I really like combat manoeuvres (and manoeuvre-like things such as Feint), or at least I would like to like them. Several are debuffs, sure, denying enemies their weapons or otherwise weakening them. But some can also be ease your efforts to resolve violent conflicts without killing your enemies (a tripped and disarmed opponent is, at least when I GM, much more prone to surrender). Others add movement into what otherwise could be very stale engagements.
But, they don't get used much, do they? The fact that they often provoke AoO means you pretty much need feats. And since those are in limited supply, you'll only ever get to see combat manoeuvres being employed by specialist builds relying on one or maybe two manoeuvres. To add insult to injury, those builds are niche one-trick-ponies that will find many enemies immune to their tactics.
Sure, there are spells such as Hydraulic push that utilizes combat manoeuvres but to me, that only highlights my the boring fact that martials don't do anything other than »hit it with my axe«.
I haven't played Pathfinder that much though, so maybe I'm wrong. Do combat manoeuvres get any frequent use in your games?
Or, is the absence of combat manoeuvres a good thing since they are - I don't know - worthless, boring or bog combat down?
In my experience, some maneuvers (grapple and such) bog things down massively, while the others are essentially useless unless you build specifically for (one or two of) them, because they fail so often. It's almost always better to kill an opponent faster, rather than inflict some sort of condition (grappled, disarmed, prone, etc). In the cases where that's not true, such as boss fights, the opponent will usually be so much stronger (Str score, size modifier, extra legs, the list goes on) than the characters that combat maneuvers are a waste of actions.
From the pc end, its you use it all the time, or you almost never use it. I have definately see trip, grapple, and dirty trick builds, but they require a significant resource investment to be successful it.
And as you level up the game turns into rocket tag. I get a full attack, then you are dead. Or the wizard hits the target with a save or suck spell and its not doing anything effective anyhow so your extra disabling is meaningless.
I'll disagree with 'use it all the time or almost never use it'. For me it depends on how many humanoid enemies are in the adventure. I never have to specialize in it, because almost nothing else really specifically defends against it so against a lot of humanoid targets maneuvers are hilariously easy to pull off unless you're against like a monk or something. Then it's pretty desirable to do because you can potentially wreck a very dangerous enemy. I will say that you only have room for one maneuver which is sad to me.
Ironically i find spellcasters to more often ending using combat maneuvers... druids with grab, Magus/whitehaired witch builds, black tentacle casters...
Maneuvers rarely get used by PCs I play with. If you can kill the NPC in one round with a full attack why bother to disarm or trip except for very rare circumstances. Later on you fight so many large or bigger creatures that they are pretty much impossible to use unless your PC is focused on nothing else and even then it can be iffy.
We used to get mad at one player who played a barbarian. He'd be surrounded by 3 or 4 mooks and instead of killing all or nearly all with a full attack, he'd trip one of them.
If your PC can't lay down big damage or cast spells or do anything else else useful then they are an option.
In our games we tend to fight fewer but much larger battles where we are usually outnumbered and outgunned. Therefore it's all about taking out as many enemies as fast as possible. I haven't seen any PCs that are capable of disabling enemies faster with Maneuver builds than by straight out damage or spells.
Idk... Black tentacles is an awesome maneuver ability and gets 20% cooler if you are playing with anime nerds...
Sidenote: you are also 20% cooler if you get this reference.
I have been tempted to give a 'cooldown' d 1d4ish rounds before the same combat maneuver can be done again. It's a bit heavy handed, but it gets across the idea that opponents will be on their guard against one trick ponies.It's more stick, less carrot which I generally don't like, as 2 feats is a steep price for a non fighter.
In my book, those 2 feats is a steep price even for a fighter since all it gives is a neat trick that probably still is worse than whacking with axes and works on a rather limited range of enemies.
The carrot version would be to not worry about the prerequesite feat. 1 feat, 1 "improved". If I were King of the Forest, I'd rethink the entire Combat maneuver system. I like the fact PF streamlined a lot of the mechanics from 3.5 DnD (just try a grapple in AD&D- i dare ya) but they made it too tough to actually utilize.
In my experience, every RPG that has a somewhat-to-very complicated combat system tends to include special rules for interesting and cool stuff - and then promptly force those things out of actual play because »it needs drawbacks or it would break balance«. Sad.
We used to get mad at one player who played a barbarian. He'd be surrounded by 3 or 4 mooks and instead of killing all or nearly all with a full attack, he'd trip one of them.
If the barbarian was capable of Cleave or similar one-strike-several-hits kind of attacks, sure, going for trip instead sounds like a bad idea. But hasn’t it been made clear in an errata or FAQ that you can swap out any number of your attacks in a full attack to a combat manoeuvres? I'm thinking, if the barbarian had several attacks he could have tripped one enemy (»hey, we should interrogate one of them!«) and bashed away against the rest.
In my recent Jade Regent campaign, the party samurai specialized in Greater Trip. He used it heavily in the fourth module The Forest of Spirits of the adventure path, but in the fifth module Tide of Honor he relied more on his mounted combat feats.
Ironically i find spellcasters to more often ending using combat maneuvers... druids with grab, Magus/whitehaired witch builds, black tentacle casters...
The favorite combat spell of the party oracle during The Forest of Spirits was Chains of Perdition, which summoned a chain that could perform combat maneuvers. She was an NPC and I deliberately avoided Summon Monster spells because as the GM I was already controlling too many characters.
My wife plays a very scary halfling melee sorceress in the Serpent's Skull adventure path. Black tentacles is her go-to spell. Due to the sorceress's abberant bloodline she has a 15-foot reach, so she can deliver touch spells to foes grappled in the Black Tentacles. By the way, my wife is an anime fan but not that kind of anime.
I play a high-constitution gnome barbarian in the same game. One of the barbarian's tactics is to lure attacks of opportunity from our foes so that other party members can safely position themselves. I should try more combat maneuvers, either to use up their AoO or to take advantage of the AoO being used up. Thanks for the reminder. The barbarian has Quickdraw, Mobility, and Beast Totem claws, so losing a weapon in a failed Disarm won't cause trouble.
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Maneuvers are somewhat more useful when GM doesn't put monsters whose aim is to kill party. Disarm is useful for example if you wish simply disarm opponent to buy yourself some time or to disable it. Bull rush is useful in situations when opponent is near cliff or building's edge. Steal is good to disable specific caster or take a valuable item that party requires. All of these things can be avoided if enemy can be killed. The problem is when you can't or shouldn't kill him, such as armed confused civilians, too powerful mage opponent, mind controlled opponents, etc. If the center of your game is about defeating monsters, the maneuvers won't exist.
Adam
Idk... Black tentacles is an awesome maneuver ability and gets 20% cooler if you are playing with anime nerds...
Sidenote: you are also 20% cooler if you get this reference.
What a bother, I just had my school uniform cleaned from the last youma.
Maneuvers are somewhat more useful when GM doesn't put monsters whose aim is to kill party.
Yeah, I agree. While I'm sometimes charmed by the Old School Renaissance type of murderhobo-dungeon-exploring games, with Pathfinder I generally want something else. And that includes having PCs who doesn’t kill everything in their path.
But I feel like Pathfinder punishes you for trying to be anything else but a murderhobo. Wanna hit the enemy to death? Sure, that's easy! Wanna disarm and trip the enemy, rendering her useless? Well, either she's gonna hit you first with attacks of opportunity or you need these feats.
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@blymurkla
That's why I said, somewhat more useful. Players trying to roleplay their good-aligned characters for example might use them to hamper the armed civilians, but it's also up to GM to describe and reward those situations. I am not gonna say that it isn't true though, Pathfinder does punish you for attempting CMB checks without feat investment, but I feel that problem goes a bit beyond that. Characters receive usually 1 feat every 2 levels and those feats are usually small in effect so you can't ever have enough feats.
Combat maneuvers are weird... They are either devastating or completely useless. At low levels, they can actually be somewhat overpowered (it's pretty easy to abuse trip at levels 1~4 even without a devoted build), specially against humanoid enemies... But as you level up, enemies start getting massive bonuses or even become downright immune to them, basically invalidating a whole character's build.
That, unreasonably costly prerequisites and the absurdly high damage output characters can easily achieve from level 1 are the main reasons why we don't see combat maneuvers more often..
But, they don't get used much, do they? The fact that they often provoke AoO means you pretty much need feats.
Reach weapons are an option for avoiding attacks of opportunity. Polearm tripping characters are pretty common at lower levels, even when they don't invest feats to get Greater Trip. Whips are even better for a maneuver-focused character who is more concerned with hindering foes than damage.
Likewise, the tekko-kagi (exotic weapon) can be used to disarm without drawing an attack of opportunity (plus, can be used to block for a +1 shield bonus to AC instead of attacking).
If the Int 13+ for Combat Expertise is "too much," a one level dip in brawler for Brawler's Cunning can remove that requirement. Also, Martial Flexibility is pretty nice, too.
Once you start getting into the upper middle levels, maneuvers start becoming less useful unless you are investing feats in them, because of how CMD scales.
Proof paizo is realizing some feat taxes were mistakes?
The recent swath of options that allow the user to skip Combat Expertise and dex requirement for like Dodge. For instance, the feat they spoiler, Dirty Fighting counts as Combat Expertise, and allpws the user to ignore the 13 dex or int requirement for feats. Also the Mesmerist has that verbage.
I've played a reach trip build before and it was massively useful and fun up until level 10. My current character is getting some good use out of bull rush, but ultimately the utility of combat maneuvers is situational. Also, Combat Expertise is one of the absolute worst feats in the game and is completely unnecessary as a feat tax, since most combat maneuvers aren't exactly OP to begin with.
The Combat Expertise as a prerequisite pretty much dampens my enthusiasm for combat maneuvers unless I'm playing a fighter, in which case I can afford to buy a throw away feat that I'll never ever use. And don't even get me started on that awful Int 13 requirement!