The Campaign Builder's Guild

I think we all have had the gut feeling that doing combat maneuvers to achieve some sort of bonus effect is, in many if not most systems, often not as worthwhile as just attacking all the time. So here's some math behind that feeling.

Essentially, to be "worth it," the damage you can do by performing the maneuver has to be greater than (or at least equal to) the amount of damage you could do just attacking twice. So we'll write that as an equation:
(p = base probability of hitting, pm = probability of a successful maneuver, pb = probability of hitting with a bonus granted by a maneuver, d = damage)

(http://i.imgur.com/b1xAlh1.png)

If we assume a best-case scenario that a manuever is always successful (i.e., pm = 1), and that upon performing a maneuver you always hit (i.e., pb = 1), then the best case result is that p <= 1 - p, which means that p <= 0.5. So if you have a greater than 50% chance of hitting, it's still not worth it to perform a maneuver, even in this best case scenario. If we assume a somewhat more realistic scenario where your combat maneuver roll is based on your normal attack roll (i.e., pm = p) and you still always hit, then the p's cancel and we end up with 1 <= 1 - p, which means that p <= 0, that is, it's never worthwhile to do a manuever at all. And that's if you always hit after doing one, which most systems don't even guarantee.

A big way to help this sad state of affairs is to let maneuvers cause some bonus damage in addition to just increasing chances of success-- in systems like FATE where greater degrees of success automatically add bonus damage this is automatic, but many other systems don't do this. So here's the new equation:

(http://i.imgur.com/dwukbSy.png)

Assuming that db is just base damage plus some bonus amount z, we can simplify this to:

(http://i.imgur.com/zi67o2G.png)

Returning to the "optimistically realistic" scenario, where pm = p and pb = 1, we get:
(http://i.imgur.com/UqNq8JF.png)

So the ratio between the damage increase and the base damage has to exceed the probability of hitting. This makes perfect sense-- all other things being equal, an attack should do double damage or it's not worth it to not attack twice. This also means that if the chances of a hit after a maneuver aren't 100%, or you don't want to double the damage, then there has to be some sort of bonus for doing a maneuver instead of just attacking.

If the system doesn't offer incentives like this... it's just not worth bothering. And, unfortunately, a lot of systems out there don't.

[ooc=But what about aid another?]
So, what about helping someone else? Let's see if it's worth it for player 1 to help player 2.

(http://i.imgur.com/3P90HmV.png)

Optimistically assuming p1m is 1, then player 2's damage increase still has to exceed player 1's total potential damage output:

(http://i.imgur.com/GX4K5tF.png)

Aid another, with its buff of 0.1 (a +2 on a d20 adds 10%) is only worthwhile if your total expected damage output is less than 10% of the other guy's. That... isn't likely. And that's why aid another is mostly terrible.
[/ooc]

Interesting analysis.  I have no criticism of the math, but I do think the critique neglects context to a certain extent.  I'd maintain that the entire point of combat maneuvers is that they shouldn't be de facto more damaging than a regular attack, but when used tactically in the right situation they allow for a more optimal result (which may or may not be more damage).  Not to say that you're suggesting otherwise, I just think it bears saying.

I'll give an example or two to illustrate my point.  As usual my stand-by system will be Pathfinder because I'm most familiar with it.

Feinting in Pathfinder results in denying a target their Dexterity bonus from their AC.  On the face of it this may not be that useful.  In a one-on-one fight against a medium-armoured opponent in which both combatants are non-rogues, it's of minimal utility.  Likewise in a fight against a horde of enemies where allies are all attacking other bad-guys.  But if you're leading a group of 1st level rogues (or something) against a small number of heavily armoured foes, feint becomes hugely useful because now all of your allies can hit more easily and get sneak attacks.  It's still of considerable utility if you outnumber your enemy significantly and/or if your foe is heavily armoured, because you're decreasing the enemy's AC not only for your next attack but for everyone's.

Another example: Bull Rush.  Useless in most contexts, pivotal when you're fighting on the side of a cliff with a pit of acid/lava/flesh-eating monstrosities below.  Most of the time it's going to do pretty much nothing and won't be worth it, but when full immersion in lava deals 20d6 points of fire damage per round with no save, it becomes hugely effective.

Then take Disarm and Sunder, another classic combat manuever.  Pretty useless against most foes, but against those who draw much of their power from using a particular weapon - kensai, specialists, those with magical weapons, wand-users - they become much, much more useful.

Then there are all those situations where there are important goals other than dealing damage but that still take place in combat.  Say you need to subdue a foe rather than kill them (for questioning, kidnapping, etc) - or you need to steal an item from their person but don't want to harm them - or you need to stall them until reinforcements arrive - or you're performing for a crowd in an arena and you want to humiliate your opponent - or your goal is to get your enemy to surrender rather than slaughter them - or you're running away and you'd rather confuse/delay your opponent than try and kill them.  These are the situations when combat maneuvers become worthwhile.

In other words, I think context is key, and a strict mathematical analysis, though helpful when comparing the results to a default attack, doesn't necessarily invalidate a combat maneuver.  Most combat maneuvers shouldn't be a standard go-to in combat, I think; they should be employed tactically in key moments when appropriate.  Otherwise the reverse becomes true to an extent - if combat maneuvers give you a reliable way of dealing more damage regardless of context, why bother with a regular attack at all?

EDIT: Indeed, I would suggest that combat manuevers should be "often worthless," with the proviso that they should also be "occasionally pivitol."

Steerpike has said part of what I was trying to formulate, that context is key with what makes these things worthwhile (or not worthwhile).

The other idea I have is that the standard way a lot of systems have traditionally handled these types of maneuvers is pretty boring. And tied into that is the problem of fighters (or whatever melee combat specialists your system has) often being boring as well. I guess I'm talking about D&D/Pathfinder and their derivatives here.

I think what I'd like to see a virtuosic warrior-type character be able to do is, instead of facing the choice "do I attack for damage, or do I go for a non-damaging stun/disarm/trip/feint effect?", to have the chance to marry the two outcomes together.

Maybe the veteran gladiator has a certain number of times per day she can make an attack that, if it hits, has a stun effect in addition to its regular damage. D&D4E does something along these lines, in that a lot of your once/day or once/encounter attacks have secondary effects. You could easily have a once-per-fight attack that trips the opponent and does damage, a once-per-fight attack that dazes the opponent to reduce their attack and does damage, and a once-per-day attack that does extra damage and ruins the enemy's armor.

Perhaps when the tough old sensei lands an attack, he can spend an Overdrive Point (or whatever) to add the effect of throwing the opponent prone, or knocking the opponent across the street and into a fruit vendor's cart. That way, once the player successfully lands a hit, the option opens up: conserve my points, or use them to buy a special effect (but which one?)-- but damage isn't part of the tradeoff.

Maybe for the cruel duelist with the cruel blade, it's not a resource-driven system at all. Instead, each time the duelist hits, the opponent takes an ongoing -1 penalty to defense for the rest of the fight (so in a one-on-one fight, the duelist benefits from a slow and cautious battle of attrition, and in a large everybody-kill-the-ogre fight, the duelist is doing less damage than the barbarian but applying a debuff they both benefit from.)

It was one of the reasons that most of the maneuvers in GS were done WITH an attack, not in place of.  Whether it be skill-aided attempted combat strategies (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/48258720/Advanced%20Combat%20Strategies), or purely skill based combat abilities, they go with normal combat, not instead of.

So an experienced combatant, whether PC or not, Normally has a 'static add on' skills like damage bonus or initiative bonus, but also a few others like 'multiple/chain attack' or "batter' that have a % of success that adds onto an attack, as opposed to being used instead of one.

I agree to an extent, LC, but what do you make the plethora of feats in Pathfinder that let fighters combine combat maneuvers and regular attacks?  Improved Feint.  Whirlwind Attack.  Bashing Finish.  Cleave. Greater Drag.  Bleeding Attack.  Parting Shot.  Passing Trick.  Blinding Flash.  Sliding Axe Throw.  There are tons and tons of moves that Fighters, with their abundance of Feats, can cultivate and specialize in till they have a repetoire of advanced moves that combine damage with some bonus ability or move.  Some require damage tradeoffs, some don't, but there has to be a tradeoff or there's no longer any point in a regular attack, unless you resort to the x/day model, which I really, really dislike for fighters (martial encounter powers may be the single biggest failure for me in 4E).  It's a badly dissociated mechanic, that, for me, makes no in-setting sense and shatters verisimiltude.

I'm not saying the Fighter in Pathfinder is perfect - god knows the 3.X power disparity with spellcasters has not been exorcised nearly thoroughly enough (hough mercifully it has been mitigated) - but do the Feats I mentioned and the numerous others like them not qualify?

I don't have any real familiarity with Pathfinder, so I don't know how those work precisely. Sounds like they're the sort of thing I was talking about, so, pretty cool that that already exists.

QuoteThere are tons and tons of moves that Fighters, with their abundance of Feats, can cultivate and specialize in till they have a repetoire of advanced moves that combine damage with some bonus ability or move.  Some require damage tradeoffs, some don't, but there has to be a tradeoff or there's no longer any point in a regular attack,

In a sense, there's a tradeoff in that each feat has an opportunity cost associated with it. Maybe if I build my fighter with a certain highly restrictive combination of feats, it's fine if there's no point in ever making a regular attack again, because making special non-regular attacks is what I've specialized to do. Perhaps that type of character makes my playstyle more powerful and more satisfying, even if it doesn't give me a more interesting breadth of tactical options.

One discussion that I want to have at some point (although this is probably not going to be the best thread for it) is the interplay between the use of resources at character creation and the use of resources in play (that is to say, how choices made during character creation affect the array of available tactical choices, and the different currencies used in both situations).

Quote from: Luminous CrayonMaybe if I build my fighter with a certain highly restrictive combination of feats, it's fine if there's no point in ever making a regular attack again, because making special non-regular attacks is what I've specialized to do.

That's true, and there are builds that make this so (particularly multishot-type builds or those structured around things like Power Attack).

Circling back to the more general topic as opposed to Pathfinder-specific things, I guess what I see as the most pertinent question isn't "Should combat maneuvers be 'cost-effective' damage-wise in relation to default attacks?" but "What is the purpose of combat maneuvers?"  It seems to me there're a lot of different answers to this question, some of which include:

1) To provide a repetoire of alternate ways of dealing damage.
2) To relieve the potential monotony of combat.
3) To provide a tactical advantage in specific combat contexts.
4) To accomplish things in combat that don't relate directly to damage-dealing.
5) To facilitate cooperation and teamwork between party members.

(and likely many more)

I'd suggest that answers 3 and 4 are the most important, followed by 5 and 2, and that 1 is proabably the least important from my point of view; I think the chief value of combat maneuvers is/should be derived from very particular contextual situations where they become appropriate, thus making tactical thinking - properly identifying when and where such mauevers are useful (and when, conversely, they are not useful)- a key part of combat.  If combat maneuvers become universally, statistically viable methods of damage-dealing regardless of context, they would actually flatten the tactical dimension of the game because they'd make different choices essentially meaningless.  Of course one could also imagine combat maneuvers so context-specific they're almost never utilized, which is also no good.  I think the key to designing good combat manuevers is to make them broad enough to be useful but narrow enough to necessitate careful tactical thinking.

EDIT: In this sense, then, I'm specifically challenging sparkletwist's thesis that "Essentially, to be 'worth it,' the damage you can do by performing the maneuver has to be greater than (or at least equal to) the amount of damage you could do just attacking twice," at least as the default state of affairs.

Quote from: SteerpikeIf combat maneuvers become universally, statistically viable methods of damage-dealing regardless of context, they would actually flatten the tactical dimension of the game because they'd make different choices essentially meaningless.

I agree. Combat maneuvers that are almost always useful would be just as big of a game balance problem as combat maneuvers that are almost never useful, because there would be no point in making regular attacks. My issue is that by being often worthless and not really making any effort to rise above this, they are often trap options-- they give a numerical bonus that players are led to believe is beneficial, but is actually hardly ever a tactically smart move.

So let me go back to...

Quote from: Steerpike"What is the purpose of combat maneuvers?"

I should also point out (and perhaps clarify) the first sentence of my post: I am talking specifically about combat maneuvers whose main goal is to create an advantage by giving a numerical bonus. Many sorts of aspects in FATE, a feint or dirty trick in Pathfinder, or whatever. That is a large subset of the available combat maneuvers in RPGs, but far from all of them. Situationally appropriate combat maneuvers should be used when situationally appropriate, and if there are roleplay or other factors that make the maneuver worthwhile, then math doesn't even enter into the picture. So, I agree with you on item #4, definitely.

However, I contend that a "tactical advantage" as defined by #3 (and quite possibly #1's "alternate ways of dealing damage," especially if that alternate way involves more damage) is generally modeled in a RPG by giving you bigger numbers to attack, damage, or some other advantageous quality, or taking away numbers from your enemy. So, since it's all based on numbers, a detailed mathematical analysis is actually an excellent way of determining when that maneuver is appropriate or not, because mathematically speaking, a maneuver is clearly either worth or it isn't: it's worth it when the benefit of performing the maneuver outweighs the opportunity cost of whatever you don't get to do. So,  yes, you can say that the context is very important, and I'll agree with you, but in these cases, the context is quite simply whether or not your attack is improved.

Earlier, you said "a strict mathematical analysis... doesn't necessarily invalidate a combat maneuver" but you cited a bunch of cases where a strict mathematical analysis absolutely can tell you whether it's worthwhile to perform that maneuver or not. A group of rogues will get a sneak attack bonus that will or won't be worth the opportunity cost of one character's missed attack. Bull rushing a character off a cliff into lava is worthwhile because the average damage you will do per turn rises dramatically, whereas ordinary bull rushing grants no such huge bonus and is as such not useful. Disarming an enemy is a sizable debuff that affects the amount of damage you will suffer, and this too can be mathematically analyzed.

So, yes, I agree that maneuvers should be employed when appropriate, and I think we've both acknowledged there are times when strict numerical analysis isn't the whole story at all. On the other hand, I'm honestly not sure what your point even is, when your list of examples is full of maneuvers that do benefit from a mathematical analysis.

Quote from: SparkletwistI should also point out (and perhaps clarify) the first sentence of my post: I am talking specifically about combat maneuvers whose main goal is to create an advantage by giving a numerical bonus. Many sorts of aspects in FATE, a feint or dirty trick in Pathfinder, or whatever.

I don't think your model is really complex enough to handle this.  Feint and Sneak Attack might be pretty straightforward, but what about Dirty Trick to lower someone's save for my wizard buddy about to cast Hold Person?  What about demoralizing knowing that my cleric buddy can also hit the target with fear to stack the effect?

I agree that a lot of these can be mathematically analyzed, but I guess I don't really see the point because of how many variables are involved.  If the basic point here is simply to say that "a maneuver isn't worth it unless it is better than a normal attack," then yes, I think we can find broad agreement on that; it's not a terribly controversial proposition.  Most maneuvers in PF, when optimally used, work out with your analysis just fine; Feint is not worth it unless you're sneak attacking, Intimidate is not worth it unless you're stacking fear, Steal is not worth it unless the enemy has a Wand of Killing You in his belt, and so on.

Maneuvers in Pathfinder are sometimes "trap options," but not for the reasons you're talking about.  They're not trap options because they're worse than attacking; when used optimally, they're usually not, and you could even make that argument for the lowly Dirty Trick.  They're trap options because maneuvers are niche by design, and if a fighter (or anyone else) spends feats on tripping only to be confronted by an adventure full of giants, oozes, and enormous centipedes, he's essentially wasted those feats.  Someone who specializes in demoralizing is going to have a bad time in a world of undead.  In PF, at least, the issue is not really the effectiveness of combat maneuvers so much as how combat maneuvers are accessed and used in the first place, but that's a whole different topic that touches on feat economy and the woes of martial classes in d20.

You could be absolutely right about maneuvers from aspects in FATE, I don't know enough to say.  PF, at least, doesn't seem very vulnerable to your critique.

None of the combat maneuvers in Pathfinder are not intended to cause damage at all: grapple is for pinning opponents, while most others are for changing the tactical situation by moving one's opponent around on the battlefield to change the advantage in favor of the PCs. Steal is for taking something away, while sunder is for destroying non-living components. Your argument that attacking twice causes more damage than a single maneuver, I'd argue that a single attack causes more damage, since combat maneuvers, in general, don't cause any damage at all. That's not what they exist for (damage causing). If you want to cause damage use a weapon or cast an attack spell.

Quote from: PolycarpI don't think your model is really complex enough to handle this.

Clearly what we need is a more complex model! :grin:
No, seriously, it can't handle everything, but if we remember what the goal is and try to think about things simply, we can usually produce some results that make sense.

Quote from: Polycarpwhat about Dirty Trick to lower someone's save for my wizard buddy about to cast Hold Person?

Since hold person is a save-or-lose, to keep things simple for the mathematical model, we'll consider its 'damage boost' to essentially be equal to 100% of the enemy's hit points. I know that is not strictly accurate and there are flavorful and tactical reasons that make it distinct from an attack, but from a pure numerical analysis, the question is simply "does doing this help to take the enemy out of the fight or not?" so it's not a bad way to go. So the question becomes, is doing a dirty trick to reduce the target's save worth more than making an attack?

Dirty trick imposes a variety of conditions, but the useful ones for this case all are -2 to saves, so that is, generally speaking, a 10% increase to the chances of succeeding at the hold person. When considering expected values, that makes a dirty trick in this combo "worth" 0.1 of a hold person. In other words, it means a dirty trick is essentially worth 10% of taking an enemy completely out of combat. Another way to gain 10% of taking an enemy completely out of combat is, of course, to damage the enemy for 10% of its hit points. The dirty trick + hold person combo is thus only worthwhile if the dirty trickster's average attack damage is less than 10% of an enemy's total hit points. The wizard might want to try the spell regardless, but I'm not going to worry about that part of it. I just want to know if we should attack or do a dirty trick.

Let's assume our dirty trickster is a level 4 fighter with an attack bonus of +10 (+4 BAB, +4 strength, +1 masterwork, +1 weapon focus) who is doing 2d6+6 damage (greatsword, +6 two-handed strength); against an AC 21 Drow Noble. With an average hit rate of 50% and an average damage of 13, the expected value for damage is 6.5, without even bothering to consider critical hits or power attacking or whatever. This is well over 10% of the Drow Noble's HP of 20. How about an AC 17 Derro? Now the hit rate is 70%, giving expected damage of 9.1, again well over 10% of the Derro's HP of 25. How about an Ogre? The Ogre is AC 17 also, and has 30 HP, so 9.1 is still well over 10%. An Advanced Ogre has AC 21 and 38 HP, meaning the expected damage of 6.5 HP is still over 10% as well. You get the idea. There may be some monster out there this works for, but for the most part, it seems like the numbers demonstrate that what the maneuver gains is most of the time not worth the opportunity cost of attacking.

Quote from: PolycarpWhat about demoralizing knowing that my cleric buddy can also hit the target with fear to stack the effect?

The spell fear (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/f/fear) takes the target straight to panicked if they fail their save, so the real issue is that demoralizing lowers the save, and causes the target to become frightened for one round even on a successful save. So, it has a somewhat narrow region of efficacy, but I spent enough time on the last one that for the time being whether or not this combo actually ever ends up being worthwhile is left as an exercise for the reader.

Quote from: PolycarpI agree that a lot of these can be mathematically analyzed, but I guess I don't really see the point because of how many variables are involved.  If the basic point here is simply to say that "a maneuver isn't worth it unless it is better than a normal attack," then yes, I think we can find broad agreement on that; it's not a terribly controversial proposition.

The point is to determine when a maneuver is worth it or not. In order to know if and when a maneuver is better than an attack, it requires analyzing both the maneuver and the attack and determining which is actually better. If the number of variables starts becoming unreasonable, we can throw in some best case common sense assumptions-- that's still a whole lot better and more likely to generate worthwhile outcomes than just throwing up our hands and not even bothering.

Quote from: PolycarpMost maneuvers in PF, when optimally used, work out with your analysis just fine; Feint is not worth it unless you're sneak attacking, Intimidate is not worth it unless you're stacking fear, Steal is not worth it unless the enemy has a Wand of Killing You in his belt, and so on.

Stealing a "Wand of Killing You" is a big situational debuff and I'd agree that it's useful. Feinting for sneak attacking and runs into the problem that you're giving up the chance to make two mediocre attacks for a chance to try to get a really powerful one-- figuring out when that is good and when it isn't is the entire point of my original post. For example, the formula clearly tells us that a Rogue with 2d6 of sneak attack against an enemy with a +2 Dex bonus to AC that he has a 70% chance of hitting and 90% chance of feinting should feint if he's doing d8+3 of damage or below, but shouldn't if he's doing d8+4 or above. If the chance of feinting drops to 80%, then don't bother doing it unless the weapon is only d8+2 or less. Our aforementioned Drow Noble has a lot of Sense Motive so feinting her is 50/50 shot at best and it's never worth it unless stuck swinging a weapon for d6 with no bonus whatsoever.

Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't, and if I'm wrong about the efficacy of certain maneuvers in certain cases, then it would be enlightening to all involved to demonstrate that. Nothing is accomplished by simply declaring maneuvers "work out" when "optimally used" and leaving it at that.

Quote from: PolycarpThey're not trap options because they're worse than attacking; when used optimally, they're usually not, and you could even make that argument for the lowly Dirty Trick.

Yes, you could make that argument. If you want to make that argument, feel free to do so. If you're just going to assert "when used optimally, they're usually not worse than attacking" without giving a precise definition of what "optimally" is and supporting that with a detailed analysis involving some hard numbers (or at least expressions involving variables) then I really have no reply, because you haven't actually presented anything concrete for me to reply to.

Quote from: Gamer PrintshopNone of the combat maneuvers in Pathfinder are not intended to cause damage at all

I know. The point was that the bonuses granted by the maneuvers raised the expected value of the damage on the subsequent attack.

OK, I get your point sparkletwist.  You're saying - like in the rogues/feint example, or the bull rush example - that there's still a mathematical way of determining whether a maneuver is advantageous or not, once you factor in all of the variables.  I agree with that, I'm just pointing out that context is absolutely vital to both those scenarios, and that what seem like useless/sub-optimal maneuvers in most situations become vitally useful in others.

In most situations, the math quickly becomes complex enough and opaque enough that the situation becomes too unpredictable to crunch the numbers on the fly.  With feint, for example, you may not know your target's Sense Motive or AC or current hp, and so it becomes ambiguous (in practice, in the evolving sea of variables in a given session) whether or not feint is statistically useful in causing damage.  Sometimes - like when you have a bunch of sneak-attacking allies, a combatant who relies on agility rather than armour, when you're setting up an enemy for your 6d6 sneak attack, etc - it may be worth it, other times it's not.  But it shouldn't be reliably, predictably worth it in the majority of situations, I'd contend, because that would flatten the tactical landscape.

In essence, I'd suggest that you can't critique a combat maneuver fully until you've explored a diverse array of different contexts in which it might be useful, both in granting straight up numerical combat advantages and in pursuing the plethora of additional goals that may be relevant in a combat encounter.  If a maneuver's simply too niche to ever realistically come up (or be statistically effective) in a campaign, I'd agree it's poorly designed, but if one can make a case for its occasional usefulness (statistically or qualitatively) - as with bull rush, feint, grapple, disarm, dirty trick,* etc - I think it qualifies as a "good" or well-designed maneuver, even (especially!) if it's not statistically optimal in most situations.

*I consider blindness probably the most useful dirty trick condition overall, because it drastically reduces enemy chances of hitting unless they use up their movement, which with certain foes drastically decreases their potential for damage-dealing and general usefulness.

Except for someone whose character is a grappler build, so they are doing grappling all the time, I look a combat maneuvers as being useful in with situational instances only. Using a combat maneuver to move a particular guardian from his position on the battlefield, so he's not in a guarding position in front of the enslaved princess, MacGuffin, avenue of escape. When actual combat becomes a secondary goal with a particular encounter, combat maneuvers are utilized to help accomplish that goal. In general combat maneuvers in combat are very situational - bullrushing an opponent off a cliff, tripping an opponent who is currently controlling the battlefield (in a place you can't charge), sundering or stealing the wand/staff/rod that is currently be used to kill off the party (removing an item to gain advantage).

As a standard tactic to use combat maneuvers in typical combat encounter, my group doesn't even consider it. Where the goal is to cause the most damage in the shortest amount of time, nothing beats pure combat, and in that situation combat maneuvers aren't even considered. (Note I'm saying this as it applies to me and my group, not necessarily everyone's situation.)

Quote from: sparkletwistSince hold person is a save-or-lose, to keep things simple for the mathematical model, we'll consider its 'damage boost' to essentially be equal to 100% of the enemy's hit points. I know that is not strictly accurate and there are flavorful and tactical reasons that make it distinct from an attack, but from a pure numerical analysis, the question is simply "does doing this help to take the enemy out of the fight or not?" so it's not a bad way to go. So the question becomes, is doing a dirty trick to reduce the target's save worth more than making an attack?

Dirty trick imposes a variety of conditions, but the useful ones for this case all are -2 to saves, so that is, generally speaking, a 10% increase to the chances of succeeding at the hold person. When considering expected values, that makes a dirty trick in this combo "worth" 0.1 of a hold person. In other words, it means a dirty trick is essentially worth 10% of taking an enemy completely out of combat. Another way to gain 10% of taking an enemy completely out of combat is, of course, to damage the enemy for 10% of its hit points. The dirty trick + hold person combo is thus only worthwhile if the dirty trickster's average attack damage is less than 10% of an enemy's total hit points. The wizard might want to try the spell regardless, but I'm not going to worry about that part of it. I just want to know if we should attack or do a dirty trick.

I think there's a flaw here.  Unless I'm wrong you're equating the -2 penalty to saves with dealing 10% of an enemy's hit points worth of damage.  But the situations aren't actually comparable, because Hold Person - the spell your dirty trick is helping - takes the opponent out instantly, whereas chipping away at the opponent's hp could take many rounds of combat in which you risk further damage, reinforcements arriving, the enemy using healing potions/spells, etc.  Taking an opponent out instantly, in other words, is worth much, much more than 100% of an enemy's hit points.

In other words, I think the parts of your analysis I bolded above are incorrect.  Dirty trick increases the chance of instantly taking an opponent out of combat by 10%, which is not remotely the same as merely dealing 10% of their hit points worth of damage, leaving them with plenty of time to smash you to paste, regenerate, etc.

Quote from: sparkletwistThe dirty trick + hold person combo is thus only worthwhile if the dirty trickster's average attack damage is less than 10% of an enemy's total hit points.

Maybe, but maybe not.  Hold Person takes out a target immediately; beating an opponent to death generally takes multiple rounds.  You could certainly make the argument that hitting someone for 20% of their HP is better than adding a 10% chance to KO him right then, but that means 4-5 rounds of attacking - obviously less than that since you've got a wizard on your side potentially doing other things, but this may be a fight you need to (or would prefer to) end right now.  The medusa might petrify me next round - if I decide her odds are good enough, it might be rational to increase the wizard's chance of disintegrating her this round from 70% to 80% even if I would normally deal 60% of her HP in damage with an attack, because 60% damage will still allow her to gaze at me next round, and a successful disintegrate won't.

Now I have no doubt that you could figure out the odds of that, even with those added variables.  But in actual combat, you don't know the medusa's HP, AC, or the gaze save DC; in some combat encounters you may not even know what you're up against at all.  You are assuming perfect information when you make these calculations.  You also can't predict what your goals are in combat - maybe what I care about is not defeating an opponent as such, but keeping the enemy from attacking our cleric while he heals our dying friend.  That's a situation in which I would call tripping (in order to reduce his movement this turn) "optimal" regardless of how competitive it is, damage-wise, with a regular attack.  This kind of occurrence is probably not common, but we've already admitted that "uncommon" is the ideal frequency at which maneuvers should be useful anyway.  "Combat maneuvers are often worthless" is probably literally true, but "often" is not how you're supposed to use them.

I absolutely do not mean to suggest that what you are doing is pointless or not useful.  To illustrate that, let's talk about trap options.  The original use of the term, I think, is in regards to Toughness - Toughness isn't strictly worse than any other feat choice (I can imagine a contrived scenario in which a druid who took Toughness is better off than one who took Natural Spell instead), but it's 1) usually worse, and 2) a new or inexperienced player may not be aware that it's worse (and is thus "trapped").  By that standard, combat maneuvers in PF may indeed often be "trap options," if only because many players haven't done the math - math you have done, and thus math that can be useful in illustrating when one should and should not feint or demoralize or trip, if one cares to spend the time doing it.

But in practice, there are situations with unknown factors that make the math impossible, or situations (like the tripping scenario I mentioned) in which damage is irrelevant, or even situations in which a player may simply not care about what's superior - "I feint and sneak attack" might be a thematic choice just like "my fire mage casts fireball."  That doesn't mean that we should just throw up our hands and throw the math in the toilet, because it's worthwhile being able to show a new player that he probably shouldn't blow a standard action using demoralize every round when he would be better off just be hitting the guy.  "Trap options" are about information - that's what distinguishes "trap option" from "situationally useful option" - and if a formula is helpful in that regard then, well, it's helpful.  On the margins, however, and many times in actual play, a formula may be irrelevant or simply not possible to utilize because there are too many factors you don't know, and that's what I (and, perhaps, Steerpike) am getting at.

(Comedy option:  Every maneuver in Pathfinder is a trap option by definition because the fact that you are performing a maneuver strongly implies you chose a combat class instead of being a wizard, and as we all know, "being a Fighter" is the ultimate trap option.)

Quote from: SteerpikeI'd suggest that you can't critique a combat maneuver fully until you've explored a diverse array of different contexts in which it might be useful, both in granting straight up numerical combat advantages and in pursuing the plethora of additional goals that may be relevant in a combat encounter.

I agreed, and continue to agree, that maneuvers shouldn't be too broadly useful. The problem, in my opinion, is that many maneuvers are often far too niche, especially ones that grant a bonus. I think the examples of pushing someone off a cliff into lava, or dealing with the the "Wand of Killing You," or whatever, are actually very good examples of maneuvers where it doesn't really matter how useless or how bad the odds are most of the time, because it's very clear where doing the maneuver going to be useful-- if there is somewhere bad you want the enemy to end up, then you can try to shove them in there, and if they have something powerful they shouldn't have, you can try to steal or sunder it. As I've said already, if there are roleplay or situational reasons to choose a maneuver, that's great, go for it.

Something like Pathfinder's feinting or aid another or FATE's abstract "get a +2" just gives a bonus, so it's rather often hard to intuitively tell if that bonus is better than other options, and it's also rather often hard to intuitively tell when it's worthwhile to try to gain that bonus. You guys are right that running the numbers in detail during play usually isn't feasible, but, here's the thing: if our thoughtful analysis of plausible enemy encounters when we do have time to be thorough and do have complete information reveals a broad range of cases when a maneuver is or isn't useful, then, to be honest, we're already doing pretty well. We can't always make the most optimal choice at the game table, due to time constraints and incomplete information, but we can at least have some confidence that we're not going completely awry. Instead, though, what I'm usually finding and have documented-- and what this thread is really about-- is that a lot of combat maneuver bonuses are only ever any good at all in extremely limited circumstances. They seem like they ought to be useful, because, hey, you can get a bonus! ...but in practice they're just almost never worth the opportunity cost. (I'm sure the situation also improves if you've sunk half a dozen feats into specializing into the maneuver, but at that point, it had better be useful!) What this means is that the few times that getting bonuses actually are useful, nobody even thinks to try, because they're so used to the maneuver being not worth it. And that, in my opinion, isn't good.

So, my issue with worthless maneuvers isn't so much about special situational maneuvers where it's at least clear when they're situationally applicable, but much more with general bonus-getting maneuvers. I feel they should either be more clearly explained and specialized so it's clearer from context just when they're useful, or be more broadly effectual so that while not always being a net gain, they're at least mostly worthwhile a decent minority of the time, instead of just in weird corner cases.

Quote from: Steerpikeif one can make a case

So make a case!

When I posted this thread, I honestly half-expected it to get no replies and sink to the bottom like a rock as everyone's eyes glazed over by the amount of math. I'm glad that it hasn't, but I'm honestly a bit confused and frustrated at the amount of vague and unsubstantiated assertions being thrown around. If you are going to claim a maneuver is or isn't useful in a certain situation, I don't think it's too unreasonable to ask you to either crunch some numbers (or at least Google something up) to back up your claims, or stop making them.

Quote from: SteerpikeDirty trick increases the chance of instantly taking an opponent out of combat by 10%, which is not remotely the same as merely dealing 10% of their hit points worth of damage

Quote from: PolycarpHold Person takes out a target immediately; beating an opponent to death generally takes multiple rounds.  You could certainly make the argument that hitting someone for 20% of their HP is better than adding a 10% chance to KO him right then, but that means 4-5 rounds of attacking

This is just statistics. Something that has a 10% chance of causing an enemy to lose instantly is of equivalent worth to knocking off 10% of its hit points because added up over the long term those outcomes lead to the same result in the same amount of time. While you're both correct that hold person could take the opponent out instantly, it's all-or-nothing, so it's important to consider the "nothing" part of it as well as the "all."  The Wizard could very well cast three hold person spells and be no closer to finishing an enemy off, whereas doing actual damage would have been bringing the party closer to winning. When making the comparison, it's also important to remember to consider that the hit point damage is being averaged as well-- our hypothetical "20% damage melee fighter" isn't going to always do 20% damage, because that's an average too. He might roll a critical hit and win the combat in one round, or he might hit for close to average damage every time, or he might miss four rounds in a row. All of these things can and will happen, so the only way to make any sense of it is to compare the averages.

Quote from: sparkletwistI agreed, and continue to agree, that maneuvers shouldn't be too broadly useful. The problem, in my opinion, is that many maneuvers are often far too niche, especially ones that grant a bonus. I think the examples of pushing someone off a cliff into lava, or dealing with the the "Wand of Killing You," or whatever, are actually very good examples of maneuvers where it doesn't really matter how useless or how bad the odds are most of the time, because it's very clear where doing the maneuver going to be useful-- if there is somewhere bad you want the enemy to end up, then you can try to shove them in there, and if they have something powerful they shouldn't have, you can try to steal or sunder it. As I've said already, if there are roleplay or situational reasons to choose a maneuver, that's great, go for it.

OK, cool - what you're saying, then, is that it's not that some manuevers are intrinsically broken because their bonuses aren't powerful enough, it's that the contexts in which their bonuses become useful are too rare.  The "weird corner cases," as you put it.

I agree that lava/death-wand examples are extreme ones, though I think they're far from the only situations where bull rush and disarm are useful, by any means.  Imagine a fight on rooftops where the fall damage isn't too severe but in which a fall would seriously inconvenience enemies, or a a battle above a giant web where a fall deals no damage at all but might entangle enemies - or a situation where you've readied an action to disarm an enemy of a potion or scroll they're about to use.  Perhaps, though, things like disarm aren't the kind of maneuvers you're singling out.

Quote from: sparkletwistSo make a case!

When I posted this thread, I honestly half-expected it to get no replies and sink to the bottom like a rock as everyone's eyes glazed over by the amount of math. I'm glad that it hasn't, but I'm honestly a bit confused and frustrated at the amount of vague and unsubstantiated assertions being thrown around. If you are going to claim a maneuver is or isn't useful in a certain situation, I don't think it's too unreasonable to ask you to either crunch some numbers (or at least Google something up) to back up your claims, or stop making them.

Example (with numbers).  This might not be up to your standards of rigor, so feel free to apply more math to my scenario if you think I'm missing something.

Let's say we have a party of 2 3rd level characters - a Witch (20 hp) and a Fighter (30 hp).  They're wandering the hills in a wilderness exploration scenario, searching for signs of a Barghest that's been terrorizing the local village, and they've heard there's a small handful of giants up in the hills, but it's unlikely they'll encounter one.  However, the DM rolls on a random encounter chart and produces a Hill Giant (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/humanoids/giants/giant-true/giant-hill) with 85 hp, AC 21, CMD of 24, and a +3 Will save.  It has +14/+9 to hit and deals 2d8+10 damage per hit (12-26 damage, average is 19).  It has -1 Initiative.

Let's say I am the Fighter and I have 18 Strength, attacking with a masterwork longsword with which I have Weapon Focus, for a total attack bonus of +9 (+3 BAB, +4 Strength, +1 Weapon Focus, +1 Masterwork).  I deal 1d8+4 damage per hit - a maximum of 12 damage excluding the possibility of a critical, average is 8.5 (10% of the Giant's hp).  Chipping away at the thing, it's going to take me 10 rounds to kill it, assuming I hit every time (which is far from guaranteed - in fact I have only a 45% chance to hit each time so if it's just me bashing away at this thing it's going to taker more like 20 rounds, assuming the giant has no potions).  In the meantime this giant can likely incapacitate either of us in a given round, maybe two.  Even if I'm wearing Full Plate and have a Heavy Steel Shield - giving me an AC of 22 - the Giant has a 65% chance of hitting me with its first attack and taking out (on average) nearly two thirds of my hp.

We cannot go toe-to-toe with this thing in an extended fight: it's suicide.  If I am smart I should realize that chipping away at the thing's hp 10% at a time is not a viable strategy.  If you want to actually crunch the numbers on the possibility of defeating the giant in hand-to-hand combat before one or both of the PCs get squashed, go ahead, but I take them to be so low as to be near-pointless to consider.  In other words practically speaking, dealing 8.5 points of damage to the Giant does not bring the party appreciably closer to victory in anything but the most technical sense because, realistically, we're going to die well before the damage can add up.

Essentially, then, it is exceedingly unlikely that we will both survive an encounter with the giant if I try and just fight the thing.  What's more, the giant has a war-horn.  It can summon its inbred hill giant family members if it blows that thing, in case it gets in trouble.  Then we'd be really screwed.  So the longer the fight goes on, the worse off we're going to be.  In fact, our chances of survival are probably better if we just run than if we wound the giant badly and give it a chance to alert its kin.

Now we could turn and run, but the Giant can throw rocks that deal 1d8+10 damage and can keep pace with us (30 ft. speed - and if I am in Full Plate I'm going to be slow), so just running away is no guarantee of survival.

Fortunately the Witch has prepped Hold Person (DC 16) and also has the Slumber Hex (DC 15) - both spells which could incapacitate the Giant.  Because of the Giant's poor Initiative (-1) and our decent Initiative (+1 for both of us) we are likely to go first.  It has a Will save of +3.  It thus has a 40% chance of saving vs. Hold Person and a 45% chance of saving vs. Slumber.

I also have Improved Dirty Trick.  My CMB is +7, +9 for Dirty Tricks.  I am less likely to land a Dirty Trick (30% chance) than hit the Giant (45% chance).  But if I do manage to land a Dirty Trick and give the Giant the Shaken condition its chances of saving drop to 30% and 35% against Hold Person and Slumber respectively.  And if the Witch manages to get the Giant with Hold Person or Slumber we can both coup-de-grace it (with a Fortitude save of +11, it only has a 25% chance of surviving my average coup-de-grace of 17 damage) - or we could use the few rounds the thing is sleeping/held to run the hell away (preferably after putting out its eyes, if the DM allows us to, which I think any sane DM would) and/or hide somewhere.

If we fail to get the Shaken result, well, we only wasted one round.  The odds are that after a round or two one of the Witch's two spells/Hexes will stick.  This timing is important.  It takes much longer (10 rounds+) to kill the giant by chipping away at its hp than it does to incapacitate it with Slumber or Hold Person.  We only get 2 chances, because the Witch can only target the Giant once with Slumber and only has one use of Hold Person, so if the dice are against us and we fail on both we've only wasted a maximum of 2 rounds - at which point we might as well run, because again, our chances of killing the giant with my sword and the Witch's other powers & dagger is too small to be significant.

Can we really claim that helping the Witch take out the Giant with Slumber/Hold Person using a Dirty Trick is less valuable than the effectively pointless action of just pricking the thing for 8.5 points of damage?  I don't think so, personally.  I think the 1 in 3 chance of helping the Witch by 10% is worth more than 8.5 points of damage, because dealing 8.5 points of damage to a giant that can crush you in a couple of rounds is pretty much worthless in this scenario.  Even if the penalty we're giving the giant is a modest one, it's still improving our chances of winning the encounter, but dealing a small amount of damage to the giant does not appreciably improve our chances of winning the encounter.  The two are not equivalent, especially once you factor in qualitative factors likle the war-horn.

I think this illustrates my former statement that "Dirty trick increases the chance of instantly taking an opponent out of combat by 10%, which is not remotely the same as merely dealing 10% of their hit points worth of damage."  The two are not the same thing.  Dealing damage in 10% blocks to a monster that can kill you in a few rounds is not an effective strategy for winning an encounter.  Trying to knock that monster out in 1 or 2 rounds with Hold Person of Slumber is a viable strategy, so it makes more tactical sense to use the Dirty Trick rather than attack.

EDIT: It should be noted that Shaken also decreases the enemy's attack rolls and ability checks.  If the Giant got lucky and goes before the Witch can use a Hex/spell, it could use a Move action to get rid of the condition, but then it loses out on one of its attacks, thus improving our chances of surviving the round.

Other Combat Maneuvers that could be more useful than a standard attack in the above scenario:

Disarm, Sunder, or Steal (war-horn)
Reposition (next to a cliff, away from the Witch)
Bull-Rush (off a cliff)

Thank you for the detailed example and analysis! This is something we can actually crunch on. :grin:

Quote from: SteerpikeI think this illustrates my former statement that "Dirty trick increases the chance of instantly taking an opponent out of combat by 10%, which is not remotely the same as merely dealing 10% of their hit points worth of damage."  The two are not the same thing.

Yes, generally speaking, they are. They have an equal expected value and are thus equivalent by law of large numbers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers). However, an important caveat that I should have been more clear about is that they are only equivalent if the two situations being analyzed are independent-- that is, one character beating on an orc for an average of 25% of its hit points and another character repeatedly attempting to cast a save-or-lose spell with a 25% chance of success on a different orc will both, on the average, win their respective battle in four rounds, and, as such, the two tactics are statistically equivalent. With two characters each trying to act on the same target, their influence on each other has to be worked into the math, though.

Let's go on a brief tangent and say our intrepid duo decided to just run, and they thought they escaped, but then they encountered a second Hill Giant! Oh no! Their one lucky break is that this second one is looking quite bruised and beleaguered, with a large poorly-bandaged cut on its arm. It turns out that this one only has 10 hit points left. Now, they're boxed in, so they have to fight-- it's going to be very tough for them, but they want to use smart tactics to maximize their chances of survival. Obviously, the Fighter is going to attack the weak one, because its 10 HP is within his realm of possibility to defeat. The Witch, on the other hand, can do "all the damage" with her save-or-lose spells, so it's going to be the better choice to try to essentially (for the sake of evaluating things in a mathematically equivalent way) take 85 HP off the 85 HP giant than to try to take 10 HP off the 10 HP giant. Doing it the other way would be a poor move and a waste of both of their capabilities.

The point of that example is that the key thing about instant-win spells is that, when analyzing them in terms of damage, they do "all the damage," but they do that regardless of what the damage actually is. Put another way, a fighter attacking a target and causing hit point damage is actually reducing the expected value of the Witch's save-or-lose. It's a better call to do a maneuver if the Fighter's damage reduces the Witch's expected damage value to the point that his bonus to her expected value is higher. Imagine if the Witch's spell was a blast that hit the target for whatever HP it currently had-- that means, if the fighter hits the 85 HP giant for 9 damage, then the Witch's spell is no longer worth 85 HP of damage, but rather only 76 HP of damage.

The Witch's normal chance of succeeding at her hold person is 60%. A fighter with a 30% chance of adding 10% raises that to 63%. So the total expected value for the pair is 85*0.63 = 53.55.
What if the Fighter attacks instead? He has a 45% chance of dealing 8.5 damage, so, an average of 3.825. The Witch then has a 60% chance, so her expected value is 81.125*0.60 = 48.705, plus the fighter's damage, makes the total 52.53.
Dirty trick is the right choice in this case.

Here's the equation, simplified, to determine if a dirty trick is worthwhile:
(pf and df are the fighter's hit probability and damage, pw is the witch's chance of success, pfm is the fighter's chance of pulling off his maneuver, b is the bonus the maneuver gives, and H is the monster's hp total)

(http://i.imgur.com/6gahxWx.png)

The end result ends up being that a dirty trick is worthwhile if the Fighter's expected damage times the Witch's chances of failure is less than or equal to the monster's hp times the bonus times the fighter's chances of succeeding at his maneuver. Which makes sense, really!

In other words, you're absolutely right that dirty trick is the right call in this case, but nothing about that conclusion actually refutes anything I've been saying, nor does it really raise the general effectiveness of dirty trick, as the formula I posted above demonstrates. The extra factors complicate things a little, but if you assume pfm and 1-pw are equal, such as with a 40% chance to do a maneuver and a 60% to hit a save-or-lose, you can cancel those by division-- and that means "10% of HP" is still a decent ballpark estimate.

A note on my use of the term "value": I may not be using the term the same way you are using the term, and I may not be using the term in a strictly "mathematical" sense.  When I'm talking about the more valuable move I'm talking about the move that makes more sense in a given context - that's all.  In my above example the bonus granted from Dirty Trick is thus "more valuable" than the damage one might be dealing because, in that example, the small amount of damage you can deal is functionally worthless - valueless.  I get that its mathematical value is still 8.5 - but its strategic value, holistically, is basically nil as I see it (because you stand such a negligible chance of killing the giant with just your longsword before it kills you).

Quote from: sparkletwistWith two characters each trying to act on the same target, their influence on each other has to be worked into the math, though.

Right, yeah!  Math is still useful - I don't want to dismiss it, here.  I think this is actually the chief purpose of penalty-granting combat maneuvers in Pathfinder, though - setting up moves for allies.  Feinting to set up the Rogue.  Using a Dirty Trick to shake up an enemy for the Wizard.  It's about gauging/estimating which contexts the math is going to work out - without knowing most of the numbers on the spot.

QuoteLet's go on a brief tangent and say our intrepid duo decided to just run, and they thought they escaped, but then they encountered a second Hill Giant! Oh no! Their one lucky break is that this second one is looking quite bruised and beleaguered, with a large poorly-bandaged cut on its arm. It turns out that this one only has 10 hit points left. Now, they're boxed in, so they have to fight-- it's going to be very tough for them, but they want to use smart tactics to maximize their chances of survival. Obviously, the Fighter is going to attack the weak one, because its 10 HP is within his realm of possibility to defeat. The Witch, on the other hand, can do "all the damage" with her save-or-lose spells, so it's going to be the better choice to try to essentially (for the sake of evaluating things in a mathematically equivalent way) take 85 HP off the 85 HP giant than to try to take 10 HP off the 10 HP giant. Doing it the other way would be a poor move and a waste of both of their capabilities.

Agreed!  In that situation, a combat maneuver would be sub-optimal (until you'd dropped the weak Giant, at which point it might become viable again).  Dealing damage is more valuable in this case than helping the Witch, just as helping the Witch was more valuable in the previous example than dealing damage.  The strategic value of Dirty Trick varies from context to context, but there are lots of contexts where it makes more sense to use a Dirty Trick than just attack.

Quote from: sparklewtwistThe end result ends up being that a dirty trick is worthwhile if the Fighter's expected damage times the Witch's chances of failure is less than or equal to the monster's hp times the bonus times the fighter's chances of succeeding at his maneuver. Which makes sense, really!

Cool!

Really, the only point I was making is that sometimes using Dirty Trick makes more sense than attacking - that Dirty Trick can be more "valuable" than the damage dealt in a standard attack because, in the right situation, it can supplement a viable strategy (in cases where just dealing damage normally isn't a viable strategy).  Which, in my mind, is exactly what a combat maneuver should be for.  In lots of other situations it's not necessarily the best move to make (nor, I'd suggest, should it be).

Quote from: SteerpikeThe strategic value of Dirty Trick varies from context to context, but there are lots of contexts where it makes more sense to use a Dirty Trick than just attack.

I don't know what your idea of "lots of contexts" is. All that math up there is to prove the idea generally true that using up your standard action to give someone a minor buff (or an enemy a minor debuff) is only useful when the damage you would have done (or its equivalent) is less than some trivial percentage-- usually around 10% or so-- of the target's HP. I don't think you even really dispute it; if you do, your example certainly didn't do anything but support the idea, because the Fighter in the example was doing far less than 10% damage on the average. So I don't see where you're even getting this "lots of contexts." I know that I sure don't find such a limited situation "lots of contexts," anyway. It's only useful when you have pretty much no options anyway, so you do something that maybe helps a little rather than waste your turn doing nothing. I don't find this particularly worthwhile.

Personally, I want maneuvers that matter-- I want them to be helpful more often than just in fringe cases, have a pretty sizable actual impact when they are used, and not be presented like they're actually worthwhile when they're not. As I've already mentioned, I am in no way advocating maneuvers that are effective all of the time or even most of the time. I just want maneuvers that aren't awful. If you think something that's only useful when all your other options are equivalent to doing less than 10% damage is not awful, then... we have very different opinions about how the game should probably work, and I'm not sure what else I can even say beyond that. I feel like we're just going around in circles now.

Quote from: sparkletwist
Here's the equation, simplified, to determine if a dirty trick is worthwhile:
(pf and df are the fighter's hit probability and damage, pw is the witch's chance of success, pfm is the fighter's chance of pulling off his maneuver, b is the bonus the maneuver gives, and H is the monster's hp total)

(http://i.imgur.com/6gahxWx.png)

The end result ends up being that a dirty trick is worthwhile if the Fighter's expected damage times the Witch's chances of failure is less than or equal to the monster's hp times the bonus times the fighter's chances of succeeding at his maneuver. Which makes sense, really!

This equation only addresses one side of the combat, that being the effective offensive power of the PCs vs the staying power of the monster. The other side - the monster's effective offensive power vs the PCs' staying power - is ignored. Don't you think that both sides should be relevant when it comes to estimating the worth of a combat maneuver?

Some monsters pose much more of a threat to the life of PCs than others, particularly since PCs often have access to healing, which may potentially enable them to last for a very long time against a monster with low damage output. Against one that could single-hit KO a PC though, prolonged combat may be a tactically bad idea even if by strictly average damage-dealing you'd expect to win in the long run. There are also monsters and NPCs with really nasty special attacks that you can't afford to let them use against you. Level drain for example could send you on a death spiral as each negative level reduces your combat stats further.

Thank you, Ghostman!  That's exactly what I was trying to convey.  The value of an instant KO spell is that they hold the potential to prevent the enemy from hurting you very badly, whereas just attacking, even with critical hits, does not hold that potential.  This holds true even if we acknolwedge that sometimes instant KO spells simply fail.

Apologies for the double post.

sparkletwist, I think I was misinterpreting your formulae slightly - though I'd stand by my assessment even if the Giant were at slightly less than half health and thus the Fighter was dealing roughly 10% per round on average.  It still is more worthwhile to try and take him out quickly and thus to supplement the Witch's spell.

I fully agree that maneuvers shouldn't be awful.  I can't speak to FATE's maneuvers, but with regards to Pathfinder's, I don't think they are awful (especially because most of them aren't actually about simple debuffs).

Some other contexts where the debuff use of Dirty Trick (or even the much-maligened Aid Another) is useful - some of them using your formulae rather than arguing against it:

- Enemy has DR and you don't have the right weapon, but an ally does.
- Enemy has Regeneration and you don't have Fire or Acid, but an ally's spell/weapon does.
- Enemy can use Dominate to mind-control allies and you're setting up an ally's Hold Person/Dominate/Sleep/Polymorph spell because otherwise you strongly suspect you're going to be Dominated next round.  Even if you could take out plenty of the enemy's HP, you're just going to be Dominated anyway, so it makes more sense to aid your ally in trying to take out the enemy quickly rather than risk Domination.
- Same as the above but insert Petrification/Disintegrate/Finger of Death/whatever.
- Forcing an enemy into using an attack of opportunity in order to allow a spellcaster impunity to cast a spell in melee range (here the debuff penalty is a side-effect).
- Ally has a poisoned weapon that will severely deplete the enemy's ability to counterattack and you know that if they don't hit, the monster is going to dish out some serious pain.
- As above but with a debuff spell instead of poison.

Remember, also, that the debuff from Dirty Trick can potentially last multiple rounds if your roll is high enough, and also that it applies to a very broad array of the opponent's stats, including their attack rolls.  Part of its utility is defensive, and that needs to be accounted for.

Or, as you state in your opening post  "This also means that if the chances of a hit after a maneuver aren't 100%, or you don't want to double the damage, then there has to be some sort of bonus for doing a maneuver instead of just attacking."  Well, quite!  But I'd suggest that it's those other bonuses that are the most important ones in combat manuevers.

EDIT: More uses of Dirty Trick when considering conditions beyond Shaken and Sickened:

- Creatures entangled by Dirty Trick can't reach vulnerable allies and spellcasters and also can't cast spells as easily.
- Blinded characters can be sneak attacked (with an additional -2 to AC in addition to losing a Dex bonus, using Dirty Trick to blind a foe is potentially more effective than Feint if you have a good CMB) while also suffering a 50% miss chance and losing the ability to use scrolls.

Quote from: GhostmanThis equation only addresses one side of the combat, that being the effective offensive power of the PCs vs the staying power of the monster. The other side - the monster's effective offensive power vs the PCs' staying power - is ignored. Don't you think that both sides should be relevant when it comes to estimating the worth of a combat maneuver?

When determining the expected value of a maneuver, I'm basing it on wanting to win as quickly as possible. You want to do the most "damage," whether that's winning through actual HP damage or a 100%-damage-equivalent combat-ender. I'm assuming that no matter what else the PCs are doing, the monsters will be attacking-- often, this means that "monsters attacking" is a constant on both sides of the equation, and, as such, can be cancelled by subtraction. I'm not saying that it's not important in play, but, from the perspective of mathematical optimization, choosing the attack with the statistically best results is always the best idea, independent of what the monsters do. However, if an important draw of the maneuver is a debuff on the enemy, then, yes, it is definitely worthwhile to consider, and multiplying every expected value times your "probability of not being dead" or whatever other way to incorporate the enemy's offense wouldn't be a bad amendment to the formula.

Quote from: SteerpikeI'd stand by my assessment even if the Giant were at slightly less than half health and thus the Fighter was dealing roughly 10% per round on average.  It still is more worthwhile to try and take him out quickly and thus to supplement the Witch's spell.

Look, I completely understand that RPGs are a lot like poker in the sense that you can run the numbers and you can determine what is the statistical winner, and that information is absolutely useful and helpful to know, but what you actually have are not dry statistics but rather a game with a lot of human social factors and random numbers. So maybe you're feeling lucky, or you have a read on someone, or whatever, and what the cold numbers say is the best move isn't actually the best move at your table at that very moment. Or maybe you're warming the cold numbers slightly using some kind of adjustment based on risk, see below.

All I'm saying is that certain moves are statistically not the best choice, and doing (or at least trying to do) the math to back that up. If that doesn't actually end up meaning anything at your game table, then fine, but it doesn't invalidate the analysis.

But anyway, here's how I'd look at your list.

Quote from: Steerpike- Enemy has DR and you don't have the right weapon, but an ally does.
- Enemy has Regeneration and you don't have Fire or Acid, but an ally's spell/weapon does.

These are situations where you basically can't do anything so you do something that might help a little instead of wasting your turn. You're not going to be the MVP either way. If you're a spellcaster and you have no offensive ability at the moment, you cast a buff or protection or battlefield control spell spell, but if you're a mundane you... can't do nearly so much. A big part of my point is that I wish general purpose maneuvers allowed for more flexible options like this, so maybe this thread is actually just a "mundane characters don't get nice things" discussion by another name.

Quote from: Steerpike- Enemy can use Dominate to mind-control allies and you're setting up an ally's Hold Person/Dominate/Sleep/Polymorph spell because otherwise you strongly suspect you're going to be Dominated next round.  Even if you could take out plenty of the enemy's HP, you're just going to be Dominated anyway, so it makes more sense to aid your ally in trying to take out the enemy quickly rather than risk Domination.
- Same as the above but insert Petrification/Disintegrate/Finger of Death/whatever.

The thing about save-or-lose spells is that they are good because they take enemies out of combat instantly. However, taking off all of an enemy's hit points in one hit takes enemies out of combat instantly. If you have a hex that takes out an enemy 60% of the time, that is of equivalent worth to an attack that, on average, takes off 60% of an enemy's hit points. You're basically power attacking a level 1 commoner. Either way is a smart move because either way has a strong chance of taking out this enemy that is a big threat to you.

That said, I think what you're getting at here is the greater variance of save-or-lose, and I think this is something important that my formulas, thusfar based solely on the mean (i.e., average value), could sometimes benefit from including. For example, if you were facing an enemy with 12 HP that you had to take out as quickly as possible, you'd probably prefer take the risk to roll 2d6 rather than do a guaranteed 7 damage, because, although they both have the same mean, one option has enough variance you might one-shot the enemy, while the other does not. What's more interesting to consider is that you might even prefer to roll d12, because of its higher chance of rolling a 12 and thus getting a one-shot win, even though its mean is actually lower.

We can incorporate this factor by adopting the financial concept of risk-adjusted returns, but instead give a bonus to "riskier" behavior rather than penalizing it like the financial formulas usually do. According to anydice.com (http://www.anydice.com/), the standard deviation (i.e., the square root of the variance) of 7 is of course 0, the standard deviation of 2d6 is 2.42, and the standard deviation of d12 is 3.45. In finance, they use a "risk tolerance" that is using complex heuristics based on the behavior of individual investors; at this point, the interesting thing is that subjective preferences come into play, which brings the "human element" I describe earlier into play even when doing a cold mathematical analysis. By using the formula m + v/a (mean plus variance over "risk aversion," our version of risk tolerance) we can determine an optimal course of action incorporating one's tolerance for risk.

You'll notice that if one's aversion to risk is effectively infinite, then this expression is simply the mean, meaning that analyzing numbers using solely the mean is still valid, but assumes an extremely conservative approach, which may not always be what players in a real game want to do. You'll also notice that if one's aversion to risk is very low, then the result with the higher variance-- i.e., the riskier one-- will always be superior.

If your risk aversion is 15, then rolling a 2d6 generates a result of 7.39, while a d12 generates a result of 7.29. However, if your risk aversion is 10 (lower values means you'll tolerate more risks) then 2d6 gives a result of 7.59 while a d12 gives a result of 7.69. If you're more willing to take risks, then the d12 becomes a better option for you.

Quote from: Steerpike- Forcing an enemy into using an attack of opportunity in order to allow a spellcaster impunity to cast a spell in melee range (here the debuff penalty is a side-effect).

That's a clever tactic, though I'd analyze the actual use of this one in terms of the opportunity cost of not making a ranged attack or unarmed attack or some other damage-dealing attack that also provoked.

Quote from: Steerpike- Ally has a poisoned weapon that will severely deplete the enemy's ability to counterattack and you know that if they don't hit, the monster is going to dish out some serious pain.
- As above but with a debuff spell instead of poison.
- Creatures entangled by Dirty Trick can't reach vulnerable allies and spellcasters and also can't cast spells as easily.
- Blinded characters can be sneak attacked (with an additional -2 to AC in addition to losing a Dex bonus, using Dirty Trick to blind a foe is potentially more effective than Feint if you have a good CMB) while also suffering a 50% miss chance and losing the ability to use scrolls.

These are cases where the aforementioned "probability of not being dead" multiplier would be useful, probably.

Quote from: sparkletwistFor example, if you were facing an enemy with 12 HP that you had to take out as quickly as possible, you'd probably prefer take the risk to roll 2d6 rather than do a guaranteed 7 damage, because, although they both have the same mean, one option has enough variance you might one-shot the enemy, while the other does not.

I think that is the gist of it, yeah.  With your other example - the "taking out the enemy 60% of the time" or "taking out 60% of the enemy's hp," I'd tend to go for the former, because with the latter even if you deal the full 60% damage, you're still going to receive a smack in return (or at least the chance of one), whereas if the former works, you get off clean.  They're equivalent in a statistical sense because, over time, they take out monsters at the same rate over the same amount of time, but the former has the chance of getting you off with no damage whatsoever.  Ergo, in situations where chipping away at an opponent's hp is a bad strategy - where you're going to get squashed before you kill the monster - I think it's better to throw your weight behind the save-or-die strategy, even when the statistics seem to suggest that's disadvantageous.

This all feels very prisoner dillema or something.

So, sparkletwist, if we were to apply your insights to Pathfinder's selections of combat manuevers to come up with some house-rules, which of the following would you change and how?  I'm genuinely curious, here: I love houserules.

Bull Rush
Dirty Trick
Disarm
Drag
Grapple
Overrun
Reposition
Steal
Sunder
Trip
Feint

I'm actually also very curious what you make of Feint in general, because it seems like such a slippery, weird move - so dependent on how much an enemy's Dex is boosting their AC and on how high their Sense Motive is.  Does it fit the bill as an acceptable combat maneuver given that there are some contexts where it's very useful and others where it's totally useless?

Quote from: Steerpike
Ergo, in situations where chipping away at an opponent's hp is a bad strategy - where you're going to get squashed before you kill the monster - I think it's better to throw your weight behind the save-or-die strategy, even when the statistics seem to suggest that's disadvantageous.

In some cases it might even be your only reasonable course of action.

For example, let's assume that you can reliably do 1d10 hp of damage per round, and need to kill, as quickly as possible, a monster that has 55 hp. On average you'll cause 5.5 damage per round, which translates to 10 rounds to defeat the monster. And you are guaranteed to cause at least 1 hp per round, so in the worst (extremely unlikely) case it'll take 55 rounds. The best case rate of 10 hp per round requires 5.5 (so effectively 6) rounds of combat. That is how long you would (at LEAST) have to be able to last to be able to win.

Let's assume that instead of causing damage, you could opt to use a special attack that might instantly end the fight, at a 10% chance. This is equal to the 5.5 hp damage average you'd get by attacking. However, the best & worst case scenarios look very different now. In the best case you defeat the monster in the first round of combat, in the worst case... never. The instant battle-ender has the potential to be much quicker than damage from your attacks could ever be: 1 round as opposed to 6 rounds. But it also gives no guarantees of getting the job done in any number of rounds.

Now, if the monster is expected to kill you in 6 rounds, attacking it for damage is worse than a bad idea - it's actually futile. You would expect to lose even if rolling nothing but 10s. But if you instead opt for the 10% chance/round battle-ender strategy, you actually have a significant chance to win:

1 - (9/10)^5 = ~0.409

That's roughly 41% chance of victory in 5 rounds.

Once again Ghostman has made the point I was trying to make more eloquently and expansively!

Quote from: Steerpikeif we were to apply your insights to Pathfinder's selections of combat manuevers to come up with some house-rules, which of the following would you change and how?

I'm not totally sure how much I can help, here. While I can break apart the math of Pathfinder in a general sense, it is definitely not my system of choice, so I'll probably miss some small but important details, and I'm not sure if I have the time or the mathematical prowess to post a worthwhile analysis of each and every maneuver. On the other hand, proclaiming that I've found a problem and offering no solution whatsoever is kind of no fun, so I'll at least try to offer something useful-- but I'll have to digress a bit into the favorite pastime of the CBG, talking about my own stuff.

As you may know, my homebrew system Asura uses FATE-like rolling, in this case, an opposed attacker+2d6 vs defender+2d6, meaning the dice results are a bell curve. Also like FATE, the degree of success contributes to the damage done. Using a weapon with 1d6 inherent damage, rolling a result of +2 (i.e., the attacker's roll exceeds the defender's by 2) means you do d6+2 damage while rolling a +5 means you do d6+5 damage. Asura also scales weapon damage down by half at results of +0 and +1 and adds bonus damage for a hit of +6 or better, leading to a more sharply scaling curve. What this leads to is that near the low end and into the center of the bell curve, each +2 bonus you gain corresponds to an approximate doubling of damage output. There are diminishing returns at the high end, but when you've got the numerical advantage, you aren't as likely to try fancy maneuvers to get an edge anyway. Since Asura uses the FATE-like concept of a basic maneuver being something that grants a +2 bonus, this means, on a very superficial level, each maneuver is balanced with its opportunity cost-- you can attack twice, or you can do a maneuver that will grant a bonus that roughly doubles your damage. Of course, the +2 bonus granted by a maneuver can be used for other things than just helping the next attack (making them better) but maneuvers are far from 100% successful (making them worse) but resounding success on a maneuver roll can create not one but two conditions (making them better again) so the math gets a bit funky-- but the basic result is that a maneuver done at a decent level of competence followed by an attack is statistically "worth" somewhere between 1.7 and 1.9 attacks. (That's assuming one turn for each, so two turns of attacks are "worth" 2.0 attacks) That means it's not at all worthwhile to try to maneuver before every attack every single time, but sometimes the greater flexibility for having the "floating" +2 bonus will make it more attractive to try than just attacking twice, and even if you do end up just attacking and getting less than "optimal" damage, the bonus is still never going to be so pathetic it makes you feel dumb for using it or feel like maneuvering is a trap option.

So, going back to Pathfinder, something vaguely like that is how I'd like to see stuff like aid another and dirty trick work in practice. Rather than have to justify them using contrived scenarios or invest in massive feat chains to get anywhere close to something worthwhile, you instead have a basic bonus you can grab that you know is always going to be at least feel worth it, even if it's not always the perfectly optimal choice. And when maneuvers click and the whole team is on board to make the situation work out in your favor, they should really work out in your favor. Like, if you can dirty trick blind someone who loses a +3 Dex AC bonus (in addition to the blindness AC penalty) and then have two 3d6+12 heavy hitters dogpile onto that victim and both take advantage of the big bonus to hit before the victim can spend a move action to clear the condition, I think that ought to be a crowning moment of awesome. You should win battles that way. But in reality, while dirty trick sometimes does work out to be the mathematically optimal choice in that situation, it also ends up working out that after all that there is still only around a 4 HP total gain to the group's net damage, and that gain only exists if you're normally swinging for 1d6 damage with no bonus at all... once again putting us in the "don't even bother unless your damage is less than 10%" ballpark. And if that's the case, you're probably a spellcaster who likely has far better ways to use a standard action to buff those heavy hitters. That kind of thing just makes me sad, and that's really what I'd like to do something about.

If the maneuver was at least reliable, things wouldn't be quite so bad. In my above example, everyone was hitting everything 50% of the time. If you could instead pull off your dirty trick 100% of the time, the group's net damage gain in that scenario rises to 12 HP. While you're still not going to be scoring any crushing victories that way, it at least starts to make the option seem attractive. Unfortunately, however, Pathfinder goes the other way-- with CMB equaling d20 + BAB + Str and CMD equaling 10 + BAB + Str + Dex, in all likelihood, the gap between CMB and CMD is going to increase as characters improve. The only way to reverse this trend, of course, is again by taking lots of feats or otherwise expending lots of resources. In my opinion, any revision of Pathfinder's maneuver system would have to do something about this shortfall, too.

Quote from: SteerpikeI'm actually also very curious what you make of Feint in general, because it seems like such a slippery, weird move - so dependent on how much an enemy's Dex is boosting their AC and on how high their Sense Motive is.  Does it fit the bill as an acceptable combat maneuver given that there are some contexts where it's very useful and others where it's totally useless?

Personally, I don't mind maneuvers that are very useful in some contexts and totally useless in others, as long as it's clear what those contexts are. Steal is probably useful when an orc is holding a "Wand of Murdering You With Magic" and not so useful when he's holding a slightly overripe mango. This is evident from just looking at the situation. Feint is... not like that. It costs a feat to let anyone but you benefit from your feints, which kind of hurts its usability; on the other hand, I acknowledge its bonuses can be significant in some cases, but the times I've tried to analyze it have not come out in its favor. So I'm pretty unsure.

Perhaps I'm a bit biased by what has worked pretty well in Asura, but, personally, I would remove some of feint's "slippery weirdness" and revise it to be a general "do this move, get a flexible bonus" maneuver and make sure that bonus works out to be some worthwhile fraction of "two turns worth of doing stuff" without being the overwhelming best choice every time.

Quote from: GhostmanIn some cases it might even be your only reasonable course of action.

Well, I think that the example you gave is rather contrived: the attack for damage has a variance of 8.2369, while the save-or-lose has a variance of 272.25, which is pretty exaggerated. In normal play, melee has a higher variance because you're not hitting 100% of the time but you're also doing more damage when you do hit, while most save-or-loses are more dependable than 10% which in turn lowers their variance. In actual play, you generally won't be choosing between two otherwise statistically equal outcomes with that much difference in variance. That said, I definitely understand and agree with the point that, when considering two otherwise equal attacks, an attack with a greater variance is sometimes preferable due to the ability to win now, with drawback of you might not ever win being less significant in those cases.

Interesting.  It sounds like your biggest beef with Pathfinder combat maneuvers is their reliability, which is a product of the disparity between CMD and CMB.  I wonder whether a simple house-rule could mitigate this: instead of adding both Strength and Dexterity to CMD, you can add one or the other.

I do think that carefully chosen Feats can help improve the reliability of combat maneuvers immensely, and the one big advantage that Fighters have over other classes is a buttload of feats, so there is that, I suppose.  For some, that opens a can of worms about the "feat economy" and character optimization, though.

I will say that what you're calling "contrived scenarios" I'd probably call "tactically optimal contexts," but I think this is a result of the slightly different roles we ascribe to combat maneuvers.  I get the feeling you want debuff combat maneuvers to be generally viable, reliable, and effective in a diverse array of situations as part of a repertoire of moves any character can do regardless of class of training - even if they're not always the optimal choice they will be broadly efficacious in most combats, or at least enough so that save in a few niche situations choosing a combat maneuver over an attack is never a totally bad idea.  Statistically, over a large enough selection of contexts, you want debuff combat maneuvers to be approximately equal in value to attacking.  Is that an accurate assessment or am I distorting your view?

Quote from: SteerpikeIt sounds like your biggest beef with Pathfinder combat maneuvers is their reliability

Well, partially, but their general effectiveness, too. You got it right below.

As I said before, I'd prefer that scenario where both of the heavy hitters can dogpile onto the guy you've successfully dirty tricked to be something that is going to significantly raise damage-- because you're definitely not always going to be able to get things to click that well.

Quote from: SteerpikeI do think that carefully chosen Feats can help improve the reliability of combat maneuvers immensely

Generally speaking, carefully chosen feats can improve the reliability of a combat maneuver. Singular. Each maneuver has its own feat chain, and forcing such focus while meanwhile spellcasters have lots of different spells can help to feed the phenomenon of "Fighters can't have nice things." Enough about this has been written by other people (or even by me at other times) that I won't bother to rehash it and just leave things at that.

Quote from: SteerpikeI will say that what you're calling "contrived scenarios" I'd probably call "tactically optimal contexts,"

The specific case I considered contrived was choosing between a melee attack that hits 100% of the time for one die and no bonus vs. a save-or-lose that hits 10% of the time. Most actual melee attacks found in Pathfinder games have a higher variance than the example melee attack, and most actual save-or-loses found in Pathfinder games have a lower variance than the example save-or-lose, so the difference in variance in an actual game is probably going to be a lot less. I don't disagree that considering the variance as well as the mean can be useful in deciding the "best" option between two choices that are otherwise statistically equal or very close.

Quote from: SteerpikeStatistically, over a large enough selection of contexts, you want debuff combat maneuvers to be approximately equal in value to attacking.

Yes, I'd agree with that summary. If the maneuvers aren't approximately equal, I don't think they have enough general utility to be worthwhile, and players-- used to lackluster results-- will not be inclined to try maneuvers even when they are worthwhile.

Quote from: sparkletwistYes, I'd agree with that summary. If the maneuvers aren't approximately equal, I don't think they have enough general utility to be worthwhile, and players-- used to lackluster results-- will not be inclined to try maneuvers even when they are worthwhile.

That's fair enough.  I think I veer a bit more towards maneuvers that are only effective in specific contexts: I'd rather have a wide selection of specialized maneuvers that have to be carefully chosen accordng to context in order to be effective than a more "general-use" maeuver that's useable in most situations.  Though I suppose there's no real reason that a system can't have both!

Interestingly, what we're getting into here is player psychology as much as math - if I'm understanding you correctly, you're talking about incentivizing the use of manuevers because you're worried that if they're not mathematically viable in a broad range of contexts players will lose interest in them entirely.

Quote from: Steerpikeyou're talking about incentivizing the use of manuevers because you're worried that if they're not mathematically viable in a broad range of contexts players will lose interest in them entirely.

Yes. My evidence is anecdotal, so it's perhaps not the most ironclad, but in all Pathfinder games I've been in (and the tiny number I've run) nobody has really gotten very excited about maneuvers. Nobody really used maneuvers very much, and they few times they came into play, they were lackluster. Tripping and grappling seemed to be the most popular-- probably because the ability to generate attacks of opportunity or deny enemies their action were the most useful-- and even they generally seemed to require at least a moderate degree of specialization before they were worthwhile, so generalist characters tended to shy away.

Personally, my biggest problem with Pathfinder combat maneuvers is that they provoke the risk of reprisal via attacks of opportunity - I'm fine with their reliability and utility, it's the endangerment they require that bugs me, sometimes.

There's a lot to take in here. I've skimmed the thread, and sorry if this has come up, but is anyone familiar with the concept of the "clock" in MtG? Seems somewhat relevant here.

For example, to use an extreme variation of Steerpike's example earlier in the thread:

Fighter and Wizard go up against Dragon.
Fighter can hit for 20% hp.
Wizard can use sleep for a 10% chance to put Dragon to sleep.
Either can trip for a 20% chance of denying Dragon's next turn.
Dragon can breathe fire for a 100% chance to kill everybody.

Assuming you can't run, the wizard will use sleep because it's the only chance anybody has of winning without dying, and the fighter will use trip because in the event that wizard doesn't win, this is the only feasible chance to delay death.

Healing, defense, tripping, pinning, and anything else meant to extend your own clock rather than shortening your enemy's become more useful the more deadly foes are. So to some extent I think maneuver design would benefit from some monster redesigning in addition to everything else. The old school monster that kills you in one or two hits might actually have some use in this context, provided the party has the time to respond.

Additionally a lot of this discussion assumes that attacks and maneuvers run on the same action economy. If maneuvers cost move actions or work on a stance system, a lot of this comparison becomes invalid.

Personally, I don't consider instant-death monsters a particularly good solution to any problem at all ever, but I do see what you're saying. :grin:

Great example beejazz.  The concept of the "clock" illustrates what I was basically trying to get at earlier: apart from situations where combat maneuvers accomplish something very specific (like disarm), much of the value of debuff maneuvers is defensive rather than offensive.  They're as much or more about debilitating the enemy's attack capabilities and increasing your survival chances as they are about enhancing your offensive abilities.

Someone in a 3.5 game I am playing in recently rolled really high for initiative and used her attack to disarm a bad guy during (which apparently eliminates the opportunity attack). I've never really seen disarm used this way before and, to be honest, it sort of floored me at first. Then I started to think about making a Rogue who is maximized for disarming (by having a huge Dexterity and an even bigger Initiative bonus).

As with many maneuvers the utility of disarm depends very heavily on the kinds of foes a given DM utilizes: lots of humanoid foes make it very useful, lots of animals and aberrations or psychic foes/magic-users make it pretty useless.  Again this is a situation where pure math can't be the only evaluative factor - its usefulness depends on DM style and the sorts of contexts a DM throws at his or her players.

Quote from: Steerpikethis is a situation where pure math can't be the only evaluative factor

I agree with this. Nowhere in this thread was I arguing that math should be the only evaluative factor so I hope it never came across as such. What I am arguing for is to take statements like this one...

Quote from: Steerpikelots of humanoid foes make it very useful, lots of animals and aberrations or psychic foes/magic-users make it pretty useless

... and analyze them in more detail. Can be we be sure a given maneuver is "very useful"? What is "very useful," i.e., how much damage does it cause or prevent, and how does this compare to the opportunity cost? In what situations is it or isn't it generally useful? etc.

sparkletwist, apologies: I'm not trying to say you only believe in "pure math."  In fact I'm not trying to make any statements at all about your beliefs or arguments, I'm trying to clarify/refine my own thoughts.

What I'm trying to say is that while you can analyze individual situations mathematically, the overall usefullness or lack of usefullness of a maneuever like disarm is tied to the commonality or rarity of armed foes vs. unarmed foes like animals.  That commonality or rarity cannot be predicted by a set of rules: it can't be balanced or unbalanced per se because the rules don't mandate the commonality or rarity of certain types of foes, the DM does.  Ergo, disarm becomes more or less valuable as a result of DM decisions about the commonality or rarity of armed foes, just as, say, Bull Rush becomes more or less valuable as a result of DM decisions to include a lot of cliffs or lava-rivers.  We can apply math to individual situations to determine the value of the move, but the holistic value of the maneuver over time has to be measured against the totality of the various contexts it can be used in, contexts which are created not mathematically but by the decisions of the DM.

This isn't, of course, to preclude a critique of the maneuver's specific mechanical dynamics and effectiveness.  I'm just saying that I can imagine a campaign in which disarm is a beautifully balanced and mechanically effective maneuver but is rendered useless/valueless because all the DM ever throws at players are wolves and bears and other monsters that don't fight with weapons.

Does that make any sense or am I blathering?

Incidentally, just to clarify, when I make statements here, I'm not necessarily saying "unlike sparkletwist, I argue that..."  Just making points and comments in general.  If you agree with those points, great!  If not, also great!

Quote from: SteerpikeThis isn't, of course, to preclude a critique of the maneuver's specific mechanical dynamics and effectiveness.  I'm just saying that I can imagine a campaign in which disarm is a beautifully balanced and mechanically effective manuever but is rendered useless/valueless because all the DM ever throws at players are wolves and bears and other monsters that don't fight with weapons.

Ok, this makes perfect sense to me. :)

Perhaps I should also clarify and refine my own thoughts too. What I feel (and what I feel like the mathematical analyses I've done so far have demonstrated) is that many maneuvers are often not worth doing in systems like Pathfinder even in situations where they "should" be the optimal choice (based on how the DM has set things up and the the tactics the players have chosen) due to the way their numerical balance works out-- and that's what frustrates me about them, and what I would advocate changing in house rules. For example, I'll point to the rather modest damage increase that you got by doing a dirty trick to cause blindness even when it was against an enemy with a big Dex bonus to AC and in position to get hit by two very strong fighters; I feel like lining things up in your favor that much should flat out win, or at least lead to a big damage increase. (FATE somewhat suffers from this syndrome, too, but people haven't really wanted to focus on the crunch of FATE nearly as much so I haven't gone into as much detail; I think FATE Core handles it better than earlier iterations, anyway)

Quote from: sparkletwistWhat I feel (and what I feel like the mathematical analyses I've done so far have demonstrated) is that many maneuvers are often not worth doing in systems like Pathfinder even in situations where they "should" be the optimal choice (based on how the DM has set things up and the the tactics the players have chosen) due to the way their numerical balance works out-- and that's what frustrates me about them, and what I would advocate changing in house rules.

I think this is a broad enough version of your thesis that I can get onboard with completely.

This thread is reminding me that I need to actually read FATE Core, now that it is a thing that exists.

Quote from: Steerpike
As with many maneuvers the utility of disarm depends very heavily on the kinds of foes a given DM utilizes: lots of humanoid foes make it very useful, lots of animals and aberrations or psychic foes/magic-users make it pretty useless.  Again this is a situation where pure math can't be the only evaluative factor - its usefulness depends on DM style and the sorts of contexts a DM throws at his or her players.

I've seen disarm used effectively against a wizard to remove a dangerous wand, rod, staff or other hand-held magic item - especially a metamagic rod, so repeated Quickened spells stop blasting the party. Against spellcasting itself, not so much, but I wouldn't say disarm is completely ineffective versus spellcasters.

That's very true, good point.