Yep. Welcome to the wonders of crane wing. Marginalizing entire creatures since 2011.
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Then, next round, the titan says, "I'll take my full attack." The human whimpers, deflects one hit, and is promptly pulped by the remaining swings as the titan remembers that Vital Strike is not his best option.
The same titan fires an arrow from his colossal massive bow, using Vital Strike, Deadly Aim, and all he has.
The upcoming damage is 500 or so.
Yet, the small human, any class, level 1 (!!!) is... Deflecting the arrow with no harm and no check.
Really?!
Or the titan could do a normal attack, have it get deflected, and use his additional four attacks to turn the monk into paste. Crane Wing is actually better the lower level you get it since you're facing enemies with fewer attacks - at high levels it's useful, but hardly gamebreaking.
Wow... Here is a feat that need errata asap
Well, its not exactly a feat, its the product of four separate feats, requires you to have a hand free AND to be fighting defensively, reducing your offensive effectiveness.
I'm not saying that its not a great ability, but let's recognize it for what it is.
That said, I have an Aasimar Dervish of Dawn who has taken it and is really, really looking forward to the upcoming RoW campaign.
It's awesome isnt it? But yeah, you might be going a bit far. Other than cheesers that use Master of many styles to have crane wing by level 2 (or 1? I'm not sure if that works), you cant really get it before level 5.
Then again, if your DM is facing you down against titans that can one-shot you at level 1 (even level 5) with no chance to avoid... you've got other problems. I dont imagine a sane DM (if that exists) would face you against such a thing before you're ready.
Still, this is one of those cases where RAW can lead to awesome sillyness. Munchkin territory.
BTW: Dont forget, you can only block ONE attack. So unless the titan just moved, you're screwed anyway, cause a high-level titan is bound to get multiple attacks per turn. That's the real limit of crane wing: it can only be used ONCE per turn.
Edit: Ninja'd by like 5 people. Really got to start typing faster.
I think a better question is why a level 1 monk is fighting a 50 strength titan really...
I need to understand, a human take crane wing, and facing a Titan that hold a collossal hammer with str 50.
The Titan is taking vital strike, awesome blow , power att and all he has.
The upcoming damage is 500 or so.
Yet, the small human, monk, level 1 (!!!) is.... Deflecting the charge with no harm and no check....
Really ?!
Think of it less as 'deflection' and more like a matador with his cape against a raging bull...
How about manoeuvres? I cannot remember if Crane Wing stops them as they do no damage.
Is there any good reason to open a new thread about this when there have been several others in the past where this topic hase been discussed?
@Topic: In fights vs single opponents using single attacks it is strong. Same with deflect arrows. In fights with multiple opponents with multiple attacks it is weak. All in all it is balanced.
The same titan fires an arrow from his colossal massive bow, using Vital Strike, Deadly Aim, and all he has.
The upcoming damage is 500 or so.
Yet, the small human, any class, level 1 (!!!) is... Deflecting the arrow with no harm and no check.
Really?!
Deflect Arrows specifically doesn't work against "unusually massive ranged weapons (such as boulders or ballista bolts)". Since a ballista bolt is just a Huge heavy crossbow bolt, it's likely that a Colossal arrow would also count as "unusually massive".
It's awesome isnt it? But yeah, you might be going a bit far. Other than cheesers that use Master of many styles to have crane wing by level 2 (or 1? I'm not sure if that works), you cant really get it before level 5.
The minimum option is at level 2 - MoMS requires prerequisites insofar as style feats; just no others.
Yet, the small human, monk, level 1 (!!!) is.... Deflecting the charge with no harm and no check....
Really ?!
I don't see anything wrong with this. Well, no, it is admittedly, a little silly but, at least at levels where it's reasonable to face a Titan, it hardly bares all the hallmarks of insanity since deflecting an attack doesn't require said monk to take the full brunt of it, or push said blow back in the opposite direction.
More like the classical mechanics picture of dropping a heavy box onto a steep slope; the box's momentum changes vector, even though the slope takes a tiny amount of the impact.Actually, nope, still seems insane trying to handwave it like that. Although as already said - sure it might break the simulationist feel for combat but game-mechanics wise, it's small fry. Hell, if we're really questioning the Monk for realism - with a clever combination if the right deity, Crusader's Flurry feat and the Flurry of Blows feature; I can have a high level Monk making 7 separate attacks with a sodding greatsword in the span of a few seconds; Let alone the horror of higher level spells making Physics go into a corner and wait for the migraine to stop.
In other words, high level realism is best shrugged off.
Deflect Arrows specifically doesn't work against "unusually massive ranged weapons (such as boulders or ballista bolts)". Since a ballista bolt is just a Huge heavy crossbow bolt, it's likely that a Colossal arrow would also count as "unusually massive".
Mind quoting the section that states that a ballista fires a huge crossbow bolt? It'd resolve a discussion I had with my players a few weeks back :)
Crane Wing, as Kudaku pointed out, is nothing more than the melee equivalent of Deflect Arrows. What makes it better is the fact that there is a propensity for melee combat over ranged combat in your average Pathfinder game thus it sees far more use than Deflect Arrow. But, I agree with you 666bender.
Deflect Arrows specifically doesn't work against "unusually massive ranged weapons (such as boulders or ballista bolts)". Since a ballista bolt is just a Huge heavy crossbow bolt, it's likely that a Colossal arrow would also count as "unusually massive".Mind quoting the section that states that a ballista fires a huge crossbow bolt? It'd resolve a discussion I had with my players a few weeks back :)
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/environment.html#_ballista
"A ballista is essentially a Huge heavy crossbow fixed in place."
There's also the fact that archery (like TWF) relies on volleys of attacks instead of a single big attack, so deflecting one of eight arrows isn't such a big deal.
Crane Wing scales inversely with the number of attacks the opponent can make - against an enemy who (for some reason) uses the Vital Strike chain or relies on a single big attack it is very powerful, while against an enemy who makes numerous attacks (flurry, TWF, multiple natural attacks etc) it is fairly weak.
Then again, Crane Wing has some really, really harsh requirements - unless you're using MoMS dipping to grab it early you're paying a great deal (IUS, Dodge, CS, CW, fighting defensively AND you need a free hand) to get the ability to ignore that one attack. The feat will also grow weaker as you level.
"A ballista is essentially a Huge heavy crossbow fixed in place."
...That's it? Sorry, that won't do it for me (we use the Ultimate Combat rules on siege Engines, not the general ones from the GMG).
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It is very good and I'd advise it for most monks and some other brawler types, but it is nowhere near overpowered, I'd say it is the minimum power boost for monks. It costs a number of feats, but thankfully you would probably take them anyway (Improved Unarmed Strike which monks should have for free, dodge, and the style prerequisite are fine). In real play then, it is 2 feats for one pretty good but not crazy ability which is further curtailed by being minimum 5th level when enemies might start getting iterative attacks, requires to be hit with a weapon (making humanoids with martial class levels and thus extra attacks actually more likely) and is purely defensive, it doesn't take the enemy down quicker.
I'd suggest it isn't powerful enough, actually.
My players know better than to bring that (broken turd) to my table.
That's a bit harsh but I agree it is underpowered.
Dear god I hope you're trolling...
If your group has seriously had discussions about whether the bolt fired from a ballista is deflectable with "Deflect Arrows" and the answer isn't totally obviously 'no'? Then I weep for your GM. :P
"A ballista is essentially a Huge heavy crossbow fixed in place."...That's it? Sorry, that won't do it for me (we use the Ultimate Combat rules on siege Engines, not the general ones from the GMG).
Webster's Dictionary defines "essentially" as...
The debate wasn't on whether the bolt from a ballista is deflectable with deflect arrows but if a large/huge/gargantuan arrow/bolt translates to an "unusually massive missile", and if so what size category it has to reach before it is classified as such. It didn't go into a big fight or anything - we houseruled it and moved on, but there were some interesting emails flying back and forth presenting different arguments.
Some of the stuff that was brought up was the quote Hogarth already has posted, but I'll see if I can summarize the highlights:
1. A crossbow and a ballista require different proficiencies - the ballista is an exotic weapon and requires Siege Weapons Proficiency while the heavy crossbow is a simple weapon. IE a huge creature can't just pick up a ballista and treat it as a crossbow, they're different weapons. By this logic "essentially" is used to describe how the weapon functions, which is similar - crossbows and ballistae rely on the same concepts, much like a slingshot and a catapult or a handgun and a cannon. The counter argument here is that Huge is capitalized, implying that all ballistae are the same as a Huge Heavy Crossbow. Again, this runs into some trouble since UC lists three different sizes of ballistae (light, heavy, gatebreaker) with three different sets of stats.
2. If you calculate the weight of a huge crossbow bolt (using the rules for oversized armor it'll multiple at *8, I'm not aware of any rules that deal specifically with weapon weight above Large) and ignore the weight of the bolt case each bolt will weigh in at .8 lb. In comparison the smallest ballista bolt is listed as weighing a whooping 10 lb in Ultimate Combat. Conversely, if huge crossbows do fire ballista bolts then each huge bolt would weigh in at 10 lb - a quiver of 10 would weigh 100 lb. That means that while the difference between a medium and a large weapon is a simple doubling of weight (x2 or from .1 lb to .2), the gap between Large and Huge requires you to multiply the weight by 50 (to go from .2 to 10 lb). This seems somewhat illogical.
Again, keep in mind that we're using the Ultimate Combat rules which expand on siege weapons - not the original (and very brief) text in the CRB.
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I just watched a monk get his first use of crane wing off in *six levels.* It's a feat that is entirely broken, but only in theorycrafted encounters where a single monster will be fighting a single mob and has only a single attack.
In the game-as-played, there will be three (or more) other player characters, no shortage of other attack options, and *the GM controls who the monsters attack.* Daniel-san, standing back there in crane stance, looking like he's failing a field sobriety test, or the fighter right up in your face hitting you with a sword, or the healer who is frustratingly undoing the damage that you just did to said fighter, or the wizard that just tried to blind you with glitterdust, which would have pretty much one-shotted you if you hadn't made your save. Hmmm. Who to attack? Oh yeah, one of the three that actually did something this round. Let the monk stand in crane stance. He'll probably cramp up after awhile, and his entire party will be dead and wondering if maybe it would have been better to bring an NPC adept, who could at least have used a wand of cure light wounds or something.
It's reactive, utterly dependent on the GM to make it useful, by having monsters run over and attack the monk who is fighting defensively, which, barring the occasional stupid monster, who might do that *once,* isn't going to happen much. Combat isn't won by defense. 'Turtling' isn't a viable tactic in D&D/PF.
If the GM continues to throw creatures with only a single attack at you, and continues to have them uselessly flail away at the monk and ignore everyone else in the party, then, yeah, *totally* OP.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I need to understand, a human take crane wing, and facing a Titan that hold a collossal hammer with str 50.
The Titan is taking vital strike, awesome blow , power att and all he has.
The upcoming damage is 500 or so.
Yet, the small human, monk, level 1 (!!!) is.... Deflecting the charge with no harm and no check....
Really ?!
...Then the small human barbarian attacks the titan's foot, crits with a scythe smaller than the titan's letter opener, and the titan grabs his ankle and crumples in a heap on the ground, dying.
Sorry, but if Crane Wing against a titan seems silly enough to bother you, then you probably shouldn't even be playing high-level Pathfinder.
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An awesome, attainable and flavorful option for melee characters...let's nerf it!
0.0
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Personally, I find it amusing that people keep calling monks weak, but complain about their one very good defensive feat chain.
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<true stuff>
I've a MoMS monk who got Crane Wing at lvl 2. We're now at level 12, so I also now have Crane Riposte/Snake Style/Snake Fang. I often end combat undamaged because after a critter attacks me and gets hit for trying, they stop trying and instead try to chew on the paladin who's doing an order of magnitude more damage than I am. Often they leave me alone enough that I can get behind them to give the rogue a flanking buddy, as the damage I give up by not full-attacking pales compared to the bonus damage he gets. The joke is that my role is TPK prevention because I'll always be the last one left standing and have the speed to run away.
Back to the OP, the titan swings his hammer, straight down and the Lv2 monk deflects it, or tries...
but the hammer is so massive that the force the monk appies pushes the monk as opposed to the hammer. Still a miss (technically not cause snakefang) and we're good
I just watched a monk get his first use of crane wing off in *six levels.* It's a feat that is entirely broken, but only in theorycrafted encounters where a single monster will be fighting a single mob and has only a single attack.
In the game-as-played, there will be three (or more) other player characters, no shortage of other attack options, and *the GM controls who the monsters attack.* Daniel-san, standing back there in crane stance, looking like he's failing a field sobriety test, or the fighter right up in your face hitting you with a sword, or the healer who is frustratingly undoing the damage that you just did to said fighter, or the wizard that just tried to blind you with glitterdust, which would have pretty much one-shotted you if you hadn't made your save. Hmmm. Who to attack? Oh yeah, one of the three that actually did something this round. Let the monk stand in crane stance. He'll probably cramp up after awhile, and his entire party will be dead and wondering if maybe it would have been better to bring an NPC adept, who could at least have used a wand of cure light wounds or something.
It's reactive, utterly dependent on the GM to make it useful, by having monsters run over and attack the monk who is fighting defensively, which, barring the occasional stupid monster, who might do that *once,* isn't going to happen much. Combat isn't won by defense. 'Turtling' isn't a viable tactic in D&D/PF.
If the GM continues to throw creatures with only a single attack at you, and continues to have them uselessly flail away at the monk and ignore everyone else in the party, then, yeah, *totally* OP.
We've got twin Aasimar Dervishes of Dawn who both dipped MoMS getting ready for Wrath of the Righteous, and I can assure you, they'll be doing a lot more than standing around. Keep in mind that you can full attack while fighting defensively, and not only do you get to negate one automatic hit, but your overall defense improves as well.
I don't think the feat is overpowered, but I can promise there will be some very frustrated critters when we are done with them.
Wait, didn't OP mention that his fictional giant had Awesome Blow?
Awesome Blow isn't an attack, it's a combat maneuver, which crane style doesn't work against.
Any time one of my players stacks a ridiculous amount of AC or uses a defensive option like crane style I just shrug. Let them have their fun. YOU GON GIT GRAPPLED, SON!
I'd argue that Crane Wing is good enough, rather that too good.
Wait, didn't OP mention that his fictional giant had Awesome Blow?
Awesome Blow isn't an attack, it's a combat maneuver, which crane style doesn't work against.
Any time one of my players stacks a ridiculous amount of AC or uses a defensive option like crane style I just shrug. Let them have their fun. YOU GON GIT GRAPPLED, SON!
High level players have access to Rings of Freedom of Movement. For those of us who want nothing to do with grappling for the latter half of our career, it is a wise investment.
prototype00
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Oh my god! A non-spellcaster can do something effective? WE MUST NERF THIS BROKEN POS TO THE GROUND, BABY!
You can get Crane wing at level one as a MoMS monk or if you're human: take dodge as your 1st level feat, crane wing as your human bonus, and crane style as your monk bonus.
Then, you can fight defensively! This brings your lousy monk AC up from 14-15 or so up to a GAME-BREAKING AC 17-18, meaning that the second attack against you (like, say, a CR 1/3 skeleton gets with its claw attacks) has a pretty decent chance of hitting you.
For that privilege, you can take a -2 on all your attacks with your 0 BAB, and trade away the only good offensive feature monks get: flurry of blows. That 50 STR titan your oh-so-reasonable DM apparantly throws at 1st level players is just gonna shrug and pulp the rest of the party while you fail to hit him.
If you don't grab Crane Wing with early entry, you have to wait until 5th level to get it. Opponents routinely have multiple attacks by then.
Don't blow smoke at me about CW when casters have features like Color Spray that trivialize whole fights for the first three levels. If you forbid Crane Wing at your table you're a bad DM and should feel bad.
The thing is, that Mega tank scenario is still exploitable. This cavalier is vital to party defence, you say? Fine, he probably will have a poor reflex or better, a poor will save. Target it and ruin their common tactic.
More yet, if I'm following the idea correctly - that requires a fairly bunched up party. Just attack from multiple directions and try to make them move apart to deal with everything.
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It seem you fail to understand the true power of it ....
[snip]
I am a mega tank!
If a character devotes all of his feats and class levels and even his racial choice to being good at *one thing,* then I'm not sure it's a sign of the game being terribly broken if he actually *is* good at that one thing.
It's a niche ability. It deserves to be good at what it does, so that, when the GM *does* allow it to work, it's not a total suckfest.
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It seem you fail to understand the true power of it ....
I am a cavalier - order of the dragon, helpfull honor guard .
With body guard and combat reflexes I boost my area with +6 to AC
At normal rounds I use swift aid to boost the to hit of the big fighter.
All around me also get some AC because I use the hafling feats that grant 2 to AC all around.
Now, I take a level as a monk - getting the crane wing . I can still aid on the defence...
Now all are defended at + 6 and I can block and have super AC.
It is true - I don't do any damage - but I boost every one and protect All around me.
Later on ill take one level of unbreakable fighter to move the AC boost into DR .Last thing , as team feat I took broken wing gambit, with tactiction all also provoke.
We have hinderces - we need to stAck so fire ball will hurt - but vs melee ?
I am a mega tank!
I do not see how you are gaining +6 to all adjacent allies as a base bonus.
The AC (Luck) Bonus is Based off Fighting Defensively/Total Defense Action.
With Crane Style, 3 Ranks in Acrobatics, and Cautious Fighter, that is a total of a 6 AC (Dodge) bonus, which is halved to the +3 AC (Luck) Bonus to Adjacent Allies.
Bodyguard is using your Attack of Opportunities to grant the Aid Another bonus to melee attacks of your now base 3 (Order of the Dragon) + 1 (Honor Guard).
So with your Attacks of Opportunity, you can possibly give allies a +7 AC, but it is very dependent on if you have enough Dexterity to make continual Attacks of Opportunity. If you have a whole rain of arrows or many cretures with multiple attacks, then your bonus drop dramatically.
You can get Crane wing at level one as a MoMS monk or if you're human: take dodge as your 1st level feat, crane wing as your human bonus, and crane style as your monk bonus.
I was unaware you could take a style feat as your "monk bonus" unless you took the MoMS archetype. Could you direct me to the RAW on this as I was under the impression you were restricted to the associated list in the CRB
I don't get it. It's basically Deflect Arrows, except for melee attacks. And it requires more pre-reqs, fighting defensively, and a swift action to enter the stance.
No one ever complains about deflect arrows being too strong... Seriously, the biggest issue I have with the feat chain is how high your AC can go if you stack it with other defensive fighting feats.
Then, next round, the titan says, "I'll take my full attack." The human whimpers, deflects one hit, and is promptly pulped by the remaining swings as the titan remembers that Vital Strike is not his best option.
No, same round, the other titan decides to show his buddy how it is done. Or the first titan tells it's pet (it is so tiny! It is only half his size) with three natural attacks to hit the human.
Really, it is easy to get around crane wing as long as you throw a few more attacks at the target. It is typically rather good against full attacks though since it takes out the highest BAB hit, and then benefits from all the bonuses to AC from fighting defensively and such. But the original scenario shows how to get around that: a ton of strength, and thus a ton of bonus to hit. That should get around the AC normal monks bring to the table (although...with mithral and the armor expert trait, I could make a MoMS monk with shield and breastplate without any real problems... that would be much harder to hit)
A feat that allows martial characters to do anything other than full-attack??? BLASPHEMY!!!
I fail to see how deflecting 1 attack per round is that broken. If it's against a full attack, it won't make much of a difference, if the enemy made a single attack, he shouldn't expect to deal much damage anyway.
It's an useful feat. And it's rather cool. There is nothing game breaking about it. If gonna complain about that, then complain about 5th level spells and up, because they're much more powerful than anything any feat can do.