Grappling With Grappling
It doesn’t matter whether you party with a sorcerer who’s got a black tentacles fetish, need to restrain your mind controlled barbarian, or happen upon a owlbear wrestling exhibition with a big cash purse on the line. At some point, somebody at your table is going to need to understand how the grappling rules work. It’s all well and good to read through the combat chapters and download the flow charts, but if you want to preserve your brain cells you’re going to want a rules lawyer. I mean seriously. Look at those flow charts! No sane human being is going to try and fit that all within their heads, which is why you’ll want your own plucky idiot savant to take up the slack. I suggest acquiring a classic fat beard, but a quivering man jelly or the common basement dweller will also work in a pinch.
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I’ve always found the best solution to “the grapple situation” is by example. By which I mean grapple the books/computers out of reach and just shout NO until people regain their senses. =P
That’s fine at most tables, but your typical owlbear player doesn’t respond to diplomacy. I’ve always found that distracting them with reheated mice is the most effective solution.
5e takes an insanely loose approach to grappling. As in there’s next to no rules about it. So that led to me having a wrestling Monk who flavored their unarmed attacks, shoves, and throws as wrestling moves.
It’s always a careful tightrope walk with this sort of thing. If you go too rules light you get criticized because ever martial character feels samey. Savage Worlds gets accused of that, for example. Too exhaustive and no one wants to use ’em due to the migraines (e.g. 3.5 D&D). That’s why I’m happy to write adventures instead of systems.
I love 5E’s loose approach to grappling: the system is simple enough that it doesn’t discourage you from using it, grappling is powerful enough to be an useful option─or even to build a specialised character, and it isn’t so powerful that it overshadows everything else.
True that. Shield Master –> grapple –> shove –> attack is a pretty strong opening move!
Once ran a Pathfinder summoner who wasn’t all that fancy, but his eidolon was entirely centered around being big, huggy, and snecko. Every time my serpentine eidolon landed an attack, I had to consult the flow charts. But hey, succeed on two grapple rolls with high CMB, coup de grace each turn with two heads for separate fire-buffed +1 fangs? Hell yes.
I think I see where you user name comes from, lol. How were you pulling off the coup de grace? Was snek good with rope or something?
You were ahead of the game on the Duolingo memes.
You know that part of Guardians where Drax is all like, “Nothing goes over my head?” I am not Drax.