D&D 5E Rogue’s Fast Hands and Manacles

[Steampunkette]

Okayso...

Fast Hands lets you make a sleight of hand check as a bonus action.

That's you getting the manacles out without the other person seeing it.

Then you use your action to make a Grapple check using Dexterity against the target.

If you succeed, you can handcuff the target to a nearby object, to yourself, or just cuff their wrists together.

Slapping manacles on both of someone's wrists gives them disadvantage to one-handed actions, as they have to pull both hands over to do whatever the thing is.

It applies no penalty to the Grapple or Attack Action when using a Two Handed Weapon (Or a Versatile Weapon in both hands).

Binding them to an object or yourself instead applies the Restrained condition, limiting their movement considerably, and makes using two-handed actions impossible. One handed actions are made as normal.

 

[Bacon Bits]

I've never had it come up in combat, but it would be some kind of contest that's not really covered by the rules. I'd also probably lean heavily in favor of the target because I wouldn't want it to be a go-to tactic out of personal preference. Like others have said, manacles are not generally pictured as handcuffs, although that of course is going to vary from campaign to campaign. This post on an old thread had a good picture of what I envision.

Oh, I can come up with something, too. That isn't my point.

The issue is that the existence of the Grappler feat implies that it's supposed to be limited to characters that have the Grappler feat. This is the Hide/Move Silently Thief problem. In introducing a mechanic whereby certain characters have access to a special mechanic, you suggest that this is the only way to access this mechanic. The very existence of the Thief made sneaking a Thief-only mechanic whereas before it was a feature for all PCs. Similarly, the very existence of the Grappler feat makes using athletics checks to restrain a grappled character feel like you're doing something you shouldn't. It says "this is the mechanical way to access the option you seek."

Under analysis, Grappler is a horrible feat and from a balance perspective I don't really see a massive problem with using the restrained feature from it with any character. It's a good mechanical resolution, too, and the most straightforward. However, maybe there's a reason not to do it. Maybe the devs tested it and found that it was abusive. Maybe as a non-feat it should require beating a grapple check by 5? Or maybe as a non-feat it should require two characters grappling one target to restrain them? Or maybe it should require rope or some other type of restraint? We don't know why they decided to create Grappler in the first place.