D&D Hand-To-Hand Character Builds For Pro Wrestling Fans

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Hand-to-hand combat may not be the first thing every player thinks of when they think of Dungeons & Dragons, but for fans of pro-wrestling in particular, there are a number of effective grappling character builds to try. Ask a veteran player of old-school D&D campaigns about grappling, and they're liable to shudder in dread. Earlier editions of the D&D tabletop roleplaying game were infamous for having labyrinthine and ludicrously complicated grappling rules that could devastate enemies in the hands of a player willing to parse their convoluted phrases. The current grappling rules in Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition are much less complicated and somewhat less powerful, but a player who wants to destroy their enemies with a suplex or pin them with an arm bar can combine certain class abilities to create surprisingly potent «Olympian Wrestler,» «Jujutsu Master,» or «Masked Luchadore» characters.

When people think of martial arts nowadays, they generally think of unarmed striking styles such as boxing, kickboxing, karate, or kung fu (basically, everything the Monk class in Dungeons & Dragons does). Historically, though, wrestling and grappling were the preferred unarmed combat styles for many warriors of the ancient world — particularly heavily armored warrior aristocrats such as the European Knights or Japanese Samurai. Traditional martial arts such as Jujutsu or the medieval German «Ringen» school of wrestling, centered around joint-locks and throws from a standing position, evolved from battlefield techniques pre-modern fighters used to disarm their opponents and smash them against the ground. A grounded enemy divested of their weapons is very vulnerable to a standing foe with a spear or sword in hand — a truism in