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Greater Combat Maneuvers for Starfinder (Patreon)

Published:
2021-07-06 21:59:58
Imported:
2026-10
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Content

Okay, let's get back to doing some ttRPG rules you can bring to the table, shell we?

Combat maneuvers in Starfinder are specifically designed to be difficult to pull off against a significant foe without having a fair number of bonuses in place. You have to hit an opponent's KAC +8, which is a difficult task, and if you fail you have no effect on them at all. This is an intentional design choice rather than some accident of not playtesting (indeed, it was originally KAC +10, and after playtesting we decided that was exactly 10% too hard to achoice, which is why the weird "+8" value is used).

(If you want to know WHY we made that intentional design choice, let me know in the comments!)

The biggest problem with having an appealing-looking effect available but unlikely to work, is that there is very little as frustrating for players than taking a round to accomplish absolutely nothing. In a game with soft limits designed to keep a character from ever being able to specialize in a tactic to the point it nearly never fails, this frustration is worse for players who are trying to create a certain kind of "build" focused on trying a difficult maneuver over and over. The end result may be effective (if you have to try to disarm someone three times before you succeed, but disarming them makes them nearly useless and you couldn't knock them out that fast, it's an effective tactic), but still not be any fun.

(And yes, there are things like "save: negates" spells that have the same issue. But that's a different article.)

However, just making it easier to perform the difficult-but-extremely-effective maneuver can break the balance of different options in the game, especially if other soft limits are kept in place.

But you can alleviate some of the unfun "wasted by whole turn" feeling by having a midpoint between spectacular success and total failure.

You COULD just add this as an alternate rule that applies to all combat maneuvers performed by everyone, or make it a built-in part of the Improved Combat Maneuver feat. However, you'll have the least impact on game balance if this becomes a new feat option, allowing additional specialization for characters who want a better chance to impact combat with their preferred maneuvers, without making the maneuvers universally more effective.

Greater Combat Maneuver (Combat)

With one specific combat maneuver, even when you fail you often inconvenience your target. Prerequisites: Base attack bonus +1.Benefit: Choose one combat maneuver (bull rush, dirty trick, disarm, grapple, reposition, sunder, or trip). If your attack roll for this combat maneuver fails to hit your target's KAC +8, but does hit their KAC +4, you manage a :near miss," and impose a minor, temporary condition on the target. This is not considered succeeding at the combat maneuver for purposes of any other effects of yours that are triggered by succeeding at a combat maneuver.The effect you have on a near-miss depends on the combat maneuver you have selected, as noted below.Bull Rush: Although you didn't move the target, you did shove them off-balance for a moment, forcing them to regain their footing. They are dazed until the beginning of their turn. (The target can act normally on their next turn, but can't take reactions prior to that.)Dirty Trick: The target had to twist away from you, or shield its eyes, to avoid the impact of your dirty trick. The subject is dazzled for 1 round. Disarm: You didn't knock the item out of the target's hand, but you did give it a good whack, impacting their aim. They are Off-Target for 1 round, or until they take a move action to negate this condition.Grapple: While you haven't managed to get a solid grip on your target, your attempt to get a grip and subsequently being in-their-face makes it a bit more difficult for them to pay attention to anything else. They are dazzled for 1 round.Reposition: Although you didn't move the target, you did shove them off-balance for a moment, forcing them to regain their footing. They are dazed until the beginning of their turn. (The target can act normally on their next turn, but can't take reactions prior to that.) Sunder:  You didn't damage the item, but you did give it a good whack, impacting the target's aim. They are Off-Target for 1 round, or until they take a move action to negate this condition.Trip: Although you didn't trip the target, you did shove them off-balance for a moment, forcing them to regain their footing. They are dazed until the beginning of their turn. (The target can act normally on their next turn, but can't take reactions prior to that.) Special: You can take Greater Combat Maneuver multiple times. The effects don’t stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new combat maneuver.

While this feat doesn't require Improved Combat Maneuver (in keeping with Starfinder's tendency to keep feat chains to a minimum), it has obvious synergy with that feat. A character with Improved Combat maneuver (disarm) gains a +4 bonus to their disarm attempts. That means if their attack roll would normally hit the target's AC, with the +4 from the Improved feat it'll hit KAC +4, which is enough to trigger Greater Combat Maneuver. So on any roll that would have been good enough to damage the target that character could get some impact from attempting a combat maneuver, even if it doesn't get the full maneuver effect.

Comments

Shane Ferguson

I would love to hear more about the choice to make Combat Maneuvers so difficult in Starfinder. It is my single least favorite thing about the system and in my experience largely results in combat maneuvers never coming up in games.

Owen K.C. Stephens

So, here's the short version (and if more people are interested, I can do a longer one): Combat maneuvers in Pathfinder were proven to be able to shut down a foe as dangerous as your whole party. grapple a spellcaster, and they are then easily killed. Disarm a swordsman and grab his sword, and he stops being a threat. Now in Pathfinder, there's at least one big drawback -- if you don't burn a feat on a maneuver, you provoke an Attack of Opportunity when you attempt one Since Starfinder was tasked to be simpler than Pathfinder, we limited AoOs to only when you leave a threatened square, make a ranged attack, or cast a spell. So combat maneuver become safer to attempt. Further, with the decision to have so much damage for characters to be tied to their weapons, things like disarm become a 1-roll way to largely neutralize a huge segment of foes. So, the idea was to make those combat maneuvers, with no extra resources put into them, neither more effective than less effective than other kinds of attacks at neutralizing a foe. With that decisions, and the KAC serving as the target number base (again, to be simpler than CMD/CMB of Pathfinder), the question was how much harder does it need to be to succeed at a maneuver to ensure that, on average, grappling or disarming someone takes as many attempts to neutralize them as it takes if you just attack them. On *average*, a group of 4 PCs trying to disarm a foe will succeed and drop them in about the same number of rounds as if they all just shoot at it. Further, their odds of success are higher if they work together (flanking, envoy boosts, operative trick attacking to make target flat-footed, and so on). Pushing the whole party to coordinate to take down a significant threat means that successful combat maneuvers are likely to involve the whole team, rather than one player shutting down a villain and everyone else feeling unneeded.

Shane Ferguson

Thanks for the response. It’s always fascinating reading about how tight the numbers were in design for Starfinder.

Owen K.C. Stephens

It a narrow line to walk -- we didn't want to dictate only specific builds as viable, but we also wanted for both typcial effectiveness and eak effectiveness to fall within certain ranges.