non-barbarian grappling rogue

[n00b]

Just as in the title. If you were going to make a grappling Rogue, how would you build it? If you were not going to use any Barbarian levels.


Multiclass is fine for a few level dips. Not committed to being a level 20 Rogue by any means. Heck I'm not even sure what their capstone is to be honest.

[CTurbo]

Use Minotaur or Lizardfolk. Get Athletics and Expertise it. Opt for Str>Dex and you'd probably need Medium Armor. The goal is to grapple, restrain, and still be able to attack with natural weapons. Personally I don't believe the Grappler feat is necessary in order to restrain.

[Crgaston]

Is any multiclassing allowed? You can make a Strength Rogue easily enough with medium armor proficiency, which you can get from many different sources. 1 level of Cleric or Fighter would be easiest, or the moderately armored feat will let you use a breastplate and only need a 14 Dex for AC 16, or 18 with a shield.

Here's a build I'm looking forward to trying out someday... This is built for L11 from a previous thread, but if you're starting from scratch, I'd probably go Rogue 2/Fighter5 them back to Rogue until 5 and then just alternate. It'll work fine once you have Expertise, Cunning action, and Extra Attack, though.

The Combat Medic/Sidekick
Mountain Dwarf
Mercenary Veteran background
Starting stats with Point Buy are 17/14/16/8/10/10

Thief 5/Battlemaster 6
Fight in a breastplate for 16 AC and use a short sword with Dueling FS for a +8 to hit/+6 to damage, 2 attacks per round with +3d6 SA on one hit (circumstances permitting). Use a whip for reach and throw daggers for range. You'll really want a melee buddy to grant you SA and to take advantage of your Sentinel feat.

Take Thief for the extra mobility and Fast Hands which lets you use a healers kit as a bonus action.

Take Squat Nimbleness to get 18 Str, 30' move, and proficiency in Athletics or Acrobatics and advantage on escaping grapples, Then take the Sentinel and Healer feats. With the Healer feat, when you stabilize someone with a Healers Kit, they are restored to 1 HP.

Take Expertise in Athletics (+12!) and Stealth (+10, despite the 14 Dex and Medium armor). Rogue 6 is right around the corner for more Expertise in Perception and another choice, probably Medicine, Persuasion, or Investigation.

For maneuvers on this guy I like Commander's Strike, Menacing and Riposte. Since you can use a Healer's Kit to do pop-up healing as a Bonus Action, while you're hovering over your fallen comrade you can use Menacing on a thrown dagger to keep enemies from approaching and/or Commander’s Strike to give someone else a free shot at them. Trip Attack seems good on a grappler, but with Expertise and Extra Attack you can just use one of your attacks to shove prone and the other to attack with Advantage.

At this level, the Healer feat lets you do 1d6+15 HP of healing as an action to dispense to each party member (or 1d6+5ish for each soldier in your army… it’s per short rest for THEM… the only limitation for you is having enough supplies)

You'll have great Reaction usage. Uncanny Dodge if they hit you, Riposte if they miss, and Sentinel if they attack your buddy instead.

Although this build gets a lot of Short Rest abilities, it'll have the pop up healing until you run out of Healer's Kits, and Uncanny Dodge at will, along with insane grappling and stealth skills, excellent mobility, and solid DPR.

[OracularPoet]

Use Minotaur or Lizardfolk. Get Athletics and Expertise it. Opt for Str>Dex and you'd probably need Medium Armor. The goal is to grapple, restrain, and still be able to attack with natural weapons. Personally I don't believe the Grappler feat is necessary in order to restrain.

If you get medium armor, get Shield Master so can grapple + prone in single turn. Thief Fast Hands would allow bonus action doff shield once opponent is prone, draw dagger and stab for sneak.

Otherwise, AT can get you Enlarge/Reduce. Dip 3 levels sorcerer and you can do twinned Enlarge (you) Reduce (foe) while also getting you Shield, Absorb Elements and Booming Blade.

Edit: to be clear, AT or sorcerer, not both.

[SaladSpinner]

To excel at grappling, you want to be STR-based, which means you'll want Medium or Heavy armor to have a decent AC, which you'll want because you'll be in the thick of it - no crossbows for you!

So your options are:
- Multiclass any class with good armor proficiencies. Fighter is probably best, but there's no reason you couldn't go paladin, or even ranger
- Go Variant Human (Moderately Armored Feat)
- Go Mountain Dwarf (Medium Armor Prof)
- stick it out until Lvl 4 & pick up Moderately Armored

Straight rogue is fun, but multiclassing has some benefits:
- easier to get Heavy Armor proficiency
- stay till lvl 5 and you get Extra Attack (so you can grapple and attack on the same turn)

In terms of rogue subclass - Swashbuckler will give you the most reliable Sneak Attack. Scout helps with mobility. Avoid Arcane Trickster, as you'll already want good STR & CON and reasonable DEX

[Potato_Priest]

Another great race for this would be the tortle. They're really useful for getting good AC on builds that otherwise wouldn't have it.

[stoutstien]

Rogue/bard. Luchador style. Valor get med armor, extra attack, and battle magic on top of full casting which can net enlarge/reduce, enhance ablity, greater invis, and cutting words for insulting the goblin you have in a head lock.
Bonus points for putting magic mouth on your belt so it has ring side banter every time you grapple

[Quoz]

If you want your GM to hate you, go with feral winged Tiefling or Aarakocra. Grab, move and bonus action dash straight up, and drop as a free action. Caution: in my experience this tends to draw an inordinate amount of aggro, so know your table before trying it out.

[Laird]

Here's a build I did for this, it works great when you get magic items too.


VHuman, if your DM allows skill feats take Brawny. This gives you 14/16/14/10/12/10 to start with your +1 Str, +1 Dex, +1 Con. This allows you to maintain your dexterity focus without requiring MC for med armor. At 4 you can grab Crossbow Expert or Weaponster, the end goal is to by level 8 be able to Action Attack with a net in Melee one handed and follow it up with a BA attack from Crossbow Expert that will allow SA and give everyone adv including your ranged allies without shoving a creature prone.

That's one strategy, others allow you to grapple at lower levels, climb giant creatures, climb trees... (I went Thief because of the second story work and great magic items access but scout, assassin or any rogue save AT can work. If going AT you will need to forego a lot of attack based magic in favor of augmentation. It's nice to max STR but with Expertise it's not as necessary. There's also a small chance you'd be able to pick up a belt of giant strength which is primo for this build and if you can spend downtime searching for one I highly recommend it.

With Athletics Expertise you can grapple targets, drag them, BA dash to grab enemies trying to escape... It's a very encounter dependant style which is why I suggest CE and WM for a few more options (Longbow, Net, Whip... Etc). My reasoning you don't want to MC until after 11 is because of reliable talent. By the time you get to 11 you will have a range of ATH checks from 20-30. A minimum of 20 is pretty tough for most creatures to get, especially if you have some way to give them disadvantage...(like a net).

Alternatively, the Grappler Feat does give you Adv like a net attack would, however the restrained portion of the feat requires another action, and you yourself count as restrained as well, so you don't get a follow-up BA with Crossbow Expert.

Granted it's easier to maintain the lockdown then a net, but if the creature you have hit with the net doesn't have a slashing weapon, they need to use their action to break out of the net. It inconvienences any creature large or smaller.

Feel free to PM me, I currently have a lvl 16 pure rogue grappler that I very much enjoy playing.

[TripleD]

If you want your GM to hate you, go with feral winged Tiefling or Aarakocra. Grab, move and bonus action dash straight up, and drop as a free action. Caution: in my experience this tends to draw an inordinate amount of aggro, so know your table before trying it out.

I prefer the jumping turtle for my gravity-warrior.

Start with a Tortle Open Hand Monk. Assuming standard array, you should have (17/14/13/13/10/8).

Go to level 5 in Monk. You need to grab as many Ki points as possible. Take the ASI at level 4 and bump up to (18/14/14/13/10/8).

Rogue the next three levels and choose Thief.

Somewhere in this convince your DM to let you get your scaly claws on the Boots of Springing and Striding.

In Battle grapple one enemy (or two) then use your bonus action and a Ki point to activate “Step of the Wind”.

Your base high jump is 3 + 4 = 7.

Thief’s “Second Story Work” adds your DEX modifier, making it 9.

“Boots” doubles that to 18.

“Step of the Wind” triples it to 54.

According to the grapple rules, grappling halves your speed, but has no impact on jump distance. So weirdly enough this jumping tortle (54 feet) is going to be leaping higher than dashing Arakocra (50 feet). Although this does run into the problem of jumping higher than your speed (forbidden by the Boot’s description) at least until unarmored movement catches up or you take the Mobile feat.

[Blood of Gaea]

Probably the simplest way to pull it off without any multiclassing is to be a Variant Human Rogue with the Tavern Brawler Feat. You have the option to either attack once or make two grapple attempts. With no slowed progression towards reliable talent as well as expertise, this would be pretty effective.

[n00b]

Lots of good ideas here. I appreciate all the input! I had considered I probably would need to focus more on Strength than Dex ideally. So probably not going to be a stealth rogue so much as would be the norm. Multiclassing is fine if it brings about the desired result. I'm not dead set on being a level 20 Rogue.

[Willie the Duck]

Lots of good ideas here. I appreciate all the input! I had considered I probably would need to focus more on Strength than Dex ideally. So probably not going to be a stealth rogue so much as would be the norm. Multiclassing is fine if it brings about the desired result. I'm not dead set on being a level 20 Rogue.

Well, if you have expertise, your actual strength modifier isn't going to be the most dominant factor. OTOH, you are going to be a melee rogue, so a middling Dex and medium armor (plus perhaps shield, depending on what kind of grappling you want to do-full grapple or just knock-over) would not be horrible. Certainly a level+ in fighter would not be out of place.

[Blood of Gaea]

Lots of good ideas here. I appreciate all the input! I had considered I probably would need to focus more on Strength than Dex ideally. So probably not going to be a stealth rogue so much as would be the norm. Multiclassing is fine if it brings about the desired result. I'm not dead set on being a level 20 Rogue.
If want to multiclass as a Str Rogue, you'll need 13 dex, so you might as well round it off to 14. Grab expertise in stealth and you can still be pretty handy there.

[Citan]

Just as in the title. If you were going to make a grappling Rogue, how would you build it? If you were not going to use any Barbarian levels.


Multiclass is fine for a few level dips. Not committed to being a level 20 Rogue by any means. Heck I'm not even sure what their capstone is to be honest.
Hi!
Honestly pure Rogue as Arcane Trickster is fine, using Enlarge mainly.
As a pure Rogue, I'd be any Elf to pick Elven Accuracy and Grappler. Now I'm sure I'll land that Sneak Attack whatever happens (especially considering Rogue gets close blindsense at higher level), without any action economy loss! Great if you want to "play solo" (like picking up isolated enemies) or enforce some positioning control (meaning you'll move the enemies away with Dash as bonus action on subsequent turns).
Which is imo what you should do, unless of course you multiclass into another class that gets Extra Attack, but from what I read you'd like to still get Rogue up reasonably fast.

For a few dips, one decent choice is Divine Soul Sorcerer with Extend and Quicken, to pair with that Arcane Trickster archetype. Use Extend on whatever buff you need and Quicken for Enlarge or, after Magical Ambush, cast a spell and still get one attack in the same round.

Another great dip would be either Swords Bard or Long Death Monk (with houserule unarmed attacks can trigger Sneak Attack otherwise too much hassle for the benefit).
Swords Bard get Longstrider, Enhance Ability, Silence and 10 feet bonus speed for free on their turn's Attack action, which is pretty cool imo (also, technically by RAW -while very probably not RAI- if you grabbed Action Surge from Fighter and got Hasted some way to get another Attack, you would get 3*10 bonus feet XD).

Yet another is a single level (or two) dip into Hexblade Warlock: you get medium armor, improved crit against one creature, and Hex that can completely ensure you'll succeed on that initial Grapple. And since you will have short rests for it, you can completely afford to just cast Hex then drop it in favor of something else if needed.
You could even get 3rd level to get Darkness + Devil Sight but then comes the concentration competition.

Usually, the most synergizing dip for an Arcane Trickster is Bladesinger Wizard: bonus speed, bonus concentration (important if you want to use Enlarge), bonus AC, more slots early, many more spells. Thing is though, you really need to choose here whether you want absolute maximization of Grapple chance or not, because if so the INT requirement may be a problem.
My view on it though is that 12 STR is far enough if you get Expertise in it, but it's a matter of taste.

Finally, one great dip may be Tempest Cleric: with it you can fully go STR (although I'd still recommend being in medium armor, because stealth and Heat Metal), you can Bless yourself when Enlarge is not needed, and you can land some powerful nova damage once per short rest.

So, in short...
- Do you want to Grapple to exert great battlefield control by dragging enemies around? Try and pick as many mobility buff as possible, be an Arcane Trickster, get Constitution proficiency for saves about when you start using Enlarge, and also get Find Familiar.
- Do you want to Grapple simply to avoid enemies fleeing from you, but want to play with teammates? Either stick to a pal so one Shoves while the other Grapple, or you'll have to multiclass to get Extra Attack, or you'll have to wait until you get Haste (I'm oversummarizing here but that's the idea).

Other thoughts in wild...
One particularly fun trick is to have a Create Bonfire at the ready not too far and drag enemies onto it. It does compete with Enlarge though if you have to be the one making it.

If you can land a Ring of Spell Storing and DM follows Twitter rulings, you can pick a familiar which shape allows it to attune it, then have it buff you so things like following become possible...
- Create Bonfire (you) + Enlarge (him),
- Enlarge (him) + Reduce (you, with benefit of Magical Ambush)
- Haste (him) + Enlarge (you, considering the familiar would run/hide away after casting to minimize risk of early break).
- Web (him) + Shadow Blade (you).
etc...

Grappler will be a great feat for you unless...
- You really want to count on your Familiar every round (which seems both dubious -familiars die easy- and underoptimal - familiars are great used otherwise, like giving healing items to allies or carrying a Darkness even if they cannot see through it).
- You don't care about landing Sneak Attack (doubtful, otherwise why be a Rogue? -especially paired with Booming Blade as an AT)
- You plan on getting Extra Attack and possibly more one way or the other.
- You don't plan on moving enemies around AND are fine losing one turn just setting up Shove and Grapple to initiate advantage.
- You are pretty sure to have another consistent and reliable way to enable advantage on your attacks.