I was thinking of making a grappler druid, using the forms to grapple and human form to use spells and all that. Now, I notice the constrictor snake has constrict and that it states its a grapple, but instead of opposing checks, it just has a DC, which I believe is a 16. So, my question is: As a druid, do I use that as well, or would I be able to pretty much do an athletics check in place vs their athletics / acrobatics?
As a constrictor snake, you don’t need to make opposed grapple checks. Anything you can hit with an attack roll is thereby automatically both grappled and restrained. On your target’s turn, he can make an escape attempt (DC 14 for a constrictor snake, DC 16 for a giant constrictor snake). But if he does, that burns the action he could have otherwise used to attack you. Then it’s your turn again and you’ll get another chance to hit him again. Other classes can only dream of being able to grapple the way you can as a Moon Druid.
If you want to, you can also make opposed grapple checks as everyone else does, but there’s little reason to do so if you’re in a form that auto-grapples on a hit, like a constrictor snake does. If you want to be really good at grappling, you can select Variant Human and the Prodigy feat to get expertise in Athletics, then go to town in a form that has really high strength.
This is personal opinion but Grappling isn't very good in 5e. It's extremely good in a small number of circumstances, but not something to build a character around.
A basic grapple reduces their speed to 0. The best thing about it is that if you also Shove the enemy they will be Prone. That requires you to succeed on 2 Athletics checks and they only need to succeed on 1 to negate both. ie: if they beat a single grapple, they escape and can stand up. The only positive is it makes it hard for them to run away, because half their movement is spend standing and they can't Disengage so you get AoOs. It's probably going to be more effective just to attack and deal damage unless there are specific circumstances.
Image a lvl 4 Moon Druid is trained in Athletics and turns into a Brown Bear. Her Athletics is now +6 (+4 Strength for Brown Bear and +2 Proficiency). She can spend 2 Actions over 2 turns attempting to Grapple an enemy and Shove them to the ground... then all melee attacks will have Adv on the target and the target will have DisAdv to attack anyone else or will need to win a Grapple check to escape. Or the Moon Druid can use MultiAttack to attack 4 times over 2 turns for Bite and Claw. It's going to be rare that anything is better than Bite & Claw.
That said if that 4th lvl Moon Druid (because they have swim speeds) turns into a Giant Toad (CR:1) and bites an enemy they are automatically grappled and restrained. This is nice because the enemy is Restrained so give Adv and has DisAdv. The escape attempt is easy, but uses up an Action. The Giant Toad loses nothing in attempting this as it is probably going to bite anyways. Note: the Giant Toad can swallow 1 target and still bite another, but can only have 1 swallowed.
This is also true if the Moon Druid turns into a Giant Octopus and uses Tentacles from up to 15' away. The main benefit here is IF the enemy stays Grappled the Giant Octopus can attack them and unless they have 15' reach they can't attack the Giant Octopus. That said, if the target makes the DC 16 check they can just move into melee.
Note: The DC to escape these special attacks is in the stat block, not derived from skills and proficiency and so can't be boosted as a Druid levels.
Knock your opponent prone, grapple and then have someone throw a net on it. It would have to use an action to get free of the net before it could break your grapple. Or an ally grapples too. I don’t think that your opponent could break both grapples with one action.
Conjure creatures that can grapple as well.
Prone is a really bad condition to have in melee. I think most intelligent creatures would surrender if they were prone and unable to get up.
The way to break more than one grapple on your turn would be to shove the grapplers. Extra attack would allow you to make more than one shove.
This is personal opinion but Grappling isn't very good in 5e. It's extremely good in a small number of circumstances, but not something to build a character around.
A basic grapple reduces their speed to 0. The best thing about it is that if you also Shove the enemy they will be Prone. That requires you to succeed on 2 Athletics checks and they only need to succeed on 1 to negate both. ie: if they beat a single grapple, they escape and can stand up. The only positive is it makes it hard for them to run away, because half their movement is spend standing and they can't Disengage so you get AoOs. It's probably going to be more effective just to attack and deal damage unless there are specific circumstances.
Image a lvl 4 Moon Druid is trained in Athletics and turns into a Brown Bear. Her Athletics is now +6 (+4 Strength for Brown Bear and +2 Proficiency). She can spend 2 Actions over 2 turns attempting to Grapple an enemy and Shove them to the ground... then all melee attacks will have Adv on the target and the target will have DisAdv to attack anyone else or will need to win a Grapple check to escape. Or the Moon Druid can use MultiAttack to attack 4 times over 2 turns for Bite and Claw. It's going to be rare that anything is better than Bite & Claw.
I'm under the impression that 'shove' is an independent action from grapple. The target does not need to be under the grappled condition in order to shoved. So a shove can be executed as it's own attack.
Shoving a Creature
Using the Attack action, you can make a special melee attack to shove a creature, either to knock it prone or push it away from you. If you're able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them.
The target must be no more than one size larger than you and must be within your reach. Instead of making an attack roll, you make a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target's Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (the target chooses the ability to use). If you win the contest, you either knock the target prone or push it 5 feet away from you.
I've had a few instances where I'll get on a streak of misses after shifting into brown bear (because sometimes dice hate me). So instead of wasting my attacks I'll shove the target over and let the fighter and monk get advantage on melee attacks in order to go crit fishing while whatever spell I cast before wildshaping continues burning the target down.
The grappled condition and the prone condition are not that great of an advantage by themselves. A grappled opponent can still attack you with no penalty. A prone opponent can just stand up using half its movement. But put them together and your opponent has problems. It can attack at disadvantage or use its action to break the grapple. Grapple and Shove(prone) are independent attacks but they have good synergy.
In most cases, it’s probably going to be better to just make two regular attacks against your opponent but this could be a good tactic against high AC, high hit point, high damage opponents.
The grappled condition and the prone condition are not that great of an advantage by themselves. A grappled opponent can still attack you with no penalty. A prone opponent can just stand up using half its movement. But put them together and your opponent has problems. It can attack at disadvantage or use its action to break the grapple. Grapple and Shove(prone) are independent attacks but they have good synergy.
In most cases, it’s probably going to be better to just make two regular attacks against your opponent but this could be a good tactic against high AC, high hit point, high damage opponents.
It can also be a good tactic where most of the other party members are also melee characters who will all benefit from being able to attack a prone target. Conversely, it can be a very bad tactic where most of the other party members are ranged attackers who will have disadvantage on attack rolls against a prone target.
Yeah, that’s true. RAW an archer with sharpshooter feat and a long bow has no problem hitting a guy 600’ away with 3/4 cover but he can’t hit a guy prone 10’ away.
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Hello everyone!
So, I had a quick question.
I was thinking of making a grappler druid, using the forms to grapple and human form to use spells and all that. Now, I notice the constrictor snake has constrict and that it states its a grapple, but instead of opposing checks, it just has a DC, which I believe is a 16. So, my question is: As a druid, do I use that as well, or would I be able to pretty much do an athletics check in place vs their athletics / acrobatics?
As a constrictor snake, you don’t need to make opposed grapple checks. Anything you can hit with an attack roll is thereby automatically both grappled and restrained. On your target’s turn, he can make an escape attempt (DC 14 for a constrictor snake, DC 16 for a giant constrictor snake). But if he does, that burns the action he could have otherwise used to attack you. Then it’s your turn again and you’ll get another chance to hit him again. Other classes can only dream of being able to grapple the way you can as a Moon Druid.
If you want to, you can also make opposed grapple checks as everyone else does, but there’s little reason to do so if you’re in a form that auto-grapples on a hit, like a constrictor snake does. If you want to be really good at grappling, you can select Variant Human and the Prodigy feat to get expertise in Athletics, then go to town in a form that has really high strength.
This is personal opinion but Grappling isn't very good in 5e. It's extremely good in a small number of circumstances, but not something to build a character around.
A basic grapple reduces their speed to 0. The best thing about it is that if you also Shove the enemy they will be Prone.
That requires you to succeed on 2 Athletics checks and they only need to succeed on 1 to negate both.
ie: if they beat a single grapple, they escape and can stand up. The only positive is it makes it hard for them to run away, because half their movement is spend standing and they can't Disengage so you get AoOs. It's probably going to be more effective just to attack and deal damage unless there are specific circumstances.
Image a lvl 4 Moon Druid is trained in Athletics and turns into a Brown Bear. Her Athletics is now +6 (+4 Strength for Brown Bear and +2 Proficiency). She can spend 2 Actions over 2 turns attempting to Grapple an enemy and Shove them to the ground... then all melee attacks will have Adv on the target and the target will have DisAdv to attack anyone else or will need to win a Grapple check to escape. Or the Moon Druid can use MultiAttack to attack 4 times over 2 turns for Bite and Claw. It's going to be rare that anything is better than Bite & Claw.
That said if that 4th lvl Moon Druid (because they have swim speeds) turns into a Giant Toad (CR:1) and bites an enemy they are automatically grappled and restrained. This is nice because the enemy is Restrained so give Adv and has DisAdv. The escape attempt is easy, but uses up an Action. The Giant Toad loses nothing in attempting this as it is probably going to bite anyways. Note: the Giant Toad can swallow 1 target and still bite another, but can only have 1 swallowed.
This is also true if the Moon Druid turns into a Giant Octopus and uses Tentacles from up to 15' away. The main benefit here is IF the enemy stays Grappled the Giant Octopus can attack them and unless they have 15' reach they can't attack the Giant Octopus. That said, if the target makes the DC 16 check they can just move into melee.
Note: The DC to escape these special attacks is in the stat block, not derived from skills and proficiency and so can't be boosted as a Druid levels.
Knock your opponent prone, grapple and then have someone throw a net on it. It would have to use an action to get free of the net before it could break your grapple. Or an ally grapples too. I don’t think that your opponent could break both grapples with one action.
Conjure creatures that can grapple as well.
Prone is a really bad condition to have in melee. I think most intelligent creatures would surrender if they were prone and unable to get up.
The way to break more than one grapple on your turn would be to shove the grapplers. Extra attack would allow you to make more than one shove.
I'm under the impression that 'shove' is an independent action from grapple. The target does not need to be under the grappled condition in order to shoved. So a shove can be executed as it's own attack.
I've had a few instances where I'll get on a streak of misses after shifting into brown bear (because sometimes dice hate me). So instead of wasting my attacks I'll shove the target over and let the fighter and monk get advantage on melee attacks in order to go crit fishing while whatever spell I cast before wildshaping continues burning the target down.
The grappled condition and the prone condition are not that great of an advantage by themselves. A grappled opponent can still attack you with no penalty. A prone opponent can just stand up using half its movement. But put them together and your opponent has problems. It can attack at disadvantage or use its action to break the grapple. Grapple and Shove(prone) are independent attacks but they have good synergy.
In most cases, it’s probably going to be better to just make two regular attacks against your opponent but this could be a good tactic against high AC, high hit point, high damage opponents.
It can also be a good tactic where most of the other party members are also melee characters who will all benefit from being able to attack a prone target. Conversely, it can be a very bad tactic where most of the other party members are ranged attackers who will have disadvantage on attack rolls against a prone target.
Yeah, that’s true. RAW an archer with sharpshooter feat and a long bow has no problem hitting a guy 600’ away with 3/4 cover but he can’t hit a guy prone 10’ away.