Hi everyone!
Yesterday, I was designing a kind of pirate scoundrel to oppose to my PCs and read the dirty trick rules, with the feats Improve and Greater Dirty Trick. It's very colorful, but on the other hand, removing the condition imposed is very easy.
I think that would be more realistic that this action of removing that condition should provoke and Attack of Opportunity (cleaning your eyes and so on requires your attention...).Any thoughts about it?
Greetings from Spain
I agree that dirty trick isn't that useful compared to other combat maneuvers, especially if you're a single guy against several guys. It's bad action economy, since it takes a standard action to perform and only a move to get rid of (if it even works).
I'd probably change the action required to a standard action that provokes, because then it matches what the attacker has to do (combat maneuver that provokes to give penalty, same to remove).
Compare current Dirty Trick to Trip:
- Trip is used instead of a melee attack, so it's easier to pull off.
- Trip and dirty trick imposes about as heavy penalties (blind vs. prone or whatever), but prone has unlimited duration
- Trip provokes when being undone, dirty trick does not.
I though about it some, and a standard action that provokes might be a bit too much. Not for the combat maneuver BBEG, but for the players that can abuse it by being many more (if the party har 4 standard actions/round and the BBEG has 1, paying a standard for a standard is too good). To solve this, I recommend tying it to amount of success; If you beat the CMD by 5 or more, removing the penalty provokes. If you beat it by 10 or more, it takes a standard action.
