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Combat maneuvers get a bad rap. There seems to be an underlying belief in the community that combat maneuvers are only worth using if you invest heavily into them. Even in this case the maneuver you invest in will fail more often than not against massive CR creatures with ludicrous CMD scores.
However what’s not often pointed out is that there are plenty of creatures, even with high cr and particularly humanoid opponents, who have CMD’s in the laughable range. By CR 13 most monsters will easily hit the CMD 40+ range making it difficult for all but the most dedicated maneuver builds to ever land a combat maneuver in a meaningful way. But is that all there is to it?
I don’t think so.
Understanding the Numbers
First let’s look at the offensive number used to determine the success of combat maneuvers, the CMB.
The CMB adds your base attack bonus + STR modifier + any relevant bonuses to attack rolls from feats, spells and effects. In short this includes any general buff that boosts attack rolls.
If the combat maneuver uses a weapon (most often Sunder, Disarm and Trip) you apply those bonuses to the attack as well.
The only penalty for making a combat maneuver without the feat is an AoO. Meaning any opponent unable to make AoO’s can be combat maneuvered by anyone with impunity. Remember this, it’s important for later.
Combat Maneuver Defense is your Base Attack bonus + STR + DEX +10. The addition of a free +10 and the dex bonus means that this number can get quite high out of the gate. It gains bonuses from effects that boost strength or dex along with bonuses to AC from dodge, luck, circumstance, deflection, morale sacred and profane bonuses. However any penalty to AC will affect this number.
So, what this says exactly is that the static number you see on stat blocks is not static at all but quite dynamic. Moreover there are plenty of situations where you can make use of combat maneuvers without suffering any penalties meaning that practically any combat maneuver can be performed regardless of your intelligence or strength score.
Overall it’s much easier to boost CMB than CMD and very easy to reduce CMD. An opponent who loses initiative has a lowered CMD in the first round due to a lack of dex. Include that they cannot make AoO’s and you have fresh meat to be bull rushed, repositioned, disarmed, or tripped with impunity. A humanoid boss monster that loses initiative to a group of savvy full Bab characters will get tripped, disarmed, and his armor sundered before he can make the first attack. This can be easily done without any feats.
Just as an example let’s say the group is fighting a Crucidaemon. At 42 CMD it would seem that any attempt for our, let’s say level 12, group to shove her around would end badly. Or would it?
A +9 initiative isn’t bad. But by now, a forge model group can easily beat that. Our level 12, let’s say Fighter(Cad) really likes the dirty trick maneuver and is wielding a Guisarme he took the dirty trick line up to Quick Dirty trick allowing him to do it as an attack action. His group’s wizard and bard go first. The bard electing to cast Mass Heroism and activating inspire courage while his wizard opts to give the cad a Quickened Enlarge person and casually chucks a waves of fatigue spell at the crucidaemon (we’ll say he rolls the SR which by now he can get a check of around +18 anyway).
So, some quick number crunching here gives the CAD a base CMB after buffs a base CMB check of +24. The Crucidaemon is sitting at a much less mighty 35. This allows the Cad to perform any maneuver he likes on the Crucidaemon on a roll of 11. This is with normal buffs for the level and a debuff which only makes a 1 point difference.
So we have three attacks for the fighter to perform. Obviously we want to use our most invested in maneuver first so we’ll use Dirty trick to start off. With the investment of feats with our class we hit a +31 on our CMD allowing us to blind the crucidaemon for several rounds on our first attack. Our Crucidaemon is now blind taking an additional -2 penalty to armor class knocking her CMD down to 33.
Our next attack is at a -5 penalty knocking our base CMB down to +19 versus 33. With this second attack our CAD gets cheeky and decides to trip her with his guisarme. Because he’s a fighter who actually invests in such things like weapon focus his weapon focus and greater weapon focus feats apply along with his weapon bonus (+2 for now) to get a CMB to trip of 23. A 50/50 shot.
In this case if he hits the trip attempt she’ll be knocked prone granting him a +4 bonus to attack rolls on her. If not it’s unlikely she’ll be able to trip back. For arguments sake let’s say she’s now, prone, blinded, fatigued, and flatfooted. Her CMD drops further down to 29 for this round. With an additional -5 on our last attack making our CMB a +14.
He now opts to attack her now 17 AC with his +17 attack roll. Smashing her in the back and taking an immediate action to Dirty trick her once more through a class ability. At this point it makes no real difference whether or not it affects her since she’s already significantly debuffed by the time the Cad does it.
So by the time the Crucidaemon gets around to acting, she’ll be prone, blinded, fatigued, and possibly entangled. Three of these conditions would cost a standard action to remove to allow her to fight effectively (if at all) and that would just allow the group to pound her with impunity.
Now he could have just straight up full attacked her. And indeed this would have been a fine thing to do. But, keep in mind that at 212hp and 20/good and silver DR the crucidaemon would have most likely survived at full potential to harm the group rather badly.
Now, there are opponents with much higher numbers for CMD but we can get on that later.
Understanding what the maneuvers are
Maneuvers ultimately have three purposes in a group’s arsenal.
~Debuffer
~Position changer
~AoO Generator
The advantage to using maneuvers as a debuffer is that they can bypass saves and high magical defenses. This is handy particularly against creatures with high armor due to armor or natural armor but relatively low dex. You can utilize debuffs as a method to lower AC’s or to compromise the opponents offense enough so that the high defenses do nothing but stall the inevitable.
As an AoO generator maneuvers honestly can’t be beat. Transforming a standard action or attack action into multiple attack actions is a brilliant way to build action advantage. It costs no group resources to pull off and can let you capitalize on group buffs and positioning.
Speaking of positioning I don’t think it’s any accident that the maneuvers most able to deal with positioning are standard actions rather than attack actions. Positioning maneuvers such as drag, bullrush, and reposition have a variety of uses from setting up flanked full attacks to denying an opponent a chance to hassle a groups mages, to shoving or pulling opponents into disadvantageous terrain.
Ultimately what combat maneuvers provide is a method for physical characters to affect the battlefield in a way that helps control the fight. They cost no real resources to use and work well to devastate an opponent already in a compromised position.
However they can be tricky to use well. Like any ability in the game if you want to do it well you have to invest into it. Also like any ability you have to avoid getting yourself into a pit of character creation where you invest a great deal for no gain. This is nothing new but its’ worth repeating in the context.
Discussing individual maneuvers
Bull Rush
Uses: Pushing people around has a myriad of uses from braking flanks to shoving people into bad terrain to possibly damaging people if you smash them against a wall. Bull Rush is great in indoor environments where hazards can be many and mobility limited. It can be used to open up a pathway or to close a line of attack from enemies. If you use a reach weapon and can get a high enough CMB you can shove an opponent hard enough without following to put them just outside your reach and have them provoke an AoO from the shove (for leaving your space) and have them re-enter it to provoke another AoO. This is a good maneuver to use to bully and punish low cmd critters attempting to slow down your offense. Particularly weak creatures can get shoved out of the way while dying to AoO’s.
Issues: Size limitations and no benefit gained from bonuses based on weapon. Also fairly situational as there are plenty of times where a full attack would more than suffice to simply stop that outlet of actions from the enemy. Failure on the maneuver means adjacency to the enemy and being open to a full attack.
Investment Value: Fair. Further investment will get you a higher bonus on the maneuver (invaluable) and will let you generate AoO’s with it (also invaluable) however the maneuver itself is quite situational and depends much on how varied and interesting your gm likes to make his battle fields. However some classes and archetypes grant you free bulrushes based on certain conditions therefore it can be worth a two feat investment simply for the extra attacks it can provide you and the defensive buffer it can cause with a good hard shove.
Dirty Trick
Uses: The king of debuffing maneuvers this one covers all the stuff from kicks to the groin, gouges to the eye, throwing dirt or poo into the face of the enemy, whatever. It starts off bleh but becomes much more desirable once you get into Quick Dirty Trick and Greater Dirty trick. This makes it a great opener for martially minded anvils and can allow you to cripple opponent’s offense and defense. With some creativity and a lenient GM you can get away with a lot with this maneuver.
Issues: No weapon bonuses and requires a three feat investment to be good. Some classes and archetypes can work surprisingly well with this with the bonuses they get to it.
Investment Value: Great. This is one of the few maneuvers that become amazing after investment. Being able to land the debuffs you do regardless of a creatures saves makes you a god send to a groups damage dealers since you can often drastically drop an opponent’s AC and action economy. Witches and Hex crafters are great but a dirty trick dedicated Cad with Quick Dirty Trick is a terror to the enemy. However outside of classes that can’t get bonuses to maneuvers like this it may not be worth more than getting the greater version if that.
Disarm
Uses: Limited uses unfortunately. It can remove anything deemed a weapon and chuck it on the ground, or if you have a free hand snatch it for yourself. This can be deemed more desirable than sundering a weapon as you don’t have to pay to get it fixed. However given that many monsters have natural attacks or secondary weapons to fall back on this leaves you in a problematic position of having wasted attack actions to little or no effect. It does benefit from weapon bonuses making it a good option to go to if you’re in a situation where it works.
Issues: I’ve already covered some of the issues above but to add to this as an AoO generator or debuff it’s generally lack luster against all but a scant few opponents (i.e. those who either don’t have natural attacks or secondary weapons).
Investment Value: Poor. There are lots and lots of feats to make it more efficient but none that really make it better. Perhaps if it is used incidentally (such as with power attack or as part of another maneuver) it can work well.
Drag
Uses: Fewer uses than bullrush but also less situational. Offensively you can use it to pull casters and other low comb enemies into your group’s hammers or open up a line of fire or movement for your hammers to pass through and penetrate an enemy’s defenses. Defensively you can use this maneuver to break a flank or pull enemies out of good lines of fire or attack. It receives bonuses from weapons with the trip descriptor meaning you can get good high bonuses with this maneuver.
Issues: It moves in a straight line and doesn’t push people into hazards. It’s also limited by your available movement. These are minor quibbles given the high bonuses you can get and a few feet are really all you need.
Investment Value. Excellent. It goes off Power Attack and its high end
investments synergize very well with other maneuvers particularly trip. Riptide Attack in particular seems like a fun feat to build around. I’d combine it with Quick Drag to perform a full attack, a trip, and a short move all in one go.
Grapple
Uses: Generally as a debuffer that works well as a single opponent eliminator. Terrifyingly useful against solo monsters it can destroy certain strategies and seriously hamper others. Creatures with reach can use this as an impromptu reposition maneuver since you choose which square the creature ends up in when you grapple. This is particularly useful against creatures with high armor but low CMD since it gives you automatic damage options. Later investment options allow you to do other things with your grapple from suffocation to bleed damage to using the grappled target as cover that can potentially damage them.
Issues: A bad idea to use when surrounded by multiple opponents by dint of the grapple condition nerfing your AC as well as your targets. A good deal of investment is required to make this a good maneuver to use regularly. Heavy investment can also damn you into a one trick pony problem. This can be mitigated by simply spending a feat or two into an alternate tactic.
Investment Value: Good. There are no stat requirements oddly enough making it suitable for a variety of builds. Investment is easy to get into and many classes support grappling. Once you have greater grapple there are no more required feats to make it better allowing you some space to invest in other tactics or otherwise make grappling more versatile. Body Shield is a favorite of mine since it partially mitigates a disadvantage of the maneuver.
Overrun
Uses: Partly a debuff and partly a positioning maneuver overrun allows you to literally stomp through opponents. Since it’s not technically a trip maneuver this can get around creatures bonuses to trip maneuvers in exchange for worse action economy. A minor investment at least is required since giving creatures the option to attack or move out of the way is inadvisable. There’s not much else to this maneuver other than its utility as a means to punch through frontlines to get to a softer back area perhaps to charge or full attack a caster. It can prove to be a solid aoo generator as well since with Greater Overrun the act of knocking them prone can generate an AoO as well as the AoO caused by standing up.
Issues: It gains no bonuses from weapons and has a size limitation. Beyond this the only real con is that failure stops you in front of the target you attempted to overrun.
Investment: Good. There’s not much you can add to this really. Improved Overrun and Charge through will greatly add on to the versatility of a charging character so consider that a potential investment option if you have a feat or two free. It’s not versatile or strong enough to be a mainline tactic but as a means to increase your overall mobility while simultaneously controlling/damaging the enemy it’s hard to argue with.
Reposition:
Uses: More versatile than any of the other positional maneuvers. This can break flanks, move people into flanks, break formations, move people into formations of death. Being unable to move or push the target out of your threatened space can actually prove to be a benefit rather than a problem since you may not want an enemy out of your threatened reach but within a certain area of control. As an AoO generator it’s the best of the positional options since it’s easier to move an opponent through multiple allies threatened areas. That you can serve as a flanking partner during many of these aoo’s is bonus. On top of this you can add weapon bonuses from trip descriptor weapons to this maneuver allowing you to get really high bonuses.
Limits: Size limitations and standard action usage. However these are the only real limits and thus there’s no reason not to get this maneuvers feats if you can.
Investment: Great. Outside of combat expertise there’s almost no feat associated with this maneuver you don’t want. Quick Reposition allows you to combo this with trip attacks or other attack action maneuvers or allows you to set up flanking full attacks with your allies. Tactical reposition lets you move people into traps and hazards and forces them to take a penalty to AC and saves while doing so (making it actually superior to bullrush to this effect)
Steal
Uses: None. There are no good uses for this that a simple sleight of hand check, disarm, or sunder check won’t defeat.
Issues: Must have hand free can’t steal things that are hidden or in a bag and the bad guy notices immediately unless you invest in it. Stealing things like cloaks give a high bonus to the opponents cmd etc. etc.
Investment: Don’t even bother. Just pretend this maneuver doesn’t exist.
Sunder
Uses: A versatile maneuver that’s less debuff and more a simple redirection of your damage away from enemies and more towards objects. In many ways it’s superior to disarm in that it destroys the actual object and can target more than just weapons. This last distinction is important as a surprising number of items happen to be very important but also very fragile. A wand for example only has 5 hit points and 5 hardness no matter what spell or caster level is on it.
So this could feasibly use to interrupt actions normally uninterruptable such as drinking potions (which go off no matter how much damage you do with the AoO unless you drop them) destroying material components and divine focuses and in some cases quickly removing weapons from the hands of dangerous enemies.
Issues: You have to have the appropriate tool for some objects. Therefore someone dedicated to sundering has to be particularly on top of their gear.
On another note groups don’t like this because it destroys potential loot. While I understand the foundation of this idea I wondered about it.
Let’s say an enemy is holding a +1 sword and the group is around level 5. The +1 sword will sell for about 1150 gold more or less and gives us a 4 way split of 287 gold and 5 silver.
So the individual cost to a party member for breaking that sword is 288 gold if we just go ahead and round up. Now it takes half the materials to repair it as it does to make it so it will cost about the same to fix it as the individual share from it. Once all this is taken into account and we re-divide the sword it comes out to roughly 230gp for an individual split.
So it cost each individual character 58 gold for you to destroy that sword and potentially remove a very dangerous weapon from the bad guy’s hands or about 5% of the an individual’s wealth or the group’s overall wealth.
To look at the numbers another way let’s say the enemy gets a few hits off with said sword dealing roughly 50 damage to the group as a whole. It would take us around ten hits off of a cure light wounds wand (give or take based on rolls) with each hit costing about 15gp making the damage cost about 150gp or 38gp individualized and rounded up. So it’s about a 20 gold difference in favor of healing over sundering.
But this is of course assuming we’re smacking an expensive sword. Most of the time the weapons you’ll be breaking are non-masterwork and probably not getting picked up as loot anyway.
Ultimately it requires a bit of judgment to determine whether or not it’s a good idea to sunder said object. Much of the time though it’s better to sunder now and regret the gold later than to die now and regret the resurrection costs later.
Investment: Depending on your class this will require little to no real investment. Improved sunder will be all that’s required if you’re just going to use it every once in a while but greater sunder is necessary if you use it a lot (Since you still want to put that damage into bad guys).
Trip
Uses: Trip is ultimately a debuff maneuver that chucks people on the ground severely reducing their movement speed and granting penalties to their attack while simultaneously granting you a bonus to attack. This is a pretty significant debuff that generates an AoO whenever the opponent eventually gets up. Being an attack action allows the maneuver to be used to interrupt movement and potentially spell casting. It can also knock creatures off walls or sometimes out of the sky. This also benefits from bonuses granted by trip weapons allowing you to get some surprisingly high bonuses.
Issues: Size limitations, huge bonuses to creatures with multiple sets of legs, and many creatures are just outright immune. Ultimately this makes it a shadow to its 3.5 predecessor. It also has the weird caveat that you have to beat the opponents cmd not just match it.
Investment: Fair. Plenty of support for it and plenty of good weapons to use with it. Don’t expect this maneuver to carry you all by itself however consider other maneuvers like Reposition or Drag in order to capitalize on positional bonuses and using AoO’s on further trip attempts. With both of the above mentioned maneuvers you can add the same weapon bonuses from your trip weapon to that maneuver allowing you to get equally high bonuses. Ultimately the best way to look at trip is not as a standalone maneuver but as a solid supplement to go along with your main gimmick whether it’s dirty trick, overrun, drag, reposition, or bull rush.
Some General Tips on Using Maneuvers
1. A flat footed opponent is maneuver bait for whatever maneuver you desire. They cannot give attacks of opportunity and have a lower CMD as a result. You may not kill them with a full attack in this period but you can render them blinded or worse with an improvised maneuver.
2. Dirty Tick has a dark secret. There is no limitation placed on the shaken condition as intimidate does. Thus if you dirty trick an opponent three times applying the shaken condition you can knock them into panicked territory.
3. Disarm, Sunder, Trip, and are all attack actions allowing you to use them as part of an attack of opportunity. Keep this in mind if you have invested in any of them as any of the three can effectively ruin an opponent’s action.
4. Use positioning maneuvers like a chess master. When you succeed at a positional maneuver work two to three rounds ahead to ensure that the changes you make to the enemies position favor you and your group not just immediately but in the future rounds as well.
5. Reach, as always, is your best friend. An opponent who cannot reach you cannot counter maneuvers with attacks of opportunity thus even a character dedicated to tripping with a guisarme can still perform drag and reposition maneuvers with terrifying deftness.
6. Work with your groups spell casters to maximize the effectiveness of your maneuvers. If you focus on the dirty trick maneuver let your casters know that your conditions often reduce enemy saves. If your group’s casters love to blast and use area of effect spells on entire groups of enemies use your maneuvers to cluster them together to ensure maximum damage.
7. Never underestimate the value of an AoO generating maneuver. Spending a standard action to produce two or three attacks of opportunity from the group is a massive action advantage that can lead into even more action advantage.
8. Maneuvers cost nothing in terms of daily resources but do require feat and item investment to work at their best. Plan from the start one or two man
9. Melee hammers who invest in maneuvers should play like anvils in the first round or two in combat. Afterwards it’s most advisable to only use maneuvers to stop serious threats and go for raw damage otherwise as by now you should have received enough buffs and ruined your opponents momentum enough they shouldn’t present too much of a serious threat.
10. Remember: Penalties to AC also drop CMD. Bonuses to attack also boost CMB. You can use both to ensure that a combat maneuver works at its best or that it lands at all.
Next up I’ll be trying to talk about maneuvers and how they pertain to individual classes and group interactions.
EDIT: I forgot to mention such a product would be a thing that I sell through RPGnow or some such site not a free work as these have been. Obviously I would not propose such a ludicrous idea unless I was confident I could make it worth buying and not just regurgitate what I already write without expectation nor desire for monetary compensation.
Combat maneuvers get a bad rap. There seems to be an underlying belief in the community that combat maneuvers are only worth using if you invest heavily into them. Even in this case the maneuver you invest in will fail more often than not against massive CR creatures with ludicrous CMD scores.
However what’s not often pointed out is that there are plenty of creatures, even with high cr and particularly humanoid opponents, who have CMD’s in the laughable range. By CR 13 most monsters will easily hit the CMD 40+ range making it difficult for all but the most dedicated maneuver builds to ever land a combat maneuver in a meaningful way. But is that all there is to it?
I don’t think so.
Understanding the Numbers
First let’s look at the offensive number used to determine the success of combat maneuvers, the CMB.The CMB adds your base attack bonus + STR modifier + any relevant bonuses to attack rolls from feats, spells and effects. In short this includes any general buff that boosts attack rolls.
If the combat maneuver uses a weapon (most often Sunder, Disarm and Trip) you apply those bonuses to the attack as well.
The only penalty for making a combat maneuver without the feat is an AoO. Meaning any opponent unable to make AoO’s can be combat maneuvered by anyone with impunity. Remember this, it’s important for later.
Combat Maneuver Defense is your Base Attack bonus + STR + DEX +10. The addition of a free +10 and the dex bonus means that this number can get quite high out of the gate. It gains bonuses from effects that boost strength or dex along with bonuses to AC from dodge, luck, circumstance, deflection, morale sacred and profane bonuses. However any penalty to AC will affect this number.So, what this says exactly is that the static number you see on stat blocks is not static at all but quite dynamic. Moreover there are plenty of situations where you can make use of combat maneuvers without suffering any penalties meaning that practically any combat maneuver can be...
As someone who used a lot of the subrules and suggestions from the 2E Fighter's Handbook to great effect (both as a player and GM) over the years, it pains me to see how manuevers have been burned down over the years. I freely admit to not being an optimizer of any sort, but I've begun to take some amount of interest in it; however, anything that would even vaguely resemble writings of the Great Fighter Book of Yore would be something I'd be very interested in, including alternate suggestions and other ways to make combat maneuvers much more viable for much longer without the only answer being the Christmas Tree effect.
Your thread name is bad and you should feel bad.
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Your thread name is bad and you should feel bad.
** spoiler omitted **
I was once paid ~500$ for writing a 1,200 word article about Bushido Blade. And that was easy compared to the number crunching, rules digging, build scumming I did for this.
If this isn't a labor of free love I don't know what is.
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Your thread name is bad and you should feel bad.
** spoiler omitted **
I was once paid ~500$ for writing a 1,200 word article about Bushido Blade. And that was easy compared to the number crunching, rules digging, build scumming I did for this.
If this isn't a labor of free love I don't know what is.
Of course it's a labor of love! And you shouldn't name Labors of Love "Buttfart McSlimeface" :)
Of course it's a labor of love! And you shouldn't name Labors of Love "Buttfart McSlimeface" :)Your thread name is bad and you should feel bad.
** spoiler omitted **
I was once paid ~500$ for writing a 1,200 word article about Bushido Blade. And that was easy compared to the number crunching, rules digging, build scumming I did for this.
If this isn't a labor of free love I don't know what is.
Oh no. I call my other labors of love far worse things. Loudly.
This is awesome. If I may add ki throw deserves its own special mention. Not only do you get 2 maneuvers in 1 but it opens up the ability to use trip/grapple/ reposition or trip/reposition/bull rush all in one action.
Love this, learned a lot of this on my own with an unarmed fighter, Loved the trip/dirty trick/grapple with one standard action that that class brings, the dr/half level helps when you're surrounded by evil too, lost count of the number of times I just grabbed the weakest looking thing around me with stalwart to enjoy some dr 15/- while attempting to dirty trick/trip/whatever everything around me. Special mention for the fighter feat Pin Down, as it is very nice for things like this.
Edit: you might want to throw around some other misconceptions, like non-urban barbarians raising their CMD with normal rage (pretty sure the -2 ac counteracts that), and if there is a fighter weapon group that raises grapple CMB (does the natural one do it?).
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Great stuff Like always TarkXT, you invest into this community so much, I thank you :)
On a side note
The class guide said "Core and apg" for your cleric guide
How updated is it really?
And Do you plan on doing more on that guide, or write other guides?
Maybe tackle the war priest or another class?
Steal
Uses: None. There are no good uses for this that a simple sleight of hand check, disarm, or sunder check won’t defeat.
Issues: Must have hand free can’t steal things that are hidden or in a bag and the bad guy notices immediately unless you invest in it. Stealing things like cloaks give a high bonus to the opponents cmd etc. etc.
Investment: Don’t even bother. Just pretend this maneuver doesn’t exist.
I wrote a short guide on the Steal maneuver ;_;
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Loving this Tark. I'd be in for buying a product with this stuff in it. Yesterday. I love the tactical possibilities presented by combat maneuvers, but sadly don't get to use them enough. Maybe I should just dive in...
If you presented this stuff in a simple, progressing manner, say follow a low level fighter as he uses each maneuver, and then show how the feats improve them as he levels - that would be great.
It's a little trickier to follow when you are describing higher level options and maneuvers right out of the gate.
Being able to follow the progress of this iconic combat maneuver fighter would make things clearer, as you can refer to the previous, low level instance of the tactic that will a) reinforce that previous information/tactic, and b) support the current information/tactic.
really good article, but as someone who uses CMs a lot myself, I have to quibble with one point.
Suggesting that a CM-PC can get a full attacks worth of CMs against a flatfooted opponent after beating them at initiative is being way over-generous. Most likely your PC will have to move and be restricted to one combat maneuver. And that is if they win initiative in the first place, many monsters have very high init scores, thanks to a lot of monsters having Improved Initiative.
I wrote a short guide on the Steal maneuver ;_;Steal
Uses: None. There are no good uses for this that a simple sleight of hand check, disarm, or sunder check won’t defeat.
Issues: Must have hand free can’t steal things that are hidden or in a bag and the bad guy notices immediately unless you invest in it. Stealing things like cloaks give a high bonus to the opponents cmd etc. etc.
Investment: Don’t even bother. Just pretend this maneuver doesn’t exist.
All I can offer is a shoulder to cry on.
Not my shoulder mind you but we can find one I hope.
Well, the conclusion of my guide was more or less "Just cast Pilfering Hand unless you're playing in court intrigue game."
really good article, but as someone who uses CMs a lot myself, I have to quibble with one point.
Suggesting that a CM-PC can get a full attacks worth of CMs against a flatfooted opponent after beating them at initiative is being way over-generous. Most likely your PC will have to move and be restricted to one combat maneuver. And that is if they win initiative in the first place, many monsters have very high init scores, thanks to a lot of monsters having Improved Initiative.
There's nothing stopping you from getting a high initiative yourself and if you're playing in an anvil capacity you absolutely should make that a priority.
As for actually getting to the other guy to make that full attack that too also depends largely on a number of things. Some characters can full attack on a charge, other characters have so many ways to force an AoO on an opponent that once combat maneuver can feel like a full attack.
In this example our Cad could have been up to 30ft. away from the cruicidaemon. Wielding a reach weapon, being enlarged, having the luxury of a 5ft. step, the only question is whether or not they had the lunge feet to make the extra 5ft.
Is it likely to always happen? No. But I think it's a good enough situation to endeavor to place yourself in as often as possible. Flat footed targets are maneuver bait.
I think it is worth mentioning if I have remembered this correctly that Trip works differently from every other CMB maneuver if you read the Core Rulebook closely. Trip requires you to roll higher than the CMD of your opponent while all other maneuvers only require you to equal the CMD.
I think it is worth mentioning if I have remembered this correctly that Trip works differently from every other CMB maneuver if you read the Core Rulebook closely. Trip requires you to roll higher than the CMD of your opponent while all other maneuvers only require you to equal the CMD.
Interesting it does seem to say that.
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Huge fan of your articles and analysis, TarkXT. It seems like you wrote this to inspire people to try to utilize combat maneuvers more often, but sadly this summary did the opposite for me.
Just as an example let’s say the group is fighting a Crucidaemon. At 42 CMD it would seem that any attempt for our, let’s say level 12, group to shove her around would end badly. Or would it?
A +9 initiative isn’t bad. But by now, a forge model group can easily beat that. Our level 12, let’s say Fighter(Cad) really likes the dirty trick maneuver and is wielding a Guisarme he took the dirty trick line up to Quick Dirty trick allowing him to do it as an attack action. His group’s wizard and bard go first. The bard electing to cast Mass Heroism and activating inspire courage while his wizard opts to give the cad a Quickened Enlarge person and casually chucks a waves of fatigue spell at the crucidaemon (we’ll say he rolls the SR which by now he can get a check of around +18 anyway).So, some quick number crunching here gives the CAD a base CMB after buffs a base CMB check of +24. The Crucidaemon is sitting at a much less mighty 35. This allows the Cad to perform any maneuver he likes on the Crucidaemon on a roll of 11. This is with normal buffs for the level and a debuff which only makes a 1 point difference.
So we have three attacks for the fighter to perform. Obviously we want to use our most invested in maneuver first so we’ll use Dirty trick to start off. With the investment of feats with our class we hit a +31 on our CMD allowing us to blind the crucidaemon for several rounds on our first attack. Our Crucidaemon is now blind taking an additional -2 penalty to armor class knocking her CMD down to 33.
Our next attack is at a -5 penalty knocking our base CMB down to +19 versus 33. With this second attack our CAD gets cheeky and decides to trip her with his guisarme. Because he’s a fighter who actually invests in such things like weapon focus his weapon focus and greater weapon focus feats apply along with his weapon bonus (+2 for now) to get a CMB to trip of 23. A 50/50 shot.
In this case if he hits the trip attempt she’ll be knocked prone granting him a +4 bonus to attack rolls on her. If not it’s unlikely she’ll be able to trip back. For arguments sake let’s say she’s now, prone, blinded, fatigued, and flatfooted. Her CMD drops further down to 29 for this round. With an additional -5 on our last attack making our CMB a +14.
He now opts to attack her now 17 AC with his +17 attack roll. Smashing her in the back and taking an immediate action to Dirty trick her once more through a class ability. At this point it makes no real difference whether or not it affects her since she’s already significantly debuffed by the time the Cad does it.
So by the time the Crucidaemon gets around to acting, she’ll be prone, blinded, fatigued, and possibly entangled. Three of these conditions would cost a standard action to remove to allow her to fight effectively (if at all) and that would just allow the group to pound her with impunity.
Now he could have just straight up full attacked her. And indeed this would have been a fine thing to do. But, keep in mind that at 212hp and 20/good and silver DR the crucidaemon would have most likely survived at full potential to harm the group rather badly.
Now, there are opponents with much higher numbers for CMD but we can get on that later.
It took the party having a devoted exceptional buffer utilizing both of their most optimal attack boosters, a wizard blowing two high level spells, and a maneuver specialized fighter to get the odds to 50/50? That's... painful. So much action economy and damage output completely sacrificed so that we could *possibly* inconvenience the demon? (who is only a single target, and what GM uses only single opponents in serious fights that require so many resources to be used?)
Am I looking at this the wrong way? I really want combat maneuvers to be worthwhile at higher levels. Please help me see what I don't seem to be seeing?
It took the party having a devoted exceptional buffer utilizing both of their most optimal attack boosters, a wizard blowing two high level spells, and a maneuver specialized fighter to get the odds to 50/50? That's... painful. So much action economy and damage output completely sacrificed so that we could *possibly* inconvenience the demon? (who is only a single target, and what GM uses only single opponents in serious fights that require so many resources to be used?)
Am I looking at this the wrong way? I really want combat maneuvers to be worthwhile at higher levels. Please help me see what I don't seem to be seeing?
Remember this particular beasty is also two CR higher than the group, and no it's unlikely she's alone but she would be the biggest threat in that scenario making controlling her a priority.
The thing to take away from this is that the bard and the wizard aren't doing anything they wouldn't normally do when faced with such an encounter everything they did was to boost their chances in a fight they would ahve used such resources anyway.
So, don't look at maneuvers in the context of a vacuum like too many people do but in the context of an organized group. All the people trumpeting the power of GOD wizards forget that Treantmonk's original tongue in cheek assertion was that the wizard worked best in supporting his group and altering the battle to suit the groups needs. In this case they're not doing any different they're pushing the fighters numbers to a point where he can land a number of maneuvers that would be difficult to pull off with their spells given the Cruicidaemon's good saves, great resistances, and decent SR.
And the 50/50 shot was, as I said, the Cad getting cheeky as I assumed he didn't have any feats dedicated to trip but that 50/50 shot could have easily been 70/30 or even 80/20 shot with some minor investment in feats and magic items. Heck I didn't even assume magic items outside of the weapon in this scenario. Had I done that things might have gone much much more towards the Cad. The point in this case was to illustrate that simply because you didn't invest in it doesn't mean that an opportunity will never arise to capitalize on its use.
Another way to look at it is that the wizard cast his one spell to make her fatigued, another to boost the fighter and that's it in terms of what he's done or could do given such an opponent. Where as the Cad, blinded, knocked prone, and potentially did something else to her (I'd say entangled but shaken is good too) while damaging her in one turn. This, without spending any resources of his own. That itself is not insignificant.
You simply have to take the view that your base CMB is merely a foundation number to build upon affected by the bonuses and penalties you take to your attack. You can get your weapon bonus to it, or you cannot. Getting it is great though which is partly why Sunder, Trip, Drag and Reposition are rated so highly in my book.
I was also wondering the same thing, randomroll. Not to mention, I'm wondering how the fighter managed to full attack the demon on the first turn anyway. I mean, how often do enemies start within 5-10 feet of the party?
With a reach weapon and enlarge person? Try 20-25ft. with an option for 30ft. if you assume Lunge feat as well. If she was more than that amount away he'd just have to satisfy himself with a single attack that would trigger a Dirty Trick maneuver anyway. Probably to entangle or blind in order to set up for nastier shenanigans later.
Also, I am surprised to see no discussion of Feint!
Primarily because it's technically not a combat maneuver in that it doesn't use your CMB nor targets an opponents CMD.
Therefore pretty much 99% of the discussion would be unhelpful to someone who wants to use feint.
I guess so. Sorry, I just have a really hard time seeing things line up so neatly; maybe I just need to play more, or it's perfectly possible I suck at strategy. Could you elaborate more on how the three of the party wins init against the demon? What kinds of investments do they have, and what do you do if you don't win initiative? I'm slightly biased from rolling consistently low with double-digit inits.
Some lower-level stuff would also be cool to see. Do you think you could whip up a lower-leveled scenario for this?
It's rather easy to beat a +9 initiative.
Our wizard friend here without being a diviner can sit at +15 (familiar, imp. intiative, 18 dex, trait, ioun stone.
The bard can just as easily hit 11+ without the wizards resources adn can get higher himself with certain spells active.
The fighter will probably end up the lowest at a mere +9 that is assuming he doesn't invest in a magic item or two that increases this number or he doesn't have a race or other ability that boosts that number.
A lot of people ignore initiative without understanding why optimizers prize it.
Ill play around with some lower level scenarios later when it's not midnight since that seems to be a common enough request.
Well, the reason I'm interested in the low-level discussion is that it provides a perfect starting off point for later explanations.
"Remember that CMB of +"x" Standup McTripper had when attempting maneuver y at level 1? Well now he's got "z" (feat/weapon/ability/reach) that enables him to add/ignore/target etc etc etc..."
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Honestly I have some good examples of some improvised maneuvers in some of the pbp's I run/play here. Two with tripping, one with disarming, one with sundering, one with grappling.
I think Shifty perpetrated three of those. I did one and a player of mine did the grapple *grumble grumble*
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Interesting. I think I might have had a much easier time playing with the fighter who specialized in bull rush if my GM had known about CMD being lowered every time AC was. I was able to be effective in fights with humanoids, but anything outside of that I struggled to use all those feat I picked up for Bull Rushing and shield bashing.
I do have one great example of bull rushing working as a way of provoking AoO. In one fight I bull rushed a guy into provoking AoO from five different people. He hit the ground dead at the end of his movement.
I really was not aware of how good reposition is, and I have wanted to play a Dirty Trick build for a while now. Maybe in the next campaign I'll be using both more often.
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This article is a thing of wonder.
I keep checking back in to praise it and end up and getting lost in the wealth of fantastic posts you've made over the last year or two. I'd definitely support you if you were to write such a product, I wouldn't be able to resist. I've been playing a fighter that uses a great deal of improvised maneuvers and the charge-through feat to be an extremely disruptive force on the battlefield. I hope to put your insights to good use in living up to his name as a "bull-rushing train of justice and smack downs."
A quick question regarding weapon-based manuevers. Would they also apply the small size bonus to attack rolls? Would the -1 CMB penalty be cancelled out? I know that there's a lot more problems with a small-sized maneuver build than that -1CMB, but I'm curious if they cancel each other out.
Oddly enough the bonuses/penalties due to size on your CMB cancel one another out.
However, due to the bonus to AC not matching any of the allowable bonuses it seems that while being smaller increases your AC it does in fact drop your CMD.
@Caleb: Reposition is a hilarious AoO generator. The other positional maneuvers suffer from a requirement of motion being in a straight line. Reposition however allows you to basically pick up an opponent and share him with all your buddies who each get an AoO on him and 9 times out of ten will be flanking as well.
I'd definitely support you if you were to write such a product, I wouldn't be able to resist.
I'd buy it!
Then I'd tell most of my players to buy it. Otherwise they'd hate me when I started using all these tactics against them. ;)
Tark are you going to cover using some of these maneuvers on your allies
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It's funny, I was just thinking about this article when I saw yet another myopic post that claimed DPR was everything and totally ignored on-hit debuffs like Dirty Trick, Trip, and more. I was thinking of linking that person here but just decided to give up.
On a totally different note, however, I have a thought about the answer to this:
Tark are you going to cover using some of these maneuvers on your allies
The problem with that is that many of these maneuvers assume enemies and are simply nonfunctional when used on allies, requiring GMs to make table decisions about things like (among other things)
*Can you drop your CMD voluntarily so that a size Tiny familiar can pick you up and Reposition you?
*Does it really avoid all AoOs for being "forced" movement, particularly when you are actually doing the thing above if the GM allows you to do so.
I usually allow PCs to drop some aspects of their CMD but not all, and I still give AoOs if the movement is desired by the person being moved rather than forced. However, I could see GMs deciding both ways on both of those.
Given that it's hard to say where a ruling will go on these issues with maneuvers on willing targets, it makes sense not to focus on them.
yes all of those things are basically why I asked in the first place
Bull Rush
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.Issues: ... no benefit gained from bonuses based on weapon
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A thing to note are those little tricks to use weapon bonus for manevuers. A favorite example is shiel slam for bull rush or hamatula strike and whip mastery for grapple.
yes all of those things are basically why I asked in the first place
I guess it just seems to me that obviously if the GM is letting you use owls or other low-value creatures to reposition your melees into full attacks or your casters out of threatened areas without provoking AoOs, and if it doesn't break your immersion, then powerwise you should do it every time, whereas if the GM is not, then you should only use it as a desperation move. Also, based on my analysis of the way that it breaks the inherent balances in combat of things like reach and readied actions, I recommend to all GMs to adopt the policy that desired movement provokes.
yeah, Rogue Eidolon, I agree for the most part
I want my players to have options, but I have seen such combat-maneuver-on-ally usage result in the equivalent of potentially dangerous or risky maneuvers being trivialized with 100% guaranteed, no-AoO-provoking assisted 'escapes'
Okay...
I have to defend the Disarm maneuver: Specifically, Disarm with
This means you can disarm and snatch - assuming you are facing medium opponents using appropriately-sized weapons - one-handed and light weapons(and holy symbols, wands, etc...)
I think you killed your own attempt to defend disarm here.
The actual disarm maneuver is handy because it can remove a weapon from the characters hands regardless of size difference. So you could, say, use a dagger to disarm a fire giants greatsword.
Your suggestion actually limits the disarm ability further.
The disarm maneuver isn't really bad. It's just not worth real investment.
@LAmontius and Rogue Eidolon: I think the trouble with that subject is that the developers haven't said much if anything about it. And I think it has to do with the reasoning that no one at the office figured you would quite literally chain people together to move a barbarian around the field to full attack things at will.
However there are instances where you can't imagine not being able to do it (i.e. pushing someone out of the way of a charge lane when it's not their turn, or repositioning a character out of an AoE spell.). Thus, I believe the silence is just a way of saying "let the gm judge on a case by case basis" without the accompanying chorus of whiners and mopers. So, frankly that might be for the best.
@LAmontius and Rogue Eidolon: I think the trouble with that subject is that the developers haven't said much if anything about it. And I think it has to do with the reasoning that no one at the office figured you would quite literally chain people together to move a barbarian around the field to full attack things at will.
However there are instances where you can't imagine not being able to do it (i.e. pushing someone out of the way of a charge lane when it's not their turn, or repositioning a character out of an AoE spell.). Thus, I believe the silence is just a way of saying "let the gm judge on a case by case basis" without the accompanying chorus of whiners and mopers. So, frankly that might be for the best.
Indeed, that's why I figured you were unlikely to go into detail on it.
In other news. this appeared in bastards of golarion.
Have fun.
Though I will say the shaken condition under dirty trick already worked that way.
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I think you should observe the style of the campaign before deciding which maneuvers (if any) to focus on. Stuff like Disarm has the most value against enemies who rely on manufactured weapons, and lose a lot of power without them. In other words, humanoids with class levels. If you're playing an Eberron-style campaign, Disarm is pretty neat.
On the other hand, if you face lots of monsters with natural attacks, or who can at least resort to a Slam attack if you disarm them...
Wow, Dirty Trick Master looks nasty. Being able to end the condition with a standard action ceases to be an escape option once you land dazed or nauseated on them, so that they can't even take a standard action. Plus, the duration is additive, so they're out of commission for 2d4 rounds (plus any extra from high CMB rolls). All it takes is two Dirty Tricks, and you've likely disabled an opponent for the rest of the fight, or nearly so. Have fun, indeed.
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It's funny, I was just thinking about this article when I saw yet another myopic post that claimed DPR was everything and totally ignored on-hit debuffs like Dirty Trick, Trip, and more. I was thinking of linking that person here but just decided to give up.
Actually I was curious to see if you could link that post here.
I don't see DPR as anything really. All it really represents is a character's capacity to to deal damage to a given set of numbers at any given point.
It works well for optimization, particularly when paired with the mosnter building guidelines chart that shows you expected averages of monster numbers. It let's you make sure you're building a hammer that can perform up to par without needlesly draining resources.
The issue is many people take it as meaning you have to have the highest DPR possible in every round.
Personally I see action advantage and positional superiority to be more important than dpr since at any point I can reduce my opponents dpr to 0 and keep my dpr to at least 1 is a fight I'm winning. Playing "whose got the biggest DPR" always ends in tears when the monster answers "me".
For Dirty Trick, you should consider that Dirty Trick does gain weapon enhancement bonuses as long as the weapon is used in the maneuver.
Also the Dueling property from the PFS Field Guy should be a mandatory enhancement for disarm, trip, dirty trick, or reposition maneuvers.
With that amount of spells and buffs, you can 100-0 that demon in a full-attack, why you should waste time in hoping on a 50% chance to mildly inconvenience him? He has AC 29 for god's sake, flat footed is 23, it's an autohit on all your 4 attack, a +5 weapon ignores DR and with a 2h that buffed you easly deal 50 (12 PA, 12 for 26 str, 4 Greater Heroism, 3 Bard song, 5 base weapon damage (2d4), 5 enchantment, random bonuses like fighter training or rage or bane or wathever) damage per swing without accounting for crits at 30% chance. And those crits will actually debuff him better than the dirty trick if you took say Tiring critical or staggering critical (minimum level 13 but wathever).
You just undubtly proved why combat manouvers are not worth wasting time on.
Edit: i forgot to add in the enlarged bonuses, but as you can see they are not even needed.
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Probably don't have +5 weapons at level 12.