Flurry of Maneuvers questions

[daeruin]

I'm working on a Maneuver Master monk, and have a few questions. I've searched the forums a bit and the consensus seems to be that the Flurry of Maneuvers ability lets you do a regular full attack, using whatever attacks you can normally make, plus make an extra combat maneuver on top of that.

Flurry of Maneuvers:

At 1st level, as part of a full-attack action, a maneuver master can make one additional combat maneuver, regardless of whether the maneuver normally replaces a melee attack or requires a standard action. The maneuver master uses his monk level in place of his base attack bonus to determine his CMB for the bonus maneuvers, though all combat maneuver checks suffer a –2 penalty when using a flurry. At 8th level, a maneuver master may attempt a second additional combat maneuver, with an additional –3 penalty on combat maneuver checks. At 15th level, a maneuver master may attempt a third additional combat maneuver, with an additional –7 penalty on combat maneuver checks. This ability replaces flurry of blows. (Emphasis mine.)

So....

At levels 1-7, as a full attack action, you could do 1 attack + 1 combat maneuver.
At levels 8-14, as a full attack action, you could do 2 attacks + 2 combat maneuvers.
At levels 15+, as a full attack action, you could do 3 attacks + 3 combat maneuvers.
And as usual, the attacks could be replaced by disarm, trip, or sunder.

The questions:

1. Does it matter where in the sequence of your full attack the maneuver occurs? Can you, for example, do your extra combat maneuver first, followed by the rest of your regular full attack? So at level 8 you could do, say, a reposition, an unarmed strike, a disarm, then another unarmed strike?

2. At level 8, could your two extra combat maneuvers both be grapples? The Flurry of Maneuvers description says the maneuvers can be done "regardless of whether the maneuver normally replaces a melee attack or requires a standard action." Since maintaining a grapple is a standard action, it seems like you ought to be able to do that as one of your extra maneuvers. So you could initiate the grapple for your first extra maneuver, then maintain it as your second extra maneuver (allowing you to move, damage, or pin as usual).

(Edit: Changed subject title since it ended up being about more than just grapple.)

[Kazaan]

1) All you need to do is order them by bab progression. An attack and maneuver that operate on the same bab value can be done in any order relative to each other in the same way as TWF or Flurry of Blows.

2) Correct. Maintaining the grapple (and any actions it allows as part of that action) are part of the Grapple combat maneuver. Since you don't have to concern yourself with action economy in adding a maneuver to the full-attack action using FoM, you could, for example do the following sequence:

Normal Attack replaced with Trip
Grapple bonus combat maneuver
Maintain Grapple (move, damage, pin)
Normal Attack either vs grappled opponent or other opponent within reach (albeit, at -2 to Attack and CMB)

Using the 'move' option when you maintain the grapple will disallow you from using a 5ft step in that round.

However, there's a pretty big disagreement on the use of Sunder that you mentioned. Sunder, by RAW, requires you to use the Attack action. Some believe this can only be performed, by default, as a standard action while others believe that Attack and Full-Attack are, essentially, the same action or that Full-Attack consists of a number of distinct Attack actions. According to the first party, you cannot normally use Sunder to replace an attack in a full-attack action. Flurry of Blows has a specific listing providing an exceptional allowance for Sunder as part of a Flurry, but Flurry of Maneuvers lacks this clause. Hence, by my reasoning, you can't Sunder as a normal iterative attack in FoM but you could Sunder as one of the "bonus" maneuvers.

Also keep in mind that FoM lacks the clause from FoB that only lets you make it using weapons with the 'monk' special. So, by that reasoning, you can make a FoM using weapons that don't have the 'monk' special.

[Jiggy]

Hm... The maintaining of a grapple is consistently described in the Combat chapter as being a 1/round type of thing. Whether that's merely because of the assumption of using a standard action (thus being altered by FoM) or as a special rule of its own (thus NOT being altered by FoM) is unclear.

[Grick]

Jiggy wrote:

The maintaining of a grapple is consistently described in the Combat chapter as being a 1/round type of thing. Whether that's merely because of the assumption of using a standard action (thus being altered by FoM) or as a special rule of its own (thus NOT being altered by FoM) is unclear.

Flurry of Maneuvers: "a maneuver master can make one additional combat maneuver, regardless of whether the maneuver normally replaces a melee attack or requires a standard action."

Grapple: "If you do not release the grapple, you must continue to make a check each round, as a standard action, to maintain the hold."

The check to maintain should still be a combat maneuver, and it's explicitly a standard action, so it should work with FoM.

Greater Grapple lets you maintain as a move, meaning you can grapple then maintain and result in a pin in one round. (Bonus James Jacobs verification.)

[Jiggy]

Ah, that last part does indeed imply that the 1/round language is merely based on the assumption that it's a standard action, rather than being its own rule. Guess it does work. Thanks, Grick!

[daeruin]

Thanks for the replies and helping me think this through.

Kazaan wrote:

All you need to do is order them by bab progression.

After looking this up again, I'm not so sure. The rules for full attack say "If you get multiple attacks because your base attack bonus is high enough, you must make the attacks in order from highest bonus to lowest." But you can get extra attacks in other ways, including "for some special reason," which is how I would classify Flurry of Maneuvers. It doesn't give you multiple attacks because your BAB is high enough—it just gives them to you regardless of your BAB, which is why monks can do it at level 1.

As a side note, if you DID need to go by order of BAB, that would mean the maneuvers always go first. FoM maneuvers use the monk's level as BAB, and that will always be higher than the monk's BAB for regular attacks. The Flurry of Maneuvers gives a penalty to the combat maneuver checks, but that doesn't change the actual BAB, right? It's just a penalty on the roll.

Level 1 BAB +0 for regular attacks
Level 1 BAB +1 for FoM (with a -2 penalty on the roll)

Kazaan wrote:

However, there's a pretty big disagreement on the use of Sunder that you mentioned. Sunder, by RAW, requires you to use the Attack action. Some believe this can only be performed, by default, as a standard action while others believe that Attack and Full-Attack are, essentially, the same action or that Full-Attack consists of a number of distinct Attack actions. According to the first party, you cannot normally use Sunder to replace an attack in a full-attack action.

I didn't realize there was a debate on that. I hadn't noticed the difference in wording until now. However, I don't think the argument changes anything in this case. Unless I'm just not seeing something, the Flurry of Maneuvers clause "regardless of whether the maneuver normally replaces a melee attack or requires a standard action" covers either argument you mentioned. Sunder says "as part of an attack action in place of a melee attack." So sunder has to be part of an attack action. If you say that an attack action is a standard action, you're covered. If you don't say an attack action is a standard action, you're still covered since it could be done in place of a melee attack during a full attack. I don't see a conflict here.

Grick wrote:

Greater Grapple lets you maintain as a move, meaning you can grapple then maintain and result in a pin in one round. (Bonus James Jacobs verification.)

Then add Rapid Grappler onto that, which lets you do one more grapple as a swift action, and you could easily have someone hog tied in a single round. Or wait until the Maneuver Master gets Sweeping Maneuver at level 11, where you can do two combat maneuvers as a single standard action, followed by Greater Grapple. Combine all of those for four grapple checks in one round!

[daeruin]

I just remembered one other thing I wanted to run past y'all. Greater Grapple lets you maintain a grapple as a move action. The way I read it, that means you can't combine Greater Grapple with a Flurry of Maneuvers, because the extra grapple check is the wrong action type (move action rather than a standard action or attack action). Does that sound right?

[Grick]

daeruin wrote:

Unless I'm just not seeing something, the Flurry of Maneuvers clause "regardless of whether the maneuver normally replaces a melee attack or requires a standard action" covers either argument you mentioned.

Since the attack action is a specific standard action, you can't take an attack action during a full-attack.

So your normal attacks during the FoM full-attack cannot be used to sunder. The bonus CMs granted by FoM (presumably) can be.

Your level 1 maneuver master who isn't using Two-Weapon Fighting (or haste or anything like that) can attack and sunder, or trip and sunder, or disarm and sunder, but he can't sunder and sunder (or sunder and grapple, etc.).

[daeruin]

Grick wrote:

So your normal attacks during the FoM full-attack cannot be used to sunder. The bonus CMs granted by FoM (presumably) can be.

Oh, I see. Kazaan said that in his original post, too, but I somehow missed it. Thanks for the clarification.

[Grick]

daeruin wrote:

Greater Grapple lets you maintain a grapple as a move action. The way I read it, that means you can't combine Greater Grapple with a Flurry of Maneuvers, because the extra grapple check is the wrong action type (move action rather than a standard action or attack action). Does that sound right?

Oddly, greater grapple lacks the wording that makes it optional. Normally, it would say something like "Once you have grappled a creature, you may maintain the grapple as a move action." which means you still benefit from the +2 bonus even if you want to maintain as a standard action instead of a move action.

[Kazaan]

Grick wrote:

daeruin wrote:

Greater Grapple lets you maintain a grapple as a move action. The way I read it, that means you can't combine Greater Grapple with a Flurry of Maneuvers, because the extra grapple check is the wrong action type (move action rather than a standard action or attack action). Does that sound right?

Oddly, greater grapple lacks the wording that makes it optional. Normally, it would say something like "Once you have grappled a creature, you may maintain the grapple as a move action." which means you still benefit from the +2 bonus even if you want to maintain as a standard action instead of a move action.

Greater Grapple: You receive a +2 bonus on checks made to grapple a foe. This bonus stacks with the bonus granted by Improved Grapple. Once you have grappled a creature, maintaining the grapple is a move action. This feat allows you to make two grapple checks each round (to move, harm, or pin your opponent), but you are not required to make two checks. You only need to succeed at one of these checks to maintain the grapple.

Note the bolded section. It allows you to make two grapple checks, one as a standard action and the other as a move action.

[Grick]

Kazaan wrote:

Note the bolded section. It allows you to make two grapple checks, one as a standard action and the other as a move action.

"maintaining the grapple is a move action."

You can do it twice, because you can use your standard action to perform a move action.