About Grapple ... and shove

[Coranhann]

Hey guys,

I see everyone being crazy about grappling people. I can't see the point. It sets your target speed to 0.

While there is no rule for it, I can't see any player grappling someone and no losing the ability to use at least one of his hands (so no two handed weapons, off hand weapons etc).

The only moment I see it being good, is after a shove. You shove someone to the ground, you grapple him, and then infinite advantage on attack until he breaks the grapple.

Am I missing something else?

[coolAlias]

It's also nice when you don't want the BBEG to get away.

But yes, usually it is in the context of grapple + shove = infinite advantage until dead.

[Potato_Priest]

Or you have the barbarian grapple the ogre while all the squishes shoot at it from far away.

Or you grapple the dragon so that it can't fly.

Keep in mind that it takes a mere attack to initiate, but a whole action to escape from.

It's a powerful tactical ability however you cut it.

[Zejety]

Grappling prone enemies (or shoving grappled enemies) is definitely the most common way to make use of it.

But reducing an enemy's speed to 0 can be an advantage in itself. The enemies can't run away or out of hazards (e.g. a Flaming Sphere spell), or melee your friends.
You can also move the grappled creature (slowly), to get it into one of said hazards or just throw them down some hole.

[smcmike]

Shove is sometimes nice just to rearrange the map a bit. I've used it to help break through the enemy front line to give the rest of the party room to come up and play. I've also used it to move the enemy out from behind cover, so my ranged buddies could light him up.

[Easy_Lee]

Grappling takes advantage of two factors: it only takes part of an attack action to initiate, and players can hit much higher athletics numbers than published monsters.

Most monster stat blocks have low athletics and acrobatics checks, assuming those skills are listed at all. A player with expertise, meanwhile, can reach +10 by level 5.

The counters to and limitations of grappling are many. It isn't useful in every encounter. But 60% of the time it works every time.

[Coranhann]

But 60% of the time it works every time.

Wow ... so is it 100% of 60% or 60% of 100% ? :)

No but seriously: Thank you guys, it's really about controlling the movement of the opponent.

I didn't thought of it as a way of preventing flying speeds. That is indeed awesome.

Thank you everyone!

[follacchioso]

After grappling an enemy you can carry it around like a bag of potatoes, provided you can carry enough weight. It is quite fun and has many tactical uses.

Grappling is a contest of acrobatics or athletics, which tend to be much lower than AC for most npcs. With expertise and advantage on strength checks you can easily grapple a dragon or a level 20 character.

Shoving with shield master is quite an useful things to do with your bonus action, it doesn't consume any short/long rest resource and can get you both advantage on attacks on disadvantage on defense.

Highly recommended reading http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?468737-The-Grappler-s-Manual-(2-0)-Grappling-in-5th-Edition

[coolAlias]

Do recall that you can only grapple targets up to one size larger than yourself. If you can get enlarge cast on yourself or have a DM willing to let you play a Large race, that opens up a lot of extra options, but you would need to be both a Large race and enlarged in order to take a crack at a Gargantuan sized creature (if I'm remembering my size categories correctly).

[StoicLeaf]

Grapple a wizard, have someone cast silence on the both of you.

Other than that it depends on what your DM will allow.

[JackPhoenix]

Don't forget that you can move the grappled target... now drag the foe through Spike Growth, towards a cliff you can push him off, or some other enviromental hazard.

Speaking of shove: in a game I've played, my rogue managed to outmaneuver an hostile orc towards an edge of the cliff. When she approached him, he took half her HP with one readied swing of his axe. She pushed him off a cliff for all of his HP.

[MasterMercury]

Yes, grappling does mean you can only use one hand. But it is useful for the variety of reasons you can see.

[Zene]

Grapple, and soak the attacks since they can't reach your allies. Ultimate tank move.

Or grapple, drag them to the cliff edge, and drop them.

Or grapple, and hold them underwater.

Or grapple, fly up as high as you can, and drop them for falling damage and a free prone.

It can be effective if used smartly. But mostly, even when it's not the most effective move, it's often the most fun move.

[Findulidas]

Dont forget that when they are down they get disadvantage to ranged attacks on everyone but you. You can also disarm the monster using abilities such as disarming attack and then remove the weapon, this means the creature cannot use its weapon. This sometimes seriously disables some monsters.

There are also other nice combos such as silence, automatic damage zones (such as conjure bonfire), dragging them into zones that does damage or just shoving them out from a cliff.

You can also couple it with mage slayer and you can just destroy mages.