Recent content by Eric Olson

A grappling monk would be great for roll-playing. Descriptive martial art combat! Clinch and strike. Grab and throw (grapple then knock down). Unfortunately, it is weak grappler compared to other class choices. I think the best chance is to get a level of rogue so you can "expertise"...

One reasonable extension of the rules would be to use a claw type weapon attached to the wrist like a Tekko-kagi. (treat it as dagger for simplicity and balance) These were traditionally used as defensive weapons (blocking swords with the hand). Seems to fit the flavor of the ability perfectly...

The 3d{2,3,3,4,4,5} distribution is the same general bell curve as 3d6, except the extremes are removed, so the bell is narrower. Same average. The PC curve (4d6-L) is very similar to the 3d6 bell curve, except shifted 2 points higher in each stat. (Point buy distribution is similar to the...

Point buy systems are fair, but don't make the assumption that a point-buy system is equitable for the players. You can look at the character build forums and find point buy character recipes that are far more "powerful" than others. This gives a playing advantage to players that are either...

After 148 pages I think everyone reading understands the trade-off of rolling vs point buy. Rolling: potentially fun, can create imbalance between characters, atypical abilities can promote RP Buy/Std: balanced characters, pre-planned characters, identically min/maxed characters. Lets have...

Sorry if that was not clear. Your assumption was correct (these are based on the combined rolling and point-buy insurance) max( 3 , 4d6x1) averages 12.24 and max( 3, 3d6 ) averages 10.50 (these are just straight rolls) max(10, 4d6x1) averages 12.63 and max( 3, 3d6 ) averages 11.46...

To get the desired blend of randomness and play-ability you would want to modify and scale the point-buy system (so it acts more like "insurance" on certain abilities. Start with [3 3 3 3 3 3] and 30 points. The point table would need to get further curved to balance the probabilities: (3=0...

What about some combination of point-buy and rolling to minimize some of the issues with either method. For example: First point buy. Then re-roll each ability once (in-order) and keep the higher. [with DM to eliminate cheating] (adjust both the point-buy total and/or the roll (3d6 vs...

I think you are correct on his example. I checked and Jeremy has clearly stated that each individual attack within the attack action can be substituted with a grapple or shove. This makes sense ... There was an effort to reduce complexity so that a DM may lead the combat in an organized way...

I may have read too much into his example: @59:30 (Answering a question about grapple as a AoO) “… the basic grapple attack is part of the attack action. …. Actually when we wrote the rule originally, it was a little bit more open ended: and we allowed you to swap out any attack with a grapple...

I just heard the July 31st, 2017 sage advice interview with Jeremy Crawford about grappling. (can't post link) Nice summary. Nothing new to this thread except at about 56:00: Jeremy acknowledges that the grappler feat is underpowered and would “beef it up” if he were writing it today. Greg...