Speaknig of Grappling, I'm reminded of a moment from the finale of a 5e campaign I recently finished running. The group was assaulting the villain's floating castle, and the rogue bet the cleric (who had various strength increasing items) that he couldn't suplex the castle out of the sky. Now, I was going to veto this, but the group made the argument that since I established that the castle was being suspended using a large number of air elementals, they should be able to roll an opposing strength check. Long story short, the cleric somehow managed to both roll well enough and accrue enough bonuses to reach somewhere around a +50 to his str (athletics) roll, while the elementals rolled a crit fumble. The damage caused to the castle essentially let them skip straight to the final boss and completely destroyed the large scale battle happening below.

Gonna be honest, in the face of such animesque ridiculousness I would not begrudge the sequence breaking too much.

Indeed, and if Truomae handled it well, then that is how one gains a reputation for being a great GM. :)

I more mentioned the sequence breaking as an example of how major the effects were. The character that did it was essentially deified in the epilogue for the various crazy awesome things he had done during the final battle. There's more from that guy, but that's for another time.

In my 5e campaign, we had a little time left before calling it quits so I rolled some random encounters for the party on the way back home from the dungeon. Since they'd just driven off a dragon (in one round) the barbarian was feeling pretty cocky and decided to take on all the enemies alone.

By wrestling them.

The polar bear was bad enough (he ended up taming it) but the pair of giant octopi? Really?

Talked about this over on FiD, but I don't think I mentioned it here yet.

So, an old 3.5 campaign- it was a one-shot for me, a one-day join of a campaign a friend was in (it was set up for easy character in-outs). Thing is, it was a near-Epic level one- everyone was around level 17 or 18, and I'd never actually played a character that high.

However, I did have a cheese character I'd created with something like a +5 level adjustment- a Barbarian human/polar bear Taur using the Savage Species book. I was allowed to level him a couple times, and purchase a couple hundred thousand Gp worth of gear to make him party equivalent- he ended up with something like 40 Strength or more. I'm talking strong enough that, with the Quadripedal multiplyer, he could push-pull roughly 10 TONS. To the point that I was able to push a full-grown Redwood onto a Fire Giant.


Anyways, later in that adventure, we ended up having to fight a diseased Elder Gold Dragon- Size, Colossal, with, like, Dragonrage as the disease, or something. Now, one of the other characters in this party was a Shifter-focused Druid, who'd been perma-size-upped who happened to be pretty good friends with this Dragoness (he had his own Gigantic Gold Dragon form, as well as a Colossal Treant form). He figured he could Cure Disease on her, but wanted us to keep her from attacking him- without, of course, hurting her.

Seeing as most of the rest of the party were combat min-maxed, whereas I was pure Strength, I took the challenge upon myself- as the others distracted her, I charged in and attempted to Grapple her.

Now, remember, I'm only size Large- your standard polar bear/human 'taurbarian- but P.bears had a couple of bonuses to Grapple (that Savage Species, as far as I know, let PCs use) and a ridiculous amount of Strength. She was a Colossal Gold Dragon- about 3 or 4 size categories larger than me.

I ended up basically putting her in a pinky-submission hold while the party cured her.

If you can beat a gold dragon in a grapple, I feel the GM is doing something wrong. Even if it's a power game, their standard bonuses should still be enough. Taking into account that they can spontaneously cast cleric spells...

One I had a player playing a dwarf grappling and Orc for 10+ turns because the dwarf could not injure the Orc and the Orc kept missing. The grapple duel went on until the party fighter walked over and put a spear in the Orc's back

Straight question: How the hell did that happen in a 5e campaign? That's actually absurd.

I'm curious.

that's the kind of crazy that i enjoy seing.

Sorry, but when I saw Cory talk about making an attack of opportunity, you reminded me so much of something incorrect that a) real-life players of 3.5 can be guilty of, b) Campaign Comics before this one are guilty of, and c) characters in this comic are guilty of.

Here's the deal: Characters can NOT make an AoO by moving INTO a threatened space; to make an AoO, the enemy must move THROUGH that threatened space. The only ways that moving up to an enemy to attack them would invoke an AoO would be if:
1) Instead of stopping at the first square in the threatened range, they continue to move (to flank or something like that);
2) The enemy has a reach weapon and you don't; or
3) You're using one of those complicated maneuvers and you don't have the "Improved" feat for it.

So while Luke could still make AoOs on approaching enemies because he has reach, and it would make sense that Cory picked up an obscure feat that would let him make more AoOs, that doesn't seem to be what you're going for here.

Sorry for this rant, it just really bothers me when players/DMs try to rule that AoOs happen whenever you come anywhere within breathing distance of an enemy. Not only is that not what the rules say, but it complicates combat needlessly.

Well, the feat "Hold the Line" isn't particularly obscure, being in Complete Warrior, and it allows one to make an attack of opportunity against any opponent that charges into your threatened area. I wouldn't be too surprised if Cory has a decent bit of reach as well somehow, despite his Two-Weapon-Fighting style. It seems more likely, though, that he's asking for the purposes of his Robilar's Gambit feat, which we know he has - if the sea cow, as an exceptionally sizable creature, has enough reach to attack Cory from outside his threatened area, Cory wouldn't be able to return fire.

Well, crap. I could have sworn he used Robilar's during the Mihawk arc, but it seems it was Gin who had the feat. Never mind that then.

Reminds me how little motivation I have for trying to wrap my head around those Attack of Opportunity rules. ;) Not like I need them; I am not currently playing nor am I likely to play a game using them anytime soon. It mostly just comes up for the comics. XD

Other than "Something we worked in to balance other stuff." I just never really got why things should enable extra attacks like that. Being an easier target for attacks already available (but not yet used), sure.

Zoro also has reach, actually.

Citation: Page 007 of Miss Love Duck.

This forgets such things as the Golden Legionarre prestige in pathfinder and the feat in 5th edition for halberd users that lets them do exactly that.

what they do seem legit to me.

what you point in "1) Instead of stopping at the first square in the threatened range, they continue to move. "
Remeber that Luke awfully broken reach make his threatened space everywhere. if a ennemy enter his threatened space (1st square), then he have to keep moving to actually get close enough to luke to attack him (because obviousely the ennemt don't have the same reach), he will advance several square in Luke threatened space before being close to this.
That's how everything that got near him provoque a AOO.

The logic is the same for Cory. While is reach is'nt as absurd as that of Luffy, remember that he munchkined his way into getting a extended reach with some obscure feat due to being part giant and all. so yes, this IS what this comic is going for.

When Luke tried to use a AOO this way when controlling Sanji, the GM told him "Sanji does'nt got the feat for that."

also note that Luke and Cory are the only one to use their AOO this way. character with "normal" build don't

And now it make me think about the part of "Rocks fall everyone die"

Kinda off any topics right now for this page, but yolo. Is anyone that checks this comic out a lot interested in running a one piece campaign based on the d20 thats online for it on Roll20? Ive been wanting to play some d20 but not interested in any but OP atm, but I can't find anyone running one.