NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Staffan" data-source="post: 8731475" data-attributes="member: 907">The thing is, making these things use a limited resource allows them to be stronger and under the control of the attacker. Anyone can Shove (Athletics vs Athletics or Acrobatics) as long as they have a free hand, but it takes up an attack. The Battlemaster can make an attack that hits, and then determine both that they'll add damage and potentially Trip their foe, and doesn't need a free hand to do it. 3e had a number of combat maneuvers that were, in theory, open to everyone (bull rush, disarm, trip, grapple). However, in most cases there were such severe penalties for trying them without special training (in the form of feats) that you might as well not bother, and if you did spend the feats they became an expected part of your routine and not a Special Cool Thing to do on occasion. The classical example was of course the Spiked Chain fighter with Improved Trip, who would trip you at a distance, use Improved Trip to give you an extra hit, then hit you again while you were down with their second attack and 5'-step away, and then use an attack of opportunity to trip you again when you tried to close, and then repeat the process. That's just boring and exploitative.But the 3e situation illustrates a problem: it's really hard to balance at-will maneuvers. Either you make them difficult to pull off in which case no-one will do them, or you make them easy in which case they become a routine thing to do. I think the closest thing anyone has managed to do for them is the 13th Age fighter, who gets to trigger various maneuvers based on their attack roll (usually "X or higher" or "even"). This, on the other hand, has the disadvantage of not letting the fighter decide when to do a cool thing.I liked the explanation for encounter exploits back in 4e: after doing them once, everyone is on to your tricks. Of course, a short rest means something different in 5e than in 4e, but that's another rant.</blockquote>

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