Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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With the new grappling and shoving rules in 5.5e, am I incorrect in understanding that Rage does not affect a Barbarian's grapples and shoves at all?
In the old rules, a raging Barbarian attempting a grapple or shove would roll their Athletics check against a creature with Advantage (which was, iirc the only official contested check in the game so I somewhat understand the decision to revamp it). However, because a creature targeted with a grapple now instead rolls a saving throw against the attacker's Grapple/Shove DC, and since the description for Rage says nothing about affecting a Barbarian's Grapple or Shove DCs, it is therefore no harder for creatures to escape or avoid a Raging Barbarian's grapple or shove with the new rules.
Is this intentional on part of the developers, or an oversight?
If one were to home-rule a change to allow for Rage to affect a Barbarian's grappling or shoving, which of the following would make more sense: (A) The Barbarian's DCs increase by 5 while Raging (aligned with the +5 to Passive Perception when having Advantage on Perception Checks as noted in the basic rules), or (B) Creatures roll at Disadvantage when escaping or avoiding Grapples and Shoves by a Raging Barbarian.
Thoughts?
There's been no errata on that so far, and they fixed the Powerful Build trait, for example, so I'd say it's intended. Maybe one reason is there are no Contests as they were known in 5e/2014, as you said.
If I had to choose between A and B, I'd choose B.
As a barbarian you get advantage on Strength checks and strength saving throws. Where does a pure Strength check come into play where it can't be covered by the Athletic skill? My reasoning is that all skills that require it to be based on strength count as a strength check. That would mean as a barbarian you have advantage while raging and using your weapons and unarmed strikes that are based on strength. That would help you hit your grapple using an unarmed strike but, It wouldn't affect the DC to break the grapple. Kind of unfortunate.
I didn't necessarily explain that well. My intent was to say that if you get advantage on a base ability, it stands to reason that anything that stems from that base ability would also be with advantage.
It appears to be a deliberate change, since they removed the advantage on saves from Powerful Build.
That's not the way it works. Ability checks, saves, and attack rolls are different things, and effects that add to one do not apply to the other unless stated as doing so (however, skill checks are ability checks).
I'm not sure you understood my question; Grapples and shoves don't use an ability check anymore. The creature targeted by the grapple or shove rolls a saving throw (Dex or Str) instead. As such, grapples and shoves are unaffected by Rage because it doesn't explicitly state it affects those DCs.
Yeah I have to assume it was intended as well since there's been no sage advice or errata (yet), but ever since the new rules first came out it hasn't quite set right with me. A raging barbarian gets all kinds of benefits to their strength except grapples and shoves now, which feels like an oversight. I feel like it ruins the immersion of being a hulked out badass that can dominate the highland games and kick the crap out of everyone with no issue, but when you try to push a wizard into a locker that extra oomph disappears. 🤷♀️
Attacks with weapons or unarmed strikes are not strength checks, they are D20 tests now so they wouldn't have advantage from that feature. I do agree that a strength skill check would benefit though. Reckless Attack would give advantage on attacks and unarmed strikes iirc.
I just wasn't thinking and completely forgot about reckless attack too until I re read. Do you still have to make an unarmed strike that successfully hits in order to choose the option to grapple or shove?
You never did in 5.5e. Unarmed Strike has three options: Damage, Grapple, or Shove. Only Damage requires an attack roll. The others jump straight to the save.
This is a related SAC about 5.5e grapple or shove:
Or 2x STR mod to better tie raging to STR. Shouldn't be too hard to write as a houserule.
At the same time, I don't really see a RAGING BARBARIAN as someone who just sits there trying really hard to hold onto someone. They hit things. That's what they do. I would assume a raging barbarian would rather let go just so they can swing with two hands.
I don't think there is any feature that makes 2xability mod or 2xproficiency affect a save DC (expertise can affect your rolls but not the opponents AFAIK).
Having a feature impose advantage/disadvantage on a check or save is pretty common though and for that reason I think I would prefer option 2.
Who said that the Barbarian should do nothing??? You are allowed to attack the creature you are grappling. Holding onto an opponent to stop them from creating distance or go hide is a winning strategy in many cases. Even the famously mega-rager the Hulk have a habit of holding onto his opponents (usually while he's smashing them against something/the ground but still).
My favorite grapple I've ever pulled off was against a beholder. At level 6, using Point Buy, I managed to grapple a beholder that was pushed into range of me and start stabbing it with a javelin. Dodged 10 eye rays in a row.
The DM had planned for the beholder to retreat to another room around 60% HP. We got it to about 25% before I failed a save when he finally rolled a mental save ray.
There's the Loki - puny god type scenes, but there's also endless scenes across multiple media about where an attack furiously bearhugs and tries to crush an opponent. Then, there's also grappling and biting and tearing at an opponent. There are lots of examples of raging barbarian-esque combatants attacking enemies while grappling.
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My houserulings.
I think this needs to be restated for emphasis. When I think of a barbarian, I think smashing someone in the face with an axe, not working on their MMA ground game.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
No, it makes complete sense, particularly for a Beast or Wild Heart Barbarian, to bearhug an opponent and try to crush their opponent (grapple followed by unarmed attack).
Plus, you have the World Tree Barbarian raging to heal allies via temporary hit points. D&D rage just isn't what you think it is.
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My houserulings.
Yea this is probably one of the biggest misconceptions in the game, Grappling does not, in any way, mandate that it takes place on the ground. No ground and pound or BBJ style locks/chokes. You just use one hand (or other relevant body part) to grab onto and prevent the opponent from using movement.You are fully capable of hitting the opponent in the face if you like.
With the changes to Unarmed Strike, Strength Advantage now help a Barbarian Resisting or Ending a Grapple or a Shove, not initiate one.
One way to determine this might be to just work through a couple of examples and try to keep the probability of success as close as possible to what it was in 2014.
Example 1: Low Level Barbarian with +3 Strength and proficient (+2) in Athletics VS Commoner with +0 in both Strength and Dex and no proficiencies.
To get the exact probability we'd probably want to create a simulator and create a large sample size of data. But we can estimate by seeing that on average the Commoner will roll 10.5 on the D20 even after modifiers. So, on average the Barbarian will have to roll a 6 (+5) = 11 on the D20 to succeed. That's a 75% success rate with a normal roll, but a 93.75% success rate with advantage. Note also that in 2014 he must exceed the Commoner's roll -- a tie in a contest keeps the status quo which is "not grappled". Conversely, it's the same contest for the Commoner to attempt to break free later on, but in that case the status quo is "grappled".
Example 2: Low Level Barbarian with +3 Strength and proficient (+2) in Athletics VS Ogre with +4 in Strength but no proficiencies.
We can estimate the chance for success here by seeing that on average the Ogre will roll 10.5 + 4 = 14.5 on the D20 after modifiers. So, on average the Barbarian will have to roll a 10 (+5) = 15 on the D20 to succeed. That's a 55% success rate with a normal roll, but a 79.75% success rate with advantage. Again, slightly different for initiating the grapple vs subsequently maintaining the grapple due to the rules for a tie.
Proposed 2024 Homebrew Solutions:
Solution A: Increase the DC by 5.
Example 1: Same Barbarian VS Commoner.
Normally, the Saving Throw DC to avoid being grappled = 8 + STRMOD + PB = 13. Homebrew increases this to 18. For the Saving Throw mechanic we use "meets it beats it" to resolve a tie, in favor of the one that is making the save. In this particular example our success rate is now only 85%. However, if our Barbarian was slightly more advanced to the point where he ends up creating a DC of 21 then we would actually create a 100% success rate, which was never realistically possible with the 2014 contest mechanic and therefore might not be a desirable solution depending on what we are trying to accomplish with this Homebrew.
Example 2: Same Barbarian VS Ogre.
Again, the DC is increased to 18. The Ogre gets +4 to the save. He must roll a 14 or better. Our success rate here is 65%. Again, lower than in the corresponding 2014 contest.
Solution B: The target creature gets disadvantage on their Saving Throw.
Example 1: Same Barbarian VS Commoner.
Here the DC is 13. The Commoner must roll a 13 or better on the D20, but at disadvantage. Our success rate here is 84%. This is similar to solution A, but note the more gradual increase of the curve from here -- it is much more difficult here to achieve 100% success, which we presumably would like to avoid if we are trying to replicate the results of the 2014 mechanic.
Example 2: Same Barbarian VS Ogre.
Again, the DC is 13. The Ogre gets +4 to the save. He must roll 9 or better. Our success rate here is 64%. Again, lower than in the 2014 contest. Also, again we approach 100% success more slowly as the Barbarian becomes more powerful as compared to Solution A.
Overall, it looks like Solution B (disadvantage on the save) is a better model for creating a similar curve to the 2014 system for how the chance for success improves as the Barbarian becomes more powerful.