Condensing Combat Maneuvers

[StreamOfTheSky]

Quite simply...there's too man combat maneuvers, IMO. PF already punished maneuver users by making CMD crazy hard to beat and splitting the benefits of the "Improved" feats into two feats for the most part. And so many of the new maneuvers seem WAAAY too niche. So, why not combine them with others to get a smaller end list? Basically, each of the current maneuvers would become one of multiple options for any of these new consolidated maneuver categories, but would otherwise follow the same mechanics.

Here are my ideas for how to do this:

*Bull Rush + Drag + Reposition = Reposition

Pretty simple. All of the maneuvers that move a target against their will under one roof. The Improved and Greater feats would require Str 13 and Power Attack (Reposition uses Int and Expertise currently).

*Disarm + Steal = Disarm

Both maneuvers are about taking something off another's person in combat. Honestly, I wish Steal didn't exist and Paizo had used Sleight of Hand for this instead. Oh well...

*Dirty Trick + Feint = Dirty Trick

I want a better name. Something like "Whatever it takes," or "Fighting Smart," or...something... Anyway, both of these are about using trickery and cheap tricks/deception to beat the foe in an underhanded fashion.

Grapple, Overrun, Sunder, and Trip remain unchanged. Also, the idea would be that you'd need a single Improved and Greater feat for everything in the category, if that was unclear. What do you think? Good/bad idea? Balanced or not?

 

[enrious]

*Dirty Trick + Feint = Dirty Trick

I want a better name. Something like "Whatever it takes," or "Fighting Smart," or...something... Anyway, both of these are about using trickery and cheap tricks/deception to beat the foe in an underhanded fashion.

Subterfuge springs to mind.



As for the rest, it's something I'd consider, but then, I'm getting increasingly tired of fighting the rules to run a cinematic campaign. I mean, I'm currently thinking of ditching AoOs entirely because among other things, a recent bar fight led into feat spamming because of AoOs.

I may toss grapple for the same thing.

To be honest, I think making the changes you suggest wouldn't be worth the effort it'd take to un-learn the existing rules, unless there were a lot more maneuvers.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

The maneuvers still work exactly the same, the only "unlearning" is that now some of the feats apply to multiply maneuvers.

 

[Walking Dad]

Great idea. I like this very much!

 

[tylermalan]

It definitely doesn't seem UNbalanced.

Though... I don't know. It seems like the main benefit to this is that it allows a character to use multiple different maneuvers equally well, but the ones you've grouped together are not so commonly used, really. Because of this, it seems like a waste of effort to bother grouping them.

 

[Matthias]

I don't mind so much that there's many different combat maneuvers. Where players and DMs want to make use of them, they add spice to the otherwise bland formula of attacking and rolling damage--as well as casting spells and forcing saves or rolling damage--till one side or the other is vanquished. I view them mainly as alternative methods of defeating an enemy other than simply shooting, stabbing, hacking, bashing, or magicking them to death. If fighting without combat maneuvers gets the job done faster than fighting using them, then that's what the PCs will do.