I had a halfling druid Wild Shape into a bear while being grappled by a roper. Would this have broken the grapple? I could see it breaking the grapple if he was being grappled by another small creature before turning into a bear, but a roper is a large creature.
[RPG] Does Wild-Shaping break a grapple
dnd-5egrapplewild-shape
Related Solutions
Wild Shape was changed in the errata to go off Alternate Form. The website I linked has the updated rules. It's worth reading both descriptions, as Wild Shape changes a bit of what Alternate Form does.
Here's some points of note:
All gear melds, unless it has a specific property that says it doesn't.
Any gear worn or carried by the druid melds into the new form and becomes nonfunctional. When the druid reverts to her true form, any objects previously melded into the new form reappear in the same location on her body that they previously occupied and are once again functional. Any new items worn in the assumed form fall off and land at the druid's feet.
Your HD and max HP do not change, so you stay at 8 HD. You get properties of the Lion listed in Alternate form, which are as follows:
- The creature retains the type and subtype of its original form. It gains the size of its new form. If the new form has the aquatic subtype, the creature gains that subtype as well.
- The creature loses the natural weapons, natural armor, and movement modes of its original form, as well as any extraordinary special attacks of its original form not derived from class levels (such as the barbarian’s rage class feature).
- The creature gains the natural weapons, natural armor, movement modes, and extraordinary special attacks of its new form.
- The creature retains the special qualities of its original form. It does not gain any special qualities of its new form.
- The creature retains the spell-like abilities and supernatural attacks of its old form (except for breath weapons and gaze attacks). It does not gain the spell-like abilities or attacks of its new form.
- The creature gains the physical ability scores (Str, Dex, Con) of its new form. It retains the mental ability scores (Int, Wis, Cha) of its original form. Apply any changed physical ability score modifiers in all appropriate areas with one exception: the creature retains the hit points of its original form despite any change to its Constitution.
- The creature retains its hit points and save bonuses, although its save modifiers may change due to a change in ability scores.
- Except as described elsewhere, the creature retains all other game statistics of its original form, including (but not necessarily limited to) HD, hit points, skill ranks, feats, base attack bonus, and base save bonuses.
- The creature retains any spellcasting ability it had in its original form, although it must be able to speak intelligibly to cast spells with verbal components and it must have humanlike hands to cast spells with somatic components.
- The creature is effectively camouflaged as a creature of its new form, and it gains a +10 bonus on Disguise checks if it uses this ability to create a disguise.
Extra Info
In response to questions in the comments:
- You get the animal's AC, including it's natural armor, DEX bonus, and size modifier. You lose your own armor unless you have Wild armor, which works while Wild Shaped.
- Your Fortitude/Reflex saves would change based on the new form's DEX/CON. You keep your own base save value.
- Your max HP does not change, even though your CON does. This is even true if you have CON boosting items. Your current HP may change, as using Wild Shape heals you as if you rested.
- You keep your own Base Attack Bonus.
- You use the new form's natural attacks, no matter how many there are. (You get all of them.)
- You use your own feats.
- Secondary natural weapons attack at -5. This is true for all of them, no matter how many there are. Note that "two claws" is legitimate, in that case both claws are considered primary and do not take a penalty.
Yes it does
Yes, you can add beast forms to your Wild Shape repertoire of beasts seen by casting conjure animals. The spell explicitly says the conjured creatures literally are beasts, and a creature of the type beast is all Wild Shape needs you to see in order to add its form to your repertoire.
Though someone might by tempted to quibble that they're not real beasts because they're really fey spirits clothed in the shape of beasts, look at it this way: First the Druid conjures a bunch of spirits that take on the form and behaviour of the real beasts they look like. The creatures so conjured proceed to behave and look exactly like the real thing. What better opportunity is there for a shapechanger to learn a new form to wear, than to see a nature spirit do the exact same thing as they're wanting to learn to do?
But it's of limited use
What you might actually run afoul of is limitations on metagaming, or a DM whose setting doesn't include just any creature you can think of (even if it's in the Monster Manual).
- A DM who wants to limit metagaming would be within their rights to ask you to justify your choice. If you try to summon a Giant Owl but your druid has never seen one before, a DM could easily say "How do you know those exist? You've never seen one. How is your druid "choosing" an animal (s)he has never seen or heard of before?"
- A DM who has developed a custom setting isn't straightjacketed by the Monster Manual and doesn't have to include everything in it. Giant Owls might not exist in a DM's campaign.
This also means that this is much less of a loophole than it might seem — after all, how big is the difference between the set of creatures a druid has personally seen and the set of creatures the druid knows about well enough to deliberately try to conjure? I can't imagine it's a very large number.
But in principle, yes, a conjured animal inhabited by a fey spirit is plenty to learn that form from. Just mind that, if you can conjure a particular animal, it's highly likely your druid has already seen it anyway. This makes this method of acquiring new forms both limited in utility and not much of a loophole to worry about, either way.
Best Answer
No, wild shape does not automatically break the grapple.
Grappling applies the 'grappled' condition and conditions are not automatically removed when you wild shape.
Further, once you have the grappled condition, the restrictions on grappling target size does not matter. Only the listed ways under the condition's description, the grappler releasing the grapple, or 'escaping the grapple' will remove the condition. (PHB pg. 195).
From PHB Appendix A (pg 290)
For wild shaping into a larger creature than the grappler, unless the grappler has the 'grappler feat' (PHB pg 167), which tell us that creatures larger than you automatically succeed escape attempts, you can use an action and automatically escape from the grapple.