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Looking over the Maneuver Master archetype from Ultimate Combat left me a little confused. It states “ As a part of a full-attack action, a maneuver master can make one additional combat maneuver, regardless of whether the maneuver replaces a melee attack or requires a standard action.”
Looking through the Core Rulebook, most of the maneuvers that a character can take are listed as “in place of a melee attack.” This is further clarified that performing a Combat maneuver can be performed “as an attack action, full-attack action or attack of opportunity (in place of a melee attack), others requiring a specific action.”
Of the maneuvers allowed in the Core book, only Bull Rush, Grapple, and Overrun require a “specific action” taking the place of a standard action; Disarm, Sunder, and Trip ALL take the place of a melee attack. The new Combat Maneuvers introduced in the Advanced Player’s Guide however (Dirty Trick, Drag, Reposition, and Steal) ALL require a standard action.
My question is this: was it originally the intent of the designers to make ALL combat maneuvers a standard action, rather than a “part of an attack action?” And if so, why did this change? It sure would have ended a lot of Frequently Asked Questions on Combat maneuvers!
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Maneuvers work exactly how they say they work:
Of the maneuvers allowed in the Core book, only Bull Rush, Grapple, and Overrun require a “specific action” taking the place of a standard action; Disarm, Sunder, and Trip ALL take the place of a melee attack. The new Combat Maneuvers introduced in the Advanced Player’s Guide however (Dirty Trick, Drag, Reposition, and Steal) ALL require a standard action.
This is correct. If something says you do it as a such-and-such type of action, then you do it as a such-and-such type of action. If something says you do it in place of a melee attack, then you do it in place of a melee attack.
My question is this: was it originally the intent of the designers to make ALL combat maneuvers a standard action, rather than a “part of an attack action?” And if so, why did this change? It sure would have ended a lot of Frequently Asked Questions on Combat maneuvers!
I suppose they probably decided that disarm, sunder and trip were performed in a manner similar enough to a melee attack (swinging your flail at their weapon or feet, chopping at their armor, etc) that it was reasonable to be able to "convert" melee attacks into those maneuvers.
I think that's right and it all kind of just fell out that way in the attempt to simplify the 3.5 rules on this stuff. I think in response to the 'trip lock' kinds of forum debates they may have opted to make all the new stuff standard action only as an attempt to avoid that kind of thing. That's just guessin'.
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I think in response to the 'trip lock' kinds of forum debates they may have opted to make all the new stuff standard action only as an attempt to avoid that kind of thing. That's just guessin'.
I'd have a hard time believing that those are related. The ruling that you can't trip-lock someone was not an errata or "Word of God" or anything - merely a reminder of the already-present rules stating that you resolve an AoO before the triggering action completes, and therefore the target is still prone and therefore can't be tripped.
I suspect it had more to do with wanting the (typically) weapon-using maneuvers to be able to replace attacks while others (that require you to ignore your weapon for a moment) to be a bit more restrictive.
Or it could be that they'd have preferred to make them all standard actions, but didn't think they could get away with it on Those Three.
Just saying, able to be in place of a melee attack opens up all kinds of applications and interactions that making them standard actions forstalls, so just guessing they might have made them standard actions to avoid opening cans of worms. Despite that arguably something like a dirty trick of kneeing someone in the groin or the steal item of grabbing a pendant's arguably equivelent to a disarm (or even less time consuming) or a trip, as to how much of an action it represents.