I know others have touched on the this before, but if you take the Grappler feat you have advantage against those you have grappled, which would allow a rogue to always get his sneak attack.
Now in a regular party there would be someone who acts as a tank type character, always fighting in the front lines... if you joined them and grappled an enemy on turn 1, then on all following turns you would be able to deal sneak attack damage, if your allies helped fight this target how long could they last.
You would have to shore up your AC and/or hp to survive any counterattacks by the grappled creature, but they would have to either attack or try to escape the grapple, not both.
I think it would be a lot of fun to try this out and see how viable it was... probably not for higher levels, but low and maybe medium could work for a while.
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"A rightful place awaits you in the Realms Above, in the Land of the Great Light. Come in peace, and live beneath the sun again, where trees and flowers grow."
— The message of Eilistraee to all decent drow.
"Run thy sword across my chains, Silver Lady, that I may join your dance.”
yeah but that takes your only action as a rogue, and then on their turn they stand up so you never get advantage
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"A rightful place awaits you in the Realms Above, in the Land of the Great Light. Come in peace, and live beneath the sun again, where trees and flowers grow."
— The message of Eilistraee to all decent drow.
"Run thy sword across my chains, Silver Lady, that I may join your dance.”
sorry, misunderstood... thought you meant knock them prone instead of grapple
but also, that would take 2 different actions, which would usually take 2 turns and you wouldn't get to attack until turn 3 if they were still grappled by then, they might spend both rounds trying to escape
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"A rightful place awaits you in the Realms Above, in the Land of the Great Light. Come in peace, and live beneath the sun again, where trees and flowers grow."
— The message of Eilistraee to all decent drow.
"Run thy sword across my chains, Silver Lady, that I may join your dance.”
I was envisioning using one of the expertise for Athletics and having a good STR score for the rogue so he would be able to grapple with some success.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"A rightful place awaits you in the Realms Above, in the Land of the Great Light. Come in peace, and live beneath the sun again, where trees and flowers grow."
— The message of Eilistraee to all decent drow.
"Run thy sword across my chains, Silver Lady, that I may join your dance.”
If your doing it for theme or flavour, sure try it! If not perhaps a ranged weapon and just shoot them when your allies are in combat so you get sneak attack will remove the opponent faster with less pain inflicted on you or your allies?
Most grappler builds use Rogue or Bard precisely for the expertise that those classes get at low level. It might be better to start with Fighter or Barbarian though so that you get Strength saving throws with proficiency without spending a feat on it down the line.
grappling is an ability check... so not sure why I need proficiency with STR saving throws?
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"A rightful place awaits you in the Realms Above, in the Land of the Great Light. Come in peace, and live beneath the sun again, where trees and flowers grow."
— The message of Eilistraee to all decent drow.
"Run thy sword across my chains, Silver Lady, that I may join your dance.”
Because if you start using grappling as a common tactic, your DM will inevitably start throwing enemies at you that try to Grapple you before or while you grapple them. Or they'll just shove you to the ground and run towards the wizards. IOW, if you can dish it out, you need to be able to eat what you serve.
yeah, I'm not too worried about that... if the creature wants to waste a turn grappling me instead of trying to escape my grapple or attack then that's ok
the grappler feat will allow me to attack with advantage every turn and deliver my sneak attack... along with the rest of the party helping the creature won't last long
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"A rightful place awaits you in the Realms Above, in the Land of the Great Light. Come in peace, and live beneath the sun again, where trees and flowers grow."
— The message of Eilistraee to all decent drow.
"Run thy sword across my chains, Silver Lady, that I may join your dance.”
I think Song is referring to the large number of creatures that automatically grapple /restrain on a hit. These dont waste a turn grappling you. However you are correct that athletics or acrobatics would be needed to escape a grapple, not saves. A secondary issue is that player initiated grappling can only be performed on a target up to one size larger than you, there is no mention that powerful build counts to 'upsize' this limit. This means that giants and other huge+ creatures will be immune to this tactic. If your campaign is likely to feature huge foes (or large ones if your small sized) then the utility is reduced with the potential for use.
An addendum is that grappling requires both an appendage capable of grappling (hands, tentacles, possibly whips) and (without the feat) only prevents movement. The grapple dilemma is usually more pronounced when a player with two attacks grapples and knocks down an opponent giving all melee allies advantage to hit them, and giving the opponent disadvantage in one round. For this reason Monks are the usual suspects for this type of play (usually when they are saving or empty of Ki)
Thank you, Moondruidsneversleep for clarifying the aspects of grappling. I had been wondering about whether Powerful Build impacts grappling of Huge size creatures.
Though I do wonder about Monks. Aren't they one of the worst melee grappling classes due to their preferred MAD array of scores? Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom? That's already a lot to pack in.
Yes. monks are damned for choices if you use the starting array scores, they are spread thin . But not completely enough to making a grapple build impossible - the usual way to avoid excess failure is to be a variant human and use the XTGE prodigy feat for expertise (athletics) at first level, with a str of 10 then you still have +4 on checks, +6 at 5th. The weird part is that that +6 is often a better bet than a straight attack on nasty opponents especially in comical mechanical effects without DM intervention.
Comedy example 1) The opponent has a high AC, grappling requires no to hit roll. The next round if your still alive trip them (again straight skill check no to hit roll required and now every attack is at advantage for adjacent allies.
Comedy example 2) Displacement (beast cloak or spell) or invisibility - you have disadvantage to hit. You grapple which doesnt require a to hit roll and has no penalty as written, worse if the hard to hit target is floored the prone aspect will cancel out the disadvantage to hit - guessing where invisible people are has never been easier?
Comedy example 3) Mirror image If you attack you may hit an image, if you grapple you (as written) automatically grab the right target - but that doesnt change anyone attacking them's chances of hitting a copy
Comedy example 4) Pointdefence - whether Fire shield or Armour of Agathys (as written) you can grab someone burning or freezing those damaging them safely. If you have a nearby Spikegrowth or hazard you can drag them over at half speed and kill them with that without losing a single Hitpoint.
All these examples will probably (and rightly) have a DM hotfix them when they come up but they are still funny.
Yeah, those comedy examples are sort of absurd. If I were DM, I would probably be okay with #4, though, at least for one round.
Reviewing Powerful Build, it Does allow you to shove and pull as if you were a Large creature. That's still quite useful for moving a grappled opponent over to the cliff's edge or over to the area of Spike Growth. Also, if someone casts Enlarge on that creature with Powerful Build, shoving prone a Huge size creature becomes possible, right? What if you add Aspect of the Bear Totem from a Barbarian? So now you can push and carry an adult dragon! But no grappling?
How much fun is the grappler rogue?
I know others have touched on the this before, but if you take the Grappler feat you have advantage against those you have grappled, which would allow a rogue to always get his sneak attack.
Now in a regular party there would be someone who acts as a tank type character, always fighting in the front lines... if you joined them and grappled an enemy on turn 1, then on all following turns you would be able to deal sneak attack damage, if your allies helped fight this target how long could they last.
You would have to shore up your AC and/or hp to survive any counterattacks by the grappled creature, but they would have to either attack or try to escape the grapple, not both.
I think it would be a lot of fun to try this out and see how viable it was... probably not for higher levels, but low and maybe medium could work for a while.
Just knock them prone. Now you have advantage and they have disadvantage.
yeah but that takes your only action as a rogue, and then on their turn they stand up so you never get advantage
They can't stand up if they are grappled. You may want to multiclass for extra attack.
sorry, misunderstood... thought you meant knock them prone instead of grapple
but also, that would take 2 different actions, which would usually take 2 turns and you wouldn't get to attack until turn 3 if they were still grappled by then, they might spend both rounds trying to escape
Yeah there is probably a reason most grapple build's are big strong meaty classes with extra attack. It is part of why I recommended multiclassing.
I was envisioning using one of the expertise for Athletics and having a good STR score for the rogue so he would be able to grapple with some success.
If your doing it for theme or flavour, sure try it! If not perhaps a ranged weapon and just shoot them when your allies are in combat so you get sneak attack will remove the opponent faster with less pain inflicted on you or your allies?
Most grappler builds use Rogue or Bard precisely for the expertise that those classes get at low level. It might be better to start with Fighter or Barbarian though so that you get Strength saving throws with proficiency without spending a feat on it down the line.
grappling is an ability check... so not sure why I need proficiency with STR saving throws?
Because if you start using grappling as a common tactic, your DM will inevitably start throwing enemies at you that try to Grapple you before or while you grapple them. Or they'll just shove you to the ground and run towards the wizards. IOW, if you can dish it out, you need to be able to eat what you serve.
yeah, I'm not too worried about that... if the creature wants to waste a turn grappling me instead of trying to escape my grapple or attack then that's ok
the grappler feat will allow me to attack with advantage every turn and deliver my sneak attack... along with the rest of the party helping the creature won't last long
I think Song is referring to the large number of creatures that automatically grapple /restrain on a hit. These dont waste a turn grappling you. However you are correct that athletics or acrobatics would be needed to escape a grapple, not saves. A secondary issue is that player initiated grappling can only be performed on a target up to one size larger than you, there is no mention that powerful build counts to 'upsize' this limit. This means that giants and other huge+ creatures will be immune to this tactic. If your campaign is likely to feature huge foes (or large ones if your small sized) then the utility is reduced with the potential for use.
An addendum is that grappling requires both an appendage capable of grappling (hands, tentacles, possibly whips) and (without the feat) only prevents movement. The grapple dilemma is usually more pronounced when a player with two attacks grapples and knocks down an opponent giving all melee allies advantage to hit them, and giving the opponent disadvantage in one round. For this reason Monks are the usual suspects for this type of play (usually when they are saving or empty of Ki)
Thank you, Moondruidsneversleep for clarifying the aspects of grappling. I had been wondering about whether Powerful Build impacts grappling of Huge size creatures.
Though I do wonder about Monks. Aren't they one of the worst melee grappling classes due to their preferred MAD array of scores? Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom? That's already a lot to pack in.
Yes. monks are damned for choices if you use the starting array scores, they are spread thin . But not completely enough to making a grapple build impossible - the usual way to avoid excess failure is to be a variant human and use the XTGE prodigy feat for expertise (athletics) at first level, with a str of 10 then you still have +4 on checks, +6 at 5th. The weird part is that that +6 is often a better bet than a straight attack on nasty opponents especially in comical mechanical effects without DM intervention.
Comedy example 1) The opponent has a high AC, grappling requires no to hit roll. The next round if your still alive trip them (again straight skill check no to hit roll required and now every attack is at advantage for adjacent allies.
Comedy example 2) Displacement (beast cloak or spell) or invisibility - you have disadvantage to hit. You grapple which doesnt require a to hit roll and has no penalty as written, worse if the hard to hit target is floored the prone aspect will cancel out the disadvantage to hit - guessing where invisible people are has never been easier?
Comedy example 3) Mirror image If you attack you may hit an image, if you grapple you (as written) automatically grab the right target - but that doesnt change anyone attacking them's chances of hitting a copy
Comedy example 4) Pointdefence - whether Fire shield or Armour of Agathys (as written) you can grab someone burning or freezing those damaging them safely. If you have a nearby Spikegrowth or hazard you can drag them over at half speed and kill them with that without losing a single Hitpoint.
All these examples will probably (and rightly) have a DM hotfix them when they come up but they are still funny.
Yeah, those comedy examples are sort of absurd. If I were DM, I would probably be okay with #4, though, at least for one round.
Reviewing Powerful Build, it Does allow you to shove and pull as if you were a Large creature. That's still quite useful for moving a grappled opponent over to the cliff's edge or over to the area of Spike Growth. Also, if someone casts Enlarge on that creature with Powerful Build, shoving prone a Huge size creature becomes possible, right? What if you add Aspect of the Bear Totem from a Barbarian? So now you can push and carry an adult dragon! But no grappling?
Take the absurdities you can, laugh and count the win, lets not campaign for more absurdity :)
Take shield master