Worrying implications of size scaling and brawlers.


Rules Questions


1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.

I recently was made aware of the new hybrid classes and decided to give them a look, as my players had expressed some interest in playing them. I was promptly gobsmacked at what I saw as a nightmarish oversight in handling die size scaling thanks to Close Weapon Mastery in the brawler, and in the Shield Champion in particular. Those who wish to ignore the numbers and just quote me the rules that say this is not possible, if such rules exist, skip or skim the following:

1. "At 12th level, a shield champion can use her unarmed strike damage when dealing damage with a shield (whether in melee or thrown) or the shield's damage, whichever is greater." At this level, that's 2d6. A non-shield champion brawler will be dealing 1d8 instead, as the shield bash is in the Close weapon group.

2. Shield spikes increase the size rating of the shield by one category. For the SC that means a 3d6 shield. For the standard brawler that's a 2d6 shield.

3. Bashing property increases the size rating of the shield by two categories. That means the SC goes from 3d6 to 6d6. Standard brawler goes from 2d6 to 4d6.

4. Using a heavy shield means it's not a light weapon, and thus qualifies for the Impact enhancement, increasing its die by another category. SC goes from 6d6 to 8d6, standard from 4d6 to 6d6.

5. Enlarge Person and Lead Blades (external augmentation), both of which are found cheaply in wand and potion form. These are worth a size category each. Enlarge Person does have a caveat stating that multiple magic effects increasing SIZE do not stack, but says nothing for size categories. It is the only effect listed that actually increases your size. RAW, both work. That's two more increases, taking the SC to 16d6, the standard to 12d6. Per bash. At 12th level.

6. Strong Jaw, contingent on having a druid or ranger in the party, or access to significantly more expensive wands or potions. Two size increases. 16d6 goes to 32d6, 12d6 goes to 24d6. This one works on the base damage that the shield is set to (that of the unarmed strike), but these can generally be added sequentially for the sake of figuring out the die size.

With all of these shenanigans in play and available to, say, a fighter, the shield bash would only be a 6d6 weapon. That's still nothing to sneeze at in standard play, but 12d6, 16d6, or even 24d6 or 32d6 are just absurd at any level of play. Carrying my scaremongering on from here, at 20th level that Shield Champion would be doing 48d8 + Str mod, per bash, getting seven bashes per round on a full attack.

So! This is me seeking clarification on rules, an official statement addressing possible errata if errata is missing, or some other form of encouragement.


I was wondering something similar for warpriests using natural weapons. If you have weapon focus, you should be using your warpriest damage instead of the natural attack's damage. But if you take improved natural attack, do they go up a size category?

I'm actually somewhat assuming that the monk/brawler/warpriest damage simply overwrites whatever is underneath it. Meaning improved natural attack, or shield spikes, do not "stack." Your heavy spiked shield would be doing 1d6. Upping it with the bashing property puts it at 2d6. But that's how much your unarmed damage is anyway, so there's no net gain.

In other words, in light of doing 48d6 with a shield, it seems more likely that things like spikes, bashing property, and in the warpriest's case improved natural attack, simply go to waste as they're overwritten by the unarmed damage.


As far as I understand it, affects that change the damage die of the shield should be done before comparing it to the unarmed damage of the brawler.

So a shield spike as well as bashing, and impact would be applied first. So neither close weapon mastery or the shield champion ability alter the damage here at all.

Grand Lodge

Without going into detail on all of it, here's at least one part that doesn't work

Ultimate Equipment FAQ wrote:

Weapon Special Ability, Impact: Does this stack with the lead blades spell?

No. The weapon special ability and the spell are similar effects; note that impact lists lead blades as a construction requirement.


Dispari Scuro wrote:

I was wondering something similar for warpriests using natural weapons. If you have weapon focus, you should be using your warpriest damage instead of the natural attack's damage. But if you take improved natural attack, do they go up a size category?

I'm actually somewhat assuming that the monk/brawler/warpriest damage simply overwrites whatever is underneath it. Meaning improved natural attack, or shield spikes, do not "stack." Your heavy spiked shield would be doing 1d6. Upping it with the bashing property puts it at 2d6. But that's how much your unarmed damage is anyway, so there's no net gain.

In other words, in light of doing 48d6 with a shield, it seems more likely that things like spikes, bashing property, and in the warpriest's case improved natural attack, simply go to waste as they're overwritten by the unarmed damage.

Yes, a warpriest who had a natural attack as a focus weapon would benefit little from improved natural weapon. You compare them after immediate modifiers, not before.


Kolokotroni wrote:

As far as I understand it, affects that change the damage die of the shield should be done before comparing it to the unarmed damage of the brawler.

So a shield spike as well as bashing, and impact would be applied first. So neither close weapon mastery or the shield champion ability alter the damage here at all.

Yes that's what I understand as well...

If your weapon is a Heavy Shield you do 1d4 dmg so you choos 2d6 from Brawler

If your weapon is a Spiked/Bashing/Imapct Heavy Shield you do 3d6 dmg so you don't choose the Brawler's damage...


All those affect the base damage, you then choose whether to use that damage or the substitute damage. You don't choose to use the substitute damage and then all those effects somehow 'transfer over'.

So, work out your enhanced base damage then choose whether to substitute your unarmed or sacred damage.

Of course (for the brawler at least) some of those spells can apply to unarmed strike damage, which you can then choose to use instead of the base damage.

trying to use language that applies equally to both classes, hope it's still clear.


I agree with Kolokotroni. My understanding is that you look at the final damage of the weapon, so a spiked bashing shield does 4d6 damage. Disregard the fact that it's been hinted that bashing and spiked shouldn't be allowed to stack by at least one developer, because it's not incredibly relevant but just wanted to say that stacking these is dubious.

Now, you would compare that 4d6 to the damage the brawler gets instead. Whichever is higher, he gets the higher value. But he does not get to increase the effective value of his brawler damage with the spiked or bashing property.


Agreed with the others, though I'll say the language could be more precise. I don't think substituting the damage die before applying enhancements to the weapon is contrary to the rules, just that the interpretation is probably further from the intent.


So, assuming we can throw out spiked and bashing (three size categories) and cite the rule that Lead Blades and Impact overlap instead of stack, that leaves us four increments short. The Shield Champion is now only bashing for 8d6 at level 12 (4d6 without that druid magic), and 12d8 (6d8 without druid magic) at level 20. Are there any other interactions we can rule out? I'm hoping for more RAW than RAI here, but I'll take what I can get which is well-supported.

Edit: I would also really appreciate some official address to the language to get rid of the ambiguity.


RAW both sides have their arguments.

RAI i think it is that you use either the "end" damage of a weapon OR the modified damage chart.

The only increase that i would allow would be a size increase in the actual being/weapon since there is a table for s/l WPs and brawlers

Artful Dodger wrote:

So, assuming we can throw out spiked and bashing (three size categories) and cite the rule that Lead Blades and Impact overlap instead of stack, that leaves us four increments short. The Shield Champion is now only bashing for 8d6 at level 12 (4d6 without that druid magic), and 12d8 (6d8 without druid magic) at level 20. Are there any other interactions we can rule out? I'm hoping for more RAW than RAI here, but I'll take what I can get which is well-supported.

Edit: I would also really appreciate some official address to the language to get rid of the ambiguity.

RAW wise:

the ability reads as thus:
At 12th level, a shield champion can use her unarmed strike damage when dealing damage with a shield (whether in melee or thrown) or the shield's damage, whichever is greater.

So, ANYTHING that modifies SHIELD DAMAGE is irrelevant.
anything that modifies UNARMED damage is relevant (per example YOUR size)

you could have 1231231 feats/abilities/whatever that modifiy SHIELD damage but you can either choose to use your UNARMED or your SHIELD damage.

it's pretty clear that bashing/spikes/etc won't modify the shield damage if you choose to use your unarmed damage, because nowhere does it says that unarmed damage gets increased by shield spikes or etc

Dark Archive

Artful Dodger wrote:

So, assuming we can throw out spiked and bashing (three size categories) and cite the rule that Lead Blades and Impact overlap instead of stack, that leaves us four increments short. The Shield Champion is now only bashing for 8d6 at level 12 (4d6 without that druid magic), and 12d8 (6d8 without druid magic) at level 20. Are there any other interactions we can rule out? I'm hoping for more RAW than RAI here, but I'll take what I can get which is well-supported.

Edit: I would also really appreciate some official address to the language to get rid of the ambiguity.

Since Strong Jaw specifies it only works on natural attacks (which a unarmed strike is NOT) then you can remove those size increases as well.

It's also flagged as a size increase so doesn't stack either.


FWIW The chart for WP/brawlers explicitly relates solely to character size and not weapon size.


Mathwei ap Niall wrote:


Since Strong Jaw specifies it only works on natural attacks (which a unarmed strike is NOT) then you can remove those size increases as well.
It's also flagged as a size increase so doesn't stack either.

crb wrote:
A monk's unarmed strike is treated as both a manufactured weapon and a natural weapon for the purpose of spells and effects that enhance or improve either manufactured weapons or natural weapons.

similar language is used in brawlers IUS

Liberty's Edge

To me the combination of Shield Spikes and the Bashing ability is also iffy. Shield Spikes specifically call out that they do not get benefit from the enchantments on the shield, and must be enchanted as a weapon on their own. I see a shield with Shield Spikes and Bashing as closer to a double weapon then two stacking properties.

Unless it's been FAQ'd or something, then I'm totally talking out my arse.


Artful Dodger wrote:

So, assuming we can throw out spiked and bashing (three size categories) and cite the rule that Lead Blades and Impact overlap instead of stack, that leaves us four increments short. The Shield Champion is now only bashing for 8d6 at level 12 (4d6 without that druid magic), and 12d8 (6d8 without druid magic) at level 20. Are there any other interactions we can rule out? I'm hoping for more RAW than RAI here, but I'll take what I can get which is well-supported.

Edit: I would also really appreciate some official address to the language to get rid of the ambiguity.

Its not really ambiguous. Shield spikes and bashing modify the damage of the sheild. The ability says to compare the damage done by the sheild against the brawlers unarmed damage, if the sheild does more damage, this ability has no affect. Its just a matter of not intentionally misreading the rules in order to rack up more d6's.


Mathwei ap Niall wrote:

Since Strong Jaw specifies it only works on natural attacks (which a unarmed strike is NOT) then you can remove those size increases as well.

It's also flagged as a size increase so doesn't stack either.

"A brawler's unarmed strike is treated as both a manufactured weapon and a natural weapon for the purpose of spells and effects that modify either manufactured weapons or natural weapons." And is therefore subject to augmentation by spells like Magic Fang and Strong Jaw.

Additionally, the only place where it's even suggested that magical size increases do not stack is in Enlarge Person (Or Animal Growth, but that's not being used here), but it only specifies a creature's size.

Strong Jaw will say, "Each natural attack that creature makes deals damage as if the creature were two sizes larger than it actually is," while Enlarge Person actually increases your size. If we lumped all effects that say "as if the creature were X sizes larger," that gives us...

--2d6 unarmed damage.
--Enlarge to 3d6 because it increases your size.
--Strong Jaw to 6d6 because it lets you hit as though you are even bigger than you really are (which is your enlarged self at this point).

Lead Blades could normally be isolated to the damage of the shield, but a Brawler's unarmed strike is considered a natural or manufactured weapon, whichever is beneficial for buffs, and still (possibly) would apply. Arguably. Because it specifies the weapon's die (the shield/unarmed strike) and not the creature (as with Strong Jaw). It would give us 8d6 if this was the case.


Kolokotroni wrote:
Artful Dodger wrote:

So, assuming we can throw out spiked and bashing (three size categories) and cite the rule that Lead Blades and Impact overlap instead of stack, that leaves us four increments short. The Shield Champion is now only bashing for 8d6 at level 12 (4d6 without that druid magic), and 12d8 (6d8 without druid magic) at level 20. Are there any other interactions we can rule out? I'm hoping for more RAW than RAI here, but I'll take what I can get which is well-supported.

Edit: I would also really appreciate some official address to the language to get rid of the ambiguity.

Its not really ambiguous. Shield spikes and bashing modify the damage of the sheild. The ability says to compare the damage done by the sheild against the brawlers unarmed damage, if the sheild does more damage, this ability has no affect. Its just a matter of not intentionally misreading the rules in order to rack up more d6's.

I'm on board with isolating the spikes and the bashing to the shield, away from the unarmed damage, but it does take a little wiggling to extract, like a tooth that needs pulling.


dragonhunterq wrote:
Mathwei ap Niall wrote:


Since Strong Jaw specifies it only works on natural attacks (which a unarmed strike is NOT) then you can remove those size increases as well.
It's also flagged as a size increase so doesn't stack either.

crb wrote:
A monk's unarmed strike is treated as both a manufactured weapon and a natural weapon for the purpose of spells and effects that enhance or improve either manufactured weapons or natural weapons.
similar language is used in brawlers IUS

Ditto


Don't forget that a Heavy Shield is a 1-h weapon and, as such, it can be wielded in two hands to get 1.5x Power Attack bonus (1.5x Str is canceled out by Flurry specific rules).


bashing/Impact/lead blades do not stack. A shield is not a valid target of the strong jaw spell; it would not stack with bashing etc anyway. Unsure how spikes are handled in this situation - will have to look that up later.


also note that shield mastery completely negates any penalties whatsoever to attacks with shields. obviously a bug, but you CAN use PA and the like without penalty until paizo gets off their butts and fixes it (see: never).


AndIMustMask wrote:
also note that shield mastery completely negates any penalties whatsoever to attacks with shields. obviously a bug, but you CAN use PA and the like without penalty until paizo gets off their butts and fixes it (see: never).

Or you have a GM who isn't a moron and knows that it was only intended to negate TWF penalties.

Please don't advocate abusing the system.


So far we have the agreement that Lead Blades/Impact do not stack because it's explicitly stated in the FAQ, and the agreement that spiked and bashing are isolated to the shield and therefore are only held up to the unarmed damage after they're applied to the shield. That leaves us just with...

The bonuses available to a monk. This still isn't preventing a 6d6 bash at level 12, or a 8d8 bash at level 20.


Artful Dodger wrote:

So far we have the agreement that Lead Blades/Impact do not stack because it's explicitly stated in the FAQ, and the agreement that spiked and bashing are isolated to the shield and therefore are only held up to the unarmed damage after they're applied to the shield. That leaves us just with...

The bonuses available to a monk. This still isn't preventing a 6d6 bash at level 12, or a 8d8 bash at level 20.

Which has nothing to do with the brawler class.

And 6d6 while seems like alot is actually just an average of 21 damage. At 12th level that isnt a huge amount for using lots of expenable reasources outside your class to buff you.

Edit:

Go look at the dpr olympics theads. Most optimized fighter builds can cross 100 damage per round without outside buffs at 10th level. 21 damage a hit isnt particularly special in that context. A raging barbarian can do that at like 4th level...


Yeah, it's really not the number of dice you have to worry about for the most part. It's the number after the plus sign that matters. That's where the real damage comes from.


the number of dice often mislead the true damage.

as a dm i have heard a million times "wow with this build in my rogue i can sneak attack 4 times for 7d6 each strike for 28d6 damaeg, that's absurd!!!"

only to have a barbarian crit after a minute or two in the game for enough damage to kill a few generations of the poor sap that they hit.


It's conventional to say the beef is to the right of the dice, but 6d6 is not trivial.

That level 12 brawler with a 20-point buy can reasonably expect to be wearing a +4 Str belt and an Amulet of Mighty Fists +3. Given Power Attack, Weapon Focus/Spec/Greater Focus/Spec, his attack looks like...

+21 to hit, 6d6 + 23 damage. He gets six swings on a full attack (five if you don't have Greater TWF from flexible feats/normal feats), about two or three of which can be reasonably expected to hit for 44 average damage each.

Compare to a greatsword fighter, same level: +24 to hit, 2d6 + 36 damage, three swings, of which one to two can be reasonably expected to hit for 43 average damage each. He's swinging a higher enhancement bonus because his weapon is cheaper, but all else is the same.

Die-size category increases put what is effectively a TWF build (monks do the same) ahead per hit compared to a 2h build. The extra dice also means it loses less when forced to make only one standard action attack per round by way of much heavier Vital Strikes, be they standard, improved, or greater.

Crit ranges may tip that, but that's for smarter theorycraft guys than I am. Incidentally, thank you guys for the discussion so far.


Why does your TWF build get size increase but the THF doesn't?


Artful Dodger wrote:

It's conventional to say the beef is to the right of the dice, but 6d6 is not trivial.

That level 12 brawler with a 20-point buy can reasonably expect to be wearing a +4 Str belt and an Amulet of Mighty Fists +3. Given Power Attack, Weapon Focus/Spec/Greater Focus/Spec, his attack looks like...

+21 to hit, 6d6 + 23 damage. He gets six swings on a full attack (five if you don't have Greater TWF from flexible feats/normal feats), about two or three of which can be reasonably expected to hit for 44 average damage each.

Compare to a greatsword fighter, same level: +24 to hit, 2d6 + 36 damage, three swings, of which one to two can be reasonably expected to hit for 43 average damage each. He's swinging a higher enhancement bonus because his weapon is cheaper, but all else is the same.

Die-size category increases put what is effectively a TWF build (monks do the same) ahead per hit compared to a 2h build. The extra dice also means it loses less when forced to make only one standard action attack per round by way of much heavier Vital Strikes, be they standard, improved, or greater.

Crit ranges may tip that, but that's for smarter theorycraft guys than I am. Incidentally, thank you guys for the discussion so far.

apart from the studied target bonuses, that's something that a monk could do too.

add in that a monk would have 1 extra attack due to ki compared to the twf brawler.

and monks were never that gamebreaking in the damage department. (a lot of martials by that level would be critting 1/4 of their attacks, and all the damage would be multiplied)

what we are talking here isn't one man's efforts too, he is using 2 resources not available to him.

all this started as a conversation from the damage a shield could do in a brawler's hands, and it was concluded that the damage is more or less that of a monk using the same resources.

monk's great problem was always the fact that they relied on full attacks to do their damage, now with pummeling strike, conditions were made that this damage is more easily applied.


Claxon wrote:
AndIMustMask wrote:
also note that shield mastery completely negates any penalties whatsoever to attacks with shields. obviously a bug, but you CAN use PA and the like without penalty until paizo gets off their butts and fixes it (see: never).

Or you have a GM who isn't a moron and knows that it was only intended to negate TWF penalties.

Please don't advocate abusing the system.

nope. Sorry. I will andvocate anything and everything i feel necessary to get paizo off their butts to fix glaring flaws like this. I refuse to let these slide, and since pointing them out in a calm and civil manner gets completely ignored i will point out every exploit, bug, and lazy inconsistency or unfortunate oversight i find.

Since if enough people start abusing it, they will have little option than to actually fix their blasted system--or crane wing it to oblivion and disappoint everyone yet further.

Hiding behind excuses like "but what about page count--a free errata doc would totally invalidate older purchases somehow! We simply have no choice but to never fix this under any circumstances" is lazy and disappointing, and i will not freaking stand for it in a game i care about.

im not aiming to sound hostile btw.


1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.

It seems the question that needs clarification is "what constitutes 'base damage' for either Close Combat Mastery or the Shield Champion's 12th level ability, when size category changes are involved?"

Just the stock weapon damage dice?

Weapon dice plus nonmagical size category increases?

Weapon dice plus ALL size category increases?

All three are arguably valid interpretations. So we need clarification.

I also would like to know what the heck a "medium shield" is.

-j


Perhaps I've missed a detail somewhere but what's bothering me most about this isn't the damage potential, it's the fact that a Brawler can apply unarmed strike damage to a weapon. Adamantine shield then bash to bypass hardness while using unarmed strike damage. This is something that is impossible for a monk until level 16.

Sczarni

THIS FAQ request already has almost 70 hits, if anyone would like to add their voice to it.


Not quite the same scenrio, here. This one is just asking if size category modifiers still apply after the shield has it's damage dice replaced by the brawler unarmed dice.

-k


1 person marked this as a favorite.
p-sto wrote:
Perhaps I've missed a detail somewhere but what's bothering me most about this isn't the damage potential, it's the fact that a Brawler can apply unarmed strike damage to a weapon. Adamantine shield then bash to bypass hardness while using unarmed strike damage. This is something that is impossible for a monk until level 16.

The ACG has a couple of classes that do the "replace weapon damage dice" trick, the other being the warpriest.

It is a bit odd that they made deliberate changes to prevent monks doing this with brass knuckles and cestus, then turn around and make classes that CAN. We'll have to see what the revised Monk looks like in Unleashed.

-j

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