The example character in the paizo blog, "Valeros," has a CMB of +17 and a CMD of 34 (which is 10 + CMB + Dex + Deflection)
His CMB is BAB(14) + STR(+3)
So if he has to fight his twin, then:
1. What what is the chance of tripping his opponent?
2. What is the chance of being triped if he fails?
3. What are the aforementioned results if he is Enlarged, but his twin is not?
If we assume that trip functions the same as before (likely, but not certain), the answers to 1 and 2 are 20%.
As far as enlargement, we don't know the effects of size on CMB and CMD yet.
The example character in the paizo blog, "Valeros," has a CMB of +17 and a CMD of 34 (which is 10 + CMB + Dex + Deflection)
His CMB is BAB(14) + STR(+3)
So if he has to fight his twin, then:
1. What what is the chance of tripping his opponent?
2. What is the chance of being triped if he fails?
3. What are the aforementioned results if he is Enlarged, but his twin is not?
Going by the Beta rules (which I don't think have changed that much):
1. He needs to roll a 17. Someone who is better at Math than I can figure out the percentage/odds.
2. He is tripped in return if he fails by 10 or more, so he's tripped if he rolls a 7.
3. Large creatures get a +1 to CMB (that may have changed). So 16 to trip and 6 to be tripped.
Twins should have about a 50% chance against each other, IMO. 20% is just crazy.
There is something wrong with the math here, as in Beta where the CMD was +15.
I've been using +11, and found that more "realistic" [ I know that's a dangerous word to use in a fantasy game! ].
Don't get me wrong, CMB is far better than 3.5 rules but it's doesn't appear to be "right" just yet and I think there will be many using "house rules" for this.
I'm sorry, I misread the second question. I thought it was what are the chances of the twin tripping Valeros.
That would be a 35% chance of being tripped from his own trip attempt.
Twins should have about a 50% chance against each other, IMO. 20% is just crazy.
Why? They know what they're doing beforehand, and can counter it. It's like two chess computers facing off against each other. Only slower, because Valeros cannot compute his moves in advance quite as fast.
Plus, you forget that offense and defense can be quite different. Sometimes, a critter has high attack rolls but low AC, meaning he can hit others like himself pretty reliably. At other times, it's the other way around.
Finally, you're not looking at the big picture! If Valeros A tries to trip Valeros B, he'll have a 20% chance of doing it. Same if B tries it with A. They're evenly matched. 50/50.
There is something wrong with the math here, as in Beta where the CMD was +15.
This isn't a beta preview, though.
And the preview gives you the right formula:
"You might notice a new statistic in Valeros' stat block. CMD, which stands for Combat Maneuver Defense. This statistic is the DC for anyone else to perform a combat maneuver, such as bull rush, disarm, or grapple, against Valeros. This statistic is derived from his CMB +10 plus a number of other modifiers (Dexterity and deflection bonuses in this case). "
Twins should have about a 50% chance against each other, IMO. 20% is just crazy.
I hear what you're saying, but it's not quite true.
Worst case scenario, two "twin" spiders trying to trip each other. Seems to me, they're both doomed to fail. OK, so spiders don't trip - maybe they're driders instead.
I guess that's not worst case scenario - they could be milipedes...
My point is, sometimes a creature might have mitigating circumstances. Extra limbs is one example. Other examples, especially for trained combatants, may just be the right defensive training.
Any fighter, all throughout earth's history, as been trained to know that "If you fall down, you're enemy has already won; you're as good as dead."
Roman legionaires were not trained, specifically, to grapple or trip their enemies, but they absolutely were trained in proper footwork and proper stances to make sure they stayed on their feet.
Modern day boxers are not allowed to trip or throw or sweep, or grapple in any way that makes their opponent fall down or lose his footing, but they absolutely are trained to stay on their feet, maintain a wide stance for stability, keep a center of balance, etc., to avoid falling down.
All that being said, I'm quite fine with creatures, and with people/characters/NPCs having in imbalance between their CMB and CMD scores.
But I agree with your sentiment that if it turns out that everyone, or nearly everyone, has a lousy chance to succeed at maneuvers, against their twin or against any other foes, persistent throughout the entire maneuver system, then the difficulty may be too high.
There is something wrong with the math here, as in Beta where the CMD was +15.
I've been using +11, and found that more "realistic" [ I know that's a dangerous word to use in a fantasy game! ].
Don't get me wrong, CMB is far better than 3.5 rules but it's doesn't appear to be "right" just yet and I think there will be many using "house rules" for this.
One other thing to remember, however, is that if we make maneuvers too easy (50% may very well be too easy), then everyone is going to start using them.
If I can trip you, and reasonably expect a 50/50 chance of it working, and by tripping you, I get bonuses to attack you, free attacks of opportunity when you stand up, and make sure you never get to use your dual wielding/iterative attacks against me, I absolutely will trip you every chance I get.
And you better trip me too.
D&D combat will quickly devolve into one big WWE match after another, everyone throwing their weapons on the ground and tripping and grappling and occasionally bullrushing everyone all the time. No need for weapons at all.
There has to be gamist mechanical balance. If not, as soon as the players get a whiff of the advantages they get from tripping and grappling and disarming, you will quickly see every the number of CMB rolls outnumbering the number of attack rolls.
But wait, it's worse.
You put it where a relatively untrained (in regards to CMB stuff) guy has a 50/50 chance to use maneuvers against his twin, then what happens when you encounter a CMB specialist with all the right feats, training, and weapon modifiers.
Now suddenly the specialist cannot fail. He can disrarm, trip, and grapple, putting your normal guy into a hold from which he cannot escape and in which he is guaranteed to die.
Your normal guy's only hope is that he has friends to rescue him from the death-grip of the CMB specialist.
But what if the party of 4 PCs meets 4 CMB specialists? TPK, guaranteed.
Or, what if your PCs are all CMB specialists? They will annihilate every encounter they run into, unless they are outnumbered, in which case they will keep their foes mainly disarmed and prone and pick them off one at a time until the numbers are even, and then jump in for the death-locks.
The only way to offset this is by making the average guy fail often enough that it becomes attractive to just flail away with a sword - ideally, flailing away with the sword and trying to win with maneuvers should be about equally attractive to the average guy, or maybe slightly favoring the sword.
Then the specialist guy, he's the one that has a 50/50 chance of succeeding on his maneuvers, and a near zero (but not zero) chance of being a victim of someone else's untrained maneuvers.
That becomes a fair mechanical balance.
And fairly realistic too - you never saw those Roman legions cast down their scutums, pilae, and gladii and engage their enemies with trips and grapples. Nope, their weapons were a better choice.
And so it should be with normal, weapon-trained D&D characters too.
*snip*
Grrr..you make....Grrr..some good....Grrr..points....Grrr..I guess.. !
:)
Twins should have about a 50% chance against each other, IMO. 20% is just crazy.
The extreme difference in this case is because the preview Valeros has a high dex, and doesn't have Agile Maneuvers to use it offensively. If he did, he'd have a 35% chance of success.
Twins should have about a 50% chance against each other, IMO. 20% is just crazy.The extreme difference in this case is because the preview Valeros has a high dex, and doesn't have Agile Maneuvers to use it offensively. If he did, he'd have a 35% chance of success.
Honestly,
I think a 20% chance of doing a trip or disarm attack is pretty good. It's very hard to disarm someone, or trip a trained fighter, as pointed out earlier. It's high enough to encourage someone to consider it if the person has a nasty weapon or a high AC and is hard to hit, but low enough to where it's not the first thing you want to try in a combat.
...
Honestly,
I think a 20% chance of doing a trip or disarm attack is pretty good. It's very hard to disarm someone, or trip a trained fighter, as pointed out earlier. It's high enough to encourage someone to consider it if the person has a nasty weapon or a high AC and is hard to hit, but low enough to where it's not the first thing you want to try in a combat.
Same here, I remeber when my friend and I were fencing (same level of training at the time) it would take around 4 tries before one of us could manage a proper disarm when training for the move. Pretty much the same thing with sweeping in martial arts.
CASE 1
If ValerosA needs to roll a 17 (+17) to beat ValerosB’s 34 CMD, then the following number (each representing 5%) are needed: 17-20 (i.e. 20%)
Failing by 10 (and rolling a 7 or less (7x5%=35%) means he was tripped himself)
Ergo, the best way to trip an evenly matched opponent is to get him to trip you???
And you would think there was a possibility that they could ‘both’ go down?
Certainly if your CMD is HIGHER than your opponent’s CMD (that you are trying to trip) should affect the chance of you going down if you fail.
Certainly there are times when ‘going down’ and taking him with you is better than having him hit you with your AC at -4 and then having him also hit you as an AoO with the same attack bonus when you stand up.
At the very best, failure for you provides your an opponent with benefits that do not match your benefits if you had succeeded. (This is probably why improved trip had the followup attack.) In the case of failure where you both go down, then if you take him down, then he takes a move action to stand up (you get a -2 AoO but he’ll have -4 AC) and he THEN can then strike you at your -4 AC, and then strike you again at -4AC when you stand up. (He could always strike you with a -2 to your -4AC, and THEN stand up…but…)
So lets change the case to:
2nd level fighters. BAB +2, STR +2, (CMB = +4), DEX +1, (CMD 15)
CASE 1 REVISED
D20+4 to beat CMD 15, therefore an 11 is needed against his twin.
11 or higher is needed
(50% chance with a 5% chance of failure)
CASE 2
2nd level Mages BAB +1, STR +0, (CMB = +1), DEX +0, (CMD 11)
11 or higher is needed
(50% chance with a 5% chance of failure)
CASE 3
2rd level fighters. BAB +2, STR +2, (CMB = +4), DEX +3, (CMD 17)
D20+4 to beat CMD 17
13 or higher is needed (35% chance with a 15% chance of failure)
Clearly, your opponents DEX bonus (or Deflection bonus) is the key defense to reversing a trip, yet if you have a high DEX then this does nothing to counter the chance of you falling if you fail your trip attempt.
THEREFORE it would seem that the system is relatively reasonable at low levels yet since Dex is important regarding defense against falling that I would expect that the “Miss by 10” rule would be increased for every point Dex bonus you get. So that this case would require missing by 13 – which leads to only a 5% chance, which is the case we encountered when we turned Valeros and his twin into second level fighters.
And if these 2nd level fighters had Dex bonuses of -1, then wouldn’t it be easier for them to ‘fail’ their maneuvers when they initiated a trip?
Clearly the one thing that is broken in this system is that while Dex of the target reduces the chance of success against him and increases the chance of catastrophic failure, Dex by the attacker should also reduce (or increase) the chance of catastrophic failure on his part.
How would you remedy this? Would you really want a “miss’ against the target to then take into consideration the Dex bonus of the attacker to give the attacker a chance of going down with the defender if he so chooses? (i.e. If the miss was within the attackers Dex bonus range, then he could choose a ‘both down’ result.) Do you give the defender a Reflex save to prevent this? Do you require the attacker/initiatior of the trip to take a -1 to his CMB (and a -1 to his Dex score) to allow for this double drop if he misses by “one less” than his Dex bonus (i.e. by two if his Dex bonus is +3)?
Twins should have about a 50% chance against each other, IMO. 20% is just crazy.
"Twins" with no DEX bonus to increase their MUTUAL defense advantage *DO* have a 55% (roll 10+) chance of success for Maneuvers. Likewise, "Twins" with no STR bonus but high DEX and Weapon Finesse also have a 55% chance against each other.
If you search for the various threads discussing "Maneuver AC", which CMD seems extremely similar to so far, you'll find that the chance-of-success tracks surprisingly close to 3.5's "Touch + STR Check" Maneuvers, the largest difference being that Maneuvers are actually EASIER for low-level/ low-stat characters to accomplish against each other (~55% instead of ~30%). Making the DC lower would just mean PCs are EVEN MORE auto-Grappled/Tripped/Bullrushed by the large, strong, racially optimized Monsters that fill the Monster Manual/Bestiary.
I'm optimistic that CMD and Maneuver Attack Rolls will be everything I hoped for with Maneuver AC, requiring no additional sub-systems or exceptions, AKA solely using normal Attack Rolls/Modifiers and Touch AC modified by BAB/STR. More than increasing the CMB chance of success, I think revisiting the 'penalty' for not having the appropriate Improved Maneuver Feats (provoking AoO's which prohibitively increase the DC if they hit) would be the best way to 'broaden' the usage of Maneuvers in all games - Besides bringing back the attack-equivalency of Grapple attempts :-)