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This issue came up today in my game. I know it has been discussed before and will most likely come up again when we start playtesting the combat section in ernest, but I wanted to mention it while I still remembered it. Let me set up my comments by telling you what happened.
My party was attacked by three green dragons. The first two went down faily easily, they were CR 13 and we are a 14th level equivalent party. The third one was giving us some trouble, so my ranger started flirting with her to distract her. When she realized that she was going to loose the fight like her two brothers, she tried to snatch me and fly off, intrigued by the posibilities that I had suggested. She failed and ended up empty handed.
Now while I am greatful that I was not snatched up by a curious dragon, although I was kinda of curious what my DM would ghave done in that situation, I believe that the DC for making attacks with the CMB is too high. If the DC had been 10+ my CMB, my character would currently be a dragon's love slave, which might actually have helped my group since we are hunting the dragon's mother who reacently became a dracolitch. All other rolls like that, saving throws vs. spells, etc. go off a base 10. It would be better if CMB also went of of a base 10, if only for ease of play.
am not sure on this it has been debated alot though am on the fence myself . will have some more thoughts later as I am playtesting a 15th level chain fighter today
Starting DC of 15 works fine. It shouldn't be easy for someone that isn't particularly skilled in something to grapple or trip, and most of the "Improved" feats increase your chances by +2.
We've been using CMB since Alpha one and it seems to work out fine for what its suppose to do, and believe me, I had a goliath rogue/barbarian that really put it through its paces.
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I disagree. PCs should have a pretty good chance to use thier manuevers with or without a feat. The penalty of "attack of opportunity" is sometimes enough of a deterent.
I agree that the CMB base DC should be 10. We used it in early playtests and it encouraged heroic combat.
Conversely, if the bonus for the Improved feats was raised to a +4, that might also work.
I disagree. PCs should have a pretty good chance to use thier manuevers with or without a feat. The penalty of "attack of opportunity" is sometimes enough of a deterent.
I agree that the CMB base DC should be 10. We used it in early playtests and it encouraged heroic combat.
Conversely, if the bonus for the Improved feats was raised to a +4, that might also work.
One thing that I can say is that I used CMB in the first real combat that I had used it in last night and it was great. It made grappling actually fun and it ran quite quickly and smoothly. One of my players was running a straight up fighter 10th level and he got into a grapple with the a 5th level fighter/6th level sorcerer that I used the Arcane Mercenary sample complex NPC from the DMG2 for and did some very basic conversions on the fly. Mostly I just checked to make sure his current grapple modifier would be equal to what his CMB should be, no special size modifiers so it was. So the Arcane Merc had a CMB of +10 I am not 100% sure of what the PCs CMB was but I remember it yielded a DC of 30 so he had a pretty high strength score to account for that.
As it should be strength is the maker or breaker for a straight up grapple. at any rate the Arcane Merc would have had to have rolled a natural 20 to have broken the fighters grapple. I think the best way to "fix" any perceived imbalances in this system is through the use of feats that give special training in unique combat styles that focus on grappling. In the real world the weaker guy if he is not trained in a grappling style is always going to be at a significant disadvantage when fighting against the stronger guy, especially if he is a trained fighter. The Escape Artist skill is useful for this kind of thing as is Improved Grapple.
It might be nice to include some specific ground fighting and grappling style feats that reflect a grappling centric style of fighting that can give more bonuses than just a bonus to grappling and escaping from a grapple. Jujitsu and Greko-Roman Wrestling are two real world fighting styles that do this kind of thing. Their are already feats that improve the ability to successfully perform maneuvers through training and special ability with armed combat although I think some fighting style centric ones might be nice. For instance you could have a feat called Blade Dance (and there may already be a feat called this in 3e FR or somewhere) or something like that as a combat feat that basically reflects training in a whole fighting style maybe even introduce a new class of feats called Fighting Style Feats that have prerequisites similar to but not as stiff as those to qualify for a prestige class.
These could give bonuses on things like disarming opponents, avoiding being flanked, flanking and the like all in one big feat. It would probably have some pretty stiff prerequisites because it would be a very useful feat unless the bonuses started out low and increased with level. The problem that I see is that while it seems that a Base DC of 15 seems to make things a bit difficult and nearly impossible for some characters (grappling, disarming and sundering should be difficult for a wizard or a sorcerer with no levels of a combat class) I think if it was lowered to 10 it would make things a bit to easy. In a situation like this I think the best way to deal with it is through feats that offer a +1, +2, +3, or even +4 bonus eventually. On several of the rolls if the Arcane Merc last night had had a +2 bonus or had had the Escape Artist skill maxed out he would have made some of his rolls to escape but there would still have been sufficient chance of failure to produce enough dramatic tension to keep it fun. On the other hand the grappler kept him so busy that he didn't have a good opportunity to get off a spell if he had gotten the opportunity to cast Bull's Strength or something that would have helped considerably, ray of enfeeblement would have been helpful too as would have enlarge person but he simply didn't get the opportunity he was bound up in the grapple to much.
Charles
I could be wrong, but I'm curious about the specifics of the character mentioned in the OP. A quick look at a CR 13 green dragon, which would normally be an adult, would put it at Adult and give it a CMB of 30, and a "martial" character with a 20 ability score contributing to his CMB defense still allow the dragon to score a hit on a 10 or higher, unless my math is way off, or there are aspects of the character that are way beyond normal for a "14th level equivalent" character.
I'm just curious, as I'm sure there are tons of things I could have missed. It was just a quick calculation.
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I could be wrong, but I'm curious about the specifics of the character mentioned in the OP. A quick look at a CR 13 green dragon, which would normally be an adult, would put it at Adult and give it a CMB of 30, and a "martial" character with a 20 ability score contributing to his CMB defense still allow the dragon to score a hit on a 10 or higher, unless my math is way off, or there are aspects of the character that are way beyond normal for a "14th level equivalent" character.
I'm just curious, as I'm sure there are tons of things I could have missed. It was just a quick calculation.
I don't know what the DM used to determine the dragon's CMB. All I know is that it did not grapple my character. I agree that it should have been able to do it easily.
Edit: It was also that DM's first time running Pathfinder, so that could have contributed.
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I could be wrong, but I'm curious about the specifics of the character mentioned in the OP. A quick look at a CR 13 green dragon, which would normally be an adult, would put it at Adult and give it a CMB of 30, and a "martial" character with a 20 ability score contributing to his CMB defense still allow the dragon to score a hit on a 10 or higher, unless my math is way off, or there are aspects of the character that are way beyond normal for a "14th level equivalent" character.
I'm just curious, as I'm sure there are tons of things I could have missed. It was just a quick calculation.
Your calculation is off
15 + 13 (BAB for a 13th level Ranger) + 5 (assumed Str modifier) = DC 33
That dragon needed a 3 or better, assuming the ranger had a 20 Strength. (I would normally expect a ranger to have a 20 Dex instead.)
If the ranger only had an 18 Strength, then only an auto-fail will miss.
I would guess the DM either made a really big mistake with the CMB rules, or he rolled a Natural 1.
Edit: I forgot the other basic possibility - he did not want the dragon carrying you off and used DM fiat to save you.
As for the suggested change, if the DC was 10 + CMB, you would need at least a 30 Str, or a feat improving your grapple CMB, in order to have more than an auto-miss chance of avoiding the dragon. That seems a bit much, even at 13th level.
As for the suggested change, if the DC was 10 + CMB, you would need at least a 30 Str, or a feat improving your grapple CMB, in order to have more than an auto-miss chance of avoiding the dragon. That seems a bit much, even at 13th level.
Yeah, I figured I was a bit off, but I agree, dropping this down to 10 instead of 15 seems to make it way too easy to accomplish some of these maneuvers.
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Yeah, I figured I was a bit off, but I agree, dropping this down to 10 instead of 15 seems to make it way too easy to accomplish some of these maneuvers.As for the suggested change, if the DC was 10 + CMB, you would need at least a 30 Str, or a feat improving your grapple CMB, in order to have more than an auto-miss chance of avoiding the dragon. That seems a bit much, even at 13th level.
The biggest problem I have found with the DC 15+ is that once you are grappled, it is nearly impossible to escape, even from an opponent of equal skill. And especially if something gives the opponent a bonus on subsequent grapple checks: black tentacles, you ruined my huge elaborate combat!
I would leave the CMB at 15. These maneuvers shouldn't be easy for all. if there is a problem with grapple then there should be a fix adding a bonus to grapple escape check / penalty to grapple maintenance check, not to whole CMB. Fighters can really tweak the numbers in their favour with feats (that's what they have them for) and the others shouldn't have easy time trying (not to mention that I really don't want to see a fighter easily tripping a war rhino due to all the bonuses he'd have).
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CMB hasn't worked well for us in playtest.
Character builds based on any 'special combat maneuver' don't work.
With the DC being equal to 15+CMB, if you have two opponents who are exactly equal, they only have a 25% chance of being able to affect each other.
I believe that two equal opponents should have a 50% chance of being able to effect each other.
Further, the CMB of monsters scales so quickly compared to that of the PCs that there is absolutely no chance of having an effect on monsters at far too early a level.
For example, for a 5th level party we played a couple of quick sessions. A character was a druid with a wolf companion. With the advancement rules the wolf had been advanced a bit and gained Improved Trip as a feat, granting a +2 bonus. The wolf's final modifier ended at +6.
Against a 5th level fighter (CMB +10) the DC is 25. Under the Pathfinder rules it isn't hard to have a 20 as a starting ability score, so a 22 or 24 strength is not out of the question. Assuming the Pathfinder rules, there is a maximum 10% chance I win (and it drops off after this point rather quickly).
Under 3.5, assuming the +5 Strength for the fighter, and the adjusted wolf had a +2 strength modifier and a +4 for Improved Trip (+6 bonus) I am more likely to succeed - Over 50% of the time the wolf will succeed at the trip.
A change from better than 50% to around 5% (and in game, my wolf failed on a Nat 19) is a huge change and has a lot of ramifications. Since the PCs will nearly always fight stronger enemies, Combat Manuevers aren't 'smart'. The rules sufficiently discourage attempts at these manuevers that I consider them a problem.
I'd like to see it as a DC 10 or go back to opposed rolls (which had its own problems, but there are other ways to fix that).
The base dc of 15 didn't work at my games also. The main problem was the idea of the equal enemies only being able to sucess on their attack 25% of the time, buf 75% of the time on their defenses.
Trying with the DC set to 10+bonuses gave better results and bigger overall satisfaction of both players and Dm. However, we quickly defaulted to opposed rolls, since they give so much more emotion.
So, I vote that for pathfinder there should be used DC 10 as the base. Every other is based on 10 anyway...
So you want it to be just as easy, if not easier, to disarm, bull rush, trip, or grapple a foe as it is to just bash them with a weapon?
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So you want it to be just as easy, if not easier, to disarm, bull rush, trip, or grapple a foe as it is to just bash them with a weapon?
For me the problem is not executing the maneuver, it is specifically with escaping grapples. The DC of an average fighter becomes inescapable for most characters, even with ranks in Escape Artist as a class skill.
That doesn't totally bother me, but other effects based on CMB do: namely spells.
For me the problem is not executing the maneuver, it is specifically with escaping grapples. The DC of an average fighter becomes inescapable for most characters, even with ranks in Escape Artist as a class skill.
That doesn't totally bother me, but other effects based on CMB do: namely spells.
Yeah, sorry I was going to comment on what you were saying before, and yours is a different issue from not being successful often enough.
I think part of what helps me in the regard is that from the start we were going by 1 always failing and 20 always being successful, as per a normal attack roll, so when it was confirmed in the Beta, we were already doing this.
When we ran the 20th level playtest, the ranger tried to break the grapple four times, even though he had no chance to outside of rolling a 20, because he had four chances per round, and every round the grappling creature has to confirm his grapple, so even when its a sure thing, they can roll a one.
In fact, in one of my campaigns, we did have a creature with a "sure lock" on a PC roll a one and let them go free.
I also like that, as long as the creature isn't pinned, they can use anything one handed to attack at -4, which means that even if they can't break out, they can try and kill the thing before it squeezes them to death.
Also, if I'm interpreting things correctly, other PCs can still "aid another" on checks to help the PC escape, though in most of the playtests I've run, its been faster for the other PCs to kill the grappler than to try and give the grapplee extra +2 bonuses on the roll.
One of my players did bring up a good point though . . . if this is a normal "attack roll," can True Strike aid a combat maneuver? If so, a wizard might stand a fairly good chance at getting out of a grapple once in a while.
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So you want it to be just as easy, if not easier, to disarm, bull rush, trip, or grapple a foe as it is to just bash them with a weapon?
I don't know who this is directed at, but no.
I want these special attacks to remain viable tactics against other opponents, even when those opponents are bigger than you are.
In 3.5 with a really good roll you could disarm a giant who you were fighting. In order to succeed you needed to roll really well and the giant needed to roll really poorly. If there were really giants, you might think that if you stabbed one in the hand, it might release its weapon (a small chance of success).
In Pathfinder, the giant likely has a CMB at least 5 higher than the character attempting the disarm. Thise means it is only on a natural 20 that it can be a success. I don't like that a 'small chance of success' has been replaced by 'virtually no chance of success'.
Worse, two equal opponents can only succeed against each other 25% of the time. If two character are both trying to start a grapple with each other, each must succeed roll a 15 (since their CMBs are equal it doesn't matter if it is +1 or +20 - they just need a 15 to succeed). I'd like the base chance for a character fighting his 'identical twin' to be 50%.
Instead of a CMB of 5 higher rendering success nigh impossible, it would require a CMB of 10 higher. This still means that it will frequently be near impossible to affect level appropriate opponents. My biggest concern remains the monk (3/4 BAB). However, I don't want to specificially talk about any one character class. I think the general mechanic can and should be revised on the idea of two equal opponents having a 50% chance to affect each other.
Personally, I'd prefer to see it as opposed rolls. But failing that, 10+CMB as the DC achieves the same effect.