Monte Cook's new Grapple rule, and my own

[Jeff Wilder]

Have you thought about the other combat manuevers, too? Everyone gets all stuck on grapple, but they never consider bull rush, trip, overrun, and disarm.

And that, for me, is why "15 + CMB" is important to keep for special maneuvers. It represents a 30 percent chance of success against an evenly-matched opponent, and the effects are very strong.

Making a BBEG lose or waste actions -- which is the result of many of the combat maneuvers -- is disproportionately favorable to players in a big, big way. When you consider the selective nature of them -- someone will only try any given maneuver when it promises a potential reward much larger that its cost -- the current "15 + CMB" difficulty is just about right.

The things that need to be fixed about the rule are definitional, not numerical.

 

[R1C0F3TT]

There aren't any monsters that have "on a successful hit, this monster establishes a hold and can disarm/overrun/trip," so it really doesn't come up.

Wolves, among other creatures, can trip other creatures on a succesful bite attack.

 

[Noumenon]

Jeff, that's a really good point and I think you're probably right. The 15 DC just has the unfortunate side effect of making it even more impossible to escape from a grapple, which is what was bothering me in the first place.

I haven't been playing D&D very long, but I have always loved the special combat maneuvers for all the variety they bring to combat. I don't wanna just hit, hit, hit. In my personal group, people don't abuse any of them, you just see about one every third combat. So the 15 + CMB probably isn't necessary for me. I like how the base rulings let me do stuff like pull a bugbear off his spider mount, or bull rush a PC back into a swarm of centipedes, or disarm a guy before he can make it past me to hit my wizard. I'm glad those maneuvers work often enough to be worth trying.

 

[Kerrick]

That works both ways, too - if the PC has only a 30% chance of accomplishing his goal, he's not likely to do it, and we'll be right back where we are now.