Outmaneuvered

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Even in the midst of PaizoCon preparation, the design staff just loves those crazy little rules questions that pop up on the messageboards, during actual play, or that just randomly stray into our heads when we are designing an archetype or putting the finishing touches on a monster.

Since I just returned from Comicpalooza in Houston, I had a number of those questions come up while conversing with players or that popped up during play, and shared those experiences when I returned. Well, no good deed goes unpunished. While in the middle of sharing my experiences, Jason quickly pointed out that we needed a Design Tuesday blog. So let's look at some question and answers involving everyone's favorite subject—combat maneuvers! Today I'll go over a couple of pressing ones. We will get into more minutia next week.

Illustration by Allision Theus

Question: Standing up provokes an attack of opportunity. I can attempt to trip a creature with an attack of opportunity. Can I use the trip combat maneuver to keep my opponent down on the ground?

In a word, no. By far this was the most common combat maneuver question at the show that people asked me. I had folks try to use it in the game, and I can understand why. As a tactic, it seems pretty powerful. Too powerful, and that's why there are some subtle timing issues that are going on when a creature attempts to stand up and provokes the attack of opportunity.

When the attack of opportunity is provoked for standing up, the creature is still prone, since an attack of opportunity interrupts the action that provoked it. Since that's the case, the creature is still prone when the attack is provoked, and you cannot trip a prone creature, as it is already prone.

Okay, all you trip monkeys out there, don't fret overly much. If you want an effect similar to the one you desire, you just have to pay a higher action cost. Use the ready action. Just make sure your triggered action is "after the creature stands up from being prone" or something similar. I know, it's not nearly as sexy (or free) but I have faith you'll find a way to make it work to the detriment of those wily monsters.

Question: A creature grappling an opponent typically needs to make two combat maneuver checks to pin someone (one to grapple, the next to pin). If you're pinned, do you also need to succeed at two checks to escape, one for the grab and the other for the pin?

The answer to this question is also no. When a creature is pinned, it gains this more severe version of the grappled condition, and the two conditions do not stack (as described in the pinned condition). While this means that you do not take both the penalties for both the grapple and the pin, this also means that pinned supersedes the grapple condition; it does not compound it. For this reason you only need to succeed one combat maneuver or Escape Artist check to escape either a grapple or a pin.

Stephen Radney-MacFarland
Pathfinder RPG Designer

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Tags: Allison Theus Animals Anti-Paladins Design Tuesdays Grapple Pathfinder Campaign Setting Pathfinder Roleplaying Game
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Cartigan wrote:
The opposition to correcting problems is one thing really bothering me about how Paizo is running Pathfinder.

This. A hundred times, this!


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Varthanna wrote:
Cartigan wrote:
The opposition to correcting problems is one thing really bothering me about how Paizo is running Pathfinder.
This. A hundred times, this!

This. A hundred times, this!

and the fact the are things "fixed" apparently without take a look twice at them. See Cockatrice Strike errata.


I deeply regret anything I said that resulted in what this thread has become.


Anguish wrote:
I deeply regret anything I said that resulted in what this thread has become.

And the lesson here is: You have to think about what you say before you say it. Regretting it afterward doesn't help anyone.


cibet44 wrote:
And the lesson here is: You have to think about what you say before you say it. Regretting it afterward doesn't help anyone.

I expressed sadness at a lost opportunity and the thread rapidly devolved to assertions that Paizo is deliberately against remedying anything deemed wrong with their products. How I was supposed to anticipate that huge a derailment... I don't know. But that was the point of my regret... to draw into contrast that what I said and what this has become have no similarity.

See... what I want is for Paizo to have heard that I'm a candidate customer for a product like Combat Maneuvers of Golarion. What (many of) the other posters want is something entirely different, possibly involving blood.

I posed the regret comment to distance myself from that... hostility. Guess the sarcasm was too subtle. I'll try harder next time. <Grin>


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Adam Ormond wrote:
I'd like to see a "voting" system setup where the community can identify issues they'd most like to see addressed. Paizo should present a weekly/monthly poll with contentious issues. For each issue, a thread should exist where people can discuss exactly what about the issue that interests/confuses them.

I vote for the Antagonize feat! The silence on this one is driving me crazy.


2 people marked this as FAQ candidate. 2 people marked this as a favorite.

Since Maneuvers seem like they may be getting more FAQ/Errata love soon,
I thought I`d be thorough in getting some more of the `hanging` issues out here in sight, to be addressed.

First, the action usage of maneuvers / `in place of melee attack` thing:

The only place `in place of melee attack` seems to be defined is in a foot-note to the Actions in Combat table:
¨Some combat maneuvers substitute for a melee attack, not an action. As melee attacks, they can be used once in an attack or charge action, one or more times in a full-attack action, or even as an attack of opportunity. Others are used as a separate action. ¨
Now I can see how it could be reasonable to expect people to understand that `in place of melee attack` means any melee attack roll without any further definition, but it seems like Paizo DOES think it`s something that needs definition, since it WAS included... But at the bottom of a table doesn`t seem the place to define something like that.
In addition, the specific wording is actually structured more like an exhaustive list, rather than using wording like `such as` which more clearly indicates that it`s just a list of common examples, and other attacks apply. PRPG has obviously gone in the direction of more new unique combat actions, i.e. cleave, spell combat, etc, and by the RAW one could understand that those actions can`t `deliver` CMBs, which isn`t in line with RAI as far as I understand.

Also, there are several things specific to Grapple which I brought up in a Grapple-specific thread, some I`ve brought up before, some I just posted now...here.

Liberty's Edge

Stephen Radney-MacFarland wrote:
Spoiler alert. We will grapple with these next week...maybe the week after. We will see lucid we are after PaizoCon is over.

Stephen, it's been two weeks. What's the skinny?

Liberty's Edge

Has this thread been forgotten? Stephen said there would be a bunch of grapple questions answered after Paizocon. Paizocon has come and gone (I was there!) but this thread hasn't gotten any updates.

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