Making grappling a weapon proficiency

[Belzique]

Well, this mostly applies to grappling, but also potentially shove and unarmed attacks.

It doesn't sit well with me that grappling is executed via an athletics check when I figure melee combat would be something you train in similar to how you train with a weapon.

With that said, what would be the implications of making grappling and shove checks be based off of a hand-to-hand "weapon" proficiency?

The rolls could still be contested, with the target being allowed to choose either strength or dexterity as their attribute and add their proficiency bonus if they also have hand-to-hand proficiency.

My immediate thoughts/perceived issues were:
1. This would basically be a free skill for fighters and barbarians (and potentially rangers) since they wouldn't "need" to take athletics anymore.
2. It would mean that training would now have an impact in a fist fight between a wizard and a barbarian rather than just pure strength.
3. This would obviously influence grappler builds since expertise is no longer available.
4. Kind of a joke comment but whatever: Weapon Master would become a much more viable feat.

I myself am unsure of the implications of any of this. What are your thoughts?

[Unoriginal]

Everyone is already proficient in unarmed strikes.

Grappling and shoving is not part of the standard unarmed strike because it is not a standard attack.

Being trained as a grapplers is represented by proficiency in Athletic. I don't see what you would gain by removing one of the most interesting uses of STR from STR.

[ThePolarBear]

Grappling is not a weapon, so it doesn't make sense to be a "weapon" proficiency. You can make it so that you can be proficient or not in checks related to grappling and whatever without it being a "weapon". You can also make it so that you can gain such a proficiency as a fighting style, for example, and make so that if a creature is already proficient in athletics it counts as expertise on checks made to grapple or avoid/escape a grapple, or if proficient in acrobatics it counts as expertise for checks made to avoid or escape a grapple.

Just a couple of ideas.

[Man_Over_Game]

I'm all for homebrew rules, but I'm honestly not sure what problem this is trying to solve.

Fighting classes would have more skills, but grappling would be less powerful (since your opponent may be proficient in a Grappling martial weapon training, too, if they're trained in martial weapons).

I'd consider Athletics as being more than just physically fit, that's what the attributes are for.

When your character is making a test of endurance, he isn't rolling an Athletics check; he's rolling a Strength/Constitution check that your experience in Athletics would be relevant in. You can earn Athletics as part of your background, reflecting your training and your knowledge, but that doesn't necessarily mean you are naturally GOOD at those things.

Take, for example, a Bard of Lore. He has learned a mass variety of skills, with a lot of education, but might not have the strength to grapple efficiently, so he makes up for it with improved knowledge and technique (Expertise). The Athletics skill already represents your knowledge and training, we're just dumb and assume it reflects how fit you are, but that's not quite the case.