I was quite proud of myself in one encounter where archers had tactical superiority over us that I simply pulled my tower shield and advanced on them. It did little to help the rest of the party of course.
My party would double move and drop prone.
Next round they stand-move, prone. Helped quite a bit actually.
A nice guide, if somewhat situational. "Zone control" isn't some sort of overarching term that "includes" battlefield control, it's pretty much a synonym according to my understanding of "battlefield control" and your usage as described above. It's one of the most powerful tactics to employ and can be done by melee, ranged or spellccasting combatants. It's best when they all work together to lock down the battlefield.
Keep up the good work with these sorts of posts. For some of us it reads as simple common sense, but it is clear to me from years of gaming that the majority of gamers don't seem interested in actually developing and executing tactics, especially somewhat subtle tactics. I wholeheartedly support any effort to educate those sorts of players, but I fear it is mostly a wasted effort. However, as they say, if even one gamer reads this sort of post and learns how to become an effective combatant, then it's probably worth the effort.
And that's a lot of effort you put into this post. I appreciate the effort as much as the content
A nice guide, if somewhat situational. "Zone control" isn't some sort of overarching term that "includes" battlefield control, it's pretty much a synonym according to my understanding of "battlefield control" and your usage as described above. It's one of the most powerful tactics to employ and can be done by melee, ranged or spellccasting combatants. It's best when they all work together to lock down the battlefield.
It's a narrow focus on the melee part of it primarily because it's tougher to understand and use than a wizard looking at a spell and understanding what it can really do.
There's nothign out there telling people: "You know what bad guys really hate? Having to walk through a dedicated meleers threat area. You know what they really hate? Not having a choice but going through a dedicated meleer's threatened area."
I think that's why aggressive tactics are much more favored. They push raw numbers which are easier to understand and brute force encounter down. This works as long as the rest of the group is with you. But too often lately I've seen pure aggressors get cut down because they can only handle so many threats at once while the rest of the party is fiddling about with positioning to accomodate them.
A spell-sundering barbarian is obviously a primary hammer, but what would you count it as a secondary?
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But too often lately I've seen pure aggressors get cut down because they can only handle so many threats at once while the rest of the party is fiddling about with positioning to accomodate them.
Lost a monk in the first encounter of a scenario two weeks ago because he ran right up to the enemy over difficult terrain, leaving the rest of the party struggling to catch up over two or three rounds.
A spell-sundering barbarian is obviously a primary hammer, but what would you count it as a secondary?
Anvil maybe? Depends on how he's built really. He may not even have or need a secondary role. It's not required but certainly useful.
I don't know if I'd classify that as a flaw with aggression, and more with not thinking about what you're doing.
My Barbarian is very aggressive. RageHammerPounce is his favorite thing. It works well for him when he picks a target, charges at them, and beats them into a paste with his Earthbreaker.
But he doesn't charge in 160 feet ahead of his party and go wailing on a group of 4 guys, either.
He knows he can take quite a few hits (260 HP Raging, DR 6/-, Ferocity), but he also knows he's not invulnerable. He's nearly died a couple of times (never hit 0 Raging HP, but has hit 0 normal HP while Raging once, and close to it a couple of times before), but usually because of super high rolls from the enemy or those stupid things that were doing like 20d6 Fire damage each as a touch attack every round.
I think he counts as a "Tank" in the semi-literal "I am the equivalent of an Abrams" sort of way, since he can take a hit and dish it out 10 times as well because he makes himself the overwhelming threat in battle, BECAUSE of an aggressive style.
Sure, saying "The enemy would do X in an ambush scenario" is all well and good, but when you have a guy that just took a hit from a sword that didn't look like it did much more than piss him off, and he dropped one of your buddies in less than 6 seconds, you're not going to turn your back on and ignore him to go after the squishies 40 feet back down the tunnel, or take your attention of him to attack the unarmed scrawny thing (well until the unarmed scrawny thing hits like 12 times with claws and kicks while imparting about 6 different status effects, but that's another story).
Sure, saying "The enemy would do X in an ambush scenario" is all well and good, but when you have a guy that just took a hit from a sword that didn't look like it did much more than piss him off, and he dropped one of your buddies in less than 6 seconds, you're not going to turn your back on and ignore him to go after the squishies 40 feet back down the tunnel, or take your attention of him to attack the unarmed scrawny thing (well until the unarmed scrawny thing hits like 12 times with claws and kicks while imparting about 6 different status effects, but that's another story).
Well most guys would run screaming the opposite direction to be fair. :)
And I know smart aggression certainly works. It works best when coordinated well. Which is what I'm going to cover next post I make like this.
I don't know if I'd classify that as a flaw with aggression, and more with not thinking about what you're doing.
My Barbarian is very aggressive. RageHammerPounce is his favorite thing. It works well for him when he picks a target, charges at them, and beats them into a paste with his Earthbreaker.
But he doesn't charge in 160 feet ahead of his party and go wailing on a group of 4 guys, either.
He knows he can take quite a few hits (260 HP Raging, DR 6/-, Ferocity), but he also knows he's not invulnerable. He's nearly died a couple of times (never hit 0 Raging HP, but has hit 0 normal HP while Raging once, and close to it a couple of times before), but usually because of super high rolls from the enemy or those stupid things that were doing like 20d6 Fire damage each as a touch attack every round.
I think he counts as a "Tank" in the semi-literal "I am the equivalent of an Abrams" sort of way, since he can take a hit and dish it out 10 times as well because he makes himself the overwhelming threat in battle, BECAUSE of an aggressive style.
Sure, saying "The enemy would do X in an ambush scenario" is all well and good, but when you have a guy that just took a hit from a sword that didn't look like it did much more than piss him off, and he dropped one of your buddies in less than 6 seconds, you're not going to turn your back on and ignore him to go after the squishies 40 feet back down the tunnel, or take your attention of him to attack the unarmed scrawny thing (well until the unarmed scrawny thing hits like 12 times with claws and kicks while imparting about 6 different status effects, but that's another story).
I agree with you. I play a fighter myself I and often did tanking. Sometime it's impossible to do so, but tanking could be done. One time, we were down down by many creatures in vary sizes and they are all melee, lucky we when to an ruin with walls and trees around. I saw that coming so I stood need the only entrance. There are many of them and the entrance were so big, but I was able to tank them all with my druid's help. I had only been hit twice and took down around 4 medium, 7 large and 3 huge monsters. Only a few managed to sneak pass me from another side of the wall. But no one was killed, so I consider I did a decent tank.
Another example would be a golem approaching towards the NPC we had to protect. My team were too busy to defend that NPC so the rouge and my fighter worked together to stop the golem. We were only level 3 back then and a golem would had killed most of use with his special attack once, but we stopped it from getting close when he did that special attack as his last resort. In the whole team, my fighter had the highest AC and still can move into the golem thanks to armour training. So if I didn't do that, it would had been close enough to kill everyone. Even if someone else in my team reached the golem before me, the golem will be able to kill them in 2 hits. The golem tried to attack me 6 times and only 2 hits landed, yet I was still standing and still alive after taking that special AoE attack. So I did consider I did a good job because we had no magic weapons and no fancy full plates, we don't even get gold or loot drops after encounters except for two which we fought against human. So I would say it was a result of good tanking been done right.
I understand tanking doesn't appeal to most people, because it's not easy and you can't do that in most encounter while also require a lot of teamwork. However, it does exist. At least I would want casters to believe it exist so they won't hug AC so much when they already had spells like mirror images and vanish. Sometime it would be annoying when you team gain a AC item and the caster who needs it the least hugs it when others would need it more. What would +1 AC make the different when you only have 13AC now? When it would be more helpful on someone who got 23AC to make it 24 so it's even harder to get pass. Or even give it to someone like the cleric who is not always hiding behind everyone and come out to heal and buff. With that said, I do understand caster need AC as well, but you won't need it as much if you don't do things like spamming damage spells in front of your fighter. Would they ignore you after you spamming those spells? Even if you don't cast spell, they will still not ignore you, that's where tanking comes in, you ignore the fighter? Attack of Opportunity and one hit killed 4 of them.
I love my half-dragon spell-sundering barbarian.
DEATH FROM ABOVE, TACTICAL NUCLEAR STRIKE!
Really though, the raging barbarian is great way to demand the enemies attention. It doesn't matter if the enemy start to focus on him, because with Come and Get Me, the barbarian is begging to be attacked. All the barbarian wants is someone to be ready with a wand of cure light wounds in 5 rounds to heal his ass up.
In a bit of seriousness and considering how lions should or shouldn't attack (and because I saw a similar discussion in another thread about GM's playing certain animals too intelligently) I present that lions should probably be waiting in ambush and would be positions to flank and surround their foes. They're pack hunters, thats what they do. They also would wait for the back of the group to be exposed, likely targetting whomever is in the back of the "pack". Why? Because in herds the sickest and weakest animals usually end up in the back of the pack. I find adventurers often travel in a similar way, unless they have enough adventurers to have big melee brutes in both front and back. In any event the lions would like pounce on the rear adventurer trying to pull him away from the rest of the group and trying to kill him while others try to run off the rest of the group or occupy them while the "weakest" member is killed. Ultimately lions are after food or protecting their territorty, other motivations for animals don't make much sense.
Very interesting topic. In this context, what are your thoughts on the Combat Patrol feat?
Thanks,
Red
Very interesting topic. In this context, what are your thoughts on the Combat Patrol feat?
Thanks,
Red
I think of it as a fighter only trick. Primarily because they have the feats to spare in eating that dodge/mobility feat tax.
Also since it's a full round action to activate it's rather situational. It's somethign to grab at higher levels, ultiamtely, when you can get the ability to fly and lots of aoo's.
Stuff about Tactics
Does a character with Enlarge person and a reach weapon threaten 20 ft out? I was under the impression that it would only be 15ft, you get 5 ft more from enlarge person and from the polearm.
It's kind of confusing. They used to have Large (Long) and Large (Tall) with different reaches, which made a difference.
Doesn't Large (long) still only have 5 ft reach unless specified? Like a horse. While Large (tall) had the 10ft base reach.
Just trying to see if we are doing it right.
playing the 'god wizard' (even if the idea of it is done with another class) is in my opinion one of the best ways to grow in your understanding of Pathfinder combat tactics
you will rarely find your best move to be pumping out omg sick dpr bro
(though you may, at times, given the right situation)
despite this, you will often have the most impact on winning the fight, among your PC group
Stuff about TacticsDoes a character with Enlarge person and a reach weapon threaten 20 ft out? I was under the impression that it would only be 15ft, you get 5 ft more from enlarge person and from the polearm.
From the rules forum quoting the PRD
"Unlike when someone uses a reach weapon, a creature with greater than normal natural reach (more than 5 feet) still threatens squares adjacent to it. A creature with greater than normal natural reach usually gets an attack of opportunity against you if you approach it, because you must enter and move within the range of its reach before you can attack it. This attack of opportunity is not provoked if you take a 5-foot step.
Large or larger creatures using reach weapons can strike up to double their natural reach but can't strike at their natural reach or less."I bolded the last part. It's under "Big and Little Creatures in Combat" under the Combat section of the PRD.
Aren't the reach diagrams areas a bit too big?
You count the diagonals normally every second as double.
In 3.5 there used to be a rule that reach weapons for small & medium chars could strike to corners they wouldn't actually reach.
But currently I believe reach weapons don't actually threaten the corners (for example casting / shooting), but if a creature moves diagonally through 10ft of your reach (eg moves for example 15ft to 5ft) it triggers AoO.
James is not the most reliable source on rulings in this matter. LAter he even admits he may have ruled wrongly.
AFAIK the above is correct and nothing I've read thus far changes that.
Now there is this. If you prefer it this way. As a gm I find it a pain in the ass to do it that way for reach.