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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 7107770" data-attributes="member: 63">Regarding the grappling rules, the system in 5e is fine-ish, except that they clearly didn't design monsters to deal with grappling. And, I guess kinda like real-life grappling, if you don't know what you're doing you're basically powerless.In my last 5e campaign, the 8th level party crippled a marching army led by an archmage by something we came to call Operation Bloodtalon.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Take a Str 16 bard with training and expertise in Athletics. She casts greater invisibility on herself.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The paladin casts bless.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The warlock contributes fly.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The arcane trickster provides enhance ability (strength).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">An NPC sorcerer the party defeated and befriended casts haste.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">And, as cherry on top, the party cleric casts silence on a spot just next to where they'll hide.</li> </ul>One part of the road to the party's village passes between a river and a steep hill. The party sets up behind the hill and hides in a rope trick. They have some archers on the other side of the river. When the column has just reached the hill, the archers holler and let loose, drawing the army's attention to the other side of the river and peeling off the handful of flying beasts they have at their command. That's the signal for the party to begin. Everyone casts their spells, and the bard swoops out, invisible, hastened, and swole. She flies over the hill (speed 120), grabs the archmage rolling (with advantage) d20+d4+9 against the feeble wizard's d20+0, and then uses the bonus Dash from haste to withdraw. From the perspective of his army, the wizard is picked up like a plush doll in a claw game and carried off. By the time he gets a chance to react he's been yanked back over the hill and into the area of the silence spell. He cannot cast anything himself, so he uselessly tries to escape the grapple. The rest of the party drops out of the rope trick. The warlock casts dispel magic and manages to take out the archmage's contingent stoneskin. The paladin, cleric, and arcane trickster kill the archmage with a combination of smites, sneak attacks, and inflict wounds (something like 9d8+6d10+6d6+11 damage).They then drag his body out of the silence spell, and the bard and NPC sorcerer each cast dimension door to flee 500 feet with two other party members. At that point, one round into the battle, a single flying scout gets over the hill and spots the remaining two PCs (cleric and arcane trickster), but then the cleric casts dimension door too and the party is nowhere to be seen.So yeah, grappling (and extreme amounts of planning) is OP. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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