Grappling

[jjordan]

Self-scrubbing for reasons.

[Bjarkmundur]

Check out MoG's take on 'dirty fighting', I think he calls it a Pain mechanic. It's pretty well thought out.

I'd love to see the entire write-up of the feat, just to get a better feel for it.

You could also:

When you successfully grappled a creature, it is restrained instead of grappled.

This is very clean when written down, and references an existing mechanic. Both are plusses when homebrewing.
When a grappler makes an attack with advantage against a grappled target, where both rolls would result in a hit, there's a bonus effect.

This gives a player the feel of making a "super hit", and is very fun to play with at the table.

I also like improving the bonus actions and reactions via feats:

When you make an opportunity attack, you can choose to make a grapple attempt against the target instead.

Check out Questionable Arcana's Martial Options, there he has a tackle option that he has playtested you can use as inspiration.

Happy brewing :)

[Composer99]

Like the Medicine skill the Grappler feat as written isn't worth much of a damn. There's a ton of historical evidence for sophisticated unarmed fighting systems that extend back to the time of the Pharaohs. Wiktenauer (https://wiktenauer.com/) is a good place to start because of the Medieval-Renaissance focus but there are many other resources to consider.

So I'm looking at making modifications to the Grappler feat that would allow:
-Grapplers to make armed attacks, with advantage and with a limited subset of weapons, on people they have already grappled.
-Grapplers to make significant unarmed attacks on people they have already grappled. (Eye gouging, breaking/dislocating limbs)
-Grapplers to force dexterity checks on opponents to take them to the ground without having to grapple them.

Some of these would be actions, some would be bonus actions. I'll add details and game mechanics shortly.

Thoughts?

The first bullet point seems fine.

The second one sounds like it could be too fiddly for a feat.

The third one seems redundant given the Shove attack exists, although forcing someone to succeed on a Dexterity save or fall prone might be a good option.

[jjordan]

The third one seems redundant given the Shove attack exists, although forcing someone to succeed on a Dexterity save or fall prone might be a good option. That's a very good point and I thank you for it.

I am not going to be able to put a better draft up before I go offline for a few weeks. I will do so when I return.