So apologies in advance if the's has been addressed already somewhere else. I have combed through a ton of information trying to get something solid to work with and I have yet to find something concrete to answer the question.
A situation came up in my last session in a campaign I'm running in as a "Bear"barian. I wanted to be a meat shield that could rage and self heal. Long story short I was told my build was not a good one which is why I can't hit anything and enemies actively run from me. It's frustrating because I'm essentially useless. Unless the enemy is as stupid as a goldfish, they always book it away to hit someone else.
During out last session we finally encountered a "Big Bad" we've been building up towards and my character picked up a Belt of Flame Giant's Strength and Bracers of Defense. Combat started and I couldn't hit the damn thing. Just like every other monster I'm fought just about, he ran from me and went after the major spellcaster in the group and the one with the fewest available defense options. Here's where the reason I'm posting this comes up. At one point the monster had the spellcaster grappled. Since I apparently can't hit worth a damn, my goal was to instead grapple it and forcibly break the grapple against my team mate. I had a +11 to my Athletics check with that belt on. I succeeded and pulled it off. Having never played around with the grapple mechanic becasue I spend more time as ranged support or spellcasters, I started to get excited again because even if everything else sucks, if I can grapple something and let them try to fight their way out of my beefed up strength grip. I can carry them or shove them and all sorts of fun stuff. Enter the problem.
The same guy that talked to me about my build is also...I don't really think "rules lawyer" quite fits, but it's the closest thing to it I suppose. Basically he has a ton of stuff memoriezed or easily accessible at any given moment. When I expressed being happy at finally doing something he came in stating the DM stretched the rules for me to do that because I can't grapple while wild shaped into a bear because the bear stat block does not show grapple as an ability anywhere on it. He said I would need to become my giant constrictor to grapple in wild shape because that creature's stat block specifically states it can grapple. So I looked up a few things. First off, the reason grapple is mentioned by name on the constrictor's stat block is only because it's constrict attack grapples a target after it attacks them and they fail a saving throw. He said if I wanted to grapple I would have to find creatures that have grapple specifically written somewhere in their stat block as something they can do.
This honestly didn't make any sense to me. Bears grapple all the time in real life. And if I'm a huge ass bear but still have all my mental faculties and cognitive abilities then why couldn't I? I can do anything I could do un shifted within the capability of the animals body to allow for. So why can't a bear grapple? I did some digging and came away with this:
Grappling (PHB p.195)
When you want to grab a creature or wrestle with it, you can use the Attack Action to make a special melee attack, a grapple. If you’re able to make multiple attacks with the Attack Action, this attack replaces one of them.
The target of your grapple must be no more than one size larger than you and must be within your reach. Using at least one free hand, you try to seize the target by making a grapple check instead of an Attack roll: a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target’s Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (the target chooses the ability to use). You succeed automatically if the target is Incapacitated. If you succeed, you subject the target to the Grappled condition. The condition specifies the things that end it, and you can release the target whenever you like (no Action required).
Based on this and interpretting as literally as possible, to me this reads as anything can grapple another creature as long as it has a free hand and is within range to grab the target. I pointed this out to the Rules Lawyer and his stance is so long as Grapple is not listed on the stat block for a creature I Wild Shape into, I can't do it at all as that animal and he agrees that it's stupid but that's RAW. This confused me even more. How is that RAW? I just read the RAW and went word for word. I can find absolutely nothing to support the idea that grapple has to be listed on a creature's stat block for me to use it. It's like using a mount. The RAW text says the only requirements are the creature in question must have more than a passing familiarity with the person trying to mount it and the creature has to be willing. So a wild shape druid can operate as a mount based strictly on how that's written. I also saw dozens upon dozens of forums, posts, discussions, and the like talking about bear wrestling and grappling as a bear. Unless I'm missing something I would really like to know flat out, can a druid in any wild shape form grapple if the beast they have become in wild shape is physically capable of doing so? I need something hard and written to take with me because at least the one guy won't budge on the issue and the DM is going with him. Without something wrtten down by WotC or the head writers/developers and such saying it, this guy will not drop it.
Moreover, I have a point of contention with his logic too. PC stat sheets don't list grapple as a specific ability you have to buy or get proficiency in. It's just one of several actions that you can take during your attack turn.
A creature that doesn't have a grapple attack on its stat block doesn't have a special grapple attack, but it may be able to make a normal grapple (DMs discretion). Monsters are not limited to the actions on their stat block.
Based on this and interpretting as literally as possible, to me this reads as anything can grapple another creature as long as it has a free hand and is within range to grab the target. I pointed this out to the Rules Lawyer and his stance is so long as Grapple is not listed on the stat block for a creature I Wild Shape into, I can't do it at all as that animal and he agrees that it's stupid but that's RAW. This confused me even more. How is that RAW? I just read the RAW and went word for word. I can find absolutely nothing to support the idea that grapple has to be listed on a creature's stat block for me to use it.
You are right, your "rules lawyer" is not. NPCs can perform any of the actions listed in chapter 9 of the PHB the same as every PC can. The chapter even outright says that in the chapter intro:
Throughout this chapter, the rules address you, the player or Dungeon Master. The Dungeon Master controls all the monsters and nonplayer characters involved in combat, and each other player controls an adventurer. “You” can also mean the character or monster that you control.
The only "stretch" is your bear not having "hands," but that is negligible. I'd have required either a bear hug or a bite (limiting certain attacks while grappling).
Thank you. I have to have something in writing apparently to make my point here. I suppose part of my irritation is that even if something isn't written on a stat block there is, to me, a certain degree of common sense in what creatures are physically capable of.
Thank you. I have to have something in writing apparently to make my point here. I suppose part of my irritation is that even if something isn't written on a stat block there is, to me, a certain degree of common sense in what creatures are physically capable of.
That's probably the best way to interpret it. All creatures in the game can perform all the "standard" actions without having them on their statblock... Dodge, Disengage, Hide, Help, etc. It's mostly a space-saving tactic, since it would be incredibly redundant for every creature statblock to include all those details, so they're only included if the creature has some unique variation on the standard ability.
Grappling requires a free hand so the rules lawyer could be right RAW as the bear does not have a hand but a bear paw is certainly capable of grappling irl so as a DM I would certainly allow it.
Requiring forum support to make your point to your DM (or, evidently, to this other player) is a bad precedent to set. It's not enough for these guys that you're frustrated all the time? They won't listen to you?
As an aside, I usually make the argument that using Reckless Attack literally means leaving a huge opening for an enemy to hit me more easily, so they'd usually take that opportunity imo. But in any case, when you say they're slipping past you to hit the casters, are you more than 10ft away from the casters? Because if you're not, then they can get to the casters without provoking an attack of opportunity from you.
Is the grappling rule in the Player’s Handbook usable by a handless creature?
The grappling rule was written for a grappler with at least one hand, but a DM can easily adapt the rule for a handless creature that has a bite or an appendage, such as a tentacle, that could reasonably seize someone. A wolf, for example, could plausibly try to seize a person with its bite, and the animal wouldn’t be able to use its bite attack as long as it held onto the person.
Keep in mind that the grappling rule in the Player’s Handbook requires the Attack action, so a creature must take that action—rather than Multiattack or another action in the creature’s stat block—when it uses that rule. A monster, such as a roper, that has a special grappling attack doesn’t follow that rule when using its special attack.
Unfortunately, there isn't an explicit rule saying you can Grapple while Wild Shaped as a bear or other beast.
However, the player arguing that you can't grapple as a bear is failing to meet their own standard. There isn't a rule that says you can't Grapple while Wild Shaped as a bear or other beast.
The relevant rules are the Grappling rules weird earlier and this bit of the Wild Shape feature: ". . . your ability to speak or take any action that requires hands is limited to the capabilities of your beast form."
So if we only consider what the rules explicitly say then you can Grapple as a bear.
1) The Grapple rule tells us all creatures with a free hand can use an Attack to make a Grapple attempt.
2) The Wild Shape feature says that you can take actions that require hands if it is within the capabilities of your new form.
3) The bear stat block does not contain any text saying they can't Grapple or that they lack hands.
People may argue with the obvious flaws in the third point, but any such argument goes beyond the explicit text of the rules. And at that point it is very easy to find videos of bears grabbing and dragging things in their mouth.
So the argument is that all creatures have hands unless their text explicitly says otherwise?
The argument is that all creatures have a limb capable of filling the requirement of a hand unless the DM says otherwise. Also, reality is that plenty of animals do grapple, using mouth, forelimbs, or both.
Hands aren't required to grapple. Creatures with tentacles, boa constrictors/snake like creatures, and as SAC offers, creatures with a Bite attack can all plausibly grapple.
In the OP case, the wild-shaped bear could Grapple using the Bite attack. During that turn, he would need to sacrifice Multiattack to do so.
While maintaining the grapple with its teeth, it would be unable to continue biting, but could reasonably make 1 claw attack per turn, again, sacrificing Multiattack.
I think it's important to remember that a lot of the time when the rules say "must have a free hand" what it actually means is "you must not be holding both a sword and shield etc.", it's a compact way of stating the same thing, albeit a way that makes things more annoying when dealing with someone who is a 100% literal rules-lawyer.
The D&D rules were not written with rules-lawyers in mind, but are written in an "idiomatic" sense, i.e- the meaning should be clear with a bit of common sense. So when it says you need a free hand, it doesn't mean "creatures without hands cannot grapple" because if that was the intention, then that's what they would have said, it just means you need to be capable of grappling at the time. It's written the way that it is because 99% of the time the grapple action is taken by player characters, so this is the clearest way to state it for characters that near universally have hands they would use to grapple.
It just doesn't work super well for characters that can transform themselves. But yeah, unless stated otherwise monsters are capable of taking any default action that a player is capable of taking, though it requires DM rulings as monster stat blocks are designed to be simple and compact, rather than the 2-4 pages for a player character sheet.
Update: Sorry, didn't notice that Fangeye already covered this with the line from the Wildshape rules (3rd bullet point):
your ability to speak or take any action that requires hands is limited to the capabilities of your beast form
This solves the free hand issue regardless, as a bear definitely has the capability to grapple.
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Something to keep in mind - Stat blocks, as well as the basic actions listed in Chapter 9, are the list of actions that you can take without DM adjudication. Regardless of the grapple rules or stat blocks, all creatures have the ability to improvise an action.
When you take your action on your turn, you can take one of the actions presented here, an action you gained from your class or a special feature, or an action that you improvise. Many monsters have action options of their own in their stat blocks.
When you describe an action not detailed elsewhere in the rules, the DM tells you whether that action is possible and what kind of roll you need to make, if any, to determine success or failure.
So if you want to do something (reasonable) that is not available in your stat block, just simply tell your DM what you want to do. A DM is supposed to determine if the action is reasonable (I think we can all agree that a bear grappling is reasonable), and then figure out what rolls are appropriate (Athletics check is obvious here).
Never feel restricted by your stat block or class features - getting creative and improvising things is literally part of the rules. So don't listen to anyone that says "if it isn't in your stat block, you can't do it." They are definitely wrong, RAW.
I'm curious. Why can't you hit anything whilst a bear?
Depending on your level aren't you attacking with +7 STR bonus and +2-4 proficiency bonus? (so +9 to +11)
Is the DM putting you up against things with crazy high AC?
Wild shape doesn't scale its attack bonus with your proficiency bonus, unfortunately, so +9 is your cap. That certainly isn't terrible, but I could see it starting to become an issue at higher levels.
To answer your question, the same guy arguing grappling has to literally be written in the stat block for me to do it was the one that went over my build. Without breaking down everything he said, he told me I basically screwed up by going with 5 levels in barbarian becasue the extra attack and movement speed increase is largely useless since A CotM druid is going be wild shaped essentially any time possible in a combat situation. He said since I took the 2 levels past the Bear toem bonuse for being PotTW for the extra attack and movement I had reached a level and was engaging monsters the current CR of beasts I can shift into is too low relative to the CR of the creatures I'm encountering which is why I can't get past their ACs. Average ACs have been floating around 17 to 22. I haven't specifically kept track though, so I can't say that's absolutely correct. The things I have hit were your grunt level monsters. Some naga and undead.
Now the GM did bend one rule for me in an attempt to help me. I just picked up a Fire Giant's Belt of Strength and he is letting me continue using the stat gain from it while wild shape with a flavored flair allowing it to become something like a collar or harness when I shift instead of being absorbed into the wild shape and taking that creature's strength. It still didn't seem to help, but I only got to fight the one battle with it and like I said above, the thing just booked it towards the spell caster and literally ignored everything else. Even when I pulled it forcibly off and was holding it, it still used it's tentacles to attack and grab the spell caster again on it's first available action after I pulled it off. Ultimately we survived because two of the other characters built characters that can apparently drop a nuke in dire situations.It never once attacked me at all in the entire fight, completely ignored me when I pulled it off and the spell caster in question only had 4hp when all was said and done. When all was said and done, I l iterally could have not been there and the fight would have played out exactly the same way. I never hit it, it never attacked me, and when I pulled it off of the spell caster it used some ability or legendary action, I don't remember which, to regrapple the spell caster as I pulled it off them.
For context, I don't know what the thing's stat block was like, but it was a homebrew based off of some psychic (the only type of damage I don't have resistence to without external help) type of dragon.
It isn't so much that I want forum support to make my point as it is I am not an expert and I was looking for advice on where to find the information relevant to issue since researching it on my own wasn't really giving me something concrete enough to throw up against someone wanting to interpret the stat block data so literally. I went through dozen of forums that dealt with wild shape bears grappling so I knew I wasn't the only person thinking this or doing it, but I couldn't find anything I could point to and say, "Here, read this" with. I had already provided the RAW as found in the PHB and he said that didn't matter. He even told he thought it was stupid himself, but those were the rules.
I don't want anyone fighting my battle for me here, and I know if it gets toxic I can leave. It hasn't gotten that bad yet though and in the mean time I needed something to reference. He never said this, by my thought is that by logical extension he would consider every single player in every forum I ran across about wild shape bear grappling as running DM house rules.
And ultimately the DM does have the ultimate say on things in the game they are running. That I can live with because ostensibly you'd be agreeing to those rules when you asked to join the campaign. But for the moment, the entire issue is centered around the literal, word by word, descriptions of grappling.
Hands aren't required to grapple. Creatures with tentacles, boa constrictors/snake like creatures, and as SAC offers, creatures with a Bite attack can all plausibly grapple.
In the OP case, the wild-shaped bear could Grapple using the Bite attack. During that turn, he would need to sacrifice Multiattack to do so.
While maintaining the grapple with its teeth, it would be unable to continue biting, but could reasonably make 1 claw attack per turn, again, sacrificing Multiattack.
Source? SAC posted above.
And thank you for this! Because this was another issue that came up, but I didn't actually care about becasue I didn't understand exactly what I was trying argue. When I tried to bite the enemy as I snagged it in a bear hug to pull at it the DM, supported by the player I've been mentioning, wouldn't let me do both becasue multi attack couldn't be used with extra attack thus I couldn't grapple and use an attack in the same action. The fact that bite and claws are seperately listed didn't occur to me and they either didn't think about it either or were purposefully avoiding bringing it up.
To answer your question, the same guy arguing grappling has to literally be written in the stat block for me to do it was the one that went over my build. Without breaking down everything he said, he told me I basically screwed up by going with 5 levels in barbarian becasue the extra attack and movement speed increase is largely useless since A CotM druid is going be wild shaped essentially any time possible in a combat situation.
While wild shaped, you retain the benefit of any features from your class, race, or other source and can use them if the new form is physically capable of doing so.
Which means the movement speed increase from Barb 5 applies while Wild Shaped. Extra Attack does as well, but only if you take the Attack action, which you generally won't do while shaped. You *can* Attack while shaped, but you'll basically have to use an Unarmed Strike when you do so (for damage 1 + Strength). That means the Extra Attack will be wasted unless your DM decides to rule that your beast-supplied actions are subtypes of Attack in an effort to help you out. Vis a Vis this thread, bear in mind you can absolutely use Extra Attack on Shove Prone (regardless of your DM's ruling on Grapple).
He said since I took the 2 levels past the Bear toem bonuse for being PotTW for the extra attack and movement I had reached a level and was engaging monsters the current CR of beasts I can shift into is too low relative to the CR of the creatures I'm encountering which is why I can't get past their ACs. Average ACs have been floating around 17 to 22. I haven't specifically kept track though, so I can't say that's absolutely correct. The things I have hit were your grunt level monsters. Some naga and undead.
You can and generally should Reckless Attack while shaped. You don't mind a lot if the Beast form dies, and you do mind missing.
Now the GM did bend one rule for me in an attempt to help me. I just picked up a Fire Giant's Belt of Strength and he is letting me continue using the stat gain from it while wild shape with a flavored flair allowing it to become something like a collar or harness when I shift instead of being absorbed into the wild shape and taking that creature's strength.
That's not a house rule, FYI. Your DM is still being nice by not house-ruling that *away*, but it's the default behaviour of Wild Shape that you can try to keep wearing gear and it's the default behaviour of magic items to resize to the wearer, so a magic belt should fit most beasts unless your DM has it out for you.
It still didn't seem to help, but I only got to fight the one battle with it and like I said above, the thing just booked it towards the spell caster and literally ignored everything else. Even when I pulled it forcibly off and was holding it, it still used it's tentacles to attack and grab the spell caster again on it's first available action after I pulled it off.
If you want to make a target regret ignoring you as a Barbarian you generally have to be an Ancestor barbarian. Totem barbarians are durable but are otherwise bad tanks because they have no particular way to protect others (and Reckless Attack can't apply to OAs). As a Moon Druid, what you want to do is use a form that limits movement, like a giant spider or giant toad or giant constrictor snake.
Ultimately we survived because two of the other characters built characters that can apparently drop a nuke in dire situations.It never once attacked me at all in the entire fight, completely ignored me when I pulled it off and the spell caster in question only had 4hp when all was said and done. When all was said and done, I l iterally could have not been there and the fight would have played out exactly the same way. I never hit it, it never attacked me, and when I pulled it off of the spell caster it used some ability or legendary action, I don't remember which, to regrapple the spell caster as I pulled it off them.
You can always fix a grapple by applying forced movement to the victim to get them out of reach. Next time, Shove the spellcaster away from the attacker, unless you're allowed to Grapple, in which case, Grapple the spellcaster and walk away.
For context, I don't know what the thing's stat block was like, but it was a homebrew based off of some psychic (the only type of damage I don't have resistence to without external help) type of dragon.
Sounds like an Elder Brain Dragon, maybe homebrewed to be nerfed down to a lower CR.
As a general rule, Barbarian/Moon Druid is only good if you go past 1 level of Barbarian (as a 1-dip, Monk is better) but stop at no more than 4 and usually you stop at 2, because 3 is a subclass benefit that usually only applies while Raging and you have nearly 0 rages per day so it won't come up, but 2 gets you Reckless Attaxk to fix your shaped accuracy. Recapping, you generally want to stop at Barb 2 or Monk 1 when multiclassing a Moon Druid into either.
To cover the grapple issue in more detail: while shaped you can Attack and when you Attack you can Grapple. The one and only problem with Grappling while shaped is that Grapple is written incompetently: it specifies you have to use a *hand*, and none of your shapes have hands (not even monkeys). That's why you're reliant on your DM house-ruling that you can grapple with a body part that isn't a hand per se.
If you tell us how many druid levels you have, we can discuss in more details how your shapes work. For example, Giant Constrictor Snake is one of the best ones, but you have to be wary - some Beasts attack using Dexterity stock, and some monsters have attack bonuses that don't match any combination of proficiency and a stat they have. This is your DM's problem to solve, but their solution will impact you.
I'm just curious what level you are at? Having 5 levels of barbarian does slow down your wild shape progression which could make it a bit harder to hit. A brown bear is a CR1 beast and it has +6 to hit. However, a typical level 7 character would be looking at +3 proficiency and +4 from stat for a total of +7 to hit so you shouldn't be much if any behind any other character in terms of hitting bad guys. If your group is level 9 then proficiency is +4, stat is often +5 for a total of +9, but with 4 levels of moon druid you would be using CR2 forms and be a cave bear with +7 to hit - putting you only two behind. Once you add in advantage from reckless attack you should actually be hitting more often than the other characters. So, unless I am missing something, I don't see why your wild shapes should be any worse than the other characters in the party hitting these opponents.
However, in wild shape, "You retain the benefit of any features from your class, race, or other source and can use them if the new form is physically capable of doing so."
This means that your wild shape gains the extra 10' of movement from barbarian level 5, extra attack, rage and reckless attack among other things. They have access to the Extra Attack feature when they take the Attack action (not Multiattack). This means that you could make a grapple as an attack as part of the Attack action then make an additional Attack (bite or claw) as part of your Attack action not part of the Multiattack action).
The main downside of the barbarian/moon druid is that they can't concentrate on spells while raging - so the common tactic of conjure animals + wild shape doesn't work so well.
In addition, the trick to making grappling particularly effective is to use your second attack to knock your target prone. Grappling reduces their movement to zero. With zero movement, they lack the ability to stand up from prone, so attacks from adjacent have advantage and their attacks have disadvantage.
So apologies in advance if the's has been addressed already somewhere else. I have combed through a ton of information trying to get something solid to work with and I have yet to find something concrete to answer the question.
A situation came up in my last session in a campaign I'm running in as a "Bear"barian. I wanted to be a meat shield that could rage and self heal. Long story short I was told my build was not a good one which is why I can't hit anything and enemies actively run from me. It's frustrating because I'm essentially useless. Unless the enemy is as stupid as a goldfish, they always book it away to hit someone else.
During out last session we finally encountered a "Big Bad" we've been building up towards and my character picked up a Belt of Flame Giant's Strength and Bracers of Defense. Combat started and I couldn't hit the damn thing. Just like every other monster I'm fought just about, he ran from me and went after the major spellcaster in the group and the one with the fewest available defense options. Here's where the reason I'm posting this comes up. At one point the monster had the spellcaster grappled. Since I apparently can't hit worth a damn, my goal was to instead grapple it and forcibly break the grapple against my team mate. I had a +11 to my Athletics check with that belt on. I succeeded and pulled it off. Having never played around with the grapple mechanic becasue I spend more time as ranged support or spellcasters, I started to get excited again because even if everything else sucks, if I can grapple something and let them try to fight their way out of my beefed up strength grip. I can carry them or shove them and all sorts of fun stuff. Enter the problem.
The same guy that talked to me about my build is also...I don't really think "rules lawyer" quite fits, but it's the closest thing to it I suppose. Basically he has a ton of stuff memoriezed or easily accessible at any given moment. When I expressed being happy at finally doing something he came in stating the DM stretched the rules for me to do that because I can't grapple while wild shaped into a bear because the bear stat block does not show grapple as an ability anywhere on it. He said I would need to become my giant constrictor to grapple in wild shape because that creature's stat block specifically states it can grapple. So I looked up a few things. First off, the reason grapple is mentioned by name on the constrictor's stat block is only because it's constrict attack grapples a target after it attacks them and they fail a saving throw. He said if I wanted to grapple I would have to find creatures that have grapple specifically written somewhere in their stat block as something they can do.
This honestly didn't make any sense to me. Bears grapple all the time in real life. And if I'm a huge ass bear but still have all my mental faculties and cognitive abilities then why couldn't I? I can do anything I could do un shifted within the capability of the animals body to allow for. So why can't a bear grapple? I did some digging and came away with this:
Grappling (PHB p.195)
When you want to grab a creature or wrestle with it, you can use the Attack Action to make a special melee attack, a grapple. If you’re able to make multiple attacks with the Attack Action, this attack replaces one of them.
The target of your grapple must be no more than one size larger than you and must be within your reach. Using at least one free hand, you try to seize the target by making a grapple check instead of an Attack roll: a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target’s Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (the target chooses the ability to use). You succeed automatically if the target is Incapacitated. If you succeed, you subject the target to the Grappled condition. The condition specifies the things that end it, and you can release the target whenever you like (no Action required).
Based on this and interpretting as literally as possible, to me this reads as anything can grapple another creature as long as it has a free hand and is within range to grab the target. I pointed this out to the Rules Lawyer and his stance is so long as Grapple is not listed on the stat block for a creature I Wild Shape into, I can't do it at all as that animal and he agrees that it's stupid but that's RAW. This confused me even more. How is that RAW? I just read the RAW and went word for word. I can find absolutely nothing to support the idea that grapple has to be listed on a creature's stat block for me to use it. It's like using a mount. The RAW text says the only requirements are the creature in question must have more than a passing familiarity with the person trying to mount it and the creature has to be willing. So a wild shape druid can operate as a mount based strictly on how that's written. I also saw dozens upon dozens of forums, posts, discussions, and the like talking about bear wrestling and grappling as a bear. Unless I'm missing something I would really like to know flat out, can a druid in any wild shape form grapple if the beast they have become in wild shape is physically capable of doing so? I need something hard and written to take with me because at least the one guy won't budge on the issue and the DM is going with him. Without something wrtten down by WotC or the head writers/developers and such saying it, this guy will not drop it.
Moreover, I have a point of contention with his logic too. PC stat sheets don't list grapple as a specific ability you have to buy or get proficiency in. It's just one of several actions that you can take during your attack turn.
Many thanks for your time!
A creature that doesn't have a grapple attack on its stat block doesn't have a special grapple attack, but it may be able to make a normal grapple (DMs discretion). Monsters are not limited to the actions on their stat block.
You are right, your "rules lawyer" is not. NPCs can perform any of the actions listed in chapter 9 of the PHB the same as every PC can. The chapter even outright says that in the chapter intro:
The only "stretch" is your bear not having "hands," but that is negligible. I'd have required either a bear hug or a bite (limiting certain attacks while grappling).
Thank you. I have to have something in writing apparently to make my point here. I suppose part of my irritation is that even if something isn't written on a stat block there is, to me, a certain degree of common sense in what creatures are physically capable of.
That's probably the best way to interpret it. All creatures in the game can perform all the "standard" actions without having them on their statblock... Dodge, Disengage, Hide, Help, etc. It's mostly a space-saving tactic, since it would be incredibly redundant for every creature statblock to include all those details, so they're only included if the creature has some unique variation on the standard ability.
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Grappling requires a free hand so the rules lawyer could be right RAW as the bear does not have a hand but a bear paw is certainly capable of grappling irl so as a DM I would certainly allow it.
Requiring forum support to make your point to your DM (or, evidently, to this other player) is a bad precedent to set. It's not enough for these guys that you're frustrated all the time? They won't listen to you?
As an aside, I usually make the argument that using Reckless Attack literally means leaving a huge opening for an enemy to hit me more easily, so they'd usually take that opportunity imo. But in any case, when you say they're slipping past you to hit the casters, are you more than 10ft away from the casters? Because if you're not, then they can get to the casters without provoking an attack of opportunity from you.
Is the grappling rule in the Player’s Handbook usable by a handless creature?
The grappling rule was written for a grappler with at least one hand, but a DM can easily adapt the rule for a handless creature that has a bite or an appendage, such as a tentacle, that could reasonably seize someone. A wolf, for example, could plausibly try to seize a person with its bite, and the animal wouldn’t be able to use its bite attack as long as it held onto the person.
Keep in mind that the grappling rule in the Player’s Handbook requires the Attack action, so a creature must take that action—rather than Multiattack or another action in the creature’s stat block—when it uses that rule. A monster, such as a roper, that has a special grappling attack doesn’t follow that rule when using its special attack.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/sac/sage-advice-compendium#SA137
... if you wanted it in writing, this is probably as close as it can get. It's plausible.
Unfortunately, there isn't an explicit rule saying you can Grapple while Wild Shaped as a bear or other beast.
However, the player arguing that you can't grapple as a bear is failing to meet their own standard. There isn't a rule that says you can't Grapple while Wild Shaped as a bear or other beast.
The relevant rules are the Grappling rules weird earlier and this bit of the Wild Shape feature: ". . . your ability to speak or take any action that requires hands is limited to the capabilities of your beast form."
So if we only consider what the rules explicitly say then you can Grapple as a bear.
1) The Grapple rule tells us all creatures with a free hand can use an Attack to make a Grapple attempt.
2) The Wild Shape feature says that you can take actions that require hands if it is within the capabilities of your new form.
3) The bear stat block does not contain any text saying they can't Grapple or that they lack hands.
People may argue with the obvious flaws in the third point, but any such argument goes beyond the explicit text of the rules. And at that point it is very easy to find videos of bears grabbing and dragging things in their mouth.
So the argument is that all creatures have hands unless their text explicitly says otherwise?
The argument is that all creatures have a limb capable of filling the requirement of a hand unless the DM says otherwise. Also, reality is that plenty of animals do grapple, using mouth, forelimbs, or both.
I agree that you CAN grapple instead of one of your standard attacks as per the normal rules.
If you want to be a tank, then the Sentinel feat is the best way to prevent enemies from running away from you (but it does rely on you hitting them).
I'm curious. Why can't you hit anything whilst a bear?
Depending on your level aren't you attacking with +7 STR bonus and +2-4 proficiency bonus? (so +9 to +11)
Is the DM putting you up against things with crazy high AC?
Hands aren't required to grapple. Creatures with tentacles, boa constrictors/snake like creatures, and as SAC offers, creatures with a Bite attack can all plausibly grapple.
In the OP case, the wild-shaped bear could Grapple using the Bite attack. During that turn, he would need to sacrifice Multiattack to do so.
While maintaining the grapple with its teeth, it would be unable to continue biting, but could reasonably make 1 claw attack per turn, again, sacrificing Multiattack.
Source? SAC posted above.
I think it's important to remember that a lot of the time when the rules say "must have a free hand" what it actually means is "you must not be holding both a sword and shield etc.", it's a compact way of stating the same thing, albeit a way that makes things more annoying when dealing with someone who is a 100% literal rules-lawyer.
The D&D rules were not written with rules-lawyers in mind, but are written in an "idiomatic" sense, i.e- the meaning should be clear with a bit of common sense. So when it says you need a free hand, it doesn't mean "creatures without hands cannot grapple" because if that was the intention, then that's what they would have said, it just means you need to be capable of grappling at the time. It's written the way that it is because 99% of the time the grapple action is taken by player characters, so this is the clearest way to state it for characters that near universally have hands they would use to grapple.
It just doesn't work super well for characters that can transform themselves. But yeah, unless stated otherwise monsters are capable of taking any default action that a player is capable of taking, though it requires DM rulings as monster stat blocks are designed to be simple and compact, rather than the 2-4 pages for a player character sheet.
Update: Sorry, didn't notice that Fangeye already covered this with the line from the Wildshape rules (3rd bullet point):
This solves the free hand issue regardless, as a bear definitely has the capability to grapple.
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I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Something to keep in mind - Stat blocks, as well as the basic actions listed in Chapter 9, are the list of actions that you can take without DM adjudication. Regardless of the grapple rules or stat blocks, all creatures have the ability to improvise an action.
So if you want to do something (reasonable) that is not available in your stat block, just simply tell your DM what you want to do. A DM is supposed to determine if the action is reasonable (I think we can all agree that a bear grappling is reasonable), and then figure out what rolls are appropriate (Athletics check is obvious here).
Never feel restricted by your stat block or class features - getting creative and improvising things is literally part of the rules. So don't listen to anyone that says "if it isn't in your stat block, you can't do it." They are definitely wrong, RAW.
Wild shape doesn't scale its attack bonus with your proficiency bonus, unfortunately, so +9 is your cap. That certainly isn't terrible, but I could see it starting to become an issue at higher levels.
To answer your question, the same guy arguing grappling has to literally be written in the stat block for me to do it was the one that went over my build. Without breaking down everything he said, he told me I basically screwed up by going with 5 levels in barbarian becasue the extra attack and movement speed increase is largely useless since A CotM druid is going be wild shaped essentially any time possible in a combat situation. He said since I took the 2 levels past the Bear toem bonuse for being PotTW for the extra attack and movement I had reached a level and was engaging monsters the current CR of beasts I can shift into is too low relative to the CR of the creatures I'm encountering which is why I can't get past their ACs. Average ACs have been floating around 17 to 22. I haven't specifically kept track though, so I can't say that's absolutely correct. The things I have hit were your grunt level monsters. Some naga and undead.
Now the GM did bend one rule for me in an attempt to help me. I just picked up a Fire Giant's Belt of Strength and he is letting me continue using the stat gain from it while wild shape with a flavored flair allowing it to become something like a collar or harness when I shift instead of being absorbed into the wild shape and taking that creature's strength. It still didn't seem to help, but I only got to fight the one battle with it and like I said above, the thing just booked it towards the spell caster and literally ignored everything else. Even when I pulled it forcibly off and was holding it, it still used it's tentacles to attack and grab the spell caster again on it's first available action after I pulled it off. Ultimately we survived because two of the other characters built characters that can apparently drop a nuke in dire situations.It never once attacked me at all in the entire fight, completely ignored me when I pulled it off and the spell caster in question only had 4hp when all was said and done. When all was said and done, I l iterally could have not been there and the fight would have played out exactly the same way. I never hit it, it never attacked me, and when I pulled it off of the spell caster it used some ability or legendary action, I don't remember which, to regrapple the spell caster as I pulled it off them.
For context, I don't know what the thing's stat block was like, but it was a homebrew based off of some psychic (the only type of damage I don't have resistence to without external help) type of dragon.
It isn't so much that I want forum support to make my point as it is I am not an expert and I was looking for advice on where to find the information relevant to issue since researching it on my own wasn't really giving me something concrete enough to throw up against someone wanting to interpret the stat block data so literally. I went through dozen of forums that dealt with wild shape bears grappling so I knew I wasn't the only person thinking this or doing it, but I couldn't find anything I could point to and say, "Here, read this" with. I had already provided the RAW as found in the PHB and he said that didn't matter. He even told he thought it was stupid himself, but those were the rules.
I don't want anyone fighting my battle for me here, and I know if it gets toxic I can leave. It hasn't gotten that bad yet though and in the mean time I needed something to reference. He never said this, by my thought is that by logical extension he would consider every single player in every forum I ran across about wild shape bear grappling as running DM house rules.
And ultimately the DM does have the ultimate say on things in the game they are running. That I can live with because ostensibly you'd be agreeing to those rules when you asked to join the campaign. But for the moment, the entire issue is centered around the literal, word by word, descriptions of grappling.
And thank you for this! Because this was another issue that came up, but I didn't actually care about becasue I didn't understand exactly what I was trying argue. When I tried to bite the enemy as I snagged it in a bear hug to pull at it the DM, supported by the player I've been mentioning, wouldn't let me do both becasue multi attack couldn't be used with extra attack thus I couldn't grapple and use an attack in the same action. The fact that bite and claws are seperately listed didn't occur to me and they either didn't think about it either or were purposefully avoiding bringing it up.
While wild shaped, you retain the benefit of any features from your class, race, or other source and can use them if the new form is physically capable of doing so.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/classes#WildShape
Which means the movement speed increase from Barb 5 applies while Wild Shaped. Extra Attack does as well, but only if you take the Attack action, which you generally won't do while shaped. You *can* Attack while shaped, but you'll basically have to use an Unarmed Strike when you do so (for damage 1 + Strength). That means the Extra Attack will be wasted unless your DM decides to rule that your beast-supplied actions are subtypes of Attack in an effort to help you out. Vis a Vis this thread, bear in mind you can absolutely use Extra Attack on Shove Prone (regardless of your DM's ruling on Grapple).
You can and generally should Reckless Attack while shaped. You don't mind a lot if the Beast form dies, and you do mind missing.
That's not a house rule, FYI. Your DM is still being nice by not house-ruling that *away*, but it's the default behaviour of Wild Shape that you can try to keep wearing gear and it's the default behaviour of magic items to resize to the wearer, so a magic belt should fit most beasts unless your DM has it out for you.
If you want to make a target regret ignoring you as a Barbarian you generally have to be an Ancestor barbarian. Totem barbarians are durable but are otherwise bad tanks because they have no particular way to protect others (and Reckless Attack can't apply to OAs). As a Moon Druid, what you want to do is use a form that limits movement, like a giant spider or giant toad or giant constrictor snake.
You can always fix a grapple by applying forced movement to the victim to get them out of reach. Next time, Shove the spellcaster away from the attacker, unless you're allowed to Grapple, in which case, Grapple the spellcaster and walk away.
Sounds like an Elder Brain Dragon, maybe homebrewed to be nerfed down to a lower CR.
As a general rule, Barbarian/Moon Druid is only good if you go past 1 level of Barbarian (as a 1-dip, Monk is better) but stop at no more than 4 and usually you stop at 2, because 3 is a subclass benefit that usually only applies while Raging and you have nearly 0 rages per day so it won't come up, but 2 gets you Reckless Attaxk to fix your shaped accuracy. Recapping, you generally want to stop at Barb 2 or Monk 1 when multiclassing a Moon Druid into either.
To cover the grapple issue in more detail: while shaped you can Attack and when you Attack you can Grapple. The one and only problem with Grappling while shaped is that Grapple is written incompetently: it specifies you have to use a *hand*, and none of your shapes have hands (not even monkeys). That's why you're reliant on your DM house-ruling that you can grapple with a body part that isn't a hand per se.
If you tell us how many druid levels you have, we can discuss in more details how your shapes work. For example, Giant Constrictor Snake is one of the best ones, but you have to be wary - some Beasts attack using Dexterity stock, and some monsters have attack bonuses that don't match any combination of proficiency and a stat they have. This is your DM's problem to solve, but their solution will impact you.
I'm just curious what level you are at? Having 5 levels of barbarian does slow down your wild shape progression which could make it a bit harder to hit. A brown bear is a CR1 beast and it has +6 to hit. However, a typical level 7 character would be looking at +3 proficiency and +4 from stat for a total of +7 to hit so you shouldn't be much if any behind any other character in terms of hitting bad guys. If your group is level 9 then proficiency is +4, stat is often +5 for a total of +9, but with 4 levels of moon druid you would be using CR2 forms and be a cave bear with +7 to hit - putting you only two behind. Once you add in advantage from reckless attack you should actually be hitting more often than the other characters. So, unless I am missing something, I don't see why your wild shapes should be any worse than the other characters in the party hitting these opponents.
However, in wild shape, "You retain the benefit of any features from your class, race, or other source and can use them if the new form is physically capable of doing so."
This means that your wild shape gains the extra 10' of movement from barbarian level 5, extra attack, rage and reckless attack among other things. They have access to the Extra Attack feature when they take the Attack action (not Multiattack). This means that you could make a grapple as an attack as part of the Attack action then make an additional Attack (bite or claw) as part of your Attack action not part of the Multiattack action).
The main downside of the barbarian/moon druid is that they can't concentrate on spells while raging - so the common tactic of conjure animals + wild shape doesn't work so well.
In addition, the trick to making grappling particularly effective is to use your second attack to knock your target prone. Grappling reduces their movement to zero. With zero movement, they lack the ability to stand up from prone, so attacks from adjacent have advantage and their attacks have disadvantage.