Only ranged attacks hit one of the grapplers randomly. Melee attacks work just fine vs. grappling opponents. Your party rogue(s) will love you, as they can dish out sneak attack damage without having to worry about flanking or taking a full attack from the enemy in response.
In practice, I've never seen the advantage to the scenario. If you're standing right there the rogue will have someone to flank with anyway, and the ranged characters will be able to help if they have to. If whatever it is still isn't dead after that, frankly I'd say you're running the chance a full attack from whatever it is will kill or disable the grappler just as easily as it could the rogue.
There are also plenty that you can grapple, especially if you get yourself an Antimagic Torc.
Yes, the party rogue will love you for that too I'm sure
the Torc is great for an arena. In the field it shuts down your party's gear as well. I don't know what his group mentality is like, but some people look at those things as, "well I could have done something too, he just doesn't give anyone else a chance before he runs in and shuts things down."
Reaping Mauler is a terrible class. You'd be better off with a straight psiwarrior.
I worded it badly, but this was precisely a point I was trying to reinforce.
He'd be better off with Totemist too. As well as Black Blood Cultist.
Things that can be built into great grapplers.
Almost anything except the class
designed for grappling.
/shrug What's that tell you about grappling in general?
I wasn't trying to imply grappling is totally worthless and you should never do it. I was just agreeing with what he's heard because of what I've seen in games I've played.
Again, in practice situations will (or might) come up where the party will say, "well thank god he was here to hold him down.", but the theory-crafting rarely backs that up.