Tell me why I should get Ultimate Combat

[DeathQuaker]

I'm one of those people who hems and haws over getting new game books, and tend not to buy them sight unseen. The UC previews have been helpful, but limited in what they describe, and a lot of the discussion threads about UC have been about how very specific things work, not how the book looks as a whole, and I'm having trouble getting a sense of what the book is like.

Further, consider this as background: I wasn't planning on getting Ultimate Magic based on previews and message board discussion, but then a GM mentioned he might use it for a campaign, so I threw it up on my Amazon wishlist shortly before my birthday and someone got it for me. Was pleasantly surprised by a lot of stuff that actually DIDN'T get previewed, advertised much (that I saw) or discussed on these boards. For example, I have zero interest in the magus and only nominal interest in Words of Power and that's mostly what folks were talking about. When I got UM, I was pleased to find things useful to both players and GMs, like the pregenerated spellbooks, the guidelines for negotiating with outsiders, guidelines for designing new spells, the new familiars, etc. I have mixed feelings about the new feats but saw a lot of good ideas in there--sources of inspiration at least (and LOTS of inspiration at that) if not items I will use as written. So I ended up liking the book a lot more than I thought I would (even if some things I still feel "meh" about).

I wonder if UC is the same way--the things that might actually attract my weird little brain just aren't being talked about. Again, I have zero interest in the new alternate classes and little interest in most of the Eastern-fantasy-flavor stuff (although some of it might be useful for a project I have on the backburner). I AM interested (in spite of what I just said) in some of the monk options and new fighter archetypes.

But beyond that--does it have stuff I can use not only as a player, but as a GM? Does it have any pregenerated item kits or pre-written mercenaries? Does it have guidelines for how to handle unusual combat situations? E.g., creative applications of combat maneuvers? Are there feats that seem absolutely necessary or other abilities or archetypes described that will add amazing fun and flexibility without power creep? What is in there that you didn't expect that is just plain cool?

Generally, what do YOU like about it (and what don't you like)--without griping or arguing, just noting what you see are pros and cons.

Thanks in advance for your thoughtful assessments.

[A Man In Black]

Quote:

I AM interested (in spite of what I just said) in some of the monk options and new fighter archetypes.

Monks got a lot of love, particularly smallish feat chains suited to unarmed attack styles. Fighters got some really amazingly terrible archtypes and some mostly unusable feat chains.

Quote:

Does it have any pregenerated item kits or pre-written mercenaries? Does it have guidelines for how to handle unusual combat situations?

Not really, although there's some more character options expanding on the dirty trick maneuver from APG, if that is your thing.

[Gorbacz]

Performance Combat is great for all those occasions where your players wanted to make some "show" combat (arenas, competitions). Also, Duel rules.

Vehicles rules and siege rules, self-explainatory.

Also, variant rules: alternate HP system, called shots, armor as DR, piecemal armor.

[A Man In Black]

Gorbacz wrote:

Also, variant rules: alternate HP system, called shots, armor as DR, piecemal armor.

Almost all of these variant rules are complete trainwrecks.

The performance rules are pretty cool, though.

[TriOmegaZero]

I think you should put it on your wishlist the same way you did Ultimate Magic.

[Thalin]

It's not spectacular. The monks get deep as heck, which is cool. But ninjas and samurais are just variant classes, and the gunslinger just isn't good (flavor or mechanics).

There are great class options (evangelist cleric has my vote for "best support class" now; trading medium armor and a domain for bard songs and channeling charm-type spells). In fact, casters ironically seem to get the most "variant" love... wizards especially.

But so much of the book is dedicated to useless optional rules and "age based" weapons and armor that it does feel a bit of a waste. I do like the new spells; lots of love for partial-caster classes.

I'd pay $10 again for the PDF though; there is at least that much material.

[DeathQuaker]

Gorbacz wrote:

Performance Combat is great for all those occasions where your players wanted to make some "show" combat (arenas, competitions). Also, Duel rules.

Vehicles rules and siege rules, self-explanatory.

That does sound cool.

Quote:

Also, variant rules: alternate HP system, called shots, armor as DR, piecemeal armor.

How are these compared to similar systems in 3.x's Unearthed Arcana?

And for MiB, why do you see them as trainwrecks?

TOZ: I may well do that if I am in doubt. :)

Thalin wrote:

There are great class options (evangelist cleric has my vote for "best support class" now; trading medium armor and a domain for bard songs and channeling charm-type spells). In fact, casters ironically seem to get the most "variant" love... wizards especially.

But so much of the book is dedicated to useless optional rules and "age based" weapons and armor that it does feel a bit of a waste. I do like the new spells; lots of love for partial-caster classes.

New options can be good but I do find it puzzling that casters might get more out of it than non-casters, considering they already have UM.

Thanks all, keep it coming. :)

[A Man In Black]

DeathQuaker wrote:

That does sound cool.

The siege weapon rules look functional, at first glance. The vehicle rules are sketchy and incomplete, and probably not terribly usable.

Quote:

How are these compared to similar systems in 3.x's Unearthed Arcana?

And for MiB, why do you see them as trainwrecks?

Armor-as-DR has the same problems that UA's similar system had, and uses similar rules. It's a huge ugly trainwreck where you have to recalculate every PC's defense on the fly and also big creatures ignore your DR and crit more easily and aaaaaaugh. It's not nonfunctional, but it's a mess.

Patchwork armor is just better than regular armor in every way. Price and stats seem to have been assigned more or less at random.

Called shots are just there. You take a penalty to hit, and either get a minor effect, a nastier effect if you crit, or a really nasty effect if you do more than 40 (50? I forget and cannot be arsed to check) damage. It thematically overlaps with dirty tricks, it leads to the situation where full-BAB classes just make called shots at every opportunity, and it's a weirdly specific powerup to paladins, cavaliers, samurai, and rogues for no clear reason. It's probably the best of the optional systems, but I wouldn't fiddle with it.

The alternate HP system just adds rules for unlucky PCs to explode into a shower of gore and hugely buffs Cause [adjective] Wounds. Most of the time it won't have any effect on your game at all.

[TriOmegaZero]

DeathQuaker wrote:

TOZ: I may well do that if I am in doubt. :)

It was the last book I stayed subscribed for, and that was mostly so I wouldn't have to wait until the end of my deployment to browse it.

Like Ultimate Magic, I think it's a very pretty fluff book. I'm not sure I'll really use much of either.

[Lobolusk]

Honestly, it is worth the pdf download at least. I would say support paizo and but the hardcover. but they did allot of really cool things. with the monk, tetori, manuever master martial master.
they have a bunch of pretty great feats,

also they did a pretty cool gladiator and unarmed fighter. even saw some cool barbarian stuff urban rager I think?

have some performance combat that is pretty cool, duel system also.

besides that the rest is not my cup of tea doesn't mean it is so terrible like man in black thinks. just I am wiling to admit it is not my cup of tea. I never play druids but I am sure the classes they have are cool.
it is a must have in my book. I haven't even finished it yet that pesky job keeps getting in the way

just my humble opinion.

EDIT: it is like a haircut if you like it than great if others dont that is their problem.

[VM mercenario]

The feats, oh my sweet lawd, the wonderful feats. Nine pages just on the table of feats.
Feat chains that make nets and whips viable, move when you use evasion, many new things to do with maneuvers, feint to move without taking AoO, threaten AoO with ranged weapons, gain DR instead of AC when fighting defensively or using combat expertise (accumulates with barbarian DR!), use powers like hex and bloodline abilities with unarmed strikes, maximun damage on vital strike, add con to damage, double critical threat against one favored enemy, teleporting attacks, extra damage on iterative attacks, add the damage of full attack before subtracting DR, extra damage and bonus to confirm criticals when using Vital Strike, extra sonic damage for allies while you use bardic performance... Not to mention the new teamwork feats and the martial arts styles.
Monk players will love this book but barbarians, fighters, paladins, rangers, rogues, inquisitors, alchemists, bards and even casters got some love in this book.

Also, as barbarian player, I must say that the barbarian archetypes are all awesome.

[Gorbacz]

The metric ton of love that Paizo dropped on Monks in this book is worth the asking price alone. I don't know any other 3.5/PF book that hugs and cuddles them more.

[KestlerGunner]

There is a double page spread of Alain running away from an extremely angry Ettin in a gladiatorial pit with some hilarious descriptive text?

That and a flood of really intriguing combat feats.

[Cheapy]

In terms of damage output, fighter archetypes probably are bad. In terms of doing cool stuff other than bashing people, fighters got a lot of cool archetypes.

Also, barbarians can use Halflings as weapons.

[idilippy]

In my opinion, there are a few questions you should answer:

Do you play, or have players who play, Monks or Rogues?
If yes, buy the book.

Do you, or would you ever, run a duel, mage duel, or campaign involving an arena?
If yes, buy the book.

Do you, or will you ever, run a war campaign with siege weapons, run an Asian-themed campaign, or use guns?
If yes, buy the book.

I bought the pdf solely to use the new monk stuff and gunslinger class, but I've also already used the duel rules and found them interesting, especially for spell duels.

[Pyrrhic Victory]

A chain of feats that does what should have always been the rule about dimension door ie. make dimension door and similar abilities like the the monks "something" step into move actions. Thus if you have the feats you can d-door and move or d-door and attack or d-door and full attack. You can even if you get the full feat tree use d-door to act as your own flanker. Really cool!

"I'm on your left...psych I'm on your right sneak attack!"

[Jason Nelson]

A Man In Black wrote:

Quote:

I AM interested (in spite of what I just said) in some of the monk options and new fighter archetypes.

Monks got a lot of love, particularly smallish feat chains suited to unarmed attack styles. Fighters got some really amazingly terrible archtypes

Do tell. What exactly do you see as the cons of the UC fighter archetypes, other than their general really amazing terribleness?

[Derp]

DeathQuaker wrote:

Should I buy Ultimate combat book?

If you are a player:

Step 1: Build gunslinger
Step 2: Get to level 6 or so (when 2 weapon fighting becomes feasible, make sure you take Clustered Shots as a feat)
Step 3: Ruin campaign

If you are a DM:
Step 1: make a gunslinger villian
Step 2: give his ass revolvers
Step 3: wipe party

Kidding aside
UC has a lot of options for the PC and the DM alike. As I was going through it to change my beta Gunslinger to the new rules (hello pistolero) I was finding tons of new options for the other two characters in my group. Naturally, anything I can use as a player, the DM can use to tailor his NPCs to wreck our party. I haven't even seen the whole book yet as it isn't mine.

Really though, build a GS.

[Cheapy]

Deep is the first person ever to say GS are overpowered :p

[Gorbacz]

Jason Nelson wrote:

A Man In Black wrote:

Quote:

I AM interested (in spite of what I just said) in some of the monk options and new fighter archetypes.

Monks got a lot of love, particularly smallish feat chains suited to unarmed attack styles. Fighters got some really amazingly terrible archtypes

Do tell. What exactly do you see as the cons of the UC fighter archetypes, other than their general really amazing terribleness?

I really should paste a certain fish-headed movie character with his famous three-word quote here.

Unless you're a masochist :)

[Jason Nelson]

Gorbacz wrote:

Jason Nelson wrote:

A Man In Black wrote:

Quote:

I AM interested (in spite of what I just said) in some of the monk options and new fighter archetypes.

Monks got a lot of love, particularly smallish feat chains suited to unarmed attack styles. Fighters got some really amazingly terrible archtypes

Do tell. What exactly do you see as the cons of the UC fighter archetypes, other than their general really amazing terribleness?

I really should paste a certain fish-headed movie character with his famous three-word quote here.

Unless you're a masochist :)

Blanket statements are easy. Getting beyond them, not so much. Besides, one should always be willing to offer someone a bit of rope; what they do with it is up to them.

[Ross Byers]

I removed a post. Please do not abuse the quote system.

[Cheapy]

Ross Byers wrote:

I removed a post. Please do not abuse the quote system.

Offtopic, but will the Alchemical Golem ever be available as an avatar for us mere mortals? I want it :(

[Mathwei ap Niall]

Having gotten it on my subscription I have to say, I'm NOT loving it.

I'll agree with a lot of the comments already stated here.

The gunslinger is just brokenly bad (I get reactionary trait, a better Vital Strike, Free Called shots, Evasion, Dodge, uncanny dodge and improved uncanny dodge for free AND I can target Touch AC up to 100 feet away with my 1D12 x4 weapon? that's not broken)

The archetypes are mostly bad (there are bright spots for dip classes or STRICTLY concept classes) but overall none are worth going all the way in.

There's nothing in the book clarifying any of the questions with the existing combat rules, (natural attacks, questionable feat rulings, etc) they just added 3 new types of combat:

1. Performance which is cute but doesn't come into play much in the average campaign and just adds to rule bloat.
2. Duels, which again are cute and may show up more but not that often.
3. Siege weapons (still reading this chapter).

Vehicle rules, scattered and really don't hang together that well (and they are what I bought this book for) so far but maybe I'm missing something.

And the variant rules, plenty of great ideas here but REALLY needed more playtesting. As they are written I can't see using any of them in one of my games.

Finally the new spells... they're great if you want to use guns (Honestly, half the spells in there are designed around gun use) or you want to humiliate any melee character you see.

Overall, if you want to play a gunslinger or a monk buy this book otherwise you can skip it and you won't be missing anything important.

[Ross Byers]

Cheapy wrote:

Ross Byers wrote:

I removed a post. Please do not abuse the quote system.

Offtopic, but will the Alchemical Golem ever be available as an avatar for us mere mortals? I want it :(

Probably not, no.

[A Man In Black]

Jason Nelson wrote:

Do tell. What exactly do you see as the cons of the UC fighter archetypes, other than their general really amazing terribleness?

Almost all of them either specialize in a thing which isn't useful, or are strictly worse than a straight fighter in the supposed specialty. For some reason, a bunch of them don't get their signature ability until level 15; this is especially lame when the "signature abilities" are something as simple as using a buckler at the same time as a two-handed weapon.

There's one promising fighter archetype, the tactician. Conceptually, it's an interesting idea: a fighter archetype that is something other than "Guy who uses such-and-such fighting style." In practice...eh. Other than a better skill list, the only thing the class gets is the ability to burn standard actions to give allies minor bonuses. It's a watered down version of the cavalier's leadership abilities, and the cavalier's leadership abilities are weak and poorly designed to begin with. None of the abilities are particularly strong, and the first leadership ability that doesn't cost a standard action... comes in at level 15! Ugh.

There are a lot of feat chains, but almost all of those aren't worth fiddling with for a fighter. Some of them aren't practically available to fighters without multiclassing, some are made specifically for monsters (there's a constrict feat chain and a rend feat chain), some are so hyperspecific as to be useless (like a feat chain with bonus damage/effects against giants, available only to hammer-wielding TWFer gnomes/dwarves), some are just crap (3e Cleave and Great Cleave are available at the top of a five-feat chain, yey).

[Cheapy]

Jason, do note that MiB started the DPR Olympics. I suspect that if an archetype doesn't beat the DPR of a basic fighter, he won't like it.

His talk of archetypes specializing in things that "aren't useful"basically confirms my suspicions

[Mergy]

I really enjoyed reading the differing style feats. You can make a really flavourful character with one chain, and the Monk of Many Styles ends up being my initial vision for the Monk: a master of different martial arts styles, and able to change tactics on the fly.

[A Man In Black]

Cheapy wrote:

Jason, do note that MiB started the DPR Olympics. I suspect that if an archetype doesn't beat the DPR of a basic fighter, he won't like it.

His talk of archetypes specializing in things that "aren't useful"basically confirms my suspicions

Good to know that you've never actually read that post, or any of the comments I've made about it. It's a mathematical exercise to explore how much "a lot of damage" is, not some sort of evaluation of class balance. You'd know that if you read the first paragraph in either thread.

I'd like to see more fighter archetypes which aren't about +1 to hit, +1 AC, combat maneuvers, etc. Failing that, I'd like to see some sort of archetype that introduces or supports an entirely new fighting style, one which wasn't supported in PF before that archetype. Tactician and Dragoon have some potential as an example of each, but Tactician is too weak and Dragoon doesn't get any unique abilities until level 15. It's a good start conceptually, but neither is well-designed.

In particular, Armor Master, Tower Shield Specialist, Unbreakable, and Brawler all don't even get some sort of new thing to do, they just do the same old thing with a slight bonus. Brawler is the least bad: it's interesting that it debuffs enemies by getting in their face, but mostly they just run up to a guy and make full attacks, same as any melee fighter. (Getting Stand Still at level 13 is also hilariously dumb.)

I suppose it's silly to expect someone to expand the scope of the fighter beyond "guy who murders people", though.

[Remorhaz]

i saw UC in the store yesterday and i passed on it which is the first time i haven't just bought a pathfinder product no questions asked. instead i bought some warhammer products and the goblin pyro minis. when i got home i thought about why i didnt get UC and its not a problem with what paizo is doing but more that i feel they are hamstrung by the 3.5 shell they have to work with when developing new stuff.

they can't introduce a vastly different action, movement, or resource economy without breaking things so in general they are left making cosmetic changes that add a few pluses and minuses or swap one existing ability for another.

this leaves me conflicted. on one hand i love paizo's has carried the 3.5 torch and tell damn good stories and on the other hand i wouldn't mind if paizo took a shot at creating a brand new rule set build from the ground up so their developers can really go to town.

[Jason Nelson]

A Man In Black wrote:

Cheapy wrote:

Jason, do note that MiB started the DPR Olympics. I suspect that if an archetype doesn't beat the DPR of a basic fighter, he won't like it.

His talk of archetypes specializing in things that "aren't useful"basically confirms my suspicions

Good to know that you've never actually read that post, or any of the comments I've made about it. It's a mathematical exercise to explore how much "a lot of damage" is, not some sort of evaluation of class balance. You'd know that if you read the first paragraph in either thread.

I'd like to see more fighter archetypes which aren't about +1 to hit, +1 AC, combat maneuvers, etc. Failing that, I'd like to see some sort of archetype that introduces or supports an entirely new fighting style, one which wasn't supported in PF before that archetype. Tactician and Dragoon have some potential as an example of each, but Tactician is too weak and Dragoon doesn't get any unique abilities until level 15. It's a good start conceptually, but neither is well-designed.

In particular, Armor Master, Tower Shield Specialist, Unbreakable, and Brawler all don't even get some sort of new thing to do, they just do the same old thing with a slight bonus. Brawler is the least bad: it's interesting that it debuffs enemies by getting in their face, but mostly they just run up to a guy and make full attacks, same as any melee fighter. (Getting Stand Still at level 13 is also hilariously dumb.)

I suppose it's silly to expect someone to expand the scope of the fighter beyond "guy who murders people", though.

Ironically, Armor Master, Tower Shield Specialist, and Unbreakable are all archetypes whose scope is more "guy who doesn't die" in various flavors more than they are "guy who murders people."

The Brawler's scope is "guy who prevents people from getting away."

The Cad's scope is "guy who does tricks with improvised weapons and drops condition effects."

Dragoon is "mounted/spear switch hitter."

Gladiator is "performance combat specialist." (the turnover went a different direction with him since performance combat was not finished when I wrote it, but in the final it's pretty much just a performance guy)

Tactician is "intelligent/academy fighter, with battlefield command stuff and super-initiative"

Thunderstriker is "two-handed/buckler switch guy"

Tower Shield Specialist is exactly what it says on the tin. Again, the turnover went a different direction (if memory serves, it was built around non-concealment-based miss chance), but perhaps was felt too complicated.

Unarmed Fighter is "non-mystic martial artist" from the fighter side of the street rather than the monk side.

Unbreakable is "fighter that just doesn't die or fall victim to stuff that normally kills fighters."

Any given reader may not find all of those concepts equally exciting or interesting, and certainly not all of them will add to straight-up DPR killpower. Many of them specialize in combat maneuvers or combining different maneuvers together, and maneuvers are generally non-murderous combat options; however, if you think maneuvers are generally worthless, then obviously you'll think the same of the archetypes.

Ditto for defensive abilities. Some archetypes get far more of them than typical fighters, but defense doesn't add to your killpower, other than by keeping you in the fight. If you think defensive abilities are worthless, you will feel the same about the archetypes.

Alas that Jared did not find anything to his liking.

[A Man In Black]

Jason Nelson wrote:

Ironically, Armor Master, Tower Shield Specialist, and Unbreakable are all archetypes whose scope is more "guy who doesn't die" in various flavors more than they are "guy who murders people."

The Brawler's scope is "guy who prevents people from getting away."

The Cad's scope is "guy who does tricks with improvised weapons and drops condition effects."

I didn't write the book. I can't tell you what the authors intended, only what the rules on the page convey.

"Not dying" isn't a problem-solving ability; the Armor Master, Tower Shield Specialist, and Unbreakable still only have "kill it with a sword" as their sole problem-solving ability. They fight exactly the same way as a straight fighter, they just trade off -1 [offense] to gain +1 [defense]. It's broken into lots of tiny little abilities, but none of them are new fighting styles or new problem-solving abilities, just a slightly different statistical balance.

I'd like the brawler a lot more if it really was a guy who prevented people from getting away. His first ability to prevent people from getting away is at 9th level, and it only works on people who are taking 5-foot steps. He also doesn't really have any special ability to get stuck in against a dangerous foe with reach (such as: every melee combatant monster after about level 5); in fact, until he's adjacent with a foe, he's even more vulnerable than a typical fighter. He also really suffers for having no weapon he can practically wield with two hands. I suppose you could use brawler as the base for a grappling build, though, but then he's just a grappler with +2 damage on a close weapon (since most of the other abilities are redundant or useless in a grapple).

The cad gets the ability to get free dirty tricks on flatfooted opponents and Improved Uncanny Dodge (but not regular UD) when fighting defensively. The rest of the archetype is either extremely situational (Improved Critical on improvised weapons, Cleave for dirty tricks only) or comes in at an extremely high level.

The dragoon is a messy. messy mounted combatant who gets the pretty cool ability to jump-charge and use mounted-charge-only abilities... but that comes in at level 15, so most of the time it's Yet Another Guy On A Horse archetype.

The gladiator is an archetype that should have just been a feat. Its single class ability that isn't a bonus feat is an advantage in one of the minigames introduced in UC.

The unarmed fighter (which is the least inspiring name possible) focuses on getting extra, free combat maneuvers after doing combat maneuvers. A trip can trigger a dirty trick, a drag can trigger a trip, etc. This is somewhat interesting, but again, you don't start getting these abilities until level 9, and before that all of the abilities are focused on grappling. This is a muddle, and conceptually overlaps heavily with the martial artist monk archetype, which is a non-magical monk. Did this book need two different archetypes focused on non-magical punchy guy? There's also a power concern: this is a melee character with significantly-worse-than-baseline ability to survive in melee, since it only gets light armor and negligible defensive abilities outside of a grapple.

The tactician and thunderstriker I've mentioned. There's a significant lack of a fighter that interacts with the new firearm rules; while it's reasonable to not want a gun-wielding fighter, given the gunslinger and all, it's strange to me that there's no fighter that interacts with the siege or siege weapon rules, especially when there's a wizard archetype that interacts with them.

[Starbuck_II]

Mathwei ap Niall wrote:

The gunslinger is just brokenly bad (I get reactionary trait, a better Vital Strike, Free Called shots, Evasion, Dodge, uncanny dodge and improved uncanny dodge for free AND I can target Touch AC up to 100 feet away with my 1D12 x4 weapon? that's not broken)

You do realize Muskets don't have 100 ft range (they are 40 ft) or you must apply range penalties past 1st increment.

And you must craft all your ammo (to afford it). And you have silly reload times (2 handed have full rd action, unless using paper cartiriges that up misfire that is already NAT 1-2).

Quote:

The archetypes are mostly bad (there are bright spots for dip classes or STRICTLY concept classes) but overall none are worth going all the way in.

True, dipping seems a better idea with archetypes in book.

Dip 2 levels in monk (master of many styles) for no hit penalty from Power attack (Tiger Style + Tiger pounce)

[Mathwei ap Niall]

Starbuck_II wrote:

Mathwei ap Niall wrote:

The gunslinger is just brokenly bad (I get reactionary trait, a better Vital Strike, Free Called shots, Evasion, Dodge, uncanny dodge and improved uncanny dodge for free AND I can target Touch AC up to 100 feet away with my 1D12 x4 weapon? that's not broken)

You do realize Muskets don't have 100 ft range (they are 40 ft) or you must apply range penalties past 1st increment.

And you must craft all your ammo (to afford it). And you have silly reload times (2 handed have full rd action, unless using paper cartiriges that up misfire that is already NAT 1-2).

Quote:

The archetypes are mostly bad (there are bright spots for dip classes or STRICTLY concept classes) but overall none are worth going all the way in.

True, dipping seems a better idea with archetypes in book.

Dip 2 levels in monk (master of many styles) for no hit penalty from Power attack (Tiger Style + Tiger pounce)

Yes I know the Early Firearms musket has a 40ft range but if you look a little further you see the RIFLE is an advanced musket with an 80 foot range (90 ft with the musket master archetype).

For the Early Firearms you can grab a cheap scope (Far Reaching Sight, 4K gold) that lets you target touch AC regardless of range increment.

As for the cost of the Ammunition... well 30 bullets costs the Gunslinger 3 gold to make (slightly more than the same number of arrows), 30 alchemical bullets is really expensive at 36 gold too.
Gunslingers only spend 10% of the cost to make any bullet, anything past 1st level and the cost is laughable.

And finally reload time is not a full round action, since most archetypes give rapid reload or you take it as your first feat it's a move action to reload a 1hder and a standard action to reload a 2hd Early Firearms weapon.
If you use the advanced firearms it's a free action to reload them.

[DeathQuaker]

A Man In Black wrote:

I'd like to see more fighter archetypes which aren't about +1 to hit, +1 AC, combat maneuvers, etc. Failing that, I'd like to see some sort of archetype that introduces or supports an entirely new fighting style, one which wasn't supported in PF before that archetype.

Bearing in mind that the following is not an excuse for why fighter archetypes are the way they are, but...

I think the problem with writing fighter archetypes--having attempted to write my own as well--is that they have to swap out with extant fighter abilities, and all of the fighter abilities--bravery, weapon training, armor training--ARE little incremental increases in various bonuses.

So in trying to come up with trade-off abilities, the easiest thing to do is come up with OTHER weird little incremental bonuses, and the end result is the really powerful/interesting/flavorful stuff doesn't kick in until post 10th level because of that design framework. You CAN come up with other tradeoffs, but you have to break the mold a little bit more and make sure the new abilities are balanced compared to the old, which becomes harder when it's not a direct trade for trade.

That said, I'm a little baffled why there hasn't been any archetypes to my knowledge (I did get a chance to glance at UC at the FLGS yesterday) that replace fighter bonus feats instead. E.g., maybe a fighter that gets fewer bonus feats but gets some awesome attacks or other abilities as a trade--and it would be a LOT easier to write in those abilities at the level you wanted it to be. I know giving up feats is a huge deal, but the idea of course would be that it's worth it. The point of fighter bonus feats is largely to help the fighter define and refine his fighting style, so if alternate class abilities filled a similar purpose, you wouldn't need them (and unlike feats, they'd be unique to the class and make them feel a little more "special" for it).

The other option of course is to just forget about trying to come up with abilities that trade off at the right levels and just write a whole new d10 HD class. Not something I'm normally fond of, though I tried it with an unarmed fighter/martial artist class, because I couldn't find a way I could satisfyingly write an archetype that got the class the abilities it needed at the levels I felt it needed to. So I wrote up a new class.... and was promptly told it should be an archetype instead. Probably had I presented an archetype, someone would have told me it would make a better class on its own....

Back to the topic---looks like about a third of stuff I'd like, a third of stuff useful for me for specific off-beat projects but NOT be usable in my standard fantasy campaign I use with Pathfinder (e.g., guns and wuxia), and a third of stuff I'd definitely ignore. Probably will get the .pdf at some point and/or do the wishlist thing.

[Gorbacz]

DeathQuaker wrote:

Back to the topic---looks like about a third of stuff I'd like, a third of stuff useful for me for specific off-beat projects but NOT be usable in my standard fantasy campaign I use with Pathfinder (e.g., guns and wuxia), and a third of stuff I'd definitely ignore. Probably will get the .pdf at some point and/or do the wishlist thing.

Guns and wuxia take up less than 20% of the book, FYI.

[Kaiyanwang]

I wish to point out one thing: I am quite disappointed from what I've seen until now of the book.

Said this, most of the "Wuxia" stuff can be refluffed. Look in any source, wikipedia included - you can rename oriental weapons in any way suitable.

The same with classes. In my setting, Ninjas are sort of a Rogue-Monk fantasy version of the Warhammer 40k Dark Eldar Mandrakes.

Samurai are deathsworn bodyguards of the Emperor. If one is badass and has resolve, you can just say is a special order of Knights.

On a more side note, something similar to firearms. A lot of people think to Doom2 (BTW, that could be a great one shot campaing: fighters and gunslingers vs fiends with lazors - double loot in weapons and ammunitions).

I just think to this.

[Dark_Mistress]

I will add I liked the other armors and weapons. They have a small section on bone, bronze, stone etc weapons and armor and how to use them in the game. I would have liked more but what is there is nice. I felt the same way about most of the optional rules personally. What was there was ok to pretty good for the most part. But for most of it I felt it needed a bit more to really make it shine. My personal hope on those things is we see some 3pp pick them up and expanded on them like they have done with some of the other stuff.

Also some things they added is gladiator weapons and armor, some older weapons and armor(or just more types if you look at it that way), more vehicles land, air and sea ones. Siege weapons, not only rules to use them but more of them.

Not saying you should or should not buy it, only listing some more stuff in the book you might find interesting. All and all i would personally rate this on par with Ultimate Magic, some stuff I like, some I don't.

[Dark_Mistress]

If you want a rough break down of pages.

New Classes - 16
Archetypes - 54
Feats - 48
eastern weapons and armor - 7
firearms - 9
gladiator weapons - 2
primitive weapons and armor - 4
Duels - 3
Performance combat - 5
Siege Weapons(rules and new ones) - 10
New Vehicle rules - 12
new vehicles, land, air and sea - 8
Armor as dmg reduction - 2
called shots - 5
piecemeal armor - 8
wounds and vigor - 2
new spells - 42

That is a rough break down of how many pages for each section. Hope that helps.

[Mok]

I wrote up a review for my friends. It should be noted that the following was written more for the "layman" gamer who would never bother to spend time on forums. I wouldn't necessarily frame everything I wrote below for "gamer cognoscenti" digestion:

THE CLASSES

The final versions of the new classes (Gunslinger, Ninja, and Samurai) are all quite similar to what was seen in the playtests. This is good or bad depending on the particular class...

The Gunslinger

Unfortunately for the Gunslinger the changes that were being brought up over and over again in the playtest were not addressed, and so we're left with a class that doesn't really come together either thematically or mechanically. Thematically what the designer explained during the playtest was to have a class that had a dynamic manner of performing stunts. You can see this whole endeavor as trying to extend the general fantasy theme deep into 17th century territory with classic pirate archetypes being evoked. Golarion as a whole isn't really set in a medieval type of world, but something that feels more 15th to 18th century, so pushing it this far actually seems appropriate.

I did find it interesting that Paizo was going to blur the lines even further and called the class the “Gunslinger,” rather than “Musketeer” and to push deep into the late 19th century. Paizo saw that spaghetti western thematics, if you squint hard enough, really isn't that far off from any of the other fantasy tropes. If you just take dirty folk in a hard environment and give them guns, the grim nature of their business isn't really any different from swords and shields. What would be jarring would be railroads and an industrial mindset, something that both spaghetti westerns and Golarion are at great pains to mute.

So the Gunslinger class was meant to be this dynamo of interesting stunts, using the deed system. The playtest input was that the deed system as it currently stood just did not capture enough of that stunting. Far too few deeds are available, the most interesting ones being feats that you have to take with your slots, and far too many of the normal deeds are simply so situational that they won't have a frequency that would be interesting to a player. Worse, some of the deeds are redundant, such as shooting a lock, which is something anyone can do with the core rules.

So the deeds fall flat, with some of them requiring the use of feats to fully utlize. Meanwhile the class' main schtick is to use a rained weapon. Anyone familiar with ranged builds knows you need a slew of feats to get the weapon to fully function in combat. While the class does provide a handful of bonus feats as you progress through levels, they simply aren't enough to keep up with what you'd want to be able to do with guns. Bizarrely enough, even though the feat Rapid Reload is fundamentally required for the class, it isn't given automatically. Woe to the player totally new to Pathfinder, who sees the Gunslinger and doesn't take Rapid Reload. Those first few levels are going to be a long wait of very slow fire to fix things at third level.

There are many other problems with the Gunslinger, and overall my impression is that after the firestorm of criticism for guns in general, and then adding the Gunslinger to the mix, Paizo decided to allow for a substandard class to be tossed into the game. If the old-school players are worried that everyone would have firearms, now they can rest easy knowing that the power gamers won't be championing the class or the weapons.

In terms of Pathfinder Society, all of the class archetypes that are outside of the Gunslinger itself are banned from play. Why? In general they are far better at being Gunslingers than Gunslingers. They all get the basic class abilities needed to use the gun, but then the gun is blended with class just enough to do something interesting, such as smiting with gunfire, or the Spellslinger with her magic spell gun. It's all pretty interesting stuff, but the gun control advocates in the Society have spoken and so these options have been cut.

If you really do want to pursue the Gunslinger, then I highly suggest the Musket Master. It's the one archetype that already seems to be offering up some of the needed “patches” to the fancy new class. It tosses out some of the junk from the core class and adds in much needed features, such as Rapid Reload, virtually for free.

Likewise, I can see dipping into the Gunslinger for a few levels to at least be somewhat interesting. If you want to have a gun just cuz, then dipping gives a slew of features that smooth out the poor performance of the gun, and avoid paying a huge price for the weapon. One thing that is nice is that the Gunslinger gives you both Acrobatics and Perception as class skills, something that the Fighter keeps weeping was present in a build. If you want to be a mobile fighter type and just do a quick dip with Gunslinger then you might end up seeing some decent benefits.

The Ninja

Ah, the Ninja... it did get nerfed from the playtest, but it was minimal and the consent online is that it was appropriate. Basically in the playtest there was a free use of a bunch of Ninja Tricks. Those free uses were removed and folded into the normal use of Ki points.

The Ninja is a great class. It's not historical ninjas, but rather movie ninjas and as far as I'm concerned, if you're playing a fantasy game then pump up the volume. The Ninja class is kind of a super-archetype of the Rogue. You can take levels in both Rogue and Ninja, but the way that they set up how you can select Rogue talents and Ninja tricks it allows for a lot of blending. In many ways it's actually more worthwhile to just be a Rogue who happens to take Ninja tricks, because then you don't have to waste class resources on poison use, which unfortunately is just too expensive to be useful.

Just glancing at the Ninja tricks is all you need to be swayed how much fun it would be to play them. Get a +20 to acrobatics checks to do spectacular Jedi-like leaps, get a climb speed to go up vertical walls, get a shadowy effect similar to mirror image (one of the best defensive spells in the game), why... just turn invisible! Oh, and there is a trick that lets you use any of the tricks that you don't know by just spending a little extra Ki. It's an incredibly versatile class that is chock full of cool effects for a largely martial character.

Since the Ki is driven off of Charisma, not only do you get put into a position to also be a party face, with plenty of skill points to go around, but there are plenty of weird multi-class combos that you could cook up.

I highly recommend trying out the Ninja, or playing a Rogue who just go a massive dose of midichlorians pumped into the bloodstream.

The Samurai

The big controversy with the Samurai during the playtest was that the guy is mounted. People pointed out that historically this was largely the case, but to western sensibilities we're more used to samurai on foot. Seeing as the Samurai is a super-archetype for the Cavalier it's kind of moot as to whether the class is going to be mounted or not.

After that the playtest discussion was rather dry. If you like the Cavalier then you'll enjoy the Samurai, and the inverse is largely the same. The differences between the two versions of the class are fairly minimal. Where the Cavalier has a bit of an emphasis on melee combat, the Samurai has more support for ranged attacks.

The little support is an element that does pique my interest a bit. An archer build that is made to be mounted gets an extra perk in that the mount can move while the rider continues to use full-attacks. Unlike an archer on foot, who can at best do a 5-foot step, a mounted archer can move up to the speed of the mount and rapid fire away. So it is something worth considering. The real issue is that while the Samurai gets a little more support for ranged combat, it just isn't the same as being a fighter with plenty of feats to spare. The Samurai comes with all sorts of other samurai-y type stuff that isn't going to help being a mobile machine-gun nest.

I wouldn't discount playing a Samurai in PFS, but you do have to realize the limitations that you'll have with your mount. If you play a small character than these issues can be minimized, but you do have to spend a lot of time carefully planning your build and tactics to make the most use out of the whole class.

THE ARCHETYPES

Ooof! Man are there are lot of archetypes. I'm not sure where to begin. This article would go on forever if I commented on all of them. Suffice to say, there are gobs of options here and quite a few of these are fortunately not suffering from the rather conservative design philosophy that Paizo normally takes with new features.

One thing that I can say as a general statement that is interesting with Paizo's design sensibilties is that they have been quite open how they are trying to pull people away from multiclassing, and instead making it so that players stick with just one class through the whole character's career.

One thing that has emerged a bit with Ultimate Magic, and definitely with Ultimate Combat is that they are using archetypes to achieve some multi-classing effects by using archetypes to represent a kind of pre-blended set of classes. In particular Paizo seems to be eager to hand out trapfinding and disabling to a large number of classes. If you really want to be X class, but with just a bit of scoundrel in you, then there is likely an archetype to service you.

On to some random thoughts on random archetypes....

The Bard – Wow! It took them long enough. Despite the fact that two other books have come out with archetypes for the Bard, they hadn't gotten around to really going at the bard that really Rocks! Finally they do it by scrapping away the foofy stuff and plugging in some kick ass features.

In particular there is the spectacular, though crestfall inducing, Dervish Dancer. For those who remember 3.5 and the Dervish class, this is basically an emulation of that class, and it delivers a lot of great features that let you gracefully slash apart your opponents. The opening act is fantastic, but the end result is dissapointing. The problem is that the true Dervish Dance doesn't happen until 12th level, which is an absurdly long build up for the climax. In 3.5 you could do a similar (actually, more potent) maneuver at around 7th level. Having to wait to 12th level is silly and basically makes it not worth perusing for Pathfinder Society.

The Archeologist and the Daredevil are ok. If you want to play a Bard and don't want that huge suite of various ways to impress a crowd, and instead would just like ways to kill things and take their stuff, then both of these let you strip off some of the excess and leave you a more lean killing machine.

The Barbarian – The Barbarian got some well needed fixed in the APG, and this just pours more gas onto this raging fire, though most of it is for mid to high levels, so it doesn't do much to excite the early game.

However, I can't overlook mentioning the Body Bludgeon rage power. What a great and flavorful ability. Just pick up someone smaller than you and start beating others with the poor fool. You have to wait till 10th level to do this, which is unfortunate, as you'll likely not be bumping into many goblins or kobolds at that level, but you should still be able to squeeze some use of it before retiring at level 12 in Pathfinder Society.

Cavalier – Grrr! The Beastrider drives me crazy! They unlock a bunch of the interesting types of animal companions for characters to use. It's exactly what I'd been asking for, BUT... BUT... they explicitly nix being able to use flying mounts. I just don't get this. By 5th level spellcasters can start to fly and by upper mid levels there is a wide range of ways for any class to be able to fly. Heaven forbid that we actually have mounted knights flying to the sky! What a wild a strange idea? Why it doesn't fit with the genre at all! Someone at Paizo must design with a Dr. Evil finger pointed high in the air.

The Fighter – I've got a real soft spot for Fighters. They are the classic heroes of tales, but where in traditional stories the spellcasters would be the helpful figure that assists the hero in the journey, with the transition from D&D 2e to 3e Fighters are basically the dumb jock. He's the high school quarterback who rides the glory of his one-trick-pony long ball throw into obscurity as all of the geeks inherit the earth with their fancy educations and stock portfolios.

The archetypes here don't help to address any of that, but there are a few bright spots, unlike the grim trade-offs offered up in the Advanced Players Guide. The Unbreakable, shockingly, offers up Endurance and Die Hard for the first level bonus feat. Finally a good deal! At second level it even trades out Bravery for a far more useful bonus of general at-Will saves versus mind affects. After that the archetype starts to ebb, but that strong opening at least fits with the dumb jock arc well.

The Cad is kind of interesting. I think the main problem is that the class isn't obvious. You need to know the list of unstated feats that you ought to be taking with this class to get the full benefit, but if you do then you're kind like a Rogue who rather than stab them in the back, instead just messes with people with dirty tricks. You're not going to wipe out opponents with this archetype, but if you want to play a martial character that tosses debuffing conditions on opponents, rather than slaughtering everything that moves, then this might be fun to play. You'll still suck compared to optimized traitional builds, but you might enjoy your suckiness.

I do have not note my disappointment with the Tactician. I was putting a lot of hope in for this archetype. Back in 3.5 days we had a class called the Martial. Basically this guy was a drill sergeant, who would buff the other players by granting various bonuses, offering up additional move actions, and in general being the “martial controller” that the system needs. The APG and UM both had archetypes for Bards that ought to be tapped to fill this roll, but they weren't. So the UC was the last best hope for this type of class with the Tactician.

With the advent of the Cavalier and the tactician ability via teamwork feats Paizo was offering up a new way of doing the martial controller. The problem with the Cavalier is that it's got so much other junk tacked on that you can't just be Gunny screaming at his teammates, describing in lurid detail what he's going to do to their skulls if they don't kill those monsters.

The big problem with the Tactician, along with all the other variants spread out in other classes, is that the Tactician ability doesn't kick in until quickly. For the Fighter it's 5th level, Paladin is 3rd level, with the Cavalier's “Strategist” archetype it doesn't really start to hum till 4th level again. This isn't really a hard archetype to make. Just hand tactician to a 2nd level fighter, chip away at some weapon training and armor training to make the tactician stuff more dynamic, and then with the abundance of feats for the fighter, just let the character pick up plenty of teamwork feats to spam the party.

Unfortunately this didn't happen, so we're stuck with a way to do it, but not a way that's really interesting and captivating, plus it makes it hard for GMs to create hard-ass “sarge” NPCs for players to encounter.

I have to say that while I'm not convinced that the Tower Shield Specialist, as designed, is the way to go, I'm glad to finally see some rules making using the those gigantic shields at least worthwhile.

The Unarmed Fighter ain't bad. However in light of all the love given to the Monk in this book, whatever decisive design decisions with this archetype are a bit muted in context. If this had come out in the APG then it would have cause people to howl that the Monk is worthless now, but with UC this isn't a very sound argument.

The Magus – The class is still really new and is already getting a score more arcana to pick from, though a lot of them are for higher levels.

Among the archetypes what makes me lean forward a bit is the Kensai. If you want to do a one-trick-pony character then this delivers. It's all about focusing both martial and arcana abilities into one weapon, kind of like the Black Blade, but with more of a tone of skill and precision over a glowing and talking magic blade doing its thing. Pump that Intelligence up real high and you're going to do some cool things with your chosen weapon. Overall I have to say this is how an archetype ought to be designed.

The Monk – As mentioned above, the Monk is getting a lot of attention in the UC. The archetypes are one part of the love, but some of these archetypes are also driven by new types of feats that are aimed at unarmed combat, so you definitely need to sit down and plow through the whole book to see all the ways the Monk is getting buffed up with UC.

All of the archetypes, save for the Sohei (which suffers the same fate as non-companion mounted archetypes, that is a sucky mount), take a particular angle with unarmed combat and turn the dial to 11.

When an archetype allows you to take the existing rules into a new direction then I start to get excited. The Flowing Monk does this by making you into a Judo master. As a fantastic 5th wheel class, the Flowing Monk basically allows you to step into the thick of melee and then let the enemy allow you to trip or reposition them. This is an instance where you get to play out a bit of martial controller by forcing the positioning on the battlefield. It's a chess game that some people might want to try out. However, as I noted, you're a 5th wheel. You're not there to kill things directly, but rather to position others to do the burning, stabbing and bludgeoning. This is a great class for a “peaceful” character that can handle the cognitive dissonance of where you aren't directly taking other people's lives, instead your fellow party members are the uncouth murder-hobos.

The Sensei likewise is another class that does a great job of teasing out a satisfying off-beat role. It takes the Bard and the Monk and blends them together so you can do Mr. Miyagi, tossing out “Wax on! Wax off!” to buff the party, and then delivering precision Wisdom fueled strikes at enemies.

I don't quite buy the Maneuver Master, despite the applause I give for the design effort. You're getting a whole lot of Combat Maneuver love packed into the archetype, but it still makes it fairly challenging to have a lot of different maneuver options due to the feat economy. If they had included in something like “you only provoke an attack of opportunity for performing a maneuver if the maneuver fails the CMB check” then you'd have the full form Jackie Chan freedom that the archetype ought to be aiming for. This archetype does come close though, so it's worth considering.

The Master of Many Styles archetype starts to move the system down a different path. The Styles feats are basically sets of feats that need to be activated” with a swift action. It echoes the 3.5 Book of Nine Swords, where players had “stances” that they had to shift between. The styles feats are more restrictive, and wrapped up in the confining feat economy, but you can see Paizo pushing at the boundaries of the older 3.5 system with this new approach. The benefits of the MoMS archetype look pretty good, the only real drawback I see is that they ought to have trimmed a bit more fat from the Monk. Pretty much every Monk archetype could see some trimming of slow fall and a few other class features, but the conservative design angle kicked in at Paizo and we didn't see a whole sale transformation of the class.

The Ranger – The Ranger has always been my favorite class and fantasy “idea” for a character. The inherently cool, quiet mannered loner who knows how to deal with any situation, and can put up with whatever hardships get tossed in life's path. It also speaks to my age and the growing fractioning of the geek culture in that Aragorn from the Lord of the Rings was “the Man” in the early days of RPGdom. The AD&D Ranger was basically “lets make Aragorn” as a class. That legacy can be seen with why Rangers get spells, because Aragorn could heal wounds in a kind of semi-magical manner.

However, as the system evolved into 3.0 the more classic Aragorn idea was pushed further into background and we got this animal companion dude, with lots of spells, and an odd assortment of abilities. They make sense, but the whole class is stuck on one track of advancement, with just the type of weapon you're going to specialize in being the element that a player can customize.

One unfortunate legacy of the Ranger is the Favored Enemy feature. It was present somewhat in AD&D, with the idea that the Ranger is going to be a bad-ass that knows how to go around hunting orcs and trolls for a living. It works well in Tolkien, but translating it to D&D messing with things because you tend to not have standardized opponents that you're going to encounter on a regular basis. D&D is built on surprise and variety in the kinds of opponents you face, and the Favored Enemy feature doesn't play that well with this format, unless the GM is willing to work with the player and make sure that this major class ability gets used a reasonable amount of times.

Because of that, it's been good to see variant class abilities getting offered up with the Ranger archetypes in the APG. You can pick things that give a lesser, but more consistent effect, which allows the Ranger to be more versatile in battle, rather than hoping for a jackpot of slaughter.

With the UC we get several archetypes that give a more focuses spin on the other main aspect of the Ranger, being in some particular environment and gaining an advantage from it. The Battle Scout, Wild Stalker and Warden all deliver variations on this theme. The Warden in particular feels much more like what a classic Ranger ought to be. The character knows the land well and can use it to create a real advantage, unlike the normal Ranger class which requires you to hope that you get your random bonuses at various times.

The Falconer is an interesting 5th wheel kind of class. You and your falcon aren't going to blow anyone away with your distracting little bird, but the class builds up enough mechanical components for the class to work in a flavorful manner, and offer up something useful for the bird to do during combat.

The Wild Stalker is another class blending archetype, this time taking the Ranger and Barbarian and mixing them together. If you want to be a raging Ranger then this can be interesting, though the multiclass route is still very appealing.

The Rogue – I already mentioned how much more buff the Rogue is via the Ninja. They did pour a lot of attention on the Rogue even if you cut out the Ninja, however a lot of the talents offered up are either awful (such as Hold Breath) or are features that would be interesting in a homebrew game, but can't fit well into Pathfinder Society.

However, there is a wide range of archetypes here that push the game in varied directions. Some of these archetypes seem to be designed to get plugged in to other formats, such as the Bandit or Sanctified Rogue, both of which give some nice features that don't intrude on many other archetypes or main features of the Rogue.

They came close with the Chameleon to add in a great new subsystem with “stealth points” but just as soon as it was invented it retreated into a rather dull bonus.

The Charlatan is an interesting archetype that pushes towards some intrigue type of play, something that would be great in a homebrew, but in PFS is likely to fall flat.

The one archetype that everyone is paying a lot of attention to is actually rather strait forward with the Knife Fighter. You get to roll d8s for sneak attack with daggers, rather than d6s. This is a big deal because most of the damage that a Rogue deals out as you progress through levels is from the sneak attack dice.

The Wizard – Ah the Wizard... one of the best classes in the game as you advance in levels. Why not take the Wizard and mash him with the Alchemist and come up with a crazed bomber who has heaps of spells? Well sure... and so we have the Arcane Bomber. You toss out arcane bond and get the Bomb ability from the Alchemist. You also lose cantrips and have four opposed schools, but if you like bombs then this still ain't a bad deal. The Wizard class has so much potential breadth to it that while this archetype isn't technically very optimal, the degree of drop off in versatility still keeps you well above most martial characters.

[Coltaine]

One of my fav books from the 3.5E era is a PDF called Master of Arms; it has a lot of flavorful, awesome weapons and weapon realted manuvers and combination manuvers (including a breakdown of the math behind and design mind you); i wish UC had something like that. An example:

SKEWER AND PIN (EX, STANDARD)
By sticking your longspear through someone and into the wall (or other surface) behind them you can pin them in place.
Allowed Weapons: Longspear
Benefit: This requires a standard action and will lose you the use of your longspear for a while. To succeed make a normal attack check with a -2 penalty and if this succeeds you cause damage as normal. You then also check your damage against the surface behind the target; if you cause at least 3 points of damage to the rear surface (after hardness) then you’ve pinned the target. A skewered and pinned target cannot move from their square and suffers a -2 penalty to their armor class. They may break loose as a move equivalent action but take 3d6 damage when doing so. They can spend a full round action carefully removing the spear; when doing this they should make a Heal check (DC 15); if successful they take no additional damage and if unsuccessful they take 1d6 additional damage.

[VM mercenario]

That sounds complicated and at the same time too situational (needs a wall and can only be done with ONE kind of spera WTF BBQ?). Here's the PF version:

Impaling Critical (Combat, Critical)
Your critical hits can skewer your foes.
Prerequisites: Critical Focus, Weapon Specialization with selected piercing melee weapon, base attack bonus +11.
Benefit: Whenever you score a critical hit with the selected piercing melee weapon, you can impale your opponent on your weapon. While your opponent is impaled in this way, each time he starts his turn, you deal damage equal to your weapon’s damage dice plus the extra damage dice from your weapon’s properties. As an immediate action, you can pull your weapon out of your opponent. If your opponent is ever outside your reach, you must spend a free action to let go of your weapon or pull it out of him. Your opponent can also spend a move action to pull your weapon out. When the weapon comes out, your opponent takes damage as if starting his turn impaled. While you impale your opponent with your weapon, you cannot use it to attack, and you must hold on to it.

It is not circunstantial AND can be used with your favorite piercing weapon. And it even can be improved:

Improved Impaling Critical (Combat, Critical)
When you impale a target, you hinder its movement and can cause severe bleeding.
Prerequisites: Impaling Critical, Critical Focus, Weapon Specialization with selected piercing melee weapon, base attack bonus +13.
Benefit: While you are using Impaling Critical to impale an opponent, and you are still holding onto that weapon, that opponent must succeed at a grapple combat maneuver check against you to pull your weapon out. If you have let go of your weapon, the impaled opponent must spend a standard action to remove the weapon. Until the opponent pulls the weapon out, his speed in all modes is halved and his maneuverability, if any, is reduced by one step. When the weapon comes out, instead of dealing the damage normal for Impaling Critical, you can deal bleed damage equal to your weapon’s damage dice result once per round at the start of that opponent’s turn.

[A Man In Black]

DeathQuaker wrote:

That said, I'm a little baffled why there hasn't been any archetypes to my knowledge (I did get a chance to glance at UC at the FLGS yesterday) that replace fighter bonus feats instead. E.g., maybe a fighter that gets fewer bonus feats but gets some awesome attacks or other abilities as a trade--and it would be a LOT easier to write in those abilities at the level you wanted it to be. I know giving up feats is a huge deal, but the idea of course would be that it's worth it. The point of fighter bonus feats is largely to help the fighter define and refine his fighting style, so if alternate class abilities filled a similar purpose, you wouldn't need them (and unlike feats, they'd be unique to the class and make them feel a little more "special" for it).

A few of the UC archetypes replace the first bonus feat.

The reason that archetypes don't trade off the feats, though, is because an ability which you take at the cost of a feat slot is traditionally called a "feat".

[Alceste008]

DeathQuaker wrote:

I wonder if UC is the same way--the things that might actually attract my weird little brain just aren't being talked about. Again, I have zero interest in the new alternate classes and little interest in most of the Eastern-fantasy-flavor stuff (although some of it might be useful for a project I have on the backburner). I AM interested (in spite of what I just said) in some of the monk options and new fighter archetypes.

But beyond that--does it have stuff I can use not only as a player, but as a GM? Does it have any pregenerated item kits or pre-written mercenaries? Does it have...

UC has a lot of interesting options both feat wise and archetype wise for monks. Monks and Bards got a lot more interesting in UC. Almost worth the money by itself here if you ever want to play a monk or a bard.

The gunslinger is a interesting class. The damage from a gunslinger (having seen a few in PFS games) is below a fighter (archer) of the same level by quite a bit. The class does get some fun options thou.

The ninja is more combat oriented rogue. The ninja gives up evasion / trap finding for a ki pool and combat abilities. There was a slight powering down from the beta. All in all, the class feels better than the beta version. The balance here really depends on the campaign.

The samurai is well done. The class is below fighter dpr but has several abilities to make up for it. I have not seen very many of them.

The archetypes presented vary in quality widely. The bard and monk really come out with great ideas. The three bard archetypes are a great example of archetypes that are simply well done. The Archaeologist for example allows a bard to move from buffing to a more traps related role. The Dervish dancer allows a bard a more combat oriented role. The cavalier archetypes on the other hand continue to be poorly done. Ymmv widely on the different archetypes.

[HeHateMe]

My two cents. Buy UC if you fit one or more of the following criteria:

1. You are currently playing/planning to play a Monk.

2. You enjoy Asian-themed fantasy.

3. You are a GM looking specifically for alternate/variant rules, or rules for seige warfare and/or vehicles.

4. You like Steampunk settings and want to include firearms in your campaign.

5. You enjoy reading through niche material that you will probably never use.

Otherwise, you might be better off saving yourself the coin and the disappointment that come with purchasing this book.

[Mok]

In terms of the variant rules:

I enjoyed the Wounds and Vigor rules, rather straight forward massaged version of the Wounds/Vitality rules from Unearthed Arcana, but with some tweaks. I enjoyed them basically because I'd been working on my own version of hit points and this system was in agreement with a lot of the tweaks I did.

The big thing is that you simplify a few things, such as making 0 hit points mean death, rather than the whole negative hit point values. Plus, when crits are scored they do their normal damage, but also their crit modifier in wound points. That I think hits the right balance in scaling the effects of wounds versus the Vigor/Vitality points.

I've always preferred seeing this kind of system implemented as it helps give a little bit more clarity to the intensely abstract nature of hit points. I'd personally want to go farther with the thematic granularity, but this works well and is straight forward.

The Piecemeal Armor seemed to fall flattest among the variant rules. You basically break armor up into arms, legs, and torso, placing the bulk of the armor value in torso armor. It all seemed to be far too much fuss for little effect. There is no way to have asymmetric armor. You can't have one arm covered in armor and the other not. The other weird thing is that helmets are factored at all into this piecemeal element, which was a bit disappointing.

The Piecemeal Armor was also kind of disappointing because it was not designed, or is given any advice, on how to link it up with either the Called Shots, or Armor as DR rules they offer. That's one of the big problems with the variant rules as a whole. Their all siloed, and don't seem to be meant to be integrated with each other. Called Shots, DR Armor and Piecemeal Armor all scream to be linked together. Understandably they would make the system more complex and might throw off some assumptions, but I would love to see that attempted. You're unfortunately left on your own to sort out how to get these different variants to mesh together.

Called Shots is a mix of being initially intuitive, but then getting more murky and complex with the effects. You just get a penalty for the type of called shot you're going to make, with a higher penalty going to the more vulnerable parts of the body. If you succeed then you get to add on some condition effects. There are three layers, a normal called shot, a critical called shot, and then the debilitating blow. The problem I have is with the debilitating blow. It only kicks in at a minimum of 50 points of damage, so you're only going to see the most detailed and visceral effects at high levels. Those gritty details ought to be laid out at 1st level.

The Armor as DR is a bit detailed, almost intimidatingly so, with an initial read thinking they made it more complex then they needed to. However all of that fussiness is actually needed to make for a thorough conversion of armor as DR. Recalibrating the game in this way actually cascades through a lot of different elements and so laying out all of those adjustments is needed. Because of this I'm kind of impressed. While not elegant, the reading of this variant seems very well thought out.

[DeathQuaker]

Mok wrote:

There is no way to have asymmetric armor. You can't have one arm covered in armor and the other not. The other weird thing is that helmets are factored at all into this piecemeal element, which was a bit disappointing.

If I can't stat up Annah's armor properly at last then there's absolutely no point to this book!

;)

In seriousness, thanks for the assessment, that's some useful information (as are most of the replies I have not yet responded to).

HeHateMe wrote:

My two cents. Buy UC if you fit one or more of the following criteria:

1. You are currently playing/planning to play a Monk.

Not at the moment, but I want my monk players to have good options.

Quote:

2. You enjoy Asian-themed fantasy.

Not as a rule, but I've been off and on working on a "Suikod20" project that is a system to play games in the Suikoden video game universe using a variant on Pathfinder rules, and some of the Asian stuff might be useful (but OTOH, to this point I've been able to stat out everything accurately without needing special Asian references, with the exception of a handful of martial artist abilities, which makes me wonder how much is actually useful, and how much is the same old thing reflavored "But look! It's ASIAN now!" without anything substantive provided).

Quote:

3. You are a GM looking specifically for alternate/variant rules, or rules for seige warfare and/or vehicles.

Can definitely use stuff like that.

Quote:

4. You like Steampunk settings and want to include firearms in your campaign.

Not for my standard campaign world, but I've got a possible Steampunk project in future, and I'm also working on a d20 Modern Pathfinderization where some gun rules could compare to could be useful (or not...).

Quote:

5. You enjoy reading through niche material that you will probably never use.

Not really.

So I guess my dilemma is that it would largely be useful to me for very specific circumstances and a variety of side projects that may never actually see the light of day (but I still have lots of fun working on them). Hmmm.