Is combat slide too strong or am i just not dealing with it well as DM?

[Timdog]

I am finding the psionic blade skill combat slide is an absolutely breaking ability, wanted to know if I'm just to sensitive to it or if anyone else has encountered it and agree that its an issue.

Combat Slide

Upon successfully striking an enemy in melee, the soulknife may immediately make a 5-foot step (even if she’s already moved in the round, but not if she’s taken a 5-foot step). In addition, when someone misses the soulknife with a melee attack, she may spend an immediate action to take a 5-foot step.

So in basically any combat without a reach weapon, the player takes one attempted swing, gets missed, does a free 5 ft attack and then is out of range for any other attacks, thus killing any more attacks. BUT can 5 ft step back in for free on thier turn and do thier full attack.

The only way i think i could fix it a bit is if i can take a 5 ft step between attacks. That way i start next to him, he tries to step away, i use my 5 ft step and keep attacking. Is that valid?

Or is this power balanced and i need to suck it up? I'm open to revising it but really have no good ideas how at this point

[voideternal]

Timdog wrote:

The only way i think i could fix it a bit is if i can take a 5 ft step between attacks. That way i start next to him, he tries to step away, i use my 5 ft step and keep attacking. Is that valid?

Combat, Full-Round Action wrote:

Full-Round Action: A full-round action consumes all your effort during a round. The only movement you can take during a full-round action is a 5-foot step before, during, or after the action.

Yes you can take 5-foot steps in-between your attacks during a full-round action.

[Calth]

Just so you know, this is the wrong forum for this thread. Soulknife is not a Paizo class, so it belongs in the third party subforum. And yeah, combat slide doesn't come across as that great of a design. It's kinda "balanced" because its only useful against melee full-attacks, but those are common, and its extremely good against them.

[Ghray]

Oooooo I love posts like these because it involves a few things.

1.) Get some monsters with some kind of reach. Whether they have a long lance, a chain whip, or perhaps a stretchy arm, or maybe they're just big monsters.

2.) Ranged attacks. An enemy who can simply pull out a cross bow or use a simple spell to either lock the person in place or do damage.

3.) Enemies that grapple. Fairly simple.

4.) AOE attacks.

5.) An enemy who lays traps around the map to try and lock characters in place.

6.) Status effects to slow people down.

7.) Homebrew!!! I had a party that was hilariously mobile,and I mean so mobile it was crazy. So how did I deal with it? I smudged up some Goblins who had the gear similar to the 3D gear in Attack on Titan so they could challenge their mobility. Threw in a weakness and some acrobatic checks for the Goblins and it was a fun encounter.

As a side note, as a DM, you're going to run into a LOT of these situations where X ability seems OP because your Y monsters are getting their butts kicked. Point is, that in D&D, you could have a PC wreck a huge swath of monsters but get destroyed by other simpler monsters. Power Slide, while good, is not broken. Flex your creative capabilities. Good luck :)

[Azten]

Combat slide is really good when you need to set up flank, because it's easier, but anything can just 5ft during the full attack, as was pointed out.

Now, if a Creature with Pounce misses its first attack, then yes, I'd say the others would all miss if he backed up. That makes sense.

[Timdog]

Thanks all, some good thoughts there.

Cheers,

tim

[Sarrah]

*all of a sudden all of Timdog's npcs gain the feat Step Up*