Druids/grappling in 5e

[Crexis]

I'm new to D&D 5e, just having played pathfinder. Can wild shaped druids put up a lot of DPS like they can in pathfinder?

I'm wanting to create a character that can do DPS AND can grapple. What class/race do you recommend I go for that?

In pathfinder you can do a lot of customization to get good with grappling, I'm not sure if I'm able to do that much to grapple/DPS in D&D 5e. Any info greatly appreciated.

[GlenSmash!]

I'm new to D&D 5e, just having played pathfinder. Can wild shaped druids put up a lot of DPS like they can in pathfinder?

I'm wanting to create a character that can do DPS AND can grapple. What class/race do you recommend I go for that?

In pathfinder you can do a lot of customization to get good with grappling, I'm not sure if I'm able to do that much to grapple/DPS in D&D 5e. Any info greatly appreciated.

Wild Shape druids are more about Survive-ability than straight Damage in 5e, All it takes to be decent at grappling in 5e is the ability to win Athletics contests. There are a few ways of getting good at this.


High Strength Modifier
Proficiency in Athletics
Expertise in Athletics
Advantage on Athletics checks
Causing Disadvantage on your opponents Athletics/Acrobatics checks
Ability to gain Large size so you can grapple foe that are bigger than size Large.



To be really good at it, just try to get as many of the things from that list as possible. Bard is the single class that gets most of the above, but a lot of Multi-classes can pull from this list. Even a single classed Barbarian or Fighter with Athletics proficiency will be able to be fine grapplers against Large or smaller size creatures while being great at the Damage side of things too. Adding a single level in rogue for Athletics expertise is a common way to increase grappling effectiveness.

[Easy_Lee]

I recommend rogue barbarian for the simple reason that it excels at both grappling and DPR. Barbarian provides the advantage rogue needs for sneak attack, and rogue provides the expertise Barbarian needs to be a first rate grappler.

Even if the target is too big to grapple, you should be able to use the optional DMG rules to climb on top of it and use athletics to hold on.

[Specter]

I recommend rogue barbarian for the simple reason that it excels at both grappling and DPR. Barbarian provides the advantage rogue needs for sneak attack, and rogue provides the expertise Barbarian needs to be a first rate grappler.

Even if the target is too big to grapple, you should be able to use the optional DMG rules to climb on top of it and use athletics to hold on.

This. Expertise + advantage on STR checks means you can grapple pretty much anything.

[Tanarii]

It's pretty important to note what Grapple gives you in 5e:
1) Target is Grappled (see below). In effect it's speed becomes 0.
2) You can move the target with you, but you move at 1/2 speed.

That's it. They are free to do anything except control their own movement. They can attack, cast spells, etc unhindered.

Grappled (Condition)
• A grappled creature’s speed becomes 0, and it can’t benefit from any bonus to its speed.
• The condition ends if the grappler is incapacitated (see the condition).
• The condition also ends if an effect removes the grappled creature from the reach of the grappler or grappling effect, such as when a creature is hurled away by the thunderwave spell

[Chugger]

OP I was asking about this a week or two ago. If you want to search my posts, it won't be that far down the feed. Some of the good people here gave me some interesting links on it - where Crawford and Mearls seem to say that Druids in wildform _can_ grapple.

What I'm still unclear on is how grappling works and you're, say, a bear with multi-attack. I'm pretty sure they said you can grapple by either biting-to-hold or something like that - but unlike a humanoid with extra attack, who can use an attack to grapple and then use the extra attack to hit the target (if that hand is free) - the designers (jc and m) seemed to say that all of multi-attack was used to grapple and can't be split. You may want to look into this - or maybe someone who knows where those links are will help us.

Grappling does not impose the restrain condition (but can with the feat - but you restrain yourself to restrain your target). Grappling is useful - stop a runner - keep someone near a bonfire or flaming sphere - drop someone off a cliff and so on. There is a grappling guide here in the guides section. I think you can grapple on one turn and if it doesn't break free then shove it the next turn - now you have a grappled prone victim. And the prone condition has good and bad things about it.

Someone said druids don't do much damage. Maybe in certain levels, but for levels 2-5 they are pretty nasty. A Dire Wolf gets advantage on most hits (if near an ally) and thus lands great sword damage (2d6 + 3 or +4) almost every turn. A lvl 4 Rogue beats you (1d8 light xbow or rapier + 2d6 sneak attack + 4) and can get advantage if hidden - but that's a roll that can be missed - and not all fights/DMs allow repeat hiding. And that Rogue can't tank like you can. A raging barb can reckless and get advantage but takes advantage retaliatory hits. Anyway, don't let someone scare you off druid as being weak on damage - I don't see it.

Bear gets multiattack: bite 1d8 + 4 and claw 2d6 + 4 and will typically land at least one of those.

Now at lvl 5 a fighter or pal or barb can extra attack and has other things. But a druid can cast before going into wildshape - and a var human druid with warcaster or resilient con feat is likely to hold a concentration spell - and so a druid in (lvl 6 polar bear form) can have a flaming sphere doing an additional 2d6 as a bonus action - or call lighting which is something like 3d10 per bonus action and can hit more than one target - or conjure animals to fight with you - like another polar bear or 2 dire wolves or w/e. There are levels where druid falls behind - but at 10 druid can become an elemental. It's not an awful choice. And you have casting to help make it better, once you understand what the spells do. But it's not for everyone.

Back to grappling, you need to make sure - as others said here - you understand the mechanic and that you even want it. There are cases in 5e where you do something that seems cool - but the others around you just do damage - and sometimes just doing damage and killing the creature you're fighting is the ultimate control. The sophisticated or tricky things we can do don't always pan out - but at times they do - you need to understand when this is - that's all I'm saying.

[GlenSmash!]

It's pretty important to note what Grapple gives you in 5e:
1) Target is Grappled (see below). In effect it's speed becomes 0.
2) You can move the target with you, but you move at 1/2 speed.

That's it. They are free to do anything except control their own movement. They can attack, cast spells, etc unhindered.

Grappled (Condition)
• A grappled creature’s speed becomes 0, and it can’t benefit from any bonus to its speed.
• The condition ends if the grappler is incapacitated (see the condition).
• The condition also ends if an effect removes the grappled creature from the reach of the grappler or grappling effect, such as when a creature is hurled away by the thunderwave spell


Yes! This is all very important.

Effective grapplers I have seen will do things like drag their target to an open window and shove them out of the flying castle. Or off a cliff, or into lava.

Or drag them along the edge of a Spike Growth for a total of 6d4 damage.

Or the classic shove them prone so that the 0 speed from being grappled will keep them from standing up. The great think about being good at grapples is you are also good at shoves.

[Tanarii]

OP I was asking about this a week or two ago. If you want to search my posts, it won't be that far down the feed. Some of the good people here gave me some interesting links on it - where Crawford and Mearls seem to say that Druids in wildform _can_ grapple.Of course they can grapple. All they have to do is use the Attack action, then grapple with their attack.


What I'm still unclear on is how grappling works and you're, say, a bear with multi-attack.It doesn't. The multi-attack action only allows the specified attacks.


I'm pretty sure they said you can grapple by either biting-to-hold or something like that - but unlike a humanoid with extra attack, who can use an attack to grapple and then use the extra attack to hit the target (if that hand is free) - the designers (jc and m) seemed to say that all of multi-attack was used to grapple and can't be split. You may want to look into this - or maybe someone who knows where those links are will help us.You're getting the action (multiattack) confused with biting. A Bear does not use "all of it's multiattack". It uses the attack action, then grapples. It doesn't really matter if it's using its jaws or paws to do it (to distinguish from Bite or Claws, which are melee weapon attacks). But that's almost certainly what they meant if they said that a bear can use it's "Bite" to grapple. It can use it's jaws to do so. Edit: And it uses it's jaws by taking the Attack Action (not the multiattack action), and using the single resulting attack to Grapple.

[Chugger]

No, I think I'm getting it but don't fully understand it or fully buy it. Why can't a bear bite to grapple and then claw at the target? Because a bear has to use its entire mult-attack just to grapple - the justification might be that it has to bite and hug just to grapple - maybe. I just don't see it as cut and dried (why a person can grapple with one hand and then attack with a weapon in the other with extra attack - of course you might say "extra" vs "multi" they're different - and I'm thinking different words, yes, but not necessarily all that different in execution - I don't feel comfortable with this interpretation and would, if DMing it, be honest and tell the player it's just the silly rules I'm sorry - if you committed to something permanent thinking the rules would be otherwise I'll let you change - I don't like weak or hard to fully buy rules). But the rules iz the rules - there's no game w/out em - I also don't like homebrewing everything - gets confusing - and hey I don't always thinking things through perfectly (but I will do my own rules if necessary).

I like the dragging along the edge of a spike growth - think it's 6d4 - but no save iirc.

[Chugger]

Yes! This is all very important.

Effective grapplers I have seen will do things like drag their target to an open window and shove them out of the flying castle. Or off a cliff, or into lava.

Or drag them along the edge of a Spike Growth for a total of 6d6 damage.

Or the classic shove them prone so that the 0 speed from being grappled will keep them from standing up. The great think about being good at grapples is you are also good at shoves.

OP this is useful.

You can cast a Spike Growth. You may need a feat (resilient Con or Warcaster) to keep the Spike Growth. And then you and other Str-type characters can grapple and drag along the edge of the spike growth. Each target would take (iirc) 6d4 no save for every 15' traveled. You might be able to cause 8d4 if your animal form has 40' movement - drag for half movement in most cases. THat's 15 or 20 pts of damage.

But it takes party coordination and understanding to max out. And there's a sort of "save" in that your grappled victim can escape you - he has several ways to do it.

[Tanarii]

No, I think I'm getting it but don't fully understand it or fully buy it. Why can't a bear bite to grapple and then claw at the target?He can. It just happens in two different turns.


Because a bear has to use its entire mult-attack just to grapple - the justification might be that it has to bite and hug just to grapple - maybe. I just don't see it as cut and dried (why a person can grapple with one hand and then attack with a weapon in the other with extra attack - of course you might say "extra" vs "multi" they're different - and I'm thinking different words, yes, but not necessarily all that different in execution - I don't feel comfortable with this interpretation and would, if DMing it, be honest and tell the player it's just the silly rules I'm sorry - if you committed to something permanent thinking the rules would be otherwise I'll let you change - I don't like weak or hard to fully buy rules). But the rules iz the rules - there's no game w/out em - I also don't like homebrewing everything - gets confusing - and hey I don't always thinking things through perfectly (but I will do my own rules if necessary).I'm not sure why it's so hard to understand that a Multiattack action is not the same as the Attack action. There are lots of things in the game that allow creatures to attack or do damage that aren't the Attack Action. The Cast a Spell Action, for example. Booming Blade is an attack that uses the Cast a Spell Action to execute. Not the Attack Action. Despite being an attack, and making a melee attack as part of it.

[Contrast]

Why can't a bear bite to grapple and then claw at the target?

In fairness, a human can't grapple someone and then attack them as well either without years of martial training and practice (i.e. level 5) if that helps you rationalise it.

[GlenSmash!]

I like the dragging along the edge of a spike growth - think it's 6d4 - but no save iirc.
Your'e right. I edit the post with the correct type of dice.


OP this is useful.

You can cast a Spike Growth. You may need a feat (resilient Con or Warcaster) to keep the Spike Growth. And then you and other Str-type characters can grapple and drag along the edge of the spike growth. Each target would take (iirc) 6d4 no save for every 15' traveled. You might be able to cause 8d4 if your animal form has 40' movement - drag for half movement in most cases. THat's 15 or 20 pts of damage.

But it takes party coordination and understanding to max out. And there's a sort of "save" in that your grappled victim can escape you - he has several ways to do it.

With Mobile, those non-shapeshifting grapplers can get to 8d4 too. More if they are High enough level Barbarians. Or monks I guess.

[Puh Laden]

Also note that anything that improves grappling improves your ability to shove, which can be used to knock a target prone, giving all attacks from within 5 ft advantage iirc (not sure if it's melee attacks or all attacks in 5 ft). Standing up prone requires using half your speed but if your speed is 0 ft, you can't use any of it. Do if you grapple and shove, that's good. Though it works better with classes that get extra attack since grappling and shoving both require the attack action. If you have extra attack, each replaces one normal attack from the attack action. Note you can't replace any attack with a shove or grapple, it must be an attack made as part of the attack action.

[Crexis]

Wow lot of good replies. In pathfinder you can grapple someone, pin him next round then take a rope and tie him up and kill him. I suppose grappling in D&D is very underpowered comparatively. How exactly does one go ahead and throw someone on the floor so he's prone AND he can't move 5 ft to get up?

Do you have to keep a hold of the enemy for him to be prone?

What are the best ways to gain advantage or have the enemy gain disadvantage?

[GlenSmash!]

Wow lot of good replies. In pathfinder you can grapple someone, pin him next round then take a rope and tie him up and kill him. I suppose grappling in D&D is very underpowered comparatively. How exactly does one go ahead and throw someone on the floor so he's prone AND he can't move 5 ft to get up?

Do you have to keep a hold of the enemy for him to be prone?

What are the best ways to gain advantage or have the enemy gain disadvantage?

In 5e you can grapple and shove to the ground in the same round as long as you have Extra Attack. Grapple with your first attack, and shove with the second. This keeps enemies from standing up.

Alternatively the grappler Feat lets you Grapple then Restrain with a second grapple check. This has pros and cons that are outlined in a lot of other threads.

Gaining advantage on grapple checks can be done through barbarian rage or being enlarged. Hex can be used to give a foe disadvantage on ability checks of a certain type like strength, which covers Athletics checks, or Dexterity which covers Acrobatics either of which can be used to attempt to escape a grapple.

[Puh Laden]

Wow lot of good replies. In pathfinder you can grapple someone, pin him next round then take a rope and tie him up and kill him. I suppose grappling in D&D is very underpowered comparatively. How exactly does one go ahead and throw someone on the floor so he's prone AND he can't move 5 ft to get up?

Do you have to keep a hold of the enemy for him to be prone?

What are the best ways to gain advantage or have the enemy gain disadvantage?

Getting up in 5e actually takes half of your total movement speed as long as it's not 0ft. That's why grappling combined with shoving is so good because grappling reduces the target's speed to 0ft as long as they're grappled. Grappling is not required to shove someone prone, however, it's just useful to keep them prone. You also, in general, need at least one hand to perform a grapple. I forget if shoving requires a free hand.

If you get the shield master feat, if feats are allowed, then you can knock a target probe with your shield as a bonus action, but then you don't have a free hand to grapple (iassuming you have a weapon). Still, it can keep an opponent down for most of a round, and then they're stuck with half of their move gone.

[90sMusic]

It is probably worth noting that as long as you knock someone prone while maintaining the grapple, it's almost the same thing as restrained.

Both prevent the target from moving.
Both give the target disadvantage on their attack rolls.
Both give you advantage on hitting them, although prone requires you to be within 5 feet while restrained does not.

Restrained also gives disadvantage on dex saves while prone does not.

So while you can't really "restrain" someone like you could pin them in pathfinder, you can still grab em and then knock em down. In the same round too if you can attack more than once or have a feat like shield master.

As for druids, you can also turn into a giant constrictor snake then your attack has a built-in auto restrain on it. Pretty nice. You do damage and restrain all at once.

[Citan]

I recommend rogue barbarian for the simple reason that it excels at both grappling and DPR. Barbarian provides the advantage rogue needs for sneak attack, and rogue provides the expertise Barbarian needs to be a first rate grappler.

Even if the target is too big to grapple, you should be able to use the optional DMG rules to climb on top of it and use athletics to hold on.
Or you can go Rogue 2 / Grassland Druid 5 / Monk 5+ and go all merry-go around a Spike Growth. Can deal pretty nasty automatic damage without any help although it takes one turn to enable.

Usual race speed + Longstrider + Unarmored Movement + Haste = 50 feet move while dragging a grappled creature (Haste doubles, grappling halves).
Add to that Dash from Cunning Action and Dash from Haste for a total of 150 feet.
Of course you lose some speed to go grab the creature and then reach Spike Growth, but you can usually expect at least 100 feet available.
2d4*(100/5)=2d4*20, average 5*20=100 automatic damage.
Easily trumping Barb/Rogue for 2 encounters a day, as long as someone in your party can take care of either Spike Growth or Haste.

Worst case, nobody is available so yourself takes care of the Spike Growth: much less impressive of course, but you should be able to pump at least ~20 extra damage per turn with Cunning Action Dash, which seems fair to me for a 2nd level slot.

Of course, it's even better if there if the party that can take care of both Haste and Spike Growth, in which case any grappler build works equally well, with the Barb/Rogue easily besting others in terms of resilience. But it requires two people in the party to concentrate on those spells where they could concentrate on overall more useful spells, so it's a big trade-off.

[Strangways]

It is probably worth noting that as long as you knock someone prone while maintaining the grapple, it's almost the same thing as restrained.

Both prevent the target from moving.
Both give the target disadvantage on their attack rolls.
Both give you advantage on hitting them, although prone requires you to be within 5 feet while restrained does not.

Restrained also gives disadvantage on dex saves while prone does not.

So while you can't really "restrain" someone like you could pin them in pathfinder, you can still grab em and then knock em down. In the same round too if you can attack more than once or have a feat like shield master.

As for druids, you can also turn into a giant constrictor snake then your attack has a built-in auto restrain on it. Pretty nice. You do damage and restrain all at once.

Once your druid reaches 10th level, he can also shapeshift into an air elemental, grab opponents, fly upwards, then drop them. Repeatedly. Best of all, as an air elemental you are immune to being grappled yourself, even though you can grapple your opponents.

[SharkForce]

It is probably worth noting that as long as you knock someone prone while maintaining the grapple, it's almost the same thing as restrained.

Both prevent the target from moving.
Both give the target disadvantage on their attack rolls.
Both give you advantage on hitting them, although prone requires you to be within 5 feet while restrained does not.

Restrained also gives disadvantage on dex saves while prone does not.

So while you can't really "restrain" someone like you could pin them in pathfinder, you can still grab em and then knock em down. In the same round too if you can attack more than once or have a feat like shield master.

As for druids, you can also turn into a giant constrictor snake then your attack has a built-in auto restrain on it. Pretty nice. You do damage and restrain all at once.

restrained straight-up gives advantage on attacks against the target. prone only gives advantage if you're attacking from within 5 feet. not if you're using a reach weapon to hit from 10 feet, not if you're attacking from 30 feet away with a ranged attack, only if you're within 5 feet and making an attack roll. it's a fairly important difference.

of course, if you do go with the druid plan, you'll be able to inflict the restrained condition properly as well, potentially; a fair number of beasts have the ability to just add on a grapple + restrain effect to their regular melee attacks. so long as you hit, the target is grappled and restrained, without any ability checks required.