Gignere's page

Zilvar2k11 wrote:

Personally, I can't remember the last time I was dispelled, but apparently nary a fight goes by at many tables without someone dropping some form of 'make the players pull out the backup butt-naked character sheet'.

People get dispelled in my games all the time (not necessarily by scrolls either as it's a very good spell to prepare, to know, and shows up on a number of outsiders, especially at high levels). I don't know what you mean about this "backup naked character sheet". Do people actually have those?

Depending on which character I play I have a cheat sheet of all the important stats, to hit, damage, etc for various scenarios. At high levels it can include one for when fighting in an antimagic field. I almost never have to do math during my turn and I go superfast.

@Gig: The Fighter does not benefit from an Extra Attack from Haste. You also spent 25k more gold than me and have no defensive items. Armor spikes would put you at 33k more gold than me. As a general rule, you don't want to spend more than ~60% of your gold on offense.

If you want to continue that comparison at that level of Gold blown on offense I'll upgrade my Monk's AoMF to Holy and then rant about how DR makes the unarmed Fighter suck but the Monk can so easily bypass DR.

That said, I'd recommend removing at least 20k worth of items from your build and do the DPR at that level.

(Menacing makes it 209 DPR, btw).

I am sure you can game the items better than me. Also how do you classify an item offensive or defensive is the 2/2 belt O or D? What about the armor O or D?

What we are doing is just a pissing match on who can game items and buffs better than another. If I switch to a normal TWF with kukris, instead just so we can avoid the controversy of haste working with unarmed.

I can save 3 feats (It is 4 feats but I would pick up Imp Crit) and up the DPR to 240, by having a +1 courageous (this is cheese because I know I can get a morale bonus) and a +1 menacing kukri. Also at the same time up my AC significantly and save a bunch of gold without having to buy Monk's Robes.

With the money save I can get the +1 comp attack from the ioun stone. The TW Fighter DPR goes up to 250.

PS: I tripled checked my math on the menacing change unless I misunderstand how it works +2 attack, I am still getting 212.

SoulGambit: Here is my TW Fighter build

I always use Elite array because I find that is the most consistent way to test DPR. I mean point buys might change things a bit but not all that much.

Any way the TWF, he will use unarmed attacks just like the monk.

Str 14 (+2 level ups here)
Dex 15+2
Con 13
The rest doesn't matter.

Feats: IUS, Weapon Focus and Gtr, Weapon Specialization, Power Attack, Double Slice, TWF, ITWF, GTWF, Dragon Style, Dragon Ferocity, Stunning Fist

Items: +2/+2 belt str and dex (10k), gloves of dueling (15K), mithral breastplate +1 brawling (12k), gloves of dueling (15k), AoMF-Element (5K), Monk's Robe (13k), than whatever.

Buffs: GMF +2/+2, Inspire Courage +3/+3, Good Hope +2/+2, Brawling +2/+2, Flank +2, Haste +1

Attack Form: BAB + Str + Weap Foc + Weap Train + Brawling + GMF + IC+ GH+Flank+haste
Attack: 11+4+2+4+2+2+3+2+2+1-3-2 = +28/+28/+28/+23/+23/+18/+18

Damage Form: 1d8+Str+Weap Spec+Weap Train + Brawling + GMF + IC + GH + PA + Element
Damage: 4.5+8+2+4+2+2+3+2+6+3.5 = 37
Damage after first attack: 37 – 2 = 35
Offhand Damage: 37 – 2 - 3 (PA sucks for offhand) = 32

VS. AC 28 DPR 198

I am sure you can do better than I did because you know equipment that I never even heard of.

If I grab a +1 menacing armor spikes I can get DPR to 212.

Edit: left out stunning fist feat.

"Dugan Stoneknuckles" 10th level Dwarven Monk (20 point buy)

Str:16
Dex:14
Con:14
Int:12
Wis:22
Cha:5
AC: 28 (34 if Ki is spent)
32 ( vs Giants)(36 if Ki is spent)
HP: 10d8 + 10
Spd: 50
CMD: 22 (24 when being Grappled)
CMB: +13 (+15 when Grappling)
Traits: Quain Martial Artist (+1 damage when using Unarmed Strikes),
Fort: +11 (+2 vs spells, spell like and Poison)
Ref: +11 (+2 vs spells, spell like and Posion)
Will: +15 (+2 vs spells, spell like and Posion)(+2 vs Enchantment spells and effects)
Attack: Flurry: +14/+14/+9/+9 Spend a Ki Point for another +14: 2d6 + 6
Kamas: +12/+12 Spend Ki Point +12: 1d6 +3
Feats: Mobility, Dodge, Extra Ki, Stunning Fist DC: 21 10/day (Fatigued & Sickened), Weapon Focus (Unarmed Strike), Spring Attack, Iron Hide, Improved Natural Armor, Disorienting Maneuver, Improved Grapple
Ki Pool: 10
Abilities: Darkvision 60ft, Evasion, Improved Evasion, Fast Movement, Still Mind, Flurry of Blows, Unarmed Strike, Maneuver Training, Ki Pool (Magic & Lawful), Slow Fall 50ft, Purity of Body, High Jump, Defensive Training, Greed, Hatred, Hardy, Stability, Stonecutting, Weapon Familiarity, Wholeness of Body,
Skills: Acrobatics: +15, Climb: +3, Escape Artist: +15, Perception: +19, Sense Motive: +19, Stealth: +15, Swim: +3.
Items: Belt of Giant Str +2, Headband of Inspired Wisdom +2, Bracers of Armor +4, Cloak of Resistance +2, Masterwork Cold Iron Kama, Masterwork Silver Kama, Monk’s Robes, Amulet of Mighty Fists +2,

This build is slightly better than the other one but you still have the same issues you are too spread out and do nothing with a high probability of success. The CMDs from CR 10 - CR 13 the likely stuff you are fighting at level 11, are in the low to mid 30's. You only have a +15 to acrobatics, going through an occupy square is 5 + CMD, chances are your acrobatics check will never work. So Disorienting Maneuvers is basically a dead feat for you.

Essentially you are building your monk like other classes but a monk can't do that. It is truly the class that needs to hyper specialize to achieve what other classes can do with just a couple of feat investments.

Look at your other class skill you invested in stealth: most creatures at CR 10 - 13 have +20 to perception, in fact a Glabrezu have +26 perception. Chances are you are not sneaking up on anything either.

So let's look at your damage, even against AC 25 assuming you get haste you'll be whiffing 45% of the time on your highest bonus attack. If you fight a CR 13, AC 28, you are missing 65% of the time. Your save DC of 21 takes only a roll of a 7 or lower for most of these creatures to save against (the Glab only needs a 3 to save).

Even if you hit there is still a significant chance you won't do any damage because most creatures at this CR band have DR 10/either material or alignment that you have no easy way of going through. So even if you hit if you roll 4 or lower on damage you actually do no damage, so no stunning fist either. If you swap to your kamas you will miss even more.

As for AC you are basically just above par for the level. Fighter +3 full plate and 14 dex, +2 Amulet and +1 Ring, will be at 27 AC already. This is a THF fighter not using a shield.

Your monk is basically not reliable at most facets of the game. Everything your monk tries to do will basically require above average or spectacular rolls.

You spend a whole bunch of feats to get Spring Attack but instead of building on that further you try to diversify into Disorienting Maneuvers instead. Why? This just assures that both tricks up your sleeve will be ineffective.

Why don't you take Dragon Style over Disorienting Manuevers? If you are only hitting every other round the only decent thing to do is to make sure it counts when you do hit.

Why improve grapple if you aren't going to invest in it any further? 15 CMB means you would need to roll a 20 to succeed in grappling any CR 13 creatures. Even CR 10 creatures you'll need to roll 15 or above.

Do you notice a pattern? Nothing you attempt in game has higher than a 45% chance of succeeding even against = CR stuff. That is the definition of unreliable.

Ashiel wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Okay, here's a rules question that could come up that illustrates the thought I raised earlier:

You're a wizard being attacked by 3 orcs. They are 50' away and have only melee weapons so they're likely to charge you. You've won initiative. Your meatshields are busy holding off other attackers behind you, so you can't retreat. The only spell you've got available that can affect an area is Color Spray.
Can you ready an action to cast it on them before they reach you?

Or can you only cast on one, since they'll come one at a time in initiative order?

What's RAW? What makes sense?

Interesting circumstance, and an amusing limitation of the combat round system. As a player, I would probably enjoy it if my GM allowed all of them to go at once in response to my readied action. However, if not, I'd move up and cast on them. The result is effectively the same in most cases. Interesting scenario, and I'm not entirely certain how I'd rule on it at the moment. I've been up quite a while, and would like to think about it for a while more.

I actually specifically chose 50' and Color spray so you couldn't move and cast. It's a 15 cone effect, leaving them out of range.

Spread a bunch of caltrops/lamp oil in the square in front of the wizard between the orcs, to stop the charge lane. So they can only do a double move than I'll color spray all of them when they bunch up. I never don't have any character that doesn't have caltrops/bag of marbles/or lamp oil on them.

A bunch of awesome stuff

Not really it is only a Dragon Style Monk will out damage a TH Fighter, even with the change. It won't out damage a TW Fighter with the same buffs. Against low AC stuff TWF will generally be better than TH Fighting.

Against higher AC stuff like most bosses. Even at level 11 I think the party fighting a Glabrezu and his minions is very appropriate.

That is why I picked AC 28, if you are king of the mooks I don't think anyone cares. It is truly the fights that pushes you to the limits, that shows your class value.

If you lower AC a couple more points the monk will be farther ahead but who cares if CR 8 stuff dies after one round from both level 11s.

I mean your fighter can easily hit stuff with AC in the mid 30's. Whereas your tricked out monk will have a ton of issues. That said miss chances does screw the fighter over more.

As for stunning fist your monk with 18 wisdom, will only have a save DC of 19, remember the baseline of fort save for CR 13 is 16, that means 90 percent save against stunning fist. So medusa's wrath and stunning fist's contribution to DPR is going to be low.

What do you think of the suggestion to give monks a class ability to get +4 to flanking for himself and to allies?

My monk was built to do multiple things. A monk can be a skirmisher and then throw flurries when need be. Mobility and Spring Attack are bonus feats for monks so I don't see the problem.

No you built your monk to attempt to do multiple things. However, nothing is guaranteed or even a high probability of success, in fact you built him to require above average rolls to do anything.

Unless it is metagaming I see no reason why an adventuring party will want your monk on the team. An adventuring party is going out to dangerous places you don't bring people who are little more than baggage.

Even in character creation, do you have an expectation that your players create characters that are logically consistent with the setting? The expectation that they are logically consistent with the rules allows grey area on things like traits that require certain history or background.

On skill checks, how do you adjudicate what skills do or don't do? How much goes to the GM's view of how the NPC would act and how much goes to allowing wide leeway on skills to over-rule logical NPC actions.

I see traits more in line with feats, as rules exception instead of the engine rules.

Skill checks is interesting for PF because it is so simplistic as compared to combat. Because of this it leaves wide leeway for both GM interpretation and player abuse.

I have played in games that actually spell out what happens to NPCs or even other PCs depending on the level of your success. It works in those games because the rules accomodate it. Since the players and GMs going in expecting skills to totally change the outcome of a social challenge there are no damn that is breaking my game.

They have stuff like if you hit a certain difficult or number of successes or margin of success, or actually engage in a duel of wits, you can literally convince a loving mother to kill their child, it is highly unlikely but still possible.

Does it break verisimilitude in those games that allow it, no it doesn't because there is an expectation of skills having major impact. Does it break verisimilitude in PF yes, because skills are added in like an afterthought.

For example, I think some spells are written in a vague way in order to allow options for stories. To allow that something "could" happen so a story "could" occur.

However I don't think they were intended to be written so that it was the norm, as following the possible applications out via what I would can manipulation and someone else would call "intelligent play" completely changes how the setting would logically work.

So which is paramount. Assuring the logic of the setting stays consistent, or having the rules define what the setting is.

Which informs which.

Ok I think you need to split this discussion into rules that makes the engine of the game, and exception rules that are not crucial to the game's engine.

Because character creation, leveling, skill checks, attack/damage rolls and magic casting rules definitely controls the settings more than the opposite. Because without these or changes to these engine rules will have great impact on how the group plays.

Additional exception rules like from spells and/or feats are the opposite the setting should define which of these should be allowed and followed.

Nickego wrote:

Where in the RAW that HD = CR for PC's?

Need to be able to show my DM.
I know that HD equals class levels for standard race PC's BUT the celestial and fiendish templates uses CR not HD.
I am not trying to be difficult just looking for RAW to back up my point.

Nickego: CR is completely irrelevant to the two templates in question.

Both the Celestial template and the Fiendish template use HD to determine their abilities. The tables for resistance and DR specifically say "Hit Dice".

Since some occasionally are confused by this: Be aware that Celestial and Fiendish are NOT the same thing as Half-Celestial and Half-Fiend. See here for the correct templates.

However, SR from the celestial/fiendish template is based on CR. From the link above it is class levels -1 +5 so SR is class levels + 4.

No, it is a philosophical debate on rules. Ashiel I feel is a strong advocate of the "RAW is the setting" side of the debate.

I'm a strong advocate of if the rules make no sense in the setting, sense overules until you can get the devs to fix it.

However, RAW does have a heavy impact on setting, like the example above even something as subtle as how character creation is laid out can have an impact on the setting of the game. So how can RAW not impact setting?

If certain rules breaks verisimilitude in your game than you ask the player to not do such. It is impossible to say setting trumps RAW in all case because some of RAW basically helps define the setting. Imagine if the RAW on the spell section were gone. You are basically playing a no magic game, whether you want to or not.

Where are the Genie Binding stores in Golarian? I haven't seen them mentioned? And if they were prevelent it seems odd the published attributes are so low...

If the rules seem to allow something that seems inconsistent with the setting, which one wins.

I get it this isn't a philosophical debate on rules interactions with setting but your beef with Ashiel. You can ignore my posts.

I can see stories where Ashiel's abuse would be no problem but I can see stories where the abuse can be problematic.

If Ashiel played at my table I will make it clear which type of story I intend to GM for and ask him to play nicely.

Setting is such a loaded word. The rules effect the settings and vice versa. Because if your setting is low magic like E6 or E8, there are rules that are basically never used. Or that you have to add rules to still allow characters to feel that they are growing.

If by setting you mean like is the game social/skills focused or combat focused. The D&D/PF rules are definitely combat focus, their skill/social resolution is too simplistic to do a nuanced game based on politicking without heavy house rules.

In D&D and PF the first thing in character creation is ability scores. There are other games that focuses on developing character concepts first and foremost, and than the crunch follows. So even by that simple change in layout of character creation I feel will have a subtle but strong impact on setting. Is it character personality driven or crunch driven?

I can probably write a ton more on this subject. At the end of the day the rules should fit the story that you are trying to tell and that is more important than anything.

I think it depends on your party's and group's composition. Any group with a bard you can safely up the APL levels by +1 or +2 to what is recommended in the guidelines.

If you have a player that is super creative with wizards and is always toeing the line with what is RAW or RAI on obscure spells found in splats, you can basically throw anything you want at the party at high levels and they'll find a way to win.

Monks (that I've seen) have some of the highest AC and saves in the game, along with multiple defensive abilities, immunities, and escape options.

What exactly is making them so supposedly fragile? I'm just not seeing it.

I won initiative against a BBEG monk once with my paladin and I one rounded him with smite up. The GM was pissed since he spent hours building the monk. Monks only have good defense if you win initiative.

@Ashiel: You're moving the goalposts again. The purpose of the presentation is pointing out the higher end of what needs to be considered. It is not demonstrating a monk over a wide range of situations.

I only did the parts of the build that directly contributed to damage because that was what was being measured. Honestly, using the Elite Array handicaps the Monk here, because the Monk is very much not built for it. That said, the Monk actually manages to come out ahead of the presented Fighter.

The Fighter is probably working out of +3 Fullplate with a Ring of Deflection +1, Amulet of Natural Armor +1, Dusty Rose Prism Ioun Stone in a Pathfinder, with a +2 Dex Mod. Also probably has a Cloak of Resistance +3 or so (feel free to supply a different buy list, it's late). THF aren't known for their AC. The Fighter has tons of Feats left, so lets say he gets Toughness, Dodge and Iron Will. We'll round a d10 HD to 6 per level (maxed at first). We're looking at...

STR 22 / DEX 14 / CON 14 / INT 10 / WIS 12 / CHA 8
HP: 110
AC: 28, 15 Touch, 25 Flat-Footed
CMD: 33 (+4 vs Sunder/Disarming his weapon).
Saves: +12/+8/+9

The Monk will take a Mage Armor buff (the Fighter can't benefit), giving the caster a Rod of Extend as compensation. He'll also keep Barkskin on himself through a SLA. The Monk will also take Dodge and Toughness at Level 1, because why not? For items the Monk will but that Rod of Extend, a Headband of wisdom +4, Ring of Deflection +1, a Dusty Rose Prism Ioun Stone in a Pathfinder, and a Cloak of Resistance +2. HD will be maxed at level 1, 5 thereafter. So we're looking at...

STR 22 / DEX 12 / CON 14 / INT 10 / WIS 18 / CHA 8
HP: 98
AC: 31, 22 Touch, 29 Flat-Footed, +4 with Ki
CMD: 36
Saves: +11/+10/+13 (+2 vs Enchantment; Improved Evasion, Immunity to Poison, Immunity to Disease)

If you don't let the Monk use Barkskin, or give the Fighter a friendly buff, then it puts the Fighter just slightly ahead in terms of AC. The Fighter's Weaknesses are, as always, CMD and Will Saves. In...

I am trying to reconcile the differences between your build and my build, the main difference is your equipment is fairly specialized for the monk, my assumptions were just pretty much stuff you can get out of core.

The difference is really just menacing and the gloves (I never even heard of these gloves, where do they come from?) because they are granting the free hit and damage that the 2 hand fighter is not getting access to nor will additional hit really help the fighter.

The problem with menacing is that this means the monk has to have flanking or his DPR drops like crazy. Once I made those changes our numbers matches up quite nicely. This is good it means I didn't make a mistake in my model. Well maybe we both made the same mistakes, I don't think that is likely though.

However, is this really the monk being fine or is this just you gaming the equipment out there? I mean other TWF melee will get access to the same exact stuff hell unarmed fighters specializing in TWF can even benefit from the same gloves and menacing immensely, as well as getting brawling armor.

From this exercise, I realized that there was only one viable DPR build for the monk and it requires getting buffs too, and that is dragon style + ferocity. There is no other way to do it, and still maintain respectable DPR, along with reasonable AC. If you try to do a dex monk, you will hit like a wet noodle, but AC will be good though, a wis monk is actually a trap, can't hit for crap but your AC is good. My conclusion was that if you play a monk, bard becomes a class feature requirement.

Also on the barkskin thing, yeah I don't ever see a monk build after qinggong was release that does not ever trade out slowfall for barkskin. They should just make that change right in the core. Abusing mage armor is just ridiculous too, if the monks need mage armor to be on par than either it needs to be a class ability or they need ready access to UMD and the skill points to use it on their own.

Hey if you check out my suggestions for buffing the monk all I suggest is a type of weapon training, that will pretty much fix them and open up alot more types of builds for the monk. A fighter not taking anything but PA can actually do respectable DPR, all I want for the monk is to not require Dragon Style to be good. However, if you want to argue that they need to have dragon style to be good than it needs to be built right into the core monk as bonus feats or they automatically gets it as class features.

TLDR: Buff monks by changing slowfall to barkskin, let them spend ki to cast mage armor, and some sort of weapon training for unarmed and monk weapons, or (not both weapon trainging and this) grant them the ability to get +4 when flanking to themselves and flanking allies. Actually that last idea would be an interesting way to up their DPR while upping their group utility as well. You adding menacing actually inspire that last one.

I also think the element is probably not the best thing to put on the AoMF because resistance, and the extra +1 to hit is probably better for the monk, especially against the BBEG.

Oh, level 11. I'm used to people doing level 10. Aight, lets see where that gets us.

** spoiler omitted **

Results:
Base is 194 (Fighter) vs 195 (Monk)
Vs Immune to Crit its 155 vs 187
Vs DR 10/--...

Actually your builds are almost identical to mine except my model at 11 targets AC of 28 not 24. Because AC 24 is mooks, 28 is the big bad. I think everyone posted has shown monks are fine against mooks.

Also this is the maximum DPR a monk can hope to get.

Also not sure what Deliquesint Gloves do.

You can see why against big bads the monk's DPR drops like a brick though because the Fighter against AC 28 is still hitting on 2's for his first 2 hits whereas the monk stop hitting on 2's against AC 28 even fully buffed.

@Dabbler: Aye, it works for debuffs as well. Although keep in mind it is a balancing act. The simple fact is, a fully buffed Monk will casually match or exceed an optimized fighter against an opponent without DR. If they have the kind of potential, then they also need a weakness. The issue currently is that their weakness shows up a whole lot more often then their strength.

Actually they don't I have ran DPR model scenarios that included flanking, Inspire Courage + Good Hope and Haste. (At level 11 and the elite array, expected WBL.)

Even getting all those bonuses, an optimized DPR monk will only close the gap a bit with the THF fighter but will still not come close to his DPR. (Unbuffed Monk DPR is about 33, the fighter is 90, after buffs Monk DPR gets to 132, the fighter is almost 195)

Yes the buffs doesn't impact the fighter as much as the monk but their base is so far above the monk that only the percent gap is closed and not much of the DPR gap itself.

Unless you mean a fully buffed monk can meet or exceed a non buffed fighter than yes you are correct.

Eh, since the rules have nothing to say about an enemy cutting your weapon cord, it's not unreasonable for a GM to use the rules for you cutting your own weapon cord if a quick ruling is needed on the spot to keep things going.

The rule is called sunder. When you want to damage or attack an item worn or carried by another character, you perform a sunder maneuver. Last I checked weapon cords were worn, even if the weapon is disarmed.

I think that what it comes down to is:

- Some people want balance.
- Some people don't care as much about balance (they care more about flavor, even if it costs them mechanical advantage).

Nobody's going to change their mind. These are two fundamentally different persons whose expectations are completely different from one another. Figure out what camp you're in and find a table that accommodates.

Cheers?

Having balance and flavor are not mutually exclusive, unless part of the flavor includes sucking.

shallowsoul wrote:

The problem is some people around here don't seem to understand the meaning of the words useless and contribution. Apparently, in their reality, these words mean that unless you hit a target number, then you are considered useless and you don't contribute. Sorry but it's hard to take those people seriously.

I wholeheartedly agree. Said people often like to distort and confuse the argument and discredit us by altering the context of the discussion with silly statements like "well then you should be quite happy playing a commoner then" when they know full well that we are talking about PC classes, not NPC classes.

On the other hand he has defined contributing as having "fun", how does that add to the discussion of mechanical enhancements (or argue against such) concerning the monk. If you are having fun playing the current monk, any kind of improvement is not going to change your fun.

The rest of us are trying to distill the mechanics to numbers so we wrap around our heads in as unbiased a way as possible of the monk's issues that we keep hearing anecdotes about.

DPR is just an easy place to start. I personally have come to the conclusion that their DPR as a PC class is inadequate, grossly so.

So my question is what other quantifiable contributions can the monk make that justifies their low DPR. Certainly not skills (they are barely par here), maybe their high saves, fast movement, moderately high ACs (if they further tank their DPR), and their grab bag of random abilities.

Just so you know a bard can easily be built that deals 90% of the damage of what the THF does. There is no way to build a monk to reach that number.

Ashiel wrote:

The irony is quite literally all of these things can be qualified and quantified using math. All of them. Everything can be weighed, measured, and compared using math. From the distance, frequently, and usefulness of all of these abilities, all of it is mathematics and probabilities.

Really? Well I have a lot to learn. Please tell me the mathematically probability that determines how useful having 80' of movement is over 30' of movement is. Please explain the formula to me. While you're at it, explain the formula that tells my how useful slow fall is. Please tell me how to determine the probability that Abundant Step will be useful in any scenario. If you still can't see the ridiculousness of that statement, I don't think I can help you.

Ashiel wrote:

Anecdotal evidence is effectively word of mouth. It can be helpful, but not if someone cannot verify it to those they are telling it to. Forgive us for being skeptical, but we have just as much anecdotal evidence to the contrary for every bit suggesting they work. Only we're also jaded to these conversations because 9 out of 10 times those who declare that "it just works" refuses to explain how it works, always seems to hate math and refuse to give it (what was going on, what was your opponent, what were the rolls, etc) and call us stinky poo-poo meanie powergamer heads.

This happens on both sides of the fence. Remember the thread where I took a monk someone else built, added Spring Attack and defeated every fighter build but one using only half the feats available to a 20th level monk? Who did that actually convince? Absolutely no one. People said it wasn't fair because I used old age for the Monk since they ignore age penalties (oh yeah and please give me the mathematical equation that tells me how useful that is), or they tried to say my monk would be useless in a "real" game, even though I didn't use half the feats and the only fighter I couldn't beat was one that was pure defensive and took the Fortitude bumping feats...

I can't believe you are still beating that dead horse with the hypothetical monk build. At level 20, classes with no heals has to build defensively to win. However, your monk was hardly a power house it had to have cover and ping the fighter to death over 20 rounds, that proves nothing. If at level 20 you take 20 rounds to kill anything your whole party will be wiped.

As for the king maker AP not familiar with it nor your thread so no comment.

When you are purely talking game balance, then yes it is. I was under the assumption that this thread was about game design and balance.

However, I concede that your point is not simply game balance. If you feel that too many misses is frustrating (which is opinion and not fact and one that I agree with), then you must work the equation for the sake of game balance.

Essentially, if you want to hit more often and NOT affect DPR, then you must either lower the damage output per hit or reduce the number of attacks (or chance crit chance but Monks already have the worst crit chance so we have hit a brick wall here). More input variables, but DPR is still the game balance metric to start from because it can be compared to the other classes while the other variables cannot (they are not in comparable equivalency).

I agree that missing too much is frustrating. However if we want to balance the monk, he must either miss or do worse damage per hit. This is because his number of attacks is high. DPR is still our metric when we want to balance against other classes.

HOW we accomplish DPR is up to the build suggestions. The method to one's madness is not truly important when creating the metric to success.

Dice variance is bad for the players. It isn't bad for the GM because the GM gets to roll many more times than the PCs, and also GMs have unlimited NPCs.

In a typical fight even 4 attacks with a full round action, a player is still probably making under 20 attack rolls, due to movement positioning etc.. So although mathematically if you have twice the number of attacks but half the hit rate, it should be equivalent, this is a long run average based on the law of large numbers. If you only roll 10 times a fight, you can easily whiff 70+% of your hits, even 100% of your hits on any given fights with a 50% hit chance. That is why it can lead to frustration. Just stringing a few misses on a few crucial rolls can lead to PC death such that they never live to see the law of large numbers to even out their miss attacks.

Lowering variance helps the player, that is why it is recommended that for PCs you should take average HP rolls, instead of rolling the HP die 19 times. Because you can get screwed pretty hard if you string a few ones together before you get to the few 10's that will average it out on the long run.

Let me see if I can summarize what we have so far:

Bard (pretty much every type but the Dervishes)

Oracle of Life (Life Link + Channel + Energy Body)

Evangelist Cleric + Luck Domain

Sensei Monk (probably with Monk of the Lotus as well)

Cavalier (Order of the Dragon) + Helper trait (Halfling*) + Bodyguard

Blundering Defense + Oodles of stuff to help you fight defensively (Halfling*)

Flagbearer and the Banner of Ancient Kings

If 3rd party is allowed, Cheapy's stuff (which is cool, but I've not met a GM yet willing to use 3rd party).

Anyone got anything else?

*Ok, so what is up with Halflings being the best support? I hate halflings! How can I use this stuff without being one? I know adopted can work to get Helpful (though I don't even really want them in my backstory), but how can I get a gem like Blundering Defense?

Even the Dervish archetypes aren't bad support. They're just not as good as the other types of bard. Just dropping good hope and haste, and as a dervish you'll be providing more support than the majority of classes already.

EvilMinion wrote:

CalebTGordan wrote:

The distances involved in his attacks were from as far as 1000ft. away, and his Perception skill allowed to spot enemies from that distance with no trouble.

Curious about this part... what kind of perception skill allows you to spot enemies with no trouble when you have a +100 on the DC?

The +1 per 10' of distance part of perception checks seems like long distances would not be so easy to overcome.

Combination of racial traits, class features, feats, spells, and gear really.

Alertness, Skill Focus, and Sharp Senses will provide a +14 bonus at level 10, which if wisdom modifier is at +2 and Perception is a maxed out class skill would put the perception skill bonus at +29 at level 10.

But there are magic items like the Eyes of the Eagle (+5 competence bonus) and the Third Eye (in Curse of the Crimson Throne, gives a +2 bonus to perception) and spells like Acute Senses (+10 enhancement bonus, +20 at caster level 8 and +30 at caster level 16.)

Used together, the Perception bonus could reach +56 at level 10.(+46 if you gain Acute Senses through a potion instead of a cast spell Acute Senses, though the spell Hunter's Eye gives you a +20 to locate one target.)

But that is just for increasing the Perception bonus. The feat Eagle Eyes allows you to ignore up to -5 penalties due to distance on visual Perception checks. The spyglass cuts the penalties down to -1 for every 20 feet.

If you are trying to spot someone standing in an open field the DC is 0. Add +100 due to 1000 feet of distance, cut that down to +50 because of the spyglass and down to +45 from the Eagle Eye feat. Using all the feats, items, and spells together, and considering that you can't auto fail a skill check, seeing someone 1000 feet away isn't that hard. In fact, if the target is engaged in combat the DC becomes 35.

Once the target is spotted, I can't find any rule saying that you can't continue to perceive them once you put down the spyglass. Therefore, all you have...

Actually if you made this build out of a race with darkvision you can get the feat deepsight and the build becomes very practical for alot of APs. Most enemy darkvision is only 60ft - 90 ft, with the feat deepsight you have 120ft of darkvision. So you can just keep firing and they can't even see you.

If you set it up right, you will fire at the enemy they come charging towards you and your party members can pincer them or ambush them somewhere between 120ft and 60 ft. You can still fire away against most mobs and enjoy full concealment against them.

Not really, most war domain clerics should probably be grabbing power attack anyway, so that gets you the whole power attack line of feats.

If you plan it right, it is probably good to grab combat reflexes or combat expertise, and this will
net you two more solid lines of feat.

You need to ask your GM. Because from the Benefit description it can be considered a dart, or ammunition. If ammunition you can draw them as a free action, if it is considered a dart which is not ammo, than you need a move action to draw or free action as part of movement, unless you have the quickdraw feat.

Since the feat doesn't specify the GM will have to make the call. If I was GM I would rule the cards are to be treated like ammo, so free action to draw.

Bunch of stuff.

To be fair it was about his monk build that was dishing out 30 DPR at level 10. When a simple THF is doing 90+DPR. The difference wasn't 350 and 250. But 90+ and 30.

350 or 250 who cares, everything will drop in a couple of rounds. But 90+ and 30 that is the difference between two rounding something at level 10 or taking 7 rounds to kill something.

Shallowsoul is defending the monk class and his build specifically saying that 30 dpr is still contributing. Because it is greater than 0. However, his monk build doesn't have any utilities that any other 4 skill per level class doesn't have.

So if he is doing barely more DPR than an Aristocrat (even a warrior built right can do more) his build is very problematic, and that implies the monk class is very problematic.

This will be my last post, because like all your other post you just refuse to listen to the other side. You keep bringing up these ridiculous numbers like 500 DPR, +65 to a skill.

Those are not the numbers the characters need to live up to. However, there are definitely minimum numbers that you need to hit, so the GM can stop fudging dice or keep throwing low CR encounters at the group. I think most people are more interested in these baseline benchmarks.

Yes I think the monk doesn't meet baseline and I am a pretty good optimizer, so if I have trouble hitting the minimum numbers, I believe a good many other players making monks will fall further from the baseline.

What is the fun in always having the GM cater to you due to mechanical deficiencies? I certainly would not find that fun.

Gignere wrote:

You need to hit some numbers because otherwise there is no objective way to weigh melee classes or classes that proclaim to do DPR.

What if you are trying to get a group together and the group gets one of each role. The tank/DPR player shows up with a halfling with no physical stat over 10. Are you going to say whoa what an amazing character concept and just go with it? Or are you going to you know maybe give them some advice.

Also noone is looking for MAX DPR for every character but having a baseline to compare is good. Does my concept require nerfing my damage so much that it is way below baseline, if it is perhaps you are looking at the wrong class to fit your concept?

So there are very legitimate use of DPR models and calculations. Also say you hope to increase damage, and you are planning on picking up power attack. How do you know that power attack will raise your DPR, you don't until you math it out.

Or maybe tailor your encounters to better fit the group?

Yes keep throwing CR 1 encounters at them until level 10 to solve all problems. Or perhaps play a different RPG. There are plenty of other RPGs that demand less GM tinkering even if players don't crunch numbers. D&D + PF ain't one these.

You need to hit some numbers because otherwise there is no objective way to weigh melee classes or classes that proclaim to do DPR.

What if you are trying to get a group together and the group gets one of each role. The tank/DPR player shows up with a halfling with no physical stat over 10. Are you going to say whoa what an amazing character concept and just go with it? Or are you going to give them some advice.

Also noone is looking for MAX DPR for every character but having a baseline to compare is good. Does my concept require nerfing my damage so much that it is way below baseline, if it is perhaps you are looking at the wrong class to fit your concept?

So there are very legitimate use of DPR models and calculations. Also say you hope to increase damage, and you are planning on picking up power attack. How do you know that power attack will raise your DPR, you don't until you math it out.

Alot of rogue players thought that the talent that changes your sneak attack rolls of 1 into 2 or 3 was amazing. But as it turns out it was a trap talent. Once again without the people running the numbers how does one know?

Out of curiosity, does a monk really need to get an amulet of mighty fists? Is it an option for a high level monk not to spend 125k on mighty fists and instead spend 15k to use permanency on greater magic fang on both fists?

It isn't really optimal because AoMF can bypass DR GMF can't. Also one dispel magic or pc death. and you kiss those perm GMF goodbye.

Haunting Mists spreads from you just like Obscuring Mist. You are the center of the spell, and it spreads out 20' in all directions from you. That means to avoid your allies, you need to be 20' away from them or more, but for it to be actually useful to you, you also have be near to some enemies. That kind of strands you among the enemy with no nearby allies to bail you out. If you're a tank somehow, I guess it's nice, but otherwise, I would be uncomfortable with that kind of positioning. Further, I don't think you're immune to its effects and you start in the middle of it. Yuck.

Unlike Obscuring Mists it doesn't say it spreads from you in the effect line. So I think you can place it anywhere within 20 ft of you. You are immune it is an illusion figment. If you know it is an illusion you auto save. Why wouldn't you know it is an illusion? You just cast it.

I like the net thing, but don't you need some feat or something to be proficient with it? If not, damn, I need to get one.

The net hits touch AC unless you are fighting monks all the time it is a good weapon for most full BAB or someone who gets buffed to be the same as full BAB. Even without proficiency it should only take an average roll to hit on most things.

The net is not as good on a halfling because you can only use it on stuff 1 size larger than you. So for a halfling the net caps out at medium size creatures.

I'm not a fan of a lot of the level 1 cleric domain powers. Especially War's and a few of the other various "touch of" powers that the cleric could really spend his turn just attacking and contribute more.

It's really for the caster clerics. At low levels they tend to run out of spells, and giving a bonus or a reroll for the barbarian is probably more effective than rolling an attack for the typical caster cleric.

However, the 1st level powers aren't totally useless at high levels, if you don't mind investing in Quicken SLA. Some of the powers are totally worth it, like luck and war.

Dragon Roar is pretty craptastic. If you want some range capabilities it is better to just grab Deadly Aim and/or Rapid Shot.

Definitely get Power Attack because with near full BAB and Inspire Courage it should be a pure DPR increase.

Level 5: Weapon Focus, Dragon Ferocity
Level 6: Power Attack
Level 7: Monastic Legacy
Level 8: Weapon Specialization
Level 9: Big Game Hunter

Look into the Orc bloodline it was designed to be the melee bloodline. Yeah if you plan to do this I would suggest starting with a 19 strength and a 15 in Cha. You won't be casting all that much once you are tearing into things with your claws.

AoMF is a necessity.

Gignere wrote:

My advice is to swap out slow fall for barkskin via Qinggong archetype.

Grab unarmed fighter and stick with it for at least 5 levels. Get weapon focus (if you haven't), weapon specialization, monastic legacy, dragon style and dragon ferocity. Too bad you are not MoMS.

This will up your damage quite a bit and you also get an AC bump from barkskin.

*pops forehead*

I forgot about Barkskin as an option actually, I'd been planning on getting Scorching Ray from the beginning but I got a nice bow recently and realized that would fill my ranged deficiency quite nicely.

I already have Dragon Style, and was planning on getting Dragon Ferocity as my UF bonus Feat if I went that route, with Monastic Legacy as my 5th level Feat I'd normally get. Which leaves Weapon Focus (which I'd be able to snag at UF 2?) and then Weapon Specialization at 3.

Now to clarify, Unarmed Fighter still gets the Feat at every even level, just not the first level Bonus Feat?

Quote:

Too bad you are not MoMS.

I've said this to myself pretty frequently ever since I figured out what all the Style Feats did (which was a coupe of levels too late =/).

Ah, c'est la vie. Whatever, this'd make me able to make the best of that anyway. Dragon Style and Flurry together ain't too shabby.

Edit: Heh, my GM got back to me with kind of an interesting reply.

He said I wouldn't have been able to multiclass Druid anyway, since by his logic Nesteruk (our Druid) wouldn't be able to teach me anything for fear of losing his Druid abilities or some such.

Not sure how rules-worthy that is but I thought it was a pretty good justification for "We already got a Druid ya knob."

If you want to up DPR getting weapon focus first is more important than monastic legacy. Because even if you get it at level 5 it does nothing for you. It is half of other class levels counts as monk levels. Half of 1 is 0 in PF.

You can't get weapon specialization until level 4 of fighter, because it requires 4 levels of fighter.

Maybe try and pick up power attack too since you got Dragon Style already. Typically for pure flurrying monks Power Attack is a net DPR loss at higher levels, but since you got a buffing bard and cleric, it should be a net DPR increase.

My advice is to swap out slow fall for barkskin via Qinggong archetype.

Grab unarmed fighter and stick with it for at least 5 levels. Get weapon focus (if you haven't), weapon specialization, monastic legacy, dragon style and dragon ferocity. Too bad you are not MoMS.

This will up your damage quite a bit and you also get an AC bump from barkskin.

First question: Do you have a bard in the party?

Do you have dedicated buffers? I mean people throwing down prayer, heroism, and GMF on you and GMW on the rogue.

If you don't I would suggest you multiclass into Unarmed Fighter asap. Don't do druid, stacking 2 3/4 BAB is just going to kill your damage way more than gaining wild shape at level 8 is going to make up for your character.

What is SKR?

Sean K Reynolds.

I just read some of the back and forth on monk damage, cestus, brass knuckles, gauntlets and emei piercer post.

I think SKR hasn't crunched the number because he kept saying how the monk should be or is the king of unarmed fighting.

I mean not to disparage the devs, but they seem to be focused on the weapon die damage and the number of flurry attacks, rather than the to hit for the monk. However, I think that is rather myopic of them.

I guess that is the disconnect between the devs and monk players who wants the monk buffed.

The devs think that the monk is already the top dog when it comes to unarmed fighting. But that is a direct contradiction with my DPR model for a monk attacking CR appropriate AC.

Also he only ruled that in the context of gaining monk damage die these weapons should be considered weapons. Not sure how they would interact with Brawling, since monks can't even use brawling.

One last thing, why can't you TWF with Dervish Dance with the cesti, gauntlets, spiked gauntlets and brass knuckles. I can see maybe brass knuckles because they are held but the rest are just worn. Or are people saying that wearing armor with gauntlets will stop you from using dervish dance.

Yep, bbt is correct on this one. It's been clarified quite a few times by the devs, and once I get on a better computer, I can send the links if you want.

Yes would like to see it. I thought they made it so you can't get monk's unarmed damage to brass knuckles, gauntlets and cesti. However, I don't remember seeing any post of them changing the actual rules and description of the aforementioned weapons as non-unarmed strikes.

No, to both.

The only thing that counts as Unarmed Strikes, are Unarmed Strikes.

The Cestus, Gauntlet, Spiked Gauntlet, Brass Knuckles, and Emei Piercer are all light manufactured weapons.

They are not unarmed strikes.

Are you sure?

Gauntlet in the CRB says

Benefit: This metal glove lets you deal lethal damage rather than nonlethal damage with unarmed strikes. A strike with a gauntlet is otherwise considered an unarmed attack. Your opponent cannot use a disarm action to disarm you of gauntlets.

Note: The cost and weight given are for a single gauntlet. Medium and heavy armors (except breastplate) come with gauntlets.

Weapon Feature(s): cannot be disarmed

Cestus is as follows

Also explain why you cannot use those weapons to TWF with Dervish Dance?

The cestus is a glove of leather or thick cloth that covers the wielder from mid-finger to mid-forearm. The close combat weapon is reinforced with metal plates over the fingers and often lined with wicked spikes along the backs of the hands and wrists.

Benefit: While wearing a cestus, you are considered armed and your unarmed attacks deal normal damage. If you are proficient with a cestus, your unarmed strikes may deal bludgeoning or piercing damage. Monks are proficient with the cestus.

Drawback: When using a cestus, your fingers are mostly exposed, allowing you to wield or carry items in that hand, but the constriction of the weapon at your knuckles gives you a –2 penalty on all precision-based tasks involving that hand (such as opening locks).

Weapon Feature(s): monk

Do cesti, spiked gauntlets, gauntlets, and brass knuckles benefit from the Brawling enchant?

Also can you TWF using one of the above with Dervish Dance?

99% of paladins choose to wear armor, it allows them to overcome a severe disadvantage with their AC (dex a dump stat). It is a purely mechanical choice, chosen after the decision on playing a paladin. An item that obliterates the AC disadvantage so well that the only reason not to choose it is for flavor.

So you agree armor is cheesy.

How would this ruling affect a Bow user? I mean the bow is a 2 handed weapon that requires you to have a hand free in order to make full attacks. Heck, are they assuming you draw that arrow as a free action without ever letting go of the string?

I've always assumed that when using a bow one hand is off your weapon (read: free/empty) at nearly every point before/during/after your turn. It's actually only on your weapon during the pull.

So even by the devs opinion above you should be okay with a bow.

He was refuting, along with me, Cheapy's assertion that 99% of players using armor spikes are using it to threaten within 5ft when using a reach weapon.

He used his experience as an archer and how it is good to have armor spikes so he can always threaten even using the bow.

One of the reasons is that that all those other examples are either race specific or require a feat / menu choice option to use, or have other drawbacks associated with them.

I also wouldn't be surprised if 99% of everyone who uses spiked armor does it just to get around the restriction with two-handed reach weapons.

I doubt it is that high of a percent. It is an easy way to never get "disarm". If you got grappled or swallowed whole you don't have to waste an action drawing a dagger. Easy way to diversify your damage type if your main weapon isn't piercing. Also great exploit to slap dueling on the armor spikes to get a +4 to initiative. It can be used to TWF with two handers.

Hell my paladin uses a longsword and he has armor spikes.

Doesn't matter. The purpose of spiked armor is to have something to defend yourself with in situations like a pin or grapple where you can't pull your big honking sword out of it's sheathe., Not to weasel your way out of making the choice of two handed sword or two weapon fighting.

I guess you also hate all the options for players to get a bite attack.