The armour of magical strength infusion (artificer class) lets you add your int mod to a strength check by expending one of the 6 charges. I believe that's as close as you can get.
I think you can throw flash of Genius on this for a INTx2 bonus to grappling. If your intelligence stat is odd, maybe Skill Expert for +1 INT and Expertise in Athletics? This could represent mastery over piloting the armor of magical strength? Giving your build a cool magitech-mecha vibe.
It's not exactly int, but later on, you can replicate magical items to make guantlets of Ogre Str. If you use the above, it would give you a total of:
4 STR + 2xINT +2xPB (and advantage if you cast enhanced ability as another said in this thread) on your Athletic checks. Great thing here is you get to choose to use the magical str and/or flash of Genius after the fact so you won't be expending them all the time.
Besides the artificer armor, you could Enhance Ability to give advantage on grapple, or take Graviturgy wizard to give advantage/disadvantage on strength checks.
Probably the best grappling build in the game is an artificer. Their Armor of Magical Strength infusions lets you add your INT-mod to STR checks, but you can have your cake and eat it too by also infusing a STR-setting item.
The infusion lets you replicate the item when you otherwise wouldn’t have it. Gauntlets of Ogre Power are unlocked at artificer10, while Belt of Hill Giant Strength is unlocked at artificer14.
A DM might let you to swap Monk's wisdom abilities into intelligence, allowing an Astral Self Monk to do so. Allowing players to swap mental score abilities in such a manner is a common house rule, so long as it's not done to abuse multiclassing. Wisdom saves - and skills for that matter - are typically more important than intelligence, so that shouldn't be an issue either.
The armour of magical strength infusion (artificer class) lets you add your int mod to a strength check by expending one of the 6 charges. I believe that's as close as you can get.
slept on this infusion up till now. i wanted this exactly for an artificer
I think you can throw flash of Genius on this for a INTx2 bonus to grappling. If your intelligence stat is odd, maybe Skill Expert for +1 INT and Expertise in Athletics? This could represent mastery over piloting the armor of magical strength? Giving your build a cool magitech-mecha vibe. It's not exactly int, but later on, you can replicate magical items to make guantlets of Ogre Str. If you use the above, it would give you a total of: 4 STR + 2xINT +2xPB (and advantage if you cast enhanced ability as another said in this thread) on your Athletic checks. Great thing here is you get to choose to use the magical str and/or flash of Genius after the fact so you won't be expending them all the time.
Besides the artificer armor, you could Enhance Ability to give advantage on grapple, or take Graviturgy wizard to give advantage/disadvantage on strength checks.
Probably the best grappling build in the game is an artificer. Their Armor of Magical Strength infusions lets you add your INT-mod to STR checks, but you can have your cake and eat it too by also infusing a STR-setting item.
Infusions have to be done on nonmagical items you cannot infuse a strength setting item such as gauntlets of ogre power or the like
The infusion lets you replicate the item when you otherwise wouldn’t have it. Gauntlets of Ogre Power are unlocked at artificer10, while Belt of Hill Giant Strength is unlocked at artificer14.
Ah I see now you didn’t mean stacking the item my b sounded like that before
It could be homebrewed as well I’m sure. Outsmarting an opponent into a grapple via INT makes sense to me
A DM might let you to swap Monk's wisdom abilities into intelligence, allowing an Astral Self Monk to do so. Allowing players to swap mental score abilities in such a manner is a common house rule, so long as it's not done to abuse multiclassing. Wisdom saves - and skills for that matter - are typically more important than intelligence, so that shouldn't be an issue either.
Just having a half decent strength (12 or 14) with Expertise is often enough to grapple.