D&D 5E Is Grapple forced movement supposed to care about carrying capacity?

[Stalker0]

I saw someone mentions this recently and honestly I had never thought about it.

The Grapple rules state that once you grapple a creature, on your turn you can move half your speed and move that creature with you. However, before we perform that movement, do we need to consider carrying capacity?

I can see three schools of thought:

1) Most conservative: This kind of movement is basically like picking the creature up and moving them. As such, you must be able to pick up the creature in order to move it.
2) Middle: This kind of movement is similar to a drag, and so must be able to drag the creature in order to move it.
3) Most liberal: This kind of movement is more like you are "using the creature's motion against it", so there is really no exertion needed outside of the half movement. Carrying capacity doesn't factor in at all.

I have put in a poll, let me know how you see it?

 

[Vaalingrade]

You're not lifting them. Nothing in the game lets you do something cool as that.

It's mostly the maneuvering for greco-roman wrestling, so no carrying capacity.

 

[Rabbitbait]

Does adding rules around this add fun to the game? No? Don't worry about it then.

I remember the many many tables from 1st edition, and having to reference a table every time an attack roll was made. Minimal rules are less realistic but it's worth it for simplicity of play.

 

[palikhov]

I always look at CC and weight of grappled creature - if monk can't drag this creature then he can't move when grapple this creature.
It's simple

 

[ECMO3]

RAW it is size, not weight that matters for grapple.

 

[Iosue]

Anyone with any experience in grappling will tell you, it's not about how much you can lift, but how you can manipulate the opponent's body to make them go where you want them to.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Does adding rules around this add fun to the game? No? Don't worry about it then.

Much like encumbrance in general.

 

[MGibster]

Much like encumbrance in general.

You're not wrong. I just ask my players to be reasonable and move on from there.

 

[James Gasik]

It's very simple to figure out the intent of the rule, I think. The target of a grapple can be no more than one size category above you.

A 20 Strength Human Fighter can carry 300 pounds.

A Large-sized creature is at minimum 10' tall. Extrapolating from human average height/weight and the square cube law, that's going to be 896 pounds.

No medium-sized character could carry that weight, thus if that were a requirement, no such character* could move a large-sized creature.

*Possibly with Powerful Build, but no race had this trait when the PHB grapple rules were written.

If the intent was for players to not be able to move large-sized creatures in the grapple, the grapple rules would say so, not force you to go to another part of the PHB to determine an unstated restriction.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

Grappling something already makes you move at half speed. That is there exactly so you don't have to go 'okay wait, your Str score is 18, so you can carry 18x15=270 pounds, but you're already carrying 100 pounds of equipment, so you can only lift someone who is 170 pounds, only they're also carrying 100 pounds of equipment, so you can only grapple a halfling... or maybe you're dragging them, but dragging in excess of your carrying capacity makes you able to only move 5 feet, half of which rounds down to zero' when the rules assume you will be grappling Large enemies.

...especially when you can push those 1000-pound Large enemies around with plenty of attacks even before weapon masteries come in, without suffering any slowdown...