Grappler feat feels inconsistent with itself.

[Lombra]

GRAPPLER:
•You have advantage on attack rolls against a creature you are grappling,
•you can use your action to pin a creature grappled by you. To do so, make another grapple check. If you succeed, you and the creature are both restrained until the grapple ends.

RESTRAINED CONDITION:
•A restrained creature's speed becomes 0, and it can't benefit from any bonus to its speed,
•Attack rolls against the creature have advantage, and the creature's attack rolls have disadvantage,
•The creature has disadvantage on dexterity saving throws

Which means that you can't benefit from the first bullet of grappler if you want to use the second one, since advantage and disadvantage cancel each other out, no matter how many sources of advantage you have.

I can get that to restrain a target is a big thing, useful for the party and for things like capturing, but I can't help but feeling a bitter taste while reading it, since most feats tend to sinergyze well with themselves. Grappler doesn't give that same feel of accomplishment on paper. Mind that I didn't try it out yet, but it just doesn't feel right.

Not to mention that you may get similar results by simply shoving prone whatever you are grappling, it's not gonna move far even if it manages to escape the grapple and you still keep the advantage to attack rolls against it.

I was gonna plan a rogue martial artist who secures the target's throat through grapples (advantage hence sneak attack) so the grappler feat felt right, but now it doesn't so much :/

[Specter]

In the rogue's case, you'll still be able to sneak if your ally is close to you two. But the fact that you can only restrain a target after grappling (usually taking two turns) blows.

It's kinda like real street fighting: if you restrain someone on the floor, you better hope he has no allies nearby, otherwise they're stomping your head.

[pfctanman]

Well thats just from pinning the creature, if you simply grapple them you already get your advantage for the sneak attack damage, right?

[smcmike]

I understand why this might be annoying, and the grappler feat is pretty lackluster, but it does make sense from a simultionist point of view. Pinning someone is a lot of work.

[Rebonack]

Ignore the feat completely and tell the DM that you're going to try to put the grappled foe in a choke-hold/arm bar/full nelson/whatever.

Grappler is a trap option. It 'allows' you to do things you should be able to do normally and then penalizes you for doing them.

[Lombra]

In the rogue's case, you'll still be able to sneak if your ally is close to you two. But the fact that you can only restrain a target after grappling (usually taking two turns) blows.

It's kinda like real street fighting: if you restrain someone on the floor, you better hope he has no allies nearby, otherwise they're stomping your head.

I mean one can still just use the first bullet, and I'm not saying that it is not worthwile, but it doesn't feel right.

It feels realistic and that's the problem.

[Joe the Rat]

It's more of an either or: Either advantage on the guy you grabbed, or impose a ton of penalties on him. Advantage and disadvantage cancelling out may be a feature here - you can attack the creature you are restraining normally, but you going after anyone else, or him against you or anyone is at disadvantage.

Restrained has distinct (dis)advantages over prone. Prone will give you the advantage, but anyone not adjacent will be at disadvantage. Likewise, Dex save penalties are fun. Ignore the name - the Pin action says nothing about being Prone, so you aren't going to the mat. This is more like a lock. This could just as easily be getting behind them with an arm lock, and holding them in place so the wizard can line up his Special Bean Cannon for a guaranteed hit.

[Maxilian]

Well... there is rarely a point in ever restraining someone, just throw them prone.

[Laserlight]

Well... there is rarely a point in ever restraining someone, just throw them prone.

Whereupon the Tabaxi monk leaps to her feet, using half move to do so, and still races off over the horizon. Sometimes there's a point to Restrained.

[KorvinStarmast]

Ignore the feat completely and tell the DM that you're going to try to put the grappled foe in a choke-hold/arm bar/full nelson/whatever. This edition of the game isn't that granular.
Grappler is a trap option. It 'allows' you to do things you should be able to do normally and then penalizes you for doing them.
That is false. The restrained condition is a non trivial problem for your target, in you have even one ally.
Than again, it's a problem for you if the target has allies.
Which actually makes sense.

[Mellack]

Whereupon the Tabaxi monk leaps to her feet, using half move to do so, and still races off over the horizon. Sometimes there's a point to Restrained.

That is why you throw them prone after doing a grapple. Speed 0 means they can't stand up.

[Maxilian]

Whereupon the Tabaxi monk leaps to her feet, using half move to do so, and still races off over the horizon. Sometimes there's a point to Restrained.

If she is grappled, then her movement is 0, how can she do such things?

[Maxilian]

That is false. The restrained condition is a non trivial problem for your target, in you have even one ally.
Than again, it's a problem for you if the target has allies.
Which actually makes sense.

The only reason to use the restrain condition instead of just, grappling and throwing them prone, is if you happen to have a lot of range based characters in your team (as ranged attacks to prone characters are done with disadvantage).

[Willie the Duck]

Which means that you can't benefit from the first bullet of grappler if you want to use the second one, since advantage and disadvantage cancel each other out, no matter how many sources of advantage you have.

So you have both advantage and disadvantage, while your opponent only has disadvantage. Sounds like a win to me (so long as it's just the two of you).

[Rysto]

So you have both advantage and disadvantage, while your opponent only has disadvantage. Sounds like a win to me (so long as it's just the two of you).

No, because the creature that you're pinning has advantage and disadvantage against you, because you are always restrained.

[GlenSmash!]

Yup. Using the grappler feat to pin is always worse than Grapple+Shove. It's pretty lame.

[Rebonack]

This edition of the game isn't that granular.

This edition of the game is meant to be rules light and rulings reliant. When the player wants to do a thing that isn't specifically spelled out, they say what they want to try to do and the DM either gives them an ability check DC to pass or tells them that it's physically impossible for whatever reason. Putting a hand over a grappled wizard's mouth isn't physically impossible, so it stands to reason there's an ability check in there somewhere.

[Submortimer]

Nah, it's totally good. Roll a dedicated grappler monk or barbarian sometime, with the Bar-room brawler (for the bonus action grapple) and Grappler feats. Focus on locking down the biggest, baddest guys on the field, and watch your friends hail you as the best tank ever.

[GlenSmash!]

Nah, it's totally good. Roll a dedicated grappler monk or barbarian sometime, with the Bar-room brawler (for the bonus action grapple) and Grappler feats. Focus on locking down the biggest, baddest guys on the field, and watch your friends hail you as the best tank ever.

But you could accomplish the exact same thing without taking the Grappler feat? So... why would you take it?

[MaxWilson]

Yup. Using the grappler feat to pin is always worse than Grapple+Shove. It's pretty lame.

Y'all are being misled by the term "pin." The grappler feat's "pin" maneuver doesn't work like a wrestling maneuver--you don't become prone, and neither does the guy you're grappling. This is important because it means that pinning, unlike shoving your opponent prone, gives you allies advantage on their ranged attacks instead of disadvantage. If you've got a Sharpshooter on your team, it's the difference between him inflicting 40 HP per round on your bad guy and inflicting only 13-14.

It's still not a great feat as written, and there are alternatives to pinning (e.g. throwing a net on the guy you've got grappled), but it's functionally distinct from shoving prone.


I was gonna plan a rogue martial artist who secures the target's throat through grapples (advantage hence sneak attack) so the grappler feat felt right, but now it doesn't so much :/

A decent fix to grappler would be to drop the clause from pinning that makes you both restrained. Just the grappled creature is restrained, if you succeed on your grapple. (Presumably it costs an attack, even though the Grappler feat doesn't say anything about action economy cost at all.) It could represent small-joint manipulation, e.g. bending the ogre's thumb so that it's too painful for him to move much, without restraining your own movement at all.

That would in my opinion not be overpowered at all. If your DM won't go for that, see if you can at least exploit the lack of explicit mention of an action economy cost, and just pin in the same maneuver as the original grapple. Spending one attack to give everyone else in your party advantage against a target (and to give the target disadvantage to attack anyone except you) isn't terrible.

[GlenSmash!]

Y'all are being misled by the term "pin." The grappler feat's "pin" maneuver doesn't work like a wrestling maneuver--you don't become prone, and neither does the guy you're grappling. This is important because it means that pinning, unlike shoving your opponent prone, gives you allies advantage on their ranged attacks instead of disadvantage. If you've got a Sharpshooter on your team, it's the difference between him inflicting 40 HP per round on your bad guy and inflicting only 13-14.

It's still not a great feat as written, and there are alternatives to pinning (e.g. throwing a net on the guy you've got grappled), but it's functionally distinct from shoving prone. I understand that you're not prone, but giving yourself restrained - 0 movement and disadvantage on your attack rolls seemed worse to me than disadvantage to your ranged allies, but I definitely had not considered Sharpshooter. So it's not as cut and dry as I thought. Still I couldn't drag my foe around a Spike Growth, or move to another foe and grapple with my other free hand, so as long as it makes me restrained I can't consider it worth a Feat




A decent fix to grappler would be to drop the clause from pinning that makes you both restrained. Just the grappled creature is restrained, if you succeed on your grapple.

Yes! now we are talking!



(Presumably it costs an attack, even though the Grappler feat doesn't say anything about action economy cost at all.) it does say "you can use your action to pin a creature grappled by you. To do so, make another grapple check." To me if it says, make another grapple check I would treat it like, well, making a grapple check.



It could represent small-joint manipulation, e.g. bending the ogre's thumb so that it's too painful for him to move much, without restraining your own movement at all.

That would in my opinion not be overpowered at all. If your DM won't go for that, see if you can at least exploit the lack of explicit mention of an action economy cost, and just pin in the same maneuver as the original grapple. Spending one attack to give everyone else in your party advantage against a target (and to give the target disadvantage to attack anyone except you) isn't terrible. It would be much better to grapple and restrain in one check, but I agree that it wouldn't be OP.

[Rebonack]

I think the thing that gals me most about Grappler is that while feats really feel like they're at their best when they give a character new, interesting tactical options or some kind of major enhancement to options you would reasonably have within the realm of what a PC can do (ability checks, attacks, class features, ect) Grappler manages to do neither of those things despite trying to.

To start, it doesn't add interesting tactical options. Why not? What about pinning them? Well, barring the specific case of having a Sharpshooter on your team with no one else to fill full of arrows, just shoving them prone will work better. Your melee pals have advantage and the badguy has disadvantage. And they can't stand up, either. But more importantly, "I want to pin this guy I just grappled," should be falling under the category of the DM telling the player to roll an Athletics check and then informing them what the result is. Just like "I want to heave this cultist over my head and toss him into the lava river," or "I want to smash this orc in the face with this other orc," or "I want to leap twenty feet into the air and atomic pile-driver this medusa into next Thursday," or whatever other cool wrestling move the player might have in mind. The problem with feats like Grappler is that, aside from just being awful, they give players the impression that they need a feat or a class feature to allow them to do anything with their ability checks that isn't specifically spelled out by the rules. It stifles player creativity.

To make matters worse, Grappler really doesn't make you better at grappling, either. It gives you advantage on making attacks against a foe you have grappled. So either you're bopping them with a one-handed weapon (which means no Shield Master or Tavern Brawler shenanigans) or with an unarmed strike (in which case why in Palor's name did you take Grappler instead of Tavern Brawler?)

Grappler should give you something new, not 'official' permission to do something you can already opt to do. Like, say, pin a foe immediately as part of the same check that started the grapple. Or deal unarmed damage each time you succeed on an athletics check against an opponent. Or gain the ability to choose whether your foe gets to use their Str or Dex checks to try to oppose you. Or whatever. Grappler needs to be at least competitive with a feat like Brawny for it to be worthy of consideration.

[Sicarius Victis]

The first benefit is still pretty useful with Crossbow Expert and Sharpshooter. With CE you don't get disadvantage with your crossbow, which allows you to make use of the advantage from the first bullet, to abuse Sharpshooter. A Fighter will have enough ASIs to afford it relatively well, and enough attacks to toss out a lot of damage that way.

[Rebonack]

The first benefit is still pretty useful with Crossbow Expert and Sharpshooter. With CE you don't get disadvantage with your crossbow, which allows you to make use of the advantage from the first bullet, to abuse Sharpshooter. A Fighter will have enough ASIs to afford it relatively well, and enough attacks to toss out a lot of damage that way.

If you have Crossbow Expert and Sharpshooter there's really no reason not to just stand back and Menacing Strike your hits and Precise Strike your misses to quickly turn things into confetti. Assuming you went Battle Master with your crossbow run-and-gunner, of course.

I dunno, just because there might be a build or two out in left field that might kind of maybe benefit from this choice doesn't mean it's a particularly great one.

If I'm running a grappling guy, I would really prefer going Eldritch Knight for Enlarge and Jump so I can do Zangief impressions.

[GlenSmash!]

If I'm running a grappling guy, I would really prefer going Eldritch Knight for Enlarge and Jump so I can do Zangief impressions.

For me, I like the UA Zealot Barbarian, Grapple and Hold them in your damaging Aura.

[Saeviomage]

Grappler gives you advantage on a foe without needing to prone them, so you can:

Attack with tavern brawler, get a bonus grapple, grapple, take the rest of your attacks at advantage. Net result: more damage than if you had to spend attacks trying to trip your target.

The restrained thing? Giving all your ranged party members advantage is pretty nice, but the big draw is giving them disadvantage on dex saves. Lining bad guys up for disintegrate is pretty sweet.

All in all, grappler gives you options. IMO it's worth having.

I think the problem is that people mentally compare every feat against GWM and sharpshooter, when the reality is that those feats are just flat-out too good.

[GlenSmash!]

Grappler gives you advantage on a foe without needing to prone them, so you can:

Attack with tavern brawler, get a bonus grapple, grapple, take the rest of your attacks at advantage. Net result: more damage than if you had to spend attacks trying to trip your target.

It's not just Attack with Tavern Brawler, you must *Hit* with the Unarmed strike or Improvised weapon to get the bonus action grapple attempt (something I houserule about Tavern brawler) but that's neither here or there for the Grappler feat.



The restrained thing? Giving all your ranged party members advantage is pretty nice, but the big draw is giving them disadvantage on dex saves. Lining bad guys up for disintegrate is pretty sweet.

Which is cool, but now you've restrained yourself, so you now have disadvantage on your own attack roles and your dex saves, and other foes have advantage against you! You just put yourself in just as bad a situation as the guy you've grappled.




All in all, grappler gives you options. IMO it's worth having.

It gives you options, but at too high a cost. IMO it's not worth having.


I think the problem is that people mentally compare every feat against GWM and sharpshooter, when the reality is that those feats are just flat-out too good.

There's truth to this.

[90sMusic]

Anytime I want to play someone that uses grapples and such to control people in battle, I just play a druid.

It doesn't get any better than a giant constrictor snake (CR 2) that automatically grapples AND restrains after each of their attacks. Your size is also Huge meaning you can grapple and restrain waaaay more things because of your immense size.

So you just keep squeezing for damage every round, giving everyone, including you, advantage on attacking the guy and giving him disadvantage on attacking you back. It's pretty awesome.

[Saeviomage]

Which is cool, but now you've restrained yourself, so you now have disadvantage on your own attack roles and your dex saves, and other foes have advantage against you! You just put yourself in just as bad a situation as the guy you've grappled.

Right... but if your party take your ability into account when selecting spells and tactics, they are always present. Foes that force dex saves or get extra benefits from advantage won't be in every fight.

If you know that you're fighting a bunch of meatheads that are mostly hitting you anyway, feel free to pin their boss so the party wizard can disintegrate him.

[Potato_Priest]

About 3/4 of my 5e characters and concepts are grappling oriented, so I felt I should weigh in on this.

Does grappler give you a couple of new tricks?

Yes, it does. The advantage thing is nice, and as others have pointed out, restraining the target instead of proning them can sometimes work better in a ranged party.

Is it worth it?

By no means. Maybe if you're a 12th level variant human fighter getting your 6th ASI/feat it might be worth grabbing, but for most other characters, it simply won't be, at least until you've taken everything else. If you want good feats for grappling, shield master, tavern brawler, and the UA athlete feat are great. Grappler is almost always worth less than an ASI in str or con.

Even if you have an archery focused party, you'll have to be facing a solo enemy for using the restraint provided by grappler to be worthwhile. Otherwise, you'll just get butchered by the boss' mooks after you restrain yourself. Also keep in mind that initiating restraint takes an action, (which is not an attack action so it doesn't stack with various other features), while regular grappling and proning just takes an attack.