Grappling, how does it work?

[Speaker]

So looking at the feat thread I saw something that made me smile. An instant character concept came up. Grappling mage slayer with charger(Yeah I saw how bad people said charger was). I was just thinking that charger would stop getting kite by a wizard so essentially negating mage slayers weakness. If grappling counts as an attack that means you could hurt someone with a grapple, right? This would be a pretty cool way to keep a mage on lock down. I don't have 5e yet because I am not in a location where I can get it and won't be till Christmas. So how does grappling work? If I grapple a mage can they use their somatic components in a spell? Do I have to have one hand free? Can I "grapple" with weapons(like pinning someone with a shield)? Does my grapple do damage if combined with the charger feat?

[hymer]

Grappling is an attack, but it doesn't deal any damage, nor does it in itself prevent spellcasters from casting spells. The charger feat allows a 'melee weapon attack' as a bonus action, which grappler isn't. There are many other (better) ways to move faster than Charger.
Basically, I'm afraid you'll have to wait with mapping out your concepts until you get your hands on a book.