Author Topic: What would make Combat Techniques viable?  (Read 8608 times)

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Endarire

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What would make Combat Techniques viable?
« on: June 18, 2011, 07:44:08 PM »
Grappling, overrunning/trampling, sundering, disarming, feinting, tripping, and bull rushing.  There's plenty of info on how these things are performed, but not what makes them viable.

As mentioned in the Warblade Grappler thread, combat techniques aside from tripping seem niche at best and junk at worst.  I've seen plenty of tripper builds, but what would make the other techniques worthy of use for a martial character?
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Solo

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Re: What would make Combat Techniques viable?
« Reply #1 on: June 18, 2011, 07:45:10 PM »
Well, it'd help if you could use them on a bunch of people at once...

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Sinfire Titan

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Re: What would make Combat Techniques viable?
« Reply #2 on: June 18, 2011, 07:47:48 PM »
Well, it'd help if you could use them on a bunch of people at once...

Much truth in your words Solo. A 1st level Wizard can trip everyone in a 10ft radius from a distance. A 1st level Fighter can only trip one person at a time.


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snakeman830

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Re: What would make Combat Techniques viable?
« Reply #3 on: June 18, 2011, 08:10:33 PM »
Grappling: streamline the rules so that it actually gets used.  Also, make it so you can do more than hold one opponent in place and sorta damage it.  Things like the Justicar's Hog Tie or Reaping Mauler's anything shouldn't have to be class features (Savage Grapple, on the other hand, should remain that way).

Overrunning: I don't know, make it do something that can't be accomplished by Tumble?  I don't think this really can be made to be any good.  Even trampling typically sucks due to pathetic damage.

Bull Rush: Actually rather useful as is, so long as you can make the Str checks.

Sundering: Not a bad tactic as far as combat is concerned, but this really is an NPC move due to what players want from combat (loot, typically).  Still, remove the AoO associated with it.  Make Improved Sunder do something to increase the effectiveness of the attack or something.

Disarming: Instead of forcing players to burn a feat just to avoid the AoO, make them take a small penalty on their attack roll (and possibly removing the whole "opposed attack rolls").  Disarming is a decent tactic, but because it's only useful against a small set of enemies, nobody will invest into making it not hurt them more.

Feinting: Lower the action required.  As it is now, if you feint, you do nothing useful that turn.
« Last Edit: June 18, 2011, 08:15:30 PM by snakeman830 »
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Unbeliever

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Re: What would make Combat Techniques viable?
« Reply #4 on: June 18, 2011, 08:29:54 PM »
If you allow Make Whole or a similar spell to work on magic items then Sundering becomes much more viable.  Is there any RAW reason that it doesn't?  This is something I've always wondered about given all the Sunder hate. 

I've been experimenting w/ a few variants to the combat maneuvers and to the feast associated w/ them, though they haven't seen much play yet.  I will post them when I get the chance. 

oslecamo

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Re: What would make Combat Techniques viable?
« Reply #5 on: June 18, 2011, 08:31:25 PM »
First of all, greatly reduce the modifiers for size. Like just +1 for each size category diference. Otherwise whatever buffs you implement will end up benefiting the big monsters and casters more than non-caster players as they have the hardest time geting bigger sizes.

For grapple, greatly reduce the penalty for grappling with just a limb (which makes you count as not grappling so you retain almost full combat capacity besides one busy hand). You're already keeping one arm busy holding the enemy, you don't need to eat a -20 penalty doing it(and heck there's even feats that remove the penalty in savage species).

Overrun could be used for charging multiple enemies in a turn and ignoring bad terrains.

Sundering: well altough it doesn't make much sense, allow the players to sell/repair broken loot. Allow for sundering of natural weapons and natural armor. Make Improved sunder grant one extra attack when you sucessfully sunder something a la improved trip.


Disarming: allow players to "disable" natural weapons, like bashing the wolf's jaws so he can't bite anything for a few rounds. Easier than sundering them, but enemy quickly recovers from it.

Feinting: I suport making it a move action out of the bat.


Solo

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Re: What would make Combat Techniques viable?
« Reply #6 on: June 18, 2011, 08:34:34 PM »
Also, it'd be nice if you could somehow remove the penalty for improvised weapons. That'd be fun.

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skydragonknight

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Re: What would make Combat Techniques viable?
« Reply #7 on: June 18, 2011, 11:56:17 PM »
To make disarming useful, make prepared casters require implements to cast spells whatsoever (or maybe give them a fail chance without one). Gandalf always had a staff when he was casting the big spells. That'll also give spontaneous a little boost.
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zook1shoe

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Re: What would make Combat Techniques viable?
« Reply #8 on: June 19, 2011, 12:07:32 AM »
I really like the idea of more to grappling, than just hold on and fight, like snakeman said.

skydragonknight

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Re: What would make Combat Techniques viable?
« Reply #9 on: June 19, 2011, 07:22:33 AM »
I really like the idea of more to grappling, than just hold on and fight, like snakeman said.

I believe the throwing maneuvers in Tome of Battle were supposed to represent that, even though they count as trip attempts. Maybe they realized the maneuvers would be more viable running off the simple and effective trip rules rather than the complex and fail grapple rules?
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TenaciousJ

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Re: What would make Combat Techniques viable?
« Reply #10 on: June 19, 2011, 09:46:06 AM »
I like Pathfinder's attempted fix of rolling all these maneuvers into the CMB and CMD system.  Grappling is especially bad for requiring too many rolls for too little effect.  I usually houserule in the CMB/CMD system but keep the 3.5 feats so the numbers can skew a bit more towards players with good BAB and strength instead of monsters with big size bonuses. 

When you play a game like Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat, a throw is quick enough it shouldn't take more than 1 round when applied to D&D time.  Grappling should have options like a quick throw to the ground that does some big damage.  People pull off German Suplexes in real fights, so why should the idea suck in D&D?  I handle the speed of the grapple in a similar fashion to the way Bull Rush works when I DM.  If you win the grapple by 5 or more, you can immediately pull off whatever maneuver you were going for instead of just grabbing on.  For every 5 more, the maneuver will hurt more or move the opponent farther depending on what the player was trying to do.

Sundering would be a lot more attractive if it had alternative uses such as cutting the straps and buckles that hold armor on so the pieces just fall off relatively unscathed instead of being destroyed and made worthless.  I know that doesn't really fit the definition of sundering, but I always thought the intent was to hurt someone's armor bonus, so I give that option so players aren't destroying their loot.  I also usually let my players expose weak points in natural armor with sundering as well.

Midnight_v

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Re: What would make Combat Techniques viable?
« Reply #11 on: June 19, 2011, 10:57:34 AM »
Grappling, overrunning/trampling, sundering, disarming, feinting, tripping, and bull rushing.  There's plenty of info on how these things are performed, but not what makes them viable.

As mentioned in the Warblade Grappler thread, combat techniques aside from tripping seem niche at best and junk at worst.  I've seen plenty of tripper builds, but what would make the other techniques worthy of use for a martial character?
Okay but this better not be one of those things where you post the op and then say nothing else. Thats really getting old, good sir.
I notice that intimidate Demoralizing in combat isn't on the list, but even at that I wanted to point something out...
Bullrushing actually got made viable.
 
 Only for the fighter Dungeon Crasher ACF, so its areally good example of what it takes to make it viable. In that case all it took was damage.
  So when it come to these "manuevers" you have 2 real options that matter, first you can give them a damage listing of somekind just like dungeon crashing gets. Secondly, you could try to give them action denial in the way that Imperious command spawned combat intimidate melee builds as an archtype.
 Tripping is already "Viable" as you said and we have a CLEAR example of what bullrush needs to be, so that leaves...
Disarm
Overun/Trample
Grappling
Feinting and of course... sundering (which controversialy many feel should never be an option at all, I'm undecided)

Here's how some of these should work:
Quote
Feint

Quote
DisarmDefending against a Disarm:Special:
Thank you: The way things aught to be. . .

Overrun needs to deal damage in the same way that Dungeon crasher does damage if it succesfully knocks you down.
Trample needs to deal that same type of damage + 1 round of stun + knocked down, if successful.

Tl;dr:  Basically to make those options viable they have to deal real damage and or create action economy for the user.
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Midnight_v

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Re: What would make Combat Techniques viable?
« Reply #12 on: June 19, 2011, 11:10:40 AM »
Bonus:
Grapple... needs to have the options from prc's and tactical feats already included and it needs to be simplified.
You shouldn't have to be a reaping mauler to put someone in a sleeper hold AND... you should be able to grapple multiple opponents, cause you're awesome. The thing is... how does that interact with monster using grapple to destroy the players, so even then it needs work.

Sunder. Sunder should should automatically be a sundering cleave, that does double damage on the lick after the sunder, it should also require al save dc = the sunder damage, to avoid being stunned that someone just sundered the valuable goodies will negates... 
(i'm kiding of course... there should be no such thing, the more I think about it, it's too much an ease that monsters run up and sunder your blade. It cuts down creativity when everything has to be made of adamantine, no matter what. sunder is either unfair, or unworthwhile, in all the ways that count)
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Hasmadad

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Re: What would make Combat Techniques viable?
« Reply #13 on: June 19, 2011, 04:37:29 PM »
I like Pathfinder's attempted fix of rolling all these maneuvers into the CMB and CMD system.  Grappling is especially bad for requiring too many rolls for too little effect.  I usually houserule in the CMB/CMD system but keep the 3.5 feats so the numbers can skew a bit more towards players with good BAB and strength instead of monsters with big size bonuses.  

When you play a game like Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat, a throw is quick enough it shouldn't take more than 1 round when applied to D&D time.  Grappling should have options like a quick throw to the ground that does some big damage.  People pull off German Suplexes in real fights, so why should the idea suck in D&D?  I handle the speed of the grapple in a similar fashion to the way Bull Rush works when I DM.  If you win the grapple by 5 or more, you can immediately pull off whatever maneuver you were going for instead of just grabbing on.  For every 5 more, the maneuver will hurt more or move the opponent farther depending on what the player was trying to do.

Sundering would be a lot more attractive if it had alternative uses such as cutting the straps and buckles that hold armor on so the pieces just fall off relatively unscathed instead of being destroyed and made worthless.  I know that doesn't really fit the definition of sundering, but I always thought the intent was to hurt someone's armor bonus, so I give that option so players aren't destroying their loot.  I also usually let my players expose weak points in natural armor with sundering as well.
« Last Edit: June 19, 2011, 04:41:42 PM by Hasmadad »

Unbeliever

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Re: What would make Combat Techniques viable?
« Reply #14 on: June 19, 2011, 04:51:14 PM »
The things my group has experimented w/ are along the lines of what Midnight_v suggests.  Although they are probably a little less extreme.  These have not been extensively playtested, so ymmv.  Also, the goal was to just get people to use these things more, so I think the idea was to allow people w/out the requisite feats to get more use out of them situationally, and to allow those who put some commitment into them to not feel like chumps for using them.  A lot of these are stolen from the Tome and other places. 

Oh, and like Midnight said, this had better not be one of Endrarie's patented "let me mild you for info to redesign D&D even though I apparently am never going to bother doing it" threads. 

----------------------------
Combat Maneuvers rules mods
Remove all attacks of opportunity for attempting these.  Also remove all the modifiers for using light or two-handed weapons. 

Bull Rush
  • Improved Bull Rush:  you count as 1 size category larger to both initiate and resist bull rush attempts.  If you successfully bull rush your opponent you automatically push them at least 2 squares.

Disarm
  • Improved Disarm:  you count as 1 size category larger/+4 to disarm and to resist disarms.  If you successfully disarm an opponent you can choose to be holding the weapon or can toss it up to 10 feet away in a direction of your choice.
  • Greater Disarm:  another +4 to the checks.  If you succeed you can choose to take the weapon and make an immediate attack of opportunity against your opponent with the weapon you just took.

Overrun
  • Improved Overrun:  +4 on checks and cannot avoid you, just like the book says, this one is actually fine.
  • Greater Overrun:  if you successfully overrun a target, it provokes an attack of opportunity from you.

Sunder
  • Improved Sunder:  +4 to/vs. checks and if you successfully sunder an item, the excess damage is transferred to the bearer. 

Feint
Note, feinting can be made as part of an attack action. 
  • Improved Feint:  if you successfully feint against your opponent, he is flat-footed against your attacks till your next turn.  There's a feat that pretty much does this already, but still.
  • Nimble Blade:  you may substitute a melee attack instead of the Bluff/Persuasion check for feinting.
  • Greater Feint:  if you successfully feint against an opponent, you can make an attack against them this round as a swift action. 

Grappling

Midnight_v

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Re: What would make Combat Techniques viable?
« Reply #15 on: June 19, 2011, 09:45:42 PM »
Quote
The things my group has experimented w/ are along the lines of what Midnight_v suggests.  Although they are probably a little less extreme.

Hmm... maybe but there's nothing extreme about what I suggest really, its kinda about balance in some aspects.
The sunder thing was a joke, obviously.

  Fighter really used to be my favorite class and one of the first things I noticed was the problems that were talking about, how Improved trip was good because it made target easier to hit and netted a hit.
 Though things like feint and disarm, were really bad comparatively, feint because too much could happen before that next attack.
... and disarm because, well a good portion of the critters don't use swords, that went for sunder too (once I realized you couldn't sunder armor, which was pretty quick) but people had other issues for that.

Bullrush really sucked as battlefield control and there weren't enough uses for it, and so when dungeon crasher showed up, years later, I thought what everyone else though "Bullrushing finally has its day"
 Rarely do people trample or overrun because the effects don't seem to do enough, and lots of the time its the demense of monsters, and/or Mounted Warriors, so they don't see much play because of that as well, but yeah it just has to be worthwhile somehow.
The simplest way to do this is to equate the other manuvers with improved trip or alternatively with Dungeon crasher.
The issue as to why those get neglected is because they're not very efficient. Efficiency in this case means putting you ahead as a warrior in either the damage race or the action race.
Disarm is just so limited because more than half the monsters use natural weapons. .  .
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X-Codes

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Re: What would make Combat Techniques viable?
« Reply #16 on: June 19, 2011, 09:52:14 PM »
I would remove them and incorporate their effects into martial maneuvers.  For example, there could be a Stone Dragon power similar to Charging Minotaur where you basically trample someone and then move past, effectively replacing the Overrun maneuver.

Midnight_v

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Re: What would make Combat Techniques viable?
« Reply #17 on: June 19, 2011, 10:07:12 PM »
I would remove them and incorporate their effects into martial maneuvers.  For example, there could be a Stone Dragon power similar to Charging Minotaur where you basically trample someone and then move past, effectively replacing the Overrun maneuver.
+1
Its funny, x-codes, I shit you not the first thought I had was what you just said.
What would make Combat Techniques viable?

Make them martial maneuvers.
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Petruchio

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Re: What would make Combat Techniques viable?
« Reply #18 on: June 19, 2011, 10:38:28 PM »
It is hard to make combat techniques viable, since the measuring stick is not the game the designers intended (Tier 4 + 5) but rather how the game is actually played (Tier 3). And here it is all about Tier 1.

What I want from combat techniques is battlefield control, coupled with damage dealing. A good way to do this is to create several different Fighter ACF's which will do for grappling, disarming, overrunning, sundering and tripping that Dungeon-Crasher did for bull rushing. Example, an ACF which would allow you to throw or slam a successfully grappled opponent into a wall, the ground or another opponent for variable damage plus being knocked prone.

Midnight_v

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Re: What would make Combat Techniques viable?
« Reply #19 on: June 19, 2011, 11:08:07 PM »
Quote
And here it is all about Tier 1.
I get that you're new here... but I just wanna tell you, thats... thats really untrue.
In a lot of ways its exactly the opposite. Mostly here is about learning everything possible,
so its easier to help people get what they're looking for.

Quote
What I want from combat techniques is battlefield control, coupled with damage dealing
So really the same thing I was saying, over all. Thanks for the +1.
Battlefield control and action economy at lot of times boil down to the same thing when it comes to melee, "not letting the opponents do X" so yeah we're pretty much seeing eye to eye on this one.
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