17

This question acts as a clarification to another question on this site. Here's the scenario:

  • You have 60' of movement at the start of your turn
  • You move 30' to any direction
  • You grapple someone at this point
  • How far do you have left to move?
Community
  • 1

5 Answers5

21

No, grappling halves your speed attribute, it does not cost half your movement:

When you move, you can drag or carry the grappled creature with you, but your speed is halved, unless the creature is two or more sizes smaller than you.

The way to read movement-changing rules clearly is to always keep in mind that there are two separate values operating:

  1. Your speed value.
  2. Your amount of movement to spend in a round, which is derived from your current speed.

So in the scenario outlined, your speed starts at 60' and is halved to 30' by grappling, after you've already spent 30' of movement in the round. Since you have spent 30' of movement, equal to your 30' speed, you have zero movement left.

SevenSidedDie
  • 243,609
  • 44
  • 785
  • 1,025
  • Seems faulty or incomplete interpretation. By this, what happens when you use a dash action? Your speed isn't changed, you gain extra movement. Say you have 30ft speed, you move 30ft, then you take a dash action that gains you 30ft of movement, but your speed is still 30ft and you've already moved 30ft. By your answer you can't move anymore.

    "2. Your amount of movement to spend in a round, which is derived from your current speed."

    I don't think movement is derived from your current speed so directly as you put it here, otherwise the dash action doesn't seem to work as intended.

     – SpiderWaffle Dec 15 '21 at 04:31
  • @SpiderWaffle How the same interpretation works for the Dash action is covered already in that Answer. How grappling and dashing would work, assuming you could dash, is that you’d gain 30’ of new movement (instead of 60’), and be able to drag you and your target that far after the grapple. (To be clear, the last sentence in the answer above is summarizing the outcome already determine by the preceding reasoning, not an additional step in the reasoning.) – SevenSidedDie Dec 20 '21 at 18:40
  • It may get even more interesting if you've already moved 50 feet. – biziclop Aug 20 '23 at 19:21
7

Question paraphrased

You have speed 60 (can move 60 feet per turn).

You move 30 feet and have 30 feet more movement available.

You grapple someone with the result per the Rules: "your speed is halved."

How much further can you move, whilst grappling? (Your title posed a different question)

Answer

Your remaining 30 feet of movement may now be used up by dragging a creature 15 feet.

My reasoning

Your speed as defined by the Rules (Chapter 8, page 66) is the amount of movement available on your turn. Therefore, RAW, the amount of movement available to you (30 at this point) is halved (Chapter 9, page 77) if you choose to use it dragging a grappled creature (in this case, up to 15 feet).

Important: your Racial Trait: Speed which is your base speed and the number on your character sheet, has not been halved. That is a trait, not a variable. The amount of movement available on your turn (which is the very definition of speed in the Rules) can be modified by different circumstances, and it is this variable which has been halved.

Why the Accepted Answer is Incorrect

(with apologies and all due respect to @SevenSidedDie)

SevenSidedDie's answer assumes that you have 2 speeds, a normal speed of 60 and a "grappling speed" of 30. This is a fallacy. Half speed or "grappling speed" are not speeds, in the same way that walk speed 30 and flying speed 60 are speeds as indicated by the Rules at page 73 "Using Different Speeds". You are not "switching to grappling speed" in the same way that you might switch from walk speed to fly speed. So you cannot say "now that I am grappling my new speed is 30 and since I have moved 30 already I can no longer move".

To illustrate further:

The accepted answer states

So in the scenario outlined, your speed starts at 60' and is halved to 30' by grappling, after you've already spent 30' of movement in the round. Since you have spent 30' of movement, equal to your 30' speed (author's comment: this is the "grappling speed" fallacy I refer to above), you have zero movement left.

That answer would advance the proposition that if I have 30 of my 60 feet left I cannot move a grappled creature at all, but if you started your turn with speed of 30 and haven't yet moved, you can move a grappled creature 15 feet.

We have the same available movement in each case before the grapple but a totally different outcome post-grapple. Cursory examination must lead us to reject this proposition.

V2Blast
  • 49,864
  • 10
  • 220
  • 304
Phil S
  • 764
  • 6
  • 12
  • 1
    This is an interesting take! One major question though, why the assumption that just because something is written on a character sheet (or is a trait) that it can't be changed or treated as a variable? Do you have a source for that? Plenty of traits on a character sheet get changed. Look at ability scores, for example, and all the items and magic effects that can change them. Or would you consider that to be somehow different? – Rubiksmoose Apr 14 '20 at 16:45
  • Because the term "speed" is defined precisely in the Rules, we should assume that when the Rules apply the term speed in a rule that they mean it as defined. I find it compelling to apply the "Ordinary Meaning" doctrine used in statue and contract law, but which has application here. Example: https://definitions.uslegal.com/o/ordinary-meaning-rule/ Quote "According to this rule, statutes are to be interpreted using the ordinary meaning of the language of the statute unless a statute explicitly defines some of its terms otherwise." Contract law states similarly in many jurisdictions. – Phil S Apr 14 '20 at 17:36
  • I keep thinking about this answer and, while I disagreed with it initially, I have come around on my thinking. The one question that I'm still hanging up on is this: If a PC is grappling a target and then grapples additional targets, moving between each (for example, a Loxodon can grapple with its trunk and each hand for three total grappled targets), doesn't that mean that the movement penalty gets lower for each additional target instead of staying the same? Seems like, if anything, it should be harder to drag additional targets around the battlefield. – Rykara Aug 10 '20 at 19:07
  • I'm glad to see this getting traction. I had the same answer, approached differently that got voted to oblivion. Have a +1. – J. A. Streich Oct 05 '20 at 03:47
  • @Rykara, RAW "while grappling" would mean any number of grapples... but this answer would allow you to half each time you added a grapple. – J. A. Streich Oct 05 '20 at 03:53
2

(Apologies, new here, still below 50 Rep so unable to comment on any answer. So, we do it the hard way.)

I've been building a character that uses a lot of movement and grappling and stumbled upon this question in my research on how they interact.

In the current top answer, there's a contradiction between what 7SidedDie is answering, and what the question is asking. And I believe it ruins the top answer as given as well.

It apparently stems from a mix-up between the terms "speed" and "movement" in RAW (and probably should have an errata written).

The original question says:

You have 60' of movement at the start of your turn.

You move 30' to any direction.

You grapple someone at this point.

How far do you have left to move?

Nowhere does the question mention speed. As per 7SidedDie's cited post, Dashing gets you more movement equal to your speed. Speed + Dash * 2 = Speed * 3 = Movement this turn. When that movement is generated doesn't matter, as there is no rule stating 'you can't move further than your speed in a turn.' Because if there was such a rule, it would break Dash (and probably a couple of other things) completely.

A character with a speed of 30' generates a "movement potential" of 30' at the start of their turn. They may use some or all of this potential, but that potential is normally capped at 30'. So say, before doing anything else on their turn, a character uses the Dash action. This generates an additional 30' of movement. They may then move 60' regardless of what their speed stat is. Right?

So by this metric, a character may move 60' in a turn they Dash, but retains a speed of 30. Per 7SidedDie's cited answer, a dashing character may move further, much further, than their speed stat says in one turn because they have extra movement generated for that turn by additional abilities. RAW and RAI, I believe.

Now, the question asked about 60' of movement. What if the character's speed was 30, and the character used a free Dash action, and therefore obtained the 60' total movement for that turn. What is their speed stat? 30'. How far can they move this turn? 60'? Of course, because the timing of the dash action does not matter. It only matters that the dash action was taken.

This character now moves 30'. Their speed is 30'. Do they have to stop moving? No. Dash has conferred 30' of additional movement this turn.

They've reached their target and grapple. According to the top answer, grappling halves the character's speed (which is assumed to be 60' by 7SidedDie). If grappling lowers the character's speed to 15, but they still have 30' of movement generated for the turn, the movement for the turn is still higher than the character's speed, just as it was prior to them beginning to move. So they get to drag their quarry 30'? NO.

The 30' of remaining movement potential is halved, and the character may drag their target 15'. This, I believe, is RAI.

The actual RAW for moving while grappling should be written (and treated) more like Difficult Terrain in Combat is, ie. "Every foot of movement in difficult terrain costs 1 extra foot." Meaning that every foot of movement to be performed while dragging a grappled target costs an extra foot (total of 2') of actual movement, (this will also help when dragging a target through difficult terrain, every foot of movement costing 3 feet of potential instead of only 2').

Thus, after the character runs 30', having 30' remaining movement for the turn, grapples his target and prepares to drag them, they can drag them a total of 15' before running out of movement for the turn, regardless of the value of their speed stat.

This also answers "what happens if I let go after 15' of movement?" For a character with a base speed stat of 30', they'd have exhausted their movement (15'*2=30') For a character who dashed, they could then move 30'. For a character who has a base speed stat of 40', they'd be able to move 10'. If that character dashed at any point this turn, they would be able to move 50'.

VaporTrail_000
  • 25
  • 2
0

Unfortunately, I think you could look at it either way. Either you have 15 feet of movement left or none.

I lean towards Phil's answer functionally but I don't know which is RAW or RAI.

On your turn, you can move a distance up to your speed. You can use as much ar as little of your speed as you Iike on your turn, following the rules here. Your movement can include jumping, climbing, and swimming. These different modes of movement can be combined with walking, or they can constitute your entire move. However you're moving, you deduct the distance of each part of your move from your speed until it is used up or until you are done moving.

Sorry, someone calling speed movement like it was a separate thing threw me off, but then I saw the roles do just that.

Moving a Grappled Creature. When you move, you can drag or carry the grappled creature with you, but your speed is halved, unless the creature is two or more sizes smaller than you.

Phil's case:

Your base speed is what you start with. When you move, you deduct the movement from your speed for that turn. So a character that has basic speed of 60 and moves 30 has a speed of 30. Grappling and dragging cuts that in half, which is 15.

Buuuuut. Then I looked at Being Prone, or more specifically

Standing up takes more effort; doing so costs an amount of movement equal to half your speed. For example, if your speed is 30 feet, you must spend 15 feet of movement to stand up. Vou can't stand up if you don't have enough movement left or if your speed is O.

Which seems to mean base speed. If you assume they mean that for grappling too, then you have a creature that moved 15 feet and now has its speed reduced from 30 to 15. Since it already moved 15 out of 15, it can't move anymore after grappling

Thomas Markov
  • 148,772
  • 29
  • 842
  • 1,137
Dungeon Security
  • 49
  • 4
-5

When you move, you can drag or carry the grappled creature with you, but your speed is halved, unless the creature is two or more sizes smaller than you.

Speed isn't distance.

speed = distance/time.

Your speed is halved. You moved 30' (of 60') at full speed. You can now move the rest of your movement at half speed or 15' more feet of movement.

Say you're driving down the freeway at 60mph. After half an hour you've traveled 30 miles. Then you halve your speed. You can still drive 15 more miles before the hour is up.

Compare the Wording in Grapple to Prone

Moreover if it would take half of your total movement, it would say so like it does for getting up from prone:

Standing up takes more effort; doing so costs an amount of movement equal to half your speed (emphasis mine)

Which is clearly half of your total speed. Grappling, however, says:

your speed is halved

The difference is noticeable and important. In context, it is clear it halves your speed not your total movement.

J. A. Streich
  • 40,388
  • 5
  • 117
  • 187
  • 5
    While true from a real-life point of view, this is not how d&d 5e works. – Olorin May 18 '16 at 09:21
  • 1
    Based on the way Grapple is written, I believe it is. RAW isn't clear on the issue, and I see no tweets from the creators. Honestly, ruling either way isn't game breaking as long as it is applied consistently, and RAW could be read either way. I do think my answer is the intention. – J. A. Streich May 18 '16 at 16:17
  • 2
    The "Using different speeds" section SRD p91, does not work in this way. There is no pro-rata of distance by time, simply subtracting distance travelled so far from current speed. If you treat a change to speed (due to using grapple or any other effect) the same as "Using different speeds" section of the rules, then this answer is likely not correct. This is not explicitly spelled out in the grapple rules - but probably the closest written rule. – Neil Slater May 21 '16 at 08:30