One of my players has built a grappler character and it irks me quite a bit.
He ruins important story beats intended for other player characters by trivializing encounters against humanoid bosses that I intended for them to fight against the party solo, by constantly emasculating or embarrassing them by giving unavoidable bear hugs that turn into unavoidable pins. There's no way the boss comes through with their dignity unless I consistently fudge the dice roll or railroad like a mother****er and explicitly prevent him from making a grapple check that he has like +9 on at level 6.
On the flip side, he's utterly dead weight against larger creatures, mobs or flying enemies; so much so that he's nearly caused a TPK in what was supposed to be just a mildly difficult encounter.
I have a multitude of other minor problems with this player that I'll probably make another post about but I would love some advice on how to balance or design encounters that allow for a grappler. As it is, it feels like I either don't account for his playstyle and the encounter is piss easy or I throw in enemies that aren't susceptible to being grappled and suddenly he's useless; spending half the battle holding his action for triggers that just don't come before falling unconscious after making one or two low damage attacks.
Grappling can be good, but remember that grappling does one thing and one thing only - it sets the grappled creature's speed to 0.
The grappled creature can still attack and cast spells and use abilities. Being grappled does not impose disadvantage or otherwise affect it, apart from the "unable to move somewhere" bit.
If the target chooses to attempt to escape then it has lots of ways to do this (most of which are going to involve an Action, so it has to choose between escaping and attacking). It can brute force its way out (STR (Athletics) against the grappler's STR (Athletics)). It can wriggle its way out (DEX (Acrobatics) against the grappler's STR (Athletics)). It can shove the grappler away from it. It can teleport (misty step, shadow step, etc). If it has incorporal movement (for example, a wraith) then it can just move away. It can incapacitate or kill the grappler. It can order its minions to incapacitate the grappler.
As a PC, giving up an attack (which does damage) to stop a foe moving is sometimes great and sometimes pointless. Personally, I like this. It gives the players tactical choices and options other than "attack it, attack it, attack it,........bored".
TLDR: This isn't your problem (except for being irked about things you don't have right or responsibility to meddle with). Let the Player play out his Character how he wants. Don't be attached to how encounters play out. You are not responsible for solving encounters - only setting them up in fair and logical manner; the Party is responsible for solving encounters and their tactics, not you. The Party is responsible for policing their own, not you.
OK - first of all, your Player isn't doing anything wrong. He's playing to his strengths - that's what he's supposedto do.
The fact that he's warping encounters out of what you thought they should be is not a problem with his approach. The problem is that you appear to have expectations ( or worse, "story plans" ) based around how the encounter plays out. The fact that you "consistently fudge the dice roll or railroad like a mother****er and explicitly prevent him from making a grapple check" is a bigredwarning flag here. To be blunt - that's the DM cheating to get the results and events they want.
You also seem to feel responsible for figuring out how the Party can get back out of an encounter or solve it; you're not.
Let your preconceptions about how encounters should play out go. I guarantee there is absolutely no way encounters will play out the way you picture, except - occasionally - completely by accident.
Here's some advice, though:
Let the Player play his Character how he wants to, so long as he's not doing anything that makes the other Players unhappy and disrupting play as a Player.
If he's causing tension as a Character, let the Party sort it out: " You know, Bob, your approach isn't really helping anyone .... ".
It's not your responsibility to "balance" encounters. It's the Party's responsibility to figure out how to solve them.
However, It's is your responsibility to provide avenues where-as the Party can obtain information/intelligence about the encounters, before stepping into them. This can be as simple as checking off in your head "OK, yeah, there's no reason the Rouge can't scout ahead". It may be as complicated as leaving clues in other parts of the adventure, or seeding information with NPCs - but ultimately you are only responsible for making the information available. If the Party ignores it, or doesn't do the legwork to figure out what they're walking into, that's not your problem.
The Party is responsible for their own tactics and planning. If the Character gets himself killed with stupid tactics, that's on them.
This means that you can throw opponents at them which can't be grappled if-and-when it makes sense in the adventure events. It's the responsibility of the Party ( and the Character ) to figure out ahead of time what they are dealing with, and figure out how to deal with it.
Should you throw anti-grapple prepared opponents at them? Well - maybe.
If the League-of-bad-guys has encountered the Party before, and the head bad guy was grappled and humiliated by the Character - they'll change their tactics next time they encounter the Party. Crossbows and cutting down the Grappler before he can close comes to mind. Minions who can beat on the Grappler as he's pinning the Boss also come to mind. Misty/shadow stepping, shape-changing, etc. - these all make Grappling difficult or impossible.
If the bad guys they are about to encounter have no idea about the Party, then you can't - realistically - give them "anti Grappler" equipment, unless it makes sense for them to have it for other reasons ( otherwise that's DM cheating ).
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I would say let him grapple. You yourself admit he is only good for one thing. If it is trivializing your encounters that's a good thing as that means he is doing his job right.
If your not a fan of him ruining boss encounters, let your bosses have access to Misty Step to break out of it, or be Herculean in strength or more slippery than fish swimming in astroglide. In turn, you could also have some bodyguards for your bosses it does not strictly need to be a party versus 1 bad guy. Maybe one of henchmen is also a grappler for some wrestling shenanigans, either against him, or the parties more vulnerable characters forcing a change of tactics. Even something as simple as a pack of wolves could bring a challenge to a grappler through the sheer amount of numbers and pact tactics as they also would try to drag him down to the ground for an eventual mauling.
Just have fun with the fights and if all else fails, a stray polymorph or banishment to pause him for a round or two may be a simple solution. Not the job of the DM to kill the party, but to tell the scenario's of the story. If the Scenario is that the party runs across a powerful lone swordsman many levels higher than the party and El Santo comes in to to pin him, let him as he would not be trained to deal with a luchador. If he comes across an Eldritch Knight and goes for the pin, simply Misty Step out of there/possibly directly above for a reversal.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Those are all really good points, I guess I need to be a little more self aware about my rulings; that comment about my biased preconceptions is pretty spot on in retrospect. I'm still relatively new to DMing and one of my bigger struggles is letting players wrestle control of a scene away from me when I have something good cooked up and know for a fact that they are making gut reactions and whatever they come up with won't nearly be as good as what I had planned.
I'll try and follow your advice, maybe have the bad guys start hiring big dumb goons because they heard about his prowess aso he always has something relevant on his plate.
Trust me - we've all done it - don't beat yourself up about it.
The only reason I can spot it is because I've whacked my own head on that bar so many times ( I'm a slow learner :D ). And I apologize if I came off a bit harsh; I am not a diplomatic person :p
I think you'll be surprised at what your Players come up with - I know I am with mine. They often can up with stuff that's better than I'd imagined - or at least wildly different, in novel and entertaining ways.
If you start thinking of the adventure is something you set up the initial situation for, and that you and your Players create together on the fly - as opposed to a story you create and your Players execute - it will probably go a lot smoother for you. The Players are going to go "off script" from what you'd planned the outcome to be anyway - so if you build around that fact up front, you'll be a lot happier with the results ( and you'll have to do a lot less set up work for your adventures, as well! ).
You set up the initial situation, you set up the NPCs, the Players act, the NPCs & the World reacts - rinse, repeat - you don't know how it will unfold any more than than the Players do - but you're all having fun figuring it out!
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I have something good cooked up and know for a fact that they are making gut reactions and whatever they come up with won't nearly be as good as what I had planned.
Whoa dude, yes, whatever they come up with may not be what you expect or plan or want. However, the whole point is that it is THEIR solution to come up with not yours. It actually makes your job easier. You only have think about challenges, the players have to come up with the answers.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Turn the tables on him - have the enemy minions engage the grappler in a wrestle himself before he can target your main villain.
Have a mix of opponents - some that can be grappled (perhaps a few tough/stronger opponents), some easier minions and a main villain who can evade the grapple.
Confuse the grappler - have him confused who the main BBEG is. If he wins initiative he may target an opponent who he THINKS is the main bad guy but when the bad guys actually attack, an unassuming minion turns out to be the leader.
Have more than one main threat - if the party throw a spanner in the works...change the works. Perhaps there is two main villains or the main villain turns out to be far stronger than he appears or she can avoid grappling through magic means or ability.
In the end though, don't punish the grappler for his ability, just adapt the encounters so he can have his moments to shine but there are still plenty of other creatures for the rest of the party to combat.
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One of my players has built a grappler character and it irks me quite a bit.
He ruins important story beats intended for other player characters by trivializing encounters against humanoid bosses that I intended for them to fight against the party solo, by constantly emasculating or embarrassing them by giving unavoidable bear hugs that turn into unavoidable pins. There's no way the boss comes through with their dignity unless I consistently fudge the dice roll or railroad like a mother****er and explicitly prevent him from making a grapple check that he has like +9 on at level 6.
On the flip side, he's utterly dead weight against larger creatures, mobs or flying enemies; so much so that he's nearly caused a TPK in what was supposed to be just a mildly difficult encounter.
I have a multitude of other minor problems with this player that I'll probably make another post about but I would love some advice on how to balance or design encounters that allow for a grappler. As it is, it feels like I either don't account for his playstyle and the encounter is piss easy or I throw in enemies that aren't susceptible to being grappled and suddenly he's useless; spending half the battle holding his action for triggers that just don't come before falling unconscious after making one or two low damage attacks.
Grappling can be good, but remember that grappling does one thing and one thing only - it sets the grappled creature's speed to 0.
The grappled creature can still attack and cast spells and use abilities. Being grappled does not impose disadvantage or otherwise affect it, apart from the "unable to move somewhere" bit.
If the target chooses to attempt to escape then it has lots of ways to do this (most of which are going to involve an Action, so it has to choose between escaping and attacking). It can brute force its way out (STR (Athletics) against the grappler's STR (Athletics)). It can wriggle its way out (DEX (Acrobatics) against the grappler's STR (Athletics)). It can shove the grappler away from it. It can teleport (misty step, shadow step, etc). If it has incorporal movement (for example, a wraith) then it can just move away. It can incapacitate or kill the grappler. It can order its minions to incapacitate the grappler.
As a PC, giving up an attack (which does damage) to stop a foe moving is sometimes great and sometimes pointless. Personally, I like this. It gives the players tactical choices and options other than "attack it, attack it, attack it,........bored".
TLDR: This isn't your problem (except for being irked about things you don't have right or responsibility to meddle with). Let the Player play out his Character how he wants. Don't be attached to how encounters play out. You are not responsible for solving encounters - only setting them up in fair and logical manner; the Party is responsible for solving encounters and their tactics, not you. The Party is responsible for policing their own, not you.
OK - first of all, your Player isn't doing anything wrong. He's playing to his strengths - that's what he's supposed to do.
The fact that he's warping encounters out of what you thought they should be is not a problem with his approach. The problem is that you appear to have expectations ( or worse, "story plans" ) based around how the encounter plays out. The fact that you "consistently fudge the dice roll or railroad like a mother****er and explicitly prevent him from making a grapple check" is a big red warning flag here. To be blunt - that's the DM cheating to get the results and events they want.
You also seem to feel responsible for figuring out how the Party can get back out of an encounter or solve it; you're not.
Let your preconceptions about how encounters should play out go. I guarantee there is absolutely no way encounters will play out the way you picture, except - occasionally - completely by accident.
Here's some advice, though:
This means that you can throw opponents at them which can't be grappled if-and-when it makes sense in the adventure events. It's the responsibility of the Party ( and the Character ) to figure out ahead of time what they are dealing with, and figure out how to deal with it.
Should you throw anti-grapple prepared opponents at them? Well - maybe.
If the League-of-bad-guys has encountered the Party before, and the head bad guy was grappled and humiliated by the Character - they'll change their tactics next time they encounter the Party. Crossbows and cutting down the Grappler before he can close comes to mind. Minions who can beat on the Grappler as he's pinning the Boss also come to mind. Misty/shadow stepping, shape-changing, etc. - these all make Grappling difficult or impossible.
If the bad guys they are about to encounter have no idea about the Party, then you can't - realistically - give them "anti Grappler" equipment, unless it makes sense for them to have it for other reasons ( otherwise that's DM cheating ).
But ultimately, this isn't your problem.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I would say let him grapple. You yourself admit he is only good for one thing. If it is trivializing your encounters that's a good thing as that means he is doing his job right.
If your not a fan of him ruining boss encounters, let your bosses have access to Misty Step to break out of it, or be Herculean in strength or more slippery than fish swimming in astroglide. In turn, you could also have some bodyguards for your bosses it does not strictly need to be a party versus 1 bad guy. Maybe one of henchmen is also a grappler for some wrestling shenanigans, either against him, or the parties more vulnerable characters forcing a change of tactics. Even something as simple as a pack of wolves could bring a challenge to a grappler through the sheer amount of numbers and pact tactics as they also would try to drag him down to the ground for an eventual mauling.
Just have fun with the fights and if all else fails, a stray polymorph or banishment to pause him for a round or two may be a simple solution. Not the job of the DM to kill the party, but to tell the scenario's of the story. If the Scenario is that the party runs across a powerful lone swordsman many levels higher than the party and El Santo comes in to to pin him, let him as he would not be trained to deal with a luchador. If he comes across an Eldritch Knight and goes for the pin, simply Misty Step out of there/possibly directly above for a reversal.
Make up an evil luchador archrival for your muscular, grappling friend
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Those are all really good points, I guess I need to be a little more self aware about my rulings; that comment about my biased preconceptions is pretty spot on in retrospect. I'm still relatively new to DMing and one of my bigger struggles is letting players wrestle control of a scene away from me when I have something good cooked up and know for a fact that they are making gut reactions and whatever they come up with won't nearly be as good as what I had planned.
I'll try and follow your advice, maybe have the bad guys start hiring big dumb goons because they heard about his prowess aso he always has something relevant on his plate.
Trust me - we've all done it - don't beat yourself up about it.
The only reason I can spot it is because I've whacked my own head on that bar so many times ( I'm a slow learner :D ). And I apologize if I came off a bit harsh; I am not a diplomatic person :p
I think you'll be surprised at what your Players come up with - I know I am with mine. They often can up with stuff that's better than I'd imagined - or at least wildly different, in novel and entertaining ways.
If you start thinking of the adventure is something you set up the initial situation for, and that you and your Players create together on the fly - as opposed to a story you create and your Players execute - it will probably go a lot smoother for you. The Players are going to go "off script" from what you'd planned the outcome to be anyway - so if you build around that fact up front, you'll be a lot happier with the results ( and you'll have to do a lot less set up work for your adventures, as well! ).
You set up the initial situation, you set up the NPCs, the Players act, the NPCs & the World reacts - rinse, repeat - you don't know how it will unfold any more than than the Players do - but you're all having fun figuring it out!
Best of luck, and have fun with it :)
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
This...
If an enemy knows about the character’s propensity to grapple, have them set a trap such as an illusion disguising a mimic.
Whoa dude, yes, whatever they come up with may not be what you expect or plan or want. However, the whole point is that it is THEIR solution to come up with not yours. It actually makes your job easier. You only have think about challenges, the players have to come up with the answers.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Some possible solutions -
In the end though, don't punish the grappler for his ability, just adapt the encounters so he can have his moments to shine but there are still plenty of other creatures for the rest of the party to combat.