Battle Jump - Start a grapple with a jump.It's unclear if you can fling a creature that isn't three or more sizes smaller than you if so, then this changes to great. Snatch - Improved grab with a claw or bite attack.prereq: Aberration Blood, one other aberrant feat This is good if you are a Black Blood Cultist (two more natural attacks) otherwisejust take Aberration Blood, because the bonuses don't stack. Deepspawn - Two tentacle attacks, +2 racial to grapple checks.Shape Soulmeld (Kraken Mantle) - If you bind this to your arms chakra (see previous feat), you get another big untyped boost to grappling.Excellent feat for a totemist dip, or (when combined w/ Girallon Arms) anyone with claw attacks. Open Lesser Chakra (Arms) - +2 insight to grapple checks.Combine with Skarn and Black Blood Cultist FTW. A must-have for any grappler who has access to incarnum. Shape Soulmeld (Girallon Arms) - +2/(1+essentia) competence to grapple checks.Aberration Blood (Flexible Limbs) - +2 racial to grapple checks.This is a must for any low-level human grappler, though when you get access to magic which increases your size you'll want to retrain it. Jotunbrud - Count as Large for grapples.prereq: IUS, str 21, dex 21, escape artist 15 ranks, EPIC FEAT If you're playing an epic grappler (what is wrong with you?), this feat is for you. Legendary Wrestler - +10 untyped to grapple check.One of the few ways to get Improved Grab. Scorpion's Grasp - You get improved grab (essentially).Also, this is a prereq for a number of other grappling feats. In general, spells, equipment, and class features are much better for increasing your damage. The former is invariably better than the latter, unless one of the latter meets a specific need for a given build. There are two types of feats that can help with grappling: those that improve your grapple check, and those that increase the damage you can do with a grapple. Here's a graph showing average grapple score vs CR, using SRD monsters only. Also note that NPCs (enemies with character classes and few racial HD) will generally have much lower grapple modifiers than monsters of the same CR. In general, you want to try and keep your grapple score above the average for the CR you tend to face (though the CR system is extremely flawed, so use that as a guideline only). They are usually bigger, and they usually have strength bonuses from their race which are larger than yours. Why monsters are better at grappling than you are (Thanks to PhaedrusXY for this advice.) This can be difficult, because boosting your grapple score is going to take a lot of your resources, so try and play a class that gives you bonuses to grappling while giving you versatility in other areas. Use it as a tool (and sometimes an effective one), but make sure you have alternative options. Most importantly, don't overspecialize in grappling.There are a few classes and a couple feats that give it to you. If you can, find some way to get Improved Grab - being able to start a grapple with a melee attack instead of a touch attack is better.It's the "special size modifier": Colossal +16, Gargantuan +12, Huge +8, Large +4, Medium +0, Small -4, Tiny -8, Diminutive -12, Fine -16. This is a quick way to get a big grapple bonus, and it's part of the reason monsters are better at it than you are. The most important thing to do is increase your size.Most of the bonuses stack with each other. there are a lot of feats and spells to make you better at it. This means that the best grapplers are (as usual) spellcasters, who can grapple with spells (Evard's Black Tentacles, Kelpstrand) or summoned monsters, who are usually bigger and therefore better at it than opponents. The best way to grapple is not to do it yourself.If you have any changes or builds to suggest, please feel free. I am not an expert in grappling by any means I happened to discover that there was no grappling handbook when I was trying to make a gimmicky NPC (ha!), so I figured I'd write one. However, there are certain situations where it can be advantageous, and in particular a gimmicky NPC can be optimized for grappling just to annoy certain party members. Grappling is generally a suboptimal tactic. Honestly, it's probably not a very good idea.
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