Wrestling Feats

[Stan]

I've been thinking about a setting revolving almost entirely around fighting matches similar to ultimate fighting. However, there are no real barriers around the edge, similar to Sumo. You lose by being dropped to 0 hp, being pinned, or being pushed out of the square. No weapons, armor, spell components, or other equipment.

This gave me ideas for feats that would be useful for matches. They might be useful in general combat as well. I'm not worried if they're a tad weak outside of a match, only if any of them are too good. Comments appreciated.


Fists of Fury
• Increase your dexterity 1, to a maximum of 20.
• Your unarmed attacks do 1d4 damage and are considered finesse weapons.

Float Like a butterfly
After an opponent has moved 5’ (or any time within their movement), or used an action or bonus action, you may use your reaction to move 10’ without triggering Opportunity Attacks.

Know How to Fall (or Roll With It)
You can use your reaction to fall prone and do one of the following:
• You reduce the damage from an attack by half.
• You reduce the distance that you are forcefully moved by 5’.
(I thought about having the fall be to a different square but it adds complexity as you have to define acceptable squares.)

Pillar of Strength
• Increase your Strength or Constitution by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• You have advantage on rolls to avoid being shoved, moved, grappled, or knocked prone.

Quick Start
• You add your Intelligence and Dexterity bonuses to Initiative Checks
• If an opponent wins initiative, they gain no special benefits (such as assassin abilities) against you.
• On the first round of combat, if you are not surprised, you may replace your bonus action with a second action. After using this ability, you may not use it again until you finish a short or long rest. (possibly rephrase as ‘If you took no action on the prior turn you may replace your bonus action with a second action.’ So it’s useful in a duel or match but not as much elsewhere.)

Throw Opponent

• When you successfully grapple an opponent who is your size, you can move them any square adjacent to you. They are prone and take damage equal to one of your unarmed strikes.
• When misses you with a melee attack, you may use your reaction to make a grapple attempt.

[Ninja_Prawn]

How can you have a thread titled 'wrestling feats' and then not have anything related to grapples, holds and throws?! False advertising, I say!

Most of the ones you've got are definitely on the weak side outside of the context of a wrestling ring. If you wanted to boost them a bit, I'd consider adding secondary features or more bullet points that are applicable in a wider range of scenarios. So they'd be very useful in a wrestling match, but still somewhat helpful otherwise.

[Stan]

Yea, I should look at offense, most of these are defense. When I started playing with matchups, things like the charger feat (yea, this feat is suddenly good), the grappler feat, and the thunderwave spell were almost too good. They could cause a first turn win fairly often. Some of these feats are in reaction to that.

Fists of fury was inspired by the fact that so many abilities specify 'weapon' so are useless in a match. It opens up options and also makes a swashbuckler rogue a contender.

I've edited pillar of strength to apply to grapples as well.
also added a throw opponent feat.

[Gr7mm Bobb]

I posted and unarmed style feat suggestion here. My explanation for certain features is in the thread, for the sake of brevity, here it is. Not wrestling centered at all, but can imagine a particularly brutal unarmed barbarian brandishing a style like this.

Brawler

• Your unarmed strike uses a d4 for damage and is treated as a weapon attack for the purposes of your features and abilities.
• When you use the Attack action with an unarmed strike during your turn, you can make one unarmed strike or an attempt to Shove a creature within 5 feet as a Bonus Action.
• Whenever you have advantage on a melee attack roll you make with an unarmed strike and hit, your unarmed strike damage becomes a d12 for that attack if the lower of the two d20 rolls would also hit the target.
• When you score a critical hit with an unarmed strike or reduce a creature to 0 hit points with one, your next unarmed strike that you successfully hit with before the end of your next turn ignores all resistances that would be applied to the damage roll.

Note: changing the name from Brawler might be a good idea, mainly to alleviate confusion from shorthanding the PHB feat Tavern Brawler.