The Utility of Overrun in Pathfinder

Combat maneuvers are one of the rules in Pathfinder that seem really cool and useful, but which always seem to fall by the wayside by mid-to-late levels in a game. Whether you focused on tripping enemies but you keep fighting flying monsters, or you built to disarm foes and find yourself fighting colossal beasts with natural weapons, or you're a grappling master who is rendered next-to-useless by freedom of movement, it seems like there's always something rendering this combat option less effective.

However, something that a lot of us don't consider is the sheer utility of the overrun combat maneuver. Because as with real estate, a lot of combat is all about location... and this maneuver can let you get around your allies as well as your enemies in a pinch!

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Enemies, Allies, and Overrun

Let's begin at the beginning, shall we?

Overrun is a combat maneuver that allows you to, as a standard action that's taken as part of a move or a charge, to attempt to move past a target. The target can let you by if they choose, but if they don't then you make a combat maneuver check. If you succeed then you move past, and the target is knocked prone. It's kind of a bull rush and trip maneuver rolled up into one.

You can even do a pretty decent amount of damage with a bull rush if you follow the Reinhardt character conversion I put together for Overwatch's hammer-wielding heavy.

With that said, though, overrun is something you can use on your allies as well as on your enemies... especially if you're using it to reposition yourself.

The wording of overrun is that you can use it against any creature up to one size category larger than yourself. That means you can blitz past your allies as well as your enemies... but why? After all, you can just move through a friendly space for free, there's no need to use your standard action to shove your ally aside, leaving you unable to attack the enemy once you're past. Of course, as any melee specialist knows, you can't charge through a friendly space.

Not without the Charge Through feat, at least.

Charge Through requires a Strength score of 13, a base attack bonus of +1, Power Attack, and Improved Overrun... so if you're playing a human fighter, that could easily be your 3rd feat at 1st level. And on the surface, it seems like an okay feat. Basically it gives you a "free" overrun attempt as part of a charge. So if, say, there's a goblin standing between you and the evil wizard leading the cult, your fighter can overrun the goblin (assuming they succeed on the CMB check), and continue the charge to smash into the wizard behind him. This lets you either run past one threat, and keep the charge bonus when you slam into the wizard.

However, you can use this strategy to get past your allies, too.

Let's say, for example, your fighter rolled poorly on initiative. The barbarian with the longspear goes first, and rushes in to engage the enemy. Problem is they're now between you and the bad guy, so what do you do?

You overrun them.

Now, generally speaking, you can always choose not to use a feat on your sheet unless it permanently modifies some always-on feature. You can't turn off natural armor gained through a feat like Ironhide, but you can usually choose not to use feats that represent training in maneuvers. So while Improved Overrun states that your targets don't have the opportunity to avoid you, the argument could be made that you can opt not to take that option away from a target should you wish them to get out of your way.

And allies can generally relent, purposefully lowering their defenses or otherwise allowing their party mates to succeed if they so desire.

Keeping these factors in mind, the fighter with Charge Through could, at least in theory, charge past their ally with the longspear (who is given the opportunity to step aside by the fighter), and then finish their charge by slamming into the enemy in question. And if you take the feat Barreling Overrun you could theoretically run past the entire party, and then into the ranks of the enemy, letting your charge carry you as far as you can go before you finally run out of steam.

Mounted characters could even apply this logic to feats like Trample, giving them significantly greater mobility on the battlefield... especially if they're built around the ability to close with the foe via a charge, and to knock over lesser threats that get in their way.

An Argument For The Investment

The central support column of this suggestion is the idea that you can choose to use or not use certain combat feats. There are, no doubt, some folks who are digging in their heels right now who would state unequivocally that no, your targets cannot choose to evade you when you have Improved Overrun. They may not find the argument that you could choose to evade them, or to simply not activate that feat so your allies could get out of your way, a compelling one.

However, as a Game Master, I tend to err on the side of letting players do the thing... and this is one of those instances where I think it matters.

Investing in the Overrun feats is a resource-intensive track. And while it might be useful in smaller combats, particularly earlier on, it is something that may become all but impossible to make use of later in game (the aforementioned flying enemies, enemies that are colossal in size, combats where the entire party is meant to fight only a single monster, and so on). However, as long as someone who has these feats can still use them to maneuver around their fellow party members, particularly for things like charging down hallways, running past those in inconvenient positions, etc., they'll remain a valuable, useful investment.

Using them in this way is in-line with their stated mechanics, gives your players more options, and helps the game overall. Consider that in the event one of your players comes and asks if this strategy will be viable at your table.

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