Things to do in melee combat

[Yora]

While casters do all kings of exiting things in combat, melee combat pretty much comes down to "I hit it with my weapon". Possibly with some added penalties for the enemy or special modifiers to the attack roll, but it's still hitting the enemy until he is dead.

But when you have a good fight scene in a movie or novel, the fighters do a lot more than just attack, parry, and occasionally feint.
Tome of Battle and Iron Heroes are of cause always an option, but I'd like to collect some ideas that can be done by anyone with just the basic rules of 3.5e or PF.

Trip
Probably the most famous and most universally useful option in melee combat. Int 13 and Combat expertise to get Improved Trip is anoying, but if your character is quite strong and your opponent not, you can also try it without the feat. If you have additional feats that allow you to make free attacks against fallen enemies, the better for you.

Bull Rush
Pushing the enemy back a few feet is completely lame by itself. It does get interesting when you have something to push the target into. Over a ledge, or down the stairs, or even over a railing. By pure RAW, nothing happens when you push someone on stairs. There is also no mention about pushing someone over a railing, but for a GM it's really easy to just add a DC 10 or DC 15 Reflex save, and if it fails, the target is set tumbling down to the floor.

Grapple
People hate grappling, but it's really not that difficult when you write down the actual steps on a card and once you've done it a few times it's really easy.
By RAW, the only useful thing to do with grapple is to pin spellcasters. You can not cast spells with somatic components in a grapple and retrieving a spell component takes a full round action, IF you beat the attackers grapple check. And if you can cast a spell you still have to pass a DC 20 + spell level concentration check. In theory every spellcaster you'll ever meet could have freedom of movement prepared or as a ring, but if your GM pulls that card the campaign probably isn't worth playing to begin with.
With a bit creativity, you can also pick up and throw grappled or pinned characters. Somehow the 3.5e rules don't have this option, even though this is the most fun application of grapple. PF does have the RAW option of moving a grappled opponent into a dangerous square. But you can also get a bit more creative and throw people out of windows, if you're strong enough to lift them. Or use them as improvised throwing weapons.

Stunts
Iron Heroes has actual rules for stunts, but they are also easily made up on the fly. Tell the GM you are doing something cool and he pulls out the DM's Best Friend (+/-2 or +/-4 circumstance modifier to any roll): Jump on the table and make a leap attack against an enemy: DC 15 Jump check, on a success you get a +2 bonus to attack for your charge.
Does is substentially change the battle? No. Does it make the fight more awesome? Hell yes!

Use the environment
As a melee character, you probably have a lot of strength or dexterity. Most fight do not take place in an open clearing or an empy 20x20 feet room. There's stuff all around you, so pull some stunts with it. Charge into a room and flip the table on the guards sitting behind it. The GM makes the on the fly descision that it takes a DC 20 strength check to pull it off. If you make it, the guards have to make a DC 15 Reflex save and on a failure they are pinned by table and on a success merely prone. The rogue will love you for it.

Please add any other deas you have.

[sabelo2000]

Intra-Party synergy: Party members may not all be excellent melee fighters, and some class abilities almost require aid from another class. The most obvious is Stunning Fist (probably from the Monk, although a h2h Fighter could do it) used on an enemy so the Rogue can SA every turn.

Fun with Size: Small characters and Large characters can get into a LOT of interesting situations. I've had my party's Halfling fight while standing under a table, gaining partial cover and causing his enemy a -2 to attack from crouching; I've seen an Enlarged barbarian make a STR check to pull down the entire second floor of a building. If there's a place a Medium creature can't fit or can't reach, chances are he's not expecting you to be there, so use it!

[Dsurion]

I know you said you wanted to stay within 3.5 and PF, but Conan d20 is based on 3.x and gives anyone who meets the prerequisites a lot of free options in combat.

Aim: spend a full round action for +2 on next ranged attack.
Decapitating Slash: -4 to AC (sort of) for a round to force a Fort Save DC5+damage dealt on a critical or die. Can only be used on an AoO.
Desperate Stab: During the surprise round, a finesse weapon-user can force a flat-footed foe to pass a DC5+damage dealt fort Save or die.
Devastating Sweep: If holding a slashing weapon, you can attack in an arc that hits everything within range as a standard action.
Ranged Disarm: Pretty much exactly what you'd think.
Distracting Arrow: Use a Standard Action to shoot a foe and give them a -2 to AC until next turn.
Force Back: As a Standard Action, force a foe to move backwards or take an extra 4 damage from your attack (doubled if THF), you take a -4 to attack. The enemy can move back 5 feet, but you can move with them, and the enemy provokes an AoO.
Fling Aside: If a Grapple touch attack hits, force a foe prone in an adjacent square (going prone from this doesn't provoke).
Human Shield: If you've done damage in a grapple during your turn and are being attacked, you can have the attack dealt to the "shield" instead (not exact, but close enough).
Improvised Attack: If you're using an improvised weapon, you can make a second attack against a different enemy in reach, but the first attack takes a -2 to hit.
Kip Up: Make a DC 20 Tumble check to stand up immediately after being knocked prone.
Roll: If you're prone and being attacked in melee, make a Tumble check vs. attack roll, success negates the -4 penalty.
To The Hilt: When attacking unarmored foe with slashing or piercing weapon, +2 to damage, and if damage equals STR mod before adding modifiers, stick your weapon in the enemy and cause them to take d6 damage every action they take.

There's more to it than that, like feat prereqs, and some basic differences in how the system handles AC and such, but they're the gist of it. In my experience, having extra stuff like this to do makes combat a LOT more fun for mundane classes.

[Person_Man]

You may wish to take a look at my Guide to Melee Combos (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=127026), which goes through this issue in detail.

[Dictum Mortuum]

Demoralize people to make them more susceptible to allied casters' spells.

[Spiryt]

With a bit creativity, you can also pick up and throw grappled or pinned characters. Somehow the 3.5e rules don't have this option, even though this is the most fun application of grapple. PF does have the RAW option of moving a grappled opponent into a dangerous square. But you can also get a bit more creative and throw people out of windows, if you're strong enough to lift them. Or use them as improvised throwing weapons.

Grapple could definitely use some more interesting, and pretty much no-brainer options that would come naturally - for example, beating opponent in grapple allowing you to - trip, feint, disarm, overrun, nauseate, or whatever him.

The problem is that it would require homebrew to allow someone to basically make few additional rolls.... Do to something that is done with few rolls with different mechanics already.

[Karoht]

I have friends who really like to get artsy with their melee attacks. They describe it all in great detail. If we removed rolls entirely, they would successfully outfence pretty much every opponent they faced unless I played the same way against them.

So I grant a circumstance bonus to those kinds of attacks.

Example:
Me: The skeleton comes at you with a flail.
Player: How does he swing at me.
Me: Downward stroke.
Player: Awesome. Roll the hit.
Me: Misses
Player: Great. He misses because I sidestep the attack. I step on the head of his flail, now burried in the soft earth. Now that the attackers head is about shoulder height as he's trying to pull the Flail back, I swing shoulder level and aim for the head.

I figure if the player is going to go to that level of detail, to roleplay the combat even, they deserve at least something. It's hard to say how much a bonus, and I've never come up with hard and fast rules for it.
The good news is, once the characters start getting actuall attacks (IE-Cleave, Power Attack, etc) they tend to step back from this kind of roleplaying and lean a bit harder on rollplaying and better tactics. So by about level 3 you typically don't see it anymore. I've only ever seen one player actually roleplay combat like this from 1-20, he was a Paladin and was super serious about it.
The bad news is, it can really slow down combat if players aren't very spontaneous or if they insist on fishing for the bonus.
Which is part of why I keep such circumstance bonuses a secret. And the enemies and NPC's don't get them, ever.

[Curious]

Called Shots are actually quite nice, assuming you have improved called shot.

[Keld Denar]

Called shots are BAD for PCs, though, as is any critical system.

Take 20 gobos sitting on a cliff and give them all short bows. Have them all aim at someone's head. Statistically speaking, one of them will hit the foe in the head, regardless of that foe's AC. If you don't like those odds, double your gobos for an increase in the EL of +2.

[Karoht]

Called shots are BAD for PCs, though, as is any critical system.

Take 20 gobos sitting on a cliff and give them all short bows. Have them all aim at someone's head. Statistically speaking, one of them will hit the foe in the head, regardless of that foe's AC. If you don't like those odds, double your gobos for an increase in the EL of +2.
Hence why one avoids such things unless they are in the DM VS Players mentality, which is a bad mentality to begin with.

Called Shots are fine for PC's to use against NPC's but not the other way around.

[Glimbur]

Hence why one avoids such things unless they are in the DM VS Players mentality, which is a bad mentality to begin with.

Called Shots are fine for PC's to use against NPC's but not the other way around.

Why should the PCs be special in that they are the only ones who think of aiming for something besides center of mass? This is a matter of opinion, not fact, but I don't like this idea because it breaks verisimilitude for me.

[Karoht]

Why should the PCs be special in that they are the only ones who think of aiming for something besides center of mass? This is a matter of opinion, not fact, but I don't like this idea because it breaks verisimilitude for me.You're entirely right, it is opinion. But the fact is, as a previous example pointed out, called shot rules are remarkably potent in the hands of large groups NPC's. The only reason why one would take a large pack of ECL1 or 2 goblins with crossbows and have them all use a called shot to the head against your party members is if you want some or all of your party members to die.

I agree that all rules should operate both ways and not one or the other. Bear in mind though that is is a game, rule of fun and all that jazz as well. It's a tough line to balance, your mileage may vary, etc.

[Curious]

Yeah, 1 in 20 gobbos might make a called shot on the head- but only 1 in 20 of those is actually going to do much with it. A regular called shot to the head only has minor to okay effects, it takes a critical hit on the called shot to improve the effect, and massive damage to actually cripple.

Here (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/variant-rules) are the rules.

[Yora]

When there is a chance for additional or greater effects, it always huts the PCs more than they benefit from it.

A small chance that a random enemy gets seriously crippled or outright killed by a lucky roll is nice, but does not make that much of a difference as it is a foregone conclusion that the PCs will win almost every encounter and the enmy won't survive the encounter anyway. It only speeds things up for the PCs.
But when a PC suffers these special effects, it can easily become a major problem.

If you reduce chance of die rolls to a minimum, the PCs will win every encounter they can win. But as you increase random chance, the certainty if a victory become smaller. The DM has an infinite amount of encounters he can throw at the PCs, the PCs have only a single party, so everything that makes combat more random makes it more dangerous for them.

[navar100]

You need DM cooperation. This means the party or warrior in particular musn't be punished (facetiously speaking) for not attacking for a damage to do something else. Whatever that something else is (trip, bull rush, etc.) needs to matter. The bad guys should be vulnerable to such things. A bad guy having to deal with being tripped or grappled needs to matter in the players' favor. If the DM continually throws permutations of large four-legged flying creatures with 10ft reach against the party, then the warrior is mathematically sunk. An occasional creature like that is fine for a challenge. Perhaps the warrior will try something despite being mathematically disadvantaged. Just not all the time.

[Curious]

When there is a chance for additional or greater effects, it always huts the PCs more than they benefit from it.

A small chance that a random enemy gets seriously crippled or outright killed by a lucky roll is nice, but does not make that much of a difference as it is a foregone conclusion that the PCs will win almost every encounter and the enmy won't survive the encounter anyway. It only speeds things up for the PCs.
But when a PC suffers these special effects, it can easily become a major problem.

If you reduce chance of die rolls to a minimum, the PCs will win every encounter they can win. But as you increase random chance, the certainty if a victory become smaller. The DM has an infinite amount of encounters he can throw at the PCs, the PCs have only a single party, so everything that makes combat more random makes it more dangerous for them.

But it is not that much of an increase in risk; even if you have 400 goblin archers firing at one characters head, only 20 are going to hit, and only 1 is going to crit and activate a greater effect, which is- staggered and 1d6 Int, Wis, or Cha damage. And honestly, if your DM is throwing 400 enemies at a character that is sill vulnerable to arrows, you've got bigger problems than 1 character getting staggered.

EDIT: Plus, you can make an easy Fort save to reduce the condition to just staggered.

[deuxhero]

Int 13 and Combat expertise to get Improved Trip is anoying,

Which is why you use Wolf Totem barbarian...

[Coidzor]

Which is why you use Wolf Totem barbarian...

Unless you want to be lawful. Though, why you'd wanna be lawful is anyone's guess.

Ah, RAW.

[deuxhero]

You only lose rage if you become lawful.

There's always Monk if you NEED to be completely lawful.

[Dsurion]

Yora, may I ask what the purpose of the thread was? Is it just a compilation of things non-casters can do in combat, or is it to build a base for more things to do?