Assurance, Combat Maneuvers and Multi-Attack Penalties.

[Mats Öhrman]

A friend of mine studied the much-maligned Assurance feat, and noticed something: You can use it to remove the multi-attack penalty from combat maneuvers when you do the maneuver as your second or third attack.

I was sceptical, but decided to run the numbers using the very convenient monster stat spreadsheet provided by LuniasM.

So, using that spredsheet:
Athletics Experts with Assurance (=fixed result of 15) will auto-trip 34/35 lvl 1 monsters, 16/29 lvl 2, 12/27 lvl 3, and 2/17 lvl 4 ones.

Athletics Masters with Assurance (=fixed result of 20) will auto-trip 10/17 lvl 5 monsters, 14/16 lvl 6, 6/15 lvl 7, 2/12 lvl 8 ones.

Athletics Legends with Assurance (fixed result of 30) will auto-trip 4/4 lvl 14 monsters, 0/3 lvl 15, 1/5 lvl 16, 0/4 lvl 17.

Two notes:
1) The encounter building rules from the bestiary says that an equal number of PC level - 2 minions is a "hard" encounter, so you really cannot compare with equal level monsters.

2) Using assurance in this way totally ignores your strength score. You can do this with a -1 strength modifier, if you like.

So, worth using or not? Have I missed something?

[Mats Öhrman]

Note that you can do this with any reach weapon, as the non-proficiency penalty of an unfamiliar weapons is also ignored...

[Captain Morgan]

Huh, that's pretty cool!

[Cantriped]

I doubt it was intended, but I sort of like that interation. Perhaps there should ne a form of Assurance for weapon checks too. A nice quality of life feature for Martials.

[pauljathome]

Interesting. Its hard to imagine that the goal of assurance is to be very useful in combat but useless with skills. I doubt this will survive to final print. Heck, I'd be surprised if this doesn't get errata'd in the playtest :-).

I do like the image of my Str 8 gnome pushing people around the battlefield though :-).

[Laik]

Looks broken, absolutely worth testing of course. Expecting errata though.

[DerNils]

Nice. Makes you wonder what that Farmhand was doing before adventuring
"Get of my Lawn, Giant!" Shove with Pichfork.

[Mats Öhrman]

Unfortunately this needs Expert Athletics with Assurance to start working, otherwise the Farmhand background would indeed be a shoe-in. :)

The less serious answer for ”what was the farmhand doing” is of course “practicing cowtipping”. :)

[Damanta]

If you actually maintain a trip weapon on quality and get strength it's only worth it on the 3d attack.

This is mainly something for characters who dumped their strength, but still went legendary on athletics for combat maneuvers.

A level 15 fighter (legendary athletics) with 23 Strenth (because he started with 18, put his level 5, 10 and 15 boost in strength, and at level 14 he got a belt of giant strength) wielding a levelappropriate trip weapon (+3 master) will have an Athletics bonus of: +31 (15 level +3 legendary +6 strength +3 trip weapon +4 belt of giant strength).

Using Assurance gives you a result of 30, which even with the 3d attack MAP is only a 9 on the die.

If we increase the level 15 fighter to 16 for a +4 trip weapon?
Athletics bonus becomes +33, making assurance on the 3d attack as if a 7 was rolled.

At level 20, where the fighter reaches the final point of strength to get to 24, upgrades the weapon to +5, and has invested in the armbands of athleticism for that extra +1?
Athletics: 20 +3 legendary +7 strength +5 weapon +5 armbands = +40.

Assurance now actually does nothing anymore as it would be as if you rolled a 0.

Reducing the fighter to starting with 16 only changes the level 20 outcome from +40 to +39, making the assurance roll a 1 on the 3d attack.

Edit: this also counts for Shove and Disarm as those are also weapon traits. Grapple is the only combat maneuver that doesn't have a weapon to help it, making assurance for that slightly better.

[DerNils]

Sarcasm Mode on: So it is very good for Dex Fighters - Whenever that pesky giant Comes too Close for targeting him with your +4 Bow, you shove him back a few feet with your free Hand as third attack. Don't Trip him, even in Close Combat Prone gives Bonus to AC vs ranged.
Sarcasm Off: still stupid, will probably be errata'ed if anybody cares.

[Sammy T]

Assurance might make the 3rd attack maneuver palatable if there are other condition/circumstance/etc penalties in play besides the MAP.

You can forgo rolling a skill check for your chosen skill to instead receive a result of 10 (do not apply any of your bonuses, penalties, or modifiers).

[Sammy T]

Confirmed Assurance works with trip/grapple.

[Ediwir]

I had something similar with a character's Recall Knowledge. Automatic success (but not critical success) when recognising almost all monsters in the adventure.

However, I still encouraged him to roll instead, because while Assurance gave him an automatic 20, his modifier was +15. And you know, you can learn weaknesses or peculiarities if you roll high enough.

Same for the manouvers - you can crit succeed on them and gain additional effects.

So... If those guys can auto-trip most monsters... how many times will they trip them by rolling normally? And is the fail chance worth the crit success chance?
I think it's likely it will be.

[Mats Öhrman]

Ediwir wrote:

So... If those guys can auto-trip most monsters... how many times will they trip them by rolling normally? And is the fail chance worth the crit success chance?
I think it's likely it will be.

The idea is using it to get rid of MAP, so you can do it reliably as your third attack, without risk of a critical fail.