Grappler Help

[FaceofBo]

Hello Playground,
I am normally a 5e player with my roots in 3.5, however, I have recently been invited to play in a Pathfinder game, and I was looking for some advice. I'd like to build a grappler, (Eagle Totem Barbarian from 5e kinda idea), someone to just grab, pin, disable, and move enemies around the battlefield. I've looked into the Brawler hybrid class, which appeared to be decent, but as I am not fully familiar with the system I thought I'd ask your opinions.
Thanks in advance,
FaceofBo

[Eladrinblade]

I'm not too familiar with PF, but I bet your best bet is actually a monk; I believe you can flurry during a grapple, and the speed bonus is helpful for getting to your enemies ASAP and for moving them while grappling. You'll want to be the biggest, strongest race you have access to, you'll want to pump up your unarmed damage as high as you can, and you'll want any bonuses to strength checks that you can get. I do know that PF has some neat grappling feats, like the neckbreaker line.

In 3.5, you'd want stuff like:
-enlarge person/rage/good hope
-armbands of might
-gloves of fearsome might (?)
-stone of good luck
-pale green prism ioun stone
-dunno exactly how you'd get it, but the fearsome grapple spell is great

There's lots of cheesier stuff as well.

If you ever come up against somebody that has freedom of movement from an item, you can have your mage use a targeted dispel, then grab>pin>disarm the item; requires 3 attacks.

[Rebel7284]

Monk is a terrible class in general and is pretty terrible at grappling in particular. Two levels of it can be a good dip, but any further is a waste.

The best grappler is probably a druid because turning into a bear is pretty silly.

Assuming you want to avoid too much magic, here are some options to consider:

Monk 2/Psychic Warrior 18 with Tashalatora feat
- Psychic Warrior gives you the expansion power which can be augmented to grow TWO size categories.
- You get all the benefits of the Monk but on top of the useful Psychic Warrior class.

Lion Totem (CC) City Brawler Barbarian (DR349 p92) 1/Fighter 6/Bear Warrior 5/Warshaper 4/X 4 (extra Rage feat)
- Turning into a large bear every time you rage while also having a great strength score is helpful.

Soul Eater prestige class.
- Kill things with negative levels as you grapple them. Very evil.

Goliath Race (LA+1) with Mountain Rage also makes your large.

The Half-Minotaur and (arguably Half Ogre) templates from Dragon Magazine make you large for +1 LA.

Crushing Weight of the Mountain third level stance from Tome of Battle gives you Constrict.

[Eldariel]

Barbarian is about the best non-caster grappler in 3.5/PF (Cleric, Wizard and Druid are obviously the best because shapeshifting magic and buff spells) - Str bonuses directly improve your checks and they get class features and tankiness to make themselves less vulnerable while grappling. Certainly it absolutely trashes Monk; though Brawler is pretty decent toom

If you could port Runescarred Berserker [Unapproachable East] you'd be golden - it gives you access to Antimagic Field to deal with Freedom of Movement, and size/strength buffa for the rest of the time. Very good at just this kind of a thing.

[skunk3]

Have you looked into the Reaping Mauler PrC? I am sure that it would work in PF. It is only a 5 level PrC, so you could mix it in with other ideas. A friend of mine used it in a campaign I played in and it was hilariously effective.

[Zaq]

Is 3.5 material allowed? Totemists are almost as good at grappling as Psychic Warriors are (the main advantage PsyWars have is class-native access to true size increases, but Totemists have killer natural weapons, numerical bonuses that are almost as good, and significantly easier resource management), so I’d look there if the book is available (and if you’ve got a way to grapple larger things). Maybe then mix in some Barbarian, Bear Warrior, and Totem Rager.

Druid is about as good as it gets for grappling, at least in 3.5 (don’t really know how PF changed it), but that’s a pretty big departure in terms of the general feel of the character.

[Goaty14]

Have you looked into the Reaping Mauler PrC? I am sure that it would work in PF. It is only a 5 level PrC, so you could mix it in with other ideas. A friend of mine used it in a campaign I played in and it was hilariously effective.

Reaping Mauler is horrible IIRC (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?233832-reaping-mauler)

TL;DR CW has a clause that says if you lose the prerequisites for a PrC, you lose the benefits of the PrC, and one of the requirements is the "Clever Wrestling" feat which requires you to be small/medium to qualify (it also sucks because it only gives bonuses to escaping a grapple, not for anything else) and most (good) grapple benefits are through size increases.

So if you get any grapple buffs (i.e enlarge person, +6 on grapple checks), you effectively lose the "Clever Wrestling" feat, and then lose the class features. Not that the class features are any good, but you still lose the measly +2 bonus.

[Zaq]

Reaping Mauler is horrible IIRC (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?233832-reaping-mauler)

TL;DR CW has a clause that says if you lose the prerequisites for a PrC, you lose the benefits of the PrC, and one of the requirements is the "Clever Wrestling" feat which requires you to be small/medium to qualify (it also sucks because it only gives bonuses to escaping a grapple, not for anything else) and most (good) grapple benefits are through size increases.

So if you get any grapple buffs (i.e enlarge person, +6 on grapple checks), you effectively lose the "Clever Wrestling" feat, and then lose the class features. Not that the class features are any good, but you still lose the measly +2 bonus.

If you play by strict RAW and don't have a GM who lets you ignore the Clever Wrestling issue, I believe that the standard workaround is to take 3 levels of Leviathan Hunter (Stormwrack, p. 61), which explicitly gives Clever Wrestling even if you don't meet the prereqs, so you retain it if you become (or are) Large+.

This costs three levels, obviously, and also a mediocre feat (Iron Will) and at least one level in Ranger (unless you have another way to get Track and Favored Enemy), so it's really only an option if you're really dead-set on Reaping Mauler for some reason. Despite, you know, Reaping Mauler being a fairly lame PrC even ignoring the Clever Wresting issue. But sometimes optimization is about making something work that shouldn't rather than about making something that does work even better, so here we are.