Dirty Trick maneuver useful?


Advice


I like the idea of the Dirty Trick maneuver, but it seems rather weak unless you invest into the Improved Dirty Trick and Greater Dirty Trick feats.
Since it's a standard action, you don't benefit yourself from any of the penalties to defense that the target suffers, and it might only help some of your allies who attack right after you. But since it's just a move action to remove the condition, almost all targets will probably chose to do so and then still get an attack or cast a spell. And if they have an initiative count shortly behind yours, your allies won't have much chance to benefit from the penalties either.
And even then, the penalties aren't that great.

This seems to be a severely underpowered option with a rather steep feat tax to make it useful.

Or am I missing something?


its a mix blessing...
with no feats to support it is SUCKS.
action standard makes it unusable at high end levels and not in AOO...
last, this feat aint using the weapon, and as such suffer from not so high bonus.
that manuever takes practise:
1. take 1 level as manuever master monk and get it free
2. take archtypes like lore warden that get bonus
3. take 3 feats: improve, greater, fast and than your fow shall cry

Sovereign Court

I saw it used for the first time last week by our high-mobility Rogue3/Fighter4 to blind an enemy battle wizard, using the Greater trick. The huge penalties of blindness, and basically having no line of effect, meant he quickly got curbstomped, especially when the earth elementals teamed up to sandwich the guy.

So, first impressions in actual play: positive.


The Greater Dirty Trick really looks quite decent. But that's two feats and not really that practical if you want to allow 3rd and 4th level characters to spice up combat with things other than hitting it with a sword.


It really needs some resource management system or stunt system to work, as something you can just spam it's going to get boring ... blinded is the only game in town really.

Sovereign Court

It's certainly not cheap, but I think you should evaluate it in the context of your whole party, to figure out what it's worth. Don't just look at what you can do to an enemy for your own next attack, see what it's worth to others.

If you've got a rogue in the party, he'll appreciate the blinding. And the (ranged) touch caster will also appreciate that because blind touch AC tends to be 10...

I focus on the blinded condition because that's really one of the nastiest conditions below helpless. A blind wizard isn't targeting many spells.

It's worth keeping in mind that Dirty Trick is one of the few maneuvers that almost no monster has complete immunity to. You may have to think up weird tricks to play on weird monsters, but unlike trip or disarm, there aren't any categorically immune monsters.


I suppose you could signal some of the other PCs to ready their actions until right after you performed your Dirty Trick (whether successful or not), so they at least get to act before the target takes its move action to remove it.
It's a bit harsher on spellcasters, who are likely to want to back up a bit when there's an enemy right next to them, but they still can just take the move action and cast a spell as well.


if only you would gain the weapon bonuses it would be great.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

You know there is a spell "brow gasher". It´s not that old and like blistering invective modelled after a combat maneuver, only better.
I think you can use your weapon for dirty trick, since it let´s you be really creative. Just stab their eyes with the weapon, gash their brow, hit them in the stomach or the nuts, whatever. As long as you use your weapon, you should be able to get your bonus on it, even in PFS.


If so it gets a lot better

Scarab Sages

If you play a cad fighter, unarmed fighter, or maneuver master monk with greater dirty trick and quick dirty trick it is the best maneuver in the game. If you aren't playing a a class that su.pports it or have full feat support, it's not so great.


Hayato Ken wrote:
I think you can use your weapon for dirty trick, since it let´s you be really creative. Just stab their eyes with the weapon, gash their brow, hit them in the stomach or the nuts, whatever. As long as you use your weapon, you should be able to get your bonus on it, even in PFS.

I have issues with this. It's one thing to wipe sand/dust from your face as a movement action, but it's another thing entirely to regenerate cuts on your eyes (without magical or fast healing of course).

Sovereign Court

Maybe you can swipe your weapon's tassel through their eyes? That strikes me as roughly on the same level.


Serious question then, would you allow enhancement bonuses and other weapon enchantments to apply to weapon decorations?

I personally wouldn't, but I doubt I'm the only person who sees it that way.

Although now I can't stop thinking of Wakizashis with +2 Hello Kitty attachments...

Sovereign Court

I wouldn't allow separate bonuses to the attachments. That's going into way too many sub-levels of equipment enhancement. But the tassel of a +1 sword would do better than the tassel of an ordinary sword, yeah.

I suppose I just have a soft spot for vaguely functional but mostly showy martial arts weapons.


I wasn't suggesting that tassels and other decorative attachments have separate enchantments; that kind of over complication is bordering on the insane for me. Plus it could effectively turn any weapon into a double or triple weapon depending on which part of it you choose to enhance.

Anyway the point I was trying to make is that I don't feel decorative tassels attached to weapons should share their enchantments. Enchantments should really only apply to the main body of the weapon itself; essentially any part of of the weapon that is integral to the operation of the weapon.

This isn't an issue I'm going to press though, as it's not likely to come up or matter in standard play.

Also I too have a weakness for unnecessarily flashy weapons. :)

Scarab Sages

I'd allow the weapon to apply it' enhancement bonus to a dirty trick if they player described the maneuver in a way that used the weapon in a showy manner.

For example, lets say you are trying to blind someone. You could describe the maneuver as a flourish to flick the the blood on a sword into your opponents eyes. If you are fighting in the sun and have a polished axe blade, you could position your axe to reflect the sun into the eyes. If you are wielding an earthbreaker, you could swing at the ground to raise a cloud of dirt in the face of your enemy.

Dirty Trick is the only maneuver that is defined as a situational attack to apply a status penalty. I'd allow a weapons enhancement bonus and feat like weapon focus apply to the maneuver if the player can use the weapon in a plausible way. It's rewarding roleplaying in combat, and lets the player do something cool.

Sovereign Court

I don't see a big obstacle to the tassel sharing the enhancement bonus; it's magic, it isn't too rigidly defined exactly why it works, so why not this way?


It's not a big obstacle. I'm not saying that a weapon's decorations shouldn't share the enchantment because it's somehow game breaking. It's not; not even a little bit.

It just doesn't fit my logical perspective of how and why weapons are enchanted. If you want to play it that way though, go right ahead. As I said earlier it's unlikely to come up in regular play, and I certainly won't lose sleep over it. :)

Sczarni

I have a Cad fighter archetype.
Lvl 7 when my opponent looses his dex bonus I get an immediate dirty trick. So with quick dirty trick and a flail I can do the following
1: Attack dirty trick to blind
2: Immediate dirty trick to sicken
3: Flail attack to trip
With greater dirty trick it is a standard action to remove

The Exchange

Cad
Does succeeding on a combat maneuver that doesn't technically use weapons count as "[a hit with] a weapon or unarmed attack?"

For that matter, does succeeding on a combat maneuver in general count as "a hit?" Because if so, my theoretical debuffing martial rejoices.

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