A Fighter Who Can Attack 6 Times and Bull Rush 3 Times in a Single Round?!?!

Another Example of the Tastyness of Shield Bash/Shield Slam

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Sylvianna the thief/mage and Tartann the fighter finish off the last of the kobold zombies in a tough battle. Sylvianna has sustained a great deal of damage and takes a moment to bind her wounds.

After casting detect magic from a scroll, she is drawn to a cleverly hidden chest in a corner of the room housing items that radiate a strong alteration magic. Carefully looking it over she finds a powerful acid trap guarding from anyone foolish enough to open it.

Sylvianna bends down and starts to disable the tricky trap on the ornate chest. She is carefully working past the sensitive triggers that would spray acid all over anything in a 10 foot radius.

Tartann is looking nervously from her to the chest hoping she doesn't kill them both. He hears something from the hall and turns to look.

Just then Ruggle the goblin dressed in blood stained studded leather enters the room. He is supprised to see his kobold slaves scattered dead around the room and an elf and dwarf standing in the corner. There is rage on his face as he points to Sylvianna. He rushes toward Sylvianna and says in barely intelligible common, "Keep your hands off my stones (pun intended)."

In his rage Ruggle makes a mistake and tries to run past Tartann in an effort to stop Sylvianna from opening the chest. Doing this provokes and attack of opportunity (AO) so Tartann will get one hit on Ruggle as he charges past.

Tartann knows that Sylvianna shouldn't be interrupted, she has a low AC and very few hit points left from the previous battle. He cannot let Ruggle get to Sylvianna. He decides to shield bash Ruggle.

Ruggle's AC is 14 (+2 armor and +2 Dex bonus) his combat maneuver defense (CMD) is 16 (10 +2 Dex, +4 BAB). Tartann makes an attack and the total is 21. He hits Ruggle with his shield bash doing 5 points of damage and he gets the free bull rush attempt from his shield slam feat. He uses the 21 from the attack and +4 from his improved and greater bull rush feats for a total of 25 on his combat maneuver check, 9 over Ruggle's CMD.

The combat maneuver succeeds throwing Ruggle 5 feet plus 5 feet for every 5 points over Ruggles CMD. The total is 10 feet. Normally Ruggle would fly 15 feet and be able to finish his movement but there is a wall 10 feet away so Ruggle hits the wall and falls flat on his face (Prone).

Ruggle uses the rest of his round standing up from prone.

Tartann has successfully stopped Ruggle in his tracks!
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Ok it looks like I forgot to add Ruggle's and the Hobgoblin's base attack bonuses to their combat maneuver defence! They would not have moved quite as far if their BAB was added in. It could be +4 for Ruggle and +6 for the Hobgoblins... This would raise the CMD of Ruggle to 18 and the CMD for the Hobgoblins to 20. - OK I fixed it!

I would say that mechanically this all works together, but I think the likelihood of successfully hitting all 3 of the shield bashes is pretty low at this level.

Your level 11 fighter has a BAB +11 - 2 (if you're using a light shield) for 2 weapon fighting, (-4 if heavy shield). +4 STR (I'm assuming 18 after the 2 level increases) is only a +13 or +11 depending on your shield type to attack.

So your initial attack rolls are you rolling 12/14 to hit 25 AC, attack 2 on the hobgoblins would have to be a 19/21 (somehow) on the die to hit 27 AC, and attack 3 would have to be 14/16 on the die to hit AC 17... those are pretty high rolls to hit and mostly you won't hit them consistently in a give round or battle.

You're going to average a 10.5 on the d20 throughout, and with that average none of those attacks would have hit the hobgoblins.

So sure, mechanically it would work, but practically that would be a once in a lifetime round of battle at level 11...

Note: I'm not taking any magic items into consideration, because most 11th level characters won't be able to afford a shield that is magical both defensively and as a weapon, in addition to their other magic items they may possess and in order to have a shield with bonuses to hit and damage you have to have it enchanted separately as a weapon...

Cruncheriffic.

Salthorae - I agree with you. The numbers I used were just to verify a mechanical question I was having with someone. I am glad that you agree with the mechanical aspect of what I wrote.

I left a lot of things out of the description; magical items, modifiers (sickened, shaken, aid, bless...) or any other feats like weapon focus or fighter weapon training. I only gave you the final number on the attack roll to demonstrate the mechanics of the attack/feat without going into a lot of other details.

Yeah, I do think that mechanically it works. As pawsplay said "cruncherific"...

If your character invests the feats to be able to basically knock people away by slamming a shield into them, sure... Plus it would look pretty cool in a movie or cartoon fight sequence.

"Hobgoblin 1 flies 5 feet for the combat maneuver succeeding plus an extra 5 feet for every 5 points over his combat maneuver defense (CMD). CMC 29 - CMD 20 = 9 points over his CMD. The total distance he is moved back is 10 feet.

Hobgoblin 2. CMC 31 - CMD 20 = 11. The total distance he is moved back is 15 feet. He hits a wall and falls prone.

Hobgoblin 3. CMC 21 - CMD 20 = 1. The total distance he is moved back is 5 fee"

Round down, not up . Hobo 1 should only fly 5 ft or one square, hobo 2 10 feet, or 2 squares, and the last one really isn't moved at all - but the player succeed so I'd make it a minimum movement of 1 5ft square.

pascale said:

"Hobgoblin 1 flies 5 feet for the combat maneuver succeeding plus an extra 5 feet for every 5 points over his combat maneuver defense (CMD). CMC 29 - CMD 20 = 9 points over his CMD. The total distance he is moved back is 10 feet.

Hobgoblin 2. CMC 31 - CMD 20 = 11. The total distance he is moved back is 15 feet. He hits a wall and falls prone.

Hobgoblin 3. CMC 21 - CMD 20 = 1. The total distance he is moved back is 5 fee"

Round down, not up . Hobo 1 should only fly 5 ft or one square, hobo 2 10 feet, or 2 squares, and the last one really isn't moved at all - but the player succeed so I'd make it a minimum movement of 1 5ft square.

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PfSRD said:

If your attack is successful, your target is pushed back 5 feet. For every 5 by which your attack exceeds your opponent's CMD you can push the target back an additional 5 feet. You can move with the target if you wish but you must have the available movement to do so. If your attack fails, your movement ends in front of the target.

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So if the Hobgoblin's CMD is 20, "succeeding" on the attack is a CM total roll of 20, which would move them back 5', period per the Bull Rush rules.

For every 5 points which would exceed the CMD, in this example at a check of 26,31,36,41,etc, the hobgoblins would fly back and additional 5'. There is no rounding involved in this.

Hob1 would go back 5' for succeeding, and 5' more because you exceeded the CMD greater than 5 over, but not 10 or more, so a total of 10'

Hob2 would fly back 15' because you succeeded and exceeded by 11, which is 2 increments of 5 +1

Hob3 would simply fly back 5' becuase you succeeded and only exceeded by 1, not the required 5...

Salthorae said:

Hob2 would fly back 15' because you succeeded and exceeded by 11, which is 2 increments of 5 +1

.

Click to expand...

You exceeded the CMD by 11, not 15 therefor the hob is only going back 10'.