
Prerequisite: Strength 13 or higher
You’ve developed the skills necessary to hold your own in close-quarters grappling. You gain the following benefits:
- You have advantage on attack rolls against a creature you are grappling.
- You can use your action to try to pin a creature grappled by you. To do so, make another grapple check. If you succeed, you and the creature are both restrained until the grapple ends.

People who think the restraining ability is useless seem to have never had a ranged attacker in their party. Yes, you can knock someone prone instead, but then any allies that use ranged attacks will have disadvantage on their attack rolls, not advantage. In a ranged-heavy party, that ability comes in handy, as you can restrain a target then allow your entire party to attack them with advantage.
It's also useful if one enemy is stronger or more important than the others. You can restrain that target, which gives them disadvantage on attacks on everyone but you (and most grapplers are going to be reasonably durable, so attacking you is what you want them to do), reducing their threat. Then, your team can attack them with advantage and finish them off quickly. Other enemies attacking you with advantage sucks, but if you're a fighter or especially barbarian, it might be better for an enemy to attack you with advantage than for them to attack a caster who is less able to take hits and probably concentrating on a spell. Putting a massive target on your back can be a good thing sometimes.
Personally, I think the problem with this feat is that it takes an entire action to pin someone, rather than replacing a single attack like a grapple normally does. Compared to shoving, restraining yourself is a fair tradeoff for upgrading prone on an enemy to restrained. It's not going to be useful 100% of the time, so you'll have to use your own judgement and decide when to use it, but it can be extremely useful. However, when you also have to give up one or more additional attacks from Extra Attack, I find it's worth it less often.
If you pin someone you still have advantage on attacks against them, because of the first part of the trait. Pinning them gives everyone else advantage against them as well.
It's not a great feat, but it doesn't "do nothing".
While restrained you have disadvantage on attack rolls so it cancels out.
Okay, it's component grappling that lets my party hit the high ac boss with advantage so he doesn't kill us all.
This feat feels super useless... Why not make a shove attack first and then grapple? Now they're prone, and have disadvantage on attacks, and attacks against them within 5 feet have advantage. Or, if your DM agrees, you can grapple the target and then go prone. Since they move with you at half your speed, they also go prone, granting disadvantage/advantage for attacks. The grapple attack already makes the target's movement speed zero, so why do you need to pin them? Once you pin them, you can't move them at half your speed and, say, throw them off a cliff, or shove them into a bonfire...
If you shove and knock them prone first, they already have disadvantage...
Being prone only imposes disadvantage on attack rolls, not Dex saves. It also imposes disadvantage on ranged attacks against the prone creature, which is not ideal in most party compositions, while being restrained grants advantage.
yea exactly.
"You’ve developed the skills necessary to hold your own in close-quarters grappling."
what skills lol
This was suggested for Moon Druid, and after reading it, I see no good use as most creatures that want to grapple automatically grapple and restrain, thus having almost all benefit of this feat negated. Even the kangaroo gives itself advantage and a free kick if it grapples the target.
With shield master you grab with your attack action and your bonus action you use the shove action. Based on the rules as written, shoving something that can’t move makes it go prone.
Enemy grappled and prone in one turn.
Tavern brawler let’s you attack and use your bonus action to grapple. Considering your taking the feat to presumably also make use of the 1d4 punch as well, you should be able to grab with that open hand.
both feats are way better tools for any grappler as your free action is the resource being used. Both do not make you prone as well.
You make yourself more vulnerable to outside attackers,
This feat allows you to equivalently keep a creature prone (vs. your athletics) while your party stomps them to dust. It is costly (making yourself also vulnerable) but could allow for interesting roleplay involving Intimidation, persuasion, or other forms of information gathering.
I get why a lot of people are hesitant to take this feat, but I think it can can really make for an interesting character.
On an opponent that is prone, you can use a contested grappling attack using a str or dex check. On a successful str check you grab the opponent limb injuring it (giving it a -2 to its attacks or -5 feet of movement). On a successful dex check you apply a hold to the opponents neck and begin to squeeze (causing 1d6+ dex mod dmg and opponent is restrained). Opponent can make a dex or str check (dc15) on its turn to get free. On a failed save during its turn it suffers 1d6+ dex mod and remains restrained. What u think?
Very niche case but I have a Wildhunt shifter barb that has this and it's pretty useful. I got the feat for free from my DM and it usually sees some use each combat. Not good enough that I would have taken it myself even in a scenario where my race removes it's primary negative but it isn't completely useless.
Good for supporting the party, though. Pin a tough enemy and your whole team gets advantage on it. Gotta think team-games.
I have a level 9 fighter with shield master and unarmed fighting style.
1. attack with a weapon(attack 1)
2. go for a shield bash(bonus action)
3. If both hit, drop weapon as a free action and roll for grapple at advantage(it's an attack roll and they're prone)(attack 2)
4. Since it's just a grapple, not a pin, I'm not prone either, thus getting advantage on my attacks and they can't stand up until they escape grapple(their speed is 0, can't use half to get up)
5. On top of the 1d6+5 x2(5th level fighter, 20 strength, unarmed fighting, and I don't need to drop the shield because unarmed attacks can use legs) bludgeoning damage they will take every round, they have disadvantage on attacks on me, and take an extra 1d4 bludgeoning at the start of my turn(unarmed fighting).
The main issue with the grappler feat is that YOU also become restrained, even though you can let go whenever. Both of them have their uses in different situations. The examples you gave with the other feats still apply fine, but since I'm playing a tank fighter, shield master was my best bet, since losing the shield is a no-go for me. Without the unarmed fighting, though, shield master becomes a whole lot weaker. Same with tavern brawler, its just a really good grappling choice if you only get one attack action per round, maybe playing a bard that uses their instrument as an improvised weapon. Playing a squishier character with the grappler feat isn't a great idea, since the grappled doesn't get disadvantage unless you lose advantage by pinning. Playing a cleric though, this would be great, given your example of something like a spiritual weapon. Like a lot of feats with similar effects, they're made to be circumstantial and with different flavor. It would be odd to see a paladin with tavern brawler, as they are usually trained in more refined combat, but seeing a barbarian with it makes much more sense.
People are claiming on this thread that the bonus to grappling is useful but you must keep in mind the fact that instead of getting a minute boost to a situational action, you could take an ASI for much more health or damage anyway or you could take a feat like shield master which not only lets you knock things prone but does so as a BA and gives you half of a rogue's level ability 7 evasion AS WELL AS giving you a permanent bonus on DEX saves. In a vacuum, this feat might win out over using the extra strength to damage and grapple the enemy better but when you factor in the fact that no one ever plays dnd in a vacuum and the plethora of better choices available this feat seems to be so, so awful. Considering the dozens of feats from the plethora of sources WotC offers not counting the practically infinite homebrew you can find online, grappler should not be the only SRD feat, it gives a bad name to feats and doesn't do anything useful to make up for it. Truly a waste of a once in 4 levels opportunity.
Why can't I add this to my charicter? The only option I have is 'chose a feat'.
I have a 5th level Barbarian (maybe my least used class) Mountain Dwarf Battlerager. With Rage and specialist armor:
While you are wearing spiked armor and are raging, you can use a bonus action to make one melee weapon attack with your armor spikes against a target within 5 feet of you, for 1d4+3 piercing damage.
When you use the Attack action to grapple a creature, the target takes 3 piercing damage if your grapple check succeeds.
Okay, I don't know how this feat really works specifically in the way the grapple and restrained works with one another. So it takes an entire action for you to initiate the second 'Grapple' to restrain the enemy. Say you were able to do so. When its the creatures turn and the try to break out do they just need to roll to break out of the initial grapple, and therefore the grapple ends, removing both effects? or does it work where you need to first break through the second grapple (the restrained check), then you need another action to break through the initial? See I don't know if the phrase "... until the grapple ends." means contested checks, or if it means the other ways to break free such as teleportation like Misty Step or knock back like Thunder-wave.
To put it in simpler terms, if you manage to get the restrained condition, does it require one or two contested grapple checks to break free of both conditions?
Whenever a player levels and is able to increase their ability scores (usually levels 4, 8, 12, 16 and 19) they can INSTEAD choose to take a feat of their choice in place of increasing ability scores. This is how players gain feats in 5E. Also, humans gain a free feat at level 1. But, also, as a DM it's kind of fun to give out feats as rewards to players. Maybe they chose to train with a town brawler for a few days and 50 gold. The reward for their efforts is the "grappler" feat. ;)