Okay so two people are grappled and you want to attack one of them with a melee attack? How does it work? Is there Cover? Is there a chance to hit either one? Does Size Matter?



Check the chart on page 151 of the PH (3.5).  Attacking a grappled target that you are not also grappling gives you no bonus or penalty to your attack roll, but your target is denied his Dex bonus to AC for your attack so you may sneak attack if you have that ability.  There is no cover and there is no random hit chance.  You attack the target you choose.  Size does not matter, but really big creatures might try to grapple a PC with a -20 penalty so that they are not considered grappled.



> What about a ranged attack?



No bonus or penalty to your attack roll, and the target is denied his Dex bonus to AC, and the target is randomly determined.



> A Melee Touch Attack?



Same as for melee attacks.



> A Ranged Touch Atttack?



Same as for ranged attacks.



> A spell effect that touches only a larger grappling creature? Is that even possible?



I am not sure what this would be referring to.


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## Camarath (Mar 7, 2004)

MacMathan said:
			
		

> Okay so two people are grappled and you want to attack one of them with a melee attack? How does it work? Is there Cover? Is there a chance to hit either one? Does Size Matter?



There is no cover bonus or a chance to randomly strike a grappling combatant when attacking into a grapple with a melee attack, but the defender loses any Dexterity bonus to AC.


			
				MacMathan said:
			
		

> What about a ranged attack?



 With a ranged attack the defender loses any Dexterity bonus to AC and you roll randomly to see which grappling combatant you strike.


			
				MacMathan said:
			
		

> A Melee Touch Attack? A Ranged Touch Atttack?



A ranged or melee touch attack would function as a regular attack except the defender's Armor bonus, Shields bonus and Natural Armor bonus would not apply.


			
				MacMathan said:
			
		

> A spell effect that touches only a larger grappling creature? Is that even possible?



I am not sure exactly how it would be run. But I think that since you must move into the target’s space to grapple the two grapplers would be considered to share the same space as the larger of grappler as with mounted combat.

Edit:   No, not again!!! First Hypersmurf and now MichaelH have beaten me to a reply by less than 1 min after the thread was over an hour old. If I didn't know better I would think there was something going on here.


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## shilsen (Mar 7, 2004)

See Table 8-6 on pg. 151 of the PHB for some of the answers.

When attacking into a grapple with a melee weapon, there is no extra chance of a miss. With a ranged weapon, you roll randomly to see which target you hit. So size of the grapplers would not be relevant when attacking with a melee weapon, but would be if using a ranged one.

The same would be true for a melee touch attack (no miss chance) or a ranged touch attack (roll randomly).

I'm not sure what you mean by a spell effect that touches only a larger grappling creature. A targeted spell would affect a target as normal, grappling or not. A spell requiring a touch attack would be affected as above. If you mean an area effect, that would require DM adjudication since the rules don't spell it out either way.


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