Why do people hate so much on the grappler feat

[Danielqueue1]

no this is not a troll post. no I am not mentally impaired. but it seems like a lot of people on this forum seem to start puking their guts out the moment the grappler feat is mentioned in a rush to be the first to tell the thread that it sucks worse than their old vacuum and that only noob players or people with a negative int modifier would ever fall for such a "trap" feat.

the way I see it it does 2 things.

1 you have advantage on attack rolls against anything you have grappled.

2 you can attempt to pin your target to give everyone advantage on all attack rolls against the target and give the target disadvantage on dex saves at the cost of the same happening to you.

most people who argue against the feat say that all you have to do is shove them prone and grapple them to get the same benefit of the feat with none of the drawbacks. This however is quite incorrect. although it would give you the same benefits for melee attacks, the same could not be said for the rest of the party. knocking a creature prone means that every attack from more than 5 feet away from the creature are now done at disadvantage.

meaning the

Dex fighter with sharpshooter and elven accuracy can't benefit from its feats and hates your guts from 500 feet away.

Polearm Master fighter who's whole point of his build was to use his weapons reach to keep things further away now has to get closer or take disadvantage.

Rogue has to put its bow away because it can't sneak attack with disadvantage.

wizard sighs because they really didn't want to get into melee range any time soon.

Warlock will wonder if you would be a valid target now that you have given him disadvantage on his eldritch blast spam.

Grappler may not be the best feat in the game, but it is far from "stupid trap trash that the developers must have been high to think would ever be useful" lets consider another ability, Reckless attack from a barbarian gives you advantage on your attacks while giving everyone else advantage on attacks against you. Pining a creature using the grappler feat gives your entire party advantage on attacks against the creature while giving everyone else advantage on attacks against you. one benefits your offense to the sacrifice of your defenses, while the other benefits the entire party's offense to the detriment of your defenses.

while Grapple-prone benefits melee fighters, pinned benefits everyone but you. ranged attacks hit more often as opposed to less, and the Wizard is far more likely to use disintegrate once the boss has disadvantage on dexterity saves. you lose an action to attack and put a target on yourself, but the person you just pinned is about to have a very bad day.


is it the best feat ever? no. there are sacrifices you have to make. your character uses their entire action to set it up and you become a target. but if you are willing to sacrifice your own damage output and take a few more hits to give your entire party an edge no matter what their fighting range is, then the grappler feat can be used to great effect.

proposed reasons why people don't like the feat
1 because it decreases their own damage output and they like those big numbers
2 because their party is mostly melee fighters and the cleric. and or all ranged characters are expected to take the crossbow expert feat.
3 because they play AL where they can't rely on their party to back them up. (okay this one is valid)
4 because they play in small parties where giving advantage to the entire team doesn't make up for the lost damage of a single character.
5 because the enemy has disintegrate too. (okay then just grapple them normally you don't have to pin every time.)



sorry for the rant, I'm just tired of when grappling is mentioned even if this feat isn't brought up, someone usually chimes in with how the feat is literally Hitler. I understand that it is situational at best. but can someone explain the foaming-mouth hatred of this feat?

[Jerrykhor]

Its a broken feat because it doesn't make you any better at grappling than someone who didn't take the feat. It only gives you bonuses AFTER you successfully grapple the target. Whether its false advertising or a scam, its up to debate.

You want to be good at grappling, get a high Athletics modifier, preferably expertise, and get advantage on strength/Athletic checks.

But there's not denying the feat is busted. To deny it is to deny the truth.

[Danielqueue1]

Its a broken feat because it doesn't make you any better at grappling than someone who didn't take the feat. It only gives you bonuses AFTER you successfully grapple the target. Whether its false advertising or a scam, its up to debate.

You want to be good at grappling, get a high Athletics modifier, preferably expertise, and get advantage on strength/Athletic checks.

But there's not denying the feat is busted. To deny it is to deny the truth.

Great weapon master is a broken feat because it doesn't make you any better at hitting enemies than someone who didn't take the feat. it only gives you bonuses AFTER you successfully hit the target. whether its false advertising or a scam, its up to debate.

you want to be good at killing things? get a high strength score, maybe advantage on your attacks.

but there's not denying the feat is busted. To deny it is to deny the truth.

the feat makes you able to do more with your grapples. sure your chance of grappling is the same, but you can do more with it. and that more just happens to benefit people other than yourself. if you are going to say that "to deny [that it is busted] is to deny the truth" I would like it do be backed up with an actual mechanical discussion.

[Quoz]

Chances are, if you play a grappler you are probably a fairly tactical player. You like to set things up for teammates or to do cinematically cool actions. I'm playing a grapple heavy build myself right now, though at Fighter 3/Rogue 1 I can't yet say how things play out at higher levels.

So let's examine the feat and how it works. First, you gain advantage on things you are grappling. There are 3 setups for grapplers. Damage dealers will be holding a weapon and a grapple hand and can make use of this, but a tank (shield and free hand) or a double grappler (2 free hands) are working with improvised weapons or unarmed strikes. They will not really get as much from advantage. As noted, you can also just shove prone. While it may provide options, particularly for some subsets of rogues, this bullet really doesn't make a great feat or even half feat.

So let's look at the pin option. Again competing with the no-cost athletics check to shove prone. You give advantage to any attacks on yourself (a huge penalty since you're likely trying to draw a lot of aggro) and drop your mobility to zero (manipulating the battlefield by dragging an opponent or climbing/dropping them is a primary focus for many builds). In exchange, you grant advantage to allies attacking from a distance. Situationally, this could be an improvement in many situations. I do not deal it is one worth even a half feat. Most GMs would probably let you do something similar on a skill check anyway, like applying manacles or hog tying with rope. It is also pretty likely that there will be other targets for your ranged characters to engage while you lock down one or two targets.

And finally we get to the opportunity cost. Other feats compete hard for that slot. Tavern Brawler can fix both damage and action economy. Shield Master gives bonus action shoves and limited evasion (this is the first feat choice for my build). +2 strength and prodigy can both directly assist your chosen role.

The errata pulled off the third point about grappling larger creatures. If that were still there in some form it might be viable. But as it is there just really is not enough there to justify spending a precious ASI on something that does so little.

[opaopajr]

Nets can induce the Restrained condition as well, and they only cost a gold piece. :smalltongue:

But maybe there's something in attacks with Adv on a target you're grappling that's very different than other methods of getting attacks with Adv out there... Though there's quite a few conditions that grant them, too. The benefit of Grappler is grappling a target and not having to Shove it Prone for Adv on attacks, allowing your ranged allies to still hit it?

Dunno. I have my doubts. Please show the error of our ways! :smallsmile:

[sithlordnergal]

Great weapon master is a broken feat because it doesn't make you any better at hitting enemies than someone who didn't take the feat. it only gives you bonuses AFTER you successfully hit the target. whether its false advertising or a scam, its up to debate.

you want to be good at killing things? get a high strength score, maybe advantage on your attacks.

but there's not denying the feat is busted. To deny it is to deny the truth.

the feat makes you able to do more with your grapples. sure your chance of grappling is the same, but you can do more with it. and that more just happens to benefit people other than yourself. if you are going to say that "to deny [that it is busted] is to deny the truth" I would like it do be backed up with an actual mechanical discussion.

So, first of all your example counter argument of Great Weapon Master really isn't that good of a counter argument. Great Weapon Master gives you:

A) a bonus action attack if you crit or kill an enemy. Note that it says "crit", not "roll 20". Meaning if you can have someone paralyze the target for you, you can make an extra attack on it.

B) You are trading a -5 to hit for a +10 to damage. That's a pretty good bit of damage there, and well worth the -5 to hit.

Now, there are a few reasons as to why grappler is a poorly designed feat:

1) The feat doesn't actually make you a better grappler. You still don't get advantage on the grapple check, you're still stuck grappling creatures one size category larger then you or smaller, your athletics are still the same as before. You're better off making a Barbarian/Rogue or Barbarian/Bard if you really want to grapple.

2) The two effects it has are lack luster. You gain advantage on attack rolls against someone you have grappled, and you can use your action to retrain both of you.

First, there are better and easier ways to gain advantage. Attack from a place the opponent can't see you, darkness, farie fire, the Aid action, the Elf feat if you're an elf, and even some class abilities. It really isn't that difficult to get advantage on something.

Second, the restrain action is terrible. Yes, it grants advantage to your allies, but it takes an action and gives both of you the restrained condition. Sure, restraining is enemy is great and all, but your restrained too. Meaning your speed is 0, attacks against you have advantage, your attack rolls have disadvantage, and you have disadvantage on dex saves.

Also, since Advantage and Disadvantage cancel each other out, the advantage on attack rolls turn into normal attack rolls when you restrain an enemy.

3) Finally, in order to use the feat at all you have to grapple. And grappling really isn't that great in this version. Sure, you can keep their speed at 0. But the thing is, most creatures are either too big to grapple or have a high strength to easily resist your grapple.

[JellyPooga]

Grappler is a good feat for a Rogue grappler;

- Rogue only ever gets one attack (barring TWF), so the Grapple+Prone trick takes just as long to set up (barring Shield Master).
- Advantage vs. grappled targets = Sneak Attack goodness without the need for allies.
- You have good Athletics from Expertise anyway, so don't need a bonus to grapple checks.
- Being Restrained yourself makes you a target; if you're a Rogue grappler, you're probably also wanting to be at least a little tanky; Grappler is good for this because it helps you draw aggro.

[MrStabby]

The issue is see with the feat is not that it is worthless, just that the other ways of getting advantage are more attractive.

In the OP you mentioned shield master as an alternative feat. Pushing prone uses the same stat and skill as a grapple so is directly comparable. This feat gives the same advantage to most melee combatants plus allowing you to have a shield rather than an open hand and also the defensive elements of the features. Add to that that the shove is a bonus action rather than eating an attack and you are looking at a real gap in utility.

Sure there are downsides to prone, although these are not as bad as you made out. Disadvantage to hit may seem bad to an archers, but the simple answer is to shoot something else that isn't prone. Likewise to a caster, who can also probably switch to a save spell if they chose. Worst case ranged fighters can pull out a blade and stab the guy whilst he is down. Even a ranged fighter can do some serious damage like this.

The point isn't that there are better feats, it is that there are better feats that are sufficiently similar in what they can achieve.

[AvatarVecna]

Let's assume a Fighter 20 for a moment, since they're going to have the most attacks before the enemy gets a chance to escape (and thus, has the best chance of taking advantage of this feat). The Fighter 20 can spend one attack attempting to grapple; presuming he succeeds, the target has its speed reduced to 0, and the Fighter's three/seven remaining one-handed attacks this turn have advantage (due to the feat). Alternatively, the Fighter could then spend a second attack attempting to pin the target; presuming he succeeds, the target and the Fighter are now both restrained (speed=0, disadvantage to attack others, others have advantage to attack them). The end result:

The Fighter cannot move, has disadvantage to attack anybody other than the target (who he can attack normally), and grants advantage to any attack on the Fighter by the target's allies. The target cannot move, has disadvantage to attack anybody other than the Fighter (who they can attack normally), and grants advantage to any attack on the target by the Fighter's allies.

I'm gonna reiterate that, to clarify my point: by spending a feat, spending two attacks, and granting the target's allies advantage to hit the Fighter, the Fighter can grant his own allies advantage to hit the target. Beyond anything else, that means this particular part of the grappler feat is only useful at all if your allies are ganging up on the guy you're wrestling, and even when they are, I'd hesitate to call that a bonus, considering you're putting yourself at great risk.

Oh, and the first point of the feat, that gave you advantage on your melee attacks against the target? Yeah, you had to spend a feat to get that advantage, the enemy doesn't have disadvantage to attack you back, and you basically have to be going einhander instead of heavy weapon. Have you considered saving the feat, picking up a bigger weapon, and just tripping them? Spending a feat to make a bad option slightly less bad for you just to avoid cheating the archer out of a single target in the battle seems kinda weird to me, but I guess to each their own.

The last point (if it's even still a part of the feat, since I think I saw somebody mention upthread that it got errata'd out?) is vaguely useful, especially if you've managed to pick up expertise, but you're almost certainly dealing with high Str, proficiency, and advantage from size, which - while a better opponent than one that auto-escapes - still isn't a great situation to be in.

[smcmike]

Pinning is an extremely narrow application. Wasting an attack and a whole action to give your allies advantage against one target isn’t really consistent with the role melee classes have in 5e.

The first half of the feat is useful, no doubt, but not worth a feat for most builds. In many situations, it really is better to simply shove an enemy prone (without grappling), since that gives you and melee allies advantage at the cost of one attack.

[Danielqueue1]

So, first of all your example counter argument of Great Weapon Master really isn't that good of a counter argument. Great Weapon Master gives you:
it was in blue as sarcasm. I know the GWM feat is good. I was pointing out the flaws in the argument by applying them to a different feat that people don't hate on so much.



Now, there are a few reasons as to why grappler is a poorly designed feat:

1) The feat doesn't actually make you a better grappler. You still don't get advantage on the grapple check, you're still stuck grappling creatures one size category larger then you or smaller, your athletics are still the same as before. You're better off making a Barbarian/Rogue or Barbarian/Bard if you really want to grapple.

better off? what? um... you know you could be a barbarian/rogue with this feat right? like you could do both... there is no rules saying you can't take this feat if you actually make a build that's good at grappling. in fact it would be better if you did.



2) The two effects it has are lack luster. You gain advantage on attack rolls against someone you have grappled, and you can use your action to retrain both of you.

First, there are better and easier ways to gain advantage. Attack from a place the opponent can't see you, darkness, farie fire, the Aid action, the Elf feat if you're an elf, and even some class abilities. It really isn't that difficult to get advantage on something.
better, but we aren't playing a ranged character or a spellcaster are we and odds of a grappler also being a warlock for devil's sight are low at best. aid action only helps a single attack not your entire party and odds are that aid action will be used by someone else before it gets to you. elf feat only gives you an extra die when you already have advantage. yes you can get advantage in many ways. this is one of them that only requires a single ability check leaving the rest of your attack action with advantage and options on what to do on your next turn. also it is not a spell it cannot be dispelled, it doesn't require any spell slots, and you cannot lose concentration on it.



Second, the restrain action is terrible. Yes, it grants advantage to your allies, but it takes an action and gives both of you the restrained condition. Sure, restraining is enemy is great and all, but your restrained too. Meaning your speed is 0, attacks against you have advantage, your attack rolls have disadvantage, and you have disadvantage on dex saves.

Pinning the Creature is an option, something that you can do, not something that you must do. you have your movement you can take before you attempt to pin the creature meaning that you can easily move to a more advantageous position especially with a couple rogue levels where you can dash as a bonus action. a sane Grappler with the feat would be positioning themselves in an advantageous position before restraining the target and giving the party the Go ahead to wail on the target.



Also, since Advantage and Disadvantage cancel each other out, the advantage on attack rolls turn into normal attack rolls when you restrain an enemy.
hmm the same situation you would have been in if you hadn't gone through this. but this time, your party has advantage instead of you. pinning a creature is not something you do for yourself. it is something you do to give advantage to the party without ANY contribution from them other than damage. There are many ways of giving advantage to others. most only give them one attack at advantage. not all DMs use the optional rules for flanking. and so very few give advantage to EVERYONE without requiring a spellcaster's precious concentration.



3) Finally, in order to use the feat at all you have to grapple. And grappling really isn't that great in this version. Sure, you can keep their speed at 0. But the thing is, most creatures are either too big to grapple or have a high strength to easily resist your grapple.

grappling is great in this version. there's things like terrain and cover, and cliffs, and environmental hazards and spell effects and more. huge and bigger doesn't cover most monsters. sure you aren't going to pin an ancient dragon, but heck this isn't 3.5 you aren't supposed to be able to suplex the moon. too high strength? do they have expertise in athletics too? because a rogue fighter at level 6 would have better grapple checks than a cloud giant. so anything in the right size category should be pretty consistently grappled. also, grapple checks are not attack rolls. they cannot be blocked. only resisted. and how are they resisted? contests. so even a boss's legendary resistance does nothing to stop it. grappling in 5e is powerful.

so with the grappler feat you don't have to waste one of your attacks (not free) to shove it prone (giving your ranged allies disadvantage anyway). your allies can still attack it normally, and you have advantage on attacks against it. consider it a free attack with advantage any time you would otherwise use both of your attacks to grapple and then knock a creature prone (and the ranged party members don't get disadvantage). Then add on top of that the ability to restrain the target should it be prudent, like oh say any time the party has better action economy than the enemy and damage dealers other than you.

most of your points are moot or minor. yes I understand the feat is situational, yes there are ways to do similar things, and yes some DMs allow people to tie up a resisting person in the middle of a combat situation like the deathknight was a cow at a rodeo. (tying up an animal is one thing, but remember that when you grapple a target in 5e they still have use of both (or all 6 for some monsters) of their hands so the whole tying people up in the middle of combat is a little ridiculous in my book...maybe if they were already restrained...) but that doesn't explain why people act as though getting this feat is somehow worse than not getting anything at all.

[Willie the Duck]

but that doesn't explain why people act as though getting this feat is somehow worse than not getting anything at all.

If that's what you've taken away from your online experience, it is no wonder you are disagreeing with everyone here. I think everyone else is at least arguing from the premise that grappler is being compared to its' opportunity cost (another use of an ASI).

Having additional options is rarely a bad thing (with the exception of someone prone to option paralysis, and frankly they should probably not be considering a grappler build). If that's the hill you expect to be fighting on, I think you will be fighting imaginary opponents.

[Pelle]

It's not a feat for the player that wants the "best combat build", it's a feat for the player who have a character who is already good at grappling and wants to be even better. Then opportunity costs don't matter.

[Danielqueue1]

Nets can induce the Restrained condition as well, and they only cost a gold piece. :smalltongue::smallsmile:

that is a good point. I think I may pick up some nets in my next campaign.


Grappler is a good feat for a Rogue grappler;

I like these points


The issue is see with the feat is not that it is worthless, just that the other ways of getting advantage are more attractive.

naturally you wouldn't be even considering this feat if you weren't already intending on being a grappler. so you still need the free hand anyway. grappling and moving enemies around is going to be a very common occurrence. sure you could knock a person prone with a shield bash, but you couldn't use any of the other benefits of grappling a target. like oh say moving the archmage back into the AoE of a silence spell. now that you have said enemy grappled.(and seeing as you built a grappler in the first place you will be grappling a lot.) you have advantage, with all the benefits of having the target grappled. and an option to give that advantage to your party instead. the pin isn't going to be for every enemy. it's going to be for targets the party wants to focus down.

also what happens on the enemy's turn? with a shield shove it just gets up. if it has legendary actions granting movement, then your allies wont even have the opportunity to attack it because it will move before the next turn starts. building a grappler isn't about dealing a lot of damage. it's about lining up your allies to do be better at doing their thing. shutting down enemy tactics. if the DM just has enemies walk up to you and attack until someone is dead, then yes this feat is garbage. but I have never been in a campaign like that. (1 shots and new DMs excluded)


Let's assume a Fighter 20 for a moment,

whoa nelly that there be a whole lot of assumptions. first off, if you are building a grappler, then you aren't going to be single classing fighter. 2 if you are going to be making a grappler, then you will need to be coordinating with your party to begin with, 3 if you are going to be making a grappler, then you know from the get-go that you won't be the highest damage dealer in the party. so now that that's out of the way. lets try a new scenario.

you are fighting a vampire lord. he's got a bunch of minions you are a rogue 3 barbarian 6 and since the party is one that works together (if they don't work together, just be a paladin or fighter and don't play a grappler to begin with) you have protection from evil and good cast on you because you were going to face a vampire lord and people actually coordinate. you take the attack action on your turn and use the first attack to make a grapple against the vampire lord you succeed, because of that expertise you have. you then use your movement to pull that vampire lord away from its allies then because you are a rogue, you use a bonus action to dash and position the Vampire right where you want him. how about some running water or perhaps some sunlight. you use your second attack as you wish. your turn ends.

normally the vampire would preffer to not start its turn in such poor possitioning, but because it is grappled, it cannot escape using its legendary action and must instead attack. since its attacks are melee, it can only attack you, a raging barbarian with protection from evil and good cast on it. half damage and disadvantage on attacks against you. looks like you are doing a good job doing what a grapple tank is supposed to do. keep the enemy right where you want them and focused on you. so what do a vampire's minions do? try to aid their master by running past your party members and proccing op attacks? keep fighting the party as normal while their boss is in a bad spot? either way you just locked down an illusive target.

other people do their thing.

vampire's turn, does it try to escape? or fight you? seeing as a vampire's athletics check is only a +4 would require its entire action to attempt an escape and you had a better athletics modifier at level 2, he decides to attack you. the raging barbarian that he has disadvantage on attacks against and you only take half damage. this is way better than knocking him prone, because he can't just get up and legendary action away from you.

your next turn probably has a bunch of minions right on top of you. so what do you do? pin that vampire down. once again, you have advantage from raging and a much higher modifier. odds are you win.

all of your allies now have advantage against the boss, and he has disadvantage on attack rolls against everyone, and he has disadvantage on dexterity saving throws. allies get to wail on the boss from outside his reach. polearm master gets advantage at 10 feet away and the vampire can't attack him. sharpshooter can use the -5 to hit +10 from anywhere they want with no issue, and if you have an evocation wizard you can drop fireballs right on the vampire and pack of minions while sculpt spelling it so that it doesn't hit the barbarian, or careful spell with a sorcerer, or just position the spell so that it doesn't hit the grappler. with the vampire rolling saves at disadvantage, he will probably be using those legendary resistances up all while you are keeping his attention away from the party.

or... you could be a level 9th fighter and attack 4 times...6 if you action surge.

grappling is a playstyle. if you are not going to be playing a grappler, you don't take the feat. if you are already playing a grappler, and you can actually work together with a party. you sacrifice your own damage and keep the enemy where the party wants it the spots with strategic advantage. then you have the option of restraining a target. you become a target, but as a tank, that's what you want. you want your enemies to attack you instead of the party.

[Danielqueue1]

If that's what you've taken away from your online experience, it is no wonder you are disagreeing with everyone here. I think everyone else is at least arguing from the premise that grappler is being compared to its' opportunity cost (another use of an ASI).


probably yeah. I've seen posts where people declare and are supported by others that resilient (Intelligence) would be a better feat for a grappler than the grappler feat. (before XGtE came out with lots of INT saves) I just want to know why so many people react to the feat like anyone who takes it is mentally handicapped or an innocent newbie that doesn't understand how the game works.

[Aett_Thorn]

probably yeah. I've seen posts where people declare and are supported by others that resilient (Intelligence) would be a better feat for a grappler than the grappler feat. (before XGtE came out with lots of INT saves) I just want to know why so many people react to the feat like anyone who takes it is mentally handicapped or an innocent newbie that doesn't understand how the game works.

It's just that its a niche feat (you can get most of the benefits better other ways) for a niche build (grappler-focused). So yeah, it's not going to get a ton of love in general feat guides. However, if you're going for that type of build, it would be a fine feat to take.

[smcmike]

It's not a feat for the player that wants the "best combat build", it's a feat for the player who have a character who is already good at grappling and wants to be even better. Then opportunity costs don't matter.

Opportunity costs always matter. Even a dedicated grappler may think that some other option is more worthwhile. This feat doesn’t necessarily make you better at grappling - it depends what you are trying to accomplish with the grapple.



you are fighting a vampire lord. he's got a bunch of minions you are a rogue 3 barbarian 6 and since the party is one that works together (if they don't work together, just be a paladin or fighter and don't play a grappler to begin with) you have protection from evil and good cast on you because you were going to face a vampire lord and people actually coordinate. you take the attack action on your turn and use the first attack to make a grapple against the vampire lord you succeed, because of that expertise you have. you then use your movement to pull that vampire lord away from its allies then because you are a rogue, you use a bonus action to dash and position the Vampire right where you want him. how about some running water or perhaps some sunlight. you use your second attack as you wish. your turn ends.

normally the vampire would preffer to not start its turn in such poor possitioning, but because it is grappled, it cannot escape using its legendary action and must instead attack. since its attacks are melee, it can only attack you, a raging barbarian with protection from evil and good cast on it. half damage and disadvantage on attacks against you. looks like you are doing a good job doing what a grapple tank is supposed to do. keep the enemy right where you want them and focused on you. so what do a vampire's minions do? try to aid their master by running past your party members and proccing op attacks? keep fighting the party as normal while their boss is in a bad spot? either way you just locked down an illusive target.

other people do their thing.

vampire's turn, does it try to escape? or fight you? seeing as a vampire's athletics check is only a +4 would require its entire action to attempt an escape and you had a better athletics modifier at level 2, he decides to attack you. the raging barbarian that he has disadvantage on attacks against and you only take half damage. this is way better than knocking him prone, because he can't just get up and legendary action away from you.

At this point in the story, the feat has granted advantage on one attack. This is obviously a benefit, but small compared with the constant benefits +2 strength would provide to this same character, including improved attack rolls, improved damage, and improved grapple checks. Even in this ideal scenario for a grappler, other options look better.



your next turn probably has a bunch of minions right on top of you. so what do you do? pin that vampire down. once again, you have advantage from raging and a much higher modifier. odds are you win.

all of your allies now have advantage against the boss, and he has disadvantage on attack rolls against everyone, and he has disadvantage on dexterity saving throws.

The same character without the feat attacks the vampire twice while maintaining the grapple, or knocks him prone and attacks ones for sneak attack damage. The vampire still can’t attack anyone other than the barbarian, because they are out of his range. The rest of the party can spend their actions eliminating the vampire’s allies, secure with the fact that the barbarian has the boss under control for the moment. You’ve accomplished basically the same thing, without the cost of the feat.

[Willie the Duck]

probably yeah. I've seen posts where people declare and are supported by others that resilient (Intelligence) would be a better feat for a grappler than the grappler feat. (before XGtE came out with lots of INT saves) I just want to know why so many people react to the feat like anyone who takes it is mentally handicapped or an innocent newbie that doesn't understand how the game works.

Look, if you've literally genuinely seen people argue that resilient (Intelligence) would be a better feat for a grappler build... and that that comment wasn't just a 'I'm-really-frustrated-with-this-feat' bit of hyperbole, then your reaction is legitimate. From my perspective, if these are the people that you are arguing/debating with, then you really aren't arguing/debating with me and the other people who are actually here present on this thread and doing you the diligence of addressing your points. On another board, there's a guy I butt heads with on old-school v. modern D&D where, although he is technically talking to me, he is clearly really continuing grudge matches with someone who said something mean to him in high school or the like. That's very frustrating.

So, yes. The people actually here are saying that it isn't the worst thing ever. It simply underperforms and is a poor feat to have been put in the PHB to represent 'really good wrestler-type.'

Look, it frustrates me to no end that there are 'clear bests' in this edition. I thought the that we were done with that in D&D (for the while). That does not change the fact that there are feats and builds (GWM, PAM, Sentinel, SS, Sorcadin, diviner and abjurer wizard, owl-familiar gish/AT, etc.) that are clear, obvious, and easy-to-use good options. There are others that are less obvious, harder-to-do, or more niche (Shield Master crit-fisher, for example). There are others that, if not bad, are at least a genuine challenge (4e monk, most two-weapon fighting builds, throwing weapon combat). This falls into the middle category (niche)--someone who wants to make a grappler build that focus on shutting down an opponent so that the rest of the party can gank them-- and even then, the addition of this feat to the build is something one worries about after one worries if you have consistent ways of getting double proficiency and advantage on your grapple checks. As someone who wants strategic and unconventional combat thinking to be a strong part of the game, and who likes the character concept of the expert grappler, that does not make this the feat that I would have included in the game as 'the grappler feat.'

[Asmotherion]

Unless houserules are involved, the feat gives you no benefit by RAW. It was probably writen at the playtests of 5e and somehow made the cut, when Grapple and Pin probably worked a bit diferantly.

Ironically enough, the best way to be a Grappler is to be a Bard or Rogue with a slightly good Str Score and Expertese an Athletics. And a single level Dip of Rogue from a Barbarian or Fighter can get you access to Expertese.

[Eric Diaz]

Since the OP already addressed the most common criticisms of the feat, I'll just mention my 2c:

- The feat has been errata'd. IMO, while it might be okay in its original form, the fact that now anyone can grapple big opponents makes the feat lose a lot of its power; also consider that a feat is only good or bad in comparison to other feats.
- "Giving an edge to your ranged allies" is a very useful thing to have, but is is definitely not what I'm think I am getting when I get a feat called "grappler". In this aspects, it is somewhat similar to "dual wielder": yeah, okay, it can be a bit useful if you want to throw weapons, but if that is the case you really should have a "thrown master" feat with some added benefits.

Also, the whole idea of "my PCs shtick is to hold enemies so my allies shoot arrows at it" does not feel right to me... I cannot think of any good example in literature, movies, comics, etc. This is not what a grappler" looks like to me.

[smcmike]

Unless houserules are involved, the feat gives you no benefit by RAW. It was probably writen at the playtests of 5e and somehow made the cut, when Grapple and Pin probably worked a bit diferantly.

This just isn’t true. Advantage on attacks against a grappled opponent is a real benefit, it’s just too small. Pin isn’t very useful, but it is an option in some very limited scenarios.

The way to fix it is to add a free bonus attack against any grappled opponent. This would give grappler builds a solid one-feat entrance, and wouldn’t be overpowered. The only problem with this is that it would overshadow Tavern Brawler, but that’s fine with me. Two feats for a suboptimal niche is silly.

[kardar233]

I’ve actually been considering this feat on a Long Death Monk I’ve been working on. It looks like it’ll be in a mostly-caster group so I’ll be the frontline, and so I’ll need some lockdown to save the squishies. Grapple-prone takes two attacks, leaving me with just my Martial Arts or Flurry attacks, as well as making the enemy a hard target from range. Just dropping them prone doesn’t stop them from bypassing me if they want to, and just grappling doesn’t get me advantage on my remaining attacks. Grappler seems like a solid middle ground here, though this is a pretty specific case.

[Lombra]

It's odd because you can only grapple things up to one size larger than you, in my experience this is very few sensitive targets. Climbing a creature gives you advantage to attack rolls by default, and it has the same action economy.

So yeah, pretty situational considering the other options.

I like it tho, works wonders on a CQC rogue inspired by Snake from MGS.

[Sigreid]

It's odd because you can only grapple things up to one size larger than you, in my experience this is very few sensitive targets. Climbing a creature gives you advantage to attack rolls by default, and it has the same action economy.

So yeah, pretty situational considering the other options.

I like it tho, works wonders on a CQC rogue inspired by Snake from MGS.

This is why I've been toying with having the feat remove size restrictions on grappling. I think a character wrestling with a giant and winning is awesome, and appropriate for a more mythic flavor campaign.

[KorvinStarmast]

It's not a feat for the player that wants the "best combat build", it's a feat for the player who have a character who is already good at grappling and wants to be even better. Then opportunity costs don't matter. My Champion (in our tier 3 campaign) has three attacks. I am tempted to get the Grappler Feat for the following reason: I want to hold the enemy and then swing for this turn, and three the next turn, all while the enemy can't get away from me. With advantage on my attacks, I have more chances for a crit and for a hit.
My current problem is huge and larger opponents: I need someone to cast Enlarge on me, or I need to find a potion of growth, so that I can get large and grapple things like Giants and Ettins, etc.

That said, since I already have shield master, I probably don't take the grappler feat since it almost does the same thing in terms of giving me advantage. Probably take the ASI when I reach 14.

Having though through this, I like this feat on the Strength Rogue/athletics build, particularly an the MC with barbarian at some point. Expertise on Athletics checks really helps here. If the cleric in the party will offer guidance, I can start a fight with a better shot at grappling, and then here goes sneak attack each turn. Whomerver I am on either breaks the grapple, or attacks me. Not both.

[MaxWilson]

that is a good point. I think I may pick up some nets in my next campaign.

One reasonable combo is to grapple/prone an enemy on one round, then throw a net on him (no disadvantage because he's prone for offsetting advantage) the next round. This makes it even harder for your enemy to get away (he has to break grapple AND disable the net), and it gives your allies advantage to offset the disadvantage from him being prone.

Essentially it allows you to take one enemy out of the fight on the first round while your allies kill some other target, and then when they come back to him later they don't have to suffer disadvantage on their ranged attacks. You get the best of both worlds, aside from the inconvenience of taking an extra round to throw the net and using Dexterity instead of Strength. Note also that the Net thrower doesn't have to be the same party as the grappler.

If you tried to do this with Net alone it would be much riskier because Nets, unlike grapples, allow only one attempt per PC per turn, and it's a lot harder to get massive attack bonuses than massive Athletics bonuses.

[OvisCaedo]

A net is also much easier to break out of than a pro wrestler's grasp, though....

[MaxWilson]

A net is also much easier to break out of than a pro wrestler's grasp, though....

Which is why you grapple/prone and THEN throw a net, so that nobody can break out of both in one turn without Action Surging. Makes it easy to re-impose the grapple without having to re-prone.

[AvatarVecna]

whoa nelly that there be a whole lot of assumptions. first off, if you are building a grappler, then you aren't going to be single classing fighter. 2 if you are going to be making a grappler, then you will need to be coordinating with your party to begin with, 3 if you are going to be making a grappler, then you know from the get-go that you won't be the highest damage dealer in the party. so now that that's out of the way. lets try a new scenario.

Yeah, let's stop you right there, to get some things out real quick: Fighters are the kings of DPR in this edition, and - because their non-combat stuff tends to be a bit more limited than other classes, that's totally fine. I assumed a Fighter 20 because that's who has the most opportunity to take advantage of grappling somebody (as mentioned, three or seven attacks with advantage, depending on whether he action surges or not). Your goal with the grappler feat seems to be "increase overall party DPR", which you facilitate by giving your party advantage to attack the target you've grappled, and "draw aggro from enemy", which you do by making yourself a bigger target and your allies a smaller one.

VHuman Rogue 3 (Assassin)/Barbarian 6 (Totem)

Stats (lvl 1): Str 16/Dex 15/Con 16/Int 8/Wis 8/Cha 8
Stats (lvl 9): Str 18/Dex 15/Con 16/Int 8/Wis 8/Cha 8

Feats/ASIs:
1: Grappler
7: Str +2

Expertise: Athletics/(who cares)
Totem: Bear/Bear

Items: magic sword that doesn't affect combat stats (probably weapon of warning)



you are fighting a vampire lord. he's got a bunch of minions you are a rogue 3 barbarian 6 and since the party is one that works together (if they don't work together, just be a paladin or fighter and don't play a grappler to begin with) you have protection from evil and good cast on you because you were going to face a vampire lord and people actually coordinate. you take the attack action on your turn and use the first attack to make a grapple against the vampire lord you succeed, because of that expertise you have. you then use your movement to pull that vampire lord away from its allies then because you are a rogue, you use a bonus action to dash and position the Vampire right where you want him. how about some running water or perhaps some sunlight. you use your second attack as you wish. your turn ends.

Because when I'm fighting a vampire, the DM always makes sure to have the fight take place within 40 ft of two of the vampire's giant weaknesses. Oh, and the vampire also personally hands up stakes soaked in garlicky holy water, to make things sporting.


normally the vampire would preffer to not start its turn in such poor possitioning, but because it is grappled, it cannot escape using its legendary action and must instead attack. since its attacks are melee, it can only attack you, a raging barbarian with protection from evil and good cast on it. half damage and disadvantage on attacks against you. looks like you are doing a good job doing what a grapple tank is supposed to do. keep the enemy right where you want them and focused on you. so what do a vampire's minions do? try to aid their master by running past your party members and proccing op attacks? keep fighting the party as normal while their boss is in a bad spot? either way you just locked down an illusive target.

Four minions go for the ally that cast the spell; the first makes a couple of trip attempts (vamp's +3 vs probably +2 means two attempts have a ~77% chance of success), giving the other three minions advantage to attack. Assuming AC 17, each of the six attacks has a 25% chance of missing, 65.25% chance of hitting, and 9.75% chance of critting; after running some damage calcs, turns out that caster is looking at taking average of 40.68 damage across 4.5 attacks. Let's call that 40 damage across 5 attacks; sure, one's a crit, but even a max damage crit from these things wouldn't increase the Concentration save DC, so let's look at the odds on that: assuming Con mod +2 and a feat for boosting Concentration, the caster ally is looking at a ~44% chance (Resilient: Con) or ~52% chance (War Caster) of still having that spell up, both of which are essentially a coin flip (the odds become ~52% and ~59% if it's only 4 attacks that hit, which is slightly better but not enough to change it from "coin flip" all that much). Either way, your caster ally probably had 66 HP (max 8 at first lvl, 8d8 becomes 40, 18 from Con), so 40 damage is a lot of trouble for them.

The vampire goes now. If the spell on you is down, he charms you (I mean, maybe you have a better Wis than the build I posted up there, but you're probably rocking a +1 at most even if you're not completely dumping it - only so many points to go around, and Rogue/Barbarian kinda needs their physical stats). So that's a 3/4 chance you're charmed now (decent odds) and the vampire requests that you calm down and release him (the latter of which doesn't take an action); he moves away from you (not provoking an AoO from his friend) back over to the fallen ally, and uses a Legendary action at the end of his turn to attack the prone ally with advantage; he hits 87.75% of the time, deals no damage in lieu of grappling your ally, and waits to use a legendary action to start biting at the end of whoever's turn is next. Of course, it's a coinflip whether the spell is down or not; if it's not down yet, the vampire accepts minor defeat this round and starts attacking you; with 2d20w1+9 against AC 15, he's hitting ~56% of the time, so we can assume one hit (which will grapple you instead of dealing damage), and then legendary action to Bite (56% chance to hit, and dealing 3 piercing/5 necrotic after resistance if he hits (healing the vampire for a total of 5 HP this turn unless your allies were idiots and didn't at least try to attack him with a radiant damage effect this turn, in which case he heals 25 and probably undoes the progress of whoever did attack him while he was grappled). At this point, it gets back around to your turn at some point (your allies have done what they can to deal damage - particularly radiant - to the vampire and the spawns), and you either attempt to pin, or you end your own rage as your friend requested and then go to attack the spawn harrying your allies (since they're not your vampfriend).

In the former case, you've spent two attacks dealing no damage so that your allies could have advantage to hit this guy; that means, for DPR to have been improving, the damage you gave up needs to be smaller than the extra damage (or average damage) your allies deal because they have advantage. Since you brought up Sharpshooter in the first post, let's assume that's who we're talking about here. Assuming you would hit on 8+ w/adv, and would deal 1d8+6/2d8+6, you're looking at having given up 20.085 damage. Your ally normally attacks dealing probably 1d8+4/2d8+4, and probably hits on a 6+, so their DPR for two attacks is normally 13.9 damage. Throwing advantage and the sharpshooter tradeoff on those two attacks increases DPR to 29.28 - an increase of 15.38, not quite enough on its own, so we'd need at least one other ally to focus the grappled vampire instead of the swarming spawn.

In the latter case...well, you have more rage uses, but ending your rage deliberately uses up your bonus action this turn, so you'll have to wait 'til next turn to restart it. At this point, the vampire and the spawns can finish off the fallen caster and then turn on you (now that they no long have disadvantage or half damage against you). Or maybe they turn on one of the other similarly-unprotected players.

Meanwhile, in an alternate universe, that barbarian traded the rogue levels out for more barbarian levels, gave up Grappler for GWM, took Tough with his extra feat, traded Bear 3 for Wolf 3 (the one that gives your allies advantage to attack enemies adjacent to you), and is supporting his party's damage the same way, still tanking fairly well, and dealing more damage.

Meanwhile, in another alternate universe...

Vhuman Ranger 2/Fighter 7 (Battlemaster)

Stats (lvl 1): Str 10/Dex 16/Con 14/Int 8/Wis 16/Cha 8
Stats (lvl 9): Str 10/Dex 20/Con 14/Int 8/Wis 16/Cha 8

Fighting Styles: Archery, CQS

Feats/ASIs:[list]
1: Sharpshooter
4: Dex +2
6: Dex +2

Maneuvers: Precision Attack

Items: technically-magic bow that doesn't affect combat stats directly (probably Weapon of Warning?)
In the same span of time it takes the barbarian to get the vampire pinned, the Fighter will make 6 attacks (with Action Surge). With the sharpshooter tradeoff, he has 1d20+7 to-hit, 1d8+15/2d8+15 damage on a hit/crit...and missing by 4 or less means adding a battlemaster die via Precision Attack.

With the above parameters, over the course of two rounds and six attacks, the Fighter will deal a total of 93 damage without outside assistance. If he receives the benefits of a Bless spell (upgrading both DPR and saves), his average damage for those 6 attacks will rise to 108. It continues rising to 120...but honestly, any of those three numbers is probably sufficient to kill this guy as long as you're not the only one attacking during those two turns. Definitely easier with Bless and/or advantage, but as long as the cleric can spare a touch of radiant each turn, the main vampire will be dead on your third turn, instead of merely pinned. I mean, I guess disadvantage to hit everybody and half-damage to the only person he can reach is okay? But in the immortal words of Stephen King "some things are better dead".


all of your allies now have advantage against the boss, and he has disadvantage on attack rolls against everyone, and he has disadvantage on dexterity saving throws. allies get to wail on the boss from outside his reach. polearm master gets advantage at 10 feet away and the vampire can't attack him. sharpshooter can use the -5 to hit +10 from anywhere they want with no issue, and if you have an evocation wizard you can drop fireballs right on the vampire and pack of minions while sculpt spelling it so that it doesn't hit the barbarian, or careful spell with a sorcerer, or just position the spell so that it doesn't hit the grappler. with the vampire rolling saves at disadvantage, he will probably be using those legendary resistances up all while you are keeping his attention away from the party.

or... you could be a level 9th fighter and [S]attack 4 times...6 if you action surge. kill the main vampire rather than merely inconveniencing him.

FTFY.


grappling is a playstyle. if you are not going to be playing a grappler, you don't take the feat. if you are already playing a grappler, and you can actually work together with a party. you sacrifice your own damage and keep the enemy where the party wants it the spots with strategic advantage. then you have the option of restraining a target. you become a target, but as a tank, that's what you want. you want your enemies to attack you instead of the party.

Nobody's saying you're not allowed to play a grappler. They're not even saying grappling is objectively awful. It's just worse. It's like going einhander fighter because you wanted Defensive Duelist; sure, you'll be doing some pretty nice damage, 'cause fighter, but you could do more damage with a greatsword...or you could have better defense with Shield+Shield Master. And grappling doesn't have to be the best to be viable, there's a number of ways you can add grappling to your combos to improve those combos. It's just a lot of investment for a kinda underwhelming effect.

EDIT: TL;DR nobody was ever saying that Grappler doesn't make grapplers better, just that it doesn't make grapplers good.

[Wartex1]

Grappler is **** because Grapple + Shove confers the same bonuses with none of the downsides, and is faster to boot.

[GlenSmash!]

Grappler is **** because Grapple + Shove confers the same bonuses with none of the downsides, and is faster to boot.

It actually does have a downside: giving Disadvantage to your ranged allies. This is pointed out in the first post.

Unfortunately Pinning with the grappler feat also has downsides like retraining yourself, and costing a Feat.

This is why it's poorly designed but not entirely as useless as people make it out to be.

[MaxWilson]

With the above parameters, over the course of two rounds and six attacks, the Fighter will deal a total of 93 damage without outside assistance. If he receives the benefits of a Bless spell (upgrading both DPR and saves), his average damage for those 6 attacks will rise to 108. It continues rising to 120...but honestly, any of those three numbers is probably sufficient to kill this guy as long as you're not the only one attacking during those two turns. Definitely easier with Bless and/or advantage, but as long as the cleric can spare a touch of radiant each turn, the main vampire will be dead on your third turn, instead of merely pinned. I mean, I guess disadvantage to hit everybody and half-damage to the only person he can reach is okay? But in the immortal words of Stephen King "some things are better dead".

A vampire who sustains 93/144 HP of damage may very well opt to flee temporarily using its legendary actions. It can be back at full health in less than two minutes, and the PCs will be down a number of their best spells and an Action Surge and maybe some HP, so the vampire will have the advantage in the rematch.

Wouldn't it be nice if it were possible to pin the vampire in place so that it couldn't flee?

[Contrast]

It actually does have a downside: giving Disadvantage to your ranged allies. This is pointed out in the first post.

Think OP kinda overblew that though. Its only really important if the party is only fighting a single target (which honestly often signifies that the fight is already over), otherwise the rest of the team just attacks the non-knocked over people.


Also per OPs original post, a rogue could still sneak attack by cancelling out the disadvantage with advantage from hiding (or just move into melee as well and then dodge out with disengage).

The reason I tend to dislike Grappler is that grappling is an occasionally useful tool that isn't really worth investing your whole build in. If you want to do it anyway and you're already maxed strength and picked up Shield Master and aren't interested in trying to round out your character in other ways...sure I guess?

[CTurbo]

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong here, but I'm pretty sure I'm right on this.... A fighter with 2-4 attacks, cannot give up one of his attacks to take a different action, and then take "the rest" of his attacks. He can take the attack action OR do another action. His attack action just happens to include 2-4 attacks. So it's EITHER attack 2-4 times, OR attempt a grapple. Not a mixture of both.



Now here is my 2 cents about the Grappler feat

1. Advantage on a target you are grappling is a nice benefit.
2. IMO, anybody can attempt to pin a creature they are already grappling to the same extent. Do you REALLY need a feat to accomplish this? From my experiences, the answer is no. You do not need a feat to be able to do this. Again, I'm speaking from personal experiences. Sure it may be a coincidence that several different DMs including myself have just erroneously allowed this to happen without this feat. I'm not sure about RAW here.


So basically, this feat simply allows advantage on a target you are grappling. That's it, and THAT is absolutely not worth it even if it came with a +1 to Str too.



I built a grappling Goliath Barbarian and I took Tavern Brawler as I felt it made more sense from a grappling standpoint.

[kardar233]

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong here, but I'm pretty sure I'm right on this.... A fighter with 2-4 attacks, cannot give up one of his attacks to take a different action, and then take "the rest" of his attacks. He can take the attack action OR do another action. His attack action just happens to include 2-4 attacks. So it's EITHER attack 2-4 times, OR attempt a grapple. Not a mixture of both..


When you want to grab a creature or wrestle with it, you can use the Attack action to make a special melee attack, a grapple. If you’re able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them.

From PHB p195.

[CTurbo]

From PHB p195.



I see now thanks

[Wryte]

A vampire who sustains 93/144 HP of damage may very well opt to flee temporarily using its legendary actions. It can be back at full health in less than two minutes, and the PCs will be down a number of their best spells and an Action Surge and maybe some HP, so the vampire will have the advantage in the rematch.

Wouldn't it be nice if it were possible to pin the vampire in place so that it couldn't flee?

You can't pin a vampire, they have Mist Form.

Also, why does everyone keep talking about grappling and then knocking a target prone being equivalent to the Grappler feat? Since when do you have to grapple a creature before you can shove it?

[GlenSmash!]

Think OP kinda overblew that though.

Definitely.


Its only really important if the party is only fighting a single target (which honestly often signifies that the fight is already over), otherwise the rest of the team just attacks the non-knocked over people.

Yup. You don't typically grapple so everyone can gang up on a target. You grapple so everyone else can ignore it.



Also per OPs original post, a rogue could still sneak attack by cancelling out the disadvantage with advantage from hiding (or just move into melee as well and then dodge out with disengage).

The reason I tend to dislike Grappler is that grappling is an occasionally useful tool that isn't really worth investing your whole build in. If you want to do it anyway and you're already maxed strength and picked up Shield Master and aren't interested in trying to round out your character in other ways...sure I guess?

I also dislike Grappler. No other feat punishes you as much for so little a gain.

And like you said you can be really good at it without investing in it. A Barbarian with no feats can already Grapple the hell out of anything that isn't Huge or bigger. Expertise in athletics makes it even easier through a multiclass or Prodigy Feat is even better, but Grappler is by no means a must have.

[GlenSmash!]

Also, why does everyone keep talking about grappling and then knocking a target prone being equivalent to the Grappler feat? Since when do you have to grapple a creature before you can shove it?

You don't, but grappling it reduces it's speed to 0 making it impossible for it to stand up from prone without first breaking the grapple.

[Citan]

@OP: thanks for this thread, refreshing for a change.
@all other: plz look for past discussions, how to make good use of Grappler has already been discussed in length.

Grappling itself allows you to...
- use creature as cover.
- move creature tactically for added damage/control.

Basically Grappler is a great feat (yeah, you read correctly here) when you meet at least one of two requirements
1. You have good to great mobility. Because great mobility means many good tactics affordable through grappling, yet can also mean you tend to distance yourself too much from friends to easily get advantage.

2. Shoving people prone, and even more Shoving+Grapple is usually not an efficient option (mainly ranged party, creature has very high speed or fly, little number of attacks, very high damage per attack) yet you want people to stick with you, as reliably as possible. Note that Sentinel can be less reliable in this particular aspect: one is a STR check which can very easily be enhanced through skills, spells and class features without randomness, the other is an attack which may or not be made with advantage. Both will vary in effectiveness depending on the enemy obviously (AC? STR/DEX checks?), but skills-related features make focused builds overall more consistant, even if we keep in mind that the target of a Shove can choose either Athletics or Acrobatics to try and escape the attempt.

Which makes this feat perfect for...

1. Lone frontliners, who have enough vitality to sustain focused attacks from powerful enemies, yet, do not want to get hit too often: Barbarians, Paladins, and some Eldricht Knights. The two latter in particular get great benefit, as they become totally autonomous in getting advantage on powerful attacks (Divine Smite, Eldricht Smite which can ultimately paired with Improved War Magic). The former can ensure he gets full attention from one creature while he strikes with advantage without having to lower his defense with Reckless Attack.
And all are getting better defense against potential archers from enemy backlines.

You can even pair it with Sentinel if you're a class who can afford it so you can completely shut off 2 enemies reliably.

And from what I see on these forums, having only one or at best two frontliners is not uncommon at all.

2. Monks (especially 4e or Long Death) or melee Rogues (especially Arcane Trickster): both don't like having too many enemies around, both can get great mobility, both have a very good reason to try and get advantage as often as possible (Stunning Strike, Sneak Attack), whether they have allies to help or not.
4E particularly shines here thanks to Fly, although it comes sadly late. Any Monk though will like having better chance to land Stunning Strike while they drag their foe away from its friends and closer to the party... Long Death gets a voice here, although it's only for those players who like spamming the "Fear as action" ability: you can tank pretty well with that, with one or two enemies too (depending on whether your DM would admit that a headbutt is a "Monk unarmed strike" ^^).
While Arcane Trickster makes himself somewhere near the best because he can use many tactics: besides Longstrider, and the obvious Haste/Fly, he could also just cast Create Bonfire beforehand and roast the enemy above it while afterwhile wacking him with a Sneak Booming Blade. Of course though, to make this kind of tactic usable commonly, you'd have to invest to get either Action Surge or Quicken.
Action economy would be otherwise best served by using someone else's DoT spell. :)

3. Any character that loves buffing himself with size, mobility or check buff (thinking notably Moon Druid here, but an Arcane Trickster, Eldricht Knight or Valor Bard are also nice), to actually make himself the great controller of Large creatures, or the perfect enabler of DoT spells that Druid (it especially), Wizard and somewhat Warlock get.

For someone that is moderately good at grappling or see it as rarely coming as the best course of action, Grappler would be probably as beneficial as Charger.
For someone that can get high checks or has other incentive to use grappling regularly, this is largely as valuable as other "combat" feats.

[MaxWilson]

You can't pin a vampire, they have Mist Form.

(1) Good point. When I've seen grappling done in practice it was actually against vampire spawns, not vampires, so I overlooked this possibility.

(2) Technically, Polymorphing into a medium cloud of mist doesn't help, since nothing about its stats changes except losing its actions and changing its speed. "Its Statistics, other than its size and speed, are unchanged... While in mist form, the vampire can't take any actions, speak, or manipulate Objects. It is weightless, has a flying speed of 20 feet, can hover, and can enter a hostile creature's space and stop there. In addition, if air can pass through a space, the mist can do so without squeezing, and it can't pass through water. It has advantage on Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution saving throws, and it is immune to all nonmagical damage, except the damage it takes from sunlight." Nothing there about being immune to grapples.

No sane DM would rule that it ISN'T immune to grapples, though, any more than any sane DM would rule that it can't Polymorph back into vampire form with its action just because it "can't take actions" in mist form. So, good point.

(3) It's still harder for it to escape while grappled though, since it can't use Legendary actions to escape while in humanoid form. It has to wait for its turn to turn into mist form (which can't happen in sunlight or running water), and even then it is slower (20' move flying instead of 30' move).

I think grappling is undeniably helpful in this case even though it's not a sure thing.


Also, why does everyone keep talking about grappling and then knocking a target prone being equivalent to the Grappler feat? Since when do you have to grapple a creature before you can shove it?

If it's grappled AND prone it's basically out of the fight, at least in physical terms--attacks at disadvantage, is attacked at advantage in melee, so its combat power is cut by something like 70-80%.

If you knock an enemy prone without grappling it, you can make attacks including two-handed attacks like GWM against it at advantage, and then you can move 20' or so away (taking a single opportunity attack at disadvantage), secure in the knowledge that it can't reach you next turn without spending its action on Dashing instead of Attacking, unless it's an orc or something.

Both combinations are useful, but the first one (grapple/prone) lets you hold your position and is therefore more valuable to a so-called "tank" holding a chokepoint or a front line. It is also better-known.

=========================================


Basically Grappler is a great feat (yeah, you read correctly here) when you meet at least one of two requirements
1. You have good to great mobility. Because great mobility means many good tactics affordable through grappling, yet can also mean you tend to distance yourself too much from friends to easily get advantage.

2. Shoving people prone, and even more Shoving+Grapple is usually not an efficient option (mainly ranged party, creature has very high speed or fly, little number of attacks) yet you want people to stick with you, as reliably as possible. Note that Sentinel can be less reliable in this particular aspect: one is a STR check which can very easily be enhanced through skills, spells and class features without randomness, the other is an attack which may or not be made with advantage. Both will vary in effectiveness depending on the enemy obviously, but skills-related features make focused builds overall more consistant.

I'm not buying #1. Grappler doesn't do anything to help here.

#2 isn't necessarily rare, but the opportunity cost is still high. Instead of spending your action throwing a Net, you spend a feat and your action Pinning a creature, which also restrains you, giving the creature advantage on attacks against you, to negate disadvantage from the net, and also setting your speed to 0. The pin check is going to be easier to succeed on than the Net attack (at disadvantage against a non-prone target), but in all other ways it's bad. And even if you do Pin the enemy instead of shoving them prone and wrapping them in a Net, there's nothing stopping a grappled enemy from dropping prone (costs no movement) to impose disadvantage on ranged attackers anyway.

So even if you meet both requirements #1 and #2, Grappler still doesn't look so hot. It's not completely useless, but the opportunity cost is high. It's probably better to just take Crossbow Expert, which allows you to both throw Nets around when you need to more easily than Pinning (lower action cost), and/or to Shove enemies prone and then shoot them full of bolts at advantage. (Even better if you have Crossbow Expert + Sharpshooter together.) You wind up Dex-based instead of Str-based, but that's not exactly a horrible fate.

[AvatarVecna]

A vampire who sustains 93/144 HP of damage may very well opt to flee temporarily using its legendary actions. It can be back at full health in less than two minutes, and the PCs will be down a number of their best spells and an Action Surge and maybe some HP, so the vampire will have the advantage in the rematch.

Wouldn't it be nice if it were possible to pin the vampire in place so that it couldn't flee?

93/144 is the "this fighter is the only person attacking the vampire and has no buffs from allies" number. Advantage on all attacks may be asking a bit much, but Bless isn't. Neither is "my party is also shooting the vampire". I'm also unsure how the single 1st lvl spell mentioned in my write-up constitutes "a number of their best spells", but I guess you were extrapolating that the party spent a bunch of spells that did nothing, which is a reasonable assumption to make of course. Additionally, running away only really helps if he can get out of range before being reduced to 0, at which point he's gonna go misty, return to his coffin, and be paralyzed at 0 HP for an hour. If you're fighting the vampire in his lair, even if it's a castle, the rest of the castle is likely already cleared and fairly well-mapped, so you'll be able to find him before he's healed 1 HP, and then you can stake him properly.

Alternatively, since Bless is a solid assumption (and thus 108/144 damage from the fighter), all we need is for the other three to four members of the party to deal 36 damage all put together, and it'll reach 0 HP. If they can make some of that radiant so he doesn't regen, all the better. That way, it goes:

Fighter (4 attacks dealing like 75), then allies dealing like 36, then vampire running, then Fighter (2 attacks dealing like 30), then allies dealing with spawn 'cause the main vamp is at 0. Sure, this requires your party to perform the monumental teamwork task of "focus fire on the main baddie who has regen 20", which might be beyond the tactical acumen of some parties, but I'm thankful that the groups I've played in tend to have the mental capacity necessary to accomplish this goal.

Alternatively, let's assume the party can't be assed to directly attack the main vampire themselves (maybe they wanna deal with the swarms), so the Cleric put a Bless on the main attackers and the Wizard gave the Fighter a Haste. With this increase to the Fighter's firepower (an additional two attacks over the course of those two turns), the Fighter's damage over 8 attacks becomes 142.75 - close enough to a kill that you'd need to roll it out to see how it went (although the regeneration means you need to deal 162 to actually take it out that quickly). Speaking of rolling things out, I went and did that thing to see how it would go (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?555980-Hunting-A-Vampire); please try to ignore how I clearly screwed up the spoilers :smalltongue: and check out how well the fighter does without his allies directly attacking the main vampire:
AU1: Vamp is at 9/144 HP, Fighter used 1/4 maneuver dice
AU2: Vamp is at 41/144 HP, Fighter used 1/4 maneuver dice
AU3: Vamp is at 23/144 HP, Fighter used 2/4 maneuver dice
AU4: Vamp is at 4/144 HP, Fighter used 0/4 maneuver dice
AU5: Vamp is at 47/144 HP, Fighter used 4/4 maneuver dice
AU6: Vamp is at 9/144 HP, Fighter used 1/4 maneuver dice
AU7: Vamp is at 49/144 HP, Fighter used 1/4 maneuver dice
AU8: Vamp is at 16/144 HP, Fighter used 1/4 maneuver dice
AU9: Vamp is at 18/144 HP, Fighter used 2/4 maneuver dice
AU10: Vamp is at 16/144 HP, Fighter used 3/4 maneuver dice

Across those 10 (which obviously isn't enough cases to really get too close to the average, but it gives an idea of what we're looking at), 6/10 cases have the Vampire above 0 solely because of his regen (so a single point of radiant damage from an ally would be enough to send him running to his coffin), and the other 4 still have him pretty damaged even after regen and even with no additional help from allies. I'm fairly certain that even if the allies don't supply radiant damage, just a couple people shooting cantrips during those turns will be sufficient - not even touching real attack spells, just cantrips. Of course, maybe they're focusing the minions...in which case the Vampire is now 150 ft through maybe-twisting corridors (30 ft move, Dash action, +90 from legendary actions)? And your Fighter Haste-dashes after him, moving 120 ft and still getting a couple more shots off for the next round. That would take down AUs 1/4/6/8/9/10 and cause the rest serious issues.

d20 rolls
80d20s rolled 2 1s, 4 2s, 7 3s, 5 4s, 3 5s, 2 6s, 4 7s, 8 8s, 0 9s, 3 10s, 5 11s, 3 12s, 4 13s, 4 14s, 8 15s, 4 16s, 3 17s, 6 18s, 1 19s, and 4 20s.
80d20s averaged 10.2625 (better than ~35% of all possible 80d20 rolls).

d8 rolls
200d8s rolled 29 1s, 26 2s, 21 3s, 30 4s, 23 5s, 28 6s, 24 7s, and 19 8s.
200d8s averaged 4.335 (better than ~15% of all 200d8 rolls).

d4 rolls
80d4s rolled 18 1s, 28 2s, 18 3s, and 16 4s.
80d4s averaged 2.4 (better than ~20% of all 80d4 rolls).

[Jerrykhor]

Great weapon master is a broken feat because it doesn't make you any better at hitting enemies than someone who didn't take the feat. it only gives you bonuses AFTER you successfully hit the target. whether its false advertising or a scam, its up to debate.

you want to be good at killing things? get a high strength score, maybe advantage on your attacks.

but there's not denying the feat is busted. To deny it is to deny the truth.

the feat makes you able to do more with your grapples. sure your chance of grappling is the same, but you can do more with it. and that more just happens to benefit people other than yourself. if you are going to say that "to deny [that it is busted] is to deny the truth" I would like it do be backed up with an actual mechanical discussion.

Doing more with your grapples is pointless if you fail to grapple in the first place. A character with GWM has higher average damage with 2h weapons than one who doesn't, and it gets better with more attacks, better weapons, higher attack bonus or having advantage. Grappler doesn't scale well, in fact it gets worse. The higher level you go, your enemies get bigger and stronger, they might have teleports, they might be immune to prone, speed 0 is a lousy debuff when enemies want to kill you... etc. Plus you need a free hand to grapple, so you can't use shields, so your AC is lower. Adding Restrained to yourself is just suicide.

But all these points still don't show how ****ty Grappler is. Grappler's second point don't even work with its first point, thats why its so bad. The problem might not be in the feat, it might be that grappling mechanics is just too simple.

[GlenSmash!]

Grappler's second point don't even work with its first point, thats why its so bad. The problem might not be in the feat, it might be that grappling mechanics is just too simple.

Making more complex grappling rules is a can of worms that should be avoided IMHO.

It would be easier to fix the feat. Heck it was already errataed to remove the third pointless bullet point that was supposedly a carry over from an earlier playtest version of the game. They should have reworked the whole Feat right then.

[KorvinStarmast]

Grappler is **** because Grapple + Shove confers the same bonuses with none of the downsides, and is faster to boot. Yeah: you can use shield master to bonus action knock prone, then grapple with one attack (advantages on attacks if successful) and then keep attacking. Also, by doing this you don't become restrained yourself if you go for the pin.

[GlenSmash!]

Yeah: you can use shield master to bonus action knock prone, then grapple with one attack (advantages on attacks if successful) and then keep attacking. Also, by doing this you don't become restrained yourself if you go for the pin.

If you shove prone with Shield master and are Grappling with your free hand what are you using for your other attacks? The shield as an Improvised Weapon?

Or did you shove prone, drop your shield then grab with that free hand and attack with your main weapon?

In the latter case it's a bit DMing dependent. Doffing a shield takes a whole action, but is Dropping a shield a free interaction? I could see it being true if the shield is a center grip like a Viking shield, but less so if it's strapped to the arm. :smalleek:

[OvisCaedo]

If you shove prone with Shield master and are Grappling with your free hand what are you using for your other attacks? The shield as an Improvised Weapon?

Or did you shove prone, drop your shield then grab with that free hand and attack with your main weapon?

In the latter case it's a bit DMing dependent. Doffing a shield takes a whole action, but is Dropping a shield a free interaction? I could see it being true if the shield is a center grip like a Viking shield, but less so if it's strapped to the arm. :smalleek:

Well, if it's strapped to your arm, shouldn't your hand be free to grab someone? (mostly a joke, here. I think shields are handled in a very silly way in this edition because of the full action don/doff and lack of existence of 'bucklers')

I was going to say that maybe you're a race with a bite attack, but it looks like that's actually only Lizardfolk in this edition. Huh.

[Danielqueue1]

to those who keep on posting about how other feats deal more damage, that is the entire point of taking feats that make you deal more damage. yes you could deal more damage with a two handed weapon, but some people like jumping through windows with a rapier and being the dashing swordsman. some people min-max characters to get every single possible damage point and argue that anyone who does anything but maximize their own damage and personal benefit is having badfun. for those types of people, yes grappler is useless.

Grappler is a feat for players who are already choosing to do something other than just dealing damage on a turn.

a specialized melee fighter in a 1 on 1 fight with a slippery target will often do 0 (zero) damage to that target. because anything that has a higher movement and a way to disengage without provoking oportunity attacks will be able to throw rocks at him until he dies. this is not an insult to melee damage dealers any more than anti-magic field makes it suck to be a wizard. D&D is a game about working together as a party.

so consider a player who has chosen to focus on grappling as their playstyle. they always fight with a free hand. so GWM and PAM are not even on the table. they put a level in rogue for the expertise because they wanted double proficiency in athletics. and are not so hung up on their own damage that they forget that it is a team game.

this person on a regular basis, will be pushing enemies off cliffs and into pits, holding spell-casters in silence spells, and making sure that AEs get as many enemies as possible. sometimes even grappling two targets to make sure the enemy never gets the opportunity to actually use any of their powerful abilities the way they want to.

then there is the grappler feat. to get advantage on attacks against a grappled target you need to use 2 attacks. or just 1 with the grappler feat. since you are going to be holding creatures down on a regular basis anyway, you won't be using a shield or 2 handed weapon, so those other feats do nothing. but this one gives you advantage without imposing disadvantage on your ranged allies, or allies using reach weapons. sure there are options that deal more damage, but you chose to play a luchador, so you won't be using those anyway.


then with restraining the target. your party members are the ones who are going to be the ones who are min-maxing damage. you are holding the enemy still and giving your party members advantage so they can do 5 attacks in a round (haste and action surge) with advantage, and whatever other boosts your party gives them. holding an enemy in an AE set up by the party wizard, while your melee ally pounds them with their powerful attacks and your ranged ally snipes them from across the room is going to result in far more damage being dealt. and in my opinion sounds more fun. than a group of min-maxed fighers hitting things harder by themselves.

(and no pinning a creature is not to be expected for every fight.)



Doing more with your grapples is pointless if you fail to grapple in the first place.
(Doing more damage with your attacks is pointless if you fail to hit in the first place.)

A character with GWM has higher average damage with 2h weapons than one who doesn't, and it gets better with more attacks, better weapons, higher attack bonus or having advantage.
(A character with Grappler feat has more options and incentive to grapple than one who doesn't, and it gets better with more party members and more interesting environments.)

Grappler doesn't scale well, in fact it gets worse. [citation needed]

The higher level you go, your enemies get bigger (giant spider is bigger than a lich.) and stronger, (have you encountered mindflayers?) they might have teleports (which would make a GWM less useful too as the enemy would then be out of range and the player would deal 0 damage with their GWM. teleporting enemies make melee fighters harder to get full beneift out of no matter their build)

they might be immune to prone (with grappler feat you don't need to knock them prone. not sure why you brought this up as it seems counter to the point you are trying to make.) , speed 0 is a lousy debuff when enemies want to kill you(it is a great Debuff. think of all those people they can't hit. like the squishy people you are trying to protect. hell one of the key benefits of Sentinel is that creatures stop moving.) Plus you need a free hand to grapple,(already accounted for) so you can't use shields, so your AC is lower. (GWM also means you can't use shields by the same metric) Adding Restrained to yourself is just suicide. (by that metric, Reckless attack is suicide. also, you are not grappled. you can end your grapple and restrained condition at any time and just walk away.)

But all these points still don't show how ****ty Grappler is.(I agree with you. your points really didn't show anything. other people made far better points) Grappler's second point don't even work with its first point, (it's not intended to.) thats why its so bad. The problem might not be in the feat, it might be that grappling mechanics is just too simple.


thank you everyone who has contributed in this thread. I do realize that I have enjoyed playing with DMs that love to include maps with natural hazards, interesting cover, clever enemies who use their environment and coordinate against us, and situations where "I run up and hit it" could easily get your party killed. combat encounters where tactics and positioning meant more than raw numbers, where "surround the enemy and attack it until it dies" would have resulted in TPK after TPK after TPK. drinking an enlarge potion and grappling then shoving 3 Iron golems down a pit was without question a more effective use of 2 turns than any amount of damage a min-maxed character would have been able to put out at that level. and perhaps that is why I find the "other feats deal more damage" arguments so completely lacking.

P.S. don't do your damage math assuming that you are going to hit every time. especially with a -5 to hit. and if your DM gives you enough magic items that you actually have a +12 to hit with melee weapons before bless at level 8 then more power to you. but your math really needs some work. assuming variant human and both ASI's going into STR you have +8 to hit. your math assumed a +12 not sure where you got that +4 to attack rolls. lets do the math again shall we? http://anydice.com/program/f8f3 without advantage or bless, you would deal an average of 47 damage in a full round of attacking with an ally using its concentration for haste and stats that don't get a mysterious +4 to hit from nowhere. that average goes up to 65 if you have 2 party members concentrating on spells to give you haste and bless http://anydice.com/program/f8f4 and then goes right back down the tubes again if the Vampire does something as drastic as pick up a shield.

[prototype00]

With Shield Master, if you need a free hand to grapple, just drop your weapon. It’s not a massive deal, you can pick it up as a free action when you want to use it again.

I always wonder why people don’t do this, really.

[Danielqueue1]

With Shield Master, if you need a free hand to grapple, just drop your weapon. It’s not a massive deal, you can pick it up as a free action when you want to use it again.

I always wonder why people don’t do this, really.

Some DMs say that picking a weapon off the ground in the middle of a fight takes more than a free object interaction. and a lot of players seem to think that if you are not dealing damage or making them deal more damage, then you are not contributing.

[prototype00]

Some DMs say that picking a weapon off the ground in the middle of a fight takes more than a free object interaction. and a lot of players seem to think that if you are not dealing damage or making them deal more damage, then you are not contributing.

Those DMs are not playing by RAW rules then (no harm, that’s what house rules are for).

Let me run this sequence for my Rogue 1/Barbarian 5 Shield Master Grappler by ya.

Round 1: Move up, bonus action knock prone (Shield Master), Rapier stab + Sneak Attack, drop weapon (free action) grapple.

Round 2: Release grapple, pick up weapon (free action), stab + sneak attack, drop weapon (free action), unarmed strike, grapple as a bonus action (Tavern Brawler)

Round 3: Continue Round 2 until foe is dead.

That’s one of the most action-efficient sequence I came up with with decent damage and excellent control for up to large foes.

Also the Pro-Wrestling imagery is priceless.

[Danielqueue1]

Those DMs are not playing by RAW rules then (no harm, that’s what house rules are for).

Let me run this sequence for my Rogue 1/Barbarian 5 Shield Master Grappler by ya.

Round 1: Move up, bonus action knock prone (Shield Master), Rapier stab + Sneak Attack, drop weapon (free action) grapple.

Round 2: Release grapple, pick up weapon (free action), stab + sneak attack, drop weapon (free action), unarmed strike, grapple as a bonus action (Tavern Brawler)

Round 3: Continue Round 2 until foe is dead.

That’s one of the most action-efficient sequence I came up with with decent damage and excellent control for up to large foes.

Also the Pro-Wrestling imagery is priceless.

sounds like fun, needs to be variant human to get both tavern Brawler and Shield master. at level 6.

what about when he picks up your rapier as a free object interaction on his turn?

option 2

round 1: grapple, rapier attack with advantage and sneak attack. (not behind yet.)

round 2: 2 rapier attacks at advantage+ sneak attack (+2 average damage for rapier over unarmed, no extra grapple checks)

round 3: repeat until dead.

like the juggling imagery, you get the extra survivability from having a shield, but your ranged allies get disadvantage from the creature being prone. it does take 2 feats to get going, but those feats are also useful in other areas. all in all I'd say it depends on your idea of the character.


also as far as RAW,
The DM might require you to use an action for any of these activities when it needs special care or when it presents an unusual obstacle. (page 190) so DM is still well within RAW, and I think a DM is well within its rights to say that picking up a rapier on the ground next to a rolling about creature might "present an unusual obstacle"

[Citan]

thank you everyone who has contributed in this thread. I do realize that I have enjoyed playing with DMs that love to include maps with natural hazards, interesting cover, clever enemies who use their environment and coordinate against us, and situations where "I run up and hit it" could easily get your party killed. combat encounters where tactics and positioning meant more than raw numbers, where "surround the enemy and attack it until it dies" would have resulted in TPK after TPK after TPK.
This sums up well the core problem.:smallbiggrin:

[smcmike]

It truly is annoying when everything is measured against one “optimal” build, which is optimized for one particular aspect of the game (usually damage dealing).

On the other hand, I still would not highly recommend Grappler, even to someone who wants to grapple.

If your goal is to push enemies off of cliffs or into pits, Grappler does not help you do that.

If your goal is to hold spellcasters in silence spells or make sure AEs get as many enemies as possible, Grappler does not help you do that.

If your goal is to grapple two targets, Grapple does not help you do that.

ASI strength helps you accomplish all of these things consistently, hit more often, and do more damage. Even if I were making a pure grappler, wearing a luchador costume and everything, I’d max strength before touching Grappler (this character would also take Tavern Brawler, but most would not - I’m actually pretty low on that feat too).

[AvatarVecna]

When I was complaining about how your personal damage output suffered in exchange for granting allies damage buffs, my complaint isn't that you're attempting to be a team player, it's that you're doing so in a way where the team as a whole performs overall worse in the fight, which seems to me to be the exact opposite of "being a team player". You're saying "Grappler is for people who are putting the team's desires ahead of their own desire for the spotlight", but what comes across is "Grappler is an okay feat as long as you're fine with the final outcome being objectively worse", which...I guess I can't disagree with. "Grappler isn't unoptimal, as long as you accept that it's a feat for fluff instead of optimization" is technically an argument I can't disagree with, but only because it seems completely nonsensical.

In previous editions, grappling sucked far and away worse than it does in 5e, but it was at least theoretically viable because it was hard to just knock people out (you took penalties to deal nonlethal in 3.5/PF, for instance), so a way of taking people down without taking them out was necessary, and grappling was a way (an awful way, but a way) to go about doing that. But in 5e, grapplers are slightly more useful in general (almost good enough to be mediocre) in exchange for losing that niche - now, anybody making a melee attack can declare the blow to be nonlethal no problem, and now instead of being dead, they're just unconscious.

[Citan]

When I was complaining about how your personal damage output suffered in exchange for granting allies damage buffs, my complaint isn't that you're attempting to be a team player, it's that you're doing so in a way where the team as a whole performs overall worse in the fight, which seems to me to be the exact opposite of "being a team player". You're saying "Grappler is for people who are putting the team's desires ahead of their own desire for the spotlight", but what comes across is "Grappler is an okay feat as long as you're fine with the final outcome being objectively worse", which...I guess I can't disagree with. "Grappler isn't unoptimal, as long as you accept that it's a feat for fluff instead of optimization" is technically an argument I can't disagree with, but only because it seems completely nonsensical.

In previous editions, grappling sucked far and away worse than it does in 5e, but it was at least theoretically viable because it was hard to just knock people out (you took penalties to deal nonlethal in 3.5/PF, for instance), so a way of taking people down without taking them out was necessary, and grappling was a way (an awful way, but a way) to go about doing that. But in 5e, grapplers are slightly more useful in general (almost good enough to be mediocre) in exchange for losing that niche - now, anybody making a melee attack can declare the blow to be nonlethal no problem, and now instead of being dead, they're just unconscious.
And that is the thing that is fundamentally stupid to say because there are classes and/or party tactics that benefit much of having one people grappling on a more or less regular basis.

By the metric of "Grappling is worse than dealing damage", which is what you imply, then every effect that influences enemy position, be it pulling/pushing or movement restriction would be worse than dealing damage. Grappler gives you worthy benefits to more easily mix grappling tactics and plain dealing damage, so the "opportunity to deal damage or use special abilities" cost is lesser to you than it would be for people without the feat.
Grappling is a great way to protect allies or "ride damage" on other people's abilities, and grappler one of the best companion feats to go with on people who use grappling regularly and whose weapon attacks may be decisive (Paladin, Rogue, Monk, possibly also Ranger, some Bards or Hexblade Warlock).

You just can't imagine it because you just decided in your head it was not worth the try and because it's the kind of features that does reveal itself in actual play rather than theorycraft...
Maybe also you just never had a chance to play in a group that could really profit from it.

But hey, as long as people are all having fun at their respective tables, narrowness of mind is not something to fret over...

[GlenSmash!]

If your goal is to push enemies off of cliffs or into pits, Grappler does not help you do that.

If your goal is to hold spellcasters in silence spells or make sure AEs get as many enemies as possible, Grappler does not help you do that.

If your goal is to grapple two targets, Grapple does not help you do that.

This is all true.

If playing a non Rogue or non Bard Grappler Prodigy would be my "must have" feat (choosing expertise in Athletics of course), as it actually helps with winning grapple and shove contests.

[Citan]

This is all true.

If playing a non Rogue or non Bard Grappler Prodigy would be my "must have" feat (choosing expertise in Athletics of course), as it actually helps with winning grapple and shove contests.
It's indeed a great way to gain advantage self-sufficiently when you consider a character "class-less".

You have some ways for friends to help you though with spells (Enhance Ability, Enlarge, Guidance) or otherwise (Bardic Inspiration, Bend Luck).
That's why Bards are so great at grappling, although in terms of just check reliability probably nobody can beat an Arcane Trickster (Expertise + Reliable Talent + Enlarge = profit.) ^^
Yet for a pure Rogue, grappling has in essence a significant opportunity cost because of halved speed meaning he may need to use Cunning Action to achieve his positioning objective, meaning no Sneak Attack.
That's why it's best paired with a Monk (Extra Attack + higher movement + potential Dodge/Stunning Strike) or Barbarian (Extra Attack + higher movement + much higher resilience).

Although that is just for theorycraft.
YMMV of course, but in my experience at least, just having Expertise with a decent STR (12-14) and advantage on check is plenty enough to be reliable against a vast amount of enemies.
It does suck hard the few times it's a miss though. ^^

[GlenSmash!]

It's indeed a great way to gain advantage self-sufficiently when you consider a character "class-less".

You have some ways for friends to help you though with spells (Enhance Ability, Enlarge, Guidance) or otherwise (Bardic Inspiration, Bend Luck).
That's why Bards are so great at grappling, although in terms of just check reliability probably nobody can beat an Arcane Trickster (Expertise + Reliable Talent + Enlarge = profit.) ^^
Yet for a pure Rogue, grappling has in essence a significant opportunity cost because of halved speed meaning he may need to use Cunning Action to achieve his positioning objective, meaning no Sneak Attack.
That's why it's best paired with a Monk (Extra Attack + higher movement + potential Dodge/Stunning Strike) or Barbarian (Extra Attack + higher movement + much higher resilience).

Although that is just for theorycraft.
YMMV of course, but in my experience at least, just having Expertise with a decent STR (12-14) and advantage on check is plenty enough to be reliable against a vast amount of enemies.
It does suck hard the few times it's a miss though. ^^

Yup, Bards and ATs make the best single classed Grapplers in 5e.

Too bad I dislike playing spellcasters.

[Deathtongue]

I think that if you're able to grapple and pin in the same round with a decent grapple check, this feat isn't awful and dodges a lot of the 'this doesn't help you with the things grapples are good for'. Guaranteed, low-resource single-target restraining in one round ain't half-bad, especially since it's quite likely you'll multi-restrain.

Which means that I could see this feat being of some use on an Arcane Trickster or a Bard with Haste. But this feat is just too slow to get rolling to use for anyone else, especially at higher levels when monsters have more mobility/incapacitation/nova/assist fellow monster options.

That said, usable doesn't exactly mean good. A lot of the things you'd like to use grappling for (keep someone in a dangerous zone, keep someone prone with constant advantage-granting, forcefully move someone elsewhere on the field) this doesn't help with or it'd redundant. Even the advantages of actual restraining over grappling are fishy, because it exposes you to the same risk of being restrained, unless your DM lets you break the grapple as a free action. Which you technically can, but good luck getting most DMs to agree to that.

[Citan]

Which means that I could see this feat being of some use on an Arcane Trickster or a Bard with Haste. But this feat is just too slow to get rolling to use for anyone else, especially at higher levels when monsters have more mobility/incapacitation/nova/assist fellow monster options.

That said, usable doesn't exactly mean good. A lot of the things you'd like to use grappling for (keep someone in a dangerous zone, keep someone prone with constant advantage-granting, forcefully move someone elsewhere on the field) this doesn't help with or it'd redundant. Even the advantages of actual restraining over grappling are fishy, because it exposes you to the same risk of being restrained, unless your DM lets you break the grapple as a free action. Which you technically can, but good luck getting most DMs to agree to that.
What you say is true, Grappler does not help in grappling itself. It does help in deciding when/how to grapple when you have to put in balance on one side, a grapple check, on the other side, a weapon attack.
That's his forte.
Advantage-giving spells like Faerie Fire won't always affect the target you want or be available. Not always will be "flanking characters" like (Wolf) Barbarian or (Shield Master) Paladin near you either.
For a pure Rogue it's actually not overall a great idea because they don't have Extra Attack per se, as I stressed above. In multiclass it's great: a) Grapple, b) Sneak Attack, c) Dash away from his pals and closer to your friends (fun fact: just Shoving someone is not always the best tactic, for various reasons).

It's also why I think it's best used on Monks: with their great mobility, they can pull creatures quite a bit without even dashing. If dashing, they can drag it for an amount of speed that will usually match or possibly slightly surpass normal speed of many enemies.
If they happen to have someone with Haste in party, you can actually start planning blitzkrieg tactics like snatching a caster that felt safe in the backline back close to your Barbarian pal, or just Stunning it and let your Sharpshooter pal cripple it.
Comparison with Shove: your Sharpshooter would be useless (target prone), as your Barbarian (target out of reach, no bonus action Dash).

If you happen to have someone with Fly in party instead, then you can Grapple a creature, pummel it with advantage while going upwards then let it fall: extra damage + prone.
Comparison with Shove: you spared one "weapon attack" for the same result (target prone), except better (extra damage).

Or you could be a character with "weapon rider spells" such as the smite ones, like a Paladin or Valor Bard or Hexblade Warlock who would really like a duel with a creature under the a powerful smite spell such as Wrathful Smite: bonus action cast, grapple with the first weapon attack, make a weapon attack with the second.
Comparison with Shove:
- more danger to you? Only if you wanted to move away because of OA. Otherwise it's the same, because obviously on its turn a creature would stand up first before attacking you.
- more or less party benefit? Depends once again on how many melee pals you have that would be within reach. Difficult to pull an opinion here without actual example.
- enemy mobility: Shove put it prone, which is good because it will use half speed to get up. Doesn't prevent it to flee or attack another close-by enemy. Grapple set it to 0 and let you drag it for half-speed left, which means you probably always have enough to pull away at least 5 feet. When you want a creature to focus on you, you just cannot beat that.

None of those cases technically required the Grappler feat to work.
But with Grappler feat...

The Monk which primary goal was to immobilize and stun by using up to 3 attempts at Stunning Strike (with Flurry of Blows if needed) got advantage on 3 attacks instead of 2.

Against a 16 AC, considering a usual lvl 5 Monk (16 DEX, 16 WIS -although I'd always pick Mobile instead myself-), you have +3+3 = 6 to hit. You need at least 10. You'd have 80% chance to hit on each of all 3 attacks, instead of respectively 50% and 80%, so the chance of not hitting even one is close to absolute 0. More importantly, it means you have a small but definite chance to both hit and apply stun on the second attack, meaning you have more choices to decide among what to do with the remaining bonus action.
This is even truer if/when you pick Elven Accuracy instead of +2 DEX at level 8 (because honestly, this is the most broken feat I ever saw, far worse than Sharpshooter). At level 9 (hey, you picked one level of Rogue early on the way for Expertise right? :)) you have now a 1% chance of missing on your second attack.

Case in point:
Hasted Monk could actually use his bonus action together with Haste's Dash to straight Dash back to colleagues instead of staying in the middle field in which he could still get hurt, because it's now an option since he succeeded in his task already (even considering he used all "free move" to get to creature, he would still get (40*2)*2/2 (Dash = speed, and speed is doubled by Haste. You get 2 Dash but once grappling speed is halved so amount of one Dash) = 80 feet, largely enough to outspeed most creatures of that level.
Often enough to come back with your prey in the nice and comfy cover your friends prepared in the while, so everyone can gang up on the poor lad while its friends are trying to catch up.

Or he could use Haste's Dash to position better (like pulling the creature out of cover so your bowmen friends can target it, or closer to your melee pals so they can at least use thrown weapons on it) and use Dodge as bonus action to withstand other creature's attacks.
Or use either source to Dash-drag close enough for a caster friend to use a nasty but short-reach spell (Hold Person, Banishment, Polymorph, or even Bestow Curse)

Or just pummel it with his Flurry of Blows, then use Haste's Disengage/Dash to fall back safely before his friends cast some AOE (automatic fail) or unleash arrows.

Flying Monk could basically double his output because he's now sure he can Dash as bonus action upwards, even if his target was a caster (Feather Fall, Misty Step) it won't escape the fall.
Same basic lvl 5 Monk with 60 feet fly + 10 bonus feet, considering again the *worst* case (he used all normal speed to reach the creature) could still get (70)/2 = 35 feet, so unavoidable extra 3d6 damage, which average outputs is better than one of his weapon attack (conversely, best reasonable case being that Monk used only 30 feet to reach grapple, that's now 55 damage so 5d6, aka better than a same level's Rogue Sneak Attack).
Or maybe he used all speed on first step because he had to make a parabole to avoid enemies since ceiling was not high enough to always be fully out of reach. Now he can draw the target near his allies while using it as cover against OA (at least +2 AC, possibly +5 in some specific situations).

Even a plain Monk using grappling drag could make a decisive difference for his oncoming melee pal, between not doing anything significant this turn, at least throwing a handaxe, or smashing its body to bits with GWM...
30 feet is *usually* enough in encounters because a good amount of them happens in closed, somewhat small areas, but the stress on usually is important. When furniture is used as obstacles or covers, when pesky enemies use caltrops or other traps or spells to create difficult terrain, or otherwise directly impair your movement... You'll regret not having more speed. XD

For the Paladin, Grapple compared to Shove...
- Using Searing Smite, it ensures lesser chance for enemies to douse the fire because you dragged him away up to 15 feet.
- Using Wrathful Smite, it ensures the creature can't break line of sight to end frightened condition early (compared to prone: it could stand and Dash away, a caster could come and erect a Minor Illusion / Mold Earth / whatever else to cut line of sight, even two sufficiently big creatures could technically manage to create a full cover).
- Same with Branding Smite, you're sure the target will stay within sight whatever happens.
etc...

Grappling + Grappler feat compared to Shove + Grapple...
Well, you actually applied the intended debuff (at least you hit and dealt some damage anyways). Simple as that.

Grapple compared to Shove:
- you give much less benefit to your melee pals.
- you give much less trouble to your ranged pals.

Compared to Shove as Shield Master
- you can't use a Grapple/Shove and use Lay on Hands or cast a spell.
- you can still use your bonus action on all Paladin's dedicated bonus action spells or features, as well as any other features you may have acquired through multiclass (*cough* Quicken spell, Cunning Action, Healing Words *cough*).
- you are much more versatile because you don't have an arm blocked with shield (so you can switch to dual-weapon when getting more attacks is good, or grab a crossbow/bow when melee is definitely useless, or cast a cantrip *cough* Eldricht Blast *cough* you acquired any way).
- you can, unless your DM is overly rigid (I honestly see no RAW reason to forbid but I may have missed something) not only use it as shield against arrows but also use it to "Disengage" from another close-by enemy (by changing your own orientation to place the grappled between you and enemy, so he suffers a cover penalty if he'd try an OA: some DM (at least those who know what true fun is) may even rule some friendly fire in case of critical miss)
- and, which may be the most important, you can point a proud middle-finger against one enemy while piercing another with your rapier. And that is priceless. :smallbiggrin:

[AvatarVecna]

And that is the thing that is fundamentally stupid to say because there are classes and/or party tactics that benefit much of having one people grappling on a more or less regular basis.

By the metric of "Grappling is worse than dealing damage", which is what you imply, then every effect that influences enemy position, be it pulling/pushing or movement restriction would be worse than dealing damage. Grappler gives you worthy benefits to more easily mix grappling tactics and plain dealing damage, so the "opportunity to deal damage or use special abilities" cost is lesser to you than it would be for people without the feat.
Grappling is a great way to protect allies or "ride damage" on other people's abilities, and grappler one of the best companion feats to go with on people who use grappling regularly and whose weapon attacks may be decisive (Paladin, Rogue, Monk, possibly also Ranger, some Bards or Hexblade Warlock).

You just can't imagine it because you just decided in your head it was not worth the try and because it's the kind of features that does reveal itself in actual play rather than theorycraft...
Maybe also you just never had a chance to play in a group that could really profit from it.

But hey, as long as people are all having fun at their respective tables, narrowness of mind is not something to fret over...

I'm not saying that there's absolutely no value in ever doing anything other than straight DPR, don't put words in my mouth. Grappling lets you give up 1 attack worth of your damage to limit the enemy's mobility, or (if you spent the Grappler feat) let's you give enemies advantage to hit you and allies advantage to hit your grapple target (while giving both you and your grapple target disadvantage to attack anybody else). These are the benefits the OP was originally touting - that giving up a bit of your own damage to enhance your allies damage via advantage to attack is a worthwhile thing to do. The problem is that the math doesn't really support that, and all anybody's come up with to counter that math is vague platitudes about me apparently never being in the right party to take advantage of it. The problem, the way I see it, if the goal is maximizing party DPR - which the OP made it out to be, given what his concerns with tripping vs grappling were - taking Grappler lowers your damage in exchange for maybe letting your allies deal more damage than you gave up...but taking a damage-focused feat for yourself and just focusing on DPR would do more for group DPR than grappling your enemies.

And when I put forth my math showing in both practice and theory that it was better just to kill things than to try and show off your wrestling moves, the OP insisted that grappling is a good feat for people who already grapple a lot, which is just them moving the goalposts of the original post. When you start out with "grappling with Grappler is actually way better than people give it credit for", it's starting with a faulty assumption (namely, that everybody thinks Grappler is a bad feat for grapplers). The reason people say Grappler sucks isn't because it doesn't make grapplers better at grappling, it's because even with Grappler, grapplers aren't good. They're better than they were, but they're still not good. And when this was pointed out, multiple times by many people, the OP claimed it was more about being a team player, despite the fact that shoehorning yourself into such a stupid style hurts the team by not contributing as much as you could be.

What gets me miffed about the whole thing is how people make it out like the dude who's using a flashy-but-less-effective combat style is the bigger team player than the dude who's just doing his job to the best of his ability. Congratulations, you've maybe managed to wrestle a monster to the ground in two turns, but in that same span of time you could've just killed them, but hey good for you, you get to show off your wrestling moves that aren't actually better at winning fights? If that kinda situation works for you, you're more than welcome to it, and I'm sure you'll be able to perform well enough in combat that your group still does okay against monsters, but don't pretend that you pinning the monster was the reason the team won.

TL;DR Grappling does more for your team than doing nothing at all. But even in the best-case scenario, where you immediately pin the target and the rest of your team immediately takes advantage of that...you spent a feat to do that, when you could've gotten results that were just as good if you'd just saved the feat and tripped them.

[FreddyNoNose]

I simply believe a couple of reasons:

1) In the area of swords and spells, grappling isn't sexy.
2) The rules have been seen as poor to cheesy. If you don't bring a knife to a gun fight, you shouldn't bring your fists to a sword fight.

[GlenSmash!]

If you don't bring a knife to a gun fight, you shouldn't bring your fists to a sword fight.

I disagree.

Grappling was a very common part of swordfighting techniques. In fact, if fighting with a sword against an opponent in Plate immobilizing them on the ground was very much the preferred technique.

And while D&D is not and should not be considered some type of medieval combat sim, supporting some common real world techniques wouldn't hurt it in the slightest.

And while grappling is super clumsy in older editions, it actually is pretty streamlined in 5e.

I think it just has this one clunky Feat.

[Deathtongue]

I didn't say Grappler was a bad feat. The thing is that it's usable only in very specific circumstances: when you have a free hand and a decent Athletics check and are willing to sacrifice one attack to give the rest of them advantage.

Which is a pretty questionable as the game goes on. For example, assuming an AC range of 16 - 18 and a level 11 monk (+5 Dex, +4 Proficiency Bonus) that uses ki points to flurry, they have an average 65% chance to hit base, but a 91% chance to hit with advantage -- But wait! They blew an ASI for Grappler instead of Dexterity, so the Grappler Monk actually has a to-hit of +8, so it's actually 60% base, 84%. So lets total it up. To be fair to the Grapple Feat Monk, we won't just do damage per round. We'll calculate damage over TWO rounds, or DP2R. Each round they blow a ki point for flurry. We could do more (and the GFM would do better) but I think there's just too many variables in combat to expect a grapple to hold up regularly for three rounds.

8d8+40 * .65 = 49.5 DP2R (Non-Grappler Monk)
7d8+28 * .84 = 49.98 DP2R (Grappler Monk)

And this is assuming the Grappler Monk always lands a grapple. But even if they have a +6 to grappling (which is reasonable to expect with point buy and no magic items; they could get expertise, but it'd delay fist and ASI upgrades further. They could also be silly and sacrifice WIS/DEX/CON for extra STR) and the average grapple check of an opponent is a +3, their chance of winning is 'just' 73%. Assuming the Grappler Monk only tries for one attack before they give up and attack normally, their actual damage is:
(7d8+28 * .84) * .73 + (7d8+28 * .6) * .27 = 36.49 + 5.10 = 41.59 DP2R (Grapple Feat Monk with Grapple Miss Chance, no Expertise)

But let's just say they have Expertise. This boosts their chance of winning a grapple (+10) against a foe with a mere +3 to 94%. So instead it's:
(7d8+28 * .84) * .94 + (7d8+28 * .6) * .06 = 46.98 + 2.90 = 49.88 DP2R (Grapple Feat Monk with Grapple Miss Chance and Expertise)

And just for completeness' sake, let's say the non-Grapple Feat Monk gets jealous and decides to just grapple, but doesn't have the feat. We can just do a straight calculation, since they don't get any special bonuses if they make their Grapple. Their DP2R instead becomes 43.225 DPR for a Non-Grapple Monk Who Uses One of the Attacks for a Grapple and gives up if it doesn't land. It's still slightly higher than the Grapple Feat Monk without Expertise. It's considerably lower (about seven points), however, it's only lower on the rounds the Non-Grapple Monk wants to grapple AND spend their two rounds wailing on the enemy. In conditions where this doesn't apply -- a monster is too big, it's immune to prone, they're a teleporter, they have some dangerous aura, they're too much of a chaff mob to handle that kind of sustained pummeling, etc. -- the Non-Grapple Monk doesn't miss it. They have a better ability score set and an extra monk level to play with.

I don't think a Monk who has done the calculations will be grab-grappling all that much just for the raw DPR increase. It gets even worse if we throw magical items into the mix; the non-Grappler Monk will pull away further and further ahead. It gets better for the non-Grappler Monk for one-shot attacks, like if you're roleplaying one of the Five Deadly Venoms and have a one-shot poison to deliver.

----

A paladin is not going to grapple, needless to say. It means giving up on a two-handed weapon (meaning, no Great Weapon Master), a good ranged weapon, or a shield. It also means not being able to cast spells (since they're grappling) unless they have War Caster, are willing to constantly drop and draw weapons, or are fighting unarmed.

[Deathtongue]

And while grappling is super clumsy in older editions, it actually is pretty streamlined in 5e.

I think it just has this one clunky Feat.Grappling is pretty streamlined in 5E D&D, if weighted more towards minions. I even wrote a thread on how you should be using it more often since you have better chances with it than you'd think (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?556486-OPTIMIZATION-MATH-Minion-mass-grappling-shenanigans).

But as I hope I've shown in my post, even the ideal user of the first part of the Grapple feat won't gain much from it. They'll, for the cost of an ASI and a level, only shine in situations where an enemy of AC 19+ (and there are only a handful of enemies with ACs that high) can be and IS grappled + pummeled, which become less frequent as the game goes on.

The second part of it isn't a waste of a feat 95% of the time like the first part is. There are times when you want genuine restraining and not grappling. However, the situations aren't all that frequent. And unless you're able to grapple AND pin in the same round (meaning, Action Surge fighters who splashed Bard/Rogue, Haste Bards, or Arcane Tricksters) those situations will slip through your fingers increasingly fast as the game goes on.

[AvatarVecna]

I didn't say Grappler was a bad feat. The thing is that it's usable only in very specific circumstances: when you have a free hand and a decent Athletics check and are willing to sacrifice one attack to give the rest of them advantage.

Which is a pretty questionable as the game goes on. For example, assuming an AC range of 16 - 18 and a level 11 monk (+5 Dex, +4 Proficiency Bonus) that uses ki points to flurry, they have an average 65% chance to hit base, but a 91% chance to hit with advantage -- But wait! They blew an ASI for Grappler instead of Dexterity, so the Grappler Monk actually has a to-hit of +8, so it's actually 60% base, 84%. So lets total it up. To be fair to the Grapple Feat Monk, we won't just do damage per round. We'll calculate damage over TWO rounds, or DP2R. Each round they blow a ki point for flurry. We could do more (and the GFM would do better) but I think there's just too many variables in combat to expect a grapple to hold up regularly for three rounds.

8d8+40 * .65 = 49.5 DP2R (Non-Grappler Monk)
7d8+28 * .84 = 49.98 DP2R (Grappler Monk)

And this is assuming the Grappler Monk always lands a grapple. But even if they have a +6 to grappling (which is reasonable to expect with point buy and no magic items; they could get expertise, but it'd delay fist and ASI upgrades further. They could also be silly and sacrifice WIS/DEX/CON for extra STR) and the average grapple check of an opponent is a +3, their chance of winning is 'just' 73%. Assuming the Grappler Monk only tries for one attack before they give up and attack normally, their actual damage is:
(7d8+28 * .84) * .73 + (7d8+28 * .6) * .27 = 36.49 + 5.10 = 41.59 DP2R (Grapple Feat Monk with Grapple Miss Chance, no Expertise)

But let's just say they have Expertise. This boosts their chance of winning a grapple (+10) against a foe with a mere +3 to 94%. So instead it's:
(7d8+28 * .84) * .94 + (7d8+28 * .6) * .06 = 46.98 + 2.90 = 49.88 DP2R (Grapple Feat Monk with Grapple Miss Chance and Expertise)

And just for completeness' sake, let's say the non-Grapple Feat Monk gets jealous and decides to just grapple, but doesn't have the feat. We can just do a straight calculation, since they don't get any special bonuses if they make their Grapple. Their DP2R instead becomes 43.225 DPR for a Non-Grapple Monk Who Uses One of the Attacks for a Grapple and gives up if it doesn't land. It's still slightly higher than the Grapple Feat Monk without Expertise. It's considerably lower (about seven points), however, it's only lower on the rounds the Non-Grapple Monk wants to grapple AND spend their two rounds wailing on the enemy. In conditions where this doesn't apply -- a monster is too big, it's immune to prone, they're a teleporter, they have some dangerous aura, they're too much of a chaff mob to handle that kind of sustained pummeling, etc. -- the Non-Grapple Monk doesn't miss it. They have a better ability score set and an extra monk level to play with.

I don't think a Monk who has done the calculations will be grab-grappling all that much just for the raw DPR increase. It gets even worse if we throw magical items into the mix; the non-Grappler Monk will pull away further and further ahead. It gets better for the non-Grappler Monk for one-shot attacks, like if you're roleplaying one of the Five Deadly Venoms and have a one-shot poison to deliver.

----

A paladin is not going to grapple, needless to say. It means giving up on a two-handed weapon (meaning, no Great Weapon Master), a good ranged weapon, or a shield. It also means not being able to cast spells (since they're grappling) unless they have War Caster, are willing to constantly drop and draw weapons, or are fighting unarmed.

This is a largely good post, but a slight correction: with Grapplerb you give up one attack of damage to give yourself advantage on subsequent attacks. You have to give up two attacks to give advantage to the rest of your party.

[Deathtongue]

Also, not to put too fine of a point on it, but regarding the first part of the grapple feat... you can always just shove people prone, you know? I mean, grapple-advantage isn't COMPLETELY inferior to prone-advantage (it doesn't screw over ranged party members and grapple-advantage is harder to break) but shoving works on more critters than grappling and doesn't require a free hand so it's a wash anyway.

In fact, you'll want to shove anyway even if you do have the Grappler feat. It's seriously one of the best parts about being a grappler, setting an enemy's speed to 0 and making it really hard for them to break free. But once you have Shove-advantage... then what?

[FreddyNoNose]

I disagree.

Grappling was a very common part of swordfighting techniques. In fact, if fighting with a sword against an opponent in Plate immobilizing them on the ground was very much the preferred technique.

And while D&D is not and should not be considered some type of medieval combat sim, supporting some common real world techniques wouldn't hurt it in the slightest.

And while grappling is super clumsy in older editions, it actually is pretty streamlined in 5e.

I think it just has this one clunky Feat.

You took that literally.

You are not an expert. Sorry to inform you.

[Jerrykhor]

You know the feat is bad when a guide for 5e Grappling rate the feat as red. I don't like OP's stance of 'I have an unpopular opinion, fight me!' Especially when he implies that those who don't like this feat must be a powergamer who maximizes damage output over everything else. Its not like everyone wanted this feat to suck.

Replying with lots of snark and citing outliers just makes him look childish. Pointing out how good grappling as a tactic is pointless too, as the feat he is defending don't even help with that. Grappling has its place, but it can't be your only solution to everything. Don't pretend you're a master tactician for using something that has many alternative options for the same or greater effect.

I've noticed this trend of people who like to defend the weaker stuff in the game, like those who go 'Why does everyone hate Witchbolt! You just don't know how to use it!' Well no sir, I do sincerely hope that you do enjoy using that spell, but I'm not picking it.

Don't blame the player, blame the game (or the developers).

[CTurbo]

You know the feat is bad when a guide for 5e Grappling rate the feat as red. I don't like OP's stance of 'I have an unpopular opinion, fight me!' Especially when he implies that those who don't like this feat must be a powergamer who maximizes damage output over everything else. Its not like everyone wanted this feat to suck.

Replying with lots of snark and citing outliers just makes him look childish. Pointing out how good grappling as a tactic is pointless too, as the feat he is defending don't even help with that. Grappling has its place, but it can't be your only solution to everything. Don't pretend you're a master tactician for using something that has many alternative options for the same or greater effect.

I've noticed this trend of people who like to defend the weaker stuff in the game, like those who go 'Why does everyone hate Witchbolt! You just don't know how to use it!' Well no sir, I do sincerely hope that you do enjoy using that spell, but I'm not picking it.

Don't blame the player, blame the game (or the developers).


Aww come on Witchbolt is not that bad if you're adding your +5 Cha mod to it each time or if you're a Tempest Cleric and you convince your DM to let you continuing maxing the damage each subsequent turn because it's still the same spell lol

[Angelalex242]

A grapple feat should probably be designed with monks in mind.

How can I make this feat 'sky blue' for monks? Like, every monk in his right mind should want this?

Design with that in mind.

Tavern Brawler may also want to be designed with monks in mind.

[Citan]

The problem, the way I see it, if the goal is maximizing party DPR - which the OP made it out to be, given what his concerns with tripping vs grappling were - taking Grappler lowers your damage in exchange for maybe letting your allies deal more damage than you gave up...but taking a damage-focused feat for yourself and just focusing on DPR would do more for group DPR than grappling your enemies.


What gets me miffed about the whole thing is how people make it out like the dude who's using a flashy-but-less-effective combat style is the bigger team player than the dude who's just doing his job to the best of his ability. Congratulations, you've maybe managed to wrestle a monster to the ground in two turns, but in that same span of time you could've just killed them, but hey good for you, you get to show off your wrestling moves that aren't actually better at winning fights?

TL;DR Grappling does more for your team than doing nothing at all. But even in the best-case scenario, where you immediately pin the target and the rest of your team immediately takes advantage of that...you spent a feat to do that, when you could've gotten results that were just as good if you'd just saved the feat and tripped them.


I didn't say Grappler was a bad feat. The thing is that it's usable only in very specific circumstances: when you have a free hand and a decent Athletics check and are willing to sacrifice one attack to give the rest of them advantage.

I don't think a Monk who has done the calculations will be grab-grappling all that much just for the raw DPR increase. It gets even worse if we throw magical items into the mix; the non-Grappler Monk will pull away further and further ahead. It gets better for the non-Grappler Monk for one-shot attacks, like if you're roleplaying one of the Five Deadly Venoms and have a one-shot poison to deliver.

----

A paladin is not going to grapple, needless to say. It means giving up on a two-handed weapon (meaning, no Great Weapon Master), a good ranged weapon, or a shield. It also means not being able to cast spells (since they're grappling) unless they have War Caster, are willing to constantly drop and draw weapons, or are fighting unarmed.

And that's again, where both of you are wrong. It's not a question of who is the biggest teamplayer. It's explaining to all those hard-headed people here that Grappling can be as solid a regular tactic as just using plain weapon attacks, because it increases party defense, or offense, or both. And in that regard...

1. You don't pick Grappler to expect an increase in damage compared to someone who doesn't as far as weapon damage goes. You pick it to keep inline damage-wise while you are also getting all the benefits of grappling, which you demonstrated yourself pretty well in the case of Monk (thanks for that by the way, must have used quite some time), as well as I for all classes (especially Rogue: a Rogue wouldn't reasonably grapple without either Tavern Brawler feat or being Hasted because using his Attack on it means he has no more chance to land Sneak Attack)
Which makes actually the first bit the more interesting one, because the second (pinning) is situational, because grappling is first about moving enemies or ensuring 0 speed.
I made several illustrations above as to why Shove is not the universal solution, far from it.
To put in another words: the point of grappling a creature is not necessarily to add damage, it may be to prepare something else or just protect an ally. Grappler allows you to use it with a lighted heart because the to-hit boost it gives you offsets, partially or totally depending on the class, the opportunity cost of making this choice instead of a plain weapon attack.

2. There are classes for which the usual damage feats are overall lackluster or unapplicable picks anyways, like most feats for a Monk.
And there are many cases in which you just couldn't kill the creature by yourself anyways, so increasing party damage is overall much better.

3. Paladin *as you play it* won't ever Grapple. Good for you. A Paladin that wants to tank won't necessarily care about two-handed weapons, and may not want a shield either precisely because he doesn't want to be too hard to hit so creatures come and get him. Your bit about ranged weapon is funnily irrelevant, you were the one talking about shields in the first place, which is much bigger constraint. Besides that, you can just be smart you know: obviously grapple is not a good choice if your goal was to attack distant creatures like flyers.
Warcaster may or not be a given depending on how he uses his slots rather on debuffs (obviously you don't want the grappled creature to break your concentration) or smites. Good thing is if you really want both and want them early you can pick Variant Human.

You both just stay on the idea that Grappler feat is unworthy even for people that grapple on a regular basis, but it seems to me you never actually put your weight into exploring the possibilities of grappling in the first place, by fear of "not contributing enough". Or maybe you usually play with parties in which it would be lackluster because you happen to have great control casters. :)

[Zalabim]

But as I hope I've shown in my post, even the ideal user of the first part of the Grapple feat won't gain much from it.
Two problems. A monk hardly strikes me as the ideal user of the Grappler feat. All the math in your post needs to be corrected. I think the ideal candidate for the Grappler feat is a tough(not the feat) durable (that's a feat too) tanky Fighter who is already using grappling to maneuver and limit their enemy's options. At level 11, the fighter's +9 athletics vs +3 on the defender succeeds 73.75% of the time. (http://anydice.com/program/f936) Your average damage values are only a little off. I've no clue what you did with your contest success math.

Anyway, to the best of my knowledge, Grappler is a second-string feat. It may be useful in its particular niche, but even for someone focused on exploiting its specific ability I'd recommend a primary ASI before the feat. It's a feat that might be chosen instead of raising a secondary-or-lower priority ability score. At the risk of having to explain myself again, it at least has a firmer grasp on a niche than Tough.

I don't think a Monk who has done the calculations will be grab-grappling all that much just for the raw DPR increase. It gets even worse if we throw magical items into the mix; the non-Grappler Monk will pull away further and further ahead. It gets better for the non-Grappler Monk for one-shot attacks, like if you're roleplaying one of the Five Deadly Venoms and have a one-shot poison to deliver.
What magic items are you thinking of? Because aside from the Insignia of Claws (rarely mentioned from Hoard of the Dragon Queen), the first magic item I always suggest as the best way to boost a monk's damage is a good Belt of Giant Strength.


A grapple feat should probably be designed with monks in mind.

How can I make this feat 'sky blue' for monks? Like, every monk in his right mind should want this?

Design with that in mind.

Tavern Brawler may also want to be designed with monks in mind.
Making a feat particularly for monks seems like a loser's game. Making a feat that's practically mandatory for monks just seems downright malicious. That's really not making good use of feats' features, and monks are poor candidates for feats to begin with. Tavern brawler at least would need a complete redesign to be even useful to monks. I'm fairly sure they took monks into consideration when they made the feats that are in the PHB. How else would they avoid making any feats that are more than halfway decent for monks?

[Deathtongue]

Two problems. A monk hardly strikes me as the ideal user of the Grappler feat. All the math in your post needs to be corrected. I think the ideal candidate for the Grappler feat is a tough(not the feat) durable (that's a feat too) tanky Fighter who is already using grappling to maneuver and limit their enemy's options. At level 11, the fighter's +9 athletics vs +3 on the defender succeeds 73.75% of the time. (http://anydice.com/program/f936) Your average damage values are only a little off. I've no clue what you did with your contest success math.My mistake. I accidentally counted successes as ties for the grappler. The DPR on rounds when you grapple should be lower than what I highlighted, since you'll fail more often.

The reason why I highlighted Monk was because they and Bladesingers the only ones who could really use the first part of Grappler. People with shields, heavy weapons, a weapon in each hand, or even ranged weapons will prefer to shove instead, since shoving doesn't require a free hand. People with sneak attack or Multiattack will have their damage fall off of a cliff.


What magic items are you thinking of? Because aside from the Insignia of Claws (rarely mentioned from Hoard of the Dragon Queen), the first magic item I always suggest as the best way to boost a monk's damage is a good Belt of Giant Strength.Monks can use weapons, too. A +2 shortsword is better than anything a monk gets unarmed-strike wise.

[GlenSmash!]

You took that literally.

Of course I took it literally. if it wasn't mean to be taken literally it would have been in blue text wouldn't it?


You are not an expert.

I never claimed to be.


Sorry to inform you.

Apology Accepted.

[Deathtongue]

By the way, Zalabim, thank you so much for introducing me to anydice. That site kicks.