As a foreword, I was greatly inspired and stealed a lot (and learned a lot) from The Grappler's Manual of ktkenshinx. However, it lacks a lot of useful stuff from XGtE and later books, and that's the reason why I'm making a new version. I kept a lot of things from the guide, as well as the formatting, because it's just so nicely done.
I will use the same rating system as the original guide: colors indicate what are the best choices:
Gold: Mandatory. It's a rare rating that denotes something that is so good that you must take it, or you can't call yourself optimized.
Green: Conditional choice. In the right build, or if you build around it, it can be incredibly strong. Otherwise, best to stay away from it.
Sky Blue: A fantastic choice. An option you should strongly consider above most others.
Blue: A good choice. It definitely helps your character in the majority of cases.
Black: Solidly average. You're not hurting your character by taking this, and it might even help in some situations, but there are better choices.
Purple: A substandard choice. It might be useful in corner-case situations, but overall it's not worth the investment.
Red: Red is dead. A trap that you will want to avoid at all costs, either because it's ineffective or because it's thoroughly outclassed by another option that accomplishes something similar.
Introduction - Why grappling? How to grapple?
Grappling has a lot of uses as a control of enemies. Mages grappled in a Silence zone can't cast most of their spells anymore, any dirty hit-and-run tactics is instantly negated by a quick grab, and why not drag away that coward up to the nearby cliff and see if he learns to fly before reaching the bottom?
In a battlefield, where spells have specific area of effects, some dealing damage as long as you're in the area, a grappler is a terrific way of making spells like sickening radiance take their full effect. Grappling can also grant huge benefits from both an offensive and a defensive point of view, especially when combined when shoving prone!
Mechanically, grappling is almost always in favor of a good grappler. Grappling is resisted by either an Athletics or Acrobatics skill check of a DC equal your Athletics skill check. This is a skill check, meaning a legendary resistance or good saving throws won't help, only skill!
Of course, there are some drawbacks to grappling: you're not great against large numbers of opponents, since you only have two hands, your mobility is reduced a lot when grappling, getting close might both be a problem and be dangerous, and your damage output might be lower that some damage-oriented builds.
As a recap, in a neat list, here are the PROs and CONs of grappling:
(+) Hard to counter, most monsters will have lower Athletics than you, no legendary resistance.
(+) Negates mobility, hit-and-run becomes miss and don't move.
(+) Makes opponents easier to hit, grappling and shoving prone will give advantage to anyone within 5ft.
(+) Cripples offensive capabilities, a shoved opponent has disadvantage on all attacks.
(-) Weak against large number of opponents, you only have two hands.
(-) Low mobility, you can't move a lot when dragging a creature.
(-) Hard counters: a Freedom of Movement spell or creatures immune to the grappled (or prone) condition can be a huge pain for you. Flying creatures might as well.
(-) Low damage, however, some builds can use the Elven Accuracy feat to reduce that. As a grappler, if you chose to deal damage, you should have advantage on all attacks.
Now, how does one grapple? Well, in order to grapple, you need to take the Grapple action. It's considered a special melee attack, and replace one of your attacks if you have multiple attacks. You must have one free hand, and the target must be no more than one size bigger than you, and must be within your reach. However, grappling is a Athletics check against the target's Athletics or Acrobatics check. If you succeed, the target is grappled. You can release the grapple whenever you want, no check nor action required.
Shoving works the same, except you don't need a free hand.
How to get out of being grappled? A grappled creature can use its action to try to escape, and make a Athletics or Acrobatics check against your Athletics check. This use their action, and they are not sure to succeed. If you're forcefully moved away from the grappled target, the grapples end. The Shove action can break a grapple, as spells like Thunderwave. An other way to escape grapple is to teleport, with spells such as Misty step.
Combining grappling and other actions:
Moving: you move half your speed, and you drag along anything you're grappling, no save. This is where a combo with Spike Growth becomes quite strong! (RAW, it works, but depending on the DM, you might have to go through it as well). The weight you can drag depends on your Strength score (STR x 15 carrying capacity x 2 for dragging / pushing / lifting), but the rules for grappling don't consider the weight of the grappled (Jeremy's Crawford's tweet) however this really depends on the DM. Special circumstances, such as flying, climbing, swimming probably take into account such weight restrictions.
Not Moving: you don't move, and as such, anything you grappled can't move either.
Attacking with a weapon / unarmed strike / a spell: you attack as usual. If the target is prone or you have the Grappler Feat, you have advantage on the attack. And if you have elven accuracy, and you're making an attack with dex, int, wis or cha, you have "double advantage". You need one free hand for these (and remember that one hand is already grappling).
Shoving prone. As explained above, a check quite similar to the one to grapple, and now everyone within 5ft have advantage on attack rolls. Moreover, the target is still grappled, hence its speed is reduced to 0. This means the target can't stand up before breaking the grapple.
Grappling someone else. You still have your second hand free, you can use it to do what you're good at.
How's this guide gonna work ?
This guide has 3 important sections, and one examples section. The important sections are :
Races
Classes
Feats and spells
Each section will use one of the below post. Lastly, there will be a build example section.
The class section is probably the most important one, and is going to have two ratings per class: one noted SC for single class, and one noted MC for multiclass. If your GM does not allows multiclassing or if, for story reasons, you don't want to, the second rating will help you. Moreover, the color rating green is special, as it means you need a specific build to make it work. I will list these builds and how they work.
Advanced grappling techniques and specific builds:
So, maybe you just want to play a grappler, and its fine. But maybe you want something else out of your grapples, or different ways to grapple. Below is a list of different techniques, their explanations, and how I will abbreviate them (in parentheses next to the technique) if I need to speak about them in the guide below. They will probably all be rated green because it's a special use of grappling and requires a specific build most of the time.
Advanced Grappling: grappling when shape changed (shape-ch) If your DM allows it, a creature with hands can grapple like humans do. This is often a resource-intensive technique, but you are no longer restricted by your form, meaning it's easier to be big, and you can have awesome Strength. Note that most shape-changing spells (and the druid shapechanging) allow to keep your proficicency bonus, and expertise if you have it.
Advanced Grappling: getting help (help) When you grapple, you want to have advantage on your Athletics checks. Often, you will use a spell or a class feature. However, if you manage to get Help every time you try a grapple, you save up some valuable spells or limited times class features.
Grappling and dealing damage: jump and fall (jump) Once you grappled an ennemy, if the environment doesn't provide hasards, you can chose to be one: if you jump high enough, the fall is going to do some damage to the grappled creature. And you as well, so... be careful. Both of you end up prone after falling, but you can get up, whereas your ennemy cannot if you still grapple him.
Using grapple / shoving to fish for crits (crit-fish) If you have the grappler feat, or if you shove your ennemy, you have advantage on all attacks against him. Now, if we combine this with elven accuracy and extended crit ranges, your crit chances can skyrocket, allowing you to spend resources in the hope of (or after) a crit.
Using the grappler feat and dex saving throws (dex-st) The second bullet of the grappler feat is that you can use your action to cause your ennemy (and yourself) to be restrained. This doesn't prevent casting spells, and spells which force dex saving throws become suddenly way more potent.
I - Grappling Races
Mechanically, grappling relies on Athletics, hence Strength is very much needed. Otherwise, race can be chosen according to the class you want to play, to grant bonuses that fit the class well. A special mention should be given to races that have improved carrying capacity, as the one granted by Powerful Build. Official ruling is that weight doesn't matter in grappling, but you should check it with your DM first (if he doesn't care, then races with powerful build are rated a bit worse than here). It helps a lot if you want to play a Controller Grappler. If you want to play a grappler to have advantage on all attack rolls, then it's not as needed as for a Controller. I gave some options a higher rating considering some feats they can take that allows them to avoid multiclassing. In campaigns where water would often be available / nearby, races with swimming speed (and amphibious) become a lot better (sea elves, aquatic half-elves, water genasi, lizardfolk somewhat, triton, turtle somewhat probably, simic hybrid, etc...)
Player handbook and basic rules:
[spoiler]test[/spoiler]
Dragonborn:
Dragonborns have high Strength, have a Charisma bonus useful for some casters, and have a breath weapon, that most of the time forces to make a Dex save. And a restrained target has disadvantage on all Dexterity saving throws. Well, guess what the Grappler feat allows to do? Restrain a target!
Dwarf:
Duergar is the strong option here: a free Enlarge/Reduce (Enlarge only) spell from level 3 is awesome as a grappler. You can grapple things bigger than Large with this, and you have advantage on all Athletics skill checks when enlarged. And racial bonus strength is awesome. However, Sunlight Sensitivity might be a problem, but remember that grappling does not has disadvantage in direct sunlight, it's neither a Perception check nor an attack roll.
Mountain Dwarf is good, you have bonus strength, and proficiency with medium armor can be great for Bard / Warlock / Sorcerer / Wizard. If not playing one of these, consider Goliath or half-orc. Except if you really like dwarves.
Hill Dwarf is the weakest of the three... No Strength bonus....
Elf:
I won't go into as much details here, but with the half-elf variants from SCAG, elves are always worse than half-elves.
Gnome:
Gnomes make good grapplers when transformed through spells like Polymorph. A gnome bonus to Int make them good wizards, and they have huge bonus against mental spells, which are often a weakness of grapplers.
Half-elf:
Due to the availability of both Elven Accuracy and Prodigy, and the bonus to any stat, half-elves can be awesome offensive grapplers. Both "normal" and high half-elf are very strong choices, with the first one allowing to have proficiency in Athletics without concern for class nor background.
Halfling:
Terrible for grappling, they lack the resistance that the gnomes offer. And they are small...
Half-orc:
Strong as mountain dwarves, but faster. And some extra tankiness from Relentless Endurance. Savage Attacks can be interesting as an offensive grappler. And you can take the Prodigy feat!
Human:
Grappling builds can have a heavy feat tax, and that extra feat at level 1 is a blessing. Moreover,you have free range in the ability scores to increase, and possibility to take the Prodigy feat.
Tiefling:
Winged tieflings can make a flying grappler, without restriction to light armor, as Aarockra have, but lower flying speed.
Zariel tieflings have high strength and charisma, and some smite spells. They probably can be an okay offensive grappler, but lack the Elven Accuracy feat to be as good as half-elves.
Arakocra:
Their ability bonuses aren't that great, but the flying speed is. It's fast, and you can carry light enemies up in the air. And then drop them, probably.
Genasi:
Earth Genasi has nice ability scores bonuses, and the ability to move unhindered through difficult terrain is nice, but it's still not as good as Half-orcs / Dwarves / etc... Other genasis are bad at grappling.
Goliath:
The bonus to strength, automatic proficiency in Athletics, and stone's endurance are really nice, but the real bonus of Goliaths is the Powerful Build. Now, you can drag a lot more things!
Monstrous races:
Aasimar:
Not much to say here, they have nothing really interesting. They are not inherently bad, just worse than most other choices.
Bugbear:
Bugbears have increased reach, powerful build, and increased strength! And some nice bonus damage on surprised creatures as well. They are a more offensive version of Goliaths.
Firbolg:
Firbolg have bonuses to Strength and Wisdom, and the Powerful build trait as well, which make them interesting grapplers. They make an interesting take on grapplers, and work well as clerics, druids or rangers.
Goblin:
small, no useful bonus, they are not good grapplers. At all.
Hobgoblin:
No useful bonus, and no bonus as strong as gnomes if you go the transformation route.
Kenku:
Nothing really useful here, there are lots of better choices for grappling.
Kobold:
Everything you should avoid regrouped in one single race! Unbelievable! Avoid at all costs
Lizardfolk:
No useful ability score bonuses, but you keep the possibility to attack when grappling two enemies, with your bite.
Orc:
Useful strength bonus, powerful build, and the possibility to Dash as a bonus action as long as you get closer to the enemy!
Tabaxi:
Feline agility combined with Dashing allows to move way more than most grapplers can. However, tabaxis lack strength and powerful build.
Triton:
Bonus to Strength is nice, but there isn't anything else really fancy here. Swim speed and water breathing can be useful.
Yuan-Ti:
As one of the most overpowered race, Yuan-Ti can make good transmutation grapplers, thanks to their spell resistance, and bonus to ability scores used by magic users.
SCAG + Tortle + MToF:
FeralTieflings:
See tieflings, the nice improvement is the possibility to be winged, and it's already covered in tieflings. The ability score bonuses don't change in a useful manner.
Tortle??
I don't own the rules for tortle, so someone else has to answer this. My guess is that the Strength bonus combined with high natural armor allow for some nice caster grappler builds.
Gith:
Githyankis can make awesome grappling wizard builds. Proficiency with medium armor, Strength bonus, and psionics are all nice. An overall good choice for all grapplers.
Eberron:
Don't have it. You gotta use your guts and brain for this one. If someone gives a review, I will include it. My guess is that Shifter might be good and Warforged as well.
Ravnica:
Centaur:
High speed, Powerful build, bonus to strength! And better unarmed strike, even if maybe it's weird to attack someone with your hooves if you're holding him above your head in an intimidating manner.
Loxodon:
One more "hand" to grapple! And Powerful Build! That's amazing, the only drawback is no bonus to strength
Minotaur:
Lizardfolk, but with better strength. It lacks powerful build to be as good as goliaths, orcs, and so on.
Simic Hybrid:
Before level 5, nothing exceptional with simic hybrids. However, at level 5, you can gain two more hands to grapple or attack with. This allows for very strong GWM + grappling options, that only loxodons have, but not as good. Probably the best offensive grappler.
Vedalken:
See gnomes, they make very specialized transformed grapplers.
I will give two ratings for each class: MC and SC, for Multiclassing and Single Class. If your DM does not allows Multiclassing, or you don't want to, refer to the SC rating, otherwise, look at MC. I give insight on which class features are the strong ones for grappling, and don't mention the others.For a class to be good at grappling without multiclassing (=SC rating) it needs to have a way to get advantage on Strength checks. Enlarge/Reduce is the best way to get this, because of the increase in size, but other features are good as well.
Moreover, the subclasses are rated comparatively to the other subclasses for the same class: if you're multiclassing, taking 3 levels in fighter, even arcane archer, is probably better than taking levels in warlock (except some specific builds)
Note: Offensive grappling focuses on using resources with high damage output (such as smites or spells) when you have advantage from the grappler feat or because the target is prone. With elven accuracy, you have around 15% chance of dealing a critical hit, and should never miss.
Note: if your class doesn't grant you expertise, and if you don't plan multiclassing, you should be human, half-elf, or half-orc in order to have expertise in Athletics via the Prodigy feat.
Barbarian (MC / SC):
Class features:
Rage: grants advantage on all Athletics checks, improved damage, improved damage. This is the bread and butter of Barbarians, and it's awesome for grapplers. It's also one of the rare non-magical ways to have advantage on all Strength rolls.
Extra Attack: allows to grapple twice, or shove twice, or grapple + shove. Awesome! Or grapple and attack, but if you"re a barbarian and want to attack, you shouldn't consider grappling.
Paths:
Ancestral guardian: Nothing really helping a grappler here
Battlerager: damage on all successful grapples with Battlerager Armor
Berserker: Mindless rage is super useful to negate conditions, and Retaliation is a great use of a reaction
Storm Herald: Surprisingly, the sea aura is really strong, since you can restrain opponents with the Grappler feat, which give them disadvantage to dexterity saving throws. The Raging storm however isn't as good as shoving.
Totem Warrior: Bear is awesome, granting good tankiness. Elk can be interesting, as it increase move speed, and you can choose to have eagle for your 14th if you want short bursts of flight.
Zealot: won't help you much as a grappler
Bard (MC / SC):
Class features:
Spellcasting: Bards are full spellcasters, and their spellcastings scales off charisma. You can negotiate, bluff, and persuadeeveryone show off as the best grappler and people will be in awe.
Skills: lots of them!
Expertise: This is one of the mandatory feature for a grappler, and bards get it freely.
Magical Secrets: This is where the bard shines, the ability to grab Enlarge Reduce without multiclassing! It comes a bit late however, except for Lore Bards.
Colleges:
Glamour: nothing great here
Lore: earlier magical secrets, and cutting words to reduce the opponents resistance to your grapples! Awesome.
Swords: not as bad as I thought, you have increased speed if you attack, extra attack, and extra damage on attacks if you use bardic inspiration. Can probably be quite good as offensive grappler.
Valor: extra attack and proficiencies in medium armor. And Battle magic can be nice, even if the bonus action can't be a grapple.
Whispers: the psychic blade can be good for an offensive grappler, to use when you crit. However, swords, valor and lore are better.
Cleric (MC / SC):
Class features:
Spellcasting:clerics can cast Enhance Ability which is Enlarge but not as good. You have access to the Guidance to improve your Athletics at early levels. Lots of cleric spells have melee range, and they are full casters which is why spellcasting is rated good here. Reminder that a spell with melee range gets advantage if the target is prone, or if you have the Grappler feat. Combined with Elven Accuracy, this can make offensive grapplers that rely on critical hits on spells.
Divine intervention: this is up to the DM, it can be great, meh, harmful to the party, or anything, really...
Proficiencies: medium / heavy armor is nice.
Domains:
Arcana: arcana shines in late game, when you have access to True Polymorph. Before that, it's not great...
Tempest: grants a flight speed at higher levels, and proficiency in heavy armor and some burst damage.
War: good features at early levels, but nothing great after that.
others: nothing really interesting
Druid (MC / SC):
Class features:
Wild shape: awesome ability, you can keep concentrating on spells when wild shaped, you gain the physical ability scores of the beast, but you keep proficiencies and expertise from your class / feats. However, remember that grappling requires a free hand, so you might have to negotiate with your DM.
Spellcasting: as clerics, you have Enhance Ability, but you can use it when shapechanged, which is way better than clerics. You also have Guidance, Spike Growth and lots of spells that make enemies fall prone.
Circles:
Moon: this is what you should take as a grappler druid, and the elemental form is great (earth elemental mostly, but air can be useful as well).
Shepherd: I'm surprised that this circle is so good as grappler, but you have an ability that grants advantage to all strength checks with the Bear spirit, that does not require concentration and that allows concentration on other spells, unlike the barbarian rage. I'm still unsure how strong this is. However, you can summon apes to grapple and shove instead of you...
others: nothing useful for grapplers.
Fighter (MC / SC):
Class features:
Action Surge: a great power, usable once per short rest, available at very early levels. Really great, and the reason why a lot of multiclass take a 2 levels dip in fighter.
Extra ASIs: Grappling can have a high feat tax, and extra ASIs help a lot to get everything you want. And more!
Extra Attacks: allows to grapple twice, or shove twice, or grapple + shove. Awesome! Or grapple and attack. As a fighter, you have way more attacks than other classes, meaning you can grapple twice and shove twice quite early on, or attack targets that are prone + grappled, and have advantage.
Martial archetypes:
Arcane archer: why would you chose an archer subclass if you plan to get in melee range and grapple?
Battlemaster: maneuvers allow to spend more time attacking and less time shoving for offensive grapplers, or just increase your grappling efficiency. Menacing attack is great to force disadvantage to resist you, Disarming attack can be super useful, you can disarm and drag away, Pushing attack and trip attack are good, as well as parry and evasive footwork.
Cavalier: Cavalier shove prone and prevent targets from moving without being grapplers. The both don't stack well / at all.
Champion: Champion don't have much for grappling, however, their improved crit chance, combined with advantage (and, potentially, elven accuracy) allows for a lot of crits. You probably should grab Hex to benefit more of these crits.
Eldritch Knight: the best of the Fighter archetypes if you go single class, you can learn Enlarge/Reduce, and you can combine spell casting with attacks (but not grappling).
Purple Dragon Knight: Nothing useful for grapplers
Samurai: you could combine Rapid Strike with grappling to always have one more attack. I'm not sure how great it is.
Monks (MC / SC):
Class features:
Martial arts: A good improvement of your unarmed strikes (reminder: unarmed strikes don't need a free hand, you can attack with your knees, your feet, etc...), and an attack as a bonus action as long as you take the Attack action in your turn. Pairs well with battle maneuvers (or the Open Hand features)
Ki: all three options are really interesting, either for a damage perspective, for an increased survivability, or for increased mobility.
Unarmored movement: Increased mobility, helps a lot for grappling builds.
Slow fall: some grapplers just got to jump down with their grappled targets. That's a good tactic to deal damage, but it's a bit dangerous for yourself as well. Well, slow fall mitigates a lot of the damage.
Extra Attack: allows to grapple twice, or shove twice, or grapple + shove. Awesome! Or grapple and attack,and use flurry of blows.
Stunning Strike: A stunned creature automatically fails strength and dex saving throws. This combine very well with Open Hand techniques.
Evasion: if you take the Grappler feat, this is super useful. Since both you and the target both have disadvantage on dex saving throws, mitigating damage is nice.
Monastic Traditions:
Shadow: What is great is Silence, and grappling the opponent spellcaster to force him to stay in it. Cloak of Shadow and shadow step are both interesting ways to close the gap fast between you and your opponents.
Drunken Master: Drunken master can probably make a specialized grappler, with lots of mobility and fun options to redirect attacks to the opponents you're grappling.
Four Elements: You have combo potential, but it comes really late. Even with the Grappler feat, there are a lot of better options to consider. If you want a grappler spell caster, there are better ways to do it.
Kensei: Nothing useful for grapplers.
Long Death: a frightened opponent has disadvantage on all skill checks. However, it costs an action and that's the only interesting feature.
Open Hand: Open Hand Technique is what makes this tradition really good. A way to push quite far away enemies, or to make them fall prone. If you succeeded on a stunning strike previously, they automatically fail these saving throws. Later features are not that useful.
Sun Soul: not that great, nice combo potential with Searing arc strike and grappler feat.
Paladin (MC / SC):
Class features:
Divine smite: a nice source of nova damage, that can combine well with advantage and crits. Can be used with Elven accuracy if you play dex or Hexblade.
Extra Attack: allows to grapple twice, or shove twice, or grapple + shove. Awesome! Or grapple and attack, and hope to be lucky and crit smite.
Oaths:
Conquest: provides multiple way to have frightened opponents, and after level 7, prevents them to move. Probably a better shoving build that pure grappler. Invicible conqueror makes a strong crit build, but comes super late. And you have access to Bestow Curse which is quite good when cast with a level 5+ spell slot.
Devotion: Nothing useful for a grappler here.
Redemption: same, nothing super useful for grapplers.
Ancients: good oath spells, good aura, and insane capstone ability.
Crown: good channel divinity options, interesting spells, you gain access to spirit guardians which is quite nice when grappling. However, you should be concentrating on Enlarge, so it's not that great.
Vengeance: Vengeance gives a lot of option to frighten enemies, and that's awesome for grapplers. And the capstone grants flight and frightens even more! Your oath spells are also quite nice.
Oathbreaker: A great option if you don't fight too big opponents. Lot of ways to frighten enemies, the channel divinity combined with grappling prevents enemies to reroll their saving throw, and the capstone is stupidly strong when combined with channel divinity and grappling.
Rangers (MC / SC):
Class features:
Except from extra attack, there is nothing great in rangers, and lots of other classes can get extra attack.
Ranger archetypes:
Beast master: Relying on Help from your companion and a familiar, it allows to have advantage on your two rolls to grapple and shove.
Monster slayer: you can prevent a teleportation out of your grapple with Magic User's Nemesis. Same with Slayer's Counter, both features prevent escaping grapples by pushing you or teleporting away.
Rogue (MC / SC):
Class features:
Sneak attack: a great way to improve your damage, and as a grappler, you will always have advantage on attack rolls.
Expertise: This is one of the mandatory feature for a grappler, and rogues get it freely at level 1!
Cunning action: a Dash as a bonus action is awesome!
Evasion: if you take the Grappler feat, this is super useful. Since both you and the target both have disadvantage on dex saving throws, mitigating damage is nice.
Reliable Talent: automatic 10 on Athletics, with expertise and a correct strength, it's great.
Stroke of Luck: the rogue capstone, really strong for grappling, but it comes late and is limited to once per short day.
Roguish archetypes:
Arcane Trickster: arcane trickster can have Enlarge/Reduce at level 8, which is a bit late, but makes a solid option if you need to be single class and don't want to play human or half-human, and don't like duergars.
Assassin: Nothing helping grapplers here. Might be useful as a 3-level dip when multiclassing
Inquisitive: Nothing really interesting for grapplers
Mastermind: Misdirection can be fun, but it's very specialized. It's not as good as Drunken Master.
Scout: a lot of mobility, and you're always sure that there is an enemy ending its turn within 5ft of you: the one you're grappling. Meaning you get a quarter of your move speed every round for free. That's not that great, 10ft at level 9 for most medium races. Maybe fun as a Monk multiclass
Swashbuckler: Elegant Maneuver grants you advantage on your next Athletics checks. Panache is also good if used against a grappled creature that no one is attacking
Thief: not great, the use of magic items can be nice but it's not as good as Arcane Trickster or Swashbuckler.
Sorcerer (MC / SC):
Class features:
Spellcasting: As bards, sorcerer have nice spellcasting, and have access to Enlarge/Reduce.
Proficiencies: no armor, which is really a pain for a grappler, but proficiency in constitution saving throws is great for a caster at melee range such as a grappler.
Metamagic: this is where things become interesting. Or even really interesting. Subtle spell and quickened spells are both great, and heightened spell is really nice as well.
Origin:
Divine Soul: this is where it gets interesting. Your spell list grows a lot, and you gain access to many strong melee spells, such as Spiritual Weapon. Remember, attacking a prone or grappled (if you have the grappler feat) creature grants you advantage. These attacks are using your Charisma mod, so it benefits from elven accuracy. You can also choose to play a grappler and use mostly defensive or healing spells, and require less charisma. And this is a nice way to have flight. You just have to find something for your armor class...
Draconic bloodline: not as good as Divine Soul, but you have better HP and armor (if you didn't find a way to get armor proficiency and don't use mage armor). You have flight as well however.
Shadow Magic: some good options to close the gap between you and enemies, and your hound of ill omen has advantage for attacking prone creature.
Storm Sorcery: an interesting choice that grants mobility and flight. I would rather be a divine soul however
Wild Magic: wild magic relies a bit too much on the master, as does Tides of Chaos. Bend Luck is nice however. The wild magic surges might
(UA : Giant Soul:) I mention it whereas I don't usually mention UAs, but the Rage of Fallen Ostria is just so strong I can't mention it. It's a Enlarge but better. And that can stack with Enlarge and with itself.
Warlock (MC / SC):
Class features:
Nothing great in the class features, except:
Eldritch Invocations:Devil's Sight is the only way to be able to see through darkness and magical darkness. Shadow sorcerers can only do so with the Darkness they cast. Eldritch Smite is nice as well, if you manage to hit the creature, you can automatically knock it prone, no save. Grasp of Hadar can be useful to force target to get closer. Relentless hex is a nice gap closer. Sculptor of Flesh grants access to Polymorph, but it's not the best way to get it.
Patrons:
The Archfey: Not great, even if you have some ways to frighten opponents.
The Celestial: you can combo your Flaming Sphere with grappling to impose disadvantage and deal some damage. That's all.
The Fiend: Dark One's Own Luck is really nice, and you have nice spells and fiendish resilience. Hurl Through Hell is really nice if you can stack it with a fall, which will make the target land prone, ready to be grappled, and take a huge spike of damage.
The Great Old One: Create Thrall might be useful, but that's the only interesting feature.
The Hexblade: popular for multiclassing, a 3 level dip into warlock allows to use Elven accuracy on any weapon. Proficiency with medium armor is nice, and the Hexblade Curse is great for crit fishing builds. Armor of Hexes is a nice defensive buff, and Master of Hexes is a nice improvement of the Hexblade Curse.
The Undying: some nice spells, but nothing you couldn't / shouldn't get somewhere else.
Wizard (MC / SC):
Class features:
Spellcasting: Every spell you want as a grappler, you can have. Be it Enlarge/Reduce, Polymorph or even Shapechange, you can have them all.
Bladesinging: the access to extra attack is what makes this tradition exceptional. Moreover, it's one of the best tradition to have a higher AC, which is definitely needed for grapplers.
Abjuration: A great school for grapplers as well, since it's focus on defense, and protecting against magic. As a grappler, it's a good thing, because you want to incapacitate the enemy spell casters. Counterspell works in the zone of Silence, but remember you need a free hand.
Divination: divination is strong, and portent is awesome for forcing your opponent to fail its Athletics check. Third eye can be useful as well, and Expert Divination grants more spell slots.
Evocation: evocation's last feature, overchannel, is really strong on maintained spells, such as [Tooltip Not Found], which you can cast and after that, just grapple the two most annoying opponents and cook them in your wall. Better if you grab fire resistance somewhere
Illusion: illusory reality can be a lot of things, and as such, can help a lot as a grappler. It's entirely up to your imagination
Transmutation: there are two great features in the transmuter's stone, the first is the increased move speed, on which you rely a lot to drag people around, and the second is the proficiency in constitution saving throws, if you can't multiclass, it's great to have proficiency in the very thing needed for concentration. The panacea is also great, when you're shapechanged to a 200+ HP creature, regaining all hit points is awesome. Moreover, healing is something wizards don't have access to!
WarMagic: a good defensive option as well, and the buffs when you maintain concentration are great, since you will always be maintaining concentration.
others: nothing as interesting as the previous choices.
I won't speak of the Eberron feats, since I don't have access to them. As previously, I only list useful feats, and the others are bad or not helping grappling.
Alert
Most characters have an initiative bonus based on dexterity and nothing else, so +5 is massive. Grappling, moreso than other playstyles, really wants to go first in combat because the earlier you wrangle people to the ground, the earlier you can shut them out of the fight. Surprise immunity and extra anti-invisibility is gravy.
Athlete
The cornerstone of the powerbomb suplex grapple technique (see builds later). Athlete lets you jump really high with your grappled target(s), throw them to the ground, and then land, stand, and re-grapple. All in one turn. Without Athlete, your jumps will be shorter, your standing will be slower, and the combat style will be much less efficient.
Crossbow Expert
Some readers might be surprised to see this ranked so highly. Turn your attention to the second bullet point which, RAW-wise, does not actually require you to wield a crossbow to benefit from. If you are playing a spellcasting grappler, you will need this to cast your ranged attack roll-based spells without disadvantage. You can knock an opponent prone to negate that disadvantage, but then you lose the subsequent advantage from attacking within 5 feet of the prone enemy (the two instances cancel each other out). Crossbow Expert returns advantage to your court, so fire away with whatever spell or weapon you want.
Dragon Fear
Dragonborns are quite nice for grapplers, and this grants a way to give disadvantage to enemies to their grappling checks. It lasts for one full minute and a creature can repeat its saving throw only if it takes damage. As a grappler, you can avoid dealing damage! Once per short rest is not that great however. And you can increase strength.
Dwarven Fortitude
With the Grappler feat, it can be useful to Dodge to not have disadvantage on dex saving throws. And if you can regain hit points when doing so, great. I think that there are better options out there however.
Elemental Adept
If you plan on grappling/restraining enemies and blasting them with magic, Elemental Adept is a solid way to increase your damage. I strongly recommend "fire" as your element of choice, given the power of Fireball, Wall of Fire and Delayed Blast Fireball against restrained targets.
Elven accuracy
A great feat when you're trying to crit, this pairs really well with features granting bigger crit ranges, such as Hexblade curse, Invincible conqueror from oath of conquest, or improved critical from Champion. Denote that only hexblade curse works with spells as well.
Grappler / Grappler
The hands-down most disappointing entry in the PHB, Grappler is the ultimate trap ability. Its first ability is a worse version of the shove-to-prone combat option grapplers already have. However, in builds without Extra Attack, it grants some nice niche action economy. The second ability is what earns Grappler its green status. A restrained target suffers from disadvantage to all Dexterity saving throws, which works nicely with grapplers who use Dexterity-based spell damage. Or grapplers who have allies using that magic. This is a niche way to grapple but a fun one, so I leave it out there as an option for grapplers looking for new ways to enjoy the combat style.
Heavily Armored
Survivability is important for grapplers and, In many cases, multiclassing is the best way to get heavy armor. Just take the highest armor proficiency class at level 1 (like Fighter) and then multiclass out at later levels (to Bard/Rogue/Wizard/etc.). That said, there are some instances where a heavy armor class isn't part of your build. In those cases, this feat becomes a lot better. It even buffs your most important ability score as an added bonus! So if you are a College of Valor Bard going straight Bard, pick this up right after you get medium armor proficiency. This is also a decent starting proficiency to work towards with the Human bonus feat.
Lucky
Remember the Wizard's Portent ability? Lucky is a worse version of Portent, but it's one that any class can get. You generally won't use it against opponents (it only affects attack rolls which we probably don't care about), but you will frequently use it on your own checks. Think of it like triple advantage on Athletics, usable three times per day in between long rests. As far as luxury feats go (stuff like Alert), this one is probably the highest on the list because it's incredibly versatile (it even helps your saving throws) and is relevant in almost all fights at almost every level. Fighters will often get this if they stay in their class for long, just because they get so many feats. Denote that some DMs might forbid it (I do).
Mage Slayer
Back in 3.0 and 3.5, it was a nightmare to cast spells in threatened squares, especially against grapplers. 5th Edition took a lot of bite from that strategy, but Mage Slayer returns some of our former glory. Slayer doesn't prevent spellcasting, but it does put you in a strong enough position that it won't matter. Once grappled, enemy casters will always be within five feet of you, so you can smack them every time they try to cast a spell to get free. If they are concentrating on a spell, that's yet another attack they need to make to a save on. Oh yeah, and they make all their concentration checks at disadvantage, both against your normal attacks and the free reaction attack every single round. As if that weren't enough, you also get advantage on all saving throws against spells cast within five feet of you. Assuming you are holding down 1-2 mages, that's the only range spells will be inbound from. An overall excellent feat for campaigns with lots of spellcasting enemies.
Magic Initiate
In most cases, grapplers are better off just multiclassing into a class with the spell than taking this feat. There aren't a lot of good cantrips for grappling anyway (Guidance is the big one), and although there are a bunch of decent level 1 spells, casting the spell only once limits their usefulness. One solid combination is Guidance, Resistance, and Longstrider from the Druid list (Longstrider lasts an hour and doesn't require concentration). Another is Blade Ward, True Strike, and Hex from Warlock. Hex is a great dip into a spell list you ordinarily wouldn't touch, a bonus-action-casttime, no-save-allowed way to screw an opponent's checks. Although savvy opponents can just switch from Athletics to Acrobatics (or vice versa), this will still leave them making the worse of two checks, or just accepting disadvantage on the roll. Either way, that's a great investment for the grappler. You can also pick up Find Familiar with Magic Initiate, but it's more efficient to get your helpful familiar off Ritual Caster than it is to lock yourself out of the level 1 bonus spell.
Mobile
+10 to your speed is all you need to know about this feat. That's two extra squares with a dash. Or two extra vertical squares with flying. Remember that dragging creatures is one of the best parts of grappling, so any way you can buff that speed is a great way to enhance your combat utility. Difficult terrain is also a big problem for grapplers who drag enemies, and Mobile addresses that too. Just combine this with Monk or Rogue class features to get a bonus Dash and you'll be bounding around the battlefield in no time.
Mounted Combat
Is mounted grappling a thing? RAW it is, and you can actually do some cool things by using your mount's move speed in place of your own. The horse's (or dragon's!) speed isn't halved when you as a rider are grappling, but a DM could reasonable impose penalties on that whole operation. If you convince your DM to allow mounted grappling (it really does work, RAW-wise), then this feat is a decent way to keep your valiant steed alive while you grab people around the battlefield.
Prodigy
A new feat from Xanathar's, it grants, among other benefits, expertise in a skill. Since you absolutely need expertise, this is a must have if you can't or don't want to multiclass in rogue or bard.
Resilient
This is one of the better saving throw bonuses in recent editions, especially if you are a spellcaster who needs to pick up Constitution save proficiency to maintain concentration. The ideal spellcasting grappler will have save-proficiency in Constitution (concentration), Wisdom (fear effects), and Dexterity (most common saving throw), and Resilient is a solid way to pick up that third proficiency.
Ritual Caster
If you want Find Familiar but don't want to a) waste your Magic Initiate feat or b) go into a spellcasting class, then Ritual Caster is the best way to get it. Familiars are a bit limited as grappling helpers (they'll just confer one instance of advantage per round), but they work independently of size, concentration, magic ability, etc. Silence is also a ritual spell, so if you plan good enough, you can use it as well.
Shield Master
One of two gold-rated feat in the PHB, although this one is admittedly limited to single-target grappler builds. But if you do pursue the single-target grappler build, Shield Master is easily one of the best features in the book. Master gives you a free, bonus action-based shove attempt on your target, which frees up your valuable Extra Attack actions to deal more damage or keep an attacker locked down. Simply walk up to your target, grapple them, shove them prone, and then attack them for damage, all as early as level five. Or, even better, grapple them and then shove them prone as early as level one, provided you are a Human getting this feat at creation. The other benefits are just gravy, giving you a bunch of survivability against the most common saving throw effects in the game. You can theoretically drop a shield to use this against multiple opponents, but dropping takes a full action (PHB, 146), so your target might run away. Against a single enemy, however, there's really nothing better.
Squat Nimbleness
Increase in walking speed is great, increase in Strength as well. The free proficiency isn't great, except if you just decided to make a grappler out of an existing character just because you were inspired by this guide. The advantage would be great if it wasn't only for escaping grapples. However, as a bonus to speed and main speed, I still rate it a solid blue.
Tavern Brawler
After Grappler, this is the second grappler feat in the PHB. To start, a big thanks to Wizards for putting not just one but two of these feats in the book; that's a big investment for a combat style that isn't always in the spotlight. It's also significantly better than Grappler, even if it still isn't quite the awesome feat we are hoping for. The Strength/Con bonus is a nice bone, but the second point is largely irrelevant (RAW, everyone is proficient in unarmed strikes) unless you are using lots of improvised weapons. Things get better again with the third benefit, a big unarmed damage increase for grapplers who aren't going into Monk but still need to grapple multiple enemies and deal damage from round to round. Going up from a flat 1 damage to 1d4 damage is big over a long battle, and you'll welcome it if your hands are full. As for the fourth bullet point, it's an Improved Grab lite ala 3rd Edition, but it forces us to commit our opening attack to a melee hit, not a grapple check. It also consumes a valuable bonus action. This gets a lot better when you are fighting spellcasters and need to disrupt their concentration, but it's still often weaker than just walking up to them, grabbing them, and then smacking them after the grapple gets started. Overall, there are a number of builds which will pick up Brawler as a luxury feat, but few that will rely on it as a core feature.
War Caster
If you are a spellcasting grappler, you need this feat. Enhance Ability? Enlarge Person? Shapechange? All of that grappling goodness is concentration-based, and War Caster is the best way to make sure you keep your buffs up in real combat. Grapplers take a lot of damage on the front lines, which means lots of concentration checks to avoid losing your spells. If these break mid-combat, you are going to be in a really bad situation, which makes War Caster indispensable for anyone serious about magic-based grappling. Modes 2 and 3 serve a different sort of grappler, the kind who restrains things with Grappler and then lets them bake in a Wall of Fire or Flame Strike. That second benefit doesn't let you use somatic spells with two enemies in your hands, so you won't be restraining two guys and then casting your spell. But if you are rocking the Shield Master build, that's another story entirely. As for that third benefit, you'll get some reactions out of this, but most enemies won't be moving enough to provoke the AOO. As usual with War Caster, it's the first ability that drives the feat, and you'll need to get this if you want to stay relevant throughout your progression.
IV - Useful spells
I won't go through the entire spell list, since it's really big, and will mostly mention the really interesting spells here. I rated them from best to not-so-best in each category, because colors and tooltips don't work together.
Cantrips
Guidance is great, as an all-around utility spell, and useful if you used it on yourself before grappling.
Vicious Mockery is Verbal only, which means it can still be used when grappling
Level 1
Longstrider Best level 1 grappler buff in the PHB. Free 10 bonus feet to your movement, it lasts an hour, and it doesn't require concentration. Also affects all movement modes!
Shield +5 AC as a reaction is the nuts, especially for low AC grapplers. It's too bad this has somatic components required or it would be gold-rated.
Absorb Elements is a great defensive option, and we're interested in the resistance, so casting at level 1 is enough.
Feather Fall remember what we said about monks? Jumping from tall cliffs / buildings / etc? Well, if you have a slot for Feather Fall, you can do that as well
Healing word is awesome. Bonus action to cast, only verbal component, good range. This is a way better healing spell for grapplers than Cure Wounds.
Hex Bonus action cast time? Check. Huge range? Check. No saving throw?! Check. Add bonus damage, transferability if the target dies, and "virtual" disadvantage on enemy grapple checks and you have the best offensive grappling spell on any level 1 list. Sure, monsters can just switch their grapple check from Athletics to Acrobatics (or vice versa), but most monsters suck at one to begin with, let alone the other. The only reason this isn't rated higher is that it requires concentration, so it's quicly surpassed by Enlarge/Reduce or Enhance Ability.
Level 2
Enhance Ability Second-best level 2 spell in the game. Flat advantage to Strength checks is mandatory for most grapplers, and this spell is only outclassed by the next entry on our list. It even doubles your carrying capacity for more dragging and lifting! If you don't have access to Enlarge/Reduce (Druids don't, for example), this is your go-to buff. This is also very useful outside of combat, in social situations.
Enlarge/Reduce Hands down the single best low-level spell for grapplers. It gives advantage on your Strength checks (plus a random but welcome advantage to Strength saves!), and imparts a +1d4 damage bonus to all attacks made in the larger form. It doesn't double your carrying capacity, unlike Enhance Ability, but it does increase your size category, and that's what makes this spell so nuts (on top of advantage, of course). Medium characters can't grapple anything bigger than size large, but that restriction doesn't exist for Enlarged grapplers. If you can get this spell, get it and don't look back. If you can't, try to get it. If you can't do that, settle with Enhance Ability, but know that Enlarge is the better of the two.
Silence After Antimagic Field, this is the gold standard for ruining a spellcaster's day. The vast majority of spells, especially good combat spells, require verbal components. Grappling mages in a zone of Silence completely shuts down these options, forcing them to poke you with their dagger or try to beat your monstrous Athletics checks. You'll need to concentrate on Silence to keep it going, which means you'll need to persuade someone else in your party to give you Enhance Ability or Enlarge for the advantage. Or have an allied Shepherd Druid.
Mirror Image This has always been one of the better level 2 buffs in D&D and 5th Edition continues the trend. It doesn't even require concentration! Great for magical grapplers because images hit by enemy attacks won't trigger a concentration check on your other buffs.
Misty Step Strong low-level gap closer once the fight actually starts. Note that this teleportation does not count against your movement for the turn, and only costs a bonus action. You can also do this while grappling (it only requires verbal components), but forced movement will end the grapple.
Spike Growth Drag people through the spikes to cause 2d4 damage per 5 feet of movement. More dragging? More damage! Just be careful that you avoid killing yourself as you do it; strong with builds that can stack movement speed to get ton of squares covered in a turn.
Darkness Darkness is quite situational, and you need to be able to see in the darkness, but if you can, the enemies you are grabbing won't be able to do much, and you can be a wall of darkness in the middle of the battlefield.
Level 3
Dispel Magic / Counterspell a great counter to people that want to counter you (with Freedom of Movement for example). Dispel Magic works great against prepared enemies, and even better if you have action surge.
Bestow Curse this should be listed in level 5, since, as a level 3 spell, it's not great, you need your concentration on other things. However, at level 5 of spell slot, it becomes great. No concentration, disadvantage in all checks and saving throws in a ability score!
Fear Most saving throw spells aren't very good for grapplers because they allow re-saves every turn, or because they just aren't much more powerful than just grappling/shoving. Fear is different because it can be a complete fight ender for any monster that fails the save. First, they drop all their items, which you will capitalize on by grappling them and moving them away from those dangerous objects. Second, all affected creatures have flat disadvantage to ALL ability checks (Dexterity and Strength!) while you are in their line of sight. Given that you are grappling them, you aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Finally, they only get a re-save if you leave their sight. And you just want to hug them, so that's not happening either.
Fly now you don't even need a cliff or a high building to drop your opponents to their deaths.
Animate Dead is specialized, you can have your zombies take the Help action to grant you advantage on your checks. And it's no concentration
Higher levels (sorted by level)
Contingency a 6-th level spell that is great for always being prepared to grapple when things go south.
Forcecage 7-th level, is one of the most powerful option to cut enemies out of the fight, does not require concentration, and can combo great with other spells.
Antimagic Field the best counter to anything magic that could prevent you from grappling, and the best counter to magic users. It also counters your own / your allies spells, so you have to be lucky. Maybe Rage of Fallen Ostria from UE sorcerer can take effect in it.
Antipathy/Sympathy Antipathy is the only no-concentration, high-duration, no-resave-allowed "frightened" effect in the game. Once a creature fails that Antipathy save, they are permanently frightened with no concentration required, at least until they get 60 feet away from you. Because of the spell's harsh targeting restrictions, this effect is best used against major Big Bad Evil Guys when you can prepare with 60 minute advance notice. These restrictions make the spell not as great as it could be, but it's still awesome.
Foresight The capstone buff for both College of Valor Bards and, much more terrifyingly, Shapechanging Wizards. Foresight lasts 8 hours, requires no concentration, bestows advantage on all your ability checks and, as if those three benefits weren't enough, also bestows advantage on saving throws and disadvantage on all attacks against you. There's not much more to say on the spell other than that it's the best single-target grappler buff in the PHB.
Shapechange Unlike Polymorph or True Polymorph, Shapechange gives you a new form but lets you keep all your class features and other character abilities. And you can also cast spells? Yeah, it really does feel like cheating. This spell is Broken with a capital B, but for grapplers we are generally just looking for big monsters with high strength scores, ideally with high Athletics checks (unless yours is somehow higher). Storm Giant (Athletics +14) is a great place to start, as are the CR 20 dragons (Ancient Brass/White).
Okay, I can see that, but you'll need to use dexterity or one of the mental ability scores to actually be able to use it, and grappling always uses strength. You might be a little stretched on scores if you need high strength as well as one of those. I will delete my previous post so that I don't clutter anything you might want to post here.
Hosted a battle between the Cult of Sedge and the Forum Countershere(Done now). I_Love_Tarrasques has won the fight, scoring a victory for the fiendish Moderators.
Here are some examples of characters that are good grapplers. I tried to make characters that can be good grapplers as soon as possible, which is often not that early because of spell requirements and feats. A lower level grappler can work as well, but will miss some bonuses, with the notable exception of barbarians
Single class:
Barbarian V.Human. Works with half-orc and half-elf as well, but needs level 4 for expertise. You should take totem warrior as path, with Bear or Elk at level 3, then Bear then whatever. Eagle if you went with Elk at level 3 can be fun, you only want to be able to reach your (flying) target, after that, you can both fall.
Eldritch Knight V.Human. Works with half-orc and half-elf as well, but a bit slower for feats.
Lore Bard Gihtyanki. Valor bard works as well, and other races work as well, Githyanki is the only one with medium armor + good movespeed.
Bladesinger Half-elf. Only works with half-elf due to restrictions to bladesinging and prodigy. You can see that stats are starting to be spreaded thin here.
WIP as well. Here is a level 20 multiclass Sorcerer 14/Bard 5 / Hexblade 1(with magic items, original str is 14) I did before writing the guide.
The best allies for grapplers
Spellcasters are great allies for grapplers. Even if you can cast Enlarge/Reduce on yourself (which you should, because concentration spells are super useful), an ally casting Silence, or a Wall of Fire are valuable assets.
The other greatest ally to a grappler is anyone who can give bonus to skill checks, such as bards (with inspiration). It's even better if it's not concentration, or, if it is, it's someone who doesn't use concentration (a monk or ranger with Guidance from magic initiate for example)
I love grappling in this game. At high level, my bugbear rogue/barb will have a minimum strength (athletics) check of 10+6+5+5 = 26 and be able to carry, with powerful build and bear aspect, 1200 lbs. I started my grappler before XGtE came out or I think I would have gone pure half-orc EK taking prodigy and enlarge/reduce.
One of the downsides, I have experienced while playing a grappler (in AL) is that DMs don't understand how it works. Specifically, they often don't understand that grappling is not an attack roll so things that give disadvantage to attack rolls (most things we think of as giving disadvantage) don't apply to grappling.
You mention that grappling combos well with spike growth, but I think only a very permissive DM would allow much of that. The rules for grappling say that you can drag or carry and many DMs as well as a lot of posters on this forum (including me) think that dragging typically means behind you and not to the side of you. If you want combo with spike growth you can probably only force 5' of movement maybe 10' if you shove also. I don't really want this thread to devolve into that same discussion, but I think your guide could at least mention the controversy.
Overall I think this is good work. Thanks for posting.
You mention only one way of escaping a Grapple: using an action to roll an escape. There are many other ways that basically involve moving the grappler away (a shove or all sorts of forced movement spells) or teleporting the grappled target away via something like a Misty Step. Best include those details to ensure people planning to Grapple are ready for those situations.
RegentCorreon: I included these in the description. They were mentionned much later in the original guide, but it makes more sense to mention them at the beginning, you're right.
pwhimp: Yeah, since it's not a popular option, I can understand why DMs don't know how it works. However, I think AL also offers greater possibilities of multiclassing, which is very strong for a grappler.
I think that as a DM, I would allow dragging along your side something not to heavy, but wouldn't allow for something really heavy. RAW, you can drag along your side. However, I think in some cases (barbarian), taking the damage as well as the two grappled creatures is still a good option
I'm nearly done with the classes, will try to do the Feats tomorrow, and maybe include builds if I have the time.
You can move with a grappled creature but your movement is halved. If the creature were dead weight, it is likely that the creature plus equipment plus your equipment would exceed your carrying capacity (Str x 15) and you would only be able to move with it 5’. Although the description of movement is called “drag or carry”, I imagine it more like you have the grappled creature off balance, they are stumbling around and you are guiding their direction.
Trying to figure out if the creature exceeded your carrying capacity every time you wanted to move a grappled creature would have been a real pain, which is probably why they didn’t do it that way. A DM who doesn’t like the grappled movement rules can always change it for their campaign. I would suggest that the creature becomes dead weight when prone or is no longer on the ground. This way, a grappled creature could drop prone to avoid being dragged more than 5’ but they would then suffer the disadvantages of the prone condition. I would just quickly estimate whether the grappled creature exceeds the grappler’s carrying capacity. If it is close, just give the PC’s the benefit of the doubt.
Although the description of movement is called “drag or carry”, I imagine it more like you have the grappled creature off balance, they are stumbling around and you are guiding their direction.
Trying to figure out if the creature exceeded your carrying capacity every time you wanted to move a grappled creature would have been a real pain, which is probably why they didn’t do it that way.
I would suggest that the creature becomes dead weight when prone or is no longer on the ground. This way, a grappled creature could drop prone to avoid being dragged more than 5’ but they would then suffer the disadvantages of the prone condition.
That'd arguably just make things easier on the grappler. It's much harder to oppose being pulled when you can't dig your heels into the ground, especially if you're lying face up.
If someone doesn't want to be dragged around, they can grapple back.
I took the same approach as the original creator of the guide (linked at the beginning of first post) for dragging / lifting creatures and weight. Moreover, I think you always want the creatures to be prone when you drag them, as it's a huge buff to survivability.
I think weight might be a problem anyways in specific environments like dragging creatures underwater or up in the air.
It's always up to DM fiat. I will include a note about it
I should have copied the techniques, and given the basic idea of critfishing for offensive use of grapple with attack spells. However, I lack practical knowledge of the build, I'm mostly a DM and never played a grappler, and using one against players reduces quite a lot the drawbacks. So, I'm not sure I'm the most suited person to write this build, but translating it to dndbeyond felt nice and clean
Concerning the builds, I'm waiting for dndbeyond to add folders, because it's too much of a mess otherwise
Trying to get a handle on grappling/shoving prone.
Have come to conclusion that I don't like these feats:-
Tavern brawler: as a hexblade warlock using CHA weapons, reverting to low damage weapons using STR instead would be a real step backwards.
Shield Master: Text says "Simply walk up to your target, grapple them, shove them prone, and then attack them for damage, all as early as level five. Or, even better, grapple them and then shove them prone as early as level one, provided you are a Human getting this feat at creation". With a weapon in one hand and a shield in the other, how are we to initiate and maintain grapple? And doffing a shield to free up that hand takes up an entire action.
Grappler: People hate this, yet it looks the best of a bad bunch, but really isn't that great, still. forget about the restrain part, that's crap. Simply put, it gives advantage if you grapple a mob. If locking down and getting advantage is the aim, that's good. You cannot use your shield arm at all for anything other than grappling, but that's a small cost.
No Feat: The only difference between Grappler and no feat at all, is an extra attack being required to shove prone. (in order to gain advantage, something grappler gives you in the feat) Result for you is similar, lockdown and advantage to attacks, and again, no shield possible. Better than grappler in terms of grappled and prone means mob gets disadvantage to hit you.
Moving: you move half your speed, and you drag along anything you're grappling, no save. This is where a combo with Spike Growth becomes quite strong! (RAW, it works, but depending on the DM, you might have to go through it as well).
Am I the only DM who thinks that RAW, this does not work? I just can not see how "pushing" or "dragging" would allow a PC to move an enemy (up to movement speed) through an area of Spike Growth... assuming that this is the ever-loved combo in reference here.
Am I the only DM who thinks that RAW, this does not work?
I just can not see how "pushing" or "dragging" would allow a PC to move an enemy (up to movement speed) through an area of Spike Growth... assuming that this is the ever-loved combo in reference here.
I definitely don't think it's RAW. The only way I see this working is to either walk through the spike growth yourself or to hold the grappled creature to your side and walk parallel to the spike growth boundary. Only one of those is allowed by the rules if the common definition of "drag" is used. I've been unsuccessfully trying to think of a common use of "drag" that involves being to the side of the dragger. I have a no large torque rule at my table.
It did just occurred to me that you could drag a creature out of spike growth and then push them back in repeatedly. I haven't read spike growth in a while so this might not actually work.
Am I the only DM who thinks that RAW, this does not work?
I just can not see how "pushing" or "dragging" would allow a PC to move an enemy (up to movement speed) through an area of Spike Growth... assuming that this is the ever-loved combo in reference here.
I definitely don't think it's RAW. The only way I see this working is to either walk through the spike growth yourself or to hold the grappled creature to your side and walk parallel to the spike growth boundary. Only one of those is allowed by the rules if the common definition of "drag" is used. I've been unsuccessfully trying to think of a common use of "drag" that involves being to the side of the dragger. I have a no large torque rule at my table.
It did just occurred to me that you could drag a creature out of spike growth and then push them back in repeatedly. I haven't read spike growth in a while so this might not actually work.
Ahhh!!! And that one never occurred to me! This I would definitely have no issue with. Thanks for pointing that out.
Except from extra attack, there is nothing great in rangers, and lots of other classes can get extra attack.
Ranger archetypes:
Beast master: Relying on Help from your companion and a familiar, it allows to have advantage on your two rolls to grapple and shove.
Monster slayer: you can prevent a teleportation out of your grapple with Magic User's Nemesis. Same with Slayer's Counter, both features prevent escaping grapples by pushing you or teleporting away.
These two are the "good" Ranger archetypes. From my reading of the Horizon Walker class, you can literally Grapple one, Teleport to another, and Grapple a second. If you really wanted to, and Ravnica was included, be a Minotaur-Ranger, grapple one in each hand, then use your horns to deal damage every turn. Alternatively (any race) use the Sword Burst cantrip from SCAG (Verbal components only) to deal damage in a 5' radius.
The only real synergy there is that you can teleport to force enemies together, then use a verbal-only spell to damage them both simultaneously. Just some ideas.
Gloom Walker is best in underground/darkness... no idea on the grappler synergy though.
It did just occurred to me that you could drag a creature out of spike growth and then push them back in repeatedly. I haven't read spike growth in a while so this might not actually work.
Which makes me think of the Bugbear's Long-Limbed feature. Since you have 10' reach, you can push them 5' away and drag them back. This seems like a really ineffective strategy though. You have disadvantage on attack roles (RAW) if they are 10' from you, even though you have reach if they're Prone.
I know Rune Knight isn't core yet but we all know it will be and I doubt it will change significantly enough from the UA to make it a bad choice here. Anyway, criticisms, thoughts?
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Hi,
As a foreword, I was greatly inspired and stealed a lot (and learned a lot) from The Grappler's Manual of ktkenshinx. However, it lacks a lot of useful stuff from XGtE and later books, and that's the reason why I'm making a new version. I kept a lot of things from the guide, as well as the formatting, because it's just so nicely done.
I will use the same rating system as the original guide: colors indicate what are the best choices:
Introduction - Why grappling? How to grapple?
Grappling has a lot of uses as a control of enemies. Mages grappled in a Silence zone can't cast most of their spells anymore, any dirty hit-and-run tactics is instantly negated by a quick grab, and why not drag away that coward up to the nearby cliff and see if he learns to fly before reaching the bottom?
In a battlefield, where spells have specific area of effects, some dealing damage as long as you're in the area, a grappler is a terrific way of making spells like sickening radiance take their full effect. Grappling can also grant huge benefits from both an offensive and a defensive point of view, especially when combined when shoving prone!
Mechanically, grappling is almost always in favor of a good grappler. Grappling is resisted by either an Athletics or Acrobatics skill check of a DC equal your Athletics skill check. This is a skill check, meaning a legendary resistance or good saving throws won't help, only skill!
Of course, there are some drawbacks to grappling: you're not great against large numbers of opponents, since you only have two hands, your mobility is reduced a lot when grappling, getting close might both be a problem and be dangerous, and your damage output might be lower that some damage-oriented builds.
As a recap, in a neat list, here are the PROs and CONs of grappling:
Now, how does one grapple? Well, in order to grapple, you need to take the Grapple action. It's considered a special melee attack, and replace one of your attacks if you have multiple attacks. You must have one free hand, and the target must be no more than one size bigger than you, and must be within your reach. However, grappling is a Athletics check against the target's Athletics or Acrobatics check. If you succeed, the target is grappled. You can release the grapple whenever you want, no check nor action required.
Shoving works the same, except you don't need a free hand.
How to get out of being grappled? A grappled creature can use its action to try to escape, and make a Athletics or Acrobatics check against your Athletics check. This use their action, and they are not sure to succeed. If you're forcefully moved away from the grappled target, the grapples end. The Shove action can break a grapple, as spells like Thunderwave. An other way to escape grapple is to teleport, with spells such as Misty step.
Combining grappling and other actions:
How's this guide gonna work ?
This guide has 3 important sections, and one examples section. The important sections are :
Each section will use one of the below post. Lastly, there will be a build example section.
The class section is probably the most important one, and is going to have two ratings per class: one noted SC for single class, and one noted MC for multiclass. If your GM does not allows multiclassing or if, for story reasons, you don't want to, the second rating will help you.
Moreover, the color rating green is special, as it means you need a specific build to make it work. I will list these builds and how they work.
Advanced grappling techniques and specific builds:
So, maybe you just want to play a grappler, and its fine. But maybe you want something else out of your grapples, or different ways to grapple. Below is a list of different techniques, their explanations, and how I will abbreviate them (in parentheses next to the technique) if I need to speak about them in the guide below. They will probably all be rated green because it's a special use of grappling and requires a specific build most of the time.
If your DM allows it, a creature with hands can grapple like humans do. This is often a resource-intensive technique, but you are no longer restricted by your form, meaning it's easier to be big, and you can have awesome Strength. Note that most shape-changing spells (and the druid shapechanging) allow to keep your proficicency bonus, and expertise if you have it.
When you grapple, you want to have advantage on your Athletics checks. Often, you will use a spell or a class feature. However, if you manage to get Help every time you try a grapple, you save up some valuable spells or limited times class features.
Once you grappled an ennemy, if the environment doesn't provide hasards, you can chose to be one: if you jump high enough, the fall is going to do some damage to the grappled creature. And you as well, so... be careful. Both of you end up prone after falling, but you can get up, whereas your ennemy cannot if you still grapple him.
If you have the grappler feat, or if you shove your ennemy, you have advantage on all attacks against him. Now, if we combine this with elven accuracy and extended crit ranges, your crit chances can skyrocket, allowing you to spend resources in the hope of (or after) a crit.
The second bullet of the grappler feat is that you can use your action to cause your ennemy (and yourself) to be restrained. This doesn't prevent casting spells, and spells which force dex saving throws become suddenly way more potent.
I - Grappling Races
Mechanically, grappling relies on Athletics, hence Strength is very much needed. Otherwise, race can be chosen according to the class you want to play, to grant bonuses that fit the class well. A special mention should be given to races that have improved carrying capacity, as the one granted by Powerful Build. Official ruling is that weight doesn't matter in grappling, but you should check it with your DM first (if he doesn't care, then races with powerful build are rated a bit worse than here). It helps a lot if you want to play a Controller Grappler. If you want to play a grappler to have advantage on all attack rolls, then it's not as needed as for a Controller. I gave some options a higher rating considering some feats they can take that allows them to avoid multiclassing. In campaigns where water would often be available / nearby, races with swimming speed (and amphibious) become a lot better (sea elves, aquatic half-elves, water genasi, lizardfolk somewhat, triton, turtle somewhat probably, simic hybrid, etc...)
Player handbook and basic rules:
[spoiler]test[/spoiler]
Dragonborn:
Dwarf:
Elf:
Gnome:
Half-elf:
Halfling:
Half-orc:
Human:
Tiefling:
Arakocra:
Genasi:
Goliath:
Monstrous races:
Aasimar:
Bugbear:
Firbolg:
Goblin:
Hobgoblin:
Kenku:
Kobold:
Lizardfolk:
Orc:
Tabaxi:
Triton:
Yuan-Ti:
SCAG + Tortle + MToF:
Feral Tieflings:
Tortle??
Gith:
Eberron:
Ravnica:
Centaur:
Loxodon:
Minotaur:
Simic Hybrid:
Vedalken:
My homebrew feat for thrown weapons, feat to help DMs extend Sorcerer's spells known list, and my homebrew combo monk subclass (diablo inspired)!
II - Grappling classes
I will give two ratings for each class: MC and SC, for Multiclassing and Single Class. If your DM does not allows Multiclassing, or you don't want to, refer to the SC rating, otherwise, look at MC. I give insight on which class features are the strong ones for grappling, and don't mention the others.For a class to be good at grappling without multiclassing (=SC rating) it needs to have a way to get advantage on Strength checks. Enlarge/Reduce is the best way to get this, because of the increase in size, but other features are good as well.
Moreover, the subclasses are rated comparatively to the other subclasses for the same class: if you're multiclassing, taking 3 levels in fighter, even arcane archer, is probably better than taking levels in warlock (except some specific builds)
Note: Offensive grappling focuses on using resources with high damage output (such as smites or spells) when you have advantage from the grappler feat or because the target is prone. With elven accuracy, you have around 15% chance of dealing a critical hit, and should never miss.
Note: if your class doesn't grant you expertise, and if you don't plan multiclassing, you should be human, half-elf, or half-orc in order to have expertise in Athletics via the Prodigy feat.
Barbarian (MC / SC):
Class features:
Rage: grants advantage on all Athletics checks, improved damage, improved damage. This is the bread and butter of Barbarians, and it's awesome for grapplers. It's also one of the rare non-magical ways to have advantage on all Strength rolls.
Extra Attack: allows to grapple twice, or shove twice, or grapple + shove. Awesome! Or grapple and attack, but if you"re a barbarian and want to attack, you shouldn't consider grappling.
Paths:
Bard (MC / SC):
Class features:
Spellcasting: Bards are full spellcasters, and their spellcastings scales off charisma. You can
negotiate, bluff, and persuadeeveryoneshow off as the best grappler and people will be in awe.Skills: lots of them!
Expertise: This is one of the mandatory feature for a grappler, and bards get it freely.
Magical Secrets: This is where the bard shines, the ability to grab Enlarge Reduce without multiclassing! It comes a bit late however, except for Lore Bards.
Colleges:
Cleric (MC / SC):
Class features:
Spellcasting: clerics can cast Enhance Ability which is Enlarge but not as good. You have access to the Guidance to improve your Athletics at early levels. Lots of cleric spells have melee range, and they are full casters which is why spellcasting is rated good here. Reminder that a spell with melee range gets advantage if the target is prone, or if you have the Grappler feat. Combined with Elven Accuracy, this can make offensive grapplers that rely on critical hits on spells.
Divine intervention: this is up to the DM, it can be great, meh, harmful to the party, or anything, really...
Proficiencies: medium / heavy armor is nice.
Domains:
Druid (MC / SC):
Class features:
Wild shape: awesome ability, you can keep concentrating on spells when wild shaped, you gain the physical ability scores of the beast, but you keep proficiencies and expertise from your class / feats. However, remember that grappling requires a free hand, so you might have to negotiate with your DM.
Spellcasting: as clerics, you have Enhance Ability, but you can use it when shapechanged, which is way better than clerics. You also have Guidance, Spike Growth and lots of spells that make enemies fall prone.
Circles:
Fighter (MC / SC):
Class features:
Action Surge: a great power, usable once per short rest, available at very early levels. Really great, and the reason why a lot of multiclass take a 2 levels dip in fighter.
Extra ASIs: Grappling can have a high feat tax, and extra ASIs help a lot to get everything you want. And more!
Extra Attacks: allows to grapple twice, or shove twice, or grapple + shove. Awesome! Or grapple and attack. As a fighter, you have way more attacks than other classes, meaning you can grapple twice and shove twice quite early on, or attack targets that are prone + grappled, and have advantage.
Martial archetypes:
Monks (MC / SC):
Class features:
Martial arts: A good improvement of your unarmed strikes (reminder: unarmed strikes don't need a free hand, you can attack with your knees, your feet, etc...), and an attack as a bonus action as long as you take the Attack action in your turn. Pairs well with battle maneuvers (or the Open Hand features)
Ki: all three options are really interesting, either for a damage perspective, for an increased survivability, or for increased mobility.
Unarmored movement: Increased mobility, helps a lot for grappling builds.
Slow fall: some grapplers just got to jump down with their grappled targets. That's a good tactic to deal damage, but it's a bit dangerous for yourself as well. Well, slow fall mitigates a lot of the damage.
Extra Attack: allows to grapple twice, or shove twice, or grapple + shove. Awesome! Or grapple and attack,and use flurry of blows.
Stunning Strike: A stunned creature automatically fails strength and dex saving throws. This combine very well with Open Hand techniques.
Evasion: if you take the Grappler feat, this is super useful. Since both you and the target both have disadvantage on dex saving throws, mitigating damage is nice.
Monastic Traditions:
Paladin (MC / SC):
Class features:
Divine smite: a nice source of nova damage, that can combine well with advantage and crits. Can be used with Elven accuracy if you play dex or Hexblade.
Extra Attack: allows to grapple twice, or shove twice, or grapple + shove. Awesome! Or grapple and attack, and hope to be lucky and crit smite.
Oaths:
Rangers (MC / SC):
Class features:
Except from extra attack, there is nothing great in rangers, and lots of other classes can get extra attack.
Ranger archetypes:
Rogue (MC / SC):
Class features:
Sneak attack: a great way to improve your damage, and as a grappler, you will always have advantage on attack rolls.
Expertise: This is one of the mandatory feature for a grappler, and rogues get it freely at level 1!
Cunning action: a Dash as a bonus action is awesome!
Evasion: if you take the Grappler feat, this is super useful. Since both you and the target both have disadvantage on dex saving throws, mitigating damage is nice.
Reliable Talent: automatic 10 on Athletics, with expertise and a correct strength, it's great.
Stroke of Luck: the rogue capstone, really strong for grappling, but it comes late and is limited to once per short day.
Roguish archetypes:
Sorcerer (MC / SC):
Class features:
Spellcasting: As bards, sorcerer have nice spellcasting, and have access to Enlarge/Reduce.
Proficiencies: no armor, which is really a pain for a grappler, but proficiency in constitution saving throws is great for a caster at melee range such as a grappler.
Metamagic: this is where things become interesting. Or even really interesting. Subtle spell and quickened spells are both great, and heightened spell is really nice as well.
Origin:
Warlock (MC / SC):
Class features:
Nothing great in the class features, except:
Eldritch Invocations: Devil's Sight is the only way to be able to see through darkness and magical darkness. Shadow sorcerers can only do so with the Darkness they cast. Eldritch Smite is nice as well, if you manage to hit the creature, you can automatically knock it prone, no save. Grasp of Hadar can be useful to force target to get closer. Relentless hex is a nice gap closer. Sculptor of Flesh grants access to Polymorph, but it's not the best way to get it.
Patrons:
Wizard (MC / SC):
Class features:
Spellcasting: Every spell you want as a grappler, you can have. Be it Enlarge/Reduce, Polymorph or even Shapechange, you can have them all.
Spell Mastery: Awesome for buffs like Enlarge/Reduce and Shield.
Arcane traditions:
My homebrew feat for thrown weapons, feat to help DMs extend Sorcerer's spells known list, and my homebrew combo monk subclass (diablo inspired)!
III - Feats
I won't speak of the Eberron feats, since I don't have access to them. As previously, I only list useful feats, and the others are bad or not helping grappling.
Alert
Most characters have an initiative bonus based on dexterity and nothing else, so +5 is massive. Grappling, moreso than other playstyles, really wants to go first in combat because the earlier you wrangle people to the ground, the earlier you can shut them out of the fight. Surprise immunity and extra anti-invisibility is gravy.
Athlete
The cornerstone of the powerbomb suplex grapple technique (see builds later). Athlete lets you jump really high with your grappled target(s), throw them to the ground, and then land, stand, and re-grapple. All in one turn. Without Athlete, your jumps will be shorter, your standing will be slower, and the combat style will be much less efficient.
Crossbow Expert
Some readers might be surprised to see this ranked so highly. Turn your attention to the second bullet point which, RAW-wise, does not actually require you to wield a crossbow to benefit from. If you are playing a spellcasting grappler, you will need this to cast your ranged attack roll-based spells without disadvantage. You can knock an opponent prone to negate that disadvantage, but then you lose the subsequent advantage from attacking within 5 feet of the prone enemy (the two instances cancel each other out). Crossbow Expert returns advantage to your court, so fire away with whatever spell or weapon you want.
Dragon Fear
Dragonborns are quite nice for grapplers, and this grants a way to give disadvantage to enemies to their grappling checks. It lasts for one full minute and a creature can repeat its saving throw only if it takes damage. As a grappler, you can avoid dealing damage! Once per short rest is not that great however. And you can increase strength.
Dwarven Fortitude
With the Grappler feat, it can be useful to Dodge to not have disadvantage on dex saving throws. And if you can regain hit points when doing so, great. I think that there are better options out there however.
Elemental Adept
If you plan on grappling/restraining enemies and blasting them with magic, Elemental Adept is a solid way to increase your damage. I strongly recommend "fire" as your element of choice, given the power of Fireball, Wall of Fire and Delayed Blast Fireball against restrained targets.
Elven accuracy
A great feat when you're trying to crit, this pairs really well with features granting bigger crit ranges, such as Hexblade curse, Invincible conqueror from oath of conquest, or improved critical from Champion. Denote that only hexblade curse works with spells as well.
Grappler / Grappler
The hands-down most disappointing entry in the PHB, Grappler is the ultimate trap ability. Its first ability is a worse version of the shove-to-prone combat option grapplers already have. However, in builds without Extra Attack, it grants some nice niche action economy. The second ability is what earns Grappler its green status. A restrained target suffers from disadvantage to all Dexterity saving throws, which works nicely with grapplers who use Dexterity-based spell damage. Or grapplers who have allies using that magic. This is a niche way to grapple but a fun one, so I leave it out there as an option for grapplers looking for new ways to enjoy the combat style.
Heavily Armored
Survivability is important for grapplers and, In many cases, multiclassing is the best way to get heavy armor. Just take the highest armor proficiency class at level 1 (like Fighter) and then multiclass out at later levels (to Bard/Rogue/Wizard/etc.). That said, there are some instances where a heavy armor class isn't part of your build. In those cases, this feat becomes a lot better. It even buffs your most important ability score as an added bonus! So if you are a College of Valor Bard going straight Bard, pick this up right after you get medium armor proficiency. This is also a decent starting proficiency to work towards with the Human bonus feat.
Lucky
Remember the Wizard's Portent ability? Lucky is a worse version of Portent, but it's one that any class can get. You generally won't use it against opponents (it only affects attack rolls which we probably don't care about), but you will frequently use it on your own checks. Think of it like triple advantage on Athletics, usable three times per day in between long rests. As far as luxury feats go (stuff like Alert), this one is probably the highest on the list because it's incredibly versatile (it even helps your saving throws) and is relevant in almost all fights at almost every level. Fighters will often get this if they stay in their class for long, just because they get so many feats. Denote that some DMs might forbid it (I do).
Mage Slayer
Back in 3.0 and 3.5, it was a nightmare to cast spells in threatened squares, especially against grapplers. 5th Edition took a lot of bite from that strategy, but Mage Slayer returns some of our former glory. Slayer doesn't prevent spellcasting, but it does put you in a strong enough position that it won't matter. Once grappled, enemy casters will always be within five feet of you, so you can smack them every time they try to cast a spell to get free. If they are concentrating on a spell, that's yet another attack they need to make to a save on. Oh yeah, and they make all their concentration checks at disadvantage, both against your normal attacks and the free reaction attack every single round. As if that weren't enough, you also get advantage on all saving throws against spells cast within five feet of you. Assuming you are holding down 1-2 mages, that's the only range spells will be inbound from. An overall excellent feat for campaigns with lots of spellcasting enemies.
Magic Initiate
In most cases, grapplers are better off just multiclassing into a class with the spell than taking this feat. There aren't a lot of good cantrips for grappling anyway (Guidance is the big one), and although there are a bunch of decent level 1 spells, casting the spell only once limits their usefulness. One solid combination is Guidance, Resistance, and Longstrider from the Druid list (Longstrider lasts an hour and doesn't require concentration). Another is Blade Ward, True Strike, and Hex from Warlock. Hex is a great dip into a spell list you ordinarily wouldn't touch, a bonus-action-casttime, no-save-allowed way to screw an opponent's checks. Although savvy opponents can just switch from Athletics to Acrobatics (or vice versa), this will still leave them making the worse of two checks, or just accepting disadvantage on the roll. Either way, that's a great investment for the grappler. You can also pick up Find Familiar with Magic Initiate, but it's more efficient to get your helpful familiar off Ritual Caster than it is to lock yourself out of the level 1 bonus spell.
Mobile
+10 to your speed is all you need to know about this feat. That's two extra squares with a dash. Or two extra vertical squares with flying. Remember that dragging creatures is one of the best parts of grappling, so any way you can buff that speed is a great way to enhance your combat utility. Difficult terrain is also a big problem for grapplers who drag enemies, and Mobile addresses that too. Just combine this with Monk or Rogue class features to get a bonus Dash and you'll be bounding around the battlefield in no time.
Mounted Combat
Is mounted grappling a thing? RAW it is, and you can actually do some cool things by using your mount's move speed in place of your own. The horse's (or dragon's!) speed isn't halved when you as a rider are grappling, but a DM could reasonable impose penalties on that whole operation. If you convince your DM to allow mounted grappling (it really does work, RAW-wise), then this feat is a decent way to keep your valiant steed alive while you grab people around the battlefield.
Prodigy
A new feat from Xanathar's, it grants, among other benefits, expertise in a skill. Since you absolutely need expertise, this is a must have if you can't or don't want to multiclass in rogue or bard.
Resilient
This is one of the better saving throw bonuses in recent editions, especially if you are a spellcaster who needs to pick up Constitution save proficiency to maintain concentration. The ideal spellcasting grappler will have save-proficiency in Constitution (concentration), Wisdom (fear effects), and Dexterity (most common saving throw), and Resilient is a solid way to pick up that third proficiency.
Ritual Caster
If you want Find Familiar but don't want to a) waste your Magic Initiate feat or b) go into a spellcasting class, then Ritual Caster is the best way to get it. Familiars are a bit limited as grappling helpers (they'll just confer one instance of advantage per round), but they work independently of size, concentration, magic ability, etc. Silence is also a ritual spell, so if you plan good enough, you can use it as well.
Shield Master
One of two gold-rated feat in the PHB, although this one is admittedly limited to single-target grappler builds. But if you do pursue the single-target grappler build, Shield Master is easily one of the best features in the book. Master gives you a free, bonus action-based shove attempt on your target, which frees up your valuable Extra Attack actions to deal more damage or keep an attacker locked down. Simply walk up to your target, grapple them, shove them prone, and then attack them for damage, all as early as level five. Or, even better, grapple them and then shove them prone as early as level one, provided you are a Human getting this feat at creation. The other benefits are just gravy, giving you a bunch of survivability against the most common saving throw effects in the game. You can theoretically drop a shield to use this against multiple opponents, but dropping takes a full action (PHB, 146), so your target might run away. Against a single enemy, however, there's really nothing better.
Squat Nimbleness
Increase in walking speed is great, increase in Strength as well. The free proficiency isn't great, except if you just decided to make a grappler out of an existing character just because you were inspired by this guide. The advantage would be great if it wasn't only for escaping grapples. However, as a bonus to speed and main speed, I still rate it a solid blue.
Tavern Brawler
After Grappler, this is the second grappler feat in the PHB. To start, a big thanks to Wizards for putting not just one but two of these feats in the book; that's a big investment for a combat style that isn't always in the spotlight. It's also significantly better than Grappler, even if it still isn't quite the awesome feat we are hoping for. The Strength/Con bonus is a nice bone, but the second point is largely irrelevant (RAW, everyone is proficient in unarmed strikes) unless you are using lots of improvised weapons. Things get better again with the third benefit, a big unarmed damage increase for grapplers who aren't going into Monk but still need to grapple multiple enemies and deal damage from round to round. Going up from a flat 1 damage to 1d4 damage is big over a long battle, and you'll welcome it if your hands are full. As for the fourth bullet point, it's an Improved Grab lite ala 3rd Edition, but it forces us to commit our opening attack to a melee hit, not a grapple check. It also consumes a valuable bonus action. This gets a lot better when you are fighting spellcasters and need to disrupt their concentration, but it's still often weaker than just walking up to them, grabbing them, and then smacking them after the grapple gets started. Overall, there are a number of builds which will pick up Brawler as a luxury feat, but few that will rely on it as a core feature.
War Caster
If you are a spellcasting grappler, you need this feat. Enhance Ability? Enlarge Person? Shapechange? All of that grappling goodness is concentration-based, and War Caster is the best way to make sure you keep your buffs up in real combat. Grapplers take a lot of damage on the front lines, which means lots of concentration checks to avoid losing your spells. If these break mid-combat, you are going to be in a really bad situation, which makes War Caster indispensable for anyone serious about magic-based grappling.
Modes 2 and 3 serve a different sort of grappler, the kind who restrains things with Grappler and then lets them bake in a Wall of Fire or Flame Strike. That second benefit doesn't let you use somatic spells with two enemies in your hands, so you won't be restraining two guys and then casting your spell. But if you are rocking the Shield Master build, that's another story entirely. As for that third benefit, you'll get some reactions out of this, but most enemies won't be moving enough to provoke the AOO. As usual with War Caster, it's the first ability that drives the feat, and you'll need to get this if you want to stay relevant throughout your progression.
IV - Useful spells
I won't go through the entire spell list, since it's really big, and will mostly mention the really interesting spells here. I rated them from best to not-so-best in each category, because colors and tooltips don't work together.
Cantrips
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Higher levels (sorted by level)
My homebrew feat for thrown weapons, feat to help DMs extend Sorcerer's spells known list, and my homebrew combo monk subclass (diablo inspired)!
Okay, I can see that, but you'll need to use dexterity or one of the mental ability scores to actually be able to use it, and grappling always uses strength. You might be a little stretched on scores if you need high strength as well as one of those. I will delete my previous post so that I don't clutter anything you might want to post here.
Subclass Evaluations So Far:
Sorcerer
Warlock
My statblock. Fear me!
Hosted a battle between the Cult of Sedge and the Forum Counters here(Done now). I_Love_Tarrasques has won the fight, scoring a victory for the fiendish Moderators.
VI - Examples of builds
Here are some examples of characters that are good grapplers. I tried to make characters that can be good grapplers as soon as possible, which is often not that early because of spell requirements and feats. A lower level grappler can work as well, but will miss some bonuses, with the notable exception of barbarians
Single class:
Multiclass
WIP
Experimental Damage builds
WIP as well. Here is a level 20 multiclass Sorcerer 14/Bard 5 / Hexblade 1(with magic items, original str is 14) I did before writing the guide.
The best allies for grapplers
Spellcasters are great allies for grapplers. Even if you can cast Enlarge/Reduce on yourself (which you should, because concentration spells are super useful), an ally casting Silence, or a Wall of Fire are valuable assets.
The other greatest ally to a grappler is anyone who can give bonus to skill checks, such as bards (with inspiration). It's even better if it's not concentration, or, if it is, it's someone who doesn't use concentration (a monk or ranger with Guidance from magic initiate for example)
My homebrew feat for thrown weapons, feat to help DMs extend Sorcerer's spells known list, and my homebrew combo monk subclass (diablo inspired)!
I love grappling in this game. At high level, my bugbear rogue/barb will have a minimum strength (athletics) check of 10+6+5+5 = 26 and be able to carry, with powerful build and bear aspect, 1200 lbs. I started my grappler before XGtE came out or I think I would have gone pure half-orc EK taking prodigy and enlarge/reduce.
One of the downsides, I have experienced while playing a grappler (in AL) is that DMs don't understand how it works. Specifically, they often don't understand that grappling is not an attack roll so things that give disadvantage to attack rolls (most things we think of as giving disadvantage) don't apply to grappling.
You mention that grappling combos well with spike growth, but I think only a very permissive DM would allow much of that. The rules for grappling say that you can drag or carry and many DMs as well as a lot of posters on this forum (including me) think that dragging typically means behind you and not to the side of you. If you want combo with spike growth you can probably only force 5' of movement maybe 10' if you shove also. I don't really want this thread to devolve into that same discussion, but I think your guide could at least mention the controversy.
Overall I think this is good work. Thanks for posting.
You mention only one way of escaping a Grapple: using an action to roll an escape. There are many other ways that basically involve moving the grappler away (a shove or all sorts of forced movement spells) or teleporting the grappled target away via something like a Misty Step. Best include those details to ensure people planning to Grapple are ready for those situations.
RegentCorreon: I included these in the description. They were mentionned much later in the original guide, but it makes more sense to mention them at the beginning, you're right.
pwhimp: Yeah, since it's not a popular option, I can understand why DMs don't know how it works. However, I think AL also offers greater possibilities of multiclassing, which is very strong for a grappler.
I think that as a DM, I would allow dragging along your side something not to heavy, but wouldn't allow for something really heavy. RAW, you can drag along your side. However, I think in some cases (barbarian), taking the damage as well as the two grappled creatures is still a good option
I'm nearly done with the classes, will try to do the Feats tomorrow, and maybe include builds if I have the time.
My homebrew feat for thrown weapons, feat to help DMs extend Sorcerer's spells known list, and my homebrew combo monk subclass (diablo inspired)!
You can move with a grappled creature but your movement is halved. If the creature were dead weight, it is likely that the creature plus equipment plus your equipment would exceed your carrying capacity (Str x 15) and you would only be able to move with it 5’. Although the description of movement is called “drag or carry”, I imagine it more like you have the grappled creature off balance, they are stumbling around and you are guiding their direction.
Trying to figure out if the creature exceeded your carrying capacity every time you wanted to move a grappled creature would have been a real pain, which is probably why they didn’t do it that way. A DM who doesn’t like the grappled movement rules can always change it for their campaign. I would suggest that the creature becomes dead weight when prone or is no longer on the ground. This way, a grappled creature could drop prone to avoid being dragged more than 5’ but they would then suffer the disadvantages of the prone condition. I would just quickly estimate whether the grappled creature exceeds the grappler’s carrying capacity. If it is close, just give the PC’s the benefit of the doubt.
Yup. "The rule on moving a grappled creature (PH, 195) works regardless of a creature's weight. It cares about creature size." "The rule doesn't rely on weight largely because we don't specify weight for most monsters."
That'd arguably just make things easier on the grappler. It's much harder to oppose being pulled when you can't dig your heels into the ground, especially if you're lying face up.
If someone doesn't want to be dragged around, they can grapple back.
I took the same approach as the original creator of the guide (linked at the beginning of first post) for dragging / lifting creatures and weight. Moreover, I think you always want the creatures to be prone when you drag them, as it's a huge buff to survivability.
I think weight might be a problem anyways in specific environments like dragging creatures underwater or up in the air.
It's always up to DM fiat. I will include a note about it
My homebrew feat for thrown weapons, feat to help DMs extend Sorcerer's spells known list, and my homebrew combo monk subclass (diablo inspired)!
Was this never finished or am I missing the full thing?
You're right, I never finished the guide
I should have copied the techniques, and given the basic idea of critfishing for offensive use of grapple with attack spells. However, I lack practical knowledge of the build, I'm mostly a DM and never played a grappler, and using one against players reduces quite a lot the drawbacks. So, I'm not sure I'm the most suited person to write this build, but translating it to dndbeyond felt nice and clean
Concerning the builds, I'm waiting for dndbeyond to add folders, because it's too much of a mess otherwise
My homebrew feat for thrown weapons, feat to help DMs extend Sorcerer's spells known list, and my homebrew combo monk subclass (diablo inspired)!
Trying to get a handle on grappling/shoving prone.
Have come to conclusion that I don't like these feats:-
Tavern brawler: as a hexblade warlock using CHA weapons, reverting to low damage weapons using STR instead would be a real step backwards.
Shield Master: Text says "Simply walk up to your target, grapple them, shove them prone, and then attack them for damage, all as early as level five. Or, even better, grapple them and then shove them prone as early as level one, provided you are a Human getting this feat at creation". With a weapon in one hand and a shield in the other, how are we to initiate and maintain grapple? And doffing a shield to free up that hand takes up an entire action.
Grappler: People hate this, yet it looks the best of a bad bunch, but really isn't that great, still. forget about the restrain part, that's crap. Simply put, it gives advantage if you grapple a mob. If locking down and getting advantage is the aim, that's good. You cannot use your shield arm at all for anything other than grappling, but that's a small cost.
No Feat: The only difference between Grappler and no feat at all, is an extra attack being required to shove prone. (in order to gain advantage, something grappler gives you in the feat) Result for you is similar, lockdown and advantage to attacks, and again, no shield possible. Better than grappler in terms of grappled and prone means mob gets disadvantage to hit you.
Am I the only DM who thinks that RAW, this does not work?
I just can not see how "pushing" or "dragging" would allow a PC to move an enemy (up to movement speed) through an area of Spike Growth... assuming that this is the ever-loved combo in reference here.
...cryptographic randomness!
I definitely don't think it's RAW. The only way I see this working is to either walk through the spike growth yourself or to hold the grappled creature to your side and walk parallel to the spike growth boundary. Only one of those is allowed by the rules if the common definition of "drag" is used. I've been unsuccessfully trying to think of a common use of "drag" that involves being to the side of the dragger. I have a no large torque rule at my table.
It did just occurred to me that you could drag a creature out of spike growth and then push them back in repeatedly. I haven't read spike growth in a while so this might not actually work.
Ahhh!!! And that one never occurred to me! This I would definitely have no issue with. Thanks for pointing that out.
...cryptographic randomness!
What about:
• Gloom Stalker (XGtE)
• Horizon Walker (XGtE)
These two are the "good" Ranger archetypes. From my reading of the Horizon Walker class, you can literally Grapple one, Teleport to another, and Grapple a second. If you really wanted to, and Ravnica was included, be a Minotaur-Ranger, grapple one in each hand, then use your horns to deal damage every turn. Alternatively (any race) use the Sword Burst cantrip from SCAG (Verbal components only) to deal damage in a 5' radius.
The only real synergy there is that you can teleport to force enemies together, then use a verbal-only spell to damage them both simultaneously. Just some ideas.
Gloom Walker is best in underground/darkness... no idea on the grappler synergy though.
Which makes me think of the Bugbear's Long-Limbed feature. Since you have 10' reach, you can push them 5' away and drag them back. This seems like a really ineffective strategy though. You have disadvantage on attack roles (RAW) if they are 10' from you, even though you have reach if they're Prone.
I submit for consideration my Loxodon Rogue (Scout) 16/Fighter (Rune Knight) 4 as a supreme multi-class grappler build.
https://ddb.ac/characters/27348783/UmLBta
I know Rune Knight isn't core yet but we all know it will be and I doubt it will change significantly enough from the UA to make it a bad choice here. Anyway, criticisms, thoughts?
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― Oscar Wilde.