Grappling in 5E

[johnbragg]

So in the 3E to 5E thread, people said that grappling was effective.

Can my halfling archer rogue be effective at grappling, despite being size small?

How does one grapple effectively? If you win the check, they can't move. Neither can you.

My rogue is actually fairly short on noncombat skills. I'd like to think he didn't spend all of his pre-adventuring time as an urchin murdering people. He's got really good strength, so it would make sense that he also spent a lot of time beating people up--putting them in painful wrestling holds, etc, presumably to make sure they paid their protection money.

But how exactly does that work in 5E?

[Dudewithknives]

So in the 3E to 5E thread, people said that grappling was effective.

Can my halfling archer rogue be effective at grappling, despite being size small?

How does one grapple effectively? If you win the check, they can't move. Neither can you.

My rogue is actually fairly short on noncombat skills. I'd like to think he didn't spend all of his pre-adventuring time as an urchin murdering people. He's got really good strength, so it would make sense that he also spent a lot of time beating people up--putting them in painful wrestling holds, etc, presumably to make sure they paid their protection money.

But how exactly does that work in 5E?

I just finished playing a grapple type character and here are some things I noticed.

1. Get expertise and or advantage on athletics. Both if you can pull it off.

Like a human barbarian with the prodigy feat.

2. Get extra attack it is huge.

3. Tavern Brawler is great if you plan to use unarmed or improvised weapons, getting a bonus action attacl/grapple/shove helps a ton.

4. Don't let other people try to lie to you, Grappler is a totally garbage feat.

5. Winning the athletics check does not stop your movement, it only cuts it in half. However you can take them with you at check.

6. If you are grappling someone you do NOT have the grappled condition unless they try to grapple you back.

7. Grappled is kind of meh, but grappling + shoving prone is great. The have 0 movement so they can not sand up without beating your check. Thus giving you advantage because they are prone.

8. Despite what some have said, grappling does NOT give any the restrained condition without the grappler feat, and if you restrain them, you are restrained too, so why bother.

9. Most creatures, even ones with a good str atr usually not that great at athletics in comparion to a PC.

10. You can defend with an acrobatics check instead of athletics, however you can't be the initiator of a grapple check and use acrobatics. So even if they are very agile arena dexterous if you beat them once and grapple them, they would have to start the check to break free and you can't do that with athletics.

11. It takes an action or one of the attacks from the attack action to break out of a rendition grapple, multi attack does not count. Just about every monster has multi attack, not more attacks with the attack action so most will have to waste their entire turn just attempting to break out.

12. You have to have a hand free to grapple with, so technically you could grapple 2 people at once if you wanted. You would just need some other way of attacking effectively without your hands. Ex. Better unarmed strikes, spiked armor, natural weapon of some kind.


To sum up. It works great, but you have to build for it correctly.

[Malifice]

So in the 3E to 5E thread, people said that grappling was effective.

Can my halfling archer rogue be effective at grappling, despite being size small?

Expertise in athletics goes a long way to me saying 'yes'.


How does one grapple effectively? If you win the check, they can't move. Neither can you.

Yes you can. And they move with you when you do. They have the grappled condition; you dont.

You can grapple them, move over to a cliff, and drop them over it.

[Oerlaf]

Many seem to underestimate the power of grappling in 5e. However, it is still strong. Good attack modifiers are easily countered by high ACs, good spell save DCs are easily countered by high save modifiers. Grapple, on the other hand, can be only countered with a high proficiency. Grappling being an opposed check has very good chance to succeed.

I once made a probabilistic research about successful probability of grappling (Remember, that by RAW ties in grapple are resolved in favor of the defender).

If a grappler has an ability modifier of M1 and the defender has an ability of modifier of M2 the grappler succeeds with probability at least 50% as long as M2 does not exceed M1-2.
If the grappler has advantage on the check (enhance ability), that number increases to M1+1, so it is pretty useful.

Also, although grappled condition seems weak, it's not.

- 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.
- 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.

The grappler himself is not grappled and can move the grappled creature around. However, since his speed is 0, it means the grappled creature cannot reach long-range PCs unless it is a spellcaster.

Martial characters with extra attack can make grapple+shove combo: the grappled creature has a speed of 0, so it can't stand up, and attack rolls against it have advantage if the attacker is within 5 feet of the target.

[Talyn]

At our table, we have also ruled that a person who is Restrained cannot cast spells with Somatic components (i.e. almost all of them) so grappling and pinning are effective ways to shut down casters. I'm not sure that is RAW, but I'd be willing to go to the mat that it is RAI.

The other nice thing about grappling and pinning is that it lets your melee allies wale on the guy while he's pinned - advantage on all melee attacks, no running away, rogues get to sneak attack, it's good stuff. The old "you hold him, I punch him" bar brawl technique is alive and well!

[Malifice]

At our table, we have also ruled that a person who is Restrained cannot cast spells with Somatic components (i.e. almost all of them) so grappling and pinning are effective ways to shut down casters. I'm not sure that is RAW, but I'd be willing to go to the mat that it is RAI.

The other nice thing about grappling and pinning is that it lets your melee allies wale on the guy while he's pinned - advantage on all melee attacks, no running away, rogues get to sneak attack, it's good stuff. The old "you hold him, I punch him" bar brawl technique is alive and well!

You only need to grapple once (and pin once if you have the feat).

They stay grappled/ restrained - but youre not.

So you also get advantage against them with your attacks.

[prototype00]

Others have covered the important points. I’d like to point out that there are feats that are good for action economy:

Shield Master: Besides being a great defensive feat let’s you knock things prone with a bonus action.

Tavern Brawler: If you hit something with an unarmed or improvised weapon attack, you get to grapple as a bonus action.

I’ve had reasonable success playing a barbarian grappler with both of these feats (barbarians get Advantage on strength ie grapple checks when raging)

Note: you can only grapple foes up to one size category larger than yourself. A halfling can grapple, at maximum, medium foes. A human could grapple an ogre.

[Lombra]

The cool part about being small is that you can climb large or larger creatures, giving you advantage to the attack roll :D

[Danielqueue1]

A thing people often forget about the prone-grapple combo.


it offers advantage on attacks made within 5 feet of the target and disadvantage on all other attacks made against the prone creature.

rogue using a bow? disadvantage. and sneak attack includes the wording "and doesn't have disadvantage" so your bow wielding rogue cannot use sneak attack against the target unless they throw away their comfy hiding spot and pull out their rapier.

the player who built a wicked awesome pole-arm build now has disadvantage if he doesn't close the distance he built his entire character around having. (and if you allow bugbear PCs they will be annoyed too.)

your EB spamming warlock "friend," and scorching ray dragon bloodline sorcerer have disadvantage too.

your sharpshooter-elven accuracy archer friend is ☺♥♫♀►ing pissed.


now people have said that the grappler feat is garbage. and in any melee heavy party it very much is. but in a party full of ranged attackers and casters, you are giving advantage to yourself while severely hampering the rest of the party's attempts to kill the creature. In that same party, restraining a creature without knocking it prone hampers your own efforts and makes you a bigger target seeing as everything has advantage on attacks against you, but the rest of your party has advantage on all attack rolls against that target. and if you say other creatures having advantage on all attack rolls against you is a problem, let me introduce you to barbarian reckless attack. (from what I've seen anything that relies on party members is commonly seen as garbage in AL)

[opaopajr]

10. You can defend with an acrobatics check instead of athletics, however you can't be the initiator of a grapple check and use acrobatics. So even if they are very agile arena dexterous if you beat them once and grapple them, they would have to start the check to break free and you can't do that with athletics.

The sentence structure here is confusing me. I think I get what you are saying, but let me try to simplify:

He who starts the grapple does so with athletics, and continues any contest afterwards with athletics.

Escaping a Grapple.
A grappled creature can use its action to escape. To do so, it must succeed on a Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check contested by your Strength (Athletics) check.

(D&D 5e Basic. August 2014. p. 74.)

Is that what you meant?

[Oerlaf]

A thing people often forget about the prone-grapple combo.


it offers advantage on attacks made within 5 feet of the target and disadvantage on all other attacks made against the prone creature.

rogue using a bow? disadvantage. and sneak attack includes the wording "and doesn't have disadvantage" so your bow wielding rogue cannot use sneak attack against the target unless they throw away their comfy hiding spot and pull out their rapier.

the player who built a wicked awesome pole-arm build now has disadvantage if he doesn't close the distance he built his entire character around having. (and if you allow bugbear PCs they will be annoyed too.)

your EB spamming warlock "friend," and scorching ray dragon bloodline sorcerer have disadvantage too.

your sharpshooter-elven accuracy archer friend is ☺♥♫♀►ing pissed.


now people have said that the grappler feat is garbage. and in any melee heavy party it very much is. but in a party full of ranged attackers and casters, you are giving advantage to yourself while severely hampering the rest of the party's attempts to kill the creature. In that same party, restraining a creature without knocking it prone hampers your own efforts and makes you a bigger target seeing as everything has advantage on attacks against you, but the rest of your party has advantage on all attack rolls against that target. and if you say other creatures having advantage on all attack rolls against you is a problem, let me introduce you to barbarian reckless attack. (from what I've seen anything that relies on party members is commonly seen as garbage in AL)

Attacks isn't the only thing that a character can have. Eldritch Blast is not a panacea. For example, one of my characters has sacred flame(Celestial Warlock cantrip), eldritch blast (ranged attack) and thorn whip (melee attack) from Pact of Tome, so I'm ok with grapplers: I'll find a way to damage a prone target without spending spell slots.

[opaopajr]

Attacks isn't the only thing that a character can have. Eldritch Blast is not a panacea. For example, one of my characters has sacred flame(Celestial Warlock cantrip), eldritch blast (ranged attack) and thorn whip (melee attack) from Pact of Tome, so I'm ok with grapplers: I'll find a way to damage a prone target without spending spell slots.

I think the point trying to be made is the Grappler feat's Restrained condition plays better with others than Prone, even if it puts you briefly at risk.

A whole party exploiting focused fire with Advantage through a Grappler's sacrifice can end up wiping out a single target quickly. (And also likely ending the grapple due to the target being dead before the opponents beat down your Grappler.) It requires trust and coordination, so yes, it naturally is assumed a terrible choice for AL. :P

(But then I don't have many expectations of Org Play stepping up their cooperative game beyond mini-game, white room arena, theory crafting. Because I am elitist and cruel with my lowered expectations of an adversarial competitive environment. :P )

[Dudewithknives]

The sentence structure here is confusing me. I think I get what you are saying, but let me try to simplify:

He who starts the grapple does so with athletics, and continues any contest afterwards with athletics.

Escaping a Grapple.
A grappled creature can use its action to escape. To do so, it must succeed on a Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check contested by your Strength (Athletics) check.

(D&D 5e Basic. August 2014. p. 74.)

Is that what you meant?

Auto correct kind of made a fool of my post on that one.

I meant that if you grapple them, they can't grapple you back with acrobatics. They can escape with acrobatics, but they can't grapple you back with it.

[Quoz]

There are several other fun things to do in a grapple. Jumping or climbing and dropping from on high grants automatic damage and prone without costing an action (And you can grapple again with your attack when you land)

The ever-popular drag through spike growth is fun, if cheesy.

If you have a wizard or sorcerer with mold earth and a few rounds to set up, dig a well (20 feet should usually work, and 30 or more will cover almost all medium or smaller creatures). Grab, drag, drop, repeat. Shove, repelling blast, and most other forced movement or charm are all great too. Then you can either negotiate from the high ground, play whack a mole, or just fill in the hole.

Since you're playing rogue, you can also probably hog tie (GM discretion): sleight of hand with a rope or manacles to restrain so you can move on to the next target. A head bag is also good for stopping almost all spellcasting, as most everything requires sight.

If you have tavern brawler, you are automatically proficient with any enemy you are grappling as an improvised weapon.

Probably several more I'm forgetting or haven't learned yet. If anyone else has more fun tricks please let us all know.

[Oerlaf]

Auto correct kind of made a fool of my post on that one.

I meant that if you grapple them, they can't grapple you back with acrobatics. They can escape with acrobatics, but they can't grapple you back with it.

But they can grapple you back with Athletics.

[johnbragg]

I'm not fully understanding, but that's because I haven't closely read everyone yet--I will later, I promise.

On first reading, imposing the grappled condition doesn't do much for my rogue. Target's speed is zero, and I can move him around. It doesn't list that target has disadvantage on anything, so no "unarmed damage plus sneak attack" combo. Target can still do anything except move.

I still like it as a background flavor text--I like the idea of an urban mafia-adjacent urchin halfling delivering vicious headbutts to the crotch of bigfolk. (You can't murderhobo your way through EVERYTHING. Sometimes you need to apply violence more judiciously.)

Sample encounter, from the last session of this campaign, where I started looking up the grappling rules, and it wasn't a great option.

We're fighting a drow caster. Drow drops Darkness, so half the party doesn't know where he is, the other half has only a vague idea.

My Plan B was to sneak up vaguely behind him, grapple him and use that to prevent him from casting anything else (maybe break the concentration for Darkness-I don't know if that would work in 5E, but to be fair my rogue doesn't have expertise in Arcana so he woudln't know that either.) I figure I could probably find a medium-sized target in a 5-10' wide corridor in the dark and start doing very painful things to his leg. (Someone solved the problem before Plan B came into effect.) (Note: All hims in this post refer to the drow or generic grapple target, none to my rogue. I checked.)

By my OOC reading of the rules, even if I had gotten to him and grappled him (my Athletics is almost certainly higher than his Athletics or Acrobatics), it wouldn't have done much--darkness would still be active, he could still cast. Am I wrong?

[Tanarii]

No, you're not wrong.

Think of 5e Grapple as "Grab".

If you have the Grappler feat, you can actuall restrain them, which is what most people think of as a Grapple. The downside is just as in wrestling, you're retrained too. In fact, it's probably best to think of the Grappler feat at the Wrestler feat.

Edit: there isn't a way to completely pin someone, preventing attacks or casting. Because that would be a insta-kill move. They can always fight back.

[GlenSmash!]

I'm not fully understanding, but that's because I haven't closely read everyone yet--I will later, I promise.

On first reading, imposing the grappled condition doesn't do much for my rogue. Target's speed is zero, and I can move him around. It doesn't list that target has disadvantage on anything, so no "unarmed damage plus sneak attack" combo. Target can still do anything except move.

Right, that's when you drag him through a Druid or Ranger's spike growth doing extra damage, or shove him off a cliff, or out out a window.





Sample encounter, from the last session of this campaign, where I started looking up the grappling rules, and it wasn't a great option.

We're fighting a drow caster. Drow drops Darkness, so half the party doesn't know where he is, the other half has only a vague idea.

My Plan B was to sneak up vaguely behind him, grapple him and use that to prevent him from casting anything else (maybe break the concentration for Darkness-I don't know if that would work in 5E, but to be fair my rogue doesn't have expertise in Arcana so he woudln't know that either.) I figure I could probably find a medium-sized target in a 5-10' wide corridor in the dark and start doing very painful things to his leg. (Someone solved the problem before Plan B came into effect.) (Note: All hims in this post refer to the drow or generic grapple target, none to my rogue. I checked.)

By my OOC reading of the rules, even if I had gotten to him and grappled him (my Athletics is almost certainly higher than his Athletics or Acrobatics), it wouldn't have done much--darkness would still be active, he could still cast. Am I wrong?

You're not wrong. This is not the right time to grapple, or at least it wouldn't accomplish what you are trying to accomplish in that scenario.

[Oerlaf]

I'm not fully understanding, but that's because I haven't closely read everyone yet--I will later, I promise.

On first reading, imposing the grappled condition doesn't do much for my rogue. Target's speed is zero, and I can move him around. It doesn't list that target has disadvantage on anything, so no "unarmed damage plus sneak attack" combo. Target can still do anything except move.

I still like it as a background flavor text--I like the idea of an urban mafia-adjacent urchin halfling delivering vicious headbutts to the crotch of bigfolk. (You can't murderhobo your way through EVERYTHING. Sometimes you need to apply violence more judiciously.)

Sample encounter, from the last session of this campaign, where I started looking up the grappling rules, and it wasn't a great option.

We're fighting a drow caster. Drow drops Darkness, so half the party doesn't know where he is, the other half has only a vague idea.

My Plan B was to sneak up vaguely behind him, grapple him and use that to prevent him from casting anything else (maybe break the concentration for Darkness-I don't know if that would work in 5E, but to be fair my rogue doesn't have expertise in Arcana so he woudln't know that either.) I figure I could probably find a medium-sized target in a 5-10' wide corridor in the dark and start doing very painful things to his leg. (Someone solved the problem before Plan B came into effect.) (Note: All hims in this post refer to the drow or generic grapple target, none to my rogue. I checked.)

By my OOC reading of the rules, even if I had gotten to him and grappled him (my Athletics is almost certainly higher than his Athletics or Acrobatics), it wouldn't have done much--darkness would still be active, he could still cast. Am I wrong?

Drow can cast in darkness only those spells that do not require him to be able to see the target. He could cast some buffs, perhaps. but many offensive spells either require a creature the caster can see or a point within range which in absence of clear line of path can only be chosen at the edge of the darkness at most.

[GlenSmash!]

A thing people often forget about the prone-grapple combo.


it offers advantage on attacks made within 5 feet of the target and disadvantage on all other attacks made against the prone creature.

rogue using a bow? disadvantage. and sneak attack includes the wording "and doesn't have disadvantage" so your bow wielding rogue cannot use sneak attack against the target unless they throw away their comfy hiding spot and pull out their rapier.

the player who built a wicked awesome pole-arm build now has disadvantage if he doesn't close the distance he built his entire character around having. (and if you allow bugbear PCs they will be annoyed too.)

your EB spamming warlock "friend," and scorching ray dragon bloodline sorcerer have disadvantage too.

your sharpshooter-elven accuracy archer friend is ☺♥♫♀►ing pissed.


now people have said that the grappler feat is garbage. and in any melee heavy party it very much is. but in a party full of ranged attackers and casters, you are giving advantage to yourself while severely hampering the rest of the party's attempts to kill the creature. In that same party, restraining a creature without knocking it prone hampers your own efforts and makes you a bigger target seeing as everything has advantage on attacks against you, but the rest of your party has advantage on all attack rolls against that target. and if you say other creatures having advantage on all attack rolls against you is a problem, let me introduce you to barbarian reckless attack. (from what I've seen anything that relies on party members is commonly seen as garbage in AL)

I agree the Grappler Feat is not garbage, granting advantage to yourself without giving disadvantage to Ranged party members is not a bad trade off.

However, to lose that disadvantage all the range (or reach) party members have to do is walk up to within 5ft of the Prone enemy. They will now have disadvantage for making a ranged attack within 5ft, but they will have advantage for attacking the prone target from within 5ft. Having both means they cancel and are considered to have neither. EB now works exactly as well as it did before. Ranged Rogue gets Sneak attack again.

Annoying certainly, but not insurmountable.

[ShikomeKidoMi]

On first reading, imposing the grappled condition doesn't do much for my rogue. Target's speed is zero, and I can move him around. It doesn't list that target has disadvantage on anything, so no "unarmed damage plus sneak attack" combo. Target can still do anything except move.
Yep, that's why most grapplers follow up by shove their target over and getting advantage on all their (and any other melee party members) attacks while he can't spend movement to get up without beating your Athletics, which few monsters do if you're a rogue with Expertise.


By my OOC reading of the rules, even if I had gotten to him and grappled him (my Athletics is almost certainly higher than his Athletics or Acrobatics), it wouldn't have done much--darkness would still be active, he could still cast. Am I wrong?

You're right. Grappling doesn't shut down casting anymore.

[Phoenix042]

One thing that I don't see discussed here yet is how easy it is to build a character who is incedentally very food at grappling, while still being devastatingly effective at other things when grapples aren't relevant.

For example, a barbarian who merely grabs proficiency in athletics is already more than 65% likely to succeed at grappling every large beast in the back of the player's handbook, at level 1 (while raging, of course). This isn't a steep investment like a feat or a fighting style or subclass choice, it's just one proficiency.

I have a player in one of my games who built a typical greataxe wielding barbarian. When he started fighting some displacer beasts in a jungle full of cliffs and treetop battlefields, he was positively shocked at how good he was at grappling.

In one memorable fjght, he singlehandedly grabbed two displacer beasts in one turn, dragged them both to a cliff, and leapt off. He took half damage because of rage, the displacer beasts died from falling damage.


It's not just powerful, it's really really fun.

[The1exile]

Grappling is good in 5e without being overpowered, in my opinion. It's rarely a plan A - since it doesn't do damage or give advantage on its own - but it (along with shove) allows all strong characters a measure of control and it gets better with multiple attacks. It also combos really nicely with effects like moonbeam, wall of fire, spirit guardians, spike growth and so on. However, if you're playing a rogue, giving up your sneak attack to do literally anything else is rarely worth it, and so it may prove here - especially since you can already disengage with your bonus action, and then shoot normally.

[MrStabby]

I agree that building a dedicated grappler is often not a good thing to do.

Grapples work best when there are a small number of high power enemies rather than a large number of low power enemies. Likewise enemies that you can't reach are pretty tough to grapple so there are a number of other fights where grappling is poor.

Building a character that is incidentally very good at grappling tends to be much better - when a grapple is good they can, when there are no special opportunities they won't.

[Rogozhin]

My lvl 5 lore bard has been dabblin' in the grapplin'. I got some gauntlets of ogre strength (fighter and barb already had 20 strength) and have proficiency in athletics. It makes for a lot of fun! I grab 'em giving our rogue sneak attack (with a little bardic inspiration for good measure), and then viciously mock the snot out of them. I'm sure this plan will never backfire!!

[Citan]

A thing people often forget about the prone-grapple combo.


it offers advantage on attacks made within 5 feet of the target and disadvantage on all other attacks made against the prone creature.

rogue using a bow? disadvantage. and sneak attack includes the wording "and doesn't have disadvantage" so your bow wielding rogue cannot use sneak attack against the target unless they throw away their comfy hiding spot and pull out their rapier.

the player who built a wicked awesome pole-arm build now has disadvantage if he doesn't close the distance he built his entire character around having. (and if you allow bugbear PCs they will be annoyed too.)

your EB spamming warlock "friend," and scorching ray dragon bloodline sorcerer have disadvantage too.

your sharpshooter-elven accuracy archer friend is ☺♥♫♀►ing pissed.


now people have said that the grappler feat is garbage. and in any melee heavy party it very much is. but in a party full of ranged attackers and casters, you are giving advantage to yourself while severely hampering the rest of the party's attempts to kill the creature. In that same party, restraining a creature without knocking it prone hampers your own efforts and makes you a bigger target seeing as everything has advantage on attacks against you, but the rest of your party has advantage on all attack rolls against that target. and if you say other creatures having advantage on all attack rolls against you is a problem, let me introduce you to barbarian reckless attack. (from what I've seen anything that relies on party members is commonly seen as garbage in AL)
Then there is also all the individual niche cases that can add up and combine to make Grappler a pretty good feat actually. But don't bother, some people here won't ever try to deviate from some void opinions because they are too lazy to try and see how to use feats that do not work equally well with all classes. Because that is exactly what Grappler is (same as Defensive Duelist or Elemental Adept): a niche feat for specific builds using some classes.

@OP: your main problem with Grappling will be your size: unless I've been wrong all this time you cannot grapple creatures that are more than 1 size larger than you. That does restrict quite a bit the creatures on which you can exert your talents. :=)
As a Rogue, if you go Arcane Trickster, you could mitigate this yourself with Enlarge (wich added benefit of providing advantage on your competing STR checks)... Or ask someone else to Enlarge you, or Polymorph you into a large creature (but then you lose your main feature, Sneak Attack so honestly I don't think it's a good idea unless restraining the creature is definitely the winning move for the party as a whole).

If your DM accepts UA and you are Arcane Trickster, the simplest fix is to multiclass into Mystic: even one single level would allow you to pick Giant Growth discipline and become Large 2 times per day. If you went as far as lvl 5 you could become Huge 5 times per day. Problem solved (with Huge probably overkill tbh). ;)

Besides the size problem, just Expertise and decent STR score (or getting up to Rogue 11 for Reliable Talent) is good. Grappler feat is dispensable for a solo player if you plan on relying on just Shove, however it does bring a big benefit if you intend to Grapple: other martials, to get advantage, will use Shove then Grapple: so two weapon attacks.
Pure Rogue never gets more than 2 attacks, and it's only provided you have CE feat (ranged) or dual-wielding (melee), but you use both attacks anyways. Meaning you wouldn't deal any damage that turn (nor off-turn, because no chance to get an OA: you are preventing the enemy to move after all).
If instead you just Grapple him, then you fall back on normal conditions of Sneak Attack: close-by ally or any source of advantage. Which can be hard or not depending on context.
Grappler feat comes in handy here, especially paired with Dash as bonus action: considering a Rogue does not like crowds, you can on first turn Grapple and Sneak Attack him (whatever the context around is), then on subsequent turns Dash as bonus action to draw him away from his friends and towards yours while still getting a chance to inflict full damage Sneak Attack: provided non-optimized setup (30 feet, no feat/buff/multiclass) you can move him 30 feet: obviously any speed buff will make this better.
This opens up quite an array of tactical combos with your friends, or it may just help you rein one foe in in a safe way, backtracking towards a place with better cover or traps for example.
Cherry on the cake: he will provide cover for you against his pal's arrows.

Of course, if your party is melee-only, or if you are used to just tag-team with a Fighter/Barbarian and stand in place, Grappler feat is very useless. ;) So it's up to your taste, how you fight and how much of a teamplayer you are. ;)


I agree that building a dedicated grappler is often not a good thing to do.

Grapples work best when there are a small number of high power enemies rather than a large number of low power enemies. Likewise enemies that you can't reach are pretty tough to grapple so there are a number of other fights where grappling is poor.

Building a character that is incidentally very good at grappling tends to be much better - when a grapple is good they can, when there are no special opportunities they won't.
This is very true. ;=) Unless you plan on using some particular team (or self)tactic relying on Grappling very often, its best seen as a good accessory rather than the main dish.
Especially on a Rogue who is usually best spending his action dealing damage and trying to get opportunity attacks for more damage.

Decidated grappling is best on high mobility + environmental hazard combo: which is hard to enable as a solo player (until > lvl 9 anyways). ;)

[johnbragg]

Then there is also all the individual niche cases that can add up and combine to make Grappler a pretty good feat actually. But don't bother, some people here won't ever try to deviate from some void opinions because they are too lazy to try and see how to use feats that do not work equally well with all classes. Because that is exactly what Grappler is (same as Defensive Duelist or Elemental Adept): a niche feat for specific builds using some classes.

@OP: your main problem with Grappling will be your size: unless I've been wrong all this time you cannot grapple creatures that are more than 1 size larger than you. That does restrict quite a bit the creatures on which you can exert your talents. :=)
As a Rogue, if you go Arcane Trickster, you could mitigate this yourself with Enlarge (wich added benefit of providing advantage on your competing STR checks)... Or ask someone else to Enlarge you, or Polymorph you into a large creature (but then you lose your main feature, Sneak Attack so honestly I don't think it's a good idea unless restraining the creature is definitely the winning move for the party as a whole).

My rogue took the Assassin package. The bottom line is that Grapple isn't going to be something he does more than once or twice in this campaign--he could certainly lock down an enemy for party mates to lay a beat down on, but that's the opposite of his role in the party--the front-liners engage, which gives him Sneak Attack dice on his arrows.

But his strength plus proficiency in Athletics and Acrobatics means that it was a common tactic for him before the campaign started--there are a very limited number of non-adventuring situations that are solved by "murder him with a bow". There is a larger set of situations where "beat the crap out of him with fists" is a useful thing to do.

If I'm reading the SRD right, what I want isn't actually grapple at all. What I want is to make an Athletics check to knock the target down. Then the target is prone, and my buddies can lay the boots in at that point. That can totally be fluffed as some kind of split-leg-takedown--my upper-body strength is all well-placed to target legs, so some combination of bull rushing and lifting one leg while kicking the other out from under you.

And if you're still down next turn, then unarmed strike means 1+ Strength + Sneak Attack--I'm applying a leglock for significant damage.

EDIT: This is mostly a background-building exercise. After I chose his proficiencies, I realized that he wasn't terribly useful at much besides murdering people with a bow. Which is certainly helpful, but what did he do all day before he started adventuring--bow-murdering usually isn't acceptable behavior in the urban environment where he was an urchin. Beating people only half to death, on the other hand, is a skill that will get you places. Not necessarily places you want to be, but.....

EDIT: Also reviewed and removed third-person pronouns to reduce confusion.

[GlenSmash!]

One thing that I don't see discussed here yet is how easy it is to build a character who is incedentally very food at grappling, while still being devastatingly effective at other things when grapples aren't relevant.

For example, a barbarian who merely grabs proficiency in athletics is already more than 65% likely to succeed at grappling every large beast in the back of the player's handbook, at level 1 (while raging, of course). This isn't a steep investment like a feat or a fighting style or subclass choice, it's just one proficiency.

I have a player in one of my games who built a typical greataxe wielding barbarian. When he started fighting some displacer beasts in a jungle full of cliffs and treetop battlefields, he was positively shocked at how good he was at grappling.

In one memorable fjght, he singlehandedly grabbed two displacer beasts in one turn, dragged them both to a cliff, and leapt off. He took half damage because of rage, the displacer beasts died from falling damage.


It's not just powerful, it's really really fun.

Oh yeah, this is why I love the Barbarian Grappler, you just make a regular Barbarian and he's already good at Grappling. Grab the Prodigy feat for Expertise in Athletics, and you're even better.

Have a Party member cast Enlarge on you, bam, now you can grapple Huge creatures. Have a Warlock Hex Strength on a foe, and it's even easier.

[Citan]

My rogue took the Assassin package. The bottom line is that Grapple isn't going to be something he does more than once or twice in this campaign--he could certainly lock down an enemy for party mates to lay a beat down on, but that's the opposite of his role in the party--the front-liners engage, which gives him Sneak Attack dice on his arrows.

But his strength plus proficiency in Athletics and Acrobatics means that it was a common tactic for him before the campaign started--there are a very limited number of non-adventuring situations that are solved by "murder him with a bow". There is a larger set of situations where "beat the crap out of him with fists" is a useful thing to do.

If I'm reading the SRD right, what I want isn't actually grapple at all. What I want is to make an Athletics check to knock the target down. Then the target is prone, and my buddies can lay the boots in at that point. That can totally be fluffed as some kind of split-leg-takedown--my upper-body strength is all well-placed to target legs, so some combination of bull rushing and lifting one leg while kicking the other out from under you.

And if you're still down next turn, then unarmed strike means 1+ Strength + Sneak Attack--I'm applying a leglock for significant damage.

EDIT: This is mostly a background-building exercise. After I chose his proficiencies, I realized that he wasn't terribly useful at much besides murdering people with a bow. Which is certainly helpful, but what did he do all day before he started adventuring--bow-murdering usually isn't acceptable behavior in the urban environment where he was an urchin. Beating people only half to death, on the other hand, is a skill that will get you places. Not necessarily places you want to be, but.....

EDIT: Also reviewed and removed third-person pronouns to reduce confusion.
Oh.
Then in that case indeed Grapple has absolutely no use for you, it's the Shove move you want, and since you already have Expertise and good STR you basically have everything you need already. Just haste yourself towards that booty Reliable Talent of level 11 and enjoy becoming the ultimate tripper. ^^

(Or multiclass Battlemaster 5 and enjoy Trip Attack, Precision attack, Action Surge and Extra Attack, but honestly I'd stay pure Rogue unless you really want to play with those toys. Rogue is in the top 3, if not AT the top, of classes that gets nice features every single level)

[johnbragg]

Oh.
Then in that case indeed Grapple has absolutely no use for you, it's the Shove move you want, and since you already have Expertise and good STR you basically have everything you need already. Just haste yourself towards that booty Reliable Talent of level 11 and enjoy becoming the ultimate tripper. ^^

(Or multiclass Battlemaster 5 and enjoy Trip Attack, Precision attack, Action Surge and Extra Attack, but honestly I'd stay pure Rogue unless you really want to play with those toys. Rogue is in the top 3, if not AT the top, of classes that gets nice features every single level)

Thanks. But I think I'm going to stick with straight Rogue and keep murdering people with the bow. This was mostly an exercise in tweaking a build that was *really* low on non-murderhobo functionality to match a background and answer my own question of "what did my guy do all day before he started adventuring?" "Murder people with arrows" is kind of a non-starter, he was an urban urchin so "hunt deer" didn't fit. "Hired muscle goon" fits him quite well.

But I'm sure there will be an encounter when murdering people with a bow from range is not feasible, and now I know the mechanics of "Surprise! The halfling rogue with the leg takedown! Everybody dogpile the prone target!"