No one ever tried a Feint or Sunder in our D20 games. I'm not sure why. On the other hand, there were plenty of Bull Rush, Disarm, and Trip attempts. What are your experiences?

Probably because d20/3E/PF stupidly slathers on feat taxes for using combat maneuvers. If you don't have Improved (whatever), you suffer an attack of opportunity. Many combat maneuvers also indicate that a successful AoO that damages you cancels your maneuver.

Feint in d20 was a loser's bargain; spend a standard action so that next turn your target, if they're still alive and in range is flat-footed. Throw in that anything without a meaningful Dex bonus in 3e wouldn't even be appreciably easier to hit and it just sucked.

It pretty much took a two feat investment with a min 13 Int to make it useable as a move action and since that nuked your iterative attacks, the only class that had any use for it was a rogue who couldn't deny their target their Dex bonus any other way (such as by flanking) and it was still inferior to getting it in a way that allowed your full attack action.

We had a player who sundered everything in a Living campaign... until he started taking out opponent's magic weapons and armor intended to be our loot and we demanded he stop. It also reminded the rotating DMs they could do it too and the massive size bonus many monsters enjoyed could see the party's hard won magic weapons and armor shattered because the DM decided to be a dick and inflict lasting damage that would gimp our PCs for the rest of the campaign (as the Living campaign expected you to have certain levels of magic by certain levels).

By contrast, Bull Rush, Disarm and Trip imposed some meaningful penalties that didn't destroy gear and could be recovered from if inflicted in return.

Quote from: Aglondir on March 23, 2021, 03:03:04 PM
No one ever tried a Feint or Sunder in our D20 games. I'm not sure why. On the other hand, there were plenty of Bull Rush, Disarm, and Trip attempts. What are your experiences?

Congratulations, you've just discovered the concepts of "feat tax" and "monster reciprocity"!   Starting with the latter, when monsters, who have advantages in abilities that PCs generally can't/don't, begin to use those moves on the party, they are far more likely to succeed and generally do lasting damage to the party's resources.  Hence the Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine on their use... once the players start to use them, the monsters do to, so the players stop... because their stuff is more important to them than a mook's is to it.

Secondly, the primary drawback of "feat"-based games is that, in order to make the feats worthwhile, standard design theory shackles the actions performed without feats so that they are both difficult and mostly ineffective with some investments in feats to make them workable.  So your players can attempt to sunder that Frost Giant's weapon, but they are unlikely to succeed, and when the giant returns the favor, one of the players prized possessions will be gone.  Who'd start that spiral on purpose...?

Quote from: Eirikrautha on March 23, 2021, 04:40:40 PMCongratulations, you've just discovered the concepts of "feat tax" and "monster reciprocity"!   Starting with the latter, when monsters, who have advantages in abilities that PCs generally can't/don't, begin to use those moves on the party, they are far more likely to succeed and generally do lasting damage to the party's resources.  Hence the Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine on their use... once the players start to use them, the monsters do to, so the players stop... because their stuff is more important to them than a mook's is to it.

Whether a monster uses an ability is completely independent of whether or not the players use an ability. That's like expecting a Wight to not drain a PCs level because the PCs haven't drained a monster's levels in a while.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on March 23, 2021, 05:37:14 PM
Whether a monster uses an ability is completely independent of whether or not the players use an ability. That's like expecting a Wight to not drain a PCs level because the PCs haven't drained a monster's levels in a while.

In a perfect world, yes. But we live in the real world where players (and the GM is a player, just one with more authority) enter various agreements (implicit or explicit) to maximize the fun at the game table.

One of the more common implicit agreements is "I, the player of a PC, will not exploit various known loopholes in the game system to break encounters and make the game less fun for everyone and, in return the GM will not exploit all manner of other various known loopholes in the game system to make the player's lives miserable."

Case in point and related to a recent thread is one of the more common MAD agreements in Palladium Books is, "I, the player, will not select nor use the inarguably most broken spell in the entire megaverse; Carpet of Adhesion; and, in return, you, the GM, will not select nor use Carpet of Adhesion with your spellcasting NPCs... the spell simply does not exist."

I have NEVER seen a GM willingly turn down that offer coming from a player. The spell is overpowered beyond belief... basically a Save or Lose except the Save is also lose, just for 2d6x4 melee rounds (average 28+ attacks per PC on the targets during which they cannot defend or strike back) instead of being helpless for hours.

Magic Net is basically similar in concept, but MUCH more balanced... which is why its my goto for my Ley Line Walker in combat while Carpet of Adhesion is not even said aloud... lest we summon it.

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 23, 2021, 03:52:24 PM
Feint in d20 was a loser's bargain; spend a standard action so that next turn your target, if they're still alive and in range is flat-footed. Throw in that anything without a meaningful Dex bonus in 3e wouldn't even be appreciably easier to hit and it just sucked.

It pretty much took a two feat investment with a min 13 Int to make it useable as a move action and since that nuked your iterative attacks, the only class that had any use for it was a rogue who couldn't deny their target their Dex bonus any other way (such as by flanking) and it was still inferior to getting it in a way that allowed your full attack action.

We had a player who sundered everything in a Living campaign... until he started taking out opponent's magic weapons and armor intended to be our loot and we demanded he stop. It also reminded the rotating DMs they could do it too and the massive size bonus many monsters enjoyed could see the party's hard won magic weapons and armor shattered because the DM decided to be a dick and inflict lasting damage that would gimp our PCs for the rest of the campaign (as the Living campaign expected you to have certain levels of magic by certain levels).

By contrast, Bull Rush, Disarm and Trip imposed some meaningful penalties that didn't destroy gear and could be recovered from if inflicted in return.

That makes sense! I think we knew that on some level neither was worth it. In general, we tended to avoid the fiddly maneuvers, although Trip seemed to be a favorite.

No one uses sunder because either

A: You're fighting a mook and you're better off just killing them in 1-2 hits
or
B: They're using really awesome gear which will be the bulk of your reward for this fight - and you don't want to break it

As to Feint - it's generally only viable with substantial investment so that it's better and/or you can use Feint far faster than a standard action. In 3.x/PF, about the only foe it's worth using on without a bunch of feats spent is on the Will o' Wisp, who have a crazily high AC for their CR, but nearly all of it is in DEX & Dodge. In 3.5 I remember using Feint and then grappling the little bastard so that the rest of my party could stab them while I held them down.

I do remember considering going for Greater Feint with a bard in Pathfinder. Sure, he's basically be giving up his iterative to use it, but it made the foe flat-footed for everyone. It was Pathfinder Society though, and my buddy with a rogue couldn't keep going (which is the combo I would have done it for). Still - not great for most characters, but he was a tanky bard. Once he did his buffing his job was to deal mediocre damage and be a flanking buddy and hopefully get foes to whiff at him. Trading some of his mediocre damage to get a rogue buddy's full attack to hit with SA would have been great, but without the consistent rogue buddy, not worth the 3 feat investment.