Now that Prodigy is a thing, I'm considering a grappling cleric as well.
My thoughts:
-Only three races can pick up Prodigy: Human, Half-Elf, and Half-Orc. They each bring some great benefits. Grapplers typically need to be very tanky, and Half-Orcs are very nice for tanking. Variant human can get that 16 starting score in both wisdom and con, which is great; and the extra feat is cool because you can pick up Prodigy and then still have all your normal ASIs/Feats go to Clericky stuff; and you'll probably want Resilient Con and/or Warcaster too, since you'll be taking lots of hits. Half-elf, though, is reeaaally tempting for me, due to Elven Accuracy. Superadvantage on wisdom attacks (Spiritual Weapon, Thorn Whip, Inflict Wounds) can be awesome. Not directly grapple related, but can really synergize with grappling, as you will often be able to shove enemies prone with your awesome athletics score. The only problem is, needing to pick up Prodigy, Warcaster, and Elven Accuracy, it's not til L12 I'll really get to have fun with it. So it'd probably be vHuman for me.
-Two domains are particularly good for a grapler IMO.
--The first is Nature. Heavy Armor and Dampen Elements are great for defense; Thorn Whip and Plant Growth are great for keeping enemies close / battlefield control. Plant Growth in particular combos amazingly well with Spirit Guardians, as the movement reduction effects stack for a total 1/8th of normal movement speed. For a creature with 30' movement, that means they can't even move one square on their turn, which is effectively a lockdown. AOE grappling!
--The other is Life. Just because it's so dang survivable.
My thoughts:
-Only three races can pick up Prodigy: Human, Half-Elf, and Half-Orc. They each bring some great benefits. Grapplers typically need to be very tanky, and Half-Orcs are very nice for tanking. Variant human can get that 16 starting score in both wisdom and con, which is great; and the extra feat is cool because you can pick up Prodigy and then still have all your normal ASIs/Feats go to Clericky stuff; and you'll probably want Resilient Con and/or Warcaster too, since you'll be taking lots of hits. Half-elf, though, is reeaaally tempting for me, due to Elven Accuracy. Superadvantage on wisdom attacks (Spiritual Weapon, Thorn Whip, Inflict Wounds) can be awesome. Not directly grapple related, but can really synergize with grappling, as you will often be able to shove enemies prone with your awesome athletics score. The only problem is, needing to pick up Prodigy, Warcaster, and Elven Accuracy, it's not til L12 I'll really get to have fun with it. So it'd probably be vHuman for me.
-Two domains are particularly good for a grapler IMO.
--The first is Nature. Heavy Armor and Dampen Elements are great for defense; Thorn Whip and Plant Growth are great for keeping enemies close / battlefield control. Plant Growth in particular combos amazingly well with Spirit Guardians, as the movement reduction effects stack for a total 1/8th of normal movement speed. For a creature with 30' movement, that means they can't even move one square on their turn, which is effectively a lockdown. AOE grappling!
--The other is Life. Just because it's so dang survivable.
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