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I've been running Pathfinder for a long while, and in all of that time I have felt something was missing. Why it is that any spell-caster gets to control the battlefield or take advantage of environmental situations but a melee guy or skill monkey can't seem to keep up? Was there something fundamentally wrong with the game balance? Or was there something that could be done? This is when I came up with the idea of a Skill Maneuver.
Let me know what you think, good or bad. I have run through several versions of this and this is the one I think I want to start playtesting before my new campaign starts up in a few weeks. Any feedback would be great, questions can only help, and your ideas are probably better than mine.
You always describe your 'intent' and 'approach' when wishing to use a Skill Maneuver. Your 'intent' is what you would like to accomplish, such as 'I want to blind him.' Your 'approach' would be how you would like to do it, such as 'I'll quickly mix something up and toss it in his face!' You can say both intent and approach at the same time. Since Skill Maneuvers require a lot of interpretation by the GM, if your intent and approach are not clear your attempt may automatically fail. You must declare whether you are attempting to apply one of the following effects; deal Skill Damage, inflict a condition, or replicate a Combat Maneuver.
Your Skill Maneuver Bonus is your normal bonus for the skill plus any circumstance bonuses or penalties your GM might which to apply from -5 to +5. Generally a Skill Maneuver is made in place of an attack. Otherwise it is a Standard Action unless otherwise noted under any Combat Maneuver it is attempting to replicate. Add any bonuses you currently have on that skill check due to spells, feats, and other effects. These bonuses must be applicable to the named skill, the weapon, or attack used to perform the maneuver. If your skill can be modified by a masterwork item or skill kit, you must describe the use of the item and have it accessible when performing the maneuver in order to add the bonus. The DC of the maneuver is your target's Skill Maneuver Defense.
Your target's Skill Maneuver Defense is 10 + Base Attack Bonus + Strength Modifier + Wisdom Modifier + Dexterity Modifier + Intelligence Modifier. A flat-footed target does not gain their Dexterity or Intelligence Modifiers to their Skill Maneuver Defense. Just as with CMD, your target may apply any circumstance, deflection, dodge, insight, morale, profane, and sacred bonuses to AC to its SMD. Any penalties to a creature's AC also apply to its SMD.
As with CMB and CMD, you succeed if you match or exceed your target's SMD. If you exceed the Target's SMD by five or more you can add one of the following effects; upgrade Skill Damage, add weapon damage, add environmental damage, inflict a condition, or replicate a combat maneuver. You can only do one combat maneuver and you can inflict one condition per four levels. You can only deal weapon and environmental damage once, but Skill Damage upgrades. Each multiple of five by which you exceed their SMD allows you to add another effect.
Table: Skill Damage Dealt
Party Skill or Ability Check Difficulty
Level...Match SMD...SMD+5...SMD+10..SMD+15
1st-3rd.....1d3*....1d4*....1d8*....1d10*
4th-7th.....1d4*....1d6*....2d6*....2d6*
8th-11th....1d6*....1d8*....2d8*....2d8*
12th-15th...1d8*....1d10*...3d6*....3d6*
16th-19th...1d10*...2d6*....3d8*....3d8*
20th........2d6*....2d8*....4d8*....4d8*
*Add the relevant ability modifier for the used skill to the damage dealt by the Skill Manuever.
Table: Enviromental Damage Dealt
Party
Level Enviromental Damage
1st-3rd.... 1d8
4th-7th.... 1d10
8th-11th... 2d6
12th-15th... 3d6
16th-19th... 4d6
20th...... 5d6
*Add the relevant ability modifier for the used skill to the damage dealt by the Skill Manuever.
Table: Inflicted Condition
Party
Level Duration: Condition
1st-3rd 1 Rnd: Dazzled, Shaken, Sickened, Deafened*, Bleed 1
4th-7th 1d4 Rnd: Blinded*, Dazed, Entangled*, Grappled, Bleed 1d4
8th-11th 1d6 Rnd: Staggered, Frightened, Fatigued*, Confused,* Bleed 1d6
12th-15th 1d8 Rnd: Stunned*, Pinned, Flat-Footed, Nauseated*, Bleed 2d6
16th-19th 2d6 Rnd: Exhausted*, Suffocating*, Unconscious*, Bleed 3d6
20th 3d6 Rnd: Cowering*, Helpless*, Bleed 4d6
*Entries marked with an * are allowed a saving throw vs the check result to negate or lessen the condition, a new save may be made each turn by the opponent*
tldr: A Skill Maneuver is like a Combat Maneuver but you roll a Skill check vs Combat Maneuver Defense plus your target's Wisdom and Intelligence Bonuses. You declare if you want to deal damage, inflict and condition, or replicate a Combat Maneuver before you roll. At each multiple of 5 above their Skill Maneuver Defense you exceed, you either upgrade damage, add weapon damage, add environmental damage, inflict another condition, or replicate a combat maneuver. This new house-rule makes for a more cinematic exciting game.
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EDIT: I forgot to mention a couple of important things. When trying to use a Skill Maneuver you do not declare to the GM what skill you are trying to use. This home-rule is more about creativity and inventive thought than power-gaming and number crunching. You describe your intended actions and attempted approach. The GM, as per usual for a skill check, will tell you what skill to roll for.
The second thing I forgot to add was a limitation on the frequency of use for Skill Maneuvers. For now I was thinking of limiting it to one use per combat for every two base skill points your character class receives, rounding up. So a class with 2 + Int skill points per level will be able to attempt a Skill Maneuver once per combat, whereas a class that has 6 + Int skill points per level will be able to attempt a Skill Maneuver three times per combat. This would increase by one Skill Maneuver per combat for every three levels. In the case of multi-clasing you would use the class you had the most levels in, or in the case of a tie the class with the most uses. I figured that this could make it accessible to everyone but still allow the skill-monkeys to really shine.
I was also tinkering around with the idea that certain roleplay challenges could have a number of hit-points and a SMD based on their CR. Each skill check could turn into a Skill Maneuver and take off a certain number of hit-points from the challenge until it was defeated. A way to measure each player's contribution to the event without having to arbitrate it with 'Needs three successes before two failures.' The challenges, if time senstive, could be a failure if enough turns go by or they could regain some health for badly botched rolls.
tldr: The GM, not the player, chooses the skill check used for the SMB roll. You can use a Skill Maneuver once per combat for every 2 base skill points your class gets before Int bonuses. So if you get 6 Skill Points per level, you can use three Skill Maneuvers per fight. This increases by one use per three levels. And then something about roleplay encounters getting Hit-Points and a SMD for your players to do Skill Damage to with Skill Maneuvers instead of skill checks.
I generally like the idea, the SMD may need reworking though.
Mostly I like that a skill maneuver functions in place of an attack roll, very nice way to incorporate it into combat and have skills get more use.
It sorta reminds me of skill tricks from Complete Scoundrel.
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I completely forgot about Skill Tricks, I should look at that for some ideas that I can steal/modify. I plan on making some feats, most of which are 3rd level and up so I have some time. My group is 1st level and I'm using them to playtest this new system. They are mostly new players, so I may be ruining them for any future GMs. Oh well. I think I may need to reword the 'replace an attack roll' part. I'm not sure if a two-weapon fighting character or a character with claws should be able to burn two Skill Maneuvers in one turn.
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why not just use Skill Bonus versus CMD?
To level the playing field, you could borrow from Called Shots:
After hearing your Intent and Approach, DM can decide Easy/Tricky/Challenging granting a -2/-5/-10 to the roll.
Do skill maneuvers provoke?
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I'm thinking of keeping it as an attack action but limiting it to once per round. So they could still take advantage of TWF or multiple attacks either after, during, or before the rest of their attacks. I had thought about using Called Shots, but I thought it would make the system too complicated. In addition to ruling on what sort of status effects and/or type of damage they could deal between Skill, Weapon, and Environmental I would have to determine where they were aiming and how difficult that shot was going to be.
I'm having Skill Maneuvers not provoke unless they fail by 5 or more. This keeps some risk without being so risky that the players won't use it. I am still developing feats for Skill Maneuvers. I was thinking they could do things like reduce the provoking threshold, grant bonuses to all Skill Manuevers, increase number per encounter or number per round.
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Wolfgang Volos,
Do regular combat maneuvers provoke in your game? (I ask because a common house rule is that they provoke only on a failure)
In either case, I would recommend having skilled combat maneuvers interact with attacks of oppoertunity the same way for two reasons. One is that you want BAB to still matter - a full-caster benefits greatly by being able to use their skill bonus in lieu of their BAB to attempt a maneuver. Two is that it is much easier to get a skill bonus really high - consider the difference between the feats Weapon Focus and Skill Focus for example.
Also I think you misunderstood my proposal, which was meant to be a friendly amendment to your proposed system. Essentially, to address issue "two" above, I recommend penalizing all skill maneuver rolls by -2 ("easy"), -5 ("tricky"), or -10 ("challenging"), replacing your "-5 to +5" DM fiat, then using your tables to determine how much damage or which condition etc. Is that clearer?
Finally, if you want to straight-boost the rogue, instead of basing X/round upon number of skill points (because, this has the side effect of boosting the 6-skill point classes - some of the best classes in the game full-casters aside!), maybe just allow the rogue to attempt more than a single skilled combat maneuver on any attack she has set up for a potential sneak attack (ie multiple tricks against DX-denied or flatfooted opponents). In order that other classes/archetypes who gain the Sneak Attack class feature don't also gain this ability, you could call this ability "Rogue Advantage" or something and grant it to rogues at level 2 or 3?
Just throwing ideas at you. Cool concept btw.
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Normally I have combat maneuvers provoke without the appropriate feat. I have considered moving away from the skill bonus in favor of the BAB but I have some reservations. Having run this with my group a few sessions so far, it seems to give everyone a chance to shine outside of the regular attack, spell, or sneak attack routine. I am worried that reworking it to function off BAB will make it more complicated than I intended to be. Your suggestion for a replacement of a set penalty instead of my -5 to +5 DM fiat is very interesting. It may help the unbalance of high skill checks vs low Skill Maneuver Defense. I haven't had a chance to playtest at higher levels, but I have noticed that every once in a while a player can roll a 20 on a high stat full ranked skill and really ruin a mob. One player got sneak attack, skill, weapon, and environmental damage. Making me feel that I should restrict the number of stacked damage types, lower numbers at low levels and higher or no restriction at higher levels.
To what then? BAB plus relevant ability modifier?