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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FrozenNorth" data-source="post: 8129549" data-attributes="member: 7020832">Hey, I came across another excessively complicated Pathfinder rules interaction.  After my less than stellar experience with my wizard, I thought I would try a sword and board fighter wielding a flail.  The idea would be to attack twice, and on the last action, either raise the shield or attempt to trip or disarm (for a combat maneuver, such as trip, disarm or shove, you make an Athletics check against the target's Reflex DC (for trip or disarm) or Fortitude DC (for shove)) .Naturally, the interaction between tripping and disarming and the multiple attack penalty is less than clear.  Here is what the book says:p. 446Multiple Attack Penalty"The more attacks you make beyond your first in a single turn, the less accurate you become, represented by the multiple attack penalty.  The second time you use an attack action during your turn, you take a -5 penalty to your attack roll.  The third time you attack, on an any subsequent attacks, you take a -10 penalty to your attack roll.  Every check that has the attack trait counts toward your multiple attack penalty, including Strikes, spell attack actions like Shove, and many others."Now, my interpretation of the MAP was that a maneuver was not an attack roll (since it is a skill check) but that it still counted towards your MAP.  I.e. if I were to trip, attack, attack, my attacks would be at -5 and -10, but if I attack, attack, trip, my trip would be at my regular Athletics check, since a skill check is not an attack roll.  While it bugged me a little that the order of my actions affected the penalties, this can happen in other occasions in PF2, and I felt that it encouraged team play, since if I ended with a trip, I benefited the rest of the party rather than trying for an unlikely crit with a 3rd attack.I learned today that other PF2 players interpreted that section differently, concluding that all combat maneuvers were attack rolls, so an attack, attack, trip would mean the Athletics check would be at a -10 (strongly disincentivised since unlike attacks, all combat maneuvers include critical failures).Their interpretation was in part based on the Pathfinder Playtest (which was apparently clearer, I wouldn't know, I didn't participate in it) and in part on the definition of "Attack Rolls" (on p. 446 of the CRB), which reads:Attack Rolls"When you use a Strike Action or any other attack action, you attempt a check called an attack roll."  The definition goes on for a full column, and references melee attack rolls, ranged attack rolls and spell attack rolls.  It doesn't include a single mention of a skill check or Combat Maneuver, which means that it was still ambiguous to me.Note that this second interpretation allows spells (or circumstances) that give a bonus to attack rolls to apply to combat maneuvers.Naturally, this ambiguity was the subject of the CRB errata.  I feel kind of vindicated by the fact that faced with two possible interpretations, each of which was based in the written text, Paizo opted for a third interpretation, which didn't have any interpretation in the text.Yep, Paizo decided that the skill checks for Combat Maneuvers were NOT attack rolls, but that MAP applied to them anyway.  So that means that status and circumstance bonuses to attack rolls do not apply to combat maneuvers.So there's that.</blockquote>

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