Aarikocra monk "wrestler"

[AttilatheYeon]

I want to make an Aarikokra monk who specializes in grappling monsters, flying up and dropping them. What subclass would you all choose? And what uncommon or rare magic items would you grab?

[Mastikator]

Belt of hill giant strength to get 21 or higher strength, your DM may ask about your carry capacity before he decides that you are allowed to fly carrying a person.

[Lavaeolus]

Giant Belts are all useful, of course: even if you had no intention of grappling, there's nothing stopping you from using STR to attack during those early levels where your DEX won't be maxed.

Whether you have easy or guaranteed access to one will likely change how you build. It might change those initial ASI increases from Dexterity to Wisdom. Most obviously, if you have it you may as well dump Strength. Monks don't strictly need high Strength to grapple, since grapple checks against incapacitated targets succeed automatically (stunned people are incapacitated). But a character specialising in grapples will probably still want to keep Strength in the 12-14 range if they can.

At the risk of not being particularly creative, other nice picks for a Monk specifically are Bracers of Defense (rare), which increase your unarmored AC. Boosting your unarmed strikes with either the Insignia of Claws (uncommon) or the Eldritch Claw Tattoo (uncommon) could be nice, although I've never tried them.

As far as subclasses go... you know, I'm not sure. But I feel like I should give a shout-out to Astral Self for giving you the option to use your Wisdom mod for Strength checks. Without a Belt of Giant Strength, your average Monk is likely to have more Wisdom than Strength, after all. Whether it'll let you outright dump Strength is a bit dependent on how willing you are to lean on your astral arms, and whether carrying capacity will come into play (I'd usually rule carrying capacity isn't needed for grappling, but particularly if you're outright flying people into the air I can understand a DM ruling otherwise).

[loki_ragnarock]

Off the top of my head, the only subclass that would enable this is Astral Self, and even then only sort of, because:

Carrying capacity is going to be the key stumbling block in your plan, I suspect, as you are unlikely to be able to use your drag values when hoisting people straight upwards. You'd be surprised how often DMs start enforcing those rarely enforced rules once someone brings a gimmick build that exploits them to the table.

Astral Self lets you sub your wisdom in for your strength, which... doesn't help the carrying capacity problem. You'd be able to grapple anyone, but the lifting them straight up isn't addressed here. You'd wind up having to dump dex to pump strength; that wouldn't hurt your offense at all, but it then leaves you with a *serious* defense problem.

So... which monk styles help with the defense deficiency that dropping dex yeilds?

Kensei can get a +2 via holding a kensei weapon. That could help some, and their higher level features can make up some of the lost offense from splitting between dex/str. But that's a little muddy, and you wouldn't be as good at grappling as the Astral Self option.

You'd probably be better off as an Aarikocra Barbarian. Just theme yourself as an angry goose and it's all gravy from there.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

I'm not sure there is an easy official way to increase your carrying capacity outside of magic items or increasing strength. Brawny Feat I believe is UA at the moment, and you'd need 6 levels in totem barbarian to get an option there. Enlarge is a 2nd level spell, so that'd be at least a 3 level dip, and I'm unaware of feats that would give you this at least 1 per day.

I like the idea though, and I think other posters are right in terms of magic items that help boost strength (and maybe size). Good luck.

[CTurbo]

Bear Totem Barbarian 6, Rogue 2


Barbarian gives you advantage of Str checks, +10ft movement, and double carry capacity

Rogue gives you Expertise in Athletics and Bonus Action Dash.


Ask your DM how he's going to rule movement with a grappled enemy. This build isn't effective if you can't fly really high with the enemy.

[Greywander]

Monks don't really make good grapplers. Why do you want to be a monk? Why do you want to be a grappler? Would you be amenable to other builds that could get you similar result?

Here are some of the things a grappler really wants, and why the monk isn't a great fit:

Decent to high STR. Monks are pretty MAD, and don't really have extra points to put into STR when they already need DEX, WIS, and CON.
Lots of attacks. This is to get more chances to grapple and shove enemies. The monk's BA attack, as well as Flurry of Blows, don't allow you to replace them with a grapple or shove, since they're not part of the Attack action.
Expertise in Athletics. Not found natively on monks, but easily obtainable as a feat (Skill Expert). However, see previous comment about monks being MAD; you don't have a lot of ASIs to spare on feats.
Advantage on STR checks. Again, not natively found on monks. Currently, the most common ways to get this are through barbarian Rage, Enhance Ability, Enlarge/Reduce, or the Rune Knight's Giant's Might.
High speed. Your speed is halved while grappling, so this helps you drag an enemy back to your teammates so they can pummel them into unconsciousness. This is the one place the monk shines, but you can actually do better and sooner with just a 2 level dip into rogue.
Unarmed strikes. Grappling takes a free hand, so you'll have to choose whether your other hand is holding a weapon, shield, or another grappled creature. If you have good unarmed damage, you can go for one of the other two options. Monk does good here, but again, you can do almost as good only much sooner by just grabbing the Unarmed Fighting style. Also, aarakocra already have natural weapons.

If you're set on being a monk, then Astral Self is your best bet. It lets you use WIS instead of STR for a number of things, including grappling.

Otherwise, consider a Rune Knight with a rogue dip, or a pure Rune Knight. There are a number of other good grappler builds (e.g. barbarian, druid, rogue, even some wizard builds), but none are quite as straightforward as a Rune Knight with Skill Expert. Fighters also get more ASIs, allowing you to pick up more good grappling feats like Mobile or Mage Slayer or Sentinel, or to boost your DEX so you have higher AC (aarakocra are limited to light armor if they want to fly). Fighters also get more attacks than anyone; if you're going for two-handed grappling, a 20th level fighter has just enough attacks to grapple and shove prone two enemies.

[Psyren]

As others have said, monk is pretty awful at grappling in this edition because it needs a strength check, on a class that can't afford to pump strength.

I'd recommend either Beast Barbarian or Rune Knight Fighter instead. The former lets you keep your hands free while the latter can embiggen itself to grapple bigger targets.

[da newt]

Not at all what you asked for, but Flying PCs w/ thorn whip get a nice little extra lift, drop damage, land prone boost to the attack. EB w/ the Grasp of Hadar evocation is another way to do the same, or lighting lure, or ... I'm sure there are others.

I don't think it's enough of a boost to build an entire PC around, but it's a nice buff.

Also, have an in-depth talk w/ your DM before deciding to play a flying PC. The last time I tried it, I ended up scrapping the PC a few months into the campaign as 3D combat was just too much trouble - figuring out AoEs, distances/ranges etc turned out to be more trouble than it was worth. Not everyone is good at spacial relations in 3D / trigonometry, so it was almost impossible for us to come up with consistent simple rulings.

[GeoffWatson]

Glory Paladin could be a good choice for a grappler with Peerless Athlete: Advantage on Athletics, and double lift/drag weight for 10 min (and some other stuff). Bonus action, short rest.