20 October 2014

'Rogue Rules': Possible house rule to make martials suck less in Type PF D&D

The "rogue rule" is a term I think I might come up with yesterday, but there is also a chance I read it somewhere. It came up in a discussion with my wife about how much I think it sucks that in order to play a fighty class in PF you either have to just be content with full attacking to do the most damage you can, or paying the feat taxes to do cool things. And by do cool things I mean attempting to do cool things without provoking an attack of opportunity but probably failing because the major encounter has several more hit dice than you and therefore more feats or special abilities and higher Combat Maneuver Defense. Basically you can be really good at hitting things really hard really well, or doing nothing good, while paying for the honor of having a full base attack bonus progression with shitty skills per level.

Any ways.

Rogue Rule refers to a rogue, or any class that grants the Uncanny Dodge/ Improved Uncanny Dodge, being unflankable with Imp. Uncanny Dodge, unless by a rogue with 4 or more levels of rogue more than than the character being flanked.

Well what if, among other things, martial classes, that means classes with a the full BAB progression, had a similar rule with regards to combat maneuvers? Basically, any one can attempt a combat maneuver already in the rules, but they risk getting an axe in the face unless they have a the specific feat that allows them to do that specific maneuver without provoking. This makes just hitting the dude with your axe the safest course, you don't risk getting hit specifically because you tried attacking, and your attack will do damage. I propose that martials are able to execute combat maneuvers without provoking against non-martials, and against another martial 4 or more levels lower.

A level 10 fighter trying to disarm a level 10 paladin would provoke.
A level 14 fighter trying to disarm a level 10 paladin would not provoke.
A level 10 fighter trying to grapple a level 10 wizard would nor provoke.
A level 5 fighter trying to grapple a level 10 wizard would not provoke.

I'm torn between telling the monk to piss off and pay the feat the tax to be martial, or just giving the monk the full BAB so it can be what it's trying to being, an unarmed martial.

There is also the feat Defensive Combat Training in addition to its stated benefit also treats you as a martial with level equal to your hit dice.
All of the improved and greater maneuver feats are folded together. In other words, there are no greater versions of these feats. Instead the improved versions all increase effective martial level by 4, this also means a +4 bonus on CMB to attempt and +4 bonus to CMD defending against that maneuver.

A level 10 fighter with improved disarm trying to disarm a level 10 paladin would not provoke as the fighter's effective level is 14.
A level 14 fighter trying to disarm a level 10 paladin with improved disarm would provoke as the paladin's effective level is 14.
A level 5 fighter trying to disarm a level 10 wizard with improved disarm would provoke as the wizard's effective level is 4.
A level 5 fighter with improved disarm trying to disarm a level 10 wizard with improved disarm would not provoke as the fighter's effective level is 9 and the wizard's is 4. If the wizard also had Defensive Combat Training the poor fighter is very confused, and go home wizard you are drunk.

Other things I've been thinking about to make martials not suck:
Improved Grapple no longer requires Improved Unarmed Strike. The perquisite makes a certain amount of sense but fuck this is D&D and wizards can do all kinds of crazy shit with MAGIC so fuck logic.
The feint, disarm, and trip feats do not require Combat Expertise, also Combat Expertise no longer has that fucking 13 Int requirement. I mean you can learn how to fighter better in the hitting people regardless of how smart you are, but it requires you to have a slightly above average intelligence to be able to more adequently defend yourself with a weapon? Ditto on the disarming, feinting, and tripping. I mean fuck. Some classes allow you to take those feats ignoring those requirements any ways.
Point Blank Shot is no longer the prerequisite for all of the fucking archery feats that aren't about shooting people at point blank range.
Also fuck the idea that martials only get 2+int mod (minimum of 1) skill ranks per level. EVERYBODY GETS TWO EXTRA SKILL RANKS PER LEVEL!!!