D&D 5E Grappling on a steed

Gavin O. · Dec 21, 2018

Does anyone know of there are any rules regarding grappling while mounted? RAW, your movement speed is halved while grappling someone, but I don't know if that applies to your mount or not.

I ask this because I'm playing a Paladin of Vengeance who has both Haste and a Pegasus mount (obtained Via a scroll of Find Greater Steed). A pegasus has a flying speed of 90 feet, so after being buffed with Haste, its fly speed increases to 180, and it can take the dash action twice per turn, giving a total fly speed of 540. So could I, in one round:

-Use my attack action to grapple someone.
-Have my pegasus fly 170 feet straight up into the air
-Drop the creature I'm grappling, they fall for 17d6 bludgeoning damage (no save)
-Have my pegasus follow them to the ground
-Grapple them again using my second attack
-Fly 200 feet straight up
-Drop my target again for another 20d6 bludgeoning damage.

In total, that's 37d6 or about 130 damage.

Umbran · Dec 21, 2018

I am away from book right now, but....

Note that when you drag around a grappled creature, your speed is halved unless it is two sizes smaller - A pegasus is large, so you'd only get full movement if you're doing this to a small creature.

Note also that the Pegasus doesn't have an amazing strength - it already has you, saddle and tack, possibly barding, and any gear you have on it - hoisting up another armored medium creature may put it beyond its carrying capacity.

Once you are in the air, releasing the target probably does not mean it automatically falls, because now it really, really doesn't want to be let go. You might need to shove it off your mount, which would take another attack.

After the fall, your target is prone. I don't think you, on horseback, get to easily grapple a prone critter after dropping it. Mounted, you are 5' off the ground, so your second grapple is at best at a disadvantage, I suspect.

Gavin O. · Dec 21, 2018

Umbran said:
I am away from book right now, but....

Note that when you drag around a grappled creature, your speed is halved unless it is two sizes smaller - A pegasus is large, so you'd only get full movement if your doing this to a small creature.

Note also that the Pegasus doesn't have an amazing strength - it already has you, saddle and tack, possibly barding, and any gear you have on it - hoisting up another armored medium creature may put it beyond its carrying capacity.

Once you are in the air, releasing the target probably does not mean it automatically falls, because now it really, really doesn't want to be let go. You might need to shove it off your mount, which would take another attack.

After the fall, your target is prone. I don't think you, on horseback, get to easily grapple a prone critter after dropping it. Mounted, you are 5' off the ground, so your second grapple is at best at a disadvantage, I suspect.

I'm not the one moving though. The game says your speed is halved, but it doesnt say anything about a mount you ride.

In the PHB, the warhorse, who has the same strength as a pegasus, is given a carrying capacity of 540 pounds, that *should* be enough for one other creature

iserith · Dec 21, 2018

I could see a DM ruling disadvantage on your Strength (Athletics) check to grapple while mounted and ruling that the pegasus' speed is halved while you are grappling the target. Disadvantage is a reasonable enough thing to establish in my view that is in line with the rules: "The DM can also decide that circumstances inﬂuence a roll in one direction or the other and grant advantage or impose disadvantage as a result." A DM might also say that even though it's the pegasus that is moving, you are also moving and therefore half speed applies. I would say that ruling is less supported than the ruling on disadvantage, but as the players have no recourse to the rules anyway, it's not worth arguing over at the table.

If the DM rules the way you suggest it can be done, but has a problem with you doing an average of 130 damage with this trick, then some comfort can be had knowing that it took at least two resources to pull off (one of which is presumably not replaceable), can't be done consistently every round since the pegasus ends the first turn 200 feet up, doesn't work against Huge or Gargantuan creatures, doesn't work in an adventure location with a low ceiling, and can end when the DM has the monsters target the pegasus enough to kill it.

Blue · Dec 21, 2018

@Gavin O. RAW, this works with one addition (detailed below). At my table I'd rule slightly differently.

Unless the mount is two sizes larger I would still put in the penalty. This is a ruling, other DMs could rule it differently. My discussion is below.
I would require an Animal Handling roll for flying straight up at amazing speeds while grappling someone hostile. One of the times for Animal Handling is "to control your mount when you attempt a risky maneuver" and that pretty clearly qualifies.
If you succeed on a shove attack it's bombs away. However, if you just release him and they have a reaction available, I'd let them use that reaction to try to grab onto you/your mount/it's tack. This is acknowledgement of the list of reactions is not exhaustive and others make sense at times.

So you have halve the movement, and it does take a shove up top to push him away without chance to grab onto something. Still one fall from up to 270 feet.

My justification for halving the mount speed is a bunch of things that together are individually close but on one side of the line, but taken together I would feel represent the spirit of the rules.

Grappling movement speed reduction never talks about your carrying capacity - which means that part of it is the resistance of the creature you are grappling. Which can easily be true of it getting in the way of wings and such.

Carrying itself into the air might add it's own weight to the weight carried, which could then put it over. This is more fiddly then 5e puts out rules for, relying on rulings.

The variant encumbrance rules (PHB 176, right next to carrying) really imply you would be slowed well before max carrying capacity.

To represent those together, I'd go by the grappling rules and still impose half speed unless it's two sizes smaller than the mount. So a huge dragon will ignore carrying an extra, resisting man, but a merely horse-size creature will be affected.

Gavin O. · Dec 22, 2018

Blue said:
So you have halve the movement, and it does take a shove up top to push him away without chance to grab onto something. Still one fall from up to 270 feet.

Unless there's been Errata somewhere, the maximum falling damage you can take at once is 20d6 for a 200 foot fall, that's why I had to drop them and pick them back up again.

I'd say your ruling is pretty fair, I imagine it would be a pretty high animal handling DC to fly straight up at 98 Km/h (or 61 mph), which is what 540 feet per six seconds works out to.

MechaPilot · Dec 22, 2018

Gavin O. said:
Does anyone know of there are any rules regarding grappling while mounted? RAW, your movement speed is halved while grappling someone, but I don't know if that applies to your mount or not.

I ask this because I'm playing a Paladin of Vengeance who has both Haste and a Pegasus mount (obtained Via a scroll of Find Greater Steed). A pegasus has a flying speed of 90 feet, so after being buffed with Haste, its fly speed increases to 180, and it can take the dash action twice per turn, giving a total fly speed of 540. So could I, in one round:

-Use my attack action to grapple someone.
-Have my pegasus fly 170 feet straight up into the air
-Drop the creature I'm grappling, they fall for 17d6 bludgeoning damage (no save)
-Have my pegasus follow them to the ground
-Grapple them again using my second attack
-Fly 200 feet straight up
-Drop my target again for another 20d6 bludgeoning damage.

In total, that's 37d6 or about 130 damage.

No, so far as I know, you can't do that in one round. The pegasus' fly speed is 90 ft. If it dashed, it could move a total of 180 ft. So, at best its movement would allow you to get 170 feet up, drop the grapple target, then come 10 feet back down. That also assumes the pegasus starts its turn adjacent to the grapple target.

Also, if you dropped the creature, I'd either allow it a Dex save to try to grab onto you, your saddle, your stirrups, or your mount, or make letting it go a second grapple check or an ability check that takes your whole action. As I see it, dropping the creature definitely counts as some kind of attack. If it doesn't count as an attack, it certainly counts as some kind of hazard (like a collapsing cliff-face or a pitfall trap) that the target deserves a save against. Even if it doesn't count as a hazard-like save, it certainly counts as an ability contest.

Plus, don't forget that the target can grapple your pegasus, reducing your precious mount's speed to zero. If done in the air, this means pegasus and rider plummet like a stone. A creature that knows you're going to drop it to its death very well might decide it's worth taking you with it. If any of your foes see you use this tactic successfully, they can ready actions to grapple your mount when you grapple them.

Edit: I missed the mention of Haste. Haste doubles the speed to 180 ft., so that's a 360 ft. dash. If you start adjacent to the target, with the pegasus' hasted movement you can fly them up 170 feet, drop them, follow them back down the full 170 foot drop, grapple them again, then fly up only 20 feet; not 200 feet.

Gavin O. · Dec 22, 2018

MechaPilot said:
No, so far as I know, you can't do that in one round. The pegasus' fly speed is 90 ft. If it dashed, it could move a total of 180 ft. So, at best its movement would allow you to get 170 feet up, drop the grapple target, then come 10 feet back down. That also assumes the pegasus starts its turn adjacent to the grapple target.

Also, if you dropped the creature, I'd either allow it a Dex save to try to grab onto you, your saddle, your stirrups, or your mount, or make letting it go a second grapple check or an ability check that takes your whole action. As I see it, dropping the creature definitely counts as some kind of attack. If it doesn't count as an attack, it certainly counts as some kind of hazard (like a collapsing cliff-face or a pitfall trap) that the target deserves a save against. Even if it doesn't count as a hazard-like save, it certainly counts as an ability contest.

Plus, don't forget that the target can grapple your pegasus, reducing your precious mount's speed to zero. If done in the air, this means pegasus and rider plummet like a stone. A creature that knows you're going to drop it to its death very well might decide it's worth taking you with it. If any of your foes see you use this tactic successfully, they can ready actions to grapple your mount when you grapple them.

Edit: I missed the mention of Haste. Haste doubles the speed to 180 ft., so that's a 360 ft. dash. If you start adjacent to the target, with the pegasus' hasted movement you can fly them up 170 feet, drop them, follow them back down the full 170 foot drop, grapple them again, then fly up only 20 feet; not 200 feet.

Haste also allows you to take an extra action on your turn, which can be use to take a second dash action (which stacks with the first), that's how you reach 540 feet.

Shiroiken · Dec 22, 2018

It could be argued by a DM (as I probably would) that if your steed moves away from a creature that you've grappled, you cannot maintain the grapple with the creature. It says when *you* move you may drag a grappled creature, but you are not moving, but being moved by your mount. It may be semantics, but it seems not very different to me than if you were moved by a Thunderwave spell (the example listed in the grapple condition of how it might end). This is particularly relevant if you consider the Pegasus to be an intelligent creature, because then it acts on its own initiative.

Oofta · Dec 22, 2018

Shiroiken said:
It could be argued by a DM (as I probably would) that if your steed moves away from a creature that you've grappled, you cannot maintain the grapple with the creature. It says when *you* move you may drag a grappled creature, but you are not moving, but being moved by your mount. It may be semantics, but it seems not very different to me than if you were moved by a Thunderwave spell (the example listed in the grapple condition of how it might end). This is particularly relevant if you consider the Pegasus to be an intelligent creature, because then it acts on its own initiative.

Right. And if it's not being considered an intelligent creature then it can only move. But the sticking point is that grapple specifically states that "when you move you can drag or carry the grappled creature with you".

Since this is a silly rule exploit in the first place (and I'd rule that it wouldn't work for several other reasons as well), using a technicality is a perfectly legitimate reason to say no in my book.

Besides, I always rule that what works for the PCs works for the bad guys. Unless ya'll can cast a lot of feather fall spells it's going to become a very different game quickly.

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