Keen Mind has actually seen pretty consistent play at our table. We run with an "everybody gets a free noncombat feat at level 1" houserule to eliminate the preponderance of Vhuman characters (what this amounts to is people playing human because they want to, not because they feel forced to in order to get the feat their concept needs). The combination of Keen Mind and a low Intelligence modifier has been used a couple of times to represent a character with a strong and agile mind but a distinct lack of formal education. Such a character is very good at retaining and analyzing their own direct experience, but they never had the opportunity to study lore and thus learn things outside their direct experience.
Similarly, Athlete on a character with low/mediocre Strength can represent a character that does not have a great deal of physical mass or power, but who is well-versed in the art of actual Athletics - i.e. running, jumping, climbing, swimming, and other activities that require the character to defeat their own body weight rather than having to defeat a fixed, set amount of resistance. It's a cool trick for Small-species characters that normally don't get to have any real degree of Strength, but may want to still be a nimble, agile individual who's able to maneuver freely, which is something 5e does not otherwise handle at all well. In point of fact, Athlete is on my short list of target feats for my Small (gnome-sized) kitsune/foxkin character who's spent her life up until now in a city with little reason to develop those skills, but who is now on course for spending a great deal of time on boats where Athletics (and the ability to easily climb rigging, make strong jumps in cramped spaces, and waste as little time knocked down as possible) are all pretty heckin' important.
Grappler, on the other hand? Grappler is simply bad. It's mechanically weak, and it also doesn't actually make anyone who takes it any better at grappling. It lets you gain some benefits once you've already landed a grapple, but you're better at neither landing that grapple nor retaining it once you do, and it doesn't offer any real benefits worth bothering with for grappling. A player who says "I wanna be a badass strongman/wrestler guy who's great at brawling and bareknuckle fights!" i.e. the usual sort of concept one looks at Grappler for does not really benefit from Grappler. The option does not do what an inexperienced player who just wants to build a cool character concept thinks it does, which is why it's a trap.
I've got a revised version of the feat in the works that adds a new bullet and improves the first* bullet. Grappler (YuRevised) increases Strength by 1, half-feating Grappler because come on, and also adds ", and on checks made to stop a creature from escaping your grapples." to the end of the first bullet. Thereby meaning that once a trained Grappler has successfully grappled a target, it's much more difficult for that target to get away. Which is the sort of thing someone trying to build a wrestling, grappling bare-knuckle strongman would be expecting a 'Grappler' feat to do. I honestly don't think the feat needs much more fixing than that, even if the second bullet of the original feat is largely pointless, but it is an example of what folks like Optimus and myself are talking about here.
A strong mechanical understanding of the game benefits Role Playing Properly, because folks with that strong understanding can be given a character idea and go "okay. What sort of mechanisms do we need to engineer into this character to evoke the concept/feel this player is looking for?" and help them build something that will Realize Their Dreams, rather than just saying "Okay, cool!" and leaving them to the eventual bitter realization that what they built does not match what they envisioned because they didn't know the game then as well as they do now.
Keen Mind has actually seen pretty consistent play at our table. We run with an "everybody gets a free noncombat feat at level 1" houserule to eliminate the preponderance of Vhuman characters (what this amounts to is people playing human because they want to, not because they feel forced to in order to get the feat their concept needs). The combination of Keen Mind and a low Intelligence modifier has been used a couple of times to represent a character with a strong and agile mind but a distinct lack of formal education. Such a character is very good at retaining and analyzing their own direct experience, but they never had the opportunity to study lore and thus learn things outside their direct experience.
Similarly, Athlete on a character with low/mediocre Strength can represent a character that does not have a great deal of physical mass or power, but who is well-versed in the art of actual Athletics - i.e. running, jumping, climbing, swimming, and other activities that require the character to defeat their own body weight rather than having to defeat a fixed, set amount of resistance. It's a cool trick for Small-species characters that normally don't get to have any real degree of Strength, but may want to still be a nimble, agile individual who's able to maneuver freely, which is something 5e does not otherwise handle at all well. In point of fact, Athlete is on my short list of target feats for my Small (gnome-sized) kitsune/foxkin character who's spent her life up until now in a city with little reason to develop those skills, but who is now on course for spending a great deal of time on boats where Athletics (and the ability to easily climb rigging, make strong jumps in cramped spaces, and waste as little time knocked down as possible) are all pretty heckin' important.
Grappler, on the other hand? Grappler is simply bad. It's mechanically weak, and it also doesn't actually make anyone who takes it any better at grappling. It lets you gain some benefits once you've already landed a grapple, but you're better at neither landing that grapple nor retaining it once you do, and it doesn't offer any real benefits worth bothering with for grappling. A player who says "I wanna be a badass strongman/wrestler guy who's great at brawling and bareknuckle fights!" i.e. the usual sort of concept one looks at Grappler for does not really benefit from Grappler. The option does not do what an inexperienced player who just wants to build a cool character concept thinks it does, which is why it's a trap.
I've got a revised version of the feat in the works that adds a new bullet and improves the first* bullet. Grappler (YuRevised) increases Strength by 1, half-feating Grappler because come on, and also adds ", and on checks made to stop a creature from escaping your grapples." to the end of the first bullet. Thereby meaning that once a trained Grappler has successfully grappled a target, it's much more difficult for that target to get away. Which is the sort of thing someone trying to build a wrestling, grappling bare-knuckle strongman would be expecting a 'Grappler' feat to do. I honestly don't think the feat needs much more fixing than that, even if the second bullet of the original feat is largely pointless, but it is an example of what folks like Optimus and myself are talking about here.
A strong mechanical understanding of the game benefits Role Playing Properly, because folks with that strong understanding can be given a character idea and go "okay. What sort of mechanisms do we need to engineer into this character to evoke the concept/feel this player is looking for?" and help them build something that will Realize Their Dreams, rather than just saying "Okay, cool!" and leaving them to the eventual bitter realization that what they built does not match what they envisioned because they didn't know the game then as well as they do now.
I wish I could like this post 1000x... Such a great summary of WHY mechanical understanding is important for DMs. You don't have to have a mastery of the system especially early on but it a huge benefit when it comes to understanding HOW to make a vision come alive in actual play.
Grappler is just bad because it is only mechanical benefits that are simply outclassed by several other options and is a misnomer to the point its kind of a trap option for those wanting to build a grappler.
It's "broken" as it fails to do what it is intended to do.
I love the fix BTW as its a good way to make the feat a lot more mechanically beneficial.
I would be tempted to make Grappler just be "Skill Expert: Athletics" and replace the bonus skill normally granted by Skill Expert with another minor benefit, such as the ability to pin the target.
Tavern Brawler: +1 to Str for better checks, grapple as. BA means you can Garpple/prone even with one attack.
Skill Expertise: +1 Str for better checks, Expertise in Athletics
Brawny UA: +1 Str for better checks, Large Build means you can lift a bigger opponent, Expertise in ATH
Fighting Initiate: unarmed fighting style for d4 damage grapples and can keep hands free
Prodigy: see skill expert
Mobile: you can move a grappled enemy. Getting extra movement helps get them where you want them. The rest of the feat is just great for any martial.
Lucky: fail that contest? Nope! I roll again.
Martial adept: trip attack means you can still attack and prone then grapple
Magic initiate Druid- Guidance before battle gives you a d4 to your first grapple check. Help everyone outside of combat too. Jump spell means you can straight up jump and drop an enemy as a free action.
This should be fun. I'd have gotten back sooner, but I had a burst water heater to deal with. So...
Tavern Brawler and Skill Expertise are colloquially "half-feats" because of their +1 bonuses. They're fantastic for characters with an odd ability score. If the score is even, their value drops tremendously. That said, I've already given my endorsement of Tavern Brawler and it's syngergy with Grappled. Brawny is from rejected UA and, honestly, isn't worth considering.
The rest are all solid feats that commonly come up in the "meta" as suggestions for optimized builds. They're good for a lot of things. Expertise, re-rolls, and spellcasting are all good. It's honestly kind of a weak argument to pick such low-hanging fruit, but you do you, Boo.
Hadn't though of mobile as it relates to grappling because (1) It's only good for 5 feet and (2) your argument centered on pushing prone. And, if all you care about is repeated Strength (Athletics) checks to grapple and push prone, then it seems odd to bring up.
Again, and I've used this to describe numerous features across multiple threads, the issue seems to be one of risk-reward payoff. The restrained condition is incredibly powerful. If the reward isn't worth the risk, then it's not for you. And that's okay. But that doesn't mean the feat is a bad one.
Mobile and Lucky are just evidence that general feats like this are really better choices because they give you a wider play profile than just the terrible mechanic implications of grappler.
They offer a LOT more versatility and power as compared to the terrible grappler feat which has the audacity to be both narrow and weak.
Also restrain is not that rare....you can literally do it with a net which is basic equipment.
You seem to be operating under a regrettably common 'Internet DMism', Jounichi. One of those empty little sayings that people like to spout as Great DM Wisdom, and which either mean nothing or actively undermine the game. The Internet DMism, in this case, seems to be "never tell the player 'no'."
Your argument, if I understand it correctly, is that the player wanting to take Grappler should be the only decision point needed. That no matter the player's reason for it, their level of experience or lack thereof, their actual character concept, or anything else - once that player says "I want to take Grappler", it becomes the DM's job to mutate their game in whatever awkward, contrived way becomes necessary to make Grappler the best damn feat there ever was simply because a player took it. You are averse, yourself, to the idea of simply telling the player "that's not a great idea, here's some reasons why" or even simply "No."
There are plenty of times, and plenty of reasons, a DM may have to say "No" to her player. If a DM cannot do this, they probably shouldn't be DMing.
One of my absolute favorite moments in TTRPG streams was in Critical Role's Undeadwood. To avoid spoilers, I will simply say that two characters were having a Climactic Showdown at the end of the game. A third player asked if she could try and sneak up behind one of them and hit him with a barstool for Plot Reasons. The DM simply considered for a moment, then said "you may not" before working through the showdown. It was one of the greatest pieces of player-driven conflict I've ever had the pleasure of viewing, and the third player's desire to interrupt it with barstool-based violence (however good-hearted the intent behind it was) would've absolutely ruined the moment. Brian Foster's willingness to simply say "No" improved the game dramatically, and even the player who wanted to barstool upside somebody's head later agreed.
An experienced DM working with an inexperienced player who decides not to share her experience and the insights it's granted her is doing that player a disservice. If there's a better way to try and achieve that player's vision for their character, then a good DM is one that brings it up and discusses it with that player. Whether that means avoiding actively terrible choices or perhaps approaching their vision for the character in a way they hadn't considered, these are discussions a DM should have. You're the Master of the Dungeon, not an underpaid shop clerk. The customer is not Always Right, and in many cases neither is the player.
Everybody needs to hear "No" sometime. Elsewise how do we learn?
To be fair, a better balanced game does make such interventions less necessary, but it's very hard to manage that without also severely limiting choices. The fact that D&D even sort of works without the DM being significantly involved in character creation is an achievement not matched by more flexible game systems.
To be fair, a better balanced game does make such interventions less necessary, but it's very hard to manage that without also severely limiting choices. The fact that D&D even sort of works without the DM being significantly involved in character creation is an achievement not matched by more flexible game systems.
This is fair as well....the vast majority of choices will be just fine in 5e which is a good testimony for the system as a whole. Its really only when they pick overtly bad choices (4 element monk, PHB beastmaster, grappler feat) that its probably worth the effort to intervene.
Also sometimes choices just don't match the theme. Maybe the DM's world doesn't have Dwarves because they were all killed in some massive war. It would be a huge ask to be a dwarf in that world and it would be totally in line for that DM to not allow dwarves in the game.
Really it goes back to "What do you want to accomplish with the character?" If you are actively trying to help them succeed at that then you are doing right by them.
You seem to be operating under a regrettably common 'Internet DMism', Jounichi. One of those empty little sayings that people like to spout as Great DM Wisdom, and which either mean nothing or actively undermine the game. The Internet DMism, in this case, seems to be "never tell the player 'no'."
Your argument, if I understand it correctly, is that the player wanting to take Grappler should be the only decision point needed. That no matter the player's reason for it, their level of experience or lack thereof, their actual character concept, or anything else - once that player says "I want to take Grappler", it becomes the DM's job to mutate their game in whatever awkward, contrived way becomes necessary to make Grappler the best damn feat there ever was simply because a player took it. You are averse, yourself, to the idea of simply telling the player "that's not a great idea, here's some reasons why" or even simply "No."
There are plenty of times, and plenty of reasons, a DM may have to say "No" to her player. If a DM cannot do this, they probably shouldn't be DMing.
One of my absolute favorite moments in TTRPG streams was in Critical Role's Undeadwood. To avoid spoilers, I will simply say that two characters were having a Climactic Showdown at the end of the game. A third player asked if she could try and sneak up behind one of them and hit him with a barstool for Plot Reasons. The DM simply considered for a moment, then said "you may not" before working through the showdown. It was one of the greatest pieces of player-driven conflict I've ever had the pleasure of viewing, and the third player's desire to interrupt it with barstool-based violence (however good-hearted the intent behind it was) would've absolutely ruined the moment. Brian Foster's willingness to simply say "No" improved the game dramatically, and even the player who wanted to barstool upside somebody's head later agreed.
An experienced DM working with an inexperienced player who decides not to share her experience and the insights it's granted her is doing that player a disservice. If there's a better way to try and achieve that player's vision for their character, then a good DM is one that brings it up and discusses it with that player. Whether that means avoiding actively terrible choices or perhaps approaching their vision for the character in a way they hadn't considered, these are discussions a DM should have. You're the Master of the Dungeon, not an underpaid shop clerk. The customer is not Always Right, and in many cases neither is the player.
Everybody needs to hear "No" sometime. Elsewise how do we learn?
There has to be a more concise way to say you have no idea what you're talking about.
To start, you made a devastatingly bad assumption about me. I have no problem with telling people "No." I veto stuff all the time. Heck, I vetoed two PCs during Session Zero for a new campaign just two nights ago. I also like using "No, but..." to encourage some lateral thinking.
(I loved Undeadwood, and Brian was a fantastic Marshal. I've been playing since 2008 and, unfortunately, have to wait for my hardcovers for the new edition to arrive in the new year instead of last month.)
Second, there's nothing wrong with a player making what is, in your opinion, a "suboptimal" choice. Nor does one require some great contrivance on the part of the DM to make it work. It'll happen on its own. To quote Doctor Ian Malcolm, "Life, uh, finds a way." If you can't trust players to just play their characters, then why are you playing with them?
None of this should bother any of you as much it does. It's utterly inane. Learn to let your hate go.
Second, there's nothing wrong with a player making what is, in your opinion, a "suboptimal" choice. Nor does one require some great contrivance on the part of the DM to make it work. It'll happen on its own. To quote Doctor Ian Malcolm, "Life, uh, finds a way." If you can't trust players to just play their characters, then why are you playing with them?
None of this should bother any of you as much it does. It's utterly inane. Learn to let your hate go.
I assume that when a player creates a character, they have some concept of what they want to do with that character. However, not everyone is good at rules analysis, so they might create a character who is not actually able to do the things they want to do. In that situation, either the DM can advise them "You know, that character might not actually do what you want to do", or they can bend the game so the character can do what they want to do.
If a well-informed and experienced player wants to make a crap choice because She's Got A Plan, or just because she wants to change things up? Cool.
What gets my goat every time this stupid subject comes up is the idea that players who make suboptimal choices are somehow better, purer, or just more fun than players who make optimal, or even just average, choices. That a DM who says "you sure about that? Grappler is really bad; if you like, maybe we can work on a homebrew alternative?" is Just Pure Evil because a player making a poor choice simply because that poor choice has a name that fits the mold they're going for with their character is somehow Peak Perfection of D&D. This idea of "if you just role played better, the rules wouldn't matter and everything would be awesome!" is so incredibly frustrating.
Some choices are just not good, and some combinations just don't work well. Why it's considered such a horrible act of Hate Crimes Against Players to try and let them know, or at least make sure they know what they're getting into, I will never understand.
Some choices are just not good, and some combinations just don't work well. Why it's considered such a horrible act of Hate Crimes Against Players to try and let them know, or at least make sure they know what they're getting into, I will never understand.
Though I think there's some philosophy issue there (which I admit to being on one side of): some subset of players is prone to making choices without thinking about whether those choices are good. That same subset of players is also resistant to being told "you know, that choice is bad".
Some choices are just not good, and some combinations just don't work well. Why it's considered such a horrible act of Hate Crimes Against Players to try and let them know, or at least make sure they know what they're getting into, I will never understand.
It's because it often becomes a case of one player telling another how to play. Not everybody can or will inform another of better choices in a manner that nobody will be offended.
Some folk are just gentle lambs that get hurt when somebody says, "hey you should..."
And other folk are "you're an idiot, why didn't you ..."
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Some choices are just not good, and some combinations just don't work well. Why it's considered such a horrible act of Hate Crimes Against Players to try and let them know, or at least make sure they know what they're getting into, I will never understand.
It's because it often becomes a case of one player telling another how to play. Not everybody can or will inform another of better choices in a manner that nobody will be offended.
Some folk are just gentle lambs that get hurt when somebody says, "hey you should..."
And other folk are "you're an idiot, why didn't you ..."
It's usually fine if it comes from the DM but I have seen some group tensions when there was this one player who knew the rules 5x better than everyone else (except the DM) and had huge enthusiasm. He liked reading about D&D, liked talking about it. You know the type. Everyone else makes their character and comes for a game but this one person consults you with a path he envisions, supplies potential story hooks, asks about variant rules, magic items. His backstory is usually 10x longer than anyone else's. Made his own character but he likes reading about other classes, so naturally he thought he was being helpful when giving unsolicited advice to less experienced players.
I had to ask him to tone it down a notch because new players started perceiving it as annoying and disruptive and any helpful advice was met with "stop telling me how to play".
Some choices are just not good, and some combinations just don't work well. Why it's considered such a horrible act of Hate Crimes Against Players to try and let them know, or at least make sure they know what they're getting into, I will never understand.
Though I think there's some philosophy issue there (which I admit to being on one side of): some subset of players is prone to making choices without thinking about whether those choices are good. That same subset of players is also resistant to being told "you know, that choice is bad".
Telling people some options are bad/don't work/don't do what they think they do can sometimes be an art form, yeah. There's a difference between telling someone "you suck your choices are bad and you should feel bad" and "you may want to consider [Approach B] rather than [Approach A]; here's my reasoning, if you've a moment?"
As absolutely sick as I am of talking about it, sadly there's no better example than Grappler. Even if one does not believe Grappler is an actively terrible feat, it takes almost no examination to realize that Grappler doesn't make you better at grappling. It offers absolutely no way of improving your ability to grapple a target, or to resist an enemy's attempts to grapple you for that matter. It has nothing to do with "holding your own in close-quarters grappling", and does not in any way reinforce or bolster the exact sort of character concept the feat was ostensibly made for - the close-quarters hands-throwing wrestler who's most dangerous once he gets a grip on you. Advantage on weapon attacks against something you're grappling is not what people want to take a 'Grappler' feat for, and the double-Restrained Roll To Pin option is actively harmful to the character - this option is usually markedly more dangerous for the grappler than the grapplee, since the double-restraint removes the Grappler's ability to strike with advantage and also makes the Grappler remarkably easy for the Grapplee's friends to murder, without really limiting the Grapplee much more than basic Grappled does unless the player is in a very specific, extremely niche and narrow set of conditions.
If the player wants to be a close-quarters ground-and-pound brawler, what they actually want is the new Unarmed Combat fighting style, with Tavern Brawler and ideally barbarian levels for advantage on grab checks and the damage resistance. If they don't dig barbarian, cool. Unarmed Combat still works, and Tavern Brawler makes it easier for them to grab and allows them to pull crazy stunts with chairs and beer kegs and dead goblins and alive goblins and such. It's a much better way of accomplishing the thing I've seen at least four new players at my table ask about doing with Grappler, instead.
Someone who takes Grappler without knowing the game, and does so simply because it's named "The Thing I Like Doing", will not enjoy that choice. It boggles my mind that this is even a discussion, really. A DM asking "hey, can I ask why you're looking at that feat?" is somehow Destroying Roleplaying Forever? What? WHY? That DM is only trying to help, but she keeps getting impaled by spears of sheer nerdrage for trying to help the player enjoy their character more rather than tying her game into a pretzel trying to make an objectively awful choice the best choice, instead!
If a well-informed and experienced player wants to make a crap choice because She's Got A Plan, or just because she wants to change things up? Cool.
What gets my goat every time this stupid subject comes up is the idea that players who make suboptimal choices are somehow better, purer, or just more fun than players who make optimal, or even just average, choices. That a DM who says "you sure about that? Grappler is really bad; if you like, maybe we can work on a homebrew alternative?" is Just Pure Evil because a player making a poor choice simply because that poor choice has a name that fits the mold they're going for with their character is somehow Peak Perfection of D&D. This idea of "if you just role played better, the rules wouldn't matter and everything would be awesome!" is so incredibly frustrating.
Some choices are just not good, and some combinations just don't work well. Why it's considered such a horrible act of Hate Crimes Against Players to try and let them know, or at least make sure they know what they're getting into, I will never understand.
Okay, here's the thing. I can't think of anyone here, myself included, who says that players who make "sub-optimal" choices are, "somehow better, purer, or just more fun than players who make optimal, or even just average, choices." It has been well-established here that people who make "optimal" choices, which is also a contentious subject, can still be avid, even excellent, roleplayers.
What gets my goat, as it were, is when people say utterly malarky like something is objectively bad. Y'all can take that attitude and piss right off. There is no objectively bad. Period. And the people who spout such nonsense do so because they cannot see the value in something. What they're all forgetting is that value is subjective. As my 8th-grade math teacher used to say, "There's more than one way to get to the mall."
Let's take another look at grappling. There are lots of ways to be better at it. It's initiated, and maintained, with a Strength (Athletics) check. There are lots of ways to improve this: from improving the raw ability and/or skill proficiency to gaining extra dice via rerolls or advantage. There are a number of class features, from the barbarian's Rage to the bard and rogue's Expertise, that can do the job. There are also spells, like enhance ability, enlarge/reduce, and hex, that can have a role to play. And this is just using the standard rules from the PHB; not optional ones like feats.
The grappler feat does not make the initiator better at initiating or maintaining; this is true. But it does make their grapple better, and it gives them another option: restraining the target. There are only 9 spells in the PHB which can restrained a target: ensnaring strike, entangle, Evard's black tentacles, flesh to stone, imprisonment, prismatic spray, prismatic wall, telekinesis, and web. That's not a lot. Now, paralyzed is a better condition than restrained, and there are only 2 spells in the PHB which can pull this off: [spell[hold monster[/spell] and hold person. Most people tend to prefer these, if possible, and I don't blame them.
That said, a net has been brought up, and I'm glad it was. It's not uncommon for people to ask what to do with all the money they get. And buying magic items seems...cheap, in a way. It's a throwback to the two previous editions when magic items basically were the economy. I absolutely loathed Wealth By Level and how we kept looking for ways to break it. My point is players often forget about mundane equipment upgrades. Things like buying a pack animal or vehicle, replacing their hemp rope with silk, and getting a lantern and some oil to replace those heavy torches. And nets are great. My wife was running a one-shot for Girl's Game Shelf earlier this year and asked me to help come up with pre-gens for the players. One of the ones I made was a halfling bounty hunter (rogue/assassin/outlander) with Weapon Master so they could have proficiency with scimitars, whips, heavy crossbows, and nets. One of the pieces of gear we dropped was an adamantine khopesh (scimitar) to fight a golem later on. And they had nets to get in free restrainings, even if they were only basically good for one round. The idea was to show people cool stuff they could do beyond the typical.
I would not recommend Grappler for someone with an odd ability score. I would push for Tavern Brawler first. But, if you have the ASIs to spare to pick it up, go for it, absolutely. That said, one of my players in a Curse of Strahd campaign was a shifter barbarian who picked it up at level 4. They used it to grapple and restrain Izek after he was mind-controlled by Strahd. Then I had Strahd polymorph Izek into a giant crocodile to instantly break free; to which the wizard cast enlarge/reduce and he was functionally out of the fight again. It was memorable and awesome, and it became a common tactic. And it proved incredibly effective. Enemies could not retreat. Every attack had advantage; range didn't matter. And the barbarian was still reliably getting in hits while using their damage resistance to hold out. In essence, they were tanking solo enemies. It was less effective on Strahd in the castle, but it was still fun for a while. And, come on, it's Strahd.
I get people wanting to discredit anecdotes, but the truth is all we really have is anecdotal evidence. There is no empirical data about which feats are better or worse. Everything is opinion; everything is subjective. And no amount of tinkering with spreadsheets or color-coding in Google Docs is going to make up for practical experience at the table and rolling dice. It is incredibly freeing to turn off that over-analytical part of the brain and just try something different. Be adventurous. Be bold. Be contrarian.
It doesn't require a great deal of system mastery to make something like Grappler work. It requires drive.
And it's okay to not have that drive. It's okay to dislike certain races, classes, and subclasses. Baskin Robbin's sells 31 flavors of ice cream for a reason. If we just looked at race, class, and background, not including subraces, subclasses, and variant backgrounds, there are 1,404 possible combinations in the PHB alone.
Our opinions do not entitle us to say something is bad or to discourage others from trying it out. Such aversion is a symptom of closed-mindedness. Instead, we should try to keep an open mind. Other people might surprise us.
" Okay, here's the thing. I can't think of anyone here, myself included, who says that players who make "sub-optimal" choices are, "somehow better, purer, or just more fun than players who make optimal, or even just average, choices." It has been well-established here that people can make "optimal" choices, which is also a contentious subject, can still be avid, even excellent, roleplayers."
Thats like literally what Lyxen was saying lol.
He was literally saying min/maxing made worse players the majority of the time.
"I would not recommend Grappler for someone with an odd ability score. I would push for Tavern Brawler first. But, if you have the ASIs to spare to pick it up, go for it, absolutely. That said, one of my players in a Curse of Strahd campaign was a shifter barbarian who picked it up at level 4. They used it to grapple and restrain Izek after he was mind-controlled by Strahd. Then I had Strahd polymorph Izek into a giant crocodile to instantly break free; to which the wizard cast enlarge/reduce and he was functionally out of the fight again. It was memorable and awesome, and it became a common tactic. And it proved incredibly effective. Enemies could not retreat. Every attack had advantage; range didn't matter. And the barbarian was still reliably getting in hits while using their damage resistance to hold out. In essence, they were tanking solo enemies. It was less effective on Strahd in the castle, but it was still fun for a while. And, come on, it's Strahd."
Why didn't Strahd just attack the restrained barbarian? Or simply move the barbarian? Or polymorph the barbarian? Or attack the wizard who was concentrating?
Some choices are just not good, and some combinations just don't work well. Why it's considered such a horrible act of Hate Crimes Against Players to try and let them know, or at least make sure they know what they're getting into, I will never understand.
Though I think there's some philosophy issue there (which I admit to being on one side of): some subset of players is prone to making choices without thinking about whether those choices are good. That same subset of players is also resistant to being told "you know, that choice is bad".
Telling people some options are bad/don't work/don't do what they think they do can sometimes be an art form, yeah. There's a difference between telling someone "you suck your choices are bad and you should feel bad" and "you may want to consider [Approach B] rather than [Approach A]; here's my reasoning, if you've a moment?"
As absolutely sick as I am of talking about it, sadly there's no better example than Grappler.
There's a couple objectively terrible feats, though I admit Grappler is pretty uniquely bad, as you can actually do what it does better for free (just use Shove to knock it prone; it's exactly the same difficulty, and as a speed 0 creature cannot stand up, it will remain that way until the grapple ends).
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Keen Mind has actually seen pretty consistent play at our table. We run with an "everybody gets a free noncombat feat at level 1" houserule to eliminate the preponderance of Vhuman characters (what this amounts to is people playing human because they want to, not because they feel forced to in order to get the feat their concept needs). The combination of Keen Mind and a low Intelligence modifier has been used a couple of times to represent a character with a strong and agile mind but a distinct lack of formal education. Such a character is very good at retaining and analyzing their own direct experience, but they never had the opportunity to study lore and thus learn things outside their direct experience.
Similarly, Athlete on a character with low/mediocre Strength can represent a character that does not have a great deal of physical mass or power, but who is well-versed in the art of actual Athletics - i.e. running, jumping, climbing, swimming, and other activities that require the character to defeat their own body weight rather than having to defeat a fixed, set amount of resistance. It's a cool trick for Small-species characters that normally don't get to have any real degree of Strength, but may want to still be a nimble, agile individual who's able to maneuver freely, which is something 5e does not otherwise handle at all well. In point of fact, Athlete is on my short list of target feats for my Small (gnome-sized) kitsune/foxkin character who's spent her life up until now in a city with little reason to develop those skills, but who is now on course for spending a great deal of time on boats where Athletics (and the ability to easily climb rigging, make strong jumps in cramped spaces, and waste as little time knocked down as possible) are all pretty heckin' important.
Grappler, on the other hand? Grappler is simply bad. It's mechanically weak, and it also doesn't actually make anyone who takes it any better at grappling. It lets you gain some benefits once you've already landed a grapple, but you're better at neither landing that grapple nor retaining it once you do, and it doesn't offer any real benefits worth bothering with for grappling. A player who says "I wanna be a badass strongman/wrestler guy who's great at brawling and bareknuckle fights!" i.e. the usual sort of concept one looks at Grappler for does not really benefit from Grappler. The option does not do what an inexperienced player who just wants to build a cool character concept thinks it does, which is why it's a trap.
I've got a revised version of the feat in the works that adds a new bullet and improves the first* bullet. Grappler (YuRevised) increases Strength by 1, half-feating Grappler because come on, and also adds ", and on checks made to stop a creature from escaping your grapples." to the end of the first bullet. Thereby meaning that once a trained Grappler has successfully grappled a target, it's much more difficult for that target to get away. Which is the sort of thing someone trying to build a wrestling, grappling bare-knuckle strongman would be expecting a 'Grappler' feat to do. I honestly don't think the feat needs much more fixing than that, even if the second bullet of the original feat is largely pointless, but it is an example of what folks like Optimus and myself are talking about here.
A strong mechanical understanding of the game benefits Role Playing Properly, because folks with that strong understanding can be given a character idea and go "okay. What sort of mechanisms do we need to engineer into this character to evoke the concept/feel this player is looking for?" and help them build something that will Realize Their Dreams, rather than just saying "Okay, cool!" and leaving them to the eventual bitter realization that what they built does not match what they envisioned because they didn't know the game then as well as they do now.
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I wish I could like this post 1000x... Such a great summary of WHY mechanical understanding is important for DMs. You don't have to have a mastery of the system especially early on but it a huge benefit when it comes to understanding HOW to make a vision come alive in actual play.
Grappler is just bad because it is only mechanical benefits that are simply outclassed by several other options and is a misnomer to the point its kind of a trap option for those wanting to build a grappler.
It's "broken" as it fails to do what it is intended to do.
I love the fix BTW as its a good way to make the feat a lot more mechanically beneficial.
I would be tempted to make Grappler just be "Skill Expert: Athletics" and replace the bonus skill normally granted by Skill Expert with another minor benefit, such as the ability to pin the target.
This should be fun. I'd have gotten back sooner, but I had a burst water heater to deal with. So...
Tavern Brawler and Skill Expertise are colloquially "half-feats" because of their +1 bonuses. They're fantastic for characters with an odd ability score. If the score is even, their value drops tremendously. That said, I've already given my endorsement of Tavern Brawler and it's syngergy with Grappled. Brawny is from rejected UA and, honestly, isn't worth considering.
The rest are all solid feats that commonly come up in the "meta" as suggestions for optimized builds. They're good for a lot of things. Expertise, re-rolls, and spellcasting are all good. It's honestly kind of a weak argument to pick such low-hanging fruit, but you do you, Boo.
Hadn't though of mobile as it relates to grappling because (1) It's only good for 5 feet and (2) your argument centered on pushing prone. And, if all you care about is repeated Strength (Athletics) checks to grapple and push prone, then it seems odd to bring up.
Again, and I've used this to describe numerous features across multiple threads, the issue seems to be one of risk-reward payoff. The restrained condition is incredibly powerful. If the reward isn't worth the risk, then it's not for you. And that's okay. But that doesn't mean the feat is a bad one.
It means you're risk-averse.
Mobile and Lucky are just evidence that general feats like this are really better choices because they give you a wider play profile than just the terrible mechanic implications of grappler.
They offer a LOT more versatility and power as compared to the terrible grappler feat which has the audacity to be both narrow and weak.
Also restrain is not that rare....you can literally do it with a net which is basic equipment.
You seem to be operating under a regrettably common 'Internet DMism', Jounichi. One of those empty little sayings that people like to spout as Great DM Wisdom, and which either mean nothing or actively undermine the game. The Internet DMism, in this case, seems to be "never tell the player 'no'."
Your argument, if I understand it correctly, is that the player wanting to take Grappler should be the only decision point needed. That no matter the player's reason for it, their level of experience or lack thereof, their actual character concept, or anything else - once that player says "I want to take Grappler", it becomes the DM's job to mutate their game in whatever awkward, contrived way becomes necessary to make Grappler the best damn feat there ever was simply because a player took it. You are averse, yourself, to the idea of simply telling the player "that's not a great idea, here's some reasons why" or even simply "No."
There are plenty of times, and plenty of reasons, a DM may have to say "No" to her player. If a DM cannot do this, they probably shouldn't be DMing.
One of my absolute favorite moments in TTRPG streams was in Critical Role's Undeadwood. To avoid spoilers, I will simply say that two characters were having a Climactic Showdown at the end of the game. A third player asked if she could try and sneak up behind one of them and hit him with a barstool for Plot Reasons. The DM simply considered for a moment, then said "you may not" before working through the showdown. It was one of the greatest pieces of player-driven conflict I've ever had the pleasure of viewing, and the third player's desire to interrupt it with barstool-based violence (however good-hearted the intent behind it was) would've absolutely ruined the moment. Brian Foster's willingness to simply say "No" improved the game dramatically, and even the player who wanted to barstool upside somebody's head later agreed.
An experienced DM working with an inexperienced player who decides not to share her experience and the insights it's granted her is doing that player a disservice. If there's a better way to try and achieve that player's vision for their character, then a good DM is one that brings it up and discusses it with that player. Whether that means avoiding actively terrible choices or perhaps approaching their vision for the character in a way they hadn't considered, these are discussions a DM should have. You're the Master of the Dungeon, not an underpaid shop clerk. The customer is not Always Right, and in many cases neither is the player.
Everybody needs to hear "No" sometime. Elsewise how do we learn?
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great way to view it as well...
"No, but" is a powerful phrase and is much better than taking anything that gets thrown at you.
To be fair, a better balanced game does make such interventions less necessary, but it's very hard to manage that without also severely limiting choices. The fact that D&D even sort of works without the DM being significantly involved in character creation is an achievement not matched by more flexible game systems.
This is fair as well....the vast majority of choices will be just fine in 5e which is a good testimony for the system as a whole. Its really only when they pick overtly bad choices (4 element monk, PHB beastmaster, grappler feat) that its probably worth the effort to intervene.
Also sometimes choices just don't match the theme. Maybe the DM's world doesn't have Dwarves because they were all killed in some massive war. It would be a huge ask to be a dwarf in that world and it would be totally in line for that DM to not allow dwarves in the game.
Really it goes back to "What do you want to accomplish with the character?" If you are actively trying to help them succeed at that then you are doing right by them.
There has to be a more concise way to say you have no idea what you're talking about.
To start, you made a devastatingly bad assumption about me. I have no problem with telling people "No." I veto stuff all the time. Heck, I vetoed two PCs during Session Zero for a new campaign just two nights ago. I also like using "No, but..." to encourage some lateral thinking.
(I loved Undeadwood, and Brian was a fantastic Marshal. I've been playing since 2008 and, unfortunately, have to wait for my hardcovers for the new edition to arrive in the new year instead of last month.)
Second, there's nothing wrong with a player making what is, in your opinion, a "suboptimal" choice. Nor does one require some great contrivance on the part of the DM to make it work. It'll happen on its own. To quote Doctor Ian Malcolm, "Life, uh, finds a way." If you can't trust players to just play their characters, then why are you playing with them?
None of this should bother any of you as much it does. It's utterly inane. Learn to let your hate go.
I assume that when a player creates a character, they have some concept of what they want to do with that character. However, not everyone is good at rules analysis, so they might create a character who is not actually able to do the things they want to do. In that situation, either the DM can advise them "You know, that character might not actually do what you want to do", or they can bend the game so the character can do what they want to do.
If a well-informed and experienced player wants to make a crap choice because She's Got A Plan, or just because she wants to change things up? Cool.
What gets my goat every time this stupid subject comes up is the idea that players who make suboptimal choices are somehow better, purer, or just more fun than players who make optimal, or even just average, choices. That a DM who says "you sure about that? Grappler is really bad; if you like, maybe we can work on a homebrew alternative?" is Just Pure Evil because a player making a poor choice simply because that poor choice has a name that fits the mold they're going for with their character is somehow Peak Perfection of D&D. This idea of "if you just role played better, the rules wouldn't matter and everything would be awesome!" is so incredibly frustrating.
Some choices are just not good, and some combinations just don't work well. Why it's considered such a horrible act of Hate Crimes Against Players to try and let them know, or at least make sure they know what they're getting into, I will never understand.
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Though I think there's some philosophy issue there (which I admit to being on one side of): some subset of players is prone to making choices without thinking about whether those choices are good. That same subset of players is also resistant to being told "you know, that choice is bad".
It's because it often becomes a case of one player telling another how to play. Not everybody can or will inform another of better choices in a manner that nobody will be offended.
Some folk are just gentle lambs that get hurt when somebody says, "hey you should..."
And other folk are "you're an idiot, why didn't you ..."
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"real life is a super high CR."
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"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
It's usually fine if it comes from the DM but I have seen some group tensions when there was this one player who knew the rules 5x better than everyone else (except the DM) and had huge enthusiasm. He liked reading about D&D, liked talking about it. You know the type. Everyone else makes their character and comes for a game but this one person consults you with a path he envisions, supplies potential story hooks, asks about variant rules, magic items. His backstory is usually 10x longer than anyone else's. Made his own character but he likes reading about other classes, so naturally he thought he was being helpful when giving unsolicited advice to less experienced players.
I had to ask him to tone it down a notch because new players started perceiving it as annoying and disruptive and any helpful advice was met with "stop telling me how to play".
Telling people some options are bad/don't work/don't do what they think they do can sometimes be an art form, yeah. There's a difference between telling someone "you suck your choices are bad and you should feel bad" and "you may want to consider [Approach B] rather than [Approach A]; here's my reasoning, if you've a moment?"
As absolutely sick as I am of talking about it, sadly there's no better example than Grappler. Even if one does not believe Grappler is an actively terrible feat, it takes almost no examination to realize that Grappler doesn't make you better at grappling. It offers absolutely no way of improving your ability to grapple a target, or to resist an enemy's attempts to grapple you for that matter. It has nothing to do with "holding your own in close-quarters grappling", and does not in any way reinforce or bolster the exact sort of character concept the feat was ostensibly made for - the close-quarters hands-throwing wrestler who's most dangerous once he gets a grip on you. Advantage on weapon attacks against something you're grappling is not what people want to take a 'Grappler' feat for, and the double-Restrained Roll To Pin option is actively harmful to the character - this option is usually markedly more dangerous for the grappler than the grapplee, since the double-restraint removes the Grappler's ability to strike with advantage and also makes the Grappler remarkably easy for the Grapplee's friends to murder, without really limiting the Grapplee much more than basic Grappled does unless the player is in a very specific, extremely niche and narrow set of conditions.
If the player wants to be a close-quarters ground-and-pound brawler, what they actually want is the new Unarmed Combat fighting style, with Tavern Brawler and ideally barbarian levels for advantage on grab checks and the damage resistance. If they don't dig barbarian, cool. Unarmed Combat still works, and Tavern Brawler makes it easier for them to grab and allows them to pull crazy stunts with chairs and beer kegs and dead goblins and alive goblins and such. It's a much better way of accomplishing the thing I've seen at least four new players at my table ask about doing with Grappler, instead.
Someone who takes Grappler without knowing the game, and does so simply because it's named "The Thing I Like Doing", will not enjoy that choice. It boggles my mind that this is even a discussion, really. A DM asking "hey, can I ask why you're looking at that feat?" is somehow Destroying Roleplaying Forever? What? WHY? That DM is only trying to help, but she keeps getting impaled by spears of sheer nerdrage for trying to help the player enjoy their character more rather than tying her game into a pretzel trying to make an objectively awful choice the best choice, instead!
ARRRGH!!
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Okay, here's the thing. I can't think of anyone here, myself included, who says that players who make "sub-optimal" choices are, "somehow better, purer, or just more fun than players who make optimal, or even just average, choices." It has been well-established here that people who make "optimal" choices, which is also a contentious subject, can still be avid, even excellent, roleplayers.
What gets my goat, as it were, is when people say utterly malarky like something is objectively bad. Y'all can take that attitude and piss right off. There is no objectively bad. Period. And the people who spout such nonsense do so because they cannot see the value in something. What they're all forgetting is that value is subjective. As my 8th-grade math teacher used to say, "There's more than one way to get to the mall."
Let's take another look at grappling. There are lots of ways to be better at it. It's initiated, and maintained, with a Strength (Athletics) check. There are lots of ways to improve this: from improving the raw ability and/or skill proficiency to gaining extra dice via rerolls or advantage. There are a number of class features, from the barbarian's Rage to the bard and rogue's Expertise, that can do the job. There are also spells, like enhance ability, enlarge/reduce, and hex, that can have a role to play. And this is just using the standard rules from the PHB; not optional ones like feats.
The grappler feat does not make the initiator better at initiating or maintaining; this is true. But it does make their grapple better, and it gives them another option: restraining the target. There are only 9 spells in the PHB which can restrained a target: ensnaring strike, entangle, Evard's black tentacles, flesh to stone, imprisonment, prismatic spray, prismatic wall, telekinesis, and web. That's not a lot. Now, paralyzed is a better condition than restrained, and there are only 2 spells in the PHB which can pull this off: [spell[hold monster[/spell] and hold person. Most people tend to prefer these, if possible, and I don't blame them.
That said, a net has been brought up, and I'm glad it was. It's not uncommon for people to ask what to do with all the money they get. And buying magic items seems...cheap, in a way. It's a throwback to the two previous editions when magic items basically were the economy. I absolutely loathed Wealth By Level and how we kept looking for ways to break it. My point is players often forget about mundane equipment upgrades. Things like buying a pack animal or vehicle, replacing their hemp rope with silk, and getting a lantern and some oil to replace those heavy torches. And nets are great. My wife was running a one-shot for Girl's Game Shelf earlier this year and asked me to help come up with pre-gens for the players. One of the ones I made was a halfling bounty hunter (rogue/assassin/outlander) with Weapon Master so they could have proficiency with scimitars, whips, heavy crossbows, and nets. One of the pieces of gear we dropped was an adamantine khopesh (scimitar) to fight a golem later on. And they had nets to get in free restrainings, even if they were only basically good for one round. The idea was to show people cool stuff they could do beyond the typical.
I would not recommend Grappler for someone with an odd ability score. I would push for Tavern Brawler first. But, if you have the ASIs to spare to pick it up, go for it, absolutely. That said, one of my players in a Curse of Strahd campaign was a shifter barbarian who picked it up at level 4. They used it to grapple and restrain Izek after he was mind-controlled by Strahd. Then I had Strahd polymorph Izek into a giant crocodile to instantly break free; to which the wizard cast enlarge/reduce and he was functionally out of the fight again. It was memorable and awesome, and it became a common tactic. And it proved incredibly effective. Enemies could not retreat. Every attack had advantage; range didn't matter. And the barbarian was still reliably getting in hits while using their damage resistance to hold out. In essence, they were tanking solo enemies. It was less effective on Strahd in the castle, but it was still fun for a while. And, come on, it's Strahd.
I get people wanting to discredit anecdotes, but the truth is all we really have is anecdotal evidence. There is no empirical data about which feats are better or worse. Everything is opinion; everything is subjective. And no amount of tinkering with spreadsheets or color-coding in Google Docs is going to make up for practical experience at the table and rolling dice. It is incredibly freeing to turn off that over-analytical part of the brain and just try something different. Be adventurous. Be bold. Be contrarian.
It doesn't require a great deal of system mastery to make something like Grappler work. It requires drive.
And it's okay to not have that drive. It's okay to dislike certain races, classes, and subclasses. Baskin Robbin's sells 31 flavors of ice cream for a reason. If we just looked at race, class, and background, not including subraces, subclasses, and variant backgrounds, there are 1,404 possible combinations in the PHB alone.
Our opinions do not entitle us to say something is bad or to discourage others from trying it out. Such aversion is a symptom of closed-mindedness. Instead, we should try to keep an open mind. Other people might surprise us.
" Okay, here's the thing. I can't think of anyone here, myself included, who says that players who make "sub-optimal" choices are, "somehow better, purer, or just more fun than players who make optimal, or even just average, choices." It has been well-established here that people can make "optimal" choices, which is also a contentious subject, can still be avid, even excellent, roleplayers."
Thats like literally what Lyxen was saying lol.
He was literally saying min/maxing made worse players the majority of the time.
"I would not recommend Grappler for someone with an odd ability score. I would push for Tavern Brawler first. But, if you have the ASIs to spare to pick it up, go for it, absolutely. That said, one of my players in a Curse of Strahd campaign was a shifter barbarian who picked it up at level 4. They used it to grapple and restrain Izek after he was mind-controlled by Strahd. Then I had Strahd polymorph Izek into a giant crocodile to instantly break free; to which the wizard cast enlarge/reduce and he was functionally out of the fight again. It was memorable and awesome, and it became a common tactic. And it proved incredibly effective. Enemies could not retreat. Every attack had advantage; range didn't matter. And the barbarian was still reliably getting in hits while using their damage resistance to hold out. In essence, they were tanking solo enemies. It was less effective on Strahd in the castle, but it was still fun for a while. And, come on, it's Strahd."
Why didn't Strahd just attack the restrained barbarian? Or simply move the barbarian? Or polymorph the barbarian? Or attack the wizard who was concentrating?
This story has more holes than swiss cheese.
Bad strategy doesn't validate the feat lol
There's a couple objectively terrible feats, though I admit Grappler is pretty uniquely bad, as you can actually do what it does better for free (just use Shove to knock it prone; it's exactly the same difficulty, and as a speed 0 creature cannot stand up, it will remain that way until the grapple ends).