Grappler 5e (Updated for the 2024 Rules)
Published on: January 16, 2025
Master the art of grappling in D&D 5e with our Grappler feat guide. Learn how to control the battlefield and pin your enemies down
Jakub Kasper - Wizards of the Coast - Dissension in the Ranks
Looking for the legacy version of this article based on the 2014 rules? Click here.
What Is the Grappler Feat in 5e?
If you’ve ever wanted to bring your WWE fantasies to your D&D games by Powerbombing your enemies, the Grappler General feat might just be for you. This feat allows you to dominate the battlefield with a mix of brute strength and tactical maneuvers, making it perfect for characters who want to lay down a good old-fashioned ground and pound.
The Grappler feat has seen some changes in the 2024 Player’s Handbook, trading the ability to pin and Restrain creatures for an ASI, faster grappling, and faster movement when grappling creatures.
How Does Grappler Work?
A note on this rating scheme. Grappler is meant for a very specific type of build, one that focuses primarily on Unarmed Strikes and grappling. For every other build type, most of these features are basically unusable, so the ratings below reflect how useful these benefits are to grapple builds.
The Grappler General feat, available to characters level 4 or higher with a Strength or Dexterity score of 13+, provides the following benefits:
- Ability Score Increase: Increase your Strength or Dexterity by 1, to a maximum of 20. Like all General feats in the 2024 Player’s Handbook, Grappler offers an ASI to the skills associated with the feat, which is awesome because boosting Strength (or Dexterity if you’re a Monk) boosts your grapple’s effectiveness.
- Punch and Grab: When you hit a creature with an Unarmed Strike as part of the Attack action, you can choose the Damage and Grapple options. While any character can attempt to grapple, builds that focus on grappling will likely be using Unarmed Strikes because you need free hands to grapple enemies. This is a huge boost to grapple build’s action economy and combines well with the Attack Advantage benefit.
- Attack Advantage: Gain Advantage on attack rolls against creatures Grappled by you. This is a solid boost but is kind of redundant because a grapple build’s first priority is to get their enemies Prone. Seeing as Prone creatures have to use movement to stand up, grappling them reduces their Speed to 0, meaning they can’t get up. Then, you and your allies can make Melee attacks with Advantage all the live-long day. Still, it’s good for grapple builds to get Advantage on their attacks against Grappled enemies who aren’t Prone.
- Fast Wrestler: You can move a creature you’ve Grappled without spending extra movement, as long as it’s your size or smaller. This can certainly have some merit, like if you want to bring a Grappled creature close to your marital buddies so they can wail on them. It’s also effective if you want to drag enemies close to hazards or AoE effects and Shove them in. However, like we said above, the main gameplan of a grapple build is to knock enemies Prone, grapple them, and beat them senseless, and moving enemies isn’t conducive to that plan.
How to Get the Grappler Feat
You can take the Grappler General feat whenever you gain the Ability Score Improvement, starting at level 4, provided you meet the prerequisites.
How to Get the Grappler Feat
Is Grappler Good?
We gave Grappler a D Tier rating In our 5e Feats Tier List, making it an underwhelming feat in most cases.
The Grappler feat offers a specialized playstyle that works well for characters who want to excel in one thing: Grappling. For grapple builds, this feat combines a relevant ASI, action economy, attack effectiveness, and utility. However, for builds not focused on grappling, even if they are martial-focused characters, this feat is basically unusable.
Grappler 5e Interactions
Combos with Shove
Pairing Grappler with the Shove action or Topple mastery property allows you to knock enemies Prone and then grapple them. Once Grappled, their Speed becomes 0 until they can succeed in their Strength or Dexterity saving throw, providing Advantage on Melee attacks on them to you and your allies.
Synergizes with Monks and Martials with Unarmed Fighting Style
The Unarmed Fighting style increases your Unarmed Strike damage and lets you deal 1d4 Bludgeoning damage to Grappled creatures at the start of your turn. Monks, on the other hand, get incredibly powerful Unarmed Strikes, though its important to remember you can’t use the Punch and Grab benefit when you use an Unarmed Strike as a Bonus Action.
Extra Synergies with the Warrior of the Elements Monk
Thanks to the Warrior of the Elements Monk’s Elemental Attunement, they can extend the reach of their Unarmed Strikes by 10 feet and, using their Elemental Strikes benefit, reel targets 10 feet towards them if they fail their saving throw. Combined with the Grappler feat, you can:
- Make an Unarmed Strike against a creature 10 feet away from you.
- Deal damage (if you hit) and grapple them (if they fail their saving throw).
- Reel them back to you (if they fail an additional saving throw).
- Maintain the grapple and attack with Advantage.
Keep in mind that you’ll have to pull the target within your reach as part of the Unarmed Strike, or your grapple will automatically fail.
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