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One of our local PFS players has been having fun with a Shield Champion, which seems capable of doing massive amounts of damage, by combining a few tricks. I've posted these elsewhere, and had someone say the combination may not work, but not why. So, can someone please tell me if they see actual, documented reasons why this does or does not work, and let me know, please?
The key components are the Bashing enchantment, and the Close Weapon Mastery ability (which arrives at level 5), combined with a Spiked Shield.
A Spiked Shield is treated as a shield bash, with damage one size higher. Close Weapon Mastery sets that base damage to the Brawler Unarmed Strike damage for 4 levels lower. The Bashing enchantment allows shield bashes as if the weapon were two size categories larger.
Putting this together in a concrete example, normally a medium-sized Heavy shield, which normally does 1d4, becomes 1d6 with a spike. Adding Bashing to this pushes the damage to 2d6, or equivalent to a great sword. In the hands of, say, a level 8 Shield Champion, the base damage gets set to the Unarmed Strike damage of a level 4 Brawler, which is 1d8. Bashing increases this two categories to 3d6, equivalent to a large greatsword. In the hands of a level 12 Shield Champion, the base damage gets set to 1d10, which then gets increased to 3d8 for the Bashing enchantment.
Any errors here?
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I don't believe the combination works. At least not all of it. Close weapon mastery allows you to use the base damage of the weapon or the unarmed brawler damage -4. Either the damage of a spiked shield, or the unarmed damage. The two do not combine in any way to ramp up the damage.
On the other hand, the bashing property does probably work to increase the damage.
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yeah, spiked doesn't stack with bashing for starters, we have a FAQ making that clear.
Bashing increases the shield's damage, but when you use your fist's damage you don't use the shields damage, thus the increase from bashing would be going away if you use your fist's damage.
Base damage of your bashing shield is 1d8. We know this since that's the amount that would be multiplied by vital strike. Base damage is just the damage dice of the weapon.
If still not convinced we can look at what would happen if the shield was ACTUALLY two sizes larger (made possible by the gorum trait) now the shield does 1d8 still and still doesn't increase the damage if you use your fists damage. Same for bashing which effectively makes the damage of the shield to be two sizes larger, 1d8. Replacing the shields damage replaces the shields damage.
Though, after crunching the numbers, the base damage for a 12th level shield champion with the bashing property would be 3d8.
A 12th level shield champion brawler can use the unarmed strike damage for his shield without taking the -4 level adjustment. So you start at a base damage of 2d6. When ramped up two sizes by the bashing property, the damage is 3d8.
By that reasoning, a +1 flaming shield would not deliver the +1 enhancement damage or the flame damage. That seems odd to me.
By that reasoning, a +1 flaming shield would not deliver the +1 enhancement damage or the flame damage. That seems odd to me.
no because the +1 and flame is not the weapon's damage but additional damage, the +1 adds a +1 enhancement bonus to damage rolls for the weapon. An enhancement bonus isn't base damage, it's bonus damage.
Flaming adds 1d6 fire damage to a successful hit. Obviously not base damage since it's extra fire damage.Bashing changes the shields damage to be larger but it's still the shields damage, not a bonus to it.
Base damage is the damage dice of the weapon. Everything you add to a weapon's base damage is all classified as adding onto this. Add your str bonus, add enhancement bonus, add other bonuses to damage.
bashing changes a shield to do more damage, the shield now does 1d8 damage. Base damage is the damage without anything adding to it meaning it's the weapon's damage.
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I've asked this question on both the rules forum and the PFS forum, and no one seems to agree with how (or if) it should work.
Shield Spikes + Bashing never stack, that much is crystal clear.
Bashing + Close Weapon Mastery on the other hand varies from player to player and GM to GM...I would say probably 65% of people think it should not work, and about 35% of people think it should work.
For my PFS shield champion, I am just avoiding the bashing enchant all together unless Paizo makes an official ruling on it.
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Shield Spikes + Bashing never stack, that much is crystal clear.
For the Shield Spikes, sure, if you read how shield spikes are calculated in the Core book, they likely shouldn't combine with Bashing. But, if you simply look up the weapon charts for Heavy Spiked Shield (for instance, at http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateEquipment/armsAndArmor/weapons.h tml ), and find the damage value for it...then you should be able apply Bashing to it.
Honestly, I'd be happiest if this was ruled to NOT work, as it breaks adventures to have a guy doing so much damage on top of static modifiers, with a flurry, for such a small cost.
Bashing increases the shield's damage, but when you use your fist's damage you don't use the shields damage, thus the increase from bashing would be going away if you use your fist's damage.
I disagree with this logic. Close Weapon Mastery says you 'uses the unarmed strike damage', but it doesn't say HOW you are using it. Are you actually using an unarmed strike? If so, then why is the damage lower than a normal unarmed strike? Or, are you replacing the weapon damage die with your unarmed strike damage die? That seems to fit better. But you're replacing the BASE damage die. If you are replacing the base damage, then the Bashing should still increase it - the source of the damage hasn't changed, it's still coming from the shield. And Bashing clearly increases the base damage up.
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It was ruled not to work.
No...the only part of the combo that is covered by that ruling is combining spikes and bashing. And even if THEY don't combine, you still end up with the question of whether the bashing applies to the new base damage for Close Weapon Mastery. In fact, even if Bashing doesn't work with the damage increase for some esoteric reason, that would actually clear the way for spikes to potentially work add a size increase - does it happen before or after setting the base? In essence...is this part of the base damage?
base damage is the shields damage. A spiked shield does 1d6 and that would be replaced. a bashing shield does 1d8. that's the base damage of the weapon and what is replaced by your close mastery.
It's the damage that gets multiplied by vital strike, thus it's the weapon's damage. Base damage is damage before any bonuses or additions to it, thus the weapon's damage.
Care to explain how the rules interpretation for any other approach?
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It's the damage that gets multiplied by vital strike, thus it's the weapon's damage. Base damage is damage before any bonuses or additions to it, thus the weapon's damage.
Care to explain how the rules interpretation for any other approach?
The point is, there is nothing in the rules to say that bashing is a part of base damage as opposed to an effect on base damage.
If you use CWM to replace base damage of a weapon and then increase the effective size of that weapon the weapon damage should increase.
point is there is.
Bashing increases the shields damage as if it was 2 sizes larger. The bashing shields damage is 1d8 now. The bashing shield no longer is doing 1d4 damage. 1d4 isn't in any calculations or anything now. The shield does 1d8.Like EVEN if your view was right how would you need to explain it to make it clear that the weapon is retaining some magic hidden value that's is the base weapon damage but not the weapon's damage?
Like I get that you want super powered things. But you need some sort of support or view that fits with the rules structure rather than just saying it doesn't say as clearly as it could.
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Yes, if the brawler casts lead blades then the shields damage would go up as if 1 size larger. If the brawler doesn't want to use the shield's damage and use his close mastery's damage he can use that damage instead of the shield's damage.
Everything you're showing increases the shield's damage. But when you use close mastery you ignore the shield's damage and use the new damage. Pathfinder doesn't have order of operations issues, people just have understanding issues.
I can see how you come to your conclusion and you may be correct. But I think the rules are far from clear on this point. I would expect a bit of table variation any place you play.
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Chess...does CWM overwrite the bonus damage from any other weapon enchantment?
If I enchant my shield with a +3 weapon enchant, does CWM overwrite that +3 damage?
If not, why should it treat the Bashing enchantment any differently?
You start with a +1 Heavy Steel Shield...normally a 1d4+1 weapon...you buy the Bashing enchantment for it, which upgrades it to 1d8+1 damage.
Now lets say you are a level 10 Brawler...the way you interpret the rules Close Weapon Master changes that to 1d8 damage...which actually penalizes you for spending money to add an enchantment to your shield.
bashing causes the shield to deal damage as if it was larger, the shields damage is actually changing. everything* else is adding bonuses to your damage. Adding enhancement to your damage rolls, str to damage rolls, additional fire damage when you hit, etc.
Yes, bashing doesn't work well with things that replace damage, same thing if you had an impact weapon and replaced it's damage. Thing is, bashing probably was giving you benefits from like lv4 till lv10 and it still has other usefulness even when your CWM finally does more damage than it.
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I still believe that bashing should stack with it...CWM should change the base damage for the shield, which would then scale up 2 size categories...enough people disagree that I am not playing my shield bash character that way though (unless Paizo makes an official ruling otherwise)
Bashing will give you .5 damage per hit over shield spikes (1d6 spiked shield -vs- 1d8 Bashing shield). While shield spikes cost you 10gp, Bashing will cost you a minimum of 3000gp, more if your shield is higher than +1 armor enchantment (or it will cause any other shield enchantments to cost more).
You would do far better taking that gold and using it for weapon enchants on your shield, or increasing your shield defensive enchantments...3000gp+ for .5 damage is a joke, making Bashing one of the most worthless enchants in the game (regardless of character class)
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The biggest issue for me right now is that Herolab appears to allow ALL of these to stack, rightly or wrongly.
Yes, bashing doesn't work well with things that replace damage, same thing if you had an impact weapon and replaced it's damage.
You keep asserting that over and over, but with no real rule justification. I guess we have to agree to disagree, because I find the opposite conclusion to be the most sensible and intuitive.
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I will say, this is only one of many errors I have encountered in Hero Lab, and is one of the reasons Hero Lab is not a recognized source for rules clarifications.
Bashing, Impact, Lead Blades, and Shield Spikes should never stack. This have been covered by the devs and even has a FAQ entry...case closed. You can only ever apply 1 virtual size increase, period. Hero Lab does not seem to understand that. According to Hero Lab you can stack as many virtual size increases as you want on something, you could have a Bashing Spiked Impact Shield with Lead Blades cast on it, then cast Enlarge Person and Righteous Might on yourself and end up with a shield multiple size categories off the top of the chart. According to the actual rules you can have 1 virtual and 1 physical size increase at any time.
I still fall on the side which says CWM should apply before enchantments are taken into account...but unless Paizo or a Dev steps up and says so, I will play my character as if Bashing is the worst enchantment ever made and simply not waste my money on it.