My current character is a Gold Dragonborn Rune Knight Fighter with a bit of Divine Soul Sorcerer. The concept is basically "what if Godzilla was a pro wrestler?" Unarmed Fighting style, Skill Expert for Expertise, and maximum strength make her a powerful grappler, while Giant Might lets her become Large with her Bonus Action, granting advantage on Strength checks and letting her grapple Huge or smaller creatures. She's not as tanky, but heavy armor and a shield helps offset that. The Sorcerer levels are so she can cast Enlarge on herself to become Huge and grapple anything, or she can use Bless for better accuracy or Spirit Guardians for an AoE around her. Shield spell is also good for AC, while Spiritual Weapon lets her summon a steel chair for some Bonus Action force damage. Hill Rune is Diet Rage, giving those resistances, and Action Surge lets her set up and attack in the same turn (or, if she's feeling spicy, Extra Attack and Action Surge for four Fire Breath attacks in one turn).

"Then you can grapple a Tarrasque, pin them down, and wail on them." Said the Tarrasque, "Stop, that tickles, I'm immune to fists and headbutts, that's really annoying...I'm going to eat you now."

Day 3 of asking for Uncle Iroh

At 14th level, I would have taken Eagle for the ridiculous fly speed that ends at the end of your turn, which for a grappler is actually an Epic Suplex maneuver. When you have an opponent grappled, you fly straight up into the air as far as you can, hold your opponent below you, and fall at the end of your turn. Bonus points if you end your turn above a different enemy. The grappled target takes fall damage, plus damage from you landing on them, you take half damage because rage, and if you landed on another enemy, they take damage from being fallen upon. Bonus points of you can work Tavern Brawler in there somewhere for the improvised weapon proficiency, because if you're grappling a creature, you're holding an improvised weapon. And if you get Athlete in there somewhere, you can get up from prone using only 5 feet of movement. 10 feet of the DM rules that grappling cost twice the movement speed. In that case, you just don't fly as high so you can stand up at the end of the round.

Go Fighter instead, Rune knight. Use the right runes to get advantage and damage resistance. Then make sure to get Tavern Brawler and Grappler (advantage on the extra attacks). Built in extra size and the fire and stone runes add some additional crowd control. Maybe talk to your dm to see if your magical armor would work with your unarmed strikes to bypass nonmagical resistance

Having extra limbs on a grapple build is an insane bonus as this allows you to wield a weapon. One of my favorite builds was a loxodon rune knight who would grapple people with his trunk and then smash them with a giant hammer. Sadly, the campaign ended just before I could reach level 8 where I would have taken the pole arm master feat to deliver massive DPS. Additionally, the grappler feat is severely underrated when it comes to grappling as it allows you to have advantage against grappled creatures without having to shove or restrain them which is especially amazing for melee focused fighters who are typically desperate for advantage.

Playing Drakkenheim right now. Sebastian Crowe's guide to Drakkenheim has a barbarian build that's all about grappling. At level 3 when you attack someone you can try to grapple as part of that attack, at level 6 you can grapple creatures two sizes larger than you and your movement isn't restricted, and at 14 you can grapple any creature of any size, even if you're a small race. My character is an Owlin with boots of speed, so I grab them, fly them up a hundred feet, and drop them. Lots of fun.

something better than shoving a creature prone, is jumping and landing on them, you may need the "athletic" feat to stand up more efficiently, but because you can only move half your speed when you grapple you may argue that you have the other half now that you drop the creature so you cud stand up with the rest of it, and if you jump and drop them (no action required) you not only deal a good amount of damage in the fall, they land prone, with Tasha's runes you only take half if you fall on them and the target takes x1.5 de damage, when you only take 0.5 and you are resistant to that type of damage

You know, they say that all builds are created equal, but you look at this grappler build, and you look at other builds, and you can see that statement is not true. See, normally if you go one on one with another build, you got a fifty-fifty chance of winning. But this grappler build's a genetic freak and it's not normal. So you got a twenty-five percent, AT BEST, at beating this grappler build. Then you add a Tarrasque to the mix, your chances of winning drastically go down. See the three-way at D&D, you got a thirty-three and one-third chance of winning, but this build, this grappler build's got a sixty-six and two-thirds chance of winning, because the Tarrasque KNOWS it can't beat the build and it's not even gonna try. So, other builds, you take your thirty-three and one-third chance, minus this grappler build's twenty-five percent chance and you got an eight and one-third chance of winning at D&D. But then you take its seventy-five chance of winning, if you was to go one-on-one, and then add sixty-six and two-thirds percent, it's got one hundered and fourty-one and two-thirds chance of winning at D&D. See, other builds, the numbers don't lie, and they spell disaster for you at D&D.

Duergar Rune Knight Fighter. All by yourself at 18 level you can become Gargantuan yourself.

As an avid lover of Beat 'Em Ups - I can picture all kinda ways to use Grappling in D&D

I was actually toying around with the 3rd build with Path of the Giant. It’s pretty fun and was pretty similar to what you had

I’d be super extra cool and dope if you made Adam from The Record of Ragnarok

Caim from Drakengaard would be a really cool build. Dark brooding warrior who sacrifices his voice to make a pact with a dragon so he can save/avenge his sister. All his dialogue is delivered through the dragon. Drakewarden, warlock, or something using summon draconic spirit?

good build overall,; I'd just point out that tavern brawler lets you grapple as a bonus action, so that's a nice little bonus to have as well =)

Really fun build ideas, thx you!. What I get from this video is that you really need to get expertise in athletic to make for a really good grappler. For the path of the giant primal weapon, an alternative would be to pick-up a small one-handed weapon and grab your opponent in one hand and pummel them down with this weapon with the other hand. I am thinking either a dagger/shiv, a Vega's style claw (thinking about SF) or a good old club.

Here is my build little bit of home brew Goliath( powerful build) barbarian beast jumping boots, belt of giant strength, mobile, athlete, tavern brawler. Since I'm a beast using claws dm let's me have a grapple attack like a monster so I can do damage with my grapple. Party members cast haste and enlarge. Now I can move medium grappled creatures with out cost to movement. First round that's 300 ft of movement with dash. Round 1 find an enemy jump on it from high enough to evoke fall damage. To knock it prone. If they pass the save in the first round do it again take opportunity attack rd two I can make melee attack so don't provoke oa. Keep jumping till they fall prone. Ba grapple do it again. Once I have two grappled prone creatures smash them together as emprovised weapon drop one creature claw x2 regrapple move them to a hazard. Also could use them as cover. I also can give them infectious furry and use them as weapons.

I absolutely LOVE this build!!! Never really interested in playing a grappler before, but I’d definitely give this one a try 😈 ~_~

Unexpected but really welcome build, also going to again recommend Raikou from Fate/Grand Order

Alright, here's a custom build. So you take 20 levels in Barbarian, lol. I love it!

What if I want to play as Imai Cosmo and just bypass all health stats with strangulation?

Im fairly new to DnD, can I get a DM's perspective? I know its not, but it feels like a I guess a cheap/cheap build? But I love it! I want to try it on my next campaign haha

Please do asta from black clover

Can you make sung Jin woo from solo leveling

If anyone will ever come to my games with a wrestler-build, I'll happily give them a magical Item I homebrewed: "TLC" Magical Weapon, from +1 to +3 This Weapon looks like a foldable metal chair that can be used as a Weapon that deals 2D6 bludgeoning damage. As a free action, you can make it transform between its chair-form, a table and a ladder. Once per day, you can "break" the Item by attempting to push a grappled creature into the table. If you succed, the creature takes 6D6 bludgeoning damage. Once per day, if you fall onto a creature as a result from falling from the ladder, the creature you fell on takes the fall damage (yes, you could fall from cliffs like that).

king from opm

Going for an ehonda build with barbarian,fighter and monk

So, if I want to make Baki, this is the build?

can you do a Sung Jin-Woo?

Just because he's a bad guy doesn't mean he's a bad...guy.

What about Hell Boy?

Escanor

This is not exploit this is just normal playing rules, normal stuff

The most beautiful thing about this is that it not only can be used for Zangief, but any kind of professional wrestler style character. My own grappler build is not this good. It more focused on straight fighter to get unarmed fighting, the human bonus feat for tavern brawler so after I have pummeled them, then my bonus action is to grapple. Subclass Eldritch Knight, level 4 Magic Initiate (Wizard) Feat to grab jump. Execution would be to activate Jump, action surge, make attacks then grapple as a bonus action. Then use that movement to... jump. This allows you to then just piledrive them into the ground.

There should be a boa constrictor type Yuan Ti that’s really good at grappling and uses Jujitsu chokes and joint locks. 🐍