Playtest (A5E) Level Up Playtest Document #16: Combat Maneuvers

Stalker0 · Apr 9, 2021

Faolyn said:
Is it too late to ask for more maneuvers for dual-weapon fighting and for shield bashes?

So there are several manuevers that do work well with TWF, but they aren't necessarily obvious. Basically anything that applies to all of your attacks (and doesn't use your bonus action) works well with TWF. Also all of the techniques that consume 2 attacks, you can throw in your off hand to get more bonus on those.

Examples:

1) Rake - Get +1d8 on your extra attacks.
2) Knockdown assault (Kind of) - Again more attacks is more chances to trip, but off hand attacks tend to do less damage and so decrease the chance of a tirigger.
3) Eye Slash - You hit the target and blind them with the main attack, then can follow up and gain advantage with the off hand.
4) Dangerous Strikes - Higher crit chances benefits more attacks.
5) Stunning Assault - Similar to Eye slash

That reminds me, does Instant Strike actually do anything? We've always played it that drawing your weapon was part of the free "object interaction" rules in 5e.

Stalker0 · Apr 9, 2021

Faolyn said:
So what interesting combos have people come up with? I'm not great at combos myself, but was immediately amused by Stand Tall plus Hurl Ally, which would allow you to toss an ally the same size as yourself.

Not necessarily powerful, but I think the combo of Horizon Shot and Throwing Stance allowing me to throw Greatswords 600 feet or more is pretty hilarious

Instinctive Counterattack combos well with lots of techniques, as extra action can receive the technique benefit.

Tinker-TDC · Apr 10, 2021

Can someone help me understand Apotheosis Assault?
It requires 3 points and 3 attacks to use so let's say I'm a 15th level fighter with a longsword.
Instead of making 3 attacks I would make 1 attack and, as written, determine the number of successful hits (1), add up the damage dice for each attack (1d8), roll it all at once (4), and then add my static bonus to damage (+4).
I successfully deal 8 damage as a 15th level fighter.

Say instead I'm the same fighter at 20th level. I make 2 attacks (3 attacks to use the technique and 1 more because I have 4 attacks), determine the number of successful hits (2), add up the damage dice for each attack (2d8), roll it all at once (9), and then add my static bonus to damage (+4) only once.
I successfully deal 13 damage. If I only made two attacks of my four and did not use the technique I would have dealt 17 damage. If I used my usual attack action I would attack four times and deal around 34 damage.

I guess the question is: is LevelUp going to have enough monsters that are immune to all damage that this technique would ever be useful?

Stalker0 · Apr 10, 2021

Tinker-TDC said:
View attachment 135376
Can someone help me understand Apotheosis Attack?
It requires 3 points and 3 attacks to use so let's say I'm a 15th level fighter with a longsword.
Instead of making 3 attacks I would make 1 attack and, as written, determine the number of successful hits (1), add up the damage dice for each attack (1d8), roll it all at once (4), and then add my static bonus to damage (+4).
I successfully deal 8 damage as a 15th level fighter.

Say instead I'm the same fighter at 20th level. I make 2 attacks (3 attacks to use the technique and 1 more because I have 4 attacks), determine the number of successful hits (2), add up the damage dice for each attack (2d8), roll it all at once (9), and then add my static bonus to damage (+4) only once.
I successfully deal 13 damage. If I only made two attacks of my four and did not use the technique I would have dealt 17 damage. If I used my usual attack action I would attack four times and deal around 34 damage.

I guess the question is: is LevelUp going to have enough monsters that are immune to all damage that this technique would ever be useful?

Honestly I read it as “you get all your attacks, but do it in this special way”.

now your ruling I think is more accurate, and horribly weak as you noted. My version you at least gain all the attack die, but you still lose a lot in ability score damage.

neither version is good IMO, it’s one of the maneuvers I definately flagged for second review

Morrus · Apr 10, 2021

Tinker-TDC said:
View attachment 135376
Can someone help me understand Apotheosis Assault?
It requires 3 points and 3 attacks to use so let's say I'm a 15th level fighter with a longsword.
Instead of making 3 attacks I would make 1 attack and, as written, determine the number of successful hits (1), add up the damage dice for each attack (1d8), roll it all at once (4), and then add my static bonus to damage (+4).
I successfully deal 8 damage as a 15th level fighter.

Say instead I'm the same fighter at 20th level. I make 2 attacks (3 attacks to use the technique and 1 more because I have 4 attacks), determine the number of successful hits (2), add up the damage dice for each attack (2d8), roll it all at once (9), and then add my static bonus to damage (+4) only once.
I successfully deal 13 damage. If I only made two attacks of my four and did not use the technique I would have dealt 17 damage. If I used my usual attack action I would attack four times and deal around 34 damage.

I guess the question is: is LevelUp going to have enough monsters that are immune to all damage that this technique would ever be useful?

I’m not the writer for this, so can’t speak with authority, but I’m told the benefit is the lack of reactions allowed.

Tinker-TDC · Apr 10, 2021

Morrus said:
I’m not the writer for this, so can’t speak with authority, but I’m told the benefit is the lack of reactions allowed.

That's interesting. There must be some pretty good reactions because looking at what it does I'd give it maybe second-degree and 1 exertion for most of the reactions I'm familiar with. Love most of them though!

Faolyn · Apr 10, 2021

Morrus said:
I’m not the writer for this, so can’t speak with authority, but I’m told the benefit is the lack of reactions allowed.

I would have thought that it was the ability to ignore resistances and immunities that was the useful part. Because that was the only reason I could think of why this was even a maneuver. But now that I think about it, by the time you get this maneuver, it's unlikely that nobody in the party has magical weapons the spells needed to get past a creature's resistances.

The lack of reactions is kind of weak, IMO. Unless, as Tinker-TDC says, some creatures have really good reactions.

tetrasodium · Apr 10, 2021

Basic Maneuvers, adamant mountain, biting zephyr, & mirror's glint here
Mist & shade, rapid current, & razor's edge here

Doubleteam: The cost is just massively off on this. Not only does someone need to take the maneuver but they need to expend a point of exertion plus a bonus action before an ally can themselves use a bonus action to make an athletics check that hopefully maybe trips or shoves the opponent.
Legion stance: bit iffy on the triggering with so many of the crit range enhancing things being per use or a stance themselves. Allowing an ally to make an AoO when you crit isn't bad, but without being able to use it in conjunction with crit range enhancing stances it feels like this should be improved somehow or inverted so you can make an AoO when an ally crits a creature you are in reach of
Shield Wall: Shields are pretty iffy on cost/benefit in o5e for some reason & I rarely ever see more than one player in the group with one but with a5e having 3 different types of shields that might change. Either way this is probably good to some degree in groups with multiple shield users. Given back to back I wonder if this should be a stance?
Shoulder Check: It just sounds like this will be fun in the bob stands up yells boom at the zombie & everyone cheers kinda way. I can't wait.
Back to back: This sounds pretty much identical to shield walll for the same cost without the double shield restriction. Unless I'm missing something one or both of these should probably change
Double tackle: Neat use of teamwork but the creature can just stand up next round unless things are changing. grapple/knock prone effects in o5e are usually one of those things that sound cooler on a mechanical level than thy actually are
Dual Grapple: sounds like a fun twist on grappling but not sure about the cost/benefit.
Follow-up Topple: The first thing I imagine when I read this is a player asking "is tat trip in addition to or instead of damage from the attack?" In addition to this is really good. Instead of,... I'm not sure.
Hurl Ally: I've seen a bear form moon druid do this with a kenku rogue much to everyone's amusement when the feathery "dart" struck true & started stabbing so look forward to this
Look at me!: Seems like it would be situational but anyone with reach might get great use out of this... maybe. I'm not sure either way
Body guard: Pretty awesome rescue card for tanky types to keep in their pocket, the group will really feel it when this gets used well.
Brave Shield: wowworthy way of making using a shield awesome when saves are going to be critical
Doubletime: mass disengage will be awesome in a lot of situations I'm sure
Bloodbond: This seems a little too niche & feels like maybe it should last more than one round even if it resets each round.
Rallying cry: Most martials don't have any (good) ways of healing an ally in desperate need & healing kits are terribad so this provides what will probably be very appreciated healing capability.
United we Stand: Giving up an attack to potentially give all of your allies a free attack on something is pretty cool/

Cavalier stance: In multiple campaigns I've seen a player take mounted combatant to synrgize with a moon druid(kinda) & it always falls a little short because there is extra work & the rider gets benefits while the druid not so much. This is pretty awesome for solving that but probbably works well for normal mounts too.
Lancer Strike: It feelsodd that this seems to be the first charge type maneuver that gives some bonus beyond movement.
Mounted Charge: Much the same as lancer strike
Riding Leap: I feel myself at a loss searching for the value in this to a player. Sure it sounds dramatic & interesting but mechanically feels lacking
Rearing Menace: Interesting aoe fear for disrupting things
Spur Mount: mounts being subjected to save or x stuff can be the end of a mount pretty eaily & this does a nice job of helping improve the odds.
Trample: 2d6 might not seem like much, but it adds up & will really make riding a mount feel different when useful.
Launched strike: guaranteed crits are awesome to pack in the quiver, especially for rogues paladins/heralds & anyone with a bursting weapon
Sacrifice mount: A moon druid might not care & could even appreciate being subjected to this on top of some of the cool things already in this tradition giving them a step up & even riding a normal mount there might be situayions where it's more desirable than the rider getting wacked themselves
Saddled blows: That's a really nice assortment of status condition debuffs to pick from.
Become one: Nifty tool for making some mount choices really shine.
Prodigious Leap: There are a lot of times where even a short fly speed like this will be extremely useful to the party when smeone has a mount.
Spirited whistle: This should maybe include a footnote for intelligent mounts (friendly monsters, moon druids, awakened stuff, etc) maybe give it some kind of buff to do it in that case?
steely steed stance: This literally made me say "holy naughty word". Paired with a moon druid or nonstandard mount it could be the most powerful stance in the pdf but I don't think it's problematic because that player/on druid combo always seems so awkward to coordinate & most of the time I've seen it with a kobold moon druid in more than one campaign I was running
Devastating charge: Nifty way of coordinating with a pounce capable mount but still nice with other mounts
Reassuring Pat: Mountstake a lot of damage when attacked & are hard to heal, this offers a nice option.
Wheeling charge: neat sounding but mechanically your giving up two attacks to make two attacks with some complicated positioning dance in the mix. Even if your mount gets to take the dodge action the payoff seems lacking.

Imposing Glare: Even with the penalty on a second use per combat this could offer a melee type a powerful tool in combat to draw at the right time & it's just cool.
Purge Magic: Amusing name to get an AoO against someone casting a spell but raises the question if this triggers a concentration check or not but that kind of answer seems like it belongs in spellcasting rules
Striding strings: Seems like it might be useful sometimes... maybe. either way I bet it will make players feel cool when they use it
Zealous stance: Kind of an interesting twist on reckless attack as a stance
Faith within: Nice assortment of conditions you can reaction to get a second chance at saving against to make this a serious contender for "which maneuver to take next" questions.
Gaze of conviction: Interesting bit of mind control, the ends if you attack something else & bonus action along with short duration probably do a nice job of offsetting the mind control. I like the use of compelled rather than forced since it allows some more room for not walking through a wall of thorns or something like taking a bunch AoOs setup for a "forced to" move
Stunning assault: This is extremely costly given the 2 attack burn but being able to run it on all of your attacks till the end of your next turn probably makes it work out even if fighter takes this at level 8 when they first get access to this
Break spell: It sounds like maybe this answers the question about if purge magic forces a concentration check.. maybe... Presumably maneuver DC will ofte be higher tha damage on a normal hit but at least 05e concentration checks are silly low dc unless a caster gets hit for "zomg that was like half my health & my lung is on the ground" so that's an easy bar to hit.
Defy magic: Interesting way of adding a SR type mechanic. 7th level spells are so rare that it makes for a neat loophole that will probably never come up.
Dispelling Assault: I'm not sure how I feel about skipping two attacks to get increased crit range till the start of your next turn even if you can maybe get a crit that nukes lower level spells. The cost seems a bit high if I understand how those two attack costs work right
Devoted Assault: This interesting maneuver is almost a must to really get the most out of some of these tempered iron maneuvers but it feels like it should maybe be 1 min concentration like focus foe in razor's edge rather than till the start of your next turn.
Dispelling charge: This is a pretty neat charge effect & quite powerful when it can go since spellcasters casting spells are almost always bad news for the party
Holy pyre stance: Nifty bit of reciprocity to make using this qualify someone as an ally caster's best friend worthy of extra attention
Spell shattering strike: Instead of speed reduced to zero this should grapple them with their disrupted spell energy for the same duration.
Branding steel: I like the interaction with move closer>save & heal30 hp along with all the actual debuffs for a good mix.
Burning embers of faith: interesting way of coming back up, but it doesn't say you can take this action while incap like unyielding & technically you can't use it when reduced to zero
Master of tempered iron: oh my god, +level damage & maybe more against spellcasters?... I saw a lot of neat looking stuff in the spells summary so this makes me look forward to the end result of actual spells. As a 5th level maneuver it's maybe balanced

Bounding strike: with all the ways one could get expertise dice on acrobatics & athletics this could make for a very reliable charging attack
Raking strikes: even with disadvantage on it, getting a second attack potentially as early as level 1 this could be pretty nice
Ride the enemy: probably fun for players. I'm not really sure about the usefulness of climb on, but with flying foes I could definitely see it being useful
Springing stance: It seems like there are a lot of jump enhancing maneuvers but I'm not sure what changes elsewhere make them useful
expert tumble: It can be tough to move your full speed unless foes are more than that far away but the ac bump is probably a worthy boon in return
Primal intercept: neat bit of biteyness to keep in the quiver for those times it's useful, especially for rogues.
Gut strike: nifty debuff.
Rake: kinda nice extra damage but it's not clear if you need to hit the foe twice on the turn you activate this or if that;s just
fluff
Wild capering: maybe useful?
Blind instinct: oooooOOOoo blindsighy with extra toys when it counts
Bloody roar: wow wis save or psychic damage cube attack is going to be interesting even if damage isn't very high given the fear that goes with it.
Mercurial striking stance: this is going to feel very powerful & avoids the annoying slowdown of "holdon I reroll 1s&2s" Statistically it might only bump the average damage half a point or two but getting rid of those ones & twos entirely will feel a lot better by making attacks reliable & that gets even better with stuff like sneak dice
Prey on the weak: Another interesting on demand crit maneuver
Furious barrage: Given that anyoone with only two attacks could use this to get three or more attacks this is going to feel pretty awesome like when someone gets a good run on an exploding dice system such as savage worlds
Howl at the moon: Interesting combo that will probably feel pretty cool in play
Wounded animal Gambit: nifty way of reworking feign death into something actually useful.

Dangerous signature: The duration & way of clearing this is much better than the old equivalent while still being pretty useful
Throwing stance: This could be an automatic crit & still be questionable unless it's like a dagger or something you can carry tons of & it doesn't really do anything in that case. The problem with throwing a nice weapon is that now your nice weapon is far away.
Victory Pose: Pretty tenuous circumstances to get a crit and then have allies making death saves in the next minute. Your probably better off by far taking one of the heal an ally maneuvers unless this is altered to something else.
Wounding Strike: The first actual Dot , nifty.
Deflect strike: Reduce damage by a number of d6's equal to prof bonus is going to be pretty huge & really scale well as the party levels
Instant strike: Tough to gauge this one without knowing what draw a weapon costs when the time comes. If the action economy is the same for that then it's tough to see this doing anything?
Preternatural strikes: With the herald level 10ish ability it sounds like this kind of effect might take more than just any +1 weapon so maybe good?
Disarming assault: It feels like these kind of disarm things should be limited to one handed items held. This is going to be a lot of disarm attempts too.
Expert sidestep: nifty +ac reaction ability
Unsettling injury: End concentration and/or a foes's combat stance is pretty awesome'
Any weapon stance: we don't know enough about how equipment will be reworked to judge this but the mention of "rare weapons" definitely sounds interesting
Explosive step: another crit range improving maneuver to stack with the others
Mistaken opportunity: Turn a miss into attacking something else in reach with advantage will make pole arms & other reach weapons interesting.
Wind strike: Much ore interesting than throw anything stance, maybe this should be the stance instead?
Heart of the sword: I think thi might be the first 1 minute crit range bump making it pretty interesting by comparison.
Apotheosis: Interesting way for martial types to overcome a DR type system that penalizes multiple smaller attacks more than one big one but with o5e having resist50% that works a bit different it raises interesting questions about the a5e changes
Unparalleled under heaven:why does this take 2 attacks then seem to give them back with a huge bonus I could see this being awesome when paired with techniques that grant extra attacks & guaranteed crits.

tetrasodium · Apr 10, 2021

There are a lot of maneuvers that say things like

Your weapon attacks score a critical hit on a roll of
18–20. If you already have a feature that increases
the range of your critical hits, your critical hit range
increases by 1 (maximum 17–20).
Until the start of your next turn, your weapon
attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 19–20.
When you hit a creature with a melee weapon
attack on a roll of 18 or 19, you can use your reaction
to turn the attack into a critical hit.

As written they all represent a bunch of defined one off edge cases that work nicely together everywhere but shorthand on a sheet & in memory. People bring up the 7 plus or minus three things in memory thing pretty often but frequently leave out how chunked data (like local areacodes zip codes etc) generally stores as a single item.

If instead of the bullet points this was just "keen: Each time an attack has keen from a source such as a weapon buff or class abilities the crit range is extended by 1 down to 17-20 so 1 keen would be 19-20 while 2 & 3 keen would be 18-20 & 17-20 respectively" Then all of those abilities could just say they give x tiers of keen or something & bob can look at his sheet to remind the gm the twist the blade is 2 steps of keen while sue happens to remember that dangerous strikes is "the 1xkeen stance"

Stacie GmrGrl · Apr 11, 2021

I'm sorry but these Maneuvers need a total revamp and many need a rewrite. There is not enough space in the survey of this playtest to write what needs help.

There are just far too many that are written using some seriously bad grammar.