Grappled targets can still perform DnD weapon attacks or cast 5e spells as normal with an opponent grappled. However, they can take actions that don’t require two hands. Grapplers can make their second attack with advantage, but shoving someone prone won’t help spellcasters land DEX save spells like Thunderwave.
While grappling, one can attack, cast spells, use abilities, and even move with one hand occupied holding onto an enemy. Official rules state that any effect that moves the grappled creature out of their grappler’s reach ends the grapple. Grapple has many uses, including reducing the speed of the target to 0, which has tactical advantages but should be used with wisdom.
While grappled, you can use your action to try escaping by making a Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check, and the guy grappling you makes a Strength (Athletics) check to try and hold on. Grapplers can also cast spells, but all spells provoke attacks of opportunity, which can disrupt the spell cast.
Black Tentacles is a staple area-effect grapple spell with a 120-foot range that creates a 20-foot radius area that attempts grabs. A grappled creature can cast a spell, attack with a lance from horseback, swing with a two-handed sword, or attack while restrained.
PCs can attempt to cast a spell while grappling or even while pinned, provided its casting time is no more than one standard action. Spells and light weapons can be cast while grappled, but concentration checks are not required. Spell-like abilities can be used in a grapple, but they have no somatic, verbal, or material components.
📹 Break D&D With Grappling | throb-goblin
The rules for grappling, in case you wanna read them: Grappling When you want to grab a creature or wrestle with it, you can use …
Can you use Thunderstep while grappled?
It should be noted that the grapple can be disrupted by a teleportation effect. Furthermore, it may be rendered inoperable or obstructed by an extension, or alternatively, the browser in question may lack the capacity to support cookies.
What breaks grapple?
A grappled creature may extricate itself from the situation by achieving a higher result on a Strength or Dexterity check than that achieved by the Strength check contested by the creature. Both creatures remain in their current locations, but the grappling is no longer in effect. In the event that JavaScript is disabled or blocked by an extension, or if the browser in question does not support cookies, this may occur.
Can I misty step while grappled?
Wizards are capable of disrupting grapples through the use of spells such as Misty Step, Dimension Door, Thunderwave, and Gust of Wind. Furthermore, they are able to cast cleric spells, such as Inflict Wounds, while still within the confines of melee range. Those lacking magical abilities may choose to expend their action to attempt to break free from the grappler on each turn. Both creatures will be required to undergo the same evaluation process once more.
Can you use bonus action while grappled?
Grappling is not a bonus action, but rather a special melee attack. It requires one of the attacker’s attacks, not the entire attack action. The Tavern Brawler feat allows grappling after a successful unarmed strike or improvised weapon strike. Breaking a grapple is an action, and you must roll a Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check against your opponent’s Strength (Athletics) check. If successful, you are free, while failure results in grappling.
Reversing a grapple 5E allows you to grapple an opponent who is currently grappling you. If your check is higher than theirs, they are grappled and suffer the grappled condition. However, since you did not break their grapple on yourself, you are also grappled.
Can you use a misty step while grappled?
Wizards are capable of disrupting grapples through the use of spells such as Misty Step, Dimension Door, Thunderwave, and Gust of Wind. Furthermore, they are able to cast cleric spells, such as Inflict Wounds, while still within the confines of melee range. Those lacking magical abilities may choose to expend their action to attempt to break free from the grappler on each turn. Both creatures will be required to undergo the same evaluation process once more.
Does grappled grant advantage?
A player who has gained the advantage on attack rolls against a grappling creature is able to make additional attacks against that creature. One may utilize one’s action to pin the grappled creature by making another grapple check. Should the attempt prove successful, both the caster and the creature in question will be restrained until the grapple in question reaches its conclusion.
Can you use a misty step while restrained?
Misty Step is a powerful short-range teleportation spell that allows players to escape grapples and restraints. It requires only verbal components and can transport players to freedom in a blink of an eye, even when fully shackled or netted. This spell is a staple for many character builds, from sneaky rogues to quick-thinking wizards. With just a few magical words and a brief silvery mist, players can instantly transport themselves up to 30 feet to any unoccupied space.
To fully appreciate Misty Step’s capabilities, one must dive deeper into its optimal uses, mechanics, and creative applications. This comprehensive guide aims to provide everything needed to master Misty Step and integrate it seamlessly into gameplay, tactics, and strategies. It explores every facet of this spell, from its standard uses to unconventional tricks to supercharge battle prowess.
Having Misty Step in an adventurer’s arsenal can make all the difference between a heroic victory and an ignoble defeat. By understanding how and when to use it, players can truly excel in Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition.
Does grappled count as restrained?
A creature restrained by multiple creatures is unable to escape the joint grapple/restraint, and a single check is used to resolve the escape attempt. If a creature makes a grapple attack with surprise or grapples an already-grappled creature, it can attempt a special restraining grapple. A humanoid must have two free hands to attempt a restraining grapple. If the stealth check is successful and the attack comes with surprise, the attacker may attempt one of the following restraining attacks, which are resolved the same as a grappling attack.
If successful, the target is restrained and suffers the chosen effect: pinned arms, covered mouth, hobbled or choking. A pinned arms restraint requires an Intelligence (Arcana) check of DC 10 + spell level to cast a spell with somatic components.
Can you use spells when grappled?
The Pathfinder Player Companion provides a bonus of +4 on concentration checks for spell casting while grappled, which can be applied in conjunction with the bonus granted by Combat Casting. This bonus is advantageous for those who have undergone training to cast spells while grappling an opponent. The Melee Tactics Toolbox is a valuable resource for those engaged in the Pathfinder role-playing game.
What are the rules for grapple 5e?
In D and D, the grapple action is a crucial skill in combat. It involves grabbing an enemy and reducing their movement speed to 0, contested by their Athletics or Acrobatics check. If the player rolls higher, the target is considered grappled, while if the target rolls higher, they escape the grapple. The grapple action is determined by the character’s Athletics skill check, which is contested by the target’s skill check. The grappled condition is applied to affected targets, allowing the player to defeat foes in combat. Player advice and building a grappller character are also essential for successful grapples.
Can you cast spells while restrained in 5e?
In Dungeons and Dragons, a character can still attack and cast spells while restrained. This condition is used to stop monsters in their tracks and is useful when dealing with enemies in battle. The rules of the restrained condition include causing the condition, casting spells, and escaping it when used against the character. Although it can be inconvenient, it is a useful tool in combat. In D and D 5e, a character can be restrained while making a saving throw, and the rules for escaping the restrained condition are detailed in the guide.
📹 Grapple-Only Builds are WILD in D&D (sometimes)
This is an exploration of a grapple-focused D&D character! Do these scenarios match up to real life 100% all the time? No! Should …
The image of a centaur holding some poor fucker above his head, running 5 feet, then jumping over half a football field’s length in the air, slowing as he reaches the apex of the jump, then just letting the enemy go to plummet to the earth as the centaur gently floats through the air using some magic ki bullshit, just to plant all 4 horsey hooves directly into this almost certainly permanently traumatized dingbat and not snapping his perfect little trotters is simply amazing.
It is incredibly cursed that, theoretically, a Strength-based Centaur Armorer Artificer who dabbles in alchemy in his freetime is also another way to satisfy a lot of these things reliably at an early level, and to a level of plausability that even the most wary DM’s might not recognize the warnings until it’s too late.
An alternative for dropping is speccing a birdman. Aarakocra have a base flying speed of 50 before any modifiers and a natural d4 slashing damage on unarmed strikes to append to grappled targets. Other options include classing Lore Bard for Expertise on your grapple checks and the ability to insult puny demilich baby with cutting words to make them fail their countercheck, Ab wizard for those massive gains, and Druid to wildshape grapple.
It’s also worth noting that with the added rules for falling on another creature in Tasha’s, if you choose not to use the Monk’s Slow Fall, they must make a DC 15 Dexterity save, or any damage resulting from the fall is split between the rwo of you and they are knocked prone, even if they somehow managed to avoid that the first time. The exceptions to this mechanic are: A) if either of you are Tiny at the time this happens, or B) your target cannot be knocked prone by this if they are two or more sizes larger than you. This makes Rune Knight Fighter and Path of the Giant Barbarians very enticing, since very few enemies you would want to powerbomb in this manner will be two sizes larger than you. But, with Enlarge active (thanks again, Enabler Wizard), literally nothing is immune to it.
Symic hybrids allow you to grapple as a bonus action, and glide safely to the ground. Combined with rune knight and enlarge spell you can be huge sized and dropping people from massive heights for insane damage. Don’t forget to take the unarmed fighting feat for additional damage to grappled enemies.
I’ve actually used grapple a fair bit in a few games, especially in the one I’m currently playing as my artificer as a large mechanical bear as a companion. Grinder have been able to not only grapple the BBEG (Before being shut down with a handful of Eldritch blasts) for a turn but has also been able to keep a T-rex pinned between his metal jaws and I’ve also been given the thumbs up for some home brewing to make improvements with rare materials so my best boy will be smashing, biting and bear hugging for many sessions to come.
I was gonna use the rune knight fighter subclass so I can Boost my size, use a potion or spell from a friend to make me even bigger, and pretty sure I can then grapple against gargantuan things. Very epic. At first, since starting low level and brain smol, I was just gonna grapple+shove attack, so I can perma-lock them into disadvantage and 0 movement, while gaining advantage on all attacks against them. Then proceed to stab them many times until they die.
I’d like to see this be done with a speed build where you grapple a creature and take them way out of the fight and then run back. As long as they don’t have a way to teleport it could keep them out of the fight for a while. If you are a level 10 tabaxi monk with boots of speed, mobile feat, magic initiate for longstrider, have an enabling transmutation wizard to cast haste and have a transmuter stone. All of that gives you a total speed of 1920 which is halved to 960 because of grappling. If you take them 640 feet away and let them go the remaining 320 feet of speed you have is no longer halved meaning you can go back to the exact place you started and end your turn. If they have a speed of 30 and take the dash action each turn to get back it’ll take them 10 turns to get back. You can also do this by taking 2 levels in monk to get only +10 speed instead of +20 at level 10. Then multiclass 5 levels into barbarian for +10 speed to get this earlier. Since your wizard friend will get transmuters stone at 6th level you’ll have everything necessary to do this at level 7.
I raise you Potion of speed Wings of flying Brooms of flying(many) 2 light weapons Attack and grapple Fly up and drop at 200 feet, using 5 feet of flight to stop you from taking fall damage Haste action attack and grapple Repeat Bonus action 2 weapon fighting attack and grapple Repeat 60d6 per turn guaranteed that only gets better the more brooms of flying you make, and can work with any race or class as long as you can get athletics up as much as possible
I’ve been working on a build for some serious Lucha Libre style shenanigans for a while now, mostly for fun. But then while playing Curse of Strahd, our Barbarian attempted to grapple that slicked-back grease spot looking motherfucker and I realized the power of grappling. Because the DM tried to use legendary resistance, before it was pointed out that it’s not a saving throw. It’s an opposed ability check. Since then, I’ve come up with this build: Race: Duergar. +2 in Strength, +1 in Con Background: PYF(Pick Your Favorite, as Colby always says. I went with Gladiator to fit the theme, getting Performance and Insight) Point Buy stats: STR: 15, DEX: 14, CON: 14, INT: 8, WIS: 10, CHA: 10 Starting Class: Fighter Proficiencies: Athletics, PYF (I went for Intimidation, thematically) Fighting Style: Unarmed Fighting Martial Archetype: Rune Knight Rune Carver: Fire Rune, Frost Rune 4th level ASI/Feat: Skill Expert. +1 Strength, add Animal Handling, pick Athletics for Expertise 6th level ASI/Feat: Tavern Brawler. +1 Constitution (This bumps our CON to 16, while also expanding on how/when we can grapple) After this, you can go in a couple ways. Monk 1 for a bonus action Unarmed Strike, Fighter 7 for a new Rune and Runic Shield, or Barbarian for added damage negation, another source of advantage on Athletics checks, and eventually more mobility. I’ve tried them all, but for the sake of simplicity, I’ll continue the build to Fighter 12, after which I would honestly multiclass into Barbarian.
Simic hybrid for manta glide and grappling appendages, path of the beast barbarian for they’re big jump ability at lvl 6. This build allows you to give fall damage to people almost every turn using only your movement and a bonus action, plus you take zero fall damage yourself if you drop them. I prefer using this instead of relying on multiclassing alot and magic items. Love your article tho
While I’ve never minmaxed for jump height like that, as long as you can clear 20ft for the minimum fall damage they also fall prone, which lets you do the grapple+shove combo without actually ever using the shove action. Useful if you grapple as a BA through tavern brawler and also if you use maneuvers because tripping strike work with the battlemaster DC while grappling strike uses your athletics.
So I had a talk about this article with some folks who play DnD, and yeah grappling, is essentially grabbing someone, and letting them go, with them also being able to fight back. Is there a way to implement what you did but for example: suplexing someone 50ft off the ground and back onto it? I saw people mentiong a “Tasha rulebook”, where landing on someone doubles the damage, would this “super suplex” idea count as a simple grapple and add that damage? Would it be the same as grabbing them and letting them go, just with more flair to it?
If someone spent that much time slowly leveling and multiclassing just to get this one thing to work, I’d allow it always. Sure, you could deal a good bit of damage (~70), but only to one thing on one turn after spending a lot of effort before the fight (if you have time to say you do this before a fight begins, which rarely happens). Meanwhile, the other 6 enemies are chewing your party members. And sure, I could easily make an enemy that prevents this, but where’s the fun in saying ‘no’ in an improvisational game?
Why the (EXPLETIVE) would I get myself into danger to use my noodly wizard arms to grapple something?! Do you think I’m stupid?! I’m gonna send my zombies to do it! If you want me to caste Haste on you, buy me a drink first. And by drink, I mean the Haste spell in form of a scroll or spellbook page. I ain’t using one of my precious level-up spells on a spell I have little to no use for unless for your benefit. Also I will tentatively subscribe because you used OFF music in the outro.
For me, the Dhampir race is a powerful and fun option, as you can add running up vertical surfaces with your grapple victims, while attacking (likely with sneak attack/giants might), then dropping them for extra damage and a chance for them to land prone. Possible swashbuckler rogue later on to not have to worry about needing advantage when you run up and away from nearby buddies. Cheers.
Good grappler with the tavern brawler feat rafting in an underwater river. A nasty use of a grappling hook to keel haul a drow and pushing 2 overboard with his free hand. They died horribly in the rapids we were somewhere between levels 5-7. Another time took all the aggro of a flying dragon with a flying Barbarian/rogue he couldn’t shake till I had to dash to save an ally pushed into magma. I was a cheeky devil who abused the one shots item allotments to get fire immunity. Both were barb/rogue multiclasses now that I think about it. Such flavorful characters.
I’ve made a homebrew Monk subclass called “Way of the Judokka” which basically allows a monk to grapple and throw an enemy as a single action. It’s built around battlefield control by allowing your character to throw enemies into other enemies. I also wrote in a “Ki grappler” ability which allows you to spend Ki points to grapple enemies that can’t normally be grappled, like slimes and ghosts, or grapple enemies that are more than one size larger than you by spending one Ki point per size difference. The reasoning there being that instead of physically grappling with your enemies you merge your Ki with theirs making them a spiritual extension of you for one round, and since you can grapple and throw an enemy as a single action one round is all you need. At higher levels not only did I allow for a Judo Monk to throw enemies farther, increasing the battlefield control aspect, but they get to instantly grapple a melee attacker that fails an AC check against your monk (you then have the option to spend one Ki to immediately throw them as a bonus action). This means that a Judo Monk not only can catch and throw back projectiles fired at them with their base monk class ability, but they can also grab and throw melee attackers that come at them as a defensive action. This makes this grappling build a formidable front line fighter that can protect your ranged fighters rather capably.
Hey man I just found your website and I’m loving it! Just a bit of information though, Choose Your Own Adventure is trademarked and heavily enforced. If you get bigger and want to move forward with those you’ll need to come up with another term. Keep up the great work! Oh yeah, I also liked the article and subscribed!
For a takedown, – one leg or belly grab like a wrestler : you must lock your hands to not get the opponent to be able to get away, you add a bonus of +2 per poinbts of strngth bonus would be adequate (daniel cormier, henry cejudo, ilir latifi, examples of different shapes wrestling efficiently with larger opponents)
I did mine with Barbarian Rouge. So getting +2 advantage and d6s when attack with rage. when getting to lvl 11 rouge reliable talent with expertise 4+4 prof, +5 str with 10 min roll so 23 min and 33 max. Best part is with more rouge, a big guy can walk out of the shadows, grab someone and drag them back into the shadows meaning you can pick people off one by one given the right situation.
I like my grapplers to either take a level in Warlock, or the Magic Initiate feat, to get access to the Hex spell. Then Hex the victim’s Strength or Dex, whichever is higher, to give them disadvantage against your grapple attempts, and an extra d6 damage for your attacks. If you also have Sneak Attack, that’ll be an extra 2d6 damage!
My personal favorite build of all time: fairy allen, the fastest fey alive. Barbarian 5, elk totem with mobile, rouge 2, monk 2, wizard 2. Combining longstrider and bladesong, then while raging your movement speed is 95, bonus action dash for 190 feet. Best part is you fly, and droping something your holding is a free action. And you have enlarge 1/day by yourself.
You forgot the simple grapple and prone combo. If an enemy can be knocked prone with an attack and also grappled or have their speed reduced to zero, then it makes the grappler feat redundant, especially considering you don’t have to make yourself restrained. Side note: grapples can be broken by forced movement (examples: telekinetic feat, shoves, spell effects, etc) and teleportation.
in 4th edition I played a grapple focused half-orc fighter(who multiclassed Barbarian at paragon tier). She could use a Stance and a Rage at the same time, and turn partly into a bear when raging. She would snatch enemies by the leg and flip them onto their backs(grappled, pinned, and prone) in one turn. I miss 4th edition sometimes. The closest I’ve come in 5th edition is to shove an enemy into a pit trap and throw a net on top of them.
Fun fact: 2 levels in star Druid, then take astral self monk, astral self monk arms allow you to use your wisdom modifier for strength checks and saving throws, use dragon constellation from star Druid and the lowest roll you can make with a wisdom check is 10. Grapple. Also do not take grappler feat
I havnt figured out how to do this right in 5e but in 3.5 improved grapple with two weapon fighting and sneak attack meant you could just grab people in combat with one hand and sneak attacking them with a short sword with your other. And i also remember just being able to walk through combat avoiding attacks if opportunity and dragging people are while killing them. Fun stuff. The DM hated it.
This was before rune knight, but I made a barbarian wrestler build for a saltmarsh campaign. Using my advantage to Str checks while raged, I grabbed a pirate and jumped off the ship, trusting in my ability to hold my breath longer than the pirate. And it worked!! He died later that session. Adventure League does not bring out the teamwork in everyone.
Grappler is a waste of a feat imo, just use your action to shove the grappled creature prone, which imposes the same disadvantage to it’s attacks and advantage on melee attacks against it, but it doesn’t restrain you. Because it’s grappled it’s speed is reduced to 0 and thus cannot spend half to stand up from prone.
I’m currently running a Grung Rune Knight with the Touch of Death Dark Gift. I turn big, grapple the target, and every time I touch them or they touch me, they must roll a CON save. On a failure they become Poisoned, giving them disadvantage to escape the grapple, and the only time they can repeat this save is when they are no longer in contact with me. From there I pummel them with Death Touches (1d8+2d10+1d6+4 damage), and deal passive damage (1d4+1d10) at the start of my turns.
Small issue with one dnd. They’re changing grapple to if you’re grappling someone, you create a DC of 8+str mod+pb, and (for the initial grapple) your opponent gets a str of dex saving throw; and once they are grappled, they get an athletic or acrobatic check against the DC to escape. This means that expertise in athletics and advantage is str checks will be useless to grapple someone else, and an enemy with legendary resistance can just nope out of the initial saving throw.
before perusal : You use Bullrush to take down. Feint and intimidate to help with bonuses. Then for grappling : using brazilian jiu jitsu helps – like pinning with hips oin the hips – torso of opponent cutting satrength of the OP, and then you restrain the opposite leg of the side you attack, this takes away about 75% of the strength of the opponent if you are NOT already on their hips cutting the torso from legs strength
A build I came up with a while ago (assuming plane shift races are allowed and Tasha’s rules are also allowed): Play as a Naga, their constrict attack natural weapon is ridiculous (dealing damage and forcing a grapple and restrain if they don’t beat a DC) Play as a fighter (most likely rune knight) and take the unarmed fighting fighting style. Point buy for: 15 10 15 8 14 8 Naga+Tasha ASI for: 17 10 16 8 14 8 Use heavy armor and no weapons. Constrict until your restrain an enemy and then bite them. You can take whatever feats or ASIs you want, you probably want tough. Consider taking aberrant dragon mark and getting create bonfire and shield. Naga also get poison immunity so go wild with cloud kill. You may want to multiclass at some point but I played this in a level 5 one shot and was very effective.
my favorite is from when i was regularly playing in pathfinder i made a grappling brawler and with their martial flexibility i basically got half a dozen grapple boosting feats (they werent as universally strong as in 5e) near constantly and i actually had full ability to lock down a single opponent while still attacking other creatures around me with noo penalty to my own defenses and an archetype that traded a couple of brawlers unarmed bonuses for sneak attack on anything that i grappled. i could also easily tie up enemies i had grappled and the escape DC was my average grapple save which was regularly in the thirties at around 5th and 6th level (which is nearly as dumb as it sounds in this article (in a good way) ) my DM regularly would laugh at how unbalanced it was (for society play basically a bunch of one shots for easily getting together with a small group)
I grappled a flying enemy once (young dragon). When creature is grappled, its speed becomes 0. And if flying’s creature speed is 0, it falls. And fall it did… And there was a time when we were fighting a werewolf. We did not have a spellcaster (2 people one-shot) or silver weapons, so I decided to choke the bastard. Thankfully, choking isn’t a form of damage, you just drop to 0 and that’s it. So immunity to non-silver weapons didn’t help.
I heavily encourage using the Simic hybrid race instead of the half orc, because they can grapple multiple targets even with sword and board and get a mock tavern brawler for free with their extra arms. For defence you Still have your cloud and stone runes. If you want more grapple instead you can even take the frost rune. Depending on your stats and party it might be worth foregoing the rogue in favor of the skill expert feat. Also shoving is a great alternative to the restrain from the grappler feat when facing multiple enemies as this doesn’t really hinder you.
I’m playing a giff artificer armoursmith grappler build, with 18str and 20 int. all strength checks have advantage from hippo build, i have armour of magical strength for a plus 5 and flash of genious for a plus 5 and only one of those is a reaction so you can choose to have a strength check get plus 10
Honestly, just finished perusal your immovable rod article, and compared to grappling, dealing with a player having the immovable rod is far far FAR easier. Shit, I’ll gladly give every single player ten immovable rods each, if I don’t have to deal with the broken grappling mechanic – as it would be far easier to balance fights and the campaign with the rods XD
W the cleric I’m surprised no mention of shoving/dragging into spirit guardians. That’s the microwave, 6d8 damage from your grapple alone. Honestly, if u wanted to go really offensive, a grappling cleric could be a fun character. I would think either tabaxi for the movement speed or Loxodon so you can get 2 targets. War cleric would be perfect since they can use war priest
Grappler as a feat is a trap since most of what it can be accomplished can be done for free( using and action to pin just to get advantage is almost exactly the same as just shoving a creature prone to get melee advantage) and tavern brawler offers way way better things. +1 to great stats, an unarmed attack and proficiency in improvised weapons. The grapple rider on any unarmed/improv weapon attacks is much much better action economy in the long run. Plus improvised weapons can have range. A chain is a chain and can be really long, really hard to break and really good at wrapping enemies up in while making attacks with it. Level 6 with tavern prowler instead of grappler with the same build can just walk up advantage super buffed shove something to the ground the whip it with a chain with advantage and a +7 or +8 to hit. Chains aren’t finesse weapons so you can’t sneak attack it I guess but honestly just take prodigy instead of rogue and be a level 6 rune knight. Same stats just no split class and can focus on getting some of those better runes going a little faster. Can go custom lineage have tavern brawler prodigy and 20 strength at level 6 with no split classes but you won’t have that sweet “don’t die once a day passive”
What is sad is that the better grappler build is a monk/druid multiclass. Astral self lets you grapple, with astral arms, you can grapple a creature 10 feet away. Circle of stars allow you to choose an option where wisdom checks and concentration check cannot roll lower than a 10. You always win the grapple and you are too far away to hit back.
Lol no, you don’t take Grappler, what you want to do instead is use shove attack and choose the option to knock the target prone. Prone targets have disadvantage on attacks on standing targets and creatures within 5 feet have advantage against them. The cherry on top? Prone creatures can end the condition by standing up, however since the creature is also grappled its speed is 0, making it unable to stand up.
What are the benefits to doing this grapple-then-pin approach versus the grapple-then-shove to knock prone (instead of the 5 foot push) approach? If I recall correctly, knocking him prone would put the target in the same disadvantaged position, but you wouldn’t be since you aren’t physically pinning him but still have him grappled. Am I reading that right, or did I mess up?
Ok, if I ever DM flat out, the person grappling someone can not attack, period. It actually doesn’t make any sense that they would be able to anyway. Grappling takes both arms, frequently your full body. Therefor, it should only be to give your other party member advantage, not yourself. Unless you happen to have like 3 or more arms then maybe sure.
Pinning an enemy is not as good as just shoving them prone. A grappled and prone enemy has disadvantage on attacks, attacks against them have advantage, and they can’t stand up because being grappled reduced their movement to 0. Meanwhile the grappler is not restrained so it can still drag the enmy around, attacks against it don’t have advantage, and because its attacks are not at disadvantage the sneak attack damage will not require an ally to be next to the enemy. This is why the grappler feat sucks. The only real benefit to is is that you only need to grapple for advantage on attacks rather than knock them prone which just is not worth taking a whole feat for it. I’ve worked out a homebrew for it where instead of being able to pin an enemy you can chokehold them and render them temporarily unconscious after a few rounds of choking depending on con checks. You’re both restrained while the chokehold is going on but when you release it the enemy is going to be stunned for a round or two depending on con checks.
I can see a bad counter to this play being made on just makeing all enemies made of fire. On the other hand just making enemies with stronger and stronger grapple builds til your campaign degenerates into a wrestling circuit could work. Trickle in magic items for the grappler player by having opponent grapplers challenge them.
My DM is a friend of mine who once proposed we run a pirate campaign. Everyone chose races that had swim speeds and water breathing. I chose fairy so that I could fly instead. This inspired one of my favorite characters I ever made; Oars D. Toothfairy. He was a rune knight fighter but with enlarge reduce he could become huge at level 4. His main strategy was picking up entire ships, flying very high, and spiking them back into the ocean. My DM ended that campaign very quickly and stole Oars as an NPC that we still occasionally run into
grappler feat is bad. It actively limits your options and possibilities. Grapple then shove is much more effective although it requires more action economy and/or setup. while grapple enemy can’st stand up from prone = they have disadvantage to hit everyone, you and melee PCs have advantage to hit it, you can drag it, and it must waste its action to TRY a contested grapple chek which is much easier to win when having advantage and expertise than any attack roll or saving throw would be. things that synergize : rage, rune knight, grung, flying races,thri-kreen, naga, loxodon,plasmoid,shield master, unarmored fighting style,
I used half-orc battle master with trip attack, so first I don’t need to take grappler feat and second my target is prone and grappled. Now I have advantage on attack rolls and opponent has disadvantage However the very first boss was a giant snake and I couldn’t grapple it because of size. However I tried to climb it with handaxes and choke with rope thrown behind its neck. However, it was killed before I managed to climb and say “I’m choking the snake”