I posted some revised rules for grappling in my House Rules section on the Party Wiki for Brave New World. I know lots of people have problems with the way grappling is done in 3.5. What are some specific problems people have?
Heh. Grappling wasn't so tough. Tripping was difficult for us to understand. It wasn't until weeks after I was playing a character that used a guisarme that we finally figured it out.
Looking back, all those rolls and modifiers are difficult to understand, sometimes even for experienced players, so I think the biggest thing is just the complexity. You can cast spells while being grappled, but you have to beat a concentration check, but your opponent can make a omg wtf check to block your casting. Its stuff like that I see wide eyed new players trying to figure out how to grab someone who is attacking you and do things to them.
I've never had much of an issue with grappling. It was always sundering and disarming that gave us a hard time, but just recently, disarming sort of just "clicked". I honestly can't explain why I couldn't get it before, but now I don't seem to have a problem.
I think the biggest issues with grappling always came from the fact that a medium creature *cannot grapple* a Huge creature, but the huge creature can grapple YOU. This doesn't exactly make sense when it's an opposed roll. There were some improvements when the whole "-20 to just hold the smaller critter with one limb" thing came about, but still when the sizes are disproportionate, you've got no chance.
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Looking back, all those rolls and modifiers are difficult to understand, sometimes even for experienced players, so I think the biggest thing is just the complexity. You can cast spells while being grappled, but you have to beat a concentration check, but your opponent can make a omg wtf check to block your casting. Its stuff like that I see wide eyed new players trying to figure out how to grab someone who is attacking you and do things to them.