Post/Author/DateTime	Post
BladeMage_1 02-12-06, 03:53 PM	Introduction Ah, combat. It seems to be the main event of a D&D game when your Half Orc Fighter brings down a Huge baddie with one smooth crit from his lucky Battleaxe. Or when you finally defeat that BBEG that keeps escaping your grasp time and time again. So, to honor combat, and all it's exciting glory, I've dedicated this thread to a new option, Combat maneuvers. A new way to make Combat more cinematic with more than just flavor. I Caution to you, this idea is for DM's and players who aren't afraid of more advanced Combat. Combat maneuvers may also help new gamers describe what they wish to do in combat. Veteran gamers may not like this option because it provides a concrete combat system instead of the more abstract one they are use to. However, these advanced gamers may find Combat maneuvers to add something new to the table, and the players will find they have more options available to them when they are in a fight. How Combat maneuvers work Combat Maneuvers work like button combinations do in a video game. They more easily explain what your character and his opponents are doing in combat. If you wish to flip an opponent with your staff, you can do so using a combat maneuver. If you need to end the fight quickly, you can use your expert skill with a sword to sweep and coup de grace a victim before a fight begins. Basically, a combat maneuver is an advanced tool that a character (or monster) can use to defeat his or her opponent. Combat maneuvers work like feats. Each maneuver has a requirements you must meet to use one. However, You can use any Combat maneuver listed, as long as you meet those prerequisites. There’s no limited selection you must “buy” like feats. Instead, you pick what you want to perform, and do it. Fighters will benefit the most from combat maneuvers, because requirements to use a maneuver usually relies on your fighting ability, selection of feats, Base attack bonus, and fighting ability scores. Barbarians and Rangers will use combat maneuvers to advantage, especially when raging or fighting against favored enemies. Rogues will find some combat maneuvers to enhance their sneak attack abilities, and will also find them assets. Monks can use unarmed combat maneuvers to help further their martial arts tactics. Spellcasters will benefit the least from combat maneuvers, because their selection of skills and feats usually don’t form a fighting backbone. How do Combat maneuvers differ from what you can already do in combat? The current Combat system provides the bases for what you can do in combat, which is pretty much anything you put your mind on doing. What Combat maneuvers do is build on combat actions already present. They bring your skills, feats, abilities, and other attributes of your character to the table so your character can excel in their chosen style of combat. Some of the combat maneuvers will replace feats that allow you to do beneficial things (they are abundant in Complete Warrior) because I think you shouldn’t spend a feat on one thing. Examples of these are Hamstring, Flying kick, and Defensive throw. Forming Combat maneuvers Making all the possible combat maneuvers can be a hard task, but a creative baseline can help grease the wheels enough to start making a ton of options. 1. Take an idea, and classify it. Here are some categories I have so far (Feel free to add any I missed, I‘ll nail down all the specific categories later).: Main categories Melee maneuvers Ranged maneuvers Grapple maneuvers Unarmed maneuvers Environment maneuvers (using what’s around you) Subcategories Weapon specific -Slashing -Piercing -Bludgeoning 2. Now that the idea is classified, Give it a name based on what it is. 3. Give the requirements (Feats, skill ranks, ability score, special, etc.). 4. Then describe the benefit from the maneuver. I will make a list of all the contributed ones and send the final version to anyone who wants one.
BladeMage_1 02-12-06, 03:54 PM	Here are some anatomy specific maneuvers: Gut (Melee, slashing) Using a slashing weapon, you lock the blade of it to your opponents mid-section and pull sideward, forcing the creature onto it’s knees, holding it’s stomach. Requirements: Str. 13+, Base attack bonus +4, Combat Reflexes, Power attack Benefit: When using Power attack, You sacrifice the extra damage to for a chance to stun and knock the target prone. The target must make a fortitude save equal to (10+½ your base attack bonus) or become stunned for 1d4 rounds and fall prone. The target must be within one size category of you. Any creatures that are immune to critical hits (such as undead) are immune to this maneuver. Hamstring (Melee, slashing) You cut the back of the creature’s knee, it snaps to look down, grabbing it in pain. Requirements: Int. 13+, Base attack bonus +4, Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes Benefit: Taking a -2 on your attack roll, you can reduce the speed of the target by half on a successful attack. The target’s speed is reduced until after 24 hours have passed or it receives a DC 15 Heal check. The target must be within one size category of you. If the creature is a quadruped (4 legs), it takes two hamstring attacks to reduce it’s speed. Creature with no legs or more than four legs are unaffected by this maneuver. Creatures immune to critical hits are also unaffected. Slit Throat (Melee, slashing) Your ability to lay down unaware foes quickly helps you as you take out another victim effortlessly. Requirements: Int. 15, Sneak attack 3d6, Nimble Fingers, Quick Draw Benefit: When you catch an opponent by surprise (Flat-Footed and unaware), you may take a full round action and sacrifice 2d6 of your sneak attack damage to send the target prone, and by chance dying. After a successful attack, the target knocked prone must make a fortitude save equal to (10+½ your base attack bonus). If the target fails, then it’s HP is reduced to -1 and is dying.
BladeMage_1 02-12-06, 05:02 PM	The first two are from Complete Warrior. I've converted them from feats to maneuvers. Pin Shield (Melee) You find an opening in your opponent’s defense and manage to pin his shield open with your off-hand weapon. Requirements: Two weapon fighting, base attack bonus +4 Benefit: You can pin a target’s shield out of the way with your off-hand weapon, lowering it’s defenses. To pin a shield, you must sacrifice all off-hand attacks that round. All other attacks made by you that round are with your primary hand, but still suffering the two weapon fighting penalties as normal. The target gains no shield bonus to AC until the end of your turn. You cannot use this maneuver if the target doesn’t have a shield equipped or if you do not have an off-hand weapon. Ranged Pin (Ranged, piercing) Your well placed shot pins it’s target right up against the wall. Requirements: Dex. 15+, Point blank shot, Precise shot, base attack bonus +5 Benefit: You can make a ranged grapple attempt by catching a piece of it’s clothing or armor to a nearby surface. The target must be wearing some kind of loose apparel. The target must also be within 5 feet of some surface that a thrown weapon or projectile can be stuck into. You must succeed a ranged attack, then you must win a grapple check, and opposed grapple check (size modifiers still apply). If the target is grappled to the nearby surface, it suffers all the normal penalties of being grappled. To break free, the target must make a DC 15 strength check or DC 15 escape artist check. When using this maneuver, you do not gain any benefit from the improved grapple feat. Quick sweep (Unarmed) Your efficiency in unarmed combat enables you to make quick strikes against foes. Requirements: Dex 17+, Improved Unarmed combat, Improved trip, base attack bonus +6 Benefit: Your trip attack is treated as a free action. The target is treated as Flat-footed (No Dex. bonus to defense) during the trip attack.
MasterofyourDomain 02-12-06, 08:48 PM	This is a good idea. As long as there aren't going to be a billion of these to keep track of I think it could work out fine. Let me give it a try: Drop Strike (Melee) You jump onto the thing's neck, holding on tight as you smash it's head with your weapon. Requirements: Dex. 13+, Jump ranks 8, base attack bonus +4, Benefit: Your ability to jump enables you to latch on a creature larger than you to bring it down. First, you must make a jump check. You can jump on a large creature on the same level as you with a running start. The Jump DC for this is DC 20. You cannot jump on a creature 2 categories or higher unless you have elevation you can use. If the Jump check succeeds, you must make a melee touch attack to grab on the creature. If the touch attack succeeds, you are successfully latched onto the target. The target loses any Dex. bonus it had towards you, in addition to taking an additional -2 penalty to AC. This lasts for one round, after that, the target can make a melee touch attack to throw you off (which provokes an AOO from you).
wizkid 02-12-06, 09:00 PM	Well this is strange. People seem to be "stealing" my ideas.(No offence) But I mentioned these on an old thread but you seem to have my idea perfectly.(litterly) But to the point. But also I thought about advanced levels of each menuver. Like an enhanced version of each menuver. Lets take gut as an example. Once you reach a high reqierment ,like a doubled BAB, it could increase it's efectiveness.
elven warriorXX 02-12-06, 09:28 PM	For those people that what to 'swing on a rope and attack'. You can use this with the Swinging rules found in the DMGII Swing attack [needs better name] (Melee) You can swing on a rope or vine and attack. Requirements: Dex 15+ (need other ideas) Benefit: If there is a rope hanging from the ceiling, a chandelier, chain, and the like you can make a DC 10 dex/str check (15 if medium load, 20 if heavy load) to swing to the point allowed by the rope length. The swinger can try a Jump/tumble check to land were he wants if allowed by the rope. He can make a free attack as a Unarmed strike against any creature in the targeted space, He acts like Charging and deals and extra +4 on unarmed damage along with knocking the creature back 5ft.
ThiefofSouls 02-12-06, 11:32 PM	The idea sound pretty good, and flavor wise it's very good, you have no need to worry about 10,000 of them out there, as John, the fighter, has a unique style of fightin that focus on about 10-30 of those, thatare further improved by his equipment/feat selection. Might give a try on it: Stab and Twist [Melee] Requirements: int 13, dex 15, sneak attak 1d6 Benefit: When you attack a foe that is a valid target of your sneak attack you can forgo dealing 1d6 dmage to inflict a bleeding wound on that foe (Fort:10+½ your base attack bonus)[I'll just stick with the OP idea to his slit throat ability as far as save DC is concerned], you can sacrifice more sneak attack bonus so the bleeding wound is deeper(the wound bleed for 1 point of damage for every sneak attack die you sacrifice), the bleeding won't stop naturally but a (DC 15 + per sneak attack die used) heal check can stop it, as any cure spell of same lvl as the number of sneak attack dmg used. Don't know if it's well balanced, but that's why we are here to work on these together.
BladeMage_1 02-13-06, 05:58 PM	Well this is strange. People seem to be "stealing" my ideas.(No offense) But I mentioned these on an old thread but you seem to have my idea perfectly(litteraly). But to the point. But also I thought about advanced levels of each menuver. Like an enhanced version of each menuver. Lets take gut as an example. Once you reach a high requirement ,like a doubled BAB, it could increase it's effectiveness. That is strange. But if you think about it, it's not too strange that I came up with this, as I'm guessing others have thought about the same (you being one). I think I caught the idea because I'm just getting that my players didn't "believe" when I told them that drow's head exploded when the monk got a crit... Anyway, I see your idea, and it would be a cool thing if I could make a system that improved your maneuvers over gaining power. You will notice most of these become less useful against big baddies,and more for an orc fight or taking out some guards. We need some kind of system that allows you to improve your maneuvers. Originally, I'd thought of a system that divided all the maneuvers into 3 or 4 categories. Basic, simple, advanced, and masterful (of course in acsending order) Basic were your basic moves, anyone could do them, from your barbarian to your scrawny wizard. You gained the rest by class and level. Fighters got them faster, while wizards don't even make advanced.
jazzman831 02-13-06, 10:26 PM	First of all, I realize that you are doing this for that hard-to-obtain "cool" factor, and I commend you for it, but I think I have to rain a little on the cool parade. Since all of these maneuvers emulate feats (some of which emulate specific feats) how does this keep the game balanced? Maybe the balances are in there and I don't see them, but it seems like you are just adding free feats without actually taking anything away. Personally, I think combat manouvers should be more in how you describe your actions, maybe with a small bonus for describing them particularly well. If you aren't aiming for balance then just ignore me and I'll keep on enjoying reading the posts!
Leress 02-13-06, 11:16 PM	I recommend reading the Malhavoc press book "Book of Iron Might" it a source book for combat maneuvers. It has a lot of them and has drawbacks to balance them out.
BladeMage_1 02-17-06, 05:23 PM	First of all, I realize that you are doing this for that hard-to-obtain "cool" factor, and I commend you for it, but I think I have to rain a little on the cool parade. Since all of these maneuvers emulate feats (some of which emulate specific feats) how does this keep the game balanced? Maybe the balances are in there and I don't see them, but it seems like you are just adding free feats without actually taking anything away. Personally, I think combat manouvers should be more in how you describe your actions, maybe with a small bonus for describing them particularly well. If you aren't aiming for balance then just ignore me and I'll keep on enjoying reading the posts! Well, I see your point. The balances are there, perhaps in the description of the manuever. First off, you need the feat requirements, but the maneuvers aren't as valuable as feats. Why take a feat when the feat only grants one benefit? So, these are 'free', but you will not be able to do all of the maneuvers, just the ones that apply to your fighting style. This was just an idea and experiment for me, I like to wing combat and roleplaying (I rarely stick to the RAW), so I probably won't use these myself. I am usually one to say "name the action and I'll make up the rules as we go". I'm just offering for people who want more realistic gaming than winging descriptions. I haven't been getting too many contributors so I guess this idea isn't a great one. But, oh well, you can use it or not, I'm just throwing the idea out there.
Vahenir 02-17-06, 07:32 PM	jazzman covered what I was going to say, but I still have this to add: If you're serious about implementing combat maneuvers in D&D, I would highly suggest picking up the OGL Conan game by Mongoose. Since it's d20, the conversion should be fairly straight-forward and the game already includes special combat maneuvers. Quite a few really good ones, I might add.
fatal error 02-18-06, 03:09 AM	If you were especially concerned over balance, you could bundle several related ones into one feat. WotC did this and called them 'tactical' feats as found in complete warrior. And I love them. In fact, me and a few friends are currently working on creating our own spin-off system, which will involve skill 'trees', that as you increase in skill with your weapons (and other skills) you automatically also gain access to new maneuvers, very similar to this. So, to contribute: Split Shot (Ranged) requirements: Far shot. benefit: You fire an arrow in a high arc, sending it plummeting on to your foe's head, then quickly loose another directly at him, forcing his shield and attention one way or the other. You halve your attacks for the round (rounded down), but these attacks ignore your opponent's shield, dodge and dexterity bonuses to defense. Over Power requirements:Power Attack, two handed weapon. benefit: When power attacking for at least -2, you can sacrifice the 4 extra damage and in exchange make a free bull rush attempt against your foe if you hit. If successful you bull rush your foes back one square at the maximum.