D&D (2024) PHB 2024 Is Hilariously Broken. Most OP of All Time?

[NotAYakk]

The answer is simple: when you grapple and drag them, the DM determines where the enemy goes.

As the grappler, you don't have any special control over where they go. You can drag/carry them along, but you don't have any more say than that.

Controlling where they are down to the square is right out. Like "I stick my sword in their eyeballs" or "I cut their head off" or "I create water into their lungs", that is kind of thing is something you can do to a defeated enemy, not to someone you are still fighting with.

Without them being defeated, you get to do what the rules say you can do, but you don't get to interpret the details: the DM does.

And Drag in almost every situation is going to be "they move into the square you leave if they would otherwise leave your reach". Just like how you would drag something in real life.

Carry would be, well, carrying them. When a TRex bites you for example. So a much smaller foe and probably requires restrained/prone or the like.

 

[Mistwell]

Got a page number for that? You have won the grapple roll who's to say you're not using an arm bar to make them go sideways? Or using their own momentum against them?

Because it's a drag. We all know what dragging is. Again, and for the last time, WHY WOULD YOU COME UP WITH A LOOPHOLE TO DRAGGING WHICH YOU CALLED HILARIOUSLY BROKEN?

I would offer to show you in real life hurts like a SoB. Might be a carry the feat is sized not weight based so it's kinda irrelevant in any case. It's abstract.

It's weight and size. There is an entire chart on it under Carrying Capacity.

 

[Zardnaar]

Because it's a drag. We all know what dragging is. Again, and for the last time, WHY WOULD YOU COME UP WITH A LOOPHOLE TO DRAGGING WHICH YOU CALLED HILARIOUSLY BROKEN?


It's weight and size. There is an entire chart on it under Carrying Capacity.

Is there any relevant rules for dragging?

There's various holds and locks you can use to drag people around without them being behind you.

Grab a limb and sling them into something.

 

[Xetheral]

There's an argument that the grapple rules (not feat) override the the carrying capacity rules. Gets into 2014 hand crossbow reloading without a hand pre errata territory. The rule doesn't say I need X so I don't. The rule doesn't say I need to follow the carrying capacity rules so I don't.

That's a reductive mischaracterization of my argument. I was explicit that I see the specific rules on moving grappled creatures as in conflict with the movement limitations imposed on dragging by the general encumbrance rules, as I explained in detail in this post. My argument is emphatically not simply "[t]he rule doesn't say I need to follow the carrying capacity rules so I don't."

I respect that you disagree with me on whether or not the two rules conflict with each other. I would appreciate it if you would nevertheless please either accurately summarize my argument or else link to my post if/when you find yourself fielding questions about my opinion.

 

[FrogReaver]

Is there any relevant rules for dragging?

Yes. The Carrying Capacity section tells you the max weight you can drag is 30x str and that if your drag over 15x str that you only move 5ft.

There's various holds and locks you can use to drag people around without them being behind you.

Grab a limb and sling them into something.

That's not dragging. You can maybe force someone to go where you want them to go using an arm bar, hold or lock. But that's not what dragging is.

 

[FrogReaver]

That's a reductive mischaracterization of my argument. I was explicit that I see the specific rules on moving grappled creatures as in conflict with the movement limitations imposed on dragging by the general encumbrance rules, as I explained in detail in this post. My argument is emphatically not simply "[t]he rule doesn't say I need to follow the carrying capacity rules so I don't."

I say it boils down to the same kind of argument as the hand crossbow no free hand to load argument pre errata.

I respect that you disagree with me on whether or not the two rules conflict with each other. I would appreciate it if you would nevertheless please either accurately summarize my argument or else link to my post if/when you find yourself fielding questions about my opinion.

Sorry, but my take of that argument is exactly what I stated. You can disagree with my take on it, you can share your own take on it as well, but i'm not going to not share my take because you think it's inaccurate while I think it's accurate.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yes. The Carrying Capacity section tells you the max weight you can drag is 30x str and that if your drag over 15x str that you only move 5ft.

That's not dragging. You can maybe force someone to go where you want them to go using an arm bar, hold or lock. But that's not what dragging is.

Well with 16 strength or higher it's not much of an issue. That's 480. Goliath here I come.

 

[FrogReaver]

Well with 16 strength or higher it's not much of an issue. That's 480. Goliath here I come.

You normally can only drag between 240 and 480 5ft a turn. A goliath could do normal up to 480 at 16 str and 5ft between 480 and 960.

But again, your further specifying build choices to try and make this work. The point isn't that grapple drag cannot be built to work, it's that you have to basically dedicate a character to making it work well. You need to pick a specific race, take a high str, take the grapple feat, hopefully increase your movement, and then have one of your casters actually cast a damage zone spell, hope the enemy stays close enough, etc. And that's if it even works at the table to begin with due to many if not most ruling dragging must be done behind you, not beside you.

In short, even if allowed, grapple moving enemies into damage zones will usually not be worth it unless the party as a whole really builds around it.

 

[Zardnaar]

You normally can only drag between 240 and 480 5ft a turn. A goliath could do normal up to 480 at 16 str and 5ft between 480 and 960.

But again, your further specifying build choices to try and make this work. The point isn't that grapple drag cannot be built to work, it's that you have to basically dedicate a character to making it work well. You need to pick a specific race, take a high str, take the grapple feat, hopefully increase your movement, and then have one of your casters actually cast a damage zone spell, hope the enemy stays close enough, etc. And that's if it even works at the table to begin with due to many if not most ruling dragging must be done behind you, not beside you.

In short, even if allowed, grapple moving enemies into damage zones will usually not be worth it unless the party as a whole really builds around it.

Basic ideas fine just easier to use magic.

 

[clearstream]

We miught be describing & imagining different things Drag on the side like this pic from here. rather than behijnd like this.

Those pics remind me of half-carrying-half-dragging a lengthy awkward object like a branch and seeing it brush the ground to one side of me. The choice of picture seems designed to prompt an intuition that i) I can picture dragging said object a few feet off to the side so that it brushes the ground in what would amount to a separate square, and if so that ii) I can picture applying the same to a living creature. Thus - hopefully - establishing a norm for "drag". For me, it's not doing that job: a stronger norm is that you "drag" things through the space you move through.

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That all said, I agree with @NotAYakk that

when you grapple and drag them, the DM determines where the enemy goes.​

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Which can apply regardless of how any given reader pictures "drag". I don't recall any text saying that the grappler chooses which square the foe is dragged into as they "drag" them.