Dear all,

I was wondering what are some possible training paths to help offset creature combat maneuvers.

These maneuvers seem to be responsible for easily 90% of all my deaths.

I can manage to destroy most creatures relatively easily but these pernicious maneuvers are thoroughly annoying.

I am playing a pure casting dark elf sorc by the way. No weapons, just rune staff, robe etc.

yours in the dark art,
Keatsr
the hallucination of Nou the abysmal

Cmans are the bane of our existence.

Learn Cunning Defense will help to some degree. Disarm will help prevent the loss of your rune staff.

Know the creature you are killing. Peer in to the room you are about to enter then disable the creature that would kill you through combat maneuvers as soon as you enter.

Sorcerers have the largest arsenal of disabling and crowd controlling spells.

For me. I know if I remove the right arm from the creature (aimed Limb Disruption) 99.9% of the creatures can't do anything but stand around. Anyone will know if I am hunting in Nelemar. There will be arms all over the ground.

Spell Tank, in other words wear enough spells to allow you to wait out the combat maneuver round time locks. This is why I avoid soloing Bandits. They will lock Zhelas into round time for so long that he will eventually get dispelled, groin kicked, etc that he will die.

I know that in Nelemar, my sorcerer is vulnerable to the Combat Maneuver Charge that the Tritons use. It does piercing damage. I made friends with a warrior and he adds piercing protection to my armor so I can survive a lot more.



Peace
Zhelas

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(Lord Paladin walks around Droit examining his equipment.)
Lord Paladin: How does he....How does he work?

There are a few training options available as well: Physical Fitness and Perception both aid in standard maneuver rolls. Whether or not this is inclusive or exclusive of player-available combat maneuvers is a constant debate...

Even with training in these things, you're not going to be objectively /good/ at avoiding the maneuvers, but you will at least be occasionally able to avoid them, especially in defensive/guarded, which is much more than instant-death whenever a maneuver happens!

~Whirlin

This advice is 100% what I would also say. 1x PF and 1x Perception are staple sorcerer skills. Don't go more than 2x in spells until you fit this in to your training path, because it is definitely more important unless you never plan to hunt.

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Though I agree that 1x PF and 1x Perception is very useful. It is not always necessary to have this first. Why? You are a pure. No matter how hard you train to meet these goals and even with 5x in cunning defense and 5x in disarm or whatever you choose. Combat Maneuvers ARE the bane of a sorcerer's existence.

As for the advice of not going over 2x in spells? I am sorry again I will have to disagree with this. Why? Unless you have a steady stream of heavy quartz orbs. Sorcerer spells suffer from Creatures having an inflated TD against our spells. SO if you can tolerate not hitting creatures most of the time, then sure 2x is fine.

So what is the solution? To be exact there is no right or wrong answer.

However, as I mentioned before and as Daid advised at the end of his post crowd control. Using the peer command to look into the room you are entering. Don't be afraid to retreat one room away if things get dicey.

Zhelas capped with .5x in perception, 24 ranks of Physical Fitness, zero Combat Maneuvers and 2.4x in Spells. Did he die a lot? No. My solution was just to hunt smartly and know the creatures I had to disable first.

Peace
Zhelas

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(Lord Paladin walks around Droit examining his equipment.)
Lord Paladin: How does he....How does he work?

<CMANs don't come into play until mid to late 50s, and even then, when they're first introduced, they're not instant-kills.>

Just feel the need to point out that this isn't true across the board. Anyone that's gone through their 50's in RR knows to watch out for a level 52 tomb troll's shield bash with a spiked shield.

I'd say that a sorcerer's best defense against maneuvers is always knowledge of your foes and a smart offense. If you can't stun them, remove whatever limb is needed for the maneuver. If they don't need limbs for the maneuver, lock them in RT. Always know what's in the room before you step into it and disable it before entering the room if you must.

Starchitin

A severed gnomish hand crawls in on its fingertips and makes a rude gesture before quickly decaying and rotting into dust. A gust of wind quickly scatters the dust.

Whirlin wrote:

>Daid did bring up something that I didn't touch upon in my last post though. I highly recommend prioritizing CS and spell research for lower-mid level Sorcs compared to CMAN defense. CMANs don't come into play until mid to late 50s, and even then, when they're first introduced, they're not instant-kills.

Zhelas wrote:

>Though I agree that 1x PF and 1x Perception is very useful. It is not always necessary to have this first. Why? You are a pure. No matter how hard you train to meet these goals and even with 5x in cunning defense and 5x in disarm or whatever you choose. Combat Maneuvers ARE the bane of a sorcerer's existence.

>As for the advice of not going over 2x in spells? I am sorry again I will have to disagree with this. Why? Unless you have a steady stream of heavy quartz orbs. Sorcerer spells suffer from Creatures having an inflated TD against our spells. SO if you can tolerate not hitting creatures most of the time, then sure 2x is fine.

>So what is the solution? To be exact there is no right or wrong answer.

So, of course, to each their own. Still, considering the OP wants to know, explicitly, what can be done about maneuvers, I think my advice is rather sound.

At lower levels, it's true there are less maneuver issues to deal with. But you really should be 1x in PT up to level 24 just for your hit points. And you really ought to have a bare minimum of 10 ranks of perception by level 20, just to get around. So in the low levels, something like 1x of these core skills is already required. I'd surely argue, all other things being equal, that core training is on part with 2x spells per level, but that more than 2x spells per level is optional and not core training.

Now let's say we're in the 30s to 40s (which is now past say level 20~30 where we should be basically near 1x in PT and Peception for core skill reasons and not manuever defense reasons). Let's just choose level 35 as an example. To be 1x in PT means about +10 ranks of physical fitness to be added, which is 80/0 training points. Assuming we are just converting PTPs all day long as a sorcerer, that's a little more than one spell at 3x (64/0). Let's say someone tried to squeak by with the absolute bare minimum of 10 ranks of perception, then they'd need 25 more ranks of perception to be at 1x. This is 0/3 per rank or 6/0 per rank, and then 150 PTP for those 25 ranks. So at the end of the day, to be 1x in PT and 1x in perception beyond the core skill at level 35, it was 230/0 TPs, which was 3.6 spell ranks. Those 3 spell ranks netted you at most +2 CS, if I assume you already had 1x in sorcerer base.

Now, of course, where you hunt your mileage will vary and what kind of foes you face. But water wyrds in RR are level 35 and are already casting Major Elemental Wave. Krolvin slavers are level 36 and also cast this spell. Swamp hags are level 42, and guess what spell they also cast? Surely, sorcerers have 703 to prevent casting, but you'll definitely be in situations where you can't manage to 703 a creature before it casts 435 at you, and there is a very good chance you'll die. And I only used one spell in one city's hunting grounds here. We could try to do a more complete analysis. It could be some other areas for level 35 hunting don't have any deadly maneuvers. But I think it's a fair example to give here, which shows that this is a problem well before level 50.

And as you get higher in level, the maneuvers you face are only getting worse, which was already more or less agreed on by all of us.

So, I still stand behind the statement that a sorcerer should be 1x in PT and 1x perception before they go past 2x in spells. I'm not saying a sorcerer shouldn't go past 2x in spells. Especially in the lower levels, it is quite standard to be around 2.5x in spells or more. I was. But I also had 1x PT and 1x Perception. I use the benchmark of overtrained spells because it's something a lot of people playing sorcerers give undue weight to, in my opinion. Thus, I point out that, for me, I make sure I have my PT and Perception before I'd even think about getting +2 to my sorcerer CS at level 35 in trade.

And, yes, knowing your foes, and also killing them fast, go a really long way. And very, very many training paths are 'viable' depending on your style and many other things. But I think 1x PT and 1x Perception for a sorcerer is a necessary part of any standard build these days. It wasn't for a looooooong time that we as players finally found out that 1x in PT was fairly crucial for maneuver defense, and the decades-old-turned-out-to-be-wrong advice that a sorcerer shouldn't train PT beyond about 24 ranks is now a myth we are carting around that should be quashed.

A sorcerer should be assumed to 1x PT and 1x Perception I think.

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>Kayse scrambles to avoid being sucked into the void!

Dear sorcerers, necromancers, demonologists and apostates,

So after making some alterations and a few levels of hunting these are my findings.

Of course all of this is rather dependent on hunting style, equipment, predilections, where you hunt, etc.

But for Nou in the late 50s I found that hunting the Citadel in RR that there was a remarkable change in the effects of combat maneuvers when I changed my skills around some. By moving pints away from the hunt for ever more CS via near tripling and placing a lot more emphasis on perception and physical fitness, plus wearing double leathers as opposed to robes, Nou's ability to survive combat maneuver attacks has become much better.

Of course if you hunt incredibly carefully, engage only with one foe, always peer, etc. This is probably unnecessary. But,after a small change to emphasize the physical I have found the results to be incredibly satisfying as far as deaths go. As well I find that there will always be the errant combat maneuver going off when one enters a room or when there is excessive screen scroll.

of course luck is also a key ingredient!

As Nou tries to play out deaths IC and not abandon this system she tends to decay when killed. So crawling away from a fight, after a combat maneuver just feels exceptionally good. I had had her skills based around a mode of roleplay and Nou as a "frail" or "fragile" char. I guess she just started doing some massive marathon training and working out because with this change things are definitely improving. We will see how this works out as she visits other hunting grounds.

To be continued...

best,
Keatsr
the RL doppelganger of Nou the maimed

Training in combat maneuvers when possible should help too. I was thinking of doing only 2x spell with my new sorcerer rather than anything higher, then 2x perception,1x PF, double leathers and combat maneuvers when i can afford. Probably some Multi opponent too for when multi creatures are in the room.

SILVEAN

However, ranks in the Combat Maneuvers skill does help with defending against creature maneuvers in equal measure with the much cheaper Perception skill.

This is only true in stance offensive. In stance defensive (and a sliding scale up to that point based upon stance), Combat Maneuvers provides twice as much bonus vs. Perception.

GameMaster Estild

Ooh that's some interesting intel, thanks Estild.