Enhanced Wild Shapes

[Guy Lombard-O]

I recently ran into an issue of a moon druid who'd cast Enhance Ability/Strength upon himself (which grants advantage to strength checks), and then wild shaped into a giant constrictor snake. They then attacked and auto-grappled one of the monsters.

The GCS stat block says that a grappled creature can escape on a DC16 grapple check.

The druid PC wanted to know if the advantage from the Enhanced strength would have any effect upon the DC of the grapple escape check? It's true that advantage in many cases grants a +5 to the DC rating of something. And while this wasn't the PC's ability check, it was argued that it was basically the PC's passive strength that could contribute to the DC, and it's true that in some cases a passive DC can be boosted by advantage.

I'm inclined to say that the Enhanced Str of the druid GCS wouldn't have any effect on the static DC to escape. But I was unsure of whether it should in this case?

What says the playground?

[MrStabby]

So three levels of applicability here...

1) RAW it does nothing

2) you have a spell that is making any other grapple check by any other party member harder, it should here.

3) enhanced strength is a physical attribute overwritten by wild shaping. So no effect

I would go with the spell doing nothing as there is agreement between RAW and one interpretation of what is consistent in the world.

I would also add that this kind of takes away from the specialness of characters that invested in strength. From a balance perspective I would also stay away.

[Forevaxp]

I think that the DC should stay 16, but the grappled creature should have disadvantage on escaping.
This is just my gut reaction, I don’t have much experience making calls like this.

[JackPhoenix]

I'm inclined to say that the Enhanced Str of the druid GCS wouldn't have any effect on the static DC to escape. But I was unsure of whether it should in this case?

That is correct. The druid can still grapple normally, without using the special attack the snake has, though. Assuming the GM ignores the "you need a free hand to grapple" part.

[da newt]

Shepherd Druid Bear Spirit or MC Barbarian Rage would cause a similar issue. By RAW - no change to the DC, but I could follow the logic if a DM decided to rule differently.