Athletics Expertise and Beast grapples/shoves

[Aaedimus]

Many beasts have auto grapples and shoves that occur on hit. These mostly have pretty low DCs, and after looking at them they seem like most were calculated assuming the beast is proficient at athletics, with a proficiency modifier of 2. If you take a feat or class that provides Athletics expertise, a straight grapple athletics contest and the grapple on attack end up providing an unequal challenge for the target to escape the grapple.

This is fine, but if I wanted to suggest either shifting the escape DC or making the target perform a contested ability check in all situations, what would your suggestion be to shift the athletics expertise benefits into wildshape.

Basically, I think a wildshape grappler build would be cool.

[CheddarChampion]

I don't think the DC's were based on athletics.
They go with 8+proficiency+relevant ability score modifier - the same as spellcasting or the battlemaster's maneuvers.

If you want to do a druid grappler, just get athletics expertise and
1. use your action to grapple or
2. take tavern brawler (I think it should work with wildshape)

A barbarian-druid build would work great for this due to the advantage on strength checks while raging and the extra resilience from damage resistance.

I might let a player go for an opposed check instead of a saving throw with these beasts, but the roll would be 1d20 + (the beast's grapple DC -8).
Getting 2 times your proficiency to the DC's of saving throws you impose is way too much.

[OverLordOcelot]

If you want to do a druid grappler, just get athletics expertise and
1. use your action to grapple or
2. take tavern brawler (I think it should work with wildshape)

Technically it does, but not in a very useful way - natural weapons are not unarmed strikes unless they specifically say they are. You have to do a single d4 unarmed strike instead of your natural weapon attack, and at that point I'd say you're better off just using your action to grapple instead of burning a feat to use your action for pitiful damage and get a bonus grapple.


I might let a player go for an opposed check instead of a saving throw with these beasts, but the roll would be 1d20 + (the beast's grapple DC -8).
Getting 2 times your proficiency to the DC's of saving throws you impose is way too much.

I think the abilities are already good enough - in general it takes your entire action to try to break a grapple, so if an enemy does contest they're giving up a full round to do it. Making it an opposed check and especially allowing athletics are just gilding the lilly, you've got a win for the action if you get to do damage and force the enemy to waste an entire round.

[Aaedimus]

Im just thinking, if you can wildshape and you don't have expertise in athletics, if you grab that expertise, as is it doesn't seem like you receive any benefit. Shouldn't you?

[OverLordOcelot]

Im just thinking, if you can wildshape and you don't have expertise in athletics, if you grab that expertise, as is it doesn't seem like you receive any benefit. Shouldn't you?

You get the same benefit any other grappler does, you get to add double your proficiency on opposed grapple checks. If you're using forms that don't use grapple checks and instead use a rider on an attack roll (like giant octopus, giant constrictor snake, giant scorpion) then athletics has no effect, but you're getting grapple and often restraint for free. If you are using grappling checks, then you get the doubled proficiency for free, and come close to automatically succeeding. Generally up to tier 2 you're going to get grapples as free riders on your main attack, in tier 3 and up you're mostly going to either be using elemental forms or high HP animals, and will start making opposed grapple checks. As an example, in a recent tier 3 game, our group was fighting a pack of tough trolls (boosted with barbarian levels) and a few shamans. While I did almost no damage (other than a lucky double crit at the end), my moon druid was able to turn into a water elemental and soak their damage (taking only half since it's nonmagical attacks) and keep moving them into position to get hit with AOE effects and especially fire. Without expertise I could try just using the whelm ability, but that's a DC 15 STR save that succeeds on a 10 instead of a contested roll where I get +14 and they get +5 (both of us would have advantage, them from rage and me from familiar).

(For a non-moon druid, grappling doesn't make a lot of sense, as you're going to be focused on spellcasting and use forms for utility or last ditch defense, so I assumed you were talking about moon)

[Zalabim]

I just wanted to say, it's a sidebar, but there is coverage for this:
GRAPPLE RULES FOR MONSTERS
Many monsters have special attacks that allow them to
quickly grapple prey. When a monster hits with such an
attack, it doesn't need to make an additional ability check to
determine whether the grapple succeeds, unless the attack
says otherwise.
A creature grappled by the monster can use its action to try
to escape. To do so, it must succeed on a Strength (Athletics)
or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check against the escape DC in the
monster's stat block. If no escape DC is given, assume the
DC is 10 +the monster's Strength (Athletics) modifier.