Homebrew Grappler Feat

[SneakySlime]

So, me and my DM thought of a homebrew feat to help a grappler character build (sometimes things go by "rule of cool," but I'm hoping this will still be semi-balanced.) As a warning, this has not been play tested yet. I don't really know what the prerequisite would be, or if it would even be useful.

Here's the feat:
Master Grappler
You have great skill in wrangling the mightiest beasts — even those much larger than you.

• Increase your Strength score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• You count as one size larger when grappling or pushing another creature.

[Composer99]

In all honesty, this is underpowered, at least IMO. It amounts to a half-feat since you have the +1 Strength, and while getting to grapple or shove even larger creatures than normal is nice... I just don't think it's quite enough.

If you were going to add a prerequisite, I would think that a minimum Strength score of 13 or 15 would be what you are looking for. (The PHB Grappler feat requires Strength 13, for instance.) I suppose you could even also require the Grappler feat itself, although as far as I know having a feat prerequisite has no precedent among officially-published feats.

I would think to shore up this feat you would need one other benefit. It doesn't need to be incredible, although the more stringent the prerequisite the more powerful it can be.

The PHB Tavern Brawler feat allows you to make a bonus action grapple attempt. However, in order to do so you must hit a creature with an unarmed strike or an improvised weapon, so unless you're a monk you're potentially reducing your damage significantly.

If this feat has a prerequisite, maybe if you take the Attack action, you could grapple or shove as a bonus action? Or, alternately, if you grapple or shove a creature as part of your action, you could make a weapon attack as a bonus action? The former seems more appropriate given the feat name.

If the feat doesn't have a prerequisite, I'm not sure I'd go so far as to suggest a bonus action option. Maybe advantage on shove attempts? (I don't think any feat gives that, but that's off the top of my head so I could be wrong.)

If you go down the route of actually having Grappler as a prerequisite, you could also include an upgrade of its benefits: when you use your action to restrain a creature you have grappled, you are not restrained when you do so. (Grappler feat lets you restrain a creature you have grappled at the cost of becoming restrained yourself.)

[MoleMage]

I think it needs more. Every feat introduced so far expands the options for what a character can do, sometimes in addition to making those options better. It seems like the idea you started with is to make grappling an attractive option for primary usage, rather than something you mix in with normal attacks.

Perhaps expanding the usage of grappling (grapple AND damage, grapple AND disarm, etc.) would make a good third bullet point. Just be sure it isn't too strong, since one of the advantages of grappling is that it's a skill check instead of an attack and bonuses to those are generally easier to acquire. Maybe 1d4 damage, no ability bonus, or ability bonus no dice.

[Zhorn]

• When you take the attack action, you can use your bonus action to make a grapple check
• On each of your turns you are successfully grappling an opponent, you can use your bonus action to make one unarmed attack against the grappled creature.

[SneakySlime]

So, adding a 15 Strength prerequisite I think seems good.

Does adding the benefit of "As a bonus action on your turn, you may make an unarmed strike attack against a creature you are grappling. You may have this attack deal 1d4 bludgeoning damage rather than its normal damage."

I'm basing that off of both suggestions here and the bonus attack from pole arm master.