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Before anything, I have to say, I like the new Combat Maneuver system over the old 3.5 method, much less fuss and keeps the game moving along.
Recently though, it has come to my attention that it is really over simplified. The system works in most cases but doesn't work well when initiating contact with creatures with low strength and creatures under medium size.
Take this example:
An average fighter tries to grapple a rat. The rats CMD is 6, if the fighter has a CMB of +4 that means he is going to be able to initiate a grapple with the rat 19 out of 20 times. It is easier to grab a hold of the rat than it is to touch it (touch AC 14). This seems quite broken. The touch AC of the creature needs to be taken into account and the modifiers for Combat Maneuvers don't take that into effect.
A simple solution:
Compare the result of the Combat Maneuver roll to both the CMD and Touch AC when doing a maneuver that initiates contact. If the roll beats both the CMD and Touch AC it is successful. If the combatants are already in contact or the defender initiates contact, you would use the CMD normally.
In the case of the fighter grappling the rat it would play out like so (ignoring AoO's and the rats turn):
Fighter: Attempts grapple, rolls 5 +4 = 9. Fails since it doesn't beat the Touch AC of 14.
Next Round
Fighter: Attempts grapple, rolls 11 +4 = 15. Succeeds, it beats both the Touch AC of 14 and the CMD of 6.
Next Round
Fighter: Attemps Pin, rolls 4 +4 = 8. Succeeds, he has already initiated contact, they have the grappled condition. The rat can only use its CMD of 6.
This is how it would affect the various Combat Maneuvers:
Bull Rush:
Requires Initiating contact, compare against CMD and Touch AC
Disarm:
Requires Initiating contact, compare against CMD and Touch AC
Grapple:
Initiating the Grapple Requires Initiating contact, compare against CMD and Touch AC.
Once you have the Grappled condition with that creature use only the CMD.
Overrun:
Use CMD normally. The defender can choose to ignore the attacker, if he doesn't choose to ignore that means the defender is initiating contact, therefore the defenders Touch AC should not be used.
Sunder:
Requires Initiating contact, compare against CMD and Touch AC
Trip:
Requires Initiating contact, compare against CMD and Touch AC
Like I said before, this really only affects small, fine and diminutive creatures, or creatures with low strength. For all other situations the CMD is generally higher than the Touch AC anyways so it doesn't come into play.
Thoughts?
I'm not sure, I sort of like it for realism purposes... but I'm gonna wait for others to post about this before I make a final judgement.
Let myself be swayed by the waves so to speak.
CMD effectively includes touch AC. CMD is 10 + BAB + Str + dexterity modifier. Touch AC is 10 + dexterity modifier. (The other AC bonuses that would apply to touch AC would also apply to CMD, such as dodge, deflection, insight, etc.)
The only difference is how the size bonuses work with regard to CMD and touch AC, in that they are essentially reversed.
I'll admit that it is a bit counterintuitive, in that a creature can sometimes be easier to grab than to touch. (A gnome wizard 1 with 10 Str has a touch AC of 10 + dex +1 but a CMD of 10 + dex -1). So yeah some work could be done on this.
But touch AC is pretty much already factored into CMD. Really, you can calculate CMD by simply adding its Touch AC to its CMB, with the exception of the size modifiers.
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But touch AC is pretty much already factored into CMD. Really, you can calculate CMD by simply adding its Touch AC to its CMB, with the exception of the size modifiers.
Yes they are similar, but it doesn't really include Touch AC even though they include some of the same modifiers. CMD includes strength and BAB, but the key factor is the opposing size modifiers. Small creatures should be harder to get a hold on and hit. So instead of calculating in another factor it is simple to just use the Touch AC which is already calculated on all characters and creatures.
The CMD seems to represent your raw power and agility in shrugging off a Combat Maneuver, but not the initial contact, which it really has to. I don't think a single number can work. Like the example I gave above: To grab the rat it should be quite difficult, but once you have a hold of it, it should be really easy to overpower. Using both Touch AC and CMD rectifies this situation quite accurately.
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I almost just used regular size modifier rather than the special size modifier for this (it came up just today) and instead implemented the Touch AC addition and that seemed to work fairly well. The first two or three times it came up there was a little bit of a delay, but thus far it has been fairly smooth.
As I use this more I might find a flaw, but so far it's worked fine. I'm curious about the thinking behind the CMD special size modifier, but think it might have been for the sake of making ut universally easier.