# One D&D Grappling



## Chaosmancer

I'm still trying to swim upstream and catch up on all the One D&D news, there is a lot, and a lot of general discussion. But I did want to take this chance to start a thread digging into one of the most significant changes to the rules in the set, in my opinion. 

Grappling. 

So, let's set the pieces on the table. Then I'll discuss some thoughts

Grapples are initiated by an unarmed strike. Unarmed strikes are strength attacks against AC. On a hit you can deal 1+str mod damage, shove an opponent 5 ft or knock them prone (no save), or grapple them (no initial save) as long as the target is at no more than one size larger than you. The grapple DC is 8+str mod+prof. 

The Grapplee (I'll call them the target from now on) suffers the grappled condition. The targets speed is 0, that speed cannot change. The Target's attacks have disadvantage against all targets except the Grappler (I'll call them the initiator from now on). The initiator can drag the Target, but suffers the slowed condition *while moving*, unless the target is tiny or two sizes smaller. The Target gets a strength or dex save at the end of their turn, which can end the grapple. It also ends if something removes them from reach (but not using their speed, which cannot change from 0) or if the Initiator is incapped.

The Slowed condition is also interesting, but rereading the Grapple my big concern is actually addressed, but I'll add it just the same. While slowed your movement if 2 ft of movement per foot you move (basically half speed), attacks against you have advantage, and you have disadvantage on dex saves. 



Now, I am already much happier than I was when I started this, because I thought the Initiator was slowed for the entire time the grapple was happening, which had a weird effect of giving the target advantage to hit them. That is not the case, but you do need to worry about attacks of opportunity from third-parties. Attacks which can be unarmed strikes that push you 5 ft, breaking the grapple. 

So, thoughts. 

The removal of skills from this is a double-edged sword I think. It does feel a little bad that athletics and acrobatics no longer apply. However, before this change much was talked about how the best grapplers were bards and rogues, because of expertise. And Rogues in particular were master grapplers because of Reliable Talent. And their actual strength scores didn't matter very much. Meanwhile, one of the worst grapplers in the game was the Monk, who just couldn't do it. They didn't focus on strength or have any way to boost Athletics. Meanwhile, with these changes, all it takes is a little extra language in Martial Arts to say "when you do an unarmed strike, you can replace strength with your dexterity" and then the save is based on dex for monks, making the unarmed combat expert the best at grappling. 

The no save auto-grapple is a change I think I like. The thing is, the monsters could always choose to defend with athletics or acrobatics. Most monsters have either decent strength or decent dexterity, and so the chances of landing the initial grapple aren't very good. Also, with the large monsters having advantage, then you have to deal with even worse chances. 

Adding to that, Grapples weren't useful, in my experience. They took an action to break, but no one ever bothered to actually take that action, because all grapple did was reduce your speed to 0. Once players realized that, they simply attacked the monster grappling them, or their neighbor, meanwhile, grappling takes a hand, which makes it difficult to continue fighting. Now, that hasn't changed, you are just going to attack the creature grappling you because you have disadvantage on all the others, but now the grapple is a condition that can end on a save, which means that they don't have to use that action. Because honestly, breaking a grapple with your action, that the enemy just reestablishes the next turn is the same as both of you skipping an action. 

So, overall.... I think this is a good set of changes. I can see this being a far more dynamic system now than the previous one.


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## Haplo781

The automatic save to escape is a bad change. Like really, really, really bad.

It may as well be a neon sign saying "this is not a valid use of an attack."


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## Tales and Chronicles

Chaosmancer said:


> I'm still trying to swim upstream and catch up on all the One D&D news, there is a lot, and a lot of general discussion. But I did want to take this chance to start a thread digging into one of the most significant changes to the rules in the set, in my opinion.
> 
> Grappling.
> 
> So, let's set the pieces on the table. Then I'll discuss some thoughts
> 
> Grapples are initiated by an unarmed strike. Unarmed strikes are strength attacks against AC. On a hit you can deal 1+str mod damage, shove an opponent 5 ft or knock them prone (no save), or grapple them (no initial save) as long as the target is at no more than one size larger than you. The grapple DC is 8+str mod+prof.
> 
> The Grapplee (I'll call them the target from now on) suffers the grappled condition. The targets speed is 0, that speed cannot change. The Target's attacks have disadvantage against all targets except the Grappler (I'll call them the initiator from now on). The initiator can drag the Target, but suffers the slowed condition *while moving*, unless the target is tiny or two sizes smaller. The Target gets a strength or dex save at the end of their turn, which can end the grapple. It also ends if something removes them from reach (but not using their speed, which cannot change from 0) or if the Initiator is incapped.
> 
> The Slowed condition is also interesting, but rereading the Grapple my big concern is actually addressed, but I'll add it just the same. While slowed your movement if 2 ft of movement per foot you move (basically half speed), attacks against you have advantage, and you have disadvantage on dex saves.
> 
> 
> 
> Now, I am already much happier than I was when I started this, because I thought the Initiator was slowed for the entire time the grapple was happening, which had a weird effect of giving the target advantage to hit them. That is not the case, but you do need to worry about attacks of opportunity from third-parties. Attacks which can be unarmed strikes that push you 5 ft, breaking the grapple.
> 
> So, thoughts.
> 
> The removal of skills from this is a double-edged sword I think. It does feel a little bad that athletics and acrobatics no longer apply. However, before this change much was talked about how the best grapplers were bards and rogues, because of expertise. And Rogues in particular were master grapplers because of Reliable Talent. And their actual strength scores didn't matter very much. Meanwhile, one of the worst grapplers in the game was the Monk, who just couldn't do it. They didn't focus on strength or have any way to boost Athletics. Meanwhile, with these changes, all it takes is a little extra language in Martial Arts to say "when you do an unarmed strike, you can replace strength with your dexterity" and then the save is based on dex for monks, making the unarmed combat expert the best at grappling.
> 
> The no save auto-grapple is a change I think I like. The thing is, the monsters could always choose to defend with athletics or acrobatics. Most monsters have either decent strength or decent dexterity, and so the chances of landing the initial grapple aren't very good. Also, with the large monsters having advantage, then you have to deal with even worse chances.
> 
> Adding to that, Grapples weren't useful, in my experience. They took an action to break, but no one ever bothered to actually take that action, because all grapple did was reduce your speed to 0. Once players realized that, they simply attacked the monster grappling them, or their neighbor, meanwhile, grappling takes a hand, which makes it difficult to continue fighting. Now, that hasn't changed, you are just going to attack the creature grappling you because you have disadvantage on all the others, but now the grapple is a condition that can end on a save, which means that they don't have to use that action. Because honestly, breaking a grapple with your action, that the enemy just reestablishes the next turn is the same as both of you skipping an action.
> 
> So, overall.... I think this is a good set of changes. I can see this being a far more dynamic system now than the previous one.



I agree completelly.

By the way there's a new One D&D sub-forum for these posts, if you look in the forum list. You may get more discussions there.


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## UngeheuerLich

Haplo781 said:


> The automatic save to escape is a bad change. Like really, really, really bad.
> 
> It may as well be a neon sign saying "this is not a valid use of an attack."




No. This is just wrong.
Grappling is now something like taunting. You make sure your fellow wizard is not attacked. You are also sure that the enemy will stay fir at least one turn. Before, at least a strength based fighter could shove the grappler away and then move and then use thse second attack to bother the wizard.
I am not sure if I totally like the change yet, but your assessment is a little simplistic.


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## squibbles

Chaosmancer said:


> [...] The initiator can drag the Target, but suffers the slowed condition *while moving*, [...]
> [...] I am already much happier than I was when I started this, because I thought the Initiator was slowed for the entire time the grapple was happening, which had a weird effect of giving the target advantage to hit them. That is not the case, but you do need to worry about attacks of opportunity from third-parties. [...]



Nice catch; I didn't realize that was the case.

If the target got advantage on attacks against the grappler, I was gonna write off the new grappling rules as a complete disaster--but this interaction makes sense.



Chaosmancer said:


> [...] The removal of skills from this is a double-edged sword I think. It does feel a little bad that athletics and acrobatics no longer apply. [...]



Ya, from the PC perspective, this seems particularly bad. Monsters tend to have good saves but they almost never have proficiency in athletics or acrobatics. A PC really can't grapple reliably under these rules, since a high attack bonus and a high DC are both harder to get than a high athletics skill.



Chaosmancer said:


> [...] However, before this change much was talked about how the best grapplers were bards and rogues, because of expertise. And Rogues in particular were master grapplers because of Reliable Talent. And their actual strength scores didn't matter very much. Meanwhile, one of the worst grapplers in the game was the Monk, who just couldn't do it. They didn't focus on strength or have any way to boost Athletics. [...]



This is a good point. The types of PCs that are good at grappling are really weird in 5e.



Chaosmancer said:


> [...] The no save auto-grapple is a change I think I like. The thing is, the monsters could always choose to defend with athletics or acrobatics. Most monsters have either decent strength or decent dexterity, and so the chances of landing the initial grapple aren't very good. [...]



But it's not a no save auto grapple. Instead of being a contested ability check you initiate with one of your attacks, it's an unarmed strike attack roll--which is likely a fair bit harder for a PC to succeed at. As I stated above, monsters are almost never proficient in athletics or acrobatics; they are almost always using just their str mod, which never goes above +10 and only gets to +10 for the very toughest ones. Lots of monsters, though--even at low levels--have an AC of 18, 19, 20, or above.



Chaosmancer said:


> [...] Adding to that, Grapples weren't useful, in my experience. They took an action to break, but no one ever bothered to actually take that action, because all grapple did was reduce your speed to 0. Once players realized that, they simply attacked the monster grappling them, or their neighbor, meanwhile, grappling takes a hand, which makes it difficult to continue fighting.



Right, but the point of grappling isn't to just grapple and then sit in the grapple trading hits, it's to grapple, shove prone, and then drag the target someplace bad.



Chaosmancer said:


> [...] Now, that hasn't changed, you are just going to attack the creature grappling you because you have disadvantage on all the others, but now the grapple is a condition that can end on a save, which means that they don't have to use that action. Because honestly, breaking a grapple with your action, that the enemy just reestablishes the next turn is the same as both of you skipping an action. [...]



This, again, seems to make grapples significantly weaker. There is no tradeoff cost to break out of them, the target just needs to have a good str OR dex save.



Haplo781 said:


> The automatic save to escape is a bad change. Like really, really, really bad.
> 
> It may as well be a neon sign saying "this is not a valid use of an attack."





UngeheuerLich said:


> No. This is just wrong.
> Grappling is now something like taunting. You make sure your fellow wizard is not attacked. You are also sure that the enemy will stay fir at least one turn. Before, at least a strength based fighter could shove the grappler away and then move and then use thse second attack to bother the wizard.
> I am not sure if I totally like the change yet, but your assessment is a little simplistic.



Grappling under the new rules will have some uses, but they'll be situational. If you can reasonably expect to hit an enemy with an unarmed strike, if you think it's worthwhile to you to impose disadvantage on that enemy's attacks against creatures other than you for a round, or if you can get a lot from moving the enemy15-ish feet, grappling is worth it. 

However, you will never have a grapple DC high enough that enemies will reliably fail their save, whereas you could easily achieve an athletics score high enough that enemies reliably lose the contested role. You basically can't build a grappling PC under the new rules.

Maybe this is intended--and grapples are supposed to be a sometimes-useful trick that warrior types can use when needed, which resembles other save-or-suck spells and features, but that it doesn't make any sense to build a character around.


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## Chaosmancer

Haplo781 said:


> The automatic save to escape is a bad change. Like really, really, really bad.
> 
> It may as well be a neon sign saying "this is not a valid use of an attack."




Why would you say giving disadvantage on attacks against all your allies, or easily preventing all possible damage to your allies, is not a valid use of an attack? 

Before it may have taken an action, but the enemy had no penalties on attacks. I've had many players grappled mid-combat, and they just ignored it, because it didn't impact them.


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## Chaosmancer

Tales and Chronicles said:


> I agree completelly.
> 
> By the way there's a new One D&D sub-forum for these posts, if you look in the forum list. You may get more discussions there.




Ah, I thought I looked for one of those, but I didn't see it. I'll go looking


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## Ruin Explorer

squibbles said:


> Nice catch; I didn't realize that was the case.
> 
> If the target got advantage on attacks against the grappler, I was gonna write off the new grappling rules as a complete disaster--but this interaction makes sense.
> 
> 
> Ya, from the PC perspective, this seems particularly bad. Monsters tend to have good saves but they almost never have proficiency in athletics or acrobatics. A PC really can't grapple reliably under these rules, since a high attack bonus and a high DC are both harder to get than a high athletics skill.
> 
> 
> This is a good point. The types of PCs that are good at grappling are really weird in 5e.
> 
> 
> But it's not a no save auto grapple. Instead of being a contested ability check you initiate with one of your attacks, it's an unarmed strike attack roll--which is likely a fair bit harder for a PC to succeed at. As I stated above, monsters are almost never proficient in athletics or acrobatics; they are almost always using just their str mod, which never goes above +10 and only gets to +10 for the very toughest ones. Lots of monsters, though--even at low levels--have an AC of 18, 19, 20, or above.
> 
> 
> Right, but the point of grappling isn't to just grapple and then sit in the grapple trading hits, it's to grapple, shove prone, and then drag the target someplace bad.
> 
> 
> This, again, seems to make grapples significantly weaker. There is no tradeoff cost to break out of them, the target just needs to have a good str OR dex save.
> 
> 
> 
> Grappling under the new rules will have some uses, but they'll be situational. If you can reasonably expect to hit an enemy with an unarmed strike, if you think it's worthwhile to you to impose disadvantage on that enemy's attacks against creatures other than you for a round, or if you can get a lot from moving the enemy15-ish feet, grappling is worth it.
> 
> However, you will never have a grapple DC high enough that enemies will reliably fail their save, whereas you could easily achieve an athletics score high enough that enemies reliably lose the contested role. You basically can't build a grappling PC under the new rules.
> 
> Maybe this is intended--and grapples are supposed to be a sometimes-useful trick that warrior types can use when needed, which resembles other save-or-suck spells and features, but that it doesn't make any sense to build a character around.



This is similar to my reaction. @Chaosmancer hasn't thought it all the way through.

These are very bad changes if we want PCs to be any good at grappling monsters, or to achieve anything by grappling monsters, they make grapples hilariously easy to get out of, with far less opportunity cost (particularly to monsters - @Chaosmancer seemed to be considering primarily PC grappled by monster, rather than vice-versa - and my experience is that PC grapples monster is far more common in 5E rules).

They also invalidate literally every single way to improve your ability to grapple in 5E, of which there were absolutely tons.

If they intention is to make grapples much weaker, and drastically decrease their utility to PCs whilst only slightly weakening them for monsters, then mission accomplished. I have a feeling that's not the goal, though.


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## Chaosmancer

squibbles said:


> Nice catch; I didn't realize that was the case.
> 
> If the target got advantage on attacks against the grappler, I was gonna write off the new grappling rules as a complete disaster--but this interaction makes sense.




Yeah, I was a bit stunned no one was calling this out, as it seemed like a massive problem. Rereading made it a lot better.



squibbles said:


> Ya, from the PC perspective, this seems particularly bad. Monsters tend to have good saves but they almost never have proficiency in athletics or acrobatics. A PC really can't grapple reliably under these rules, since a high attack bonus and a high DC are both harder to get than a high athletics skill.




I don't follow. 

Athletics is strength + prof. Strength attacks are strength + prof. The high save will be strength + prof + 8. Same as every caster if you are a strength based character. 

I'm also not sure if saves are more common than skills or not. A quick search gave me about even numbers. It is a potential concern, but I like to think of it in terms of conservation of narrative. There are a lot of spells that are strength saves to break free from a grapple or restrain condition. 

I can also see this as being fodder for a grappler feat.



squibbles said:


> But it's not a no save auto grapple. Instead of being a contested ability check you initiate with one of your attacks, it's an unarmed strike attack roll--which is likely a fair bit harder for a PC to succeed at. As I stated above, monsters are almost never proficient in athletics or acrobatics; they are almost always using just their str mod, which never goes above +10 and only gets to +10 for the very toughest ones. Lots of monsters, though--even at low levels--have an AC of 18, 19, 20, or above.




True, it does need to be a successful attack, but it is also something you decide after the attack hits, if you grapple, shove prone, or deal damage. But, the AC as Save is a good point.



squibbles said:


> Right, but the point of grappling isn't to just grapple and then sit in the grapple trading hits, it's to grapple, shove prone, and then drag the target someplace bad.




Which never happened, at least not that I ever saw. No one ever shoved prone. That took a full action instead of an attack before. Now, you can actually do all of this by 5th level, all you have to do is land the hits.



squibbles said:


> This, again, seems to make grapples significantly weaker. There is no tradeoff cost to break out of them, the target just needs to have a good str OR dex save.




But, this also makes it matter for PCs who are grappled. Again, no one ever tried to break out of grapples. So it taking an action didn't matter, because no one bothered to take that action.



squibbles said:


> Grappling under the new rules will have some uses, but they'll be situational. If you can reasonably expect to hit an enemy with an unarmed strike, if you think it's worthwhile to you to impose disadvantage on that enemy's attacks against creatures other than you for a round, or if you can get a lot from moving the enemy15-ish feet, grappling is worth it.
> 
> However, you will never have a grapple DC high enough that enemies will reliably fail their save, whereas you could easily achieve an athletics score high enough that enemies reliably lose the contested role. You basically can't build a grappling PC under the new rules.
> 
> Maybe this is intended--and grapples are supposed to be a sometimes-useful trick that warrior types can use when needed, which resembles other save-or-suck spells and features, but that it doesn't make any sense to build a character around.




I think this is setting up for more feats. Tavern Brawler already gives us a hint, by once per turn allowing damage and shove. I'd be willing to bet that the Grappler feat will interact in interesting ways with this condition, allowing for people to build around it. 

But also, let's take a low level fighter with athletics. They likely have a +5 athletics. The monster probably has a +3 strength. The d20 roll for the opposed roll matters a LOT more than those modifiers. And I have seen very weak characters avoid grapples from dedicated grapplers, purely through the roll of the dice. I think the opposed roll made it very unreliable, where hitting a static number you are already trying to hit makes it more reliable. 

After all, every single thing that increases the chance to land a hit? Invisible, bless, ect ect, now also increases your initial grapple chance. Which gives you at least one round. I'm also curious if they use this for things like the net or the whip, since it is now an "on a hit" effect.


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## Chaosmancer

Ruin Explorer said:


> This is similar to my reaction. @Chaosmancer hasn't thought it all the way through.
> 
> These are very bad changes if we want PCs to be any good at grappling monsters, or to achieve anything by grappling monsters, they make grapples hilariously easy to get out of, with far less opportunity cost (particularly to monsters - @Chaosmancer seemed to be considering primarily PC grappled by monster, rather than vice-versa - and my experience is that PC grapples monster is far more common in 5E rules).
> 
> They also invalidate literally every single way to improve your ability to grapple in 5E, of which there were absolutely tons.
> 
> If they intention is to make grapples much weaker, and drastically decrease their utility to PCs whilst only slightly weakening them for monsters, then mission accomplished. I have a feeling that's not the goal, though.




Are you basing this purely off "save proficiency is more common than skill proficiency"? Or are we looking mainly at the save at the end or the AC to hit?

And I am thinking about this in both PC and monster turns. I've actually rarely if ever seen PCs grapple monsters. They just never bothered because there was nothing they could do with that grapple that was worth the chance. Only time I saw a lot of grappling was when a DM put us against a bunch of werewolves. Since only one character could damage them, we grappled a lot. Alternatively, quite a few monsters have attacks that grapple on hit. Ropers come to mind immediately, but anything with with claws or tentacles or a snake tail tends to have a grapple on hit effect. 

And so I saw a lot more monsters grappling players than the other way around, and often that grapple didn't feel impactful beyond not being able to move. 

Additionally, While there are ways to improve your skills, I'm not seeing how a high strength character with a strength based saving throw is worse off than any caster using a similar effect. And even if you did find ways to boost your skills, an opposed check was always a risk, since even a low mod could beat you if they rolled well. With this change grapple is nearly guaranteed for a single round. Maybe it isn't guaranteed for multiple rounds, but you can knock prone, grapple, and drag all in a single turn at 5th level fairly trivially I think.


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## UngainlyTitan

Haplo781 said:


> The automatic save to escape is a bad change. Like really, really, really bad.
> 
> It may as well be a neon sign saying "this is not a valid use of an attack."



it is situationally useful. The shove to prone is very nice.


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## Zubatcarteira

Monsters who use grapple already did it just by hitting instead of doing grapple checks, so this just puts PCs on the same level, I guess. 

It buffs grappling in some ways, nerfs in others, overall it'll prob be alright most of the time.


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## dave2008

Chaosmancer said:


> And so I saw a lot more monsters grappling players than the other way around, and often that grapple didn't feel impactful beyond not being able to move.



Yes, that is why I gave biting monsters a bonus action or reaction to bite grappled targets.  Makes you want to get out of that grapple!


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## dave2008

Zubatcarteira said:


> Monsters who use grapple already did it just by hitting instead of doing grapple checks, so this just puts PCs on the same level, I guess.



Actually all monsters could use the grapple rules, but some monsters could also grapple on a hit. The difference here would be often the monster grapple on a hit also included damage, this does not.  Which is as it should be for the base grapple action IMO

_*Tentacle.* Melee Weapon Attack:_ +17 to hit, reach 30 ft., one target. _Hit:_ 20 (3d6 + 10) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 18). Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained. The kraken has ten tentacles, each of which can grapple one target.


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## Reynard

I am away from a device with access to the document: was there a size relationship limit on grapple. Because if not it is stupidly OP against big multi attacking foes.


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## Zubatcarteira

dave2008 said:


> Actually all monsters could use the grapple rules, but some monsters could also grapple on a hit. The difference here would be often the monster grapple on a hit also included damage, this does not.  Which is as it should be for the base grapple action IMO
> 
> _*Tentacle.* Melee Weapon Attack:_ +17 to hit, reach 30 ft., one target. _Hit:_ 20 (3d6 + 10) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 18). Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained. The kraken has ten tentacles, each of which can grapple one target.



Something like a Vampire can grapple on a hit without dealing damage. 

I looked it up a while ago, and every monster that inflicts the grappled condition I've looked at just does it on a hit. They could technically try it with the normal grappling rules, but it usually wouldn't be great since grapple especified the attack action, so it wouldn't work with monster Multiattack.


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## Kurotowa

It strikes me that the main upside of the new Gappled condition is that it reduces the target's speed to 0.

One scenario for this is a familiar one. With two unarmed strike attacks you can knock a target prone and grapple them, preventing them from standing again. Assuming the Prone runs are the same that gives Advantage to every melee attack against them. That can be very handy in the right party, though it's not a universal trick. Being Prone also gives Disadvantage to ranged attacks, after all.

A brand new trick is that it gives your front line bruisers a psudeo-Sentinal. Anyone with a 2H weapon can have a hand free when they're not attacking. That means that instead of using your Opportunity Attack to dish out damage, you can make an unarmed strike to grapple them and prevent them from moving away from you. Yes, you'll have to release the grapple on your turn to use the weapon again. But you'll have accomplished your goal of preventing them from moving away or past you.

Also, remember that we're working on incomplete information here. Are there higher level feats that improve the effects of grappling? Class features or maneuvers? We don't know yet. This is just what the plain universal action allows.


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## kapars

The save to escape the grapple happens at the end of the monsters turn. That means if you grapple successfully they cannot move for at least one turn and can attack only you without suffering disadvantage. If they do make the save you still have the opportunity to grapple again in the same spot. I think this makes it a powerful tanking ability.


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## DND_Reborn

One of my players asked while reviewing the new playtest material:

*So, did they add a way to go from grappled to restrained?*

When I answered "No", he was pretty disappointed.

(Before anyone answers, I know the Grappler feat allows this, but its the only way...).


And yes, allowing grappled targets to escape automatically is a bad move.



Haplo781 said:


> The automatic save to escape is a bad change. Like really, really, really bad.



See? We can agree on some things.


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## dave2008

Zubatcarteira said:


> Something like a Vampire can grapple on a hit without dealing damage.
> 
> I looked it up a while ago, and every monster that inflicts the grappled condition I've looked at just does it on a hit. They could technically try it with the normal grappling rules, but it usually wouldn't be great since grapple especified the attack action, so it wouldn't work with monster Multiattack.



My point was the grapple rules are general and all monsters and PC can use them. 

Yes, there are monsters use only effect on a hit is to grapple, I was not disputing that.  Again, that is only a small handful of monsters, it was not a general rule for monsters.  That is the point


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## Zubatcarteira

dave2008 said:


> My point was the grapple rules are general and all monsters and PC can use them.
> 
> Yes, there are monsters use only effect on a hit is to grapple, I was not disputing that.  Again, that is only a small handful of monsters, it was not a general rule for monsters.  That is the point



And my point is that the only way I've ever seen it appear on a statblock is the hit-grapple one, and I guess a few have a saving throw. The contested check just isn't a mechanic that I've seen them actually using on a monster statblock.


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## Chaosmancer

Reynard said:


> I am away from a device with access to the document: was there a size relationship limit on grapple. Because if not it is stupidly OP against big multi attacking foes.




Both grapple and shove have "possible only if the target is no more than one Size larger than you"

So, you can grapple and shove large creatures (who have no advantage on the save notably) but not Huge. And small characters can't grapple or shove large creatures.


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## Reynard

Chaosmancer said:


> Both grapple and shove have "possible only if the target is no more than one Size larger than you"
> 
> So, you can grapple and shove large creatures (who have no advantage on the save notably) but not Huge. And small characters can't grapple or shove large creatures.



Thanks. That's not so bad and aligns nicely with the inspirational fiction.


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## dave2008

Zubatcarteira said:


> And my point is that the only way I've ever seen it appear on a statblock is the hit-grapple one, and I guess a few have a saving throw. The contested check just isn't a mechanic that I've seen them actually using on a monster statblock.



You don't put general Actions that do not have damage in the stat block.  General Actions are standard rules in 5e. For example, all monsters can take the Dash, Disengage, Dodge, & Hide actions even though they are not listed on every statblock. The statblock only mentions these actions when the monster can do something different than the general rule. Like using a Bonus Action, instead of an Action, to Dash

Similarily,  spellcasting monsters, until recently, didn't have a spellcasting action listed, it was a trait with the spells listed. It was understood that they could take an action to cast a spell because that is the general rule for how spellcasting works. 

Do you think monsters can only do what is listed in the stat block?


----------



## dave2008

DND_Reborn said:


> One of my players asked while reviewing the new playtest material:
> 
> *So, did they add a way to go from grappled to restrained?*
> 
> When I answered "No", he was pretty disappointed.
> 
> (Before anyone answers, I know the Grappler feat allows this, but its the only way...).



Why didn't you tell him about the feat?

Also, currently some monsters restrain when they grapple.  I wonder if that will change or if they will add disadvantage to strength saving throws to the restrained condition.


----------



## squibbles

Chaosmancer said:


> [...] I don't follow.
> 
> Athletics is strength + prof. Strength attacks are strength + prof. The high save will be strength + prof + 8. Same as every caster if you are a strength based character. [...]





Chaosmancer said:


> [...] let's take a low level fighter with athletics. They likely have a +5 athletics. The monster probably has a +3 strength. The d20 roll for the opposed roll matters a LOT more than those modifiers. And I have seen very weak characters avoid grapples from dedicated grapplers, purely through the roll of the dice. I think the opposed roll made it very unreliable, where hitting a static number you are already trying to hit makes it more reliable. [...]



Well, as you called out in your first post, rogues and bards (and PCs with the skill expert feat) can get expertise, which makes the skill check math substantially more favorable to a PC than a save or attack roll. After that, you can have a friend cast the 2nd level spell Enhance Ability (Bull's Strength), or cast it yourself, to get advantage on strength checks. That simple combo gets better and better, relative to monsters, as a PC gains levels, since proficiency bonus scales and monsters, generally, get only marginally better at athletics checks due to strength increases (dex tends to be lower than str). Another 2nd level spell Enlarge/Reduce, helps substantially with the size restrictions. Those are most of the tools you need to grapple reliably (for more thorough info, see treantmonk's vid on it).

It's easy, with just a little set up, and without sacrificing very much in other areas, to build a PC that can pretty reliably, for example, grab an iron golem, shove it on its face (so it has disadvantage on _all _attacks), and give it nuggies while the rest of the party beats on it with advantage on their attacks (from prone).

The new rules have a DC that is _only_ as good as a caster, but the current rules' contested roll is potentially much harder for a monster to beat than caster DC.



Chaosmancer said:


> True, it does need to be a successful attack, but it is also something you decide after the attack hits, if you grapple, shove prone, or deal damage. But, the AC as Save is a good point.



Unless you're a monk, you have to decide before the attack hits that you're going to make an unarmed strike--which is probably not what you were going to do otherwise.



Chaosmancer said:


> Which never happened, at least not that I ever saw. No one ever shoved prone. That took a full action instead of an attack before. Now, you can actually do all of this by 5th level, all you have to do is land the hits.



Shove uses "one of your attacks" just like grapple does.

But ya, the PC needs to be built to have two attacks, expertise in athletics, and, ideally, a source of advantage, to get the most out of grappling. A player that doesn't know the full combo running a PC that isn't built to do grapples isn't going to find them useful. And it isn't intuitive how to set up for the combo or why it's good--since most players haven't read all the monster statblocks and learned that most of them suck at skill checks, and most player's don't immediately grok that bards are gonna be better at wrestling than barbarians.

Grapples are a rule that rewards system mastery. I therefore understand why this change is being made--but I don't particularly like the changes because they make it harder to use grappling in a fun and high impact way.

A decently strong combo, that can be used at will, and that synergizes massively with battlefield control (i.e. cheese grater that troll back and forth across the spike growth for fun and profit) might be getting replaced with a 'give an enemy disadvantage on attacks against targets other than you' effect. It's not terrible, but it needs more cowbell.



Chaosmancer said:


> I think this is setting up for more feats. Tavern Brawler already gives us a hint, by once per turn allowing damage and shove. I'd be willing to bet that the Grappler feat will interact in interesting ways with this condition, allowing for people to build around it.



That's a good point. If they make the grappler feat strong and/or interesting, I might change my mind about the new rules--something like an option to grapple after hitting with a normal weapon attack _or _enemies save against your grapples with disadvantage.

---



Ruin Explorer said:


> This is similar to my reaction. @Chaosmancer hasn't thought it all the way through.
> 
> These are very bad changes if we want PCs to be any good at grappling monsters, or to achieve anything by grappling monsters, they make grapples hilariously easy to get out of, with far less opportunity cost (particularly to monsters - @Chaosmancer seemed to be considering primarily PC grappled by monster, rather than vice-versa - and my experience is that PC grapples monster is far more common in 5E rules).
> 
> *They also invalidate literally every single way to improve your ability to grapple in 5E, of which there were absolutely tons.*
> 
> If they intention is to make grapples much weaker, and drastically decrease their utility to PCs whilst only slightly weakening them for monsters, then mission accomplished. I have a feeling that's not the goal, though.



I strongly agree with the bolded (emphasis mine) line of your post. It is the main issue. There need to be a robust set of player options that make save DCs against grappling harder. Admittedly, there are also a ton of features which impose disadvantage (or other modifications) on saves, but they are _always _more limited since they work with spells; there's no class feature that lets you double the proficiency bonus in your spell DC calculation.

But, that said, I don't hate the new rules. They make grapples work more like the game's other features do (like _spells_, for better or worse). And they are more intuitive; the 20 str bruisers you'd think would be good at grappling will now be the best at grappling.

The new rules just need more cowbell for them to work as reliable, functional, forced movement.

---



Kurotowa said:


> [...] A brand new trick is that it gives your front line bruisers a psudeo-Sentinal. Anyone with a 2H weapon can have a hand free when they're not attacking. That means that instead of using your Opportunity Attack to dish out damage, you can make an unarmed strike to grapple them and prevent them from moving away from you. Yes, you'll have to release the grapple on your turn to use the weapon again. But you'll have accomplished your goal of preventing them from moving away or past you. [...]



Oooo that's a good catch. I like the fiction of it too; grab that retreating bandit by the collar and he ain't goin' nowhere.

---



kapars said:


> The save to escape the grapple happens at the end of the monsters turn. That means if you grapple successfully they cannot move for at least one turn and can attack only you without suffering disadvantage. If they do make the save you still have the opportunity to grapple again in the same spot. I think this makes it a powerful tanking ability.



It's a decent tanking ability, arguably better for tanking than the current rules--since grapple+shove is less action efficient, and dragging monsters away from allies only works against monsters without a ranged attack--but it's not a terribly powerful tanking ability. It doesn't make the grappler any tankier--which grapple+shove does do--and it doesn't make the target waste actions (e.g. attacks on the grappler) to escape. The bigger downside, though, is that, because it's harder to maintain a grapple, the new rules are less useful for forced movement, which is, currently, the main benefit of using grappling.


----------



## UngeheuerLich

Now it is not possible to make a dedicated grapple build, but grapple is now better integrated in the rules.
Seems like a good thing to me.

The only thing I am not totally content with is how you initialize a grapple. I don't have a better idea that still is so smooth.
Maybe you can just grab and the enemy has to make a dex or str saving throw to get out of your grab immediately.
And you decide what you do before you you make the unarmed attack. Same for shove?

I wonder if passive perception will now just be 8+wis+prof bonus.


----------



## DND_Reborn

dave2008 said:


> Why didn't you tell him about the feat?



He already knows about it, but it is lame, we were hoping it would be something they might consider fixing.


----------



## dave2008

DND_Reborn said:


> He already knows about it, but it is lame, we were hoping it would be something they might consider fixing.



Interesting. It makes some sense to me.  Anyone can grapple, but being able to restrain someone takes some training.  Why is that "lame" in your view?


----------



## Ruin Explorer

squibbles said:


> Well, as you called out in your first post, rogues and bards (and PCs with the skill expert feat) can get expertise, which makes the skill check math substantially more favorable to a PC than a save or attack roll. After that, you can have a friend cast the 2nd level spell Enhance Ability (Bull's Strength), or cast it yourself, to get advantage on strength checks. That simple combo gets better and better, relative to monsters, as a PC gains levels, since proficiency bonus scales and monsters, generally, get only marginally better at athletics checks due to strength increases (dex tends to be lower than str). Another 2nd level spell Enlarge/Reduce, helps substantially with the size restrictions. Those are most of the tools you need to grapple reliably (for more thorough info, see treantmonk's vid on it).
> 
> It's easy, with just a little set up, and without sacrificing very much in other areas, to build a PC that can pretty reliably, for example, grab an iron golem, shove it on its face (so it has disadvantage on _all _attacks), and give it nuggies while the rest of the party beats on it with advantage on their attacks (from prone).
> 
> The new rules have a DC that is _only_ as good as a caster, but the current rules' contested roll is potentially much harder for a monster to beat than caster DC.
> 
> 
> Unless you're a monk, you have to decide before the attack hits that you're going to make an unarmed strike--which is probably not what you were going to do otherwise.
> 
> 
> Shove uses "one of your attacks" just like grapple does.
> 
> But ya, the PC needs to be built to have two attacks, expertise in athletics, and, ideally, a source of advantage, to get the most out of grappling. A player that doesn't know the full combo running a PC that isn't built to do grapples isn't going to find them useful. And it isn't intuitive how to set up for the combo or why it's good--since most players haven't read all the monster statblocks and learned that most of them suck at skill checks, and most player's don't immediately grok that bards are gonna be better at wrestling than barbarians.
> 
> Grapples are a rule that rewards system mastery. I therefore understand why this change is being made--but I don't particularly like the changes because they make it harder to use grappling in a fun and high impact way.
> 
> A decently strong combo, that can be used at will, and that synergizes massively with battlefield control (i.e. cheese grater that troll back and forth across the spike growth for fun and profit) might be getting replaced with a 'give an enemy disadvantage on attacks against targets other than you' effect. It's not terrible, but it needs more cowbell.
> 
> 
> That's a good point. If they make the grappler feat strong and/or interesting, I might change my mind about the new rules--something like an option to grapple after hitting with a normal weapon attack _or _enemies save against your grapples with disadvantage.
> 
> ---
> 
> 
> I strongly agree with the bolded (emphasis mine) line of your post. It is the main issue. There need to be a robust set of player options that make save DCs against grappling harder. Admittedly, there are also a ton of features which impose disadvantage (or other modifications) on saves, but they are _always _more limited since they work with spells; there's no class feature that lets you double the proficiency bonus in your spell DC calculation.
> 
> But, that said, I don't hate the new rules. They make grapples work more like the game's other features do (like _spells_, for better or worse). And they are more intuitive; the 20 str bruisers you'd think would be good at grappling will now be the best at grappling.
> 
> The new rules just need more cowbell for them to work as reliable, functional, forced movement.
> 
> ---
> 
> 
> Oooo that's a good catch. I like the fiction of it too; grab that retreating bandit by the collar and he ain't goin' nowhere.
> 
> ---
> 
> 
> It's a decent tanking ability, arguably better for tanking than the current rules--since grapple+shove is less action efficient, and dragging monsters away from allies only works against monsters without a ranged attack--but it's not a terribly powerful tanking ability. It doesn't make the grappler any tankier--which grapple+shove does do--and it doesn't make the target waste actions (e.g. attacks on the grappler) to escape. The bigger downside, though, is that, because it's harder to maintain a grapple, the new rules are less useful for forced movement, which is, currently, the main benefit of using grappling.



Another way that made grapples extremely effective was Warlock + Barbarian. Warlock uses Hex to give disadvantage on STR checks, Barbarian gets advantage on STR checks whilst raging. Tons of monsters got dragged to bad places that way.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

UngeheuerLich said:


> Now it is not possible to make a dedicated grapple build, but grapple is now better integrated in the rules.
> Seems like a good thing to me.
> 
> The only thing I am not totally content with is how you initialize a grapple. I don't have a better idea that still is so smooth.
> Maybe you can just grab and the enemy has to make a dex or str saving throw to get out of your grab immediately.
> And you decide what you do before you you make the unarmed attack. Same for shove?
> 
> I wonder if passive perception will now just be 8+wis+prof bonus.



Why is having fewer real build and combat tactics options better? That seems perverse.


----------



## jgsugden

What concerns me is that when you grapple someone, the only ways for them to be freed before the end of their next turn is for you to be incapacitated, or for them to be force moved out of your grapple's range.  Other than that, the target is locked down.

This can be a nasty way to lock down a powerful melee force for a couple rounds of combat by using a fairly minor ally.  If you're a PC, that may be a summons.  If you're a bad guy it could be a CR 1/2 toss in during a high level encounter.

Not being able to break the grapple through trying to escape can lock PCs out of the main combat.  It can keep powerful bruisers totally away from the PCs.  

I think they really need to reintroduce a way for PCs to sacrifice an attack in order to break a grapple during their turn.


----------



## Yaarel

I like grappling as a normal attack roll.

Grappling should work on any size. If a Medium grapples a Tiny, it means grabbing tight in ones grip. If a Medium grapples a Gargantuan, it means successfully riding a dinosaur.

The size has more to do with who controls the direction of movement. But the grappling itself - in the sense of holding on - works either way regardless of size.


----------



## Yaarel

jgsugden said:


> What concerns me is that when you grapple someone, the only ways for them to be freed before the end of their next turn is for you to be incapacitated, or for them to be force moved out of your grapple's range.  Other than that, the target is locked down.
> 
> This can be a nasty way to lock down a powerful melee force for a couple rounds of combat by using a fairly minor ally.  If you're a PC, that may be a summons.  If you're a bad guy it could be a CR 1/2 toss in during a high level encounter.
> 
> Not being able to break the grapple through trying to escape can lock PCs out of the main combat.  It can keep powerful bruisers totally away from the PCs.
> 
> I think they really need to reintroduce a way for PCs to sacrifice an attack in order to break a grapple during their turn.



Maybe grappled condition denies reaction, but a bonus action can attempt to break free, so the action can reverse the hold?


----------



## UngeheuerLich

Ruin Explorer said:


> Why is having fewer real build and combat tactics options better? That seems perverse.



I think perverse is a nice word... but hey...

I think a grappler build is close to be an exploit, as enemies even like giants have a very low bonus compared to PCs.

I think the newer version opens it up for more normal characters.
Actually always when I hear about "builds" instead of characters, I know that it is not what I want at my table.

That does not mean, that you can build a character that focusses on a game aspect, but it is the character, which is important, not a "build". I think looking at the game in this way is "perverse" if I use your words here.
But that is only my point of view and I would not use that kind of words. If you like the game that way. Play that way.
I don't particularily like it.


----------



## DND_Reborn

dave2008 said:


> Interesting. It makes some sense to me.  Anyone can grapple, but being able to restrain someone takes some training.  Why is that "lame" in your view?



For reference:









1. Its a feat. Although most games use feats, not all do. I agree being able to restrain should require some training, but a feat? _shrug_ You are already using a second attack to progress from grappled to restrained, that should be sufficient. Now, if you grapple and attempt to restrain, but fail, then perhaps the creature escapes automatically or at the very least allow advantage on the next escape attempt.

2. If you restrain a creature, _you are also restrained_. Which means your speed is also 0, so you can't move the creature. Your speed should not be reduced as it is already half when attempting to move grappled creatures.

3. The Restrained Condition is weak. A restrained creature should not be able to take any actions _other_ than trying to escape being restrained. What is Restrained should be more of a Grappled Condition (at least the new playtest material is heading in the correct direction in that respect...), but with half speed instead of 0 speed.

4. It deals _no_ damage. If you want to deal damage, you also need to take the Fighting Style... The feat should make your grapple deal 1d4+STR mod damage IMO.


----------



## DND_Reborn

Ruin Explorer said:


> Another way that made grapples extremely effective was Warlock + Barbarian. Warlock uses Hex to give disadvantage on STR checks, Barbarian gets advantage on STR checks whilst raging. Tons of monsters got dragged to bad places that way.



Except you can't do it. You can't maintain concentration on Hex when raging, so as soon as you Rage the spell ends, so no disadvantage on the STR checks.

Now, if you mean two separate PCs working together for it, then sure, but it seems like you meant one PC. If not, my mistake.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

UngeheuerLich said:


> I think perverse is a nice word... but hey...
> 
> I think a grappler build is close to be an exploit, as enemies even like giants have a very low bonus compared to PCs.
> 
> I think the newer version opens it up for more normal characters.
> Actually always when I hear about "builds" instead of characters, I know that it is not what I want at my table.
> 
> That does not mean, that you can build a character that focusses on a game aspect, but it is the character, which is important, not a "build". I think looking at the game in this way is "perverse" if I use your words here.
> But that is only my point of view and I would not use that kind of words. If you like the game that way. Play that way.
> I don't particularily like it.



I mean logically perverse, not as a value judgement. I.e. the opposite of good design.

And you honestly need to explain the claim re opening up options. If anything this odes the opposite. It also means tons of stuff which currently supports grappling is now next to useless.


----------



## DND_Reborn

jgsugden said:


> I think they really need to reintroduce a way for PCs to sacrifice an attack in order to break a grapple during their turn.



This is a good point. If you can use an attack to grapple, you should be able to use a single attack to escape instead of your entire Action.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

DND_Reborn said:


> Except you can't do it. You can't maintain concentration on Hex when raging, so as soon as you Rage the spell ends, so no disadvantage on the STR checks.
> 
> Now, if you mean two separate PCs working together for it, then sure, but it seems like you meant one PC. If not, my mistake.



I mean two separate PCs. There are very few MCs in any game I play in or DM. In fact only two I can think of our of over twenty characters.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

DND_Reborn said:


> This is a good point. If you can use an attack to grapple, you should be able to use a single attack to escape instead of your entire Action.



That seems like symmetry for the sake of symmetry rather than for a genuine balance or game design reason.


----------



## DEFCON 1

One thing that popped into my head when I read the the new Grappling rules that removed the use of the Ability Check and instead went to the Attack roll... was whether they are going to apply the same design motifs towards illusion spells?  Will they remove the Ability Check (INT Investigation) to disbelieve and instead put it back onto a Saving Throw (INT) like it probably should have been all along (thereby making Intelligence Saves something that can actually happen?)

It always seemed a bit odd that a combat activity like Grappling used an Ability Check rather than an Attack roll... just like recovering from a spell used an Ability Check rather than a Saving Throw.  These were like the two oddities in a sea of standardized d20 Tests.


----------



## DND_Reborn

Ruin Explorer said:


> That seems like symmetry for the sake of symmetry rather than for a genuine balance or game design reason.



Not so much symmetry, but "fairness".

Two fighters with Extra Attack are fighting. The first grapples, then attacks. The second has to use their entire Action (effectively losing an attack) to try to break out.

Now, if it was an attack to escape, if the first attempt failed the grappled fighter could try again. If it succeeds, they could grapple themselves or make an attack.


----------



## UngeheuerLich

Ruin Explorer said:


> I mean logically perverse, not as a value judgement. I.e. the opposite of good design.
> 
> And you honestly need to explain the claim re opening up options. If anything this odes the opposite. It also means tons of stuff which currently supports grappling is now next to useless.




It is a design choice.
I like grappling more integrated and not something, a specialist uses to exploit a system weakness.
I don't oppose system support for a grappler build at all. But it should not rely on expertise and cutting words.

Instead: give us a good grappler feat that works with the newer rules.


----------



## Weiley31

I maybe insane, but I like the idea of Grapple being auto like it is with the new rules, but then the rolls to escape it follow the contested rules format of the current 5E rules.


----------



## Yaarel

I feel grappling is an "attack", not a skill check. I like this aspect of making it an unarmed strike.

The combination of effect choices also helps me make sense of why unarmed might not be a kind of "weapon".


----------



## Yaarel

DND_Reborn said:


> For reference:
> 
> View attachment 258578
> View attachment 258579
> 
> 1. Its a feat. Although most games use feats, not all do. I agree being able to restrain should require some training, but a feat? _shrug_ You are already using a second attack to progress from grappled to restrained, that should be sufficient. Now, if you grapple and attempt to restrain, but fail, then perhaps the creature escapes automatically or at the very least allow advantage on the next escape attempt.
> 
> 2. If you restrain a creature, _you are also restrained_. Which means your speed is also 0, so you can't move the creature. Your speed should not be reduced as it is already half when attempting to move grappled creatures.
> 
> 3. The Restrained Condition is weak. A restrained creature should not be able to take any actions _other_ than trying to escape being restrained. What is Restrained should be more of a Grappled Condition (at least the new playtest material is heading in the correct direction in that respect...), but with half speed instead of 0 speed.
> 
> 4. It deals _no_ damage. If you want to deal damage, you also need to take the Fighting Style... The feat should make your grapple deal 1d4+STR mod damage IMO.



Technically, in my mind, "close-quarters" combat means "within 30 feet" and synonymous with "close", "near", and within a move or a throw.

For grappling, I  would use range terms like "adjacent", "melee", arms reach, and hand-to-hand.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

UngeheuerLich said:


> I don't oppose system support for a grappler build at all. But it should not rely on expertise and cutting words.



It doesn't. I already showed two ways to do grappling well that are simply using base class abilities. People are pretending the most extreme case is the only build that grapples well and it's extremely silly. Might as well claim Battlemasters are the only Fighter capable of competitive DPS or something.


UngeheuerLich said:


> Instead: give us a good grappler feat that works with the newer rules.



No.

We shouldn't have to rely on Feats for stuff currently built into various classes.

Also, making the a tactical option crap-by-default, then forcing you to spec into a Feat to make it work even "okay" is absolutely terrible game design, and it was one of the most major flaws of 3.XE. 5E almost completely corrected it, so going back to 3.XE design here would be truly awful.


----------



## Yaarel

DND_Reborn said:


> For reference:
> 
> View attachment 258578
> View attachment 258579
> 
> 1. Its a feat. Although most games use feats, not all do. I agree being able to restrain should require some training, but a feat? _shrug_ You are already using a second attack to progress from grappled to restrained, that should be sufficient. Now, if you grapple and attempt to restrain, but fail, then perhaps the creature escapes automatically or at the very least allow advantage on the next escape attempt.
> 
> 2. If you restrain a creature, _you are also restrained_. Which means your speed is also 0, so you can't move the creature. Your speed should not be reduced as it is already half when attempting to move grappled creatures.
> 
> 3. The Restrained Condition is weak. A restrained creature should not be able to take any actions _other_ than trying to escape being restrained. What is Restrained should be more of a Grappled Condition (at least the new playtest material is heading in the correct direction in that respect...), but with half speed instead of 0 speed.
> 
> 4. It deals _no_ damage. If you want to deal damage, you also need to take the Fighting Style... The feat should make your grapple deal 1d4+STR mod damage IMO.



I like the Restrained condition here.

It is hard for me to evaluate whether Grappler merits a feat, but I think so. Grappling is potentially effective to deactivate a target, while mates focus fire.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

DND_Reborn said:


> Not so much symmetry, but "fairness".
> 
> Two fighters with Extra Attack are fighting. The first grapples, then attacks. The second has to use their entire Action (effectively losing an attack) to try to break out.
> 
> Now, if it was an attack to escape, if the first attempt failed the grappled fighter could try again. If it succeeds, they could grapple themselves or make an attack.



Thinking Fighter on Fighter is extremely silly nonsense.

D&D 5E isn't designed a game that's about "Fair PvP", which is your starting point and why your ideas aren't helping you understand the issue here.

Think PC on monster, or monster on PC, because that is 99.9999% of cases. Monsters often don't have "attacks" in that sense to even expend. It's not a "standard unit" of action currency. The suggestion one person had of Bonus Action was better, but far too cheap.

And no, the second one doesn't have to do that. They could equally easily just Shove the PC with their first attack, which will break the Grapple. And they don't need to break the enemy Grapple to Grapple the enemy themselves, not sure why you're suggesting that, doesn't make any sense.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Yaarel said:


> I like the Restrained condition here.
> 
> It is hard for me to evaluate whether Grappler merits a feat, but I think so. Grappling is potentially effective to deactivate a target, while mates focus fire.



It's incredibly bad, and it's extremely easy to evaluate that it's bad. It makes the PC as vulnerable to focus fire as the target, and makes the PC completely useless, turning their DPR to 0. Casters can get the same effect from level 2/3 spells whilst having full DPR outside the round they cast the spell, rather than 0 DPR for as long as they hold it.


----------



## Yaarel

Ruin Explorer said:


> We shouldn't have to rely on Feats for stuff currently built into various classes.
> 
> Also, making the a tactical option crap-by-default, then forcing you to spec into a Feat to make it work even "okay" is absolutely terrible game design.



Strongly agree. Unarmed is perhaps the most instinctive form of human combat. Despite it also benefiting from training and experience.

A typical human should be able to grapple effectively, ... to some degree.


----------



## Yaarel

Ruin Explorer said:


> It's incredibly bad, and it's extremely easy to evaluate that it's bad. It makes the PC as vulnerable to focus fire as the target, and makes the PC completely useless, turning their DPR to 0. Casters can get the same effect from level 2/3 spells whilst having full DPR outside the round they cast the spell, rather than 0 DPR for as long as they hold it.



As I read it, the feat grants advantage to grappling attacks thus neutralizing the disadvantage. Meanwhile, increasing vulnerability to attacks from hostiles, might be fair considering being tied up at the moment.

Perhaps the grappler benefits from cover if using the target as a human shield?


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Yaarel said:


> Strongly agree. Unarmed is perhaps the most instinctive form of human combat. Despite it also benefiting from training and experience.
> 
> A typical human should be able to grapple effectively, ... to some degree.



And a PC, particularly a Fighter/Paladin/Monk/Ranger/Rogue/etc. is not a "typical human", they're considerably more trained, experienced, and competent. So they should be actually good at it, at least potentially.

Here there is absolutely nothing to ever make you better at it. Ever. If you're very lucky you'll keep pace with monster saving throws for a while, then you'll lose ground as monster saves go up but your STR is stuck at 20.

If they redesign class features they could fix this issue, but they will need to actually do that. Like Barbarians currently get Advantage on STR checks whilst Raging - with this redesign to grappling they should also probably cause people to save with Disadvantage against their grapples whilst Raging (there are other ways to do this, mechanically, just one suggestion - but I think it is the most simple).


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Yaarel said:


> As I read it, the feat grants advantage to grappling attacks thus neutralizing the disadvantage. Meanwhile, increasing vulnerability to attacks from hostiles, might be fair considering being tied up at the moment.
> 
> Perhaps the grappler benefits from cover if using the target as a human shield?



It's still completely terrible.

You're spending a Feat, in order to act like a level 2 spell (assuming the new Grapple rules), but also be completely vulnerable and doing 0 DPR.

There's no minor modification of the Feat that is going to make it anything but a total disaster that shows a massive disparity between non-casters and casters. You become a much worse human version of "Hold Person". Whereas the Level 3 Cleric can simply cast Hold Person, or whatever.


----------



## UngeheuerLich

Ruin Explorer said:


> It doesn't. I already showed two ways to do grappling well that are simply using base class abilities. People are pretending the most extreme case is the only build that grapples well and it's extremely silly. Might as well claim Battlemasters are the only Fighter capable of competitive DPS or something.
> 
> No.
> 
> We shouldn't have to rely on Feats for stuff currently built into various classes.
> 
> Also, making the a tactical option crap-by-default, then forcing you to spec into a Feat to make it work even "okay" is absolutely terrible game design, and it was one of the most major flaws of 3.XE. 5E almost completely corrected it, so going back to 3.XE design here would be truly awful.




I respectfully disagree.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

UngeheuerLich said:


> I respectfully disagree.



With what? The last bit?

So you think it's good design to design baseline tactical options that are terrible/ineffective and then force people to take Feats if they want to make them work at an acceptable level? Then perhaps other Feats to make them work "well"? And this is a special thing only Martial characters have to deal with - you also think that's fine?


----------



## UngeheuerLich

Ruin Explorer said:


> With what? The last bit?
> 
> So you think it's good design to design baseline tactical options that are terrible/ineffective and then force people to take Feats if they want to make them work at an acceptable level? Then perhaps other Feats to make them work "well"? And this is a special thing only Martial characters have to deal with - you also think that's fine?



Everything you wrote.*

*I think you Idea of good and varied game design is not compatible with mine.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

UngeheuerLich said:


> Everything you wrote.*
> 
> *I think you Idea of good and varied gane design is not compatible with mine.



Sure, so you do think that about Feats, it seems. Wild. We spent two editions getting away from that terrible bit of design, and games since have learned form 3.XE/PF1 not to do that (including PF2), but there we go.


----------



## UngeheuerLich

Ruin Explorer said:


> Sure, so you do think that about Feats, it seems. Wild. We spent two editions getting away from that terrible bit of design, and games since have learned form 3.XE/PF1 not to do that (including PF2), but there we go.




Only because it was terrible before does not mean the current solution is perfect.

5e already has 2 feats that should help grapplers. Sadly they are bad.

The current design with opposed skill checks is also terrible, and clunky and completely imbalanced, considering that giants have athletic bonuses of +6 or so, while a player can have +17, advantage and some extra dXs while the enemy vould have - dX.
This is actually something I wanted to get rid of way more in the last 2 editions than feats:
Stupid builds, that you created because you saw a hole in the rules. Same goes for multiclassing warlock hexblades, which somehow always fits into one's character story...

I don't saythe attack vs AC is perfect. I'd prefer an initial saving throw vs something derived from strength (at least for now), but everything is better than using a system for resolving combats that is not made for it.


----------



## dave2008

DND_Reborn said:


> For reference:
> 
> View attachment 258578
> View attachment 258579
> 
> 1. Its a feat. Although most games use feats, not all do. I agree being able to restrain should require some training, but a feat? _shrug_ You are already using a second attack to progress from grappled to restrained, that should be sufficient. Now, if you grapple and attempt to restrain, but fail, then perhaps the creature escapes automatically or at the very least allow advantage on the next escape attempt.
> 
> 2. If you restrain a creature, _you are also restrained_. Which means your speed is also 0, so you can't move the creature. Your speed should not be reduced as it is already half when attempting to move grappled creatures.
> 
> 3. The Restrained Condition is weak. A restrained creature should not be able to take any actions _other_ than trying to escape being restrained. What is Restrained should be more of a Grappled Condition (at least the new playtest material is heading in the correct direction in that respect...), but with half speed instead of 0 speed.
> 
> 4. It deals _no_ damage. If you want to deal damage, you also need to take the Fighting Style... The feat should make your grapple deal 1d4+STR mod damage IMO.



OK, so your issue is the feat is poorly designed (and a bit redundant - why do I need to restrain when the feat already gives advantage). That is a different issue.  I think a feat seems appropriate, but I could also see it as part of a fighting style. My only point being I think the idea that it is not free makes sense.

However, didn't you already break everything down to half feats?


----------



## dave2008

Ruin Explorer said:


> It doesn't. I already showed two ways to do grappling well that are simply using base class abilities. People are pretending the most extreme case is the only build that grapples well and it's extremely silly. Might as well claim Battlemasters are the only Fighter capable of competitive DPS or something.
> 
> No.
> 
> We shouldn't have to rely on Feats for stuff currently built into various classes.
> 
> Also, making the a tactical option crap-by-default, then forcing you to spec into a Feat to make it work even "okay" is absolutely terrible game design, and it was one of the most major flaws of 3.XE. 5E almost completely corrected it, so going back to 3.XE design here would be truly awful.



I gotta disagree here. I think a general grappling rule is fine, but then class features (like a fighting style) or feats to make it better make perfect sense to me.  Anyone can try to grab and grapple someone, but only someone trained  (feat, fighting style, etc.) can effectively do additional things.  What seems wrong to you about that approach?


----------



## DND_Reborn

Ruin Explorer said:


> Thinking Fighter on Fighter is *extremely silly nonsense.*



Don't be rude, please and thank you. Such a response encourages me to not bother continuing the discussion.



Ruin Explorer said:


> D&D 5E isn't designed a game that's about "Fair PvP", which is your starting point and why your ideas aren't helping you understand the issue here.
> 
> Think PC on monster, or monster on PC, because that is 99.9999% of cases. Monsters often don't have "attacks" in that sense to even expend. It's not a "standard unit" of action currency.



Fine, PC vs. "monster" if it makes you happy. Plenty of monsters get multiattack, where an attack could be used to break free. Even a bite attack or something could be used to break free of a grapple.



Ruin Explorer said:


> And no, the second one doesn't have to do that. They could equally easily just Shove the PC with their first attack, which will break the Grapple. And they don't need to break the enemy Grapple to Grapple the enemy themselves, not sure why you're suggesting that, doesn't make any sense.



Or you could just as easily have them be allowed to escape the grapple with an attack instead of shoving. Shoving is a STR (Athletics) check, so those DEX-monsters would not be able to escape easily, even though wiggling free is a very viable alternative.



Yaarel said:


> A typical human should be able to grapple effectively, ... to some degree.



Provided a base level of training, sure.

But lots of people are very ineffective at grappling (which reduces the target's speed to 0). It is one reason why Unarmed Strike should still be a simple weapon proficiency, not just allow everyone to have it. Do you understand how many people really don't know how to throw a punch properly??? Wizards and Sorcerers are the only two classes without Simple weapons, so they should not be proficient in Unarmed Strikes, either.



dave2008 said:


> However, didn't you already break everything down to half feats?



We've done both, making all feats half feats but also making all feats ASI +1 feats.

As for the current feat, making it so you can restrain the target but you are NOT also restrained would go a good way towards making it better. Add in 1d4 base damage, and you have a decently solid feat IMO.

Making things part of the Fighting Style would be better than having it as a feat IMO.


----------



## Simpletense

I'm not sure if I'm reading this correctly but can the grappled creature not just attack the grappler with an unarmed strike (no disadvantage), and on a success choose to shove rather than deal damage, thereby moving the grappler 5ft and (assuming standard reach etc) breaking the grapple by moving themselves out of grapple range without using speed?


----------



## Ruin Explorer

dave2008 said:


> I gotta disagree here. I think a general grappling rule is fine, but then class features (like a fighting style) or feats to make it better make perfect sense to me.  Anyone can try to grab and grapple someone, but only someone trained  (feat, fighting style, etc.) can effectively do additional things.  What seems wrong to you about that approach?



Because if a tactical option doesn't work well without investing _specifically_ in it, it's not a real tactical option, it's just a trap for players who don't understand the mechanics properly. It thus shouldn't be presented as a tactical option.

3.XE/PF1 are absolutely full of this, as were some other games of that design era. Tons of things you can do, but you'll be absolutely awful at them unless you go buy the Feats designed specifically to support them.

5E's design so far is directly opposed to this. 5E does not present tactical options that don't work well without specific investment. You don't need a Grapple feat to make Grappling work well. Proficiency in Athletics + a good STR makes it work basically better than this, and anything which gives you Advantage on STR checks, or gives the enemy Disadvantage on STR (or DEX, depending) checks is a big bonus. You don't need weird bollocks like Expertise in Athletics or anything, that's for freaks.

Anyway, point is, top-to-bottom, 5E's design opposes 3E's design here. Changing this so it sucked unless you bought a SPECIFIC Feat, or a SPECIFIC Fighting Style, would be very bad. Class features and spells that you get as default? That's less of a problem. But we don't this game to turn into 3E, where you have to pay the Feat tax constantly. That would be bad.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

DND_Reborn said:


> Fine, PC vs. "monster" if it makes you happy. Plenty of monsters get multiattack, where an attack could be used to break free. Even a bite attack or something could be used to break free of a grapple.



An attack is still a non-standard unit of currency. You're trying to pay for something in Bitcoins at the corner shop. KISS frankly. Don't make people try and work out attack costs.

Plus, monsters, as you accidentally point out, fairly often have tons more attacks than PCs, so would be able to trivially break Grapples on their turn, which does not, to me, seem right, when almost no PCs have more than 2 Attacks/round with their Action (mainly Fighters above level 11, and hardly anyone is even playing above level 11, let alone playing a Fighter specifically).

Your whole idea here seems to be "I want Grappling to be totally ineffective and useless, and instantly broken by monsters". I mean, really? Is that not what you're thinking. Every single thing you've said has been laser-focused on demanding Grapples be allowed to be broken as trivially as possible.


----------



## DND_Reborn

Simpletense said:


> I'm not sure if I'm reading this correctly but can the grappled creature not just attack the grappler with an unarmed strike (no disadvantage), and on a success choose to shove rather than deal damage, thereby moving the grappler 5ft and (assuming standard reach etc) breaking the grapple by moving themselves out of grapple range without using speed?



Yes, then can.

But that is only really a good option if you have a good Strength (Athletics) bonus. A lot of creatures don't, so allowing them to make a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check instead to wiggle free instead of an attack makes sense. You used an attack to grapple, you should be able to use an attack to escape without having to Shove. Non-strong creatures shouldn't be forced to use their entire action to escape IMO.



Ruin Explorer said:


> KISS frankly. Don't make people try and work out attack costs.



It is very simple. Attack to grapple, attack to escape. Easy. Not difficult at all.



Ruin Explorer said:


> Plus, monsters, as you accidentally point out, fairly often have tons more attacks than PCs, so would be able to trivially break Grapples on their turn, which does not, to me, seem right, when almost no PCs have more than 2 Attacks/round with their Action (mainly Fighters above level 11, and hardly anyone is even playing above level 11, let alone playing a Fighter specifically).



Not really. Most monsters get 1 or 2 attacks, just like most PCs who might try to grapple.

Breaking a grapple wouldn't be _trivially _easy, either. It would be the same chance as if you used the entire action, but allow such opponents (monster and PC alike!) to be able to still make an attack (or two at most in the _vast_ majority of cases!) after escaping.



Ruin Explorer said:


> Your whole idea here seems to be "I want Grappling to be totally ineffective and useless, and instantly broken by monsters". I mean, really? Is that not what you're thinking. Every single thing you've said has been laser-focused on demanding Grapples be allowed to be broken as trivially as possible.



It is easy to grapple, it should be easy to escape. Make grappling an Action, not just in place of an attack, and then you can keep escaping in the same action economy level.


----------



## dave2008

Ruin Explorer said:


> Because if a tactical option doesn't work well without investing _specifically_ in it, it's not a real tactical option, it's just a trap for players who don't understand the mechanics properly. It thus shouldn't be presented as a tactical option.



I don't need it to be a tactical option as the base. Just an option. People can grapple, so it should be an option. It is rarely a good option if you are not good (ie trained) at it. 

Conversely, to meet your criteria, the could make the base grapple better and then still have feats to make it even better.  Is that what you are thinking?

Personally, I don't want a grapple to generally be an equivalent option to hitting with a sword.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

DND_Reborn said:


> It is easy to grapple, it should be easy to escape. Make grappling an Action, not just in place of an attack, and then you can keep escaping in the same action economy level.



This fails to holistically understand how grappling works, and that it exposes the grappler to risk as well as the person being grappled. You're just suggesting symmetry for the sake of symmetry, there's no actual logical rules-argument there. It taking a hand alone is a huge thing (no shields, no 2H weapons, no dual-wield, no casting, etc. etc. etc. - you don't seem to realize this, you seem to think it's cost-free beyond the attack to start it), as is being in melee, as is inflicting the Slowed condition on the grappler whilst they're moving.

It shouldn't be utterly trivial for some size S or M monster who doesn't have any special abilities at all related to escaping grapples (or the like) to escape grapples, but you're proposing a scenario where it is.

Part of why I care, to be clear, is that I've seen grapples used very intelligently and tactically in 5E, on both sides of the table. This makes grapples so easy to break and so impossible to improve that they're pretty silly and the Slowed condition means tons of new risk for the grappler. We don't need both that and trivializing breaking grapples - which are already much easier because of the save.

I mean, you complain about action-economy, and totally ignore that you get to break out for FREE now? Come on.


dave2008 said:


> Conversely, to meet your criteria, the could make the base grapple better and then still have feats to make it even better. Is that what you are thinking?



Yes. Otherwise do not include it as a base option. It's just a trap for less-savvy players who do not realize how bad it is. Again, this was a core problem with 3E, that 5E _intentionally_ got rid of.


dave2008 said:


> Personally, I don't want a grapple to generally be an equivalent option to hitting with a sword.



It'll never be that - see my explanation to DND_Reborn above. You put tons of disadvantages on yourself by grappling, and limit your own options. That's not "equivalent to hitting with a sword". Also you give up your damage for that attack.


----------



## DND_Reborn

dave2008 said:


> Conversely, to meet your criteria, the could make the base grapple better and then still have feats to make it even better. Is that what you are thinking?



Grappling should be a viable _tactical_ option since IRL people grapple a lot, even if they have weapons available.

Another thing we do is make Unarmed Strikes/Grapple/Shove a "light" weapon so you can use it with TWF. This is very cinematic as well and we see it all the time when someone blocks with a weapon and then punches, headbutts, or trips their opponent.



dave2008 said:


> ersonally, I don't want a grapple to generally be an equivalent option to hitting with a sword.



On a purely damage level not unless there was a heavy investment (Fighting Style, feats, etc.).

Grappling should be used for locking down, moving, restricting, etc. and possibly do _some_ damage, but not generally on level with weapon damage.



Ruin Explorer said:


> This fails to holistically understand how grappling works, and that it exposes the grappler to risk as well as the person being grappled. You're just suggesting symmetry for the sake of symmetry, there's no actual logical rules-argument there. It taking a hand alone is a huge thing (no shields, no 2H weapons, no dual-wield, no casting, etc. etc. etc. - you don't seem to realize this, you seem to think it's cost-free beyond the attack to start it), as is being in melee, as is inflicting the Slowed condition on the grappler whilst they're moving.



It doesn't expose the grappler to any risk. For one thing, anyone making an unarmed strike/grapple/shove against a weapon-holding opponent should face an OA before being able to get close enough to grapple, etc. unless they have special training to remove that restriction, but they don't face an OA.



Ruin Explorer said:


> It shouldn't be *utterly trivial *for some size S or M monster who doesn't have any special abilities at all related to escaping grapples (or the like) to escape grapples, but you're proposing a scenario where it is.



Again, that word "trivial"...   

What makes you think it would be trivial? Just because you can use an attack to escape a grapple doesn't mean it will be easy.... You seem to keep thinking that and I have no clue as to why...

Anyway, I feel like we are either talking past each other or never going to agree, so I see little point in continuing, do you?


----------



## Chaosmancer

squibbles said:


> Well, as you called out in your first post, rogues and bards (and PCs with the skill expert feat) can get expertise, which makes the skill check math substantially more favorable to a PC than a save or attack roll. After that, you can have a friend cast the 2nd level spell Enhance Ability (Bull's Strength), or cast it yourself, to get advantage on strength checks. That simple combo gets better and better, relative to monsters, as a PC gains levels, since proficiency bonus scales and monsters, generally, get only marginally better at athletics checks due to strength increases (dex tends to be lower than str). Another 2nd level spell Enlarge/Reduce, helps substantially with the size restrictions. Those are most of the tools you need to grapple reliably (for more thorough info, see treantmonk's vid on it).
> 
> It's easy, with just a little set up, and without sacrificing very much in other areas, to build a PC that can pretty reliably, for example, grab an iron golem, shove it on its face (so it has disadvantage on _all _attacks), and give it nuggies while the rest of the party beats on it with advantage on their attacks (from prone).
> 
> The new rules have a DC that is _only_ as good as a caster, but the current rules' contested roll is potentially much harder for a monster to beat than caster DC.




Okay, but I also pointed out that many people saw Bards and Rogues being the absolute best grapplers in the game as a problem. They don't have the iconic fantasy roll of being the person who manhandles the massive ogre or golem. Yes, expertise allowed you to be a better grappler, but it also wrecked the fantasy unless you had a feat investment. Fixing that is good, IMO. 

And then you get to talking about casting spells, which, fine, but at that point we can instead use the 1st level Silvery Barbs to give disadvantage on the save or have someone spamming mind sliver to give them a -1d4 on the save. What you are talking about is purely the extra optimization, and we have optimization for saving throws. 

Additionally, you no longer need Enlarge, because being large confers no benefits or penalties to grappling. Yes, things have changed, but I don't think that means we can't optimize it again. And I think it is far more useful to look at a single character grappling a single creature, rather than a single character getting to buff spells which require concentration (meaning two casters) because we can make that swing either way.



squibbles said:


> Unless you're a monk, you have to decide before the attack hits that you're going to make an unarmed strike--which is probably not what you were going to do otherwise.




Sure. However, since it is an attack, you can make an attack of oppotunity that grapples, reduces speed to zero, and grants disadvantage on attacks. The enemy gets to make the save sooner, but there is no cost here.



squibbles said:


> Shove uses "one of your attacks" just like grapple does.
> 
> But ya, the PC needs to be built to have two attacks, expertise in athletics, and, ideally, a source of advantage, to get the most out of grappling. A player that doesn't know the full combo running a PC that isn't built to do grapples isn't going to find them useful. And it isn't intuitive how to set up for the combo or why it's good--since most players haven't read all the monster statblocks and learned that most of them suck at skill checks, and most player's don't immediately grok that bards are gonna be better at wrestling than barbarians.
> 
> Grapples are a rule that rewards system mastery. I therefore understand why this change is being made--but I don't particularly like the changes because they make it harder to use grappling in a fun and high impact way.
> 
> A decently strong combo, that can be used at will, and that synergizes massively with battlefield control (i.e. cheese grater that troll back and forth across the spike growth for fun and profit) might be getting replaced with a 'give an enemy disadvantage on attacks against targets other than you' effect. It's not terrible, but it needs more cowbell.




I guess what I'm not getting is that the WORST thing is that the enemy doesn't need to use their action (which if they are as terrible compared to you they won't bother doing anyways) and they might break free at the end of their turn, in which case you can grapple again. 

I mean, I know if I was a DM and I knew you had two buff spells running and a third spell for spike growth, and you were a bard rolling 2d20+7 vs my 1d20+4, I'm just going to attack you three times instead. It would be a pointless waste of my action to try and escape. 

Now with these new rules.... I just attack you instead, because I don't need to use my action to escape. 

The only difference is that if you want to continue cheese grating the troll, it isn't free. I don't see a difference in the practical application of actions, because Grapple used to do NOTHING beyond reducing speed and allowing you to drag someone. So it wasn't penalizing the creature to remain grappled and just try to kill you instead of using an action which would be negated when you used your next action to put me back in the same position. 

This just feels more dynamic to me.



squibbles said:


> That's a good point. If they make the grappler feat strong and/or interesting, I might change my mind about the new rules--something like an option to grapple after hitting with a normal weapon attack _or _enemies save against your grapples with disadvantage.




I fully expect the grappler feat to give saves disadvantage, that design space is right there, it may also allow you to grapple and deal damage with an unarmed strike, similar to how Tavern Brawler works right now. Or maybe it gives you an option to restrain them without penalizing you quite as heavily.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

DND_Reborn said:


> It doesn't expose the grappler to any risk. For one thing, anyone making an unarmed strike/grapple/shove against a weapon-holding opponent should face an OA before being able to get close enough to grapple, etc. unless they have special training to remove that restriction, but they don't face an OA.



I demonstrated that it does.

That's cold fact. It exposes them to risk and cost beyond the attack. That is not open for debate. You can deny it and be factually in error but that's up to you.


DND_Reborn said:


> What makes you think it would be trivial? Just because you can use an attack to escape a grapple doesn't mean it will be easy.... You seem to keep thinking that and I have no clue as to why...



Yes it does, because the new saving-throw based approach makes it vastly easier to break grapples, especially considering you get a free saving throw to break the grapple every round, which you did not get before. You're demanding that, on top of the new, free escape attempt 1/round (which was the most you could have before, so you get 100% of what you had before), that they get they ALSO get to break grapples on for just 1 attack.

This isn't opinion on my part to be clear - this is how the new rules work. You've avoided mentioning the free escape attempt repeatedly.

You're demanding things become hugely easier than 5E, even though grappling is weaker already in 1D&D. That's bizarre. And you're refusing to acknowledge that you're demanding that. You keep acting like you're just asking for how it is in 5E, but in 5E it costs you an Action to even try.

So yeah, you want it to be trivial by comparison with 5E. _That's a fact_. You want it to go from costing an action to being 1/turn free, and if the free escape fails, to keep trying for 1/try per attack, which is incredibly cheap.

As for talking past each other, well, what it looks like to me is you literally don't understand the 1D&D grappling rules and possibly are approaching this from how you've houserule'd 5E's grappling rules, rather than what 5E's grappling rules actually are.


----------



## Chaosmancer

Yaarel said:


> I feel grappling is an "attack", not a skill check. I like this aspect of making it an unarmed strike.
> 
> The combination of effect choices also helps me make sense of why unarmed might not be a kind of "weapon".




Yeah, I was thinking about this. 

Normally I allowed people to make unarmed strikes as a bonus action, because it was bizarre to me that you can make two attacks if you have an empty fist and a dagger, because the dagger is so fast, but not two empty fists. But now I can imagine that an "unarmed strike" relies on a much larger and more dedicated set of movement. 

I might still allow people to do the damage stuff, but not the rest? I'm not sure where I will land on that.


----------



## Chaosmancer

Ruin Explorer said:


> No.
> 
> We shouldn't have to rely on Feats for stuff currently built into various classes.
> 
> Also, making the a tactical option crap-by-default, then forcing you to spec into a Feat to make it work even "okay" is absolutely terrible game design, and it was one of the most major flaws of 3.XE. 5E almost completely corrected it, so going back to 3.XE design here would be truly awful.




Okay, but lets be real here. The current options may not require feats, but require either specific combos or spells. Meanwhile the feats were *useless *for the people who wanted to grapple. 

If you want to talk about perverse game design, the idea that a player who wants to be a grappler, so plays a fighter and takes the grappler feat needs to be told "No, if you actually want to grapple, then play a bard, take expertise in athletics, and cast enhance person. That's how you make a good grappler" is utterly insane. 

This system is far more intuitive and works exactly like people expected grappling to work. Strong people (hopefully with the feat meant to improve it) are better at it. That's good design.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Chaosmancer said:


> Yes, things have changed, but I don't think that means we can't optimize it again.



Right now, it_ literally does _mean exactly that.

100% of 5E ways to optimize grappling were removed from the equation. Including class features clearly designed to help with grappling. Only the intentionally tiny number of things which penalize spell saves, none of them available to PCs likely to be grappling under these rules, impact it.


Chaosmancer said:


> This just feels more dynamic to me.



It's now much easier to escape from a grapple. You seem to be ignoring the massive math changes and the FREE escape attempt every single turn.

This will make using grapple tactically far harder, because monsters will constantly break it for free. The only advantage to the new way is that the monster can't use it's action then move away, because the save comes at the end of its turn. But they can still Shove or the like to do that.

Oh and look Shove is much easier for monsters to do too - it's just an attack, not a contest, so the PC cannot do anything to really make it harder.


----------



## UngeheuerLich

Ruin Explorer said:


> I demonstrated that it does.
> 
> That's cold fact. It exposes them to risk and cost beyond the attack. That is not open for debate. You can deny it and be factually in error but that's up to you.




Be careful. When I wrote this about an actual fact, some people could not stop piling on me.
But I agree, some things are facts.
Some people prefer "felt facts" .


----------



## Chaosmancer

DND_Reborn said:


> Provided a base level of training, sure.
> 
> But lots of people are very ineffective at grappling (which reduces the target's speed to 0). It is one reason why Unarmed Strike should still be a simple weapon proficiency, not just allow everyone to have it. Do you understand how many people really don't know how to throw a punch properly??? Wizards and Sorcerers are the only two classes without Simple weapons, so they should not be proficient in Unarmed Strikes, either.




I'll disagree, because wizards and sorcerers are trained in staff fighting and dagger fighting to the same degree as a fighter. No one trains someone to be effective with knives and staves without also going over how to throw a punch. Everyone has SOME combat training in DnD and that is the most basic of combat training.


----------



## Chaosmancer

Simpletense said:


> I'm not sure if I'm reading this correctly but can the grappled creature not just attack the grappler with an unarmed strike (no disadvantage), and on a success choose to shove rather than deal damage, thereby moving the grappler 5ft and (assuming standard reach etc) breaking the grapple by moving themselves out of grapple range without using speed?




That would work, yes.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Chaosmancer said:


> Okay, but lets be real here. The current options may not require feats, but require either specific combos or spells. Meanwhile the feats were *useless *for the people who wanted to grapple.



That's not "being real". The Feats are still useless as far as we know. Talking about them is a total distraction because we haven't seen if they're even 1D&D! Yes, about 30-40% of 5E's Feats were extremely badly designed and Grappler was one of them. Fix that, don't ruin grappling.


Chaosmancer said:


> If you want to talk about perverse game design, the idea that a player who wants to be a grappler, so plays a fighter and takes the grappler feat needs to be told "No, if you actually want to grapple, then play a bard, take expertise in athletics, and cast enhance person. That's how you make a good grappler" is utterly insane.



That's absolute and total hyperbole, though, as I've said. Even just having a good STR and being Proficient in Athletics makes you extremely good at grappling _in real terms_ under 5E rules. You don't need Expertise, and indeed, it's much less valuable than getting Advantage on STR (outside the sort of levels no-one plays at), which can be gained multiple ways.

What you're describing is not a problem with the grappling rules at all, but a constant issue in every edition of D&D, which is that hyperspecialized corner-case PCs often aren't the ones you'd expect. And you're moaning about something that requires significant investment (it costs the Bard to be like that) and isn't "a good grappler", is "the optimal grappler".

If you want to obsess over hyper-optimized PCs, go ahead, but building rules around them is bad design nine times out of ten.

You want to get real? Stop confusing "good" with "literally maximally optimized". You do that in the bit I quote. It's just a lie to say that's merely "good" at grappling.


----------



## TheSword

DND_Reborn said:


> This is a good point. If you can use an attack to grapple, you should be able to use a single attack to escape instead of your entire Action.



There is. If you take attack with an unarmed attack and successfully shove the foe, you can move them 5ft which will break the grapple.

Ninja’d


----------



## Chaosmancer

Ruin Explorer said:


> Right now, it_ literally does _mean exactly that.
> 
> 100% of 5E ways to optimize grappling were removed from the equation. Including class features clearly designed to help with grappling. Only the intentionally tiny number of things which penalize spell saves, none of them available to PCs likely to be grappling under these rules, impact it.




And new options were opened up. Every example so far of current optimization has included spellcasters casting spells, you can still do that with the new rules to optimize the grapple. 100% of options were removed and 100% of new options were created.



Ruin Explorer said:


> It's now much easier to escape from a grapple. You seem to be ignoring the massive math changes and the FREE escape attempt every single turn.
> 
> 
> This will make using grapple tactically far harder, because monsters will constantly break it for free. The only advantage to the new way is that the monster can't use it's action then move away, because the save comes at the end of its turn. But they can still Shove or the like to do that.
> 
> Oh and look Shove is much easier for monsters to do too - it's just an attack, not a contest, so the PC cannot do anything to really make it harder.




Maybe it seems that way because you continually ignore my posts? 

The math change is only massive IF YOU ARE TALKING EXPERTISE. 

A level 5 fighter with proficiency in Athletics is getting 1d20+3+3 for a total of +6. The level 5 fighter in this system is getting 1d20+3+3 for a +6 to hit, and their save DC is 8+3+3 for 14.  Your fighter likely has a 16 AC, using standard equipment.

Let's stop talking trolls and iron golems for a second and say that we grapple an Orc Raider. They get a +3 and have a 13 AC. 

The old way gave the fighter an opposed roll, 1d20+6 vs 1d20+3, If I understand the math correctly that gave the fighter a 62% chance of starting the grapple and maintaining it whenever the orc attempted to break out. 

The new way gives the fighter a 70% chance of initiating the grapple (they need to roll a 7 or better) and the orc only has a 50% chance of breaking free. If they decide to attack and shove instead, they would have a... 50% chance, because +5 to hit AC 16. 

So, we are 8% more likely to start the grapple, and 12% less likely to maintain it. Considering DnD works in 5% increments for things like this, it is a change, but I'm not sure it is massive. Significant sure, but the math still works in the fighters favor. 



But here is the other thing... why would the orc try and break the grapple? That's the big thing I think you are ignoring. The Orc is perfectly fine hitting the fighter instead of wasting an action to simply break free of the grapple and standing there to be grappled again, because they can't disengage so they can't move away from the fighter anyways. 

And this same logic applied to the PCs. Monsters that grappled on a hit basically just held anyone with any sense of system mastery forever, because taking your entire action to break free was never worth it. 

Let's move on to this fighter and Bard fighting a Vampire Spawn. They can grapple when they hit with their claws, escape DC 13. There is no opposed check. So, the Fighter and the bard are very likely to escape that grapple.. but it costs them their entire action, and if they move away they get an opportunity attack, which will reestablish the grapple. Or they can break free... and next turn get attacked which reestablishes the grapple. There is no benefit here to breaking the grapple instead of just hitting the enemy. 

This change means that you can potentially escape automatically at the end of your turn, which means that not only are you not tempted to make a poor tactical choice, but since you are attacking, you have a chance to use an attack to shove and break the grapple while escaping. 

The thing is, these rules cut both ways. PCs are more likely to deal with auto-grappling monsters, and monsters aren't ruined by specially built grappling builds.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Chaosmancer said:


> But here is the other thing... why would the orc try and break the grapple? That's the big thing I think you are ignoring. The Orc is perfectly fine hitting the fighter instead of wasting an action to simply break free of the grapple and standing there to be grappled again, because they can't disengage so they can't move away from the fighter anyways.



This is nonsensical.

Answer this question: Why would the _Fighter_ initiate a grapple if they didn't have a specific goal?

Until you can answer that, you have a nonsense-example, and you're just supporting my entire argument.


Chaosmancer said:


> The thing is, these rules cut both ways. PCs are more likely to deal with auto-grappling monsters, and monsters aren't ruined by specially built grappling builds.



They vastly favour monsters.

PCs no longer have any ways to scale grapple at all. But loads of monsters have stats which mean they do keep scaling against grappling, and now they get out of grapples at zero cost thanks to the save instead of an action and their multiple attacks, and the fact that Shove is now much easier.

The undeniable reality is that PCs only grapple when there's a tactical reason to do so, already. Your super-grapple Bard is just going to die horribly with his crummy AC and HP leaping into melee if he just grapples everything, and he doesn't make monsters unless in 5E, he gets pounded in the face by them until he dies. Which doesn't take long. It's all very well grabbing a demon or whatever, but it's basically the Bard handcuffing himself to a demon rather than vice-versa, and just asking to get ripped apart.

Whereas monsters often grapple PCs automatically and for free as part of an action, and often are able to do mean things to people who are grappled. They're impacted far less by this.


----------



## Chaosmancer

Ruin Explorer said:


> That's not "being real". The Feats are still useless as far as we know. Talking about them is a total distraction because we haven't seen if they're even 1D&D! Yes, about 30-40% of 5E's Feats were extremely badly designed and Grappler was one of them. Fix that, don't ruin grappling.




They fixed Tavern Brawler, and a lot of people have seen the new grappling system and thought of the exact same solutions for grappler. 

It isn't a distraction to say that they probably accounted for the feat named Grappler when overhauling the grappling system. The only question is what form that takes, and we don't know yet.



Ruin Explorer said:


> That's absolute and total hyperbole, though, as I've said. Even just having a good STR and being Proficient in Athletics makes you extremely good at grappling _in real terms_ under 5E rules. You don't need Expertise, and indeed, it's much less valuable than getting Advantage on STR (outside the sort of levels no-one plays at), which can be gained multiple ways.
> 
> What you're describing is not a problem with the grappling rules at all, but a constant issue in every edition of D&D, which is that hyperspecialized corner-case PCs often aren't the ones you'd expect. And you're moaning about something that requires significant investment (it costs the Bard to be like that) and isn't "a good grappler", is "the optimal grappler".
> 
> If you want to obsess over hyper-optimized PCs, go ahead, but building rules around them is bad design nine times out of ten.
> 
> You want to get real? Stop confusing "good" with "literally maximally optimized". You do that in the bit I quote. It's just a lie to say that's merely "good" at grappling.




You realize that every time you insult people in your posts we just listen to you less, right? You are calling me a liar, saying I'm moaning, and frankly, I don't feel like that makes it worth my time to engage with you, because further engagement will just get more and more screeds about how I'm a terrible perverse liar who doesn't understand the system. 

I'm trying to discuss the changes with you, can you at least be polite enough not to hurl insults at me every paragraph? 



As for why I said merely good? That was because the first person I was responding to in this thread was @squibbles , and when they were responding to me about being able to grapple reliably, this was their response

"_Well, as you called out in your first post, rogues and bards (and PCs with the skill expert feat) can get expertise, which makes the skill check math substantially more favorable to a PC than a save or attack roll. After that, you can have a friend cast the 2nd level spell Enhance Ability (Bull's Strength), or cast it yourself, to get advantage on strength checks. That simple combo gets better and better, relative to monsters, as a PC gains levels, since proficiency bonus scales and monsters, generally, get only marginally better at athletics checks due to strength increases (dex tends to be lower than str). Another 2nd level spell Enlarge/Reduce, helps substantially with the size restrictions. Those are most of the tools you need to grapple reliably (for more thorough info, see treantmonk's vid on it).

It's easy, with just a little set up, and without sacrificing very much in other areas, to build a PC that can pretty reliably, for example, grab an iron golem, shove it on its face (so it has disadvantage on all attacks), and give it nuggies while the rest of the party beats on it with advantage on their attacks (from prone).

The new rules have a DC that is only as good as a caster, but the current rules' contested roll is potentially much harder for a monster to beat than caster DC._" 

Now, maybe you disagree with them. But they didn't say that good grapplers just need proficiency in athletics, they have actually consistently called out the use of a variety of spells, expertise, and linked an entire video about optimization. And for a few of us, we are seeing that that old way isn't viable, and we aren't mourning its loss. That sort of cheese is INEVITABLE with how the old grappling rules were designed. Meanwhile, the new grappling rules over some exciting opportunities. We don't know how everything works yet, but there is a good chance that nets and whips will work better in this new system. But you completely pass by the fact that new options are possible and want to focus only on the options that were lost... while at the same time saying that no one needed those options and that the characters who did so were just hyper-specialized and not worth bringing into the discussion.


----------



## Chaosmancer

Ruin Explorer said:


> This is nonsensical.
> 
> Answer this question: Why would the _Fighter_ initiate a grapple if they didn't have a specific goal?
> 
> Until you can answer that, you have a nonsense-example, and you're just supporting my entire argument.




But you are actually helping prove that the new grapple rules are an improvement. Before you never grappled unless there was something to drag the enemy into. Grappling as a stand-alone factor was useless. 

Now grappling has tanking usefulness and focuses attacks by granting disadvantage against allies. This is 100% an improvement.



Ruin Explorer said:


> They vastly favour monsters.
> 
> PCs no longer have any ways to scale grapple at all. But loads of monsters have stats which mean they do keep scaling against grappling, and now they get out of grapples at zero cost thanks to the save instead of an action and their multiple attacks, and the fact that Shove is now much easier.
> 
> The undeniable reality is that PCs only grapple when there's a tactical reason to do so, already. Your super-grapple Bard is just going to die horribly with his crummy AC and HP leaping into melee if he just grapples everything, and he doesn't make monsters unless in 5E, he gets pounded in the face by them until he dies. Which doesn't take long.
> 
> Whereas monsters often grapple PCs automatically and for free as part of an action, and often are able to do mean things to people who are grappled. They're impacted far less by this.




Increasing your strength score scales grappling. Increasing your ability to hit scales grappling. There are ways to decrease enemy saves that scales grappling. 

Seems all that is more than nothing. And we can easily assume that there is going to be a feat which scales grappling. 

And again, you are pointing out an entire reason some of these grapple changes are good. Because now there is a reason to grapple, even if someone didn't cast a spell to make dangerous terrain. It has benefits, and since this is only the baseline with no extra bells and whistles, this speaks well to the chance of improving it further. 

And frankly, if that is your only concern, that we don't see enough pieces that show us the improvement, then instead of going scorched earth everything must remain the same, just be ambivalent because we can't see enough to fully judge the sub-system.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Chaosmancer said:


> Now, maybe you disagree with them.



I do. You can't hold me to what other people's opinions are. It's deeply misleading for both of you to call it "good", when it's in fact "the absolute maximum optimization you can apply within the rules".

As for "perverse", no, I did not call you that, and asserting I did is proving my point. I said that the argument you were presenting was logically perverse. You didn't actually even refute that.


Chaosmancer said:


> But you completely pass by the fact that new options are possible and want to focus only on the options that were lost...



Sure, I agree.

Because I'm focused on the actual *facts*. The actual rules. What's on the page.

Whereas you're focused on imagining stuff that this new system might or might not maybe possibly allow. It's possible everything you're imagining will happen, but extremely unlikely. What's a lot more likely, given WotC's history, is literally none of what you're imagining will happen.

But this is the crux of the issue. I want to talk about the actual rules. You want hope there'll be more to them. I very much doubt there will be. 5E has not had a good history in that regard. I did say, much earlier though, that if they added class features and so on, they could fix this! So let's not pretend I didn't. But I'll adjust my opinion when those features appear and not one second before it.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Chaosmancer said:


> There are ways to decrease enemy saves that scales grappling.



None of which are available to classes which are likely to grapple, so that's misleading.


Chaosmancer said:


> then instead of going scorched earth everything must remain the same, just be ambivalent because we can't see enough to fully judge the sub-system



I'm not saying it should "remain the same". You seem to have missed my responses to others. My position is that, if they change grappling, the baseline ability to grapple needs to be better than what they're offering, given that you now get to escape FOR FREE.

I'm not ambivalent, because I'm looking at the actual rules, and right now, they're bad, real bad. Will they be bad later in the playtest? I dunno. Depends entirely on factors we can't account for, like, will WotC add class features, Feats, spells, etc. to allow grappling to work better for PCs?

Also you keep ignoring the Shove issue.

Shoving is much easier now. That massively advantages monsters, because it still has the size restriction (and monsters tend to be larger), and because it no longer involves Athletics (which monsters often don't have).

Shoving allows a creature to easily break any grapple at a very low cost (one attack) as long as they're not more than one size larger. It trivializes breaking grapples even. I mean, I'd propose the solution is that you can't Shove a creature who is grappling you, but they didn't put that rule in place.


----------



## DND_Reborn

Ruin Explorer said:


> I demonstrated that it does.



Not really. You demonstrated what you consider the additional costs (lack of shield or great weapon, for example), not additional _risk_.

Additional risk is provoking on OA against a weapon-wielder when you are basically making an unarmed attack.



Ruin Explorer said:


> That's cold fact. It exposes them to risk and cost beyond the attack. That is not open for debate. You can deny it and be factually in error but that's up to you.



It's the wrong fact. Deny that if _you_ want to.



Ruin Explorer said:


> Yes it does, because the new saving-throw based approach makes it vastly easier to break grapples, especially considering you get a free saving throw to break the grapple every round, which you did not get before. You're demanding that, on top of the new, free escape attempt 1/round (which was the most you could have before, so you get 100% of what you had before), that they get they ALSO get to break grapples on for just 1 attack.



No, I am not demanding an attack on top of the new "free" escape attempt. I am demanding an attack _INSTEAD OF_ allowing it for free.

This is what I meant about talking past each other.



Ruin Explorer said:


> This isn't opinion on my part to be clear - this is how the new rules work. You've avoided mentioning the free escape attempt repeatedly.



Right, which is because THAT isn't what I've been talking about.... There is a ready why I never mentioned it. 

So, yeah, I am dropping this conversation. Have a good one.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

DND_Reborn said:


> No, I am not demanding an attack on top of the new "free" escape attempt. I am demanding an attack _INSTEAD OF_ allowing it for free.



Fair enough - I didn't see a post where you made it clear that you wanted to_ delete _the free roll, just ones asking for Attack to allow you to break out. I assume it's further back somewhere.

Also, what's your opinion on 1D&D's Shove? That does what you want. If your attack connects, using normal attack rules, you break the Grapple by moving them 5' away. That's a lot easier than 5E, where it's an opposed challenge and the PC is a lot more likely to have Proficiency/Expertise/Advantage.

As for provoking an OA, I mean that's just not how 5E/1D&D works. I think that'd be fine in a game where OAs were provoked vastly more often, but it should very much also apply to most grappling monsters.


----------



## Haplo781

dave2008 said:


> Why didn't you tell him about the feat?



Probably because it wasn't added.


----------



## dave2008

Haplo781 said:


> Probably because it wasn't added.



The poster I was questioning already responded. He said the person already new about the feat. That wasn't clear in their previous post.


----------



## DND_Reborn

No worries. I know we sometimes butt heads, but I felt like there was a disconnect someplace...



Ruin Explorer said:


> Also, what's your opinion on 1D&D's Shove? That does what you want. If your attack connects, using normal attack rules, you break the Grapple by moving them 5' away. That's a lot easier than 5E, where it's an opposed challenge and the PC is a lot more likely to have Proficiency/Expertise/Advantage



I'm fine with it. I prefer it to skill checks for grapple and shove since the expertise thing makes some weird scenarios, but what is still missing IMO is an option to escape _via the attack_ (instead of a free save at the end of the round) using a DEX-attack instead of STR.



Ruin Explorer said:


> As for provoking an OA, I mean that's just not how 5E/1D&D works. I think that'd be fine in a game where OAs were provoked vastly more often, but it should very much also apply to most grappling monsters.



Yeah, I know 5E removed such things, but I agree most grappling monsters would also provoke an OA if such rules were used again.


----------



## Yaarel

> Provided a base level of training, sure.
> 
> But lots of people are very ineffective at grappling (which reduces the target's speed to 0). It is one reason why Unarmed Strike should still be a simple weapon proficiency, not just allow everyone to have it. Do you understand how many people really don't know how to throw a punch properly??? Wizards and Sorcerers are the only two classes without Simple weapons, so they should not be proficient in Unarmed Strikes, either.



@DND_Reborn

I feel unarmed needs to be a viable attack, even for Wizards, perhaps especially for Wizards.


----------



## Haplo781

Yaarel said:


> @DND_Reborn
> 
> I feel unarmed needs to be a viable attack, even for Wizards, perhaps especially for Wizards.



Nah. They can be not-great at _one thing_ for once.


----------



## Yaarel

Haplo781 said:


> Nah. They can be not-great at _one thing_ for once.



For a Wizard, unarmed should be as viable as a dagger or staff.


----------



## DND_Reborn

Yaarel said:


> @DND_Reborn
> 
> I feel unarmed needs to be a viable attack, even for Wizards, perhaps especially for Wizards.



Most "nerdy" people don't know how to punch IME... YMMV, of course.


----------



## Yaarel

DND_Reborn said:


> Most "nerdy" people don't know how to punch IME... YMMV, of course.



These are adventurers with some kind of combat training or experience.


----------



## TheSword

The new rules have simultaneously made grappling easier to do and also more effective. While making them easier to break. That seems to me to be a fair and sensible approach.

Now you have a reasonable chance of grappling even if you’re dex based monk or fighter. You might not be able to keep hold of them for long, but you can stop them for a round or two and throw them about.

Disadvantage against other people is a significant debuff. Particularly useful if your barbarian grappler has resistance, or has a particularly high AC or you just want to stop a party member being attacked. Added to the 0 move debuff it’s a decent effect that is useful in lots of situations…

… that said if those were applied without making it easier to break out it would also be unbalanced. Under the current rules it’s possible to be great at grappling very easily. A 5th level character can get +7 Athletics at the cost of a skill and be considerably better with class abilities (barbarian etc). A troll - a large viscious powerful creature that should be a challenge for a whole party of 5th level characters gets +4 Athletics - because monsters as a general rule don’t have skills. The troll gets a 50-50 chance of breaking out at the end of its turn, after a minor debuff. Sounds fair to me.

The old system was too easy to break, and not good enough to be worthwhile. Happy days that they have come up with some tweaks.

Five or six more combat maneuvers like this and we could be on to a winner.


----------



## Haplo781

Yaarel said:


> These are adventurers with some kind of combat training or experience.



Yes... And wizards cast spells in combat. Bonking someone with your staff is not something you should be doing on a regular basis when you can cast fire bolt or shocking grasp.


----------



## DND_Reborn

Yaarel said:


> These are adventurers with some kind of combat training or experience.



This:


Haplo781 said:


> Yes... And wizards cast spells in combat. Bonking someone with your staff is not something you should be doing on a regular basis when you can cast fire bolt or shocking grasp.


----------



## Stalker0

The bottom line for me is that these rules make grappling significantly weaker than it was before.

Because you need to hit, grappling is no longer a way to bypass a high ac opponent.

Monsters in general will have a much much MUCH higher chance of resisting a grapple, so much so it’s night and day. Not to mention legendary resistance options.

The auto escape removes a lot of the benefit of grapple, forcing them to consume actions to escape. Actions are everything, this is a huge change.


Grapple is weak now, and I don’t like weak options so I’m a no on this right now. I do understand why they did it, hell I’ve had a pit fiend in my game just tossed around like a rag doll because he doesn’t have athletics prof…but you can solve that in monster design, not by making grappling crappy.


----------



## Haplo781

Stalker0 said:


> I do understand why they did it, hell I’ve had a pit fiend in my game just tossed around like a rag doll because he doesn’t have athletics prof…but you can solve that in monster design, not by making grappling crappy.



Or just ... Allow fighters to toss pit fiends around like rag dolls.


----------



## Stalker0

I will also note that these rules are more complicated in two ways:

1) easy to forget the free Escape. Passive abilities are easier to forget than active ones, it will be easy to forget this thing you just get at the end of your turn.

2) my players forget save dcs all the time, and now that there will be these unique dc for grappling it will be a thing: “I’m escaping the grapple, um what’s the dc?” I find that doesn’t happen as often with the opposed check, the player usually has their skill list handy because they make skill checks a lot, so they just roll that athletics


----------



## Yaarel

DND_Reborn said:


> This:



@Haplo781 

I would have Wizards only have cantrips and no weapon proficiencies.

But then allow swapping out one cantrip for a weapon proficiency.  Then unarmed can be one of the proficiencies to swap for.


----------



## DND_Reborn

Yaarel said:


> But then allow swapping out one cantrip for a weapon proficiency. Then unarmed can be one of the proficiencies to swap for.



Totally on board with this.

I would go so far as to say swap a cantrip for proficiency in Simple weapons (including unarmed strikes, which they were in the beginning of 5E...).


----------



## Chaosmancer

Ruin Explorer said:


> I do. You can't hold me to what other people's opinions are. It's deeply misleading for both of you to call it "good", when it's in fact "the absolute maximum optimization you can apply within the rules".




I'm not holding you to their statements, but their statements match with what I've seen other people refer to when talking about good grapplers. You seem to want to dismiss those aspects of the system and ignore them, and I'm not sure why. Even if it is the "the absolute maximum optimization you can apply within the rules" I'd still argue it isn't good for the game. 



Ruin Explorer said:


> As for "perverse", no, I did not call you that, and asserting I did is proving my point. I said that the argument you were presenting was logically perverse. You didn't actually even refute that.




Because you only say it is perverse because you refuse to see that new options have opened up even while old options went away. You insist that new options don't exist, because they aren't the old options. 

Meanwhile, I would argue that this version has un-perverted many of the problems with the old system. For example, now Monks can be the best grapplers, which makes sense, and high strength characters are better than high dex characters at maintaining grapples. These are all exactly in-line with what we would expect to see from a grappling system, and these just simply were not the case before. 



Ruin Explorer said:


> Sure, I agree.
> 
> Because I'm focused on the actual *facts*. The actual rules. What's on the page.
> 
> Whereas you're focused on imagining stuff that this new system might or might not maybe possibly allow. It's possible everything you're imagining will happen, but extremely unlikely. What's a lot more likely, given WotC's history, is literally none of what you're imagining will happen.
> 
> But this is the crux of the issue. I want to talk about the actual rules. You want hope there'll be more to them. I very much doubt there will be. 5E has not had a good history in that regard. I did say, much earlier though, that if they added class features and so on, they could fix this! So let's not pretend I didn't. But I'll adjust my opinion when those features appear and not one second before it.




Silvery Barbs and Mind Sliver are actual rules. Monks replacing Dexterity for Strength for Unarmed Strikes is an actual rule. 

The only thing I'm "imagining" is that it is likely they will update the Grappler feat. This is speculation, 100%, but since they are overhauling the grappled condition.... it would be utterly moronic for them not to look at the Grappler feat. Now, will it be better? Don't know. But, many of us who have discussed this have all come to the same idea, that Grappler could give disadvantage on the saves. 

But so far you have come across as vitriliocally declaring that grappling is ruined... and it isn't? The thing is, in practical terms, the worst case scenario (other than an unarmed strike shove) is that the grapple is broken at the end of the enemies turn, and you re-grapple on your turn. Which is not a major lose of utility, from my understanding of the set-up, and is actually more dynamic than a perma-grapple. 



Ruin Explorer said:


> None of which are available to classes which are likely to grapple, so that's misleading.




No more misleading than the spells which were used before.



Ruin Explorer said:


> I'm not saying it should "remain the same". You seem to have missed my responses to others. My position is that, if they change grappling, the baseline ability to grapple needs to be better than what they're offering, given that you now get to escape FOR FREE.
> 
> I'm not ambivalent, because I'm looking at the actual rules, and right now, they're bad, real bad. Will they be bad later in the playtest? I dunno. Depends entirely on factors we can't account for, like, will WotC add class features, Feats, spells, etc. to allow grappling to work better for PCs?
> 
> Also you keep ignoring the Shove issue.
> 
> Shoving is much easier now. That massively advantages monsters, because it still has the size restriction (and monsters tend to be larger), and because it no longer involves Athletics (which monsters often don't have).
> 
> Shoving allows a creature to easily break any grapple at a very low cost (one attack) as long as they're not more than one size larger. It trivializes breaking grapples even. I mean, I'd propose the solution is that you can't Shove a creature who is grappling you, but they didn't put that rule in place.




I'm not ignoring it. I've acknowledged it. Repeatedly. But, it isn't a massive advantage to monsters. In fact, shove is a massive NERF to monsters. Oh, sure, it breaks the grapple. However, shove also allows anyone who can land a strength based attack to automatically knock any Large or smaller monster prone, no save, no advantage, no chance to resist. You just have to hit. That's massive

Now, I can agree that shove breaking the grapple is something I'm not a fan of. I wouldn't say it makes it worthless though, because there is a lot of interplay possible with movement and attacks of opportunity.


----------



## Chaosmancer

Stalker0 said:


> Monsters in general will have a much much MUCH higher chance of resisting a grapple, so much so it’s night and day. Not to mention legendary resistance options.




I don't see how giving martials like fighters and barbarians a way to burn off legendary resistances is anything except a massive boon. Especially for breaking a grapple that only cost them a single attack to reapply.



Stalker0 said:


> The auto escape removes a lot of the benefit of grapple, forcing them to consume actions to escape. Actions are everything, this is a huge change.




But did they ever bother to actually use those actions? This is something no one is responding to. Monsters that have no chance of breaking the grapple because of skills didn't bother trying, they just mauled the grappler.



Stalker0 said:


> Grapple is weak now, and I don’t like weak options so I’m a no on this right now. I do understand why they did it, hell I’ve had a pit fiend in my game just tossed around like a rag doll because he doesn’t have athletics prof…but you can solve that in monster design, not by making grappling crappy.




Honestly, that sounds like the Pit Fiend should have been having a field day. Fireball himself, full multi-attack for ~70 damage on a single target. Sure, they could have given him any skill profs, but that wouldn't have made it worth his entire action to escape.


----------



## Stalker0

Chaosmancer said:


> But did they ever bother to actually use those actions? This is something no one is responding to. Monsters that have no chance of breaking the grapple because of skills didn't bother trying, they just mauled the grappler.
> 
> Honestly, that sounds like the Pit Fiend should have been having a field day. Fireball himself, full multi-attack for ~70 damage on a single target. Sure, they could have given him any skill profs, but that wouldn't have made it worth his entire action to escape.



Right, except now they just maul the grappler AND get to escape the grapple. So yes....its weaker.

With respect, 70 damage for a high level martial is not really that scary, especially (as in this case) a totem warrior barbarian who takes only 35 damage and laughs. However, Pit fiends don't get to use their fireball and attacks in the same round (unless that changed in the last monster book), so its really only like 56 damage. The barbarian got to do to the pit fiend exactly what he wanted, held up the creature, and focused all the damage on himself, leaving the rest of his party scott free to just wreck the guy.


----------



## Charlaquin

UngeheuerLich said:


> No. This is just wrong.
> Grappling is now something like taunting. You make sure your fellow wizard is not attacked. You are also sure that the enemy will stay fir at least one turn.



Which has the interesting effect of making a single one-handed or versatile weapon and no shield one of the best setups for a tank.


----------



## Stalker0

Note that while a monster gets a free escape on the end of its turn, it still has the option to break the grapple on an attack. It just makes a shove attack, and as long as it hits the grappler gets knocked back 5 feet and the grapple ends. No saving throw required, and now you may be outside the grapplers reach so you can move without an OA.

So in many ways grapple and escaping grapple have moved outside of saves and checks and are now back to attacks and AC. This makes the Precision strike Battlemaster the best grappler most likely....though the barbarian can always have advantage on attack rolls...so they might edge them out, unless the fighter has advantage on his own of course.


----------



## squibbles

We're probably getting to the limits of this back-and-forth being useful @Chaosmancer , but here's my response.



Chaosmancer said:


> Okay, but I also pointed out that many people saw Bards and Rogues being the absolute best grapplers in the game as a problem. They don't have the iconic fantasy roll of being the person who manhandles the massive ogre or golem. Yes, expertise allowed you to be a better grappler, but it also wrecked the fantasy unless you had a feat investment. Fixing that is good, IMO. [...]



I don't disagree, but I'm not especially enamored of _this _fix (absent info about the other rules that interact with it).



Chaosmancer said:


> [...] And then you get to talking about casting spells, which, fine, but at that point we can instead use the 1st level Silvery Barbs to give disadvantage on the save or have someone spamming mind sliver to give them a -1d4 on the save. What you are talking about is purely the extra optimization, and we have optimization for saving throws. [...]



For sure, which I mentioned in a reply to Ruin Explorer--but though I happily concede the general point, you should also recognize that the spells and features that can mess with the grappling save are relatively weaker and/or more limited than the ones that mess with the contested roll. _In aggregate_, it is harder to maintain a grapple under the new rules. For example, silvery barbs is for one roll, while enhance ability lasts for an hour.



Chaosmancer said:


> [...] Sure. However, since it is an attack, you can make an attack of oppotunity that grapples, reduces speed to zero, and grants disadvantage on attacks. The enemy gets to make the save sooner, but there is no cost here. [...]



Ya, that's a cool upside of the new rules.



Chaosmancer said:


> [...] I don't see a difference in the practical application of actions, because Grapple used to do NOTHING beyond reducing speed and allowing you to drag someone. So it wasn't penalizing the creature to remain grappled and just try to kill you instead of using an action which would be negated when you used your next action to put me back in the same position. [...]



Having a speed of zero can be consequential if the grappled creature wants to flee, wants walk past the frontline and eat the party's wizard, or wants to reach an important interactable lever/button/item/mcguffin.

And forced movement can be a _big _deal.

In short, there are good reasons for a creature to want to escape a grapple.

I see what you're getting at that, in some circumstances, the function of the two rulesets will shake out in the same way. But, in other circumstances, they will play out quite differently.



Chaosmancer said:


> [...] Before you never grappled unless there was something to drag the enemy into. Grappling as a stand-alone factor was useless. [...]



Right, useless in some circumstances, decisive in others--it's circumstantial. That's not inherently a bad thing.

---

Again, I'd like to see what else 1D&D does with grappling, and I don't think these rules are all bad. But I also don't think you can convincingly argue against the point that grappling is _weaker_, based on what we have seen so far, even if you think the new procedures will work better at your table.


----------



## TheSword

Stalker0 said:


> The bottom line for me is that these rules make grappling significantly weaker than it was before.
> 
> Because you need to hit, grappling is no longer a way to bypass a high ac opponent.
> 
> Monsters in general will have a much much MUCH higher chance of resisting a grapple, so much so it’s night and day. Not to mention legendary resistance options.
> 
> The auto escape removes a lot of the benefit of grapple, forcing them to consume actions to escape. Actions are everything, this is a huge change.
> 
> 
> Grapple is weak now, and I don’t like weak options so I’m a no on this right now. I do understand why they did it, hell I’ve had a pit fiend in my game just tossed around like a rag doll because he doesn’t have athletics prof…but you can solve that in monster design, not by making grappling crappy.



It isn’t crappy - it’s appropriate now.

To hit rolls are the essential balancing force of the game. If you’re saying grappling is too poor because a hit roll is needed well then I think you have a bigger problem because every one else is making to hit rolls.

To me being able to easily grapple a pit fiend or troll is a sign grapple rules were already broken.

Now it’s a reasonable difficulty (rather than trivially easy) but at least it does something worthwhile when it works.


----------



## Chaosmancer

Stalker0 said:


> Right, except now they just maul the grappler AND get to escape the grapple. So yes....its weaker.
> 
> With respect, 70 damage for a high level martial is not really that scary, especially (as in this case) a totem warrior barbarian who takes only 35 damage and laughs. However, Pit fiends don't get to use their fireball and attacks in the same round (unless that changed in the last monster book), so its really only like 56 damage. The barbarian got to do to the pit fiend exactly what he wanted, held up the creature, and focused all the damage on himself, leaving the rest of his party scott free to just wreck the guy.




Fireball was in case they were surrounded by more people, but he could have just lobbed fireballs at the party and ignored the barbarian grappling him. 

Also, while the Barbarian might reduce the damage, that Pit Fiend poison is nothing to scoff at. Stuff is incredibly deadly even to high level characters. 

Finally, while grappling a monster with four attacks is now weaker, I'm not seeing how "Before he would hit me with four attacks at no penalty" becoming "He hits me once for zero damage and then three more times" isn't an improvement. You made an entire attack disappear. 

Addendum, We are incredibly focused on grappling monsters, and no one seems to care how much of a boon to interesting combat this is for Monster's grappling PCs. Again, IME a monster grappled a PC and they basically ignored that because it was a pointless effect, so they were perma-grappled. We keep referring to all of this shoving 5 ft, knocking prone and grabbing people who then break free as a problem, when it sounds far more exciting than "grab him, it is impossible for him to escape, stand in one spot until someone is dead" which we had before.


----------



## kapars

Wow, a topic where this forum is indistinguishable from Reddit for a change. The new grappling rules cannot be optimized to the same extent yes, but the old rules were also silly with what could be achieved. These rules better mirror what I expect to happen if adventurers wrestle large dangerous creatures. Hold them off for a second so that someone else can cast a spell, open a door etc. What story is being told by a character applying the “cheese grater” strategy of dragging characters through spike growth you often see lauded on optimization forums? What does it say about your character story if they feel pointless once this trick doesn’t work as well? I feel some of the emotional response to this is due to players feeling they are losing access to a strategy as powerful as some of the spellcasting but I think that disparity says more about that aspect of the game than this one. I think I’ll go hide outside range of the internet the week that Web, Hypnotic Pattern, Fear, Forcecage and the other DM doesn’t get to play options get nerfed.


----------



## Baumi

I love the new Grappling Rules. 

It's simpler (just an attack), less easy to min-max to the wazzo, it has more effect (disadvantage to attack anyone besides the grappler) and it also ends easier (automatic Save). 

Especially the last part was always so frustrating. Players in my Campaigns never used Grappling, except when they specialised in it .. then they went so high that Monsters had nearly no change of escaping. Then they knocked the Monsters down and grappled. This eliminated the Monster, because it gives disadvantage to attacks and all other gain advantage and while it can try to escape this would cost their whole round with litle chance (and they would just get grappled again next round). So forget bringing cool single monsters. For the Players it was equally frustrating because no one likes to not be able to do something and they might even fail for multiple rounds.


----------



## UngeheuerLich

This exactly.
Old rules felt exploitable and basically forced you to either have acrobatics or athletics to break free of a grapple.

I am not sure if it could not be done a little different, as I don't like the attack vs AC, but it feels more in line now.*

I also think, size bonuses could make it more interesting. If you are smaller, you get advantage on your dexterity check to escape. If you are larger you get advantage on your strength check. Disadvantage for the opposite probably. But I am not sure it is worth the hassle or just bogging down.

I do however think, that for grapple, the restriction that you can't grapple large creatures should fall. Instead it should be a grab and attach yourself to the creature.

*
Probably a static maneuver defense like 8+str or dex+prof bonus? 

I sincerely hope, passive perception will be replaced by something like 8+wis+prof bonus (+class bonus?) to bring perception in line too.
Actually I think passive checks should go the way of the dodo, replaced by static defenses.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

kapars said:


> I feel some of the emotional response to this is due to players feeling they are losing access to a strategy as powerful as some of the spellcasting but I think that disparity says more about that aspect of the game than this one.



I mean, that's definitely a component, but casting it as "emotional" is misleading, because it's a real strategy being lost with absolutely no recompense and no clear prospect of recompense. Emotional would only make sense if it wasn't a real strategy. It's reasonable to annoyed that a real strategy is being removed.

5E already has a serious problem where the Full casters get more and more powerful in the LFQW fashion - it's more gentle but by level 7 or so it's becoming increasingly obvious and by 9/10 it's unavoidable. You mentions some good example spells - and yeah, honestly if they're nerfing grapple, they do need to nerf pretty much all of those, and indeed pretty much every CC spell in the game probably needs to looking at seriously, because they were already better than grapple by a ridiculous margin. This isn't a game with clear roles - so casters don't "own" CC - particularly obvious given it's quite possible for a well-designed caster casting the right spells to dominate the social and exploration pillars and be at least as strong as other PCs in combat.


----------



## TaranTheWanderer

Chaosmancer said:


> Why would you say giving disadvantage on attacks against all your allies, or easily preventing all possible damage to your allies, is not a valid use of an attack?
> 
> Before it may have taken an action, but the enemy had no penalties on attacks. I've had many players grappled mid-combat, and they just ignored it, because it didn't impact them.



Can't you just use an help action to give an enemy disadvantage at no risk of failure?

@ OP

In any case, I dislike that you have to hit AC.  When a creature is hard or impossible to hit, you could target another ability and, at least, prevent them from moving towards the more squishy members of the party or move them away from wounded allies.  Now your only option in combat is to target AC.  It's boring.  Less options in combat is a bad change.

I do like the new penalties for being grappled.  That's a good change. 

Making it an auto-save at the end of the creature's round is a bad change.  It should require the monster's action to trigger the save at least or require at least one of their attacks or something.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

TaranTheWanderer said:


> Can't you just use an help action to give an enemy disadvantage at no risk of failure?



Nope. Help doesn't do that. There may be a class-specific action that does.


----------



## TheSword

Ruin Explorer said:


> I mean, that's definitely a component, but casting it as "emotional" is misleading, because it's a real strategy being lost with absolutely no recompense and no clear prospect of recompense. Emotional would only make sense if it wasn't a real strategy. It's reasonable to annoyed that a real strategy is being removed.
> 
> 5E already has a serious problem where the Full casters get more and more powerful in the LFQW fashion - it's more gentle but by level 7 or so it's becoming increasingly obvious and by 9/10 it's unavoidable. You mentions some good example spells - and yeah, honestly if they're nerfing grapple, they do need to nerf pretty much all of those, and indeed pretty much every CC spell in the game probably needs to looking at seriously, because they were already better than grapple by a ridiculous margin. This isn't a game with clear roles - so casters don't "own" CC - particularly obvious given it's quite possible for a well-designed caster casting the right spells to dominate the social and exploration pillars and be at least as strong as other PCs in combat.



They did nerf them for 5e… most SOS spells now allow the user a save at the end of their turn… just like grapple.

They aren’t nerfing grapple, they’re making it more effective short term and less effective long term. That’s not a nerf.


----------



## gorice

I really like these changes, but I'm puzzled about the way it's implied (but never stated!) that grapples target AC. Could it be that we'll see something like Lancer, where you have 'evasion' (to-hit number, something like prof bonus + dex bonus) and 'armour' (straight damage reduction of physical damage)?


----------



## UngeheuerLich

Ruin Explorer said:


> I mean, that's definitely a component, but casting it as "emotional" is misleading, because it's a real strategy being lost with absolutely no recompense and no clear prospect of recompense. Emotional would only make sense if it wasn't a real strategy. It's reasonable to annoyed that a real strategy is being removed.




Rules exploit is no strategy.
Sorry. It was a poorly implemented rule that did not play well with existing monsters and how they get skills.


----------



## Baumi

Why is it puzzeling? It is an unarmed attack, so it goes against AC.

Edit: AC also includes Dex, so its already harder to grapple someone how is nimble.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

UngeheuerLich said:


> Rules exploit is no strategy.
> Sorry. It was a poorly implemented rule that did not play well with existing monsters and how they get skills.



That's just ludicrous bollocks.

There's no "rules exploit". You're just relying on a fantasy-argument about a character no-one ever actually played. It's like being mad about 3E multiclassing and using Pun-pun as you reason to be mad.

The suggested rule is certainly poorly-implemented by the same logic, and not you've made no actual arguments to suggest otherwise.


----------



## UngeheuerLich

Ruin Explorer said:


> That's just ludicrous bollocks.
> 
> There's no "rules exploit". You're just relying on a fantasy-argument about a character no-one ever actually played.
> 
> The suggested rule is certainly poorly-implemented by the same logic, and not you've made no actual arguments to suggest otherwise.




I think the old grapple rules are bollocks. Poorly working and exploitable.
I think the new rules are better.

Who is right? Probably not you. But your mileage might vary.

Edit: and I have made some arguments. You just need to scroll back and read them.


----------



## TheSword

Ruin Explorer said:


> That's just ludicrous bollocks.
> 
> There's no "rules exploit". You're just relying on a fantasy-argument about a character no-one ever actually played. It's like being mad about 3E multiclassing and using Pun-pun as you reason to be mad.
> 
> The suggested rule is certainly poorly-implemented by the same logic, and not you've made no actual arguments to suggest otherwise.



I’m not sure how a rule that matches both spell debuffs and to-hit rolls (which are both cornerstones of the game) can be poorly implemented. If you are against those mechanics are you against them across the board, or just with grapples?


----------



## Ruin Explorer

UngeheuerLich said:


> I think the old grapple rules are bollocks. Poorly working and exploitable.
> I think the new rules are better.
> 
> Who is right? Probably not you. But your mileage might vary.
> 
> Edit: and I have made some arguments. You just need to scroll back and read them.



I have read them. None of them are cogent arguments imo. And you're definitely wrong if you think the old rules were "bollocks", especially given that the reasoning you state over and over, is about an entirely fantastical and nonsensical corner-case setup that could, potentially, happen, and how awful that is (or rather "might be in theory", if it ever actually happened beyond gimmick games and the like).

You never even acknowledged the legitimate class-feature and other people's spells approaches to this, nor that even without any of that, this gave Martial PCs a real option, that made them mildly competitive with casters in one particular way.

It's just extremely funny that we get people like you saying it was a "rule exploit" (which is demonstrably false, there's no exploit, no misunderstanding of the rules involved), which is demonstrably false, whilst claiming I'm wrong.


TheSword said:


> I’m not sure how a rule that matches both spell debuffs and to-hit rolls (which are cornerstones of the game) can be poorly implemented. If you are against those mechanics are you against them across the board, or just with grapples?



What do you mean "spell debuffs"? Are you talking about CC spells? Which are fire and forget, ranged, don't require a to-hit-roll, just a save and expose the caster to zero risk in most cases?

Because, yeah I definitely think it's wrong to make a risky option that requires continuous input from martials to be only equally or less effective than a fire-and-forget spell from casters. 100%. That's obviously ridiculous and unbalanced. Even if you can use it repeatedly (but it costs you repeated in terms of needing a free hand and an attack).

And it's "poorly implemented" particularly because there's no reasonable way to scale it, whereas before there were loads (most of which made complete sense, like an ally using the Help action to give you Advantage on the STR check). In particular there's no way for martials to scale it. I also think the auto-escape feature is excessive - with a higher DC that might be less of an issue.

Re: "to-hit rolls", dude you're being super vague which is unhelpful, but are you referring to Shove? Because yeah I think making Shove vastly easier to land for basically everyone is bad for the game (and vastly more AC-dependent), and particularly bad for grappling from both directions. Shove was already not a great rules design in 5E. The 1D&D version is worse.

If you think just because the numbers match a standard, even though the rules are completely different, it's automatically fine, I have no idea what to say to you beyond "That's not a logical way to approach this".


----------



## gorice

Baumi said:


> Why is it puzzeling? It is an unarmed attack, so it goes against AC.
> 
> Edit: AC also includes Dex, so its already harder to grapple someone how is nimble.



It's puzzling because it makes no sense that armour designed to stop weapons also stops someone from grappling you. Unless it's covered in spikes or something.


----------



## UngeheuerLich

Ruin Explorer said:


> I have read them. None of them are cogent arguments. And you're definitely wrong if you think the old rules were bollocks, especially the reasoning you stat over and over, is about an entirely fantastical and nonsensical corner-case setup that could, potentially, happen, and how awful that is.
> 
> You never even acknowledged the legitimate class-feature and other people's spells approaches to this, nor that even without any of that, this gave Martial PCs a real option, made them mildly competitive with caster.
> 
> It's just extremely funny that we get people like you saying it was a "rule exploit" (which is demonstrably false, there's no exploit, no misunderstanding of the rules involved)




I don't have to. If you don't like my arguments, so be it. I stand with them. As long as giants have +6 to grapple and PCs can have +17 woth advantage and so on, something is wrong. It makes the game unfun, not fun.
If you use the rules with normally built characters, they are ok. The new rules (although I think the grappler should attack a different defense than AC) brings them in line. No expertise (which attacks purposefully don't allow) is important. I am also very happy, that you use saving throws to get out, not a skill which feels like a tax.
Same for passive perception which makes perception feel like a tax.

Feats are the gamevs way to specialize in class agnostic things. A monk now automatically seems better at it than everyone else, which feels right.

So you are entitled to you opinion. But don't deny me my opinion. If you can't have a discussion with people who have a different opiniin than you and come to different conclusions, don't have discussions.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

UngeheuerLich said:


> No expertise (which attacks purposefully don't allow) is important.



Have you, personally, ever honestly played multiple sessions of a game with a Rogue/Bard character who had Expertise in Athletics and used it to constantly grapple enemies? Yes/no will suffice.


UngeheuerLich said:


> If you use the rules with normally built characters, they are ok.



Thank you! That's what I was saying. They're thus not "bollocks". There's a corner-case way to push them pretty far. There are corner-case ways to do that to a lot of things, though.


UngeheuerLich said:


> Feats are the gamevs way to specialize in class agnostic things.



This is not a class-agnostic thing. Barbarians for example, were good at it, and should be good at it. It's right in their vibe, grabbing and dragging and wrestling - even more than Monks, I'd say. So if they change the rules for them to still be as good at it, great. But if they don't, that's rubbish. And I'm skeptical they will.


UngeheuerLich said:


> although I think the grappler should attack a different defense than AC



I agree and I think this is a major flaw with both Grapple and Shove as presented so far. The other major flaw with Shove is it is now "Get out of Grapple free", effectively, which doesn't really make sense. Like, if you can't break the grapple with a save, should you really just be able to insta-break it with a Shove? I think Shove shouldn't work on people grappling you.


----------



## UngeheuerLich

Ruin Explorer said:


> Have you, personally, ever honestly played multiple sessions of a game with a Rogue/Bard character who had Expertise in Athletics and used it to constantly grapple enemies? Yes/no will suffice.
> 
> Thank you! That's what I was saying. They're thus not "bollocks". There's a corner-case way to push them pretty far. There are corner-case ways to do that to a lot of things, though.
> 
> This is not a class-agnostic thing. Barbarians for example, were good at it, and should be good at it. It's right in their vibe, grabbing and dragging and wrestling - even more than Monks, I'd say. So if they change the rules for them to still be as good at it, great. But if they don't, that's rubbish. And I'm skeptical they will.
> 
> I agree and I think this is a major flaw with both Grapple and Shove as presented so far. The other major flaw with Shove is it is now "Get out of Grapple free", effectively, which doesn't really make sense. Like, if you can't break the grapple with a save, should you really just be able to insta-break it with a Shove? I think Shove shouldn't work on people grappling you.




No. I have not played multiple sessions with someone who does, but my bard/rogue could if he (or better said: I) wanted. He has an athletics of +12 at level 11 with gauntlets of ogre strength and can cast bulls strength for advantage. 

I am nit sure what you want to say with your last paragraph, but breaking the grapple with a shove is our goto "break out of grapple" already, as it dows not cost you awhole action, just an attack (which is easily done if you are strength based fighter or barbarian). Actually that was what our casual player found out first because she just wanted to throw the enemy who grappes her away. 
In the new rules it is still the priviledge of strength based fighters and now also the monk who can attack unarmed with dex. So it is only positiv for our games. 

Still: add a CMD and a PP defense and I vote for it.


----------



## gorice

UngeheuerLich said:


> (although I think the grappler should attack a different defense than AC)



There's actually no reference to AC in the playtest, that I can find. I'd be (pleasantly) surprised if they actually cut it, but it's possible. The Lancer guys were working for WotC, last I checked.


----------



## UngeheuerLich

gorice said:


> There's actually no reference to AC in the playtest, that I can find. I'd be (pleasantly) surprised if they actually cut it, but it's possible. The Lancer guys were working for WotC, last I checked.




There will be AC for sure. But I could see new defenses being added.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

UngeheuerLich said:


> I am nit sure what you want to say with your last paragraph, but breaking the grapple with a shove is our goto "break out of grapple" already, as it dows not cost you awhole action, just an attack (which is easily done if you are strength based fighter or barbarian). Actually that was what our casual player found out first because she just wanted to throw the enemy who grappes her away.



I doesn't currently just come off a to-hit roll, it requires and opposed roll.

"Instead of making an Attack roll, you make a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target’s Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (the target chooses the ability to use). If you win the contest, you either knock the target prone or push it 5 feet away from you."

So right now if you're good at Grappling you're good at resisting a Shove, which means it usually fails.

With the new rules, it'll be much easier to Shove people away in virtually all cases.


gorice said:


> There's actually no reference to AC in the playtest, that I can find. I'd be (pleasantly) surprised if they actually cut it, but it's possible. The Lancer guys were working for WotC, last I checked.



HOLY... wow that would be BIG. I'd love it.

I double-checked. It really isn't mentioned at all. Might just be an accident of course.


----------



## UngeheuerLich

Ruin Explorer said:


> I doesn't currently just come off a to-hit roll, it requires and opposed roll.
> 
> "Instead of making an Attack roll, you make a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target’s Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (the target chooses the ability to use). If you win the contest, you either knock the target prone or push it 5 feet away from you."
> 
> So right now if you're good at Grappling you're good at resisting a Shove, which means it usually fails.
> 
> With the new rules, it'll be much easier to Shove people away in virtually all cases.




Shoving and escaping the grapple are usually equally difficult. At least with shoving as a fighter level 5+ you have at least 2 attempts to escape. And if you escape, you can usually move away without provoking AoO already.

I am really not sure what you want to tell me. Right now, shoving for strength based characters is usually better than trying to escape as an action.

In the new rules, you can shove with a strength based attack, which I would like to be against a different defense than AC, why not the same grapple escape DC.

I will totally vote to add a grapple DC as a standard defense to the character sheet.

Edit: I find it funny how much effort you put in your post to make hyperlink to obvious things...


----------



## Ruin Explorer

UngeheuerLich said:


> Shoving and escaping the grapple are usually equally difficult. At least with shoving as a fighter level 5+ you have at least 2 attempts to escape. And if you escape, you can usually move away without provoking AoO already.



Agree.


UngeheuerLich said:


> I am really not sure what you want to tell me. Right now, shoving for strength based characters is usually better than trying to escape as an action.



What I'm trying to tell you is that instead of it being "equal", it's vastly easier in most cases to the point where it means it will be nearly impossible to maintain grapples, especially on monsters with multi-attacks. PCs often (usually?) have lower ACs than the sort of monsters PCs like to grapple (which tend to be the more dangerous M or L-sized ones, not random henchmen), and because you can't have a shield and grapple (in most cases), that further lowers PC ACs.

Before a monster likely had to beat an opposed test of STR + Athletics vs DEX + Acrobatics or STR + Athletics.

Now they just have to hit the PC's AC. That's _much easier_ in most cases. Do you understand? But for PCs, the reverse is true. A lot of monsters which grappled didn't have that great of STR + Athletics (they often grappled automatically, rather than having to roll, though), so it was quite possible to Shove them away if they were small enough. But now, a lot of those monsters have pretty high ACs - so it will be a lot harder to Shove them.

That's a big change swinging grappling to being a thing monsters do to PCs, but that PCs can't do to monsters.


----------



## kapars

Do we currently know for certain that monsters can make Unarmed Attacks? Also, wouldn’t it be really bad for a monster with multi-attack to instead have to take the standard attack action for a single attempt at an unarmed strike to push a character away? Multi-attack explicitly says what can be done with it, brown bear has bite and claw no shove and shove substitution is possible.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

kapars said:


> Do we currently know for certain that monsters can make Unarmed Attacks?



No we do not, and if they cannot, that'll be extremely interesting and change the calculations here quite a bit. I mean I think they will be able to, but we shall see!


kapars said:


> Also, wouldn’t it be really bad for a monster with multi-attack to instead have to take the standard attack action for a single attempt at an unarmed strike to push a character away? Multi-attack explicitly says what can be done with it, brown bear has bite and claw no shove and shove substitution is possible.



It's been repeatedly proposed by people in this thread (who disagree with me) that in fact, they can substitute.

But looking through MotM, which is more tightly written than previous monster books, it looks like you're right - I can't find any multi-attacks where they could just substitute an unarmed attack, RAW. Like the Shadow Dancer has "_*Multiattack. *_The shadow dancer makes three spiked chain attacks.". That's pretty specific.

So actually I agree that's going to mean that most monsters which want to Shove will have to use their entire Action. I should have spotted this earlier because I was pointing out that an "Attack" was not a legitimate bit of D&D action-currency, thanks for getting me back on track!


----------



## UngeheuerLich

Ruin Explorer said:


> Before a monster likely had to beat an opposed test of STR + Athletics vs DEX + Acrobatics or STR + Athletics.
> 
> Now they just have to hit the PC's AC. That's _much easier_ in most cases. Do you understand? But for PCs, the reverse is true. A lot of monsters which grappled didn't have that great of STR + Athletics (they often grappled automatically, rather than having to roll, though), so it was quite possible to Shove them away if they were small enough. But now, a lot of those monsters have pretty high ACs - so it will be a lot harder to Shove them.
> 
> That's a big change swinging grappling to being a thing monsters do to PCs, but that PCs can't do to monsters.




Which is why I told you for the umtieth time that I want a different defense than AC.
Also, a monster using an attack to shove you away is a lot of damage mitigation right there.

And I am totally understanding that monsters are now better. For me this is a feature, not a bug.

Edit: my character never uses grapple + shove prone, because I don't want the DM to be annoyed with me.

Edit2: also something that was inconsistent in the old rules: dodge did nit help vs grapples. At least acronatics check shiuld have gained advantage.

Another thing: Grapple alone was not what I meant with rules exploit. I Mean grapple + shove prone, a combo that was most surely not planned by the designers. An oversight most probably.

Actually this combo still works and now seems a lot fairer and helps you not to get shoved by the grappled creature.


----------



## TheSword

Ruin Explorer said:


> Agree.
> 
> What I'm trying to tell you is that instead of it being "equal", it's vastly easier in most cases to the point where it means it will be nearly impossible to maintain grapples, especially on monsters with multi-attacks. PCs often (usually?) have lower ACs than the sort of monsters PCs like to grapple (which tend to be the more dangerous M or L-sized ones, not random henchmen), and because you can't have a shield and grapple (in most cases), that further lowers PC ACs.
> 
> Before a monster likely had to beat an opposed test of STR + Athletics vs DEX + Acrobatics or STR + Athletics.
> 
> Now they just have to hit the PC's AC. That's _much easier_ in most cases. Do you understand? But for PCs, the reverse is true. A lot of monsters which grappled didn't have that great of STR + Athletics (they often grappled automatically, rather than having to roll, though), so it was quite possible to Shove them away if they were small enough. But now, a lot of those monsters have pretty high ACs - so it will be a lot harder to Shove them.
> 
> That's a big change swinging grappling to being a thing monsters do to PCs, but that PCs can't do to monsters.



Why is monsters (and PCs) being able to break out of grapples a bad thing? I find PCs don’t like being grappled for extended periods any more than the DM wants their

It’s costing the grappled one an attack to get out (at least one). They are getting a debuff until they succeed, and it only costs the grappler one attack. Or they wait until the end of the round, suck up the debuff and get a single free try.

I dispute quite heavily your assertion that foes tend to have higher ACs than PCs. I rarely see a combat oriented PC with AC less than 18 and usually considerably higher. I rarely see monsters with AC more than 18.

You seem to be only viewing this from the point of view of PCs grappling but they will be on the receiving end too.

Grapple does scale, the same way that hit rolls scale - which is through a multitude of methods. It’s also scales in continuing, because the save DC keys of proficiency. I really don’t understand what you mean when you say it doesn’t scale.

Shove is about as easy to land and dealing damage is. Any decision to shove has to be balanced against the fact that you might just kill the person and not worry about the grapple at all.

I have some sympathy for the argument that armour shouldn’t make you harder to shove or grapple but at the same time AC really covers so many things it could easily just be renamed Defense. I have no desire to return to the days of calculating a whole different CMD that only gets used once every five fights and ten characters.


----------



## TheSword

Ruin Explorer said:


> No we do not, and if they cannot, that'll be extremely interesting and change the calculations here quite a bit. I mean I think they will be able to, but we shall see!
> 
> It's been repeatedly proposed by people in this thread (who disagree with me) that in fact, they can substitute.
> 
> But looking through MotM, which is more tightly written than previous monster books, it looks like you're right - I can't find any multi-attacks where they could just substitute an unarmed attack, RAW. Like the Shadow Dancer has "_*Multiattack. *_The shadow dancer makes three spiked chain attacks.". That's pretty specific.
> 
> So actually I agree that's going to mean that most monsters which want to Shove will have to use their entire Action. I should have spotted this earlier because I was pointing out that an "Attack" was not a legitimate bit of D&D action-currency, thanks for getting me back on track!



Oh dear dear, no. This is such a mangling of the common sense rules. I don’t believe a sensible DM can look at a veteran with two attacks and say that the equivalent PC can shove instead of an attack but that veteran has to give up all their attacks. 

A shove doesn’t do damage so replace the attack with the consequences of shove. This can be easily applied to every monster reasonably capable of shoving someone.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

TheSword said:


> I have no desire to return to the days of calculating a whole different CMD that only gets used once every five fights and ten characters.



You and me both buddy.


TheSword said:


> I rarely see a combat oriented PC with AC less than 18 and usually considerably higher. I rarely see monsters with AC more than 18.



I find this very implausible but obviously I can't disprove what your personal experiences are. It's quite difficult to get AC18 for a lower-level PC though, especially if they're not DEX-based or in Heavy Armour and not covered in magic items.


TheSword said:


> It’s also scales in continuing, because the save DC keys of proficiency. I really don’t understand what you mean when you say it doesn’t scale.



I mean there's no way for the player to scale it, so it's never going to be any higher than the default value. Whereas with the previous Grapple you could find ways to scale it, like getting Advantage on the STR check. So no, it doesn't scale in the sense I mean. At all.


TheSword said:


> Any decision to shove has to be balanced against the fact that you might just kill the person and not worry about the grapple at all.



That's not realistic given 5E's "bag of HP" approach to monsters. You don't randomly surprise-kill monsters with a melee attack in 5E. You'll know if you're close to the point where you'd be better off killing them.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

TheSword said:


> Oh dear dear, no. This is such a mangling of the common sense rules. I don’t believe a sensible DM can look at a veteran with two attacks and say that the equivalent PC can shove instead of an attack but that veteran has to give up all their attacks.
> 
> A shove doesn’t do damage so replace the attack with the consequences of shove. This can be easily applied to every monster reasonably capable of shoving someone.



You're proving my point


----------



## TheSword

Ruin Explorer said:


> You and me both buddy.
> 
> I find this very implausible but obviously I can't disprove what your personal experiences are. It's quite difficult to get AC18 for a lower-level PC though, especially if they're not DEX-based or in Heavy Armour and not covered in magic items.



You’ve just named the two most common types of combat fighters. Dex based and armoured. 

There are plenty more… Even low optimized character in our games would have AC 16 as a base as an absolute minimum. Easily increased if they want to add any effort into it.



Ruin Explorer said:


> I mean there's no way for the player to scale it, so it's never going to be any higher than the default value. Whereas with the previous Grapple you could find ways to scale it, like getting Advantage on the STR check. So no, it doesn't scale in the sense I mean. At all.
> 
> That's not realistic given 5E's "bag of HP" approach to monsters. You don't randomly surprise-kill monsters with a melee attack in 5E. You'll know if you're close to the point where you'd be better off killing them.



The myriad ways to improve to hit roles also improve grapples. I’m really struggling to work out why you think grappling will be difficult for PCs to do?


----------



## TheSword

Ruin Explorer said:


> You're proving my point



It’s a point I don’t have a problem with. Yes it should be reasonably possible at a reasonable cost to break a grapple. Grappling should not be a win-button for anyone. PC or monster.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

TheSword said:


> There are plenty more… Even low optimized character in our games would have AC 16 as a base as an absolute minimum. Easily increased if they want to add any effort into it.



Jesus lol. I'm not even going to argue with that.


TheSword said:


> The myriad ways to improve to hit roles also improve grapples. I’m really struggling to work out why you think grappling will be difficult for PCs to do?



Because it's going to get broken immediately repeatedly? The save DC is much easier for monsters to hit than a STR PC with Athletics was to beat in an opposed roll, esp. given virtually every monster you might want to grapple has either a good STR or a good DEX (and they get to choose! Very nice! Do I get to choose to roll WIS or INT to break Domination?). And Shove is much, much easier to land than that opposed roll too. And in your game, a three-attack multi-attacker can Shove three times!


----------



## TheSword

Ruin Explorer said:


> Jesus lol. I'm not even going to argue with that.
> 
> Because it's going to get broken immediately repeatedly? The save DC is much easier for monsters to hit than a STR PC with Athletics was to beat in an opposed roll, esp. given virtually every monster you might want to grapple has either a good STR or a good DEX (and they get to choose! Very nice! Do I get to choose to roll WIS or INT to break Domination?). And Shove is much, much easier to land than that opposed roll too. And in your game, a three-attack multi-attacker can Shove three times!



Yes, because grappling someone is more useful now and also people should be able to break grapples and start them.

So that three attack troll, has a 50% chance of breaking grapple by shoving an AC 18 PC at the cost of one of its attacks. So it will give up on average two attacks to shove that PC off - at the cost of the players attack that will realistically have a 66% of succeeding. That sounds like good odds to me. If that troll decides to fight it out instead they have 50% chance of breaking free of a str based grappler Pc without effort but will have been unable to mover or be penalized for attacking other in that round. Meanwhile the rest of the party is acting.

What is the problem with this scenario. Or feel free to present another one.


----------



## FitzTheRuke

jgsugden said:


> What concerns me is that when you grapple someone, the only ways for them to be freed before the end of their next turn is for you to be incapacitated, or for them to be force moved out of your grapple's range.  Other than that, the target is locked down.
> 
> This can be a nasty way to lock down a powerful melee force for a couple rounds of combat by using a fairly minor ally.  If you're a PC, that may be a summons.  If you're a bad guy it could be a CR 1/2 toss in during a high level encounter.
> 
> Not being able to break the grapple through trying to escape can lock PCs out of the main combat.  It can keep powerful bruisers totally away from the PCs.
> 
> I think they really need to reintroduce a way for PCs to sacrifice an attack in order to break a grapple during their turn.



I think the escape action will exist.


----------



## DND_Reborn

UngeheuerLich said:


> Old rules felt exploitable and basically forced you to either have acrobatics or athletics to break free of a grapple.



And now you need either DEX saves or STR saves to have a decent chance. Picking up a skill is MUCH easier than gaining a save you _don't already have_.

Now, the only class that should be decent at escaping grapples via saves that doesn't have either of these is Paladin. Otherwise, the division is evenly split 6/6 get to add proficiency bonus when attempting to escape grapples.


----------



## UngeheuerLich

DND_Reborn said:


> And now you need either DEX saves or STR saves to have a decent chance. Picking up a skill is MUCH easier than gaining a save you _don't already have_.
> 
> Now, the only class that should be decent at escaping grapples via saves that doesn't have either of these is Paladin. Otherwise, the division is evenly split 6/6 get to add proficiency bonus when attempting to escape grapples.




But it is no skill tax. This is more important. And spellcasters will have no easy way to be good at grappling. Which is fair for martials.


----------



## DND_Reborn

UngeheuerLich said:


> But it is no skill tax. This is more important. And spellcasters will have no easy way to be good at grappling. Which is fair for martials.



Mostly I agree, I was more pointing out the difference.

But I don't see it as a skill tax, either. Both skills are useful for other things in the game, so are valuable any way.

Of course we know DEX is KING, and a lot of that even rolls over into the saves as it is a strong save.

Regardless, I don't care either way as a far as attack vs. ability check, I just don't want it to be FREE at the end of the round! Give it _some_ action cost (attack, bonus action, reaction even... something).


----------



## kapars

TheSword said:


> Oh dear dear, no. This is such a mangling of the common sense rules. I don’t believe a sensible DM can look at a veteran with two attacks and say that the equivalent PC can shove instead of an attack but that veteran has to give up all their attacks.
> 
> A shove doesn’t do damage so replace the attack with the consequences of shove. This can be easily applied to every monster reasonably capable of shoving someone.



Monsters and players do not follow the same rules though. There’s nothing that says the monster gains Extra Attack and MotM has monsters that can cast spells as part of the multi-attack, something that players cannot do. Some monsters add damage dice to their weapons as a means of scaling attacks, not something PCs can do either. We even have precedent for PC specific abilities now with Critical hits, though those may change.


----------



## Chaosmancer

UngeheuerLich said:


> I do however think, that for grapple, the restriction that you can't grapple large creatures should fall. Instead it should be a grab and attach yourself to the creature.




Just checking what you meant here. Currently with the OD&D rules, a large creature can be grappled by a medium creature, with no penalties or bonuses on either side. 

I do think small characters are heavily harmed though, since they can't grapple large, but everyone can grapple them. You can't really fix that though, unless you give them a massive boost against unarmed strikes. Advantage on the save to escape could make sense, but then do you give the same to large? I don't think so.


----------



## Chaosmancer

TaranTheWanderer said:


> Can't you just use an help action to give an enemy disadvantage at no risk of failure?




No? You can use the Help Action to give an ally advantage, but as far as I know you can't inflict disadvantage on enemy attacks with the help action.



TaranTheWanderer said:


> @ OP
> 
> In any case, I dislike that you have to hit AC.  When a creature is hard or impossible to hit, you could target another ability and, at least, prevent them from moving towards the more squishy members of the party or move them away from wounded allies.  Now your only option in combat is to target AC.  It's boring.  Less options in combat is a bad change.




There are issues with targeting a high AC creature. Won't deny that. But the only other solution is to keep it with skills, and that system had clear and obvious problems since it prioritized the wrong classes. 

And there are ways to make targetting a high AC easier, and in fact the unarmed strike changes DO give you ways to counter high AC. One ally can use the help action, and you can do an unarmed strike to knock prone, giving everyone advantage. This is a very solid way to deal with high AC enemies, which were always hittable anyways.



TaranTheWanderer said:


> Making it an auto-save at the end of the creature's round is a bad change.  It should require the monster's action to trigger the save at least or require at least one of their attacks or something.




I could see making it an attack to break free, but I honestly like the auto-save. It fits with the design of every other condition which gives saves at the end of turns, and it gives the player a choice. Do they try for two attempts to break free, or rely on that save? 

More options is good.


----------



## Chaosmancer

Ruin Explorer said:


> Because it's going to get broken immediately repeatedly? The save DC is much easier for monsters to hit than a STR PC with Athletics was to beat in an opposed roll, esp. given virtually every monster you might want to grapple has either a good STR or a good DEX (and they get to choose! Very nice! Do I get to choose to roll WIS or INT to break Domination?). And Shove is much, much easier to land than that opposed roll too. And in your game, a three-attack multi-attacker can Shove three times!




Can you actually explain why breaking the grapple after one turn ruins grappling? Let's take the expected route. Monster saves at end of turn, breaks free. Why is this bad? 

Because the PC will have to re-grapple them? You were one of the people who told me that you need to grapple "with a tactical purpose". That generally means dragging them to something dangerous to stand in. Well, by the end of their turn... they are still standing in it. If getting them in it was worth your attack once, isn't it worth it again? 

And don't deflect to shoving, we can discuss shoving next. I want to know why this save to end is so horrible.


----------



## Zaukrie

If a medium creature grapples a large, really strong creature, the large creature can't drag them, correct? I have no idea what I want grapple to be, but I'm pretty sure we aren't there yet. I wonder what a really good set of grappling rules looks like.


----------



## TheSword

There should be a way to gain control of the grapple. Reversing the grappler/grapplee relationship.


----------



## jgsugden

FitzTheRuke said:


> I think the escape action will exist.



As written, it currently does not.  There are a lot of unwritten things at this point, but it currently does not exist.


----------



## UngeheuerLich

jgsugden said:


> As written, it currently does not.  There are a lot of unwritten things at this point, but it currently does not exist.




Unclear, actually, as everything not covered in the playtest document works as in 2014 5e.


----------



## UngeheuerLich

TheSword said:


> There should be a way to gain control of the grapple. Reversing the grappler/grapplee relationship.




That worked already in 2014 5e and does now too. You can just start a grapple against the grappler,  so at lwast you both are grappled.
Now,  if you end the condition at the end of your turn you have it reversed.


----------



## fluffybunbunkittens

Zaukrie said:


> If a medium creature grapples a large, really strong creature, the large creature can't drag them, correct?



Yes. The grapple condition applies to the target and sets their speed to 0, so while they could grapple back, they still couldn't move anywhere.

While a Large critter dragging someone grappling them along with them seems realistic, it would also affect mostly just martials, who really don't need that.


----------



## NotAYakk

Prior to this change, grapple was junk except for grapple optimized PCs.

On grapple optimized PCs, it was crazy good.  You bypassed saves, legendary resists, and got to add twice your proficiency to your attack and defence checks.  The enemy eventually ended up prone, granting advantage to all of your allies attacks and disadvantage on all of its attacks.  To break out, it had to burn its action.

On a high-CR enemy, you trade 2 attacks for it having a *chance* to break out as an action, and not a good chance, plus crippling the foe.

It was bad enough that 5e monsters had to start designing themselves to avoid the problem (having get out of grapple cards), and PC size had to be limited (as one defence for monsters was simply being too big to grapple).  Once players could reach huge, they could grapple anything; so that had to be limited to T4 high-investment builds.


----------



## UngeheuerLich

I am not sure if it was said before, but after a few weeks of thinking about it, I really endorse the new grapple rules.

I think I said it in a different thread, but I really want to stress how interesting a strength based fighter with a versatile weapon without a shield is:

They can now use grapple or shove on an opportunity attack if the enemy tries to walk to the squishies. In the case of a grab, they can still attack with their now one handed weapon. In the case of a shove, they can attack with two hands.

This is an option that neither sword and board, a two handed weapon or a dex based fighter has. This change alone will increase the stickiness of strength based characters without the help of a feat or class feature.

And actually, when I started playing 5e, I actually thought you could use grab on an opportunity attack, but then noticed I was wrong.

I really hope this rule will stick.


----------



## darjr

In play the rules were OK. Except one thing, at the end of a targets turn if a target breaks the grapple, it’s the end of their turn and now can’t move.


----------



## UngainlyTitan

darjr said:


> In play the rules were OK. Except one thing, at the end of a targets turn if a target breaks the grapple, i*t’s the end of their turn and now can’t move.*



I would regard that as a feature not a bug. Grapples are sticky by design. The opportunity cost is that. unless you are a Tavern Brawler or a Monk you are doing less damage if you spend attacks on grapple or shove.


----------



## FitzTheRuke

darjr said:


> In play the rules were OK. Except one thing, at the end of a targets turn if a target breaks the grapple, it’s the end of their turn and now can’t move.



That's simple - you can still use your action to escape a grapple. All you have to do is attack the guy who has you grappled with an unarmed strike, and if you succeed, shove them 5 feet away. Then just walk away.


----------



## darjr

FitzTheRuke said:


> That's simple - you can still use your action to escape a grapple. All you have to do is attack the guy who has you grappled with an unarmed strike, and if you succeed, shove them 5 feet away. Then just walk away.



Oh! Nice!


----------



## FitzTheRuke

darjr said:


> Oh! Nice!



I imagine that I will fluff it as a counter-throw when someone grabs my character!


----------



## darjr

FitzTheRuke said:


> I imagine that I will fluff it as a counter-throw when someone grabs my character!



I love that.


----------



## Yaarel

Grappling is something that should be simple.

A hit instead "holds on" (namely, grapples). Who is moving who depends on size. If a person is medium size and grabs a tiny creature, then the person moves  normally. If the medium size person grabs a huge elephant, then the person is holding on tightly while "riding" the unwilling elephant. It is the elephant that is moving normally.


----------



## FitzTheRuke

Yaarel said:


> Grappling is something that should be simple.
> 
> A hit instead "holds on" (namely, grapples). Who is moving who depends on size. If a person is medium size and grabs a tiny creature, then the person moves  normally. If the medium size person grabs a huge elephant, then the person is holding on tightly while "riding" the unwilling elephant. It is the elephant that is moving normally.



I think that's taken care of with the size restrictions. (And riding an elephant doesn't require grappling it, rules-wise, though I'm sure a DM could choose to do it that way.)


----------



## Yaarel

FitzTheRuke said:


> I think that's taken care of with the size restrictions. (And riding an elephant doesn't require grappling it, rules-wise, though I'm sure a DM could choose to do it that way.)



At first I wrote riding a gargantuan dragon, but edited it with the two sizes difference in mind.

In any case, if the elephant is unwilling, then riding it is hostile, and requires grappling.

The size restrictions dont really make sense. Because the size that is bigger is more likely to determine the movement.

When dealing with same size, one can try to "hold on" in a way that impedes the movement of the opponent, or in other words inflicts the Restrained condition. If the creature is restrained, then moving at Slow speed might make sense.

In any case, grappling is a normal part of combat. And it should happen more frequently, if realism is of interest. It is better to describe grappling by means of combat mechanics, instead of skill mechanics.


----------



## squibbles

Chaosmancer said:


> I'd be willing to bet that the Grappler feat will interact in interesting ways with this condition, allowing for people to build around it.




So, as of today, we have a new Grappler feat:

GRAPPLER
4th-Level Feat
Prerequisite: Strength or Dexterity 13+
Repeatable: No
You’re an accomplished wrestler, granting you the following benefits:

Ability Score Increase. Increase your Strength or Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
Attack Advantage. You have Advantage on Attack Rolls against a creature Grappled by you.
Fast Wrestler. You aren’t Slowed when you move a creature Grappled by you, provided the creature is your Size or smaller.
Punch and Grab. When you hit a creature with an Unarmed Strike as part of the Attack Action on your turn, you can deal damage to the target and also grapple it. You can use this benefit only once per turn.

What do we all think?

IMO:

The advantage on attack rolls makes it more rewarding for martial-types to succeed on a grapple, though they miss out on one full damage attack to initiate the grapple, and need to have a free hand. This is probably a net loss of dpr but, due to the other penalties of the grappled condition, would be good under a relatively common set of circumstances. It also makes following up with and unarmed attack shove easier, so that's nice.
The removal of the slow condition means that a grappler can drag his/her target 30 feet if the initial hit roll succeeds, which is probably good enough to chuck a baddie off a cliff or into battlefield control.
Overall, these rules are more coherent, point to some obvious grapple builds, and more-or-less fit the fiction of a big strong wrestler dude able to grab, punch, and drag folks around.
But, again, it seems as though grappling will be somewhat weaker than it is currently, due to the higher difficulty of maintaining a grapple, i.e. you can force the baddie into the battlefield control, but can't reliably hold it there.
We will, of course, need to see the changes to the warrior class group, spell list, etc, etc, to know for sure.


----------



## NotAYakk

That (grappler feat) also works really well with monks.  Their unarmed strikes are good damage often.

So they punch twice; if either hits, they grab.  Then their flurry has advantage.  And they can drag the target their fast move speed away.  Oh, and they have slow fall, so they can drag them off cliffs with some safety.

And I'm ok with that combo.  It has a real kinetic fun to it.

Monks clearly need a climb speed.


----------



## UngainlyTitan

NotAYakk said:


> That also works really well with monks.  Their unarmed strikes are good damage often.
> 
> So they punch twice; if either hits, they grab.  Then their flurry has advantage.  And they can drag the target their fast move speed away.  Oh, and they have slow fall, so they can drag them off cliffs with some safety.
> 
> And I'm ok with that combo.  It has a real kinetic fun to it.
> 
> Monks clearly need a climb speed.



Wuxia


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