Any way to make the slingstaff more than a poor man's composite bow?

[Derklord]

CBDunkerson wrote:

You need to keep in mind that it synergizes with weapon size increases and vital strike. Sacred Weapon damage is one thing (+3.5 avg dmg at 15th)... Greater Vital Strike with an effectively Huge sacred weapon is something else altogether (+42 avg dmg at 15th).

No it doesn't. If you'd attack multiple times instead of using Vital Strike, you would do that increased weapon damage multiple times, too. The damage loss is smaller when you increase the weapon's damage dice rather than adding bonus damage, but that's not synergy.

[johnlocke90]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Claxon wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

I've seen images where it looked just like a long-handled slingshot, complete with stretchy cords.

I have to say that pretty dumb because that's a staff with a slingshot on it, not a sling staff. The idea of the staff part is to use it as a lever to get more force than you otherwise could.

I think the idea comes from the notion that a sling user would twirl the sling around a few times to develop angular momentum that would be converted to linear momentum on the throw, and that the affixing a staff to it would give you a longer lever and thus more torque to build momentum.

But in practice, when you use a (real, non-fantasy) sling staff it's just a single linear motion, and you use both arms because you can get more force that way.

But I suppose this isn't more unreasonable than all the other unrealistic things that this game lets you do. With the right feats a 20th level fighter can load, aim, and fire a heavy crossbow five times in six seconds, after all. That's a little more unrealistic than "you can accurately convert a twirl to a throw using a sling-staff."

Staff sling is a real thing. However, firing it 3-5 times a round is pretty silly too.

http://pad3.whstatic.com/images/thumb/7/77/Make-a-Staff-Sling-Step-8.jpg/72 8px-Make-a-Staff-Sling-Step-8.jpg

[Dracoknight]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I feel like people consistently overvalue the power of the warpriest's scaling sacred weapon damage. It seems more like a mechanic that was intended to enable the warpriest to use whatever weapon is most appropriate to their god no matter how mechanically weak it is.

But when you do the math, assuming you're starting with a D6 weapon, all it does is give +1 avg damage at level 5, another +1 at level 10, and +1.5 at level 15. That's not bad, since it's free damage, but weapon specialization gives you +2 damage and you didn't have to wait 10 levels.

So it's a thing that can be useful to maximizing your damage, but I think it's pretty low priority.

Well personally i think its based on the ability to make the small dice larger with lesser used weapons, or to "fix" your weapon if you are a small character.

Its not as much as to value it just for the dice, but it does allow you to use whatever weapon you like without anyone going "why you use that weapon when this is so much better"

Also, it trades out a 2nd weapon group... so the cost for something like this is actually pretty small if you want to focus on a single weapon.