When a creature fails their save against mental prison they are restrained, can they cast remove curse on themselves to end this effect while restrained by the spell?
No, remove curse does have somatic requirements, so needs hand movement to cast.
That doesn't really matter, unless they are moving into the spaces surrounding the character (which requires the affected victim to be moved). Restrained prevents movement in terms of moving around the grid, but doesn't prevent a spell from being cast. But the spell is still the wrong spell though.
No, remove curse does have somatic requirements, so needs hand movement to cast.
That doesn't really matter, unless they are moving into the spaces surrounding the character (which requires the affected victim to be moved). Restrained prevents movement in terms of moving around the grid, but doesn't prevent a spell from being cast. But the spell is still the wrong spell though.
Apologies you are quite correct. I'm now not sure if I've seen it played wrong or whether another effect was in play. A fighter tackled a mage with the intent to pin his arms and thereby stop casting. I thought it was grapple then restrained, but perhaps that was just a situational rule by the DM? It seemed to make sense but obviously wasn't the restrained condition being applied.
There's a feat that lets you restrain with a grapple. Letting the restrained or even just grappled condition stop S components is a house rule, but it's common enough - I've had DMs rule the same.
To me, it doesn't make much sense for restraint to completely disable somatic components. If you can still swing a greatsword or fully draw and fire your longbow, dealing full damage with your attacks (albeit at disadvantage), I find it hard to argue that you couldn't wiggle your hand or wave your wand enough to cast a spell.
Yes, somatic components simply require a free hand. You're not gesturing with your whole body like a Power Ranger or something (unless you want to be).
If your hulking barbarian is facing a small frail mage and says "I grab his arms and pin them to his sides" how do you play it? Grapple/restrained doesn't stop S, so it's impossible to ever grab an arm? Is grappling really just grabbing people around the waist?
What do you say when a barbarian looks at an enemy and says "I chop his arm off with my axe?' The barbarian makes his attack, rolls for damage, and if the target is still alive and healthy, they probably still have their arms. The DM might narrate how the barbarian's axe slashes across the shoulder and blood sprays, but doesn't manage to dismember the enemy. Some DMs might use called shot rules in order to impose some penalty on the creature, but most wouldn't automatically lop off the arm or a powerful enemy with a single successful attack.
In the case of the grapple trying to completely prevent the use of the target's arms: perhaps the opponent is being successfully bear hugged, but his tiny body is still squirming and wriggling around. In the struggle, he manages to flick his wrist enough to cast a spell before the barbarian reasserts control over him. Or maybe the barbarian can't actually get ahold of the arms to pin them down, and only manages to grab ahold of the mage's robes, even on a successful check.
I might use an HP threshold to make a judgement call. If the target is low enough on health that a barbarian's normal attack might have killed the target, I might allow the grapple to fully gain control over the opponent and lock down the caster. Otherwise, the target is too full of stamina and fighting spirit, and manages to struggle just enough for an opening to keep casting.
Finding ways to narrate combats according to the characters, the dice, and the rules is an important job of the DM. Rule of Cool can definitely work out in specific scenarios, but you don't want to set a precedent where a character can reliably sacrifice a single attack, expending no resources, to completely shut down another character, no matter their CR or remaining health.
The example doesn't match though, as there is absolutely a way for the barbarian to remove his enemies arm (target has X HP, barbarian does Y damage, if Y is greater than X then the limb is removed). But grappling wise there is no way in the RAW to ever grab an arm. It doesn't matter if you are a monk who has trained their whole life in grappling, roll a Nat 20 vs their Nat 1, and they will still be free to act. Are we really saying jiu-jitsu practitioners cannot grab arms?
It just reminds me of my 4 year old sitting on my foot and wrapping his arms around my leg, "Got you!" Successful grapple.
The example doesn't match though, as there is absolutely a way for the barbarian to remove his enemies arm (target has X HP, barbarian does Y damage, if Y is greater than X then the limb is removed). But grappling wise there is no way in the RAW to ever grab an arm. It doesn't matter if you are a monk who has trained their whole life in grappling, roll a Nat 20 vs their Nat 1, and they will still be free to act. Are we really saying jiu-jitsu practitioners cannot grab arms?
It just reminds me of my 4 year old sitting on my foot and wrapping his arms around my leg, "Got you!" Successful grapple.
This is a game with balancing mechanics not a life simulation. Grapples are meant to stop the target moving around the area. It just puts speed to 0. There are feats you can take that let you attempt to restrain a grappled target, which shows your specialised ability in grappling. A restrained target is made more vulnerable - attacks against them are at advantage, their attacks are at disadvantage, and any Dex saves they make are at disadvantage. But they still have some movement - they can still attack, they can still move to reduce the fire from a fireball, and so on. They can still provide S component for spells.
Consider the vast multitude of enemies with automatic grapple/restrain effects. If we decided that restrain = no S components, then that is a massive "**** you" to any spellcaster. If you decide to make it fairer so that restrain = no attacks, as well. Well now you can be very easily TPK'd because a few low CR monsters can just auto-restrain you and you've got no way to fight back. A simple Easy encounter could be Deadly+ with this houserule.
This is why you can't just bind hands / chop off arms when you want. It completely breaks the game. So, you can't for the sake of game balance. Whether that is realistic or not is irrelevant.
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The example doesn't match though, as there is absolutely a way for the barbarian to remove his enemies arm (target has X HP, barbarian does Y damage, if Y is greater than X then the limb is removed). But grappling wise there is no way in the RAW to ever grab an arm. It doesn't matter if you are a monk who has trained their whole life in grappling, roll a Nat 20 vs their Nat 1, and they will still be free to act. Are we really saying jiu-jitsu practitioners cannot grab arms?
It just reminds me of my 4 year old sitting on my foot and wrapping his arms around my leg, "Got you!" Successful grapple.
This is a game with balancing mechanics not a life simulation. Grapples are meant to stop the target moving around the area. It just puts speed to 0. There are feats you can take that let you attempt to restrain a grappled target, which shows your specialised ability in grappling. A restrained target is made more vulnerable - attacks against them are at advantage, their attacks are at disadvantage, and any Dex saves they make are at disadvantage. But they still have some movement - they can still attack, they can still move to reduce the fire from a fireball, and so on. They can still provide S component for spells.
Consider the vast multitude of enemies with automatic grapple/restrain effects. If we decided that restrain = no S components, then that is a massive "**** you" to any spellcaster. If you decide to make it fairer so that restrain = no attacks, as well. Well now you can be very easily TPK'd because a few low CR monsters can just auto-restrain you and you've got no way to fight back. A simple Easy encounter could be Deadly+ with this houserule.
This is why you can't just bind hands / chop off arms when you want. It completely breaks the game. So, you can't for the sake of game balance. Whether that is realistic or not is irrelevant.
It's not irrelevant, it's these types of discussions that spawn a thousand house rules. So yes, obviously it would have to be balanced but that is not an impossible task. In fact many people enjoy the challenge of writing homebrew and the effort and testing to find that balance. It can be good fun.
Just off the top of my head, how about making it part of the grappler feat, that for the second stage rather than transitioning to restrained you have the option (at disadvantage) to move to incapacitated. You would be suffering restrained as well and your target would have a chance to break free every turn as normal. The grapple and restrained rules would stay unchanged. As it requires a feat monsters wouldn't have it, but potentially other humanoids could. It's not easy to do and it leaves you tied up and vulnerable but in some circumstances it could be a valid plan.
Interestingly I looked up what the grappling rules used to be in 3e, the answer was far too complex (apparently 1.5 pages of the PHB was devoted to this!). In brief enemy gets an attack of opportunity on you, if you take no damage you've closed the range and can make an unarmed attack to grapple. Once grappled you can attempt to pin, which basically incapacitates them barring an escape roll per turn. It takes into account the size difference as well as the stats, but was so complex no one could remember the rules on the fly.
The example doesn't match though, as there is absolutely a way for the barbarian to remove his enemies arm (target has X HP, barbarian does Y damage, if Y is greater than X then the limb is removed). But grappling wise there is no way in the RAW to ever grab an arm. It doesn't matter if you are a monk who has trained their whole life in grappling, roll a Nat 20 vs their Nat 1, and they will still be free to act. Are we really saying jiu-jitsu practitioners cannot grab arms?
No, the example was spot on. There is no rule for dismemberment at 0hp, and there's no logical reason (since you're trying to be logical about grappling) as to why you would need to knock someone completely unconscious/dead before removing their arm with a big honking magical greataxe. Attacks only reduce hp, and grapples only reduce movement. That's just what they do. If you want to be a trained jiu-jitsu grappler, take the Grappler feat and you can restrain people. Take Mage Slayer too if you really want to mess up casters. You can't just say "I trained my whole life" in your backstory and upgrade a move you get at level 1.
But the bottom line is that having an attack that incapacitates an enemy that you can do all day long is just not viable in the game. It's like saying you want to be a psychic that blows peoples' heads up from a mile away. Sure, that would be cool. But it kinda screws up how the game is supposed to work.
"then, you have lvl 1 characters able to incapacitate lvl 20... plus the problems with the usual balance of action economy, if one side can shut down one opponent in basically one round, it gives a tremendous advantage."
Not at all, the grappler feat takes two actions, the first to enter grappled status then your following turns action to transition to restrained or incap. The opponent would have a round to react and level 20 vs level 1 would be a short sharp end (if you even managed to reach melee range at all). You then have the grapple check vs either dex or str, whichever they prefer and a second at disadvantage, and they can roll to break free every turn. It would take considerable effort to get to that point and then how long can you maintain it? And it takes your own character out of the fight, so you would need to make sure your target doesn't have friends nearby.
Currently, by the rules how would you play someone saying "The King's gone mad, capture him but don't harm him"? There are no rules for that are there? Maybe one grapples while another tries to hog tie him? Subduing someone seems like a fairly reasonable request but there seems to be no way to do so. If the town guard want to arrest someone for a non-violent crime then their only option is to bludgeon the person within an inch of their life?
Also manacles are a tool listed in the rules "These metal restraints can bind a Small or Medium creature. Escaping the manacles requires a successful DC 20 Dexterity check. Breaking them requires a successful DC 20 Strength check. Each set of manacles comes with one key. Without the key, a creature proficient with thieves' tools can pick the manacles' lock with a successful DC 15 Dexterity check. Manacles have 15 hit points" but there are no rules about how you are meant to get them on someone or once they are on what rules apply to the prisoner. What exactly is "bound" status? If the target has to be restrained then that is a condition most characters or npcs cannot apply.
"then, you have lvl 1 characters able to incapacitate lvl 20... plus the problems with the usual balance of action economy, if one side can shut down one opponent in basically one round, it gives a tremendous advantage."
Not at all, the grappler feat takes two actions, the first to enter grappled status then your following turns action to transition to restrained or incap. The opponent would have a round to react and level 20 vs level 1 would be a short sharp end (if you even managed to reach melee range at all). You then have the grapple check vs either dex or str, whichever they prefer and a second at disadvantage, and they can roll to break free every turn. It would take considerable effort to get to that point and then how long can you maintain it? And it takes your own character out of the fight, so you would need to make sure your target doesn't have friends nearby.
Currently, by the rules how would you play someone saying "The King's gone mad, capture him but don't harm him"? There are no rules for that are there? Maybe one grapples while another tries to hog tie him? Subduing someone seems like a fairly reasonable request but there seems to be no way to do so. If the town guard want to arrest someone for a non-violent crime then their only option is to bludgeon the person within an inch of their life?
Also manacles are a tool listed in the rules "These metal restraints can bind a Small or Medium creature. Escaping the manacles requires a successful DC 20 Dexterity check. Breaking them requires a successful DC 20 Strength check. Each set of manacles comes with one key. Without the key, a creature proficient with thieves' tools can pick the manacles' lock with a successful DC 15 Dexterity check. Manacles have 15 hit points" but there are no rules about how you are meant to get them on someone or once they are on what rules apply to the prisoner. What exactly is "bound" status? If the target has to be restrained then that is a condition most characters or npcs cannot apply.
Generally, you can bind a character by incapacitating them. There are numerous ways to do this from knocking a creature out with non-lethal attacks, spells, magic items, poisons, and more. Then you can bind them with rope/manacles.
It's ultimately left to DM because having a set rule can lead to game-breaking shenanigans as explained previously. By leaving it to the DM it remains an ad hoc decision based specifically on given circumstances and narrative benefit and thus less prone to OP grapple builds.
Grappled : stops movement Restrained: stops movement, made vulnerable Incapacitated : stops movement, made extremely vulnerable, can be bound/tied up.
Incapacitating a target is easier than restraining them, unless you're a spellcaster, in which case you have a large variety of options, or unless you have the Grappler feat. Monsters, however, often have automatic grapple/restrain effects, so it is much easier for them to apply these - despite your claim to the contrary, and they can apply incapacitated condition just as easily as you can.
If you suspect you need to stop targets this way get some healer kits or spare the dying cantrip: tell DM the intention. Drop enemy to 0 hp, stabilise them and bind them. Dropping somebody to 0 hp doesn't always mean killing. This is covered in PHB. If you drop them via melee attack and you declare non-lethal then they even auto-stabilise.
So it's pretty straight-forward to stop enemies and bind them up without altering grapples into some OP thing. I genuinely don't understand what you're unhappy with.
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" I genuinely don't understand what you're unhappy with." Okay, let me clarify:
- Grapple doesn't grab the arms, it is impossible to grab arms ever. All grapples appear to be legs only because they do nothing other than reduce speed.
- Restrained is only available to fighter classes via the grappler feat, and even then you cannot restrain someone's arms, as they retain the ability to use two handed weapons, bows and cast spells. This is not what "restrained" is expected to mean. You are hanging onto your target, but he is free to cut down everyone in front of him with his greatsword.
- "Incapacitated : stops movement, made extremely vulnerable, can be bound/tied up." Actually by the RAW none of that is true. Incapacitated in the PHB reads "An incapacitated creature can’t take actions or reactions" and that is all. There is nothing to say that the effects applied by Restrained apply here as well. It has been argued that RAW say you can still move and that no vulnerabilities apply. One example of this is hypnotic pattern which reads "... the creature is incapacitated and has a speed of 0." specifying the reduction of speed separately to the incapacitation. Other conditions such as Stunned and Paralyzed state "A paralyzed creature is incapacitated and can’t move or speak.", again separating speed from incapacitation.
- Manacles exist and have a set of stats and description, and yet no rules exist for how they are applied.
- In situations where the party is asked to capture the target unharmed there is no way for your fighter classes to do that. RAW there is no way to subdue an opponent without beating them to near death. Police handcuffing a suspect would be an impossible maneuver, a cowboy running down a fleeing thief and hogtying them would be an impossibility. These are fairly mundane activities that players should be able to do.
- Grapple doesn't grab the arms, it is impossible to grab arms ever. All grapples appear to be legs only because they do nothing other than reduce speed.
This isn't naked wrestling. You have clothes, armour, gear, bags and possibly shield and more to grab on to.
The idea isn't that the opponent is physically incapable of moving AT ALL, it is that he can't simply walk away from you at will.
- Grapple doesn't grab the arms, it is impossible to grab arms ever. All grapples appear to be legs only because they do nothing other than reduce speed.
This isn't naked wrestling. You have clothes, armour, gear, bags and possibly shield and more to grab on to.
The idea isn't that the opponent is physically incapable of moving AT ALL, it is that he can't simply walk away from you at will.
He is completely unhindered in doing any action. He can fight with the same ability as before you grappled him. He can still draw and fire a longbow, how exactly would you do that with a large man having grabbed two handfuls of anywhere on your upper body? Even if you just say the person cannot move, then that should have several effects such as removing dex bonus from AC or disadvantage on dex saves. How are you dodging while immobile?
- Grapple doesn't grab the arms, it is impossible to grab arms ever. All grapples appear to be legs only because they do nothing other than reduce speed.
This isn't naked wrestling. You have clothes, armour, gear, bags and possibly shield and more to grab on to.
The idea isn't that the opponent is physically incapable of moving AT ALL, it is that he can't simply walk away from you at will.
He is completely unhindered in doing any action. He can fight with the same ability as before you grappled him. He can still draw and fire a longbow, how exactly would you do that with a large man having grabbed two handfuls of anywhere on your upper body? Even if you just say the person cannot move, then that should have several effects such as removing dex bonus from AC or disadvantage on dex saves. How are you dodging while immobile?
A grappled target isn't immobile, they're just being kept in their own space.
You seem to be having a lot of difficulty with this. If calling it "grappled" is not working for you then call it something else. It is what it is as a gaming mechanic and balanced as such.
This game is not designed with realistic fighting in mind. If that is what you prefer, perhaps you should try different games?
There's several people now who have responded to you about this, all of us are saying the same thing. There's really nothing left to it. You don't agree with us and we don't agree with you. This is all fine, but this conversation is spiralling pointlessly.
Ultimately, we've answered you about this off-topic thing. We've answered the OP on the actual topic of the Mental Prison spell.
If you really want to continue this entirely fruitless back and forth about grappling in D&D, perhaps make your own thread about it? I think this thread has been derailed enough.
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When a creature fails their save against mental prison they are restrained, can they cast remove curse on themselves to end this effect while restrained by the spell?
Remove Curse wouldn't apply, as Mental Prison isn't a curse, so it would have no affect.
A dispel magic should do the trick if cast at a high level or a successful spell casting ability check.
No, remove curse does have somatic requirements, so needs hand movement to cast.
That doesn't really matter, unless they are moving into the spaces surrounding the character (which requires the affected victim to be moved). Restrained prevents movement in terms of moving around the grid, but doesn't prevent a spell from being cast. But the spell is still the wrong spell though.
Apologies you are quite correct. I'm now not sure if I've seen it played wrong or whether another effect was in play. A fighter tackled a mage with the intent to pin his arms and thereby stop casting. I thought it was grapple then restrained, but perhaps that was just a situational rule by the DM? It seemed to make sense but obviously wasn't the restrained condition being applied.
There's a feat that lets you restrain with a grapple. Letting the restrained or even just grappled condition stop S components is a house rule, but it's common enough - I've had DMs rule the same.
To me, it doesn't make much sense for restraint to completely disable somatic components. If you can still swing a greatsword or fully draw and fire your longbow, dealing full damage with your attacks (albeit at disadvantage), I find it hard to argue that you couldn't wiggle your hand or wave your wand enough to cast a spell.
Yes, somatic components simply require a free hand. You're not gesturing with your whole body like a Power Ranger or something (unless you want to be).
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
If your hulking barbarian is facing a small frail mage and says "I grab his arms and pin them to his sides" how do you play it? Grapple/restrained doesn't stop S, so it's impossible to ever grab an arm? Is grappling really just grabbing people around the waist?
What do you say when a barbarian looks at an enemy and says "I chop his arm off with my axe?' The barbarian makes his attack, rolls for damage, and if the target is still alive and healthy, they probably still have their arms. The DM might narrate how the barbarian's axe slashes across the shoulder and blood sprays, but doesn't manage to dismember the enemy. Some DMs might use called shot rules in order to impose some penalty on the creature, but most wouldn't automatically lop off the arm or a powerful enemy with a single successful attack.
In the case of the grapple trying to completely prevent the use of the target's arms: perhaps the opponent is being successfully bear hugged, but his tiny body is still squirming and wriggling around. In the struggle, he manages to flick his wrist enough to cast a spell before the barbarian reasserts control over him. Or maybe the barbarian can't actually get ahold of the arms to pin them down, and only manages to grab ahold of the mage's robes, even on a successful check.
I might use an HP threshold to make a judgement call. If the target is low enough on health that a barbarian's normal attack might have killed the target, I might allow the grapple to fully gain control over the opponent and lock down the caster. Otherwise, the target is too full of stamina and fighting spirit, and manages to struggle just enough for an opening to keep casting.
Finding ways to narrate combats according to the characters, the dice, and the rules is an important job of the DM. Rule of Cool can definitely work out in specific scenarios, but you don't want to set a precedent where a character can reliably sacrifice a single attack, expending no resources, to completely shut down another character, no matter their CR or remaining health.
The example doesn't match though, as there is absolutely a way for the barbarian to remove his enemies arm (target has X HP, barbarian does Y damage, if Y is greater than X then the limb is removed). But grappling wise there is no way in the RAW to ever grab an arm. It doesn't matter if you are a monk who has trained their whole life in grappling, roll a Nat 20 vs their Nat 1, and they will still be free to act. Are we really saying jiu-jitsu practitioners cannot grab arms?
It just reminds me of my 4 year old sitting on my foot and wrapping his arms around my leg, "Got you!" Successful grapple.
This is a game with balancing mechanics not a life simulation. Grapples are meant to stop the target moving around the area. It just puts speed to 0. There are feats you can take that let you attempt to restrain a grappled target, which shows your specialised ability in grappling. A restrained target is made more vulnerable - attacks against them are at advantage, their attacks are at disadvantage, and any Dex saves they make are at disadvantage. But they still have some movement - they can still attack, they can still move to reduce the fire from a fireball, and so on. They can still provide S component for spells.
Consider the vast multitude of enemies with automatic grapple/restrain effects. If we decided that restrain = no S components, then that is a massive "**** you" to any spellcaster. If you decide to make it fairer so that restrain = no attacks, as well. Well now you can be very easily TPK'd because a few low CR monsters can just auto-restrain you and you've got no way to fight back. A simple Easy encounter could be Deadly+ with this houserule.
This is why you can't just bind hands / chop off arms when you want. It completely breaks the game. So, you can't for the sake of game balance. Whether that is realistic or not is irrelevant.
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It's not irrelevant, it's these types of discussions that spawn a thousand house rules. So yes, obviously it would have to be balanced but that is not an impossible task. In fact many people enjoy the challenge of writing homebrew and the effort and testing to find that balance. It can be good fun.
Just off the top of my head, how about making it part of the grappler feat, that for the second stage rather than transitioning to restrained you have the option (at disadvantage) to move to incapacitated. You would be suffering restrained as well and your target would have a chance to break free every turn as normal. The grapple and restrained rules would stay unchanged. As it requires a feat monsters wouldn't have it, but potentially other humanoids could. It's not easy to do and it leaves you tied up and vulnerable but in some circumstances it could be a valid plan.
Interestingly I looked up what the grappling rules used to be in 3e, the answer was far too complex (apparently 1.5 pages of the PHB was devoted to this!). In brief enemy gets an attack of opportunity on you, if you take no damage you've closed the range and can make an unarmed attack to grapple. Once grappled you can attempt to pin, which basically incapacitates them barring an escape roll per turn. It takes into account the size difference as well as the stats, but was so complex no one could remember the rules on the fly.
No, the example was spot on. There is no rule for dismemberment at 0hp, and there's no logical reason (since you're trying to be logical about grappling) as to why you would need to knock someone completely unconscious/dead before removing their arm with a big honking magical greataxe. Attacks only reduce hp, and grapples only reduce movement. That's just what they do. If you want to be a trained jiu-jitsu grappler, take the Grappler feat and you can restrain people. Take Mage Slayer too if you really want to mess up casters. You can't just say "I trained my whole life" in your backstory and upgrade a move you get at level 1.
But the bottom line is that having an attack that incapacitates an enemy that you can do all day long is just not viable in the game. It's like saying you want to be a psychic that blows peoples' heads up from a mile away. Sure, that would be cool. But it kinda screws up how the game is supposed to work.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
"then, you have lvl 1 characters able to incapacitate lvl 20... plus the problems with the usual balance of action economy, if one side can shut down one opponent in basically one round, it gives a tremendous advantage."
Not at all, the grappler feat takes two actions, the first to enter grappled status then your following turns action to transition to restrained or incap. The opponent would have a round to react and level 20 vs level 1 would be a short sharp end (if you even managed to reach melee range at all). You then have the grapple check vs either dex or str, whichever they prefer and a second at disadvantage, and they can roll to break free every turn. It would take considerable effort to get to that point and then how long can you maintain it? And it takes your own character out of the fight, so you would need to make sure your target doesn't have friends nearby.
Currently, by the rules how would you play someone saying "The King's gone mad, capture him but don't harm him"? There are no rules for that are there? Maybe one grapples while another tries to hog tie him? Subduing someone seems like a fairly reasonable request but there seems to be no way to do so. If the town guard want to arrest someone for a non-violent crime then their only option is to bludgeon the person within an inch of their life?
Also manacles are a tool listed in the rules "These metal restraints can bind a Small or Medium creature. Escaping the manacles requires a successful DC 20 Dexterity check. Breaking them requires a successful DC 20 Strength check. Each set of manacles comes with one key. Without the key, a creature proficient with thieves' tools can pick the manacles' lock with a successful DC 15 Dexterity check. Manacles have 15 hit points" but there are no rules about how you are meant to get them on someone or once they are on what rules apply to the prisoner. What exactly is "bound" status? If the target has to be restrained then that is a condition most characters or npcs cannot apply.
Generally, you can bind a character by incapacitating them. There are numerous ways to do this from knocking a creature out with non-lethal attacks, spells, magic items, poisons, and more. Then you can bind them with rope/manacles.
It's ultimately left to DM because having a set rule can lead to game-breaking shenanigans as explained previously. By leaving it to the DM it remains an ad hoc decision based specifically on given circumstances and narrative benefit and thus less prone to OP grapple builds.
Grappled : stops movement
Restrained: stops movement, made vulnerable
Incapacitated : stops movement, made extremely vulnerable, can be bound/tied up.
Incapacitating a target is easier than restraining them, unless you're a spellcaster, in which case you have a large variety of options, or unless you have the Grappler feat. Monsters, however, often have automatic grapple/restrain effects, so it is much easier for them to apply these - despite your claim to the contrary, and they can apply incapacitated condition just as easily as you can.
If you suspect you need to stop targets this way get some healer kits or spare the dying cantrip: tell DM the intention. Drop enemy to 0 hp, stabilise them and bind them. Dropping somebody to 0 hp doesn't always mean killing. This is covered in PHB. If you drop them via melee attack and you declare non-lethal then they even auto-stabilise.
So it's pretty straight-forward to stop enemies and bind them up without altering grapples into some OP thing. I genuinely don't understand what you're unhappy with.
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
" I genuinely don't understand what you're unhappy with." Okay, let me clarify:
- Grapple doesn't grab the arms, it is impossible to grab arms ever. All grapples appear to be legs only because they do nothing other than reduce speed.
- Restrained is only available to fighter classes via the grappler feat, and even then you cannot restrain someone's arms, as they retain the ability to use two handed weapons, bows and cast spells. This is not what "restrained" is expected to mean. You are hanging onto your target, but he is free to cut down everyone in front of him with his greatsword.
- "Incapacitated : stops movement, made extremely vulnerable, can be bound/tied up." Actually by the RAW none of that is true. Incapacitated in the PHB reads "An incapacitated creature can’t take actions or reactions" and that is all. There is nothing to say that the effects applied by Restrained apply here as well. It has been argued that RAW say you can still move and that no vulnerabilities apply. One example of this is hypnotic pattern which reads "... the creature is incapacitated and has a speed of 0." specifying the reduction of speed separately to the incapacitation. Other conditions such as Stunned and Paralyzed state "A paralyzed creature is incapacitated and can’t move or speak.", again separating speed from incapacitation.
- Manacles exist and have a set of stats and description, and yet no rules exist for how they are applied.
- In situations where the party is asked to capture the target unharmed there is no way for your fighter classes to do that. RAW there is no way to subdue an opponent without beating them to near death. Police handcuffing a suspect would be an impossible maneuver, a cowboy running down a fleeing thief and hogtying them would be an impossibility. These are fairly mundane activities that players should be able to do.
This isn't naked wrestling. You have clothes, armour, gear, bags and possibly shield and more to grab on to.
The idea isn't that the opponent is physically incapable of moving AT ALL, it is that he can't simply walk away from you at will.
He is completely unhindered in doing any action. He can fight with the same ability as before you grappled him. He can still draw and fire a longbow, how exactly would you do that with a large man having grabbed two handfuls of anywhere on your upper body? Even if you just say the person cannot move, then that should have several effects such as removing dex bonus from AC or disadvantage on dex saves. How are you dodging while immobile?
A grappled target isn't immobile, they're just being kept in their own space.
You seem to be having a lot of difficulty with this. If calling it "grappled" is not working for you then call it something else. It is what it is as a gaming mechanic and balanced as such.
This game is not designed with realistic fighting in mind. If that is what you prefer, perhaps you should try different games?
There's several people now who have responded to you about this, all of us are saying the same thing. There's really nothing left to it. You don't agree with us and we don't agree with you. This is all fine, but this conversation is spiralling pointlessly.
Ultimately, we've answered you about this off-topic thing. We've answered the OP on the actual topic of the Mental Prison spell.
If you really want to continue this entirely fruitless back and forth about grappling in D&D, perhaps make your own thread about it? I think this thread has been derailed enough.
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