Hi all,

This should be easy to answer. Suppose a monster stat block has no action or attack that allows them to grapple an enemy. Can they do it anyway? As I understand, all monsters have the ability to use basic actions including disengage, dodge, or hide. Grappling appears under the attack action in the PHB, so it seems simple enough that it should be valid as well.

Thanks for your help.

Yes, they can use a Grapple in place of an Attack action, so long as they have a means to do so.

Most monster stat blocks with special Grapple actions/attacks have elements beyond a standard Grapple - like they also Restrain, or they get to perform an additional attack on creatures that have been grappled using the special action.

All monsters can take the any of the standard actions: Attack/Grapple/Shove, Dash, Disengage, Dodge, Help, Hide, Ready, Use and Object, or Search.

Yes. Monsters can take the attack, dash, disengage, dodge, help, hide, improvise, ready, and search actions just the same as PCs.

The attack from attack action can be replaced with a shove or grab as usual. Note: they can't replace an attack from multiattack.

Monsters have access to all of the basic actions listed in Chapter 9 (Combat) of the PHB. Grappling is performed by taking the Attack action and replacing one of your attacks with a special "grapple" attack.

Note that Multi-attack does not qualify for grapplng. You need to explicitly take the Attack action, which means you only get one attempt for most monsters. Also, the monster technically requires a free hand in order to perform a grapple attack using these rules, so monsters that lack hands cannot use this method to grapple enemies.

Thanks all!

Not only a monster can use the Attack action to grapple, as a DM you can even decide that it can replace one of it's attack to grapple when using Multiattack, and or add a grappling effect to any of its existing attack, such as claw or tail if you want. Monsters can always be customized.

The grappling action specifically says that it requires at least one hand to grapple. Not all beasts have hands. That's right, the giant eagles of the world cannot grapple their prey and a mother wolf cannot pickup its cub. Dumb, but RAW.

While PHB says Grappling is made by using at least one free hand, i allow any creatures with appendage or even mouth do so as it's clear the basic rule was written with humanoid in mind while D&D has all kinds of creatures with different morphology.

Quote from denmanthewall >>

The grappling action specifically says that it requires at least one hand to grapple. Not all beasts have hands. That's right, the giant eagles of the world cannot grapple their prey and a mother wolf cannot pickup its cub. Dumb, but RAW.

Any good DM worth their title would allow a wolf (or other canid) to grapple with its mouth, and an eagle to grapple with its talons.

Hiya, there is actually a Sage Advice from 2020 that states that the DM can feasibly make adjustments to allow for exactly these types of grapples and grabs. It reads kind of like an "Oopsy, oh yeah, that makes sense and should be okay and it would replace an attack basically..."

I'm hesitant to say broadly that you should swap Multiattack for a bunch of grapple attempts... Usually, it would be a strict downgrade, but still, I'm sure there's some gimmicky monster who makes a lot of small attacks, that would play very differently if you did this. Maybe to the point of breaking it. And I bet there's at least one monster that normally has to choose between its Multiattack and its grapple move, that wasn't designed with that in mind. Idk.

Things only really get silly if you allow grapple attempts as opportunity attacks. Which isn't RAW, just to clarify.