[CPFHB] Combat Maneuvers

[Username17]

This is first and foremost a discussion of combat maneuvers for the purpose of fitting things into Asymmetric Threat. But really this could be about any game system.

I think a good start to the discussion on how to make a Maneuver system is oddly enough to be found in the D&DNext Playtest discussion thread. This is odd, because 5e does not have a maneuver system, let alone a good one. But that very flaw brought out quite a bit of coherent discussion about what a maneuver system is for and how it can work. And so if you haven't been keeping up on that thread, I've copypastaed the relevant bits behind the spoiler tag:

To say,
"it is important to have sensible and believable tackle rules"

is not the same as to say,
"it is important to make judo a credible strategy against platemail wearing knights"

Tackles are important because sometimes the guards come, and they must seize the princess! So that has to be possible. It does not therefore follow that the party has to include a Judo-master and also a swordsman, and the Judo-master will need pits and narrow hallways and things into which he can throw people.

Now, if you want to make a character type, who has the special power that they are supernaturally so bad-ass that they can walk over to a bunch of armed and armored knights, and fling them into each other with his Aikido, that's okay as well, but frankly, since that guy is using either magical powers or "super martial arts" which might as well be magic since they don't need to obey our common sense understanding of the world, super-Aikido does not even need to interact with the standard grapple rules. The standard grapple rules exist so that a big burly guard can grab the Princess and drag her kicking and screaming to be locked away in a tower until she agrees to marry Baron Malvolge; or, if the Princess is quick and spunky, we need to know just how quick and spunky she needs to be in order to get away. Our understanding of the real world requires such a thing to be possible.

The super-Aikido might as well be a special effect for telekinesis, because it requires us to believe that sufficient skill in martial arts will enable you to stand your ground against a charging knight or an enraged grizzly, and also to use it's momentum against him and throw him into something.

There are all kinds of things a really engaging and fun combat system needs to include.

For example, throwing sand in an enemy's face. Kicking a chair at someone to trip or block a charge. Picking up and tossing things like barrels or rocks, knocking back tables so that flying coins and cards distract people, dropping down on enemies from trees or ledges, riding or climbing large monsters in combat, pushing statues or rocks onto enemies or dropping stalactites or candelabras on enemies.... the list goes on and on and that's before you even get to fantasy stuff like covering your magic sword in lava or tossing clay pots full of green slime.

Now, 5e's current solution is to MTP those situations and have the DM create a system on the fly.

I don't know why people think that the average DM can create a good, simple, and balanced system to do those things, but they seem to think that it's the best thing since sliced bread.

As far as basic, universal maneuvers and object interaction go I think that 3.0E's list was actually pretty damn solid. Probably the only ones I'd really add or elaborate on is attacking someone in the middle of a jump and making the mount rules less wonky. I'd add some more 'standard' terrain or rules such as lighting people on fire or spilling a barrel of molasses or dried peas. And also I'd make the falling/throwing rules more transparent with each other.

The actual list isn't bad, but the generic aid/distract abilities need to be expanded so that you can throw sand in peoples' faces. The resolution of those abilities needs to be simpler - and AoO and an opposed attack roll is like three times as many die rolls as I should have to make to disarm a guard. And they all need to be much better - disarming a dude because he has a magic snake staff should be something that is worth doing at all levels where enemies have magic snake staves.

But this applies to the rules and the lack of them in 5e as well. When guards seize the princess, they should seize the damn princess. As is, she apparently gets to make a Strength or Dexterity check every round to wriggle free, and the difference between being a princess and an evil guard is not much. A Strength 14 guard is only creating a DC 12 for the Princess to make her Dex check at +1 against - she is literally escaping once every 12 seconds. That's just stupid. Grapples need to actually hold people down.

Now that may invalidate attacking with your sword, but it doesn't have to. If attacking with the damn sword actually killed people, then special maneuvers could be pretty damn good without making the standard attack obsolete. You could start by not giving random minotaurs 132 hit points when a longsword does a d8+3.

Imagine for the moment that you had a working maneuver or stunt system. What that means is that you have attacks like throwing sand in faces, knocking weapons out of hands, and pinning enemies' arms to their sides that, while not contributing to hit point ablation are nonetheless useful some of the time.

Obviously, if your target is a 2 hit point Kobold and you do 3 damage even if you miss because of reaping strikes or some shit, then it doesn't matter how good grappling, spitting, or disarming is because it's still not going to be equal to a 100% of dropping your target as soon as the declaration is made. On the flip side, if beating on enemy is going to take 10 rounds because they have over a hundred hit points and your attacks inflict 7-8 on a hit, a debuff doesn't have to be very impressive at all in order to be the obvious opener in that combat.

Elites and solos encourage the tactic of opening with one or more debuffs and then grinding the enemy down when they are crippled. Mooks encourage the tactic of damage spam.

Solo monsters also encourage MMO-style tanking. The monster's attacks tend to be focused on the heavily armored guy who is healed by the healer instead of several monsters attacking several less armored PCs who can't be healed as quickly and will take more damage because of their lower armor.

More monsters can sometimes also mean more chances to focus fire, and that can be deadly for low armored PCs like Wizards.

That's definitely true. I guess a more general way to say that would be that a battle with an enemy who is going to last several rounds encourages "management strategies". Those strategies could include debuffs, combat healing, tanking, battlefield control, stun locks, kiting, or even just hate-shifting. Enemies who can be exploded quickly encourage the players to just do that and provide any required healing after the fact.

It's a difficult thing to set up, because while management strategies have the potential to be much more interesting and in-depth than rocket launcher tag (which is the primary reason given for people not liking the SoD paradigm), it's also very easy for it to fall into some pretty boring scripts. Cast web, grind away with crossbows. Cast Glitterdust, stab until golden brown. And so on.

Making management strategies interesting and dynamic is not easy. Certainly they weren't in 4e. An encounter management script is actually even less interesting than a RLT smackdown. I could imagine healing and dispel effects to be a major part of making that sort of thing interesting, because they are by definition reactive. But the 4e setup had you use the same ones in the same order all the time, and that was terribad.

So you have the option of just shooting people. That is in fact, the default option: basic attack. And assuming that the game isn't stupid, it's actually a pretty good option for getting rid of opponents, because you hit mooks and they fall down. Which in turn means that using any other maneuvers has to be justified against "just shooting people". Any maneuver that cannot be should be jettisoned.

So here are the reasons you'd use a non-standard maneuver:

• Your basic attack is unlikely to drop an enemy and you want to debuff them.
• For whatever reason you do not want to kill or injure your opponent, but you want to reduce the threat they pose.
• You want to capture the opponent.
• There are multiple enemies, and you'd rather debuff the group than attempt to drop a single mook.
• There is a specific action you want to cause or prevent (such as the pulling of an alarm) more than you care about the welfare of one of your opponents.
• Your basic attack is unlikely to work, and you'd like to accomplish something.

And basically, that's about it. Maneuvers need clean resolution and decent effects, but the logic is still that if you're up against Zombie #5, you're still going to just shoot it in the face rather than bothering with anything fancy.

-Username17

[hogarth]

So here are the reasons you'd use a non-standard maneuver:

• Your basic attack is unlikely to drop an enemy and you want to debuff them.
• For whatever reason you do not want to kill or injure your opponent, but you want to reduce the threat they pose.
• You want to capture the opponent.
• There are multiple enemies, and you'd rather debuff the group than attempt to drop a single mook.
• There is a specific action you want to cause or prevent (such as the pulling of an alarm) more than you care about the welfare of one of your opponents.
• Your basic attack is unlikely to work, and you'd like to accomplish something.

And basically, that's about it.

Sounds fine, although in my opinion you're missing one:

[*] There is a dangerous terrain feature that can be exploited to be more useful than your basic attack (e.g. throwing someone off the top of a building, or pushing an ice monster into a fire).

[Endovior]

I think that about covers it, yeah... though I'd suggest a few others.

[*] You would rather debuff the boss than kill a minion.
[*] You are facing a dangerous enemy, who would be effectively neutralized if affected by a certain debuff (ie: grappling a mage to disable spellcasting, or disarming the guy with the rocket launcher)
[*] An ally is in danger, such that you'd rather perform some action to save them then kill another enemy

Debuffing the boss is kind of like a mix of reasons 1 and 4... there are multiple enemies, but if they pose a notably different amount of threat, if might be more valuable to debuff the threats... especially in the case of debuffing the dangerous foe, if you've got access to anything that would disable their dangerous attacks, though that's more like your reason 5.

Protecting an ally is something you didn't mention; it's probably worth mentioning, since there's almost certainly going to be a case where you'd rather drag an unconscious ally out of the line of fire then slay a single mook.

[hogarth]

Protecting an ally is something you didn't mention

It's kind of covered by the very broad heading of "There is a specific action you want to cause or prevent [etc.]"

[deaddmwalking]

One area that I think 3.5 got wrong was with nested attacks of opportunity.

Imagine, for a moment, two characters with 6 AoO each (combat reflexes, +5 dex modifier).

Character A moves through Character B's threatened Area. Character B decides to attempt to Disarm Character A (not a weapon), but does not have the Improved Disarm Feat. Character B doesn't want to be disarmed, so chooses to attack with an unarmed strike. Since he doesn't have Improved Unarmed Strike, he provokes another AoO from B. B still wants to Disarm, so attempts that action again - actions keep repeating until all actions are declared. Then they're resolved in reverse order... UGH!

To encourage 'maneuvers' in 3.5, I think that if you make an Attack of Opportunity (where by definition your opponent is distracted or otherwise unable to defend themselves normally) your opponent should not be entitled to an AoO. Since characters probably don't have more than 1 or 2 'improved' feats, this would go a long way toward making sure these attack actions get used.

[Endovior]

Protecting an ally is something you didn't mention

It's kind of covered by the very broad heading of "There is a specific action you want to cause or prevent [etc.]"

Technically, yes; but it's such a broad heading that it actually covers everything. Aiding your allies is specific and important enough that it deserves mention, in the same way that capturing an opponent deserves mention, even when subduing them without injury is already on the list.

[ishy]

I'd also like to use combat Maneuvers to delay, For example your enemy is now in another dimension for 3 rounds. Or you stab the air so hard nobody can move through it anymore.
So you can get a superior tacticle position or deal with the other enemies better.

[Ice9]

One thing that should definitely be different than the 3E/PF method is proficiency (as in, doing the maneuver without an AoO / penalty). The "feat gets you one single maneuver, which you can then specialize further" encourages spamming and discourages cool on the fly actions.

I'd rather see it handled more like weapon proficiencies. Say we divide it into Forceful, Agile, and Tricky maneuvers. The main warrior types get two or three categories (Forceful and Agile for the Monk, for example). Semi-combatant classes get one category (Tricky or Agile for Rogues). And then you can take a feat to get a category you don't have.

[OgreBattle]

do you consider powerattack/expertise/shock trooper moves maneuvers too?


How about basic attack+maneuver in a single action? Stab the guy and shove him back, stab the guy to make an opening for an ally to escape, stab the guy and knock him down.

[Vebyast]

Character A moves through Character B's threatened Area. Character B decides to attempt to Disarm Character A (not a weapon), but does not have the Improved Disarm Feat. Character B doesn't want to be disarmed, so chooses to attack with an unarmed strike. Since he doesn't have Improved Unarmed Strike, he provokes another AoO from B. B still wants to Disarm, so attempts that action again - actions keep repeating until all actions are declared. Then they're resolved in reverse order... UGH!

Being able to repeat a sequence infinitely is bad (threefold repetition, ko), but I have no problem with counter-counters. It gives fighters something to do that isn't dumb or boring. Resolving the stack is kind of tedious, but no more tedious than rolling saves on a big spell, and setting things up is actually kind of fun. Faster games of MtG are all about going back-and-forth on the stack, for example. It even works in DND to some extent; I actually built a class on top of the idea. Anyway, to bring things back to the original topic, I do think that maneuver systems should include counters. They're a good way to add complexity to a system without making the system just a reflavored copy of spellcasting.

[Seerow]

On the topic of counters: I am a fan of the idea that the player currently taking his turn should be rolling all the dice. So if you do something and an enemy counters you, you roll a save against it. When you then attack that enemy, you roll your attack roll. But when the enemy takes their turn, they make attack rolls, rather than making you roll saves.

[Vebyast]

I see counters as a way to avoid super smash bros syndrome, if done correctly. Trivially, it keeps players involved during the DM's turn. More robust counter systems can even give players ways to do things during other players' turns.

[Username17]

Grabbing People

The purpose of the grab varies depending on the relative power of the characters doing the grab.

• Major villains want to grab the princess and carry her away.
• Guards want to grab the Ogre just to slow him down while other people get some kind of real resistance together.
• The hero and the villain grab onto each other in order to have a tug of war over the maguffin.

What this indicates to me is that grabs should be very likely to "work" but that the effects of grabs should be highly dependent on the relative power of the characters. Basically, if you have Edge on your opponent and you grab them, they stay grabbed until they can get Edge to attempt to escape. On the other hand, if you have it tough, your grab is just a temporary debuff to the target. You only bother doing opposed grapple checks or something when characters are roughly evenly matched.

-Username17

[Lokathor]

So it seems like "Covering Fire" and "Leg Shot" should both be maneuver options for folks that are already holding guns.

Covering Fire lets you shoot at a ton of people in a cone and they have to have hard cover or take an attack. If they fight from cover they do so at some sort of penalty.

Leg Shot is an aimed attack that deals a lesser hit but cuts the target's movement in half.

[deaddmwalking]

Grabbing People

The purpose of the grab varies depending on the relative power of the characters doing the grab.

• Major villains want to grab the princess and carry her away.
• Guards want to grab the Ogre just to slow him down while other people get some kind of real resistance together.
• The hero and the villain grab onto each other in order to have a tug of war over the maguffin.

What this indicates to me is that grabs should be very likely to "work" but that the effects of grabs should be highly dependent on the relative power of the characters. Basically, if you have Edge on your opponent and you grab them, they stay grabbed until they can get Edge to attempt to escape. On the other hand, if you have it tough, your grab is just a temporary debuff to the target. You only bother doing opposed grapple checks or something when characters are roughly evenly matched.

-Username17

The question of relative power needs to be defined here. As we all know, the Big Dumb Fighter is weaker than everyone he meets on Team Monster. There are times where we still want him to be able to tackle the kraken and have the fight end with all those tentacles ties into a neat bow.

[Username17]

I think we can lift a page from Races of War here and hand out The Edge based on a variety of criteria (Skill, Power, Speed, Your Mom, Whatever). You can even have a scenario in which two characters have The Edge on each other because each one meets a different criteria. I have no problem, for example, with the warrior being "more skilled" than the Giant and thus having The Edge during a grab, thereby allowing him to make a skill-based grab attack that the Giant can't escape from until the Giant has The Edge. But of course, the Giant is still "big and strong" and thus has The Edge every turn, allowing the Giant to make a "break loose" check that is almost guaranteed to work. That would be a plausible use for Grab and "make sense" in the context of the game world. Our hero grabs onto the Giant and distracts it for a whole turn while the rest of the party do whatever the hell they are doing.

Alternately of course, the Giant could grab the Fighter with his Strength Edge and then the Fighter would have to escape with his Skill Edge, putting them in a roughly similar mutual lockdown situation that might be tactically advantageous if the Frost Giant was leading a bunch of goblins or something.

A big problem of 3rd edition specifically is that Fighters suck ass. Our CR 9 Frost Giant actually has a BAB of +10, he's literally more skilled than the Fighter is at fighting. On top of being a 15 foot tall frost-immune badass who literally has 10 points of Strength on you. That sort of thing has to change if warriors of any kind are to be good at basically anything.

-Username17

[nockermensch]

Grabbing People

The purpose of the grab varies depending on the relative power of the characters doing the grab.

• Major villains want to grab the princess and carry her away.
• Guards want to grab the Ogre just to slow him down while other people get some kind of real resistance together.
• The hero and the villain grab onto each other in order to have a tug of war over the maguffin.

What this indicates to me is that grabs should be very likely to "work" but that the effects of grabs should be highly dependent on the relative power of the characters. Basically, if you have Edge on your opponent and you grab them, they stay grabbed until they can get Edge to attempt to escape. On the other hand, if you have it tough, your grab is just a temporary debuff to the target. You only bother doing opposed grapple checks or something when characters are roughly evenly matched.

-Username17

After Shadow of the Colossus, any grapple system that lacks an option for hitching a ride on gigantic foes feels boring.

These days, the Vanilla Action Hero way to deal with dragons is to climb them and deliver a coup de grace while standing over their weak spot. The old D&D standart of staying at ground level hacking at it until it suffers critical existence failure is a bit silly (and by the scales shown in D&D, the most a ground based combatant could expect to give a colossal dragon should be a manicure)

[ETortoise]

For whatever it's worth these are combat actions I'd like to be able to do with a character who is skilled in hand-to-hand combat.

Foot sweep the crap out of someone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAvD5Yvl ... re=related

Take an opponent down and pin them or injure them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyYXN8vje54

I'd also like to be able to choke someone into unconsciousness if I get the drop on them or out-wrestle them.

These moves should also be available right out of the box. They're all things that can be trained to basic competency in a few months. It drove me crazy that the Reaping Mauler class in Complete Warrior was getting BJJ blue belt techniques as capstone abilities.

[ishy]

A foot sweep is basically a trip attack?
And I've always been in favour of letting you do anything you want to an opponent you have pinned, tie them up, knock them unconscious, whatever you want.

[ETortoise]

A foot sweep is basically a trip attack?

Unless you're playing UFC: The MMA RPG or whatever then the same maneuver can probably be used to represent any trip or throw where the attacker remains standing and the opponent wouldn't take damage from hitting the ground. You could have a separate move for high amplitude throws or simply make it a degree-of-success issue.

[OgreBattle]

Been mulling over combat maneuvers in games and 'real life combat sports', fencing and so on.

I figure there's 5 broad maneuvers in melee combat, I just picked five because there's 5 elements/phases in Chinese cosmology and some martial arts use it

Flurry/Pressure- Moving forward, pressuring opponent with volume of attacks
+: good against foes with less stamina, overwhelm foe trying to plan something
-: can walk into a heavy hit

Distance/skirmishing- Moving back from opponent, staying out of their range then attacking when they're over-extended
+: Relatively safe
-: Low threat, in a 'real dungeon combat' situation foes can move past you for their goals


Power Attack- Planting feet for foundation of a heavy hit OR leaping to land a flying knee, your motion is 'set'
+: hits hard against someone coming at you
-: Can be moved away from, anticipated and countered


Counterattack- Anticipating opponent's attack and intercepting it. Perhaps feints fall in this category
+: Should theoretically work against anything predicted
-: predictions can be wrong, can be overwhelmed by pressure, simply out of physical range to counter

Grappling Initiation (clinch, takedowns, throws, disarms)- Getting on the hydra's back is also this maneuver
+: if you're the better grappler then you drag them into your area of expertise
-: need to cover distance, may shoot right into a power attack
versing

The melee combat heavy system I'm imagining is one where you declare one of the actions in secret, then flip your token or card over to see what you're doing with some inherent weakness/advantages like "power attacks resolve before pressure attacks", "counter-attacks have a bonus against power attacks"

Fancier to supernatural combat maneuvers can be mapped to the above 5. A hadouken is a power attack because your feet are planted to launch it, a hurricane kick is a pressure/flurry attack as you move forward, a flash kick is a counter-attack as you're turtling in the corner like a goddamn bastard.

3 relative ranges for melee combat
Circling Range- the range two fighters circle at just out of each other's striking range, but a step in from each or a lunge from one closes the distance
Engaged Range- the range one's striking weapons (fists or spear and so on) are crossed against the opponent's
Grappling Range- the range one's hands can grab and grapple the foe

For a less melee combat focused game, or more abstract in general like say a Shadowrun gun-and-razors fight, what Franktrollman's already got for After Sundown seems pretty dandy.

[Thaluikhain]

The melee combat heavy system I'm imagining is one where you declare one of the actions in secret, then flip your token or card over to see what you're doing with some inherent weakness/advantages like "power attacks resolve before pressure attacks", "counter-attacks have a bonus against power attacks"

So, rock scissors paper with stuff added?

I'd personally put getting too close for the enemy to attack you in there somewhere, Grappling would be closest.

[OgreBattle]

The melee combat heavy system I'm imagining is one where you declare one of the actions in secret, then flip your token or card over to see what you're doing with some inherent weakness/advantages like "power attacks resolve before pressure attacks", "counter-attacks have a bonus against power attacks"

So, rock scissors paper with stuff added?

I'd personally put getting too close for the enemy to attack you in there somewhere, Grappling would be closest.

Yeah long distance attacks are closed in by pressure attacks, pressure attacks are closed in by grappling attacks.


Pressure Attacks
+ distance
+ counter

Distance Attacks
+ grappling
+ power

Power attacks
+ pressure
+ grappling

Grappling attacks
+ pressure
+ counter

Counter attacks
+ power
+ distance


On a history note, rock paper scissors seems to have originated in China sometime after the Wuxing 5 elements chart:



In Japan "centipede" became "slug", the others are frog and snake

So if you want that absolute symmetry then there's also relationships of "X attack gives a bonus to do Y attack afterwards" support like...

Distance (wood)->Pressure (fire)->Grappling (earth)->Counter (metal)->Power (water)->Distance (wood)

[Dean]

I think people's knee-jerk design instinct is going to be rock paper scissors but I don't think that would work. The amount of times you're fighting Bodaks and Ythrak's is much higher than the times you'll fight Roy Gracie, so the important thing is that the strategies have their own methods of victory that are viable. That some will be better than others against certain opponents will just be a natural result of the design process. I think it would be better to envision the styles as different MTG deck colors than rock paper scissors hands. If Power Attacking has slow blows that deal huge damage and flurrying deals lots of little damage attacks then one of those will be the right choice against a monster with damage reduction and one will be the right choice against an opponent who can negate an attack. If it so happens that counterpunching is really good at shutting down power attacking that's cool in that it makes people have to adopt different strategies based on what their opponents using but I don't think you want to design the entire game around guessing what an opponent does and auto winning or losing. That's less rewarding to build around.

[OgreBattle]

I don’t see this as RPS in the sense where only one person wins, you just get a bonus for a good match up. Maybe you hit first, maybe you deal X more damage, haven’t thought much about the action system for said chart

Can also have knowledge of monster maneuvers to predict what they’ll do, like the jungle warrior recognizes the mad Jaguar is about to charge in with a flurry (player makes a critter knowledge check or whatnot) so he does a powerful thrust with his spear to skewer it on his momentum.