Lack of Monk Gear in Ultimate Equipment


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A. Malcolm wrote:

To be fair, it clearly states that you use flurry as TWF, it can't be helped if a lot of people assumed that it worked like 3.5. If you reverse engineer flurry in the monk class block you can see the penalties come from TWF. I get that even some of the guys at Paizo made the mistake when writing NPC stat blocks, but it doesn't change that as written it is exactly like TWF. I can't even find a way to misinterpret the wording.

It's the whole "Any combination" part.


Talonhawke wrote:
A. Malcolm wrote:

To be fair, it clearly states that you use flurry as TWF, it can't be helped if a lot of people assumed that it worked like 3.5. If you reverse engineer flurry in the monk class block you can see the penalties come from TWF. I get that even some of the guys at Paizo made the mistake when writing NPC stat blocks, but it doesn't change that as written it is exactly like TWF. I can't even find a way to misinterpret the wording.

It's the whole "Any combination" part.

At that point, since it says "any combination of unarmed strikes or attacks with a special monk weapon" would anyone assume you would have to use one or the other? It already says in the monk unarmed strike that it includes "fist, elbows, knees, and feet", so that covers 8 different types of unarmed strikes that you could use any combination of. Wouldn't the word "and" be better suited to indicate that you could interchange them between unarmed strikes and weapons? Since it says "or" that would imply one or the other.

Liberty's Edge

Sean K Reynolds wrote:
Odraude wrote:
I can understand ciretose's concern. We'd need to figure out the math on what is better: A TWF with two light weapons or a monk flurrying with a temple sword two handedly (1.5 strength and Power Attack) with the old FoB rules before SKR's change.
It's not my "change," it's how Jason intended it to work.

Which was made clear, and that was good, even if it made a number of people upset.

The Developer intended it to be a variant of TWF. Agree or disagree, the balance was written with that as the intent.

"Fixing" that isn't going to resolve the core issue of unarmed damage, and would only further encourage armed monk with a single one handed weapon.

Which I don't think was the Devs intent.

But again, tea leaves and blue smoke. We'll see hopefully soon after Gencon.

But based on what was put in Ultimate Equipment, I am worried the Devs concerns and my concerns aren't the same.

We'll see.


"Any combination of unarmed strikes or attacks with a special monk weapon" does not necessarily assume that it can only be one or the other. Why? Because of that tricky little "any combination of" wordage. Any combination must, by the the defination of the word any include all possible combinations. To have phrased it exactly right, Paizo probably should have said "and/or attacks with a special . . blah, blah, blah", but they don't write in legalese.

And since unarmed strike is a single weapon (in my opinion and it has been since 3.5), the phrase "in any combination" is moot when discussing unarmed strikes (meaning multiple different attacks by the same unarmed strike, just as you can swing a sword in many different strikes).

Since UAS is a single weapon, and since the phrase "in any combination" was used, and since the word "or" was included that means that it is quite logical to presume that one may use any combination of unarmed strikes or attacks with a special weapon during a flurry of blows. One valid combination of which is making all of your attacks with a single weapon (wether using UAS or an actual manufactured weapon) and none with the rest.

People faced with this argument then go on to say that the operative phrase is in fact the "as if using the Two-Weapon Fighting feat" which follows the short list of special monk weapons. But I believe, based on my reading of and parsing that sentence, that the reference to TWF is made to prevent a player from stacking TWF and flurry, and, more importantly, to describe at what attack bonus the additional attack granted by flurry of blows is calculated. If, the intention was to have Flurry = TWF, then the words "in any combination" are meaningless and wasted and provided the certainty of people misinterpreting them.

The same applies to unarmed strike for a monk, where it says "There is no such thing as an off-hand attack for a monk striking unarmed." People argue all the time that the writers were just restating the sentence that comes afterwards, "A monk may thus apply his full Strength bonus on damage rolls for all his unarmed strikes."

The problem is, that sentence does not say this is ALL that the previous sentence meant. Eliminate the word "thus" and if that was all that was intended, you can also remove the preceeding sentence of "There is no such thing as an off-hand attack for a monk striking unarmed." Which is a whole and complete sentence with NO qualifications applied to it.

So, if Flurry of Blows is TWF, a monk cannot make any unarmed strikes as off-hand attacks. Now, we come to the crux of it. The writers and developers have said from the first days of Pathfinder that the monk may use all of his flurry of blows attacks with unarmed strikes. That only works if Flurry is not TWF and if unarmed strikes are a single weapon. [Unless they are stacking exception after exception of the rules together in order to make it work, that is.]

And that, all taken together into a complete whole, is why many people believe that Flurry of Blows can and should be allowed with a single weapon. And if single weapon flurry (unarmed, natural with feral combat training, or weapon) is disallowed because "it was never our intent", then whoever wrote the monk section of the Core Rulebook deserves to be looking for another job after a screw-up of this magnitude.

Master Arminas

Shadow Lodge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber

I think it's been made clear, on multiple occasions, that the intention was never to equate unarmed attack with a single weapon. This means that any argument based on that as an initial premise is pointless.


JB and SKR have confirmed that the intention was that Flurry would use TWF rules to keep things concise and use the same mechanics; with exceptions (such as full Strength bonus with both primary and off-hand, being able to make all attacks unarmed strkes or natural weapons with the feral combat training feat, etc, etc, etc). That intention means absolutely nothing in the face of how the class has been played since Pathfinder was released. Paizo's own writing staff, in the examples for every single monk NPC published to date, have used ONLY single weapon flurry. The Sohei and Zen Archer archetypes are built on the idea of a single weapon flurry.

It is not a matter of intent any longer John F, it is time to deal with how the community is actually playing the class. And if so many people have got it "wrong", perhaps something is wrong with the way it is written.

Master Arminas

Contributor

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ciretose wrote:
But based on what was put in Ultimate Equipment, I am worried the Devs concerns and my concerns aren't the same.

I don't know how many times we have to say something before it'll stick.

We do NOT want to use items to fix the monk.

We want to fix the CLASS.

And the design team hasn't yet had ANY talks about what to do about the monk. So we can't have implemented any fix-the-monk design decisions in Ultimate Equipment items because there haven't been any fix-the-monk design decisions made yet.

So I don't know why you're using anything in Ultimate Equipment, or the lack of anything in Ultimate Equipment, to come to anything resembling an informed opinion about what our concerns are or how they relate to yours.

Seriously. I understand this is an important issue to you, but stop working yourself up about it. You don't have any data; I know this because WE don't have any data. Calm down.

Contributor

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I think this thread needs a time out. And seeing as it's just after midnight on Saturday morning, and this could really explode in the 48+ hours until Monday morning when Paizo staff are officially back at work, I'm going to see about closing this thread ASAP.

I suggest everyone that's involved in this discussion to take a breather. Don't post about it over the weekend. Don't start a new thread about it. Give everyone time to cool down. This means you. :)

Contributor

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I am unable to lock the thread remotely (EDIT: Ross has locked it for me, thanks!), but I have already said I'd like people to not push this over the weekend while everyone at Paizo is trying to enjoy their last days off before Gen Con.

Don't disrespect that.

So, until I can get Ross or Chris or someone who can remotely lock this thread over the weekend, I'm going to remove followup posts from it.

Everyone, go cool off.

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