I'm intrigued. I'd be cool with just about any setting. I just wouldn't be sure how to throw a character together.
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I'm going to dot for interest. While I AM a huge pathfinder fan, what with rules and formulas and quantum mechanics, I am mostly in all of it for the role-playing. I'd love to see your example and possibly go from there.
The way it's written, the weapon would become useless immediately if that DC 20 reflex save fails. Which is funny. Let's say I'm using an adamantine sword and I hit this thing and my sword gets destroyed. Funny story, my sword had hardness 20. How did your ability that deals 20 acid damage per round to objects break my sword with 20 hardness? I guess the world is funny like that and house-ruling is always an option, but as is... Destroyed.
No problem at all, friend.
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I would say that you could go all the way to +10 on both axes. Making your shield better for blocking doesn't affect its ability to deal damage and vice versa, so I couldn't see the harm.
Not the way I read it, friend. I always assumed shields were considered two separate items in this respect. So a total of +2 for its weapon enchantments costs you 8k gold and a +1 shield enhancement to AC costs you 1k gold, putting you at 9k. You could also look into going for the Shield Mastery feat if this is your cup o' tea.
"A shield could be built that also acted as a magic weapon, but the cost of the enhancement bonus on attack rolls would need to be added into the cost of the shield and its enhancement bonus to AC." Indeed.
What if we take out the pixie portion? I have a player wanting to play an Arcane Trickster and is playing a Musetouched Aasimar. Musetouched get Glitterdust (a 2nd level arcane spell) as a spell-like ability. Could they only take one level of sorcerer for mage hand to get that pre-req and move into Arcane Trickster with only one level of sorcerer? I'm inclined to believe you can't, and all of this clarification makes that seem a little less balanced, but at least this way we aren't mixing systems.
“[R]equirements for feats and prestige classes based on specific levels of spells cast… cannot be met by spell-like abilities.” -Page 72 of Complete Arcane (3.5) More on what you said: “[S]pell-like abilities that generate the relevant effect meet the requirements for specific spell knowledge.” -Also page 72 of Complete Arcane And finally: “For feats or prestige classes requiring a minimum caster level, creatures that use spell-like abilities… instead of spells use…their fixed caster level… to determine qualification.” -As previous I interpret this information as the following: if the pre-req requires you to be able to cast a specific level spell, spell-like abilities DO NOT count. If it requires a specific spell, like Darkness, it DOES count. If it requires a specific spellcasting level, then your fixed caster level DOES meet the pre-req. So, from my understanding, your case still isn't quite covered. AT LEAST ONE 2nd level spell. Well, you got that. But it's not asking for a specific 2nd level spell, just a 2nd level spell. I think this should be FAQ'd. Just for clarification.
Except for . . . 1. That pesky little phrase "in any combination" that appears in flurry of blows and does not appear in Two-Weapon Fighting, which has a very specific combination. And . . . 2. That monks do not have an off-hand for unarmed strikes (so how again are they supposed to use unarmed strikes as an off-hand weapon?). And . . . 3. The folks who write Paizo's adventure paths and modules have published every last single monk NPC showing the use of single weapon flurry, not two-weapon flurry. There is not one published monk NPC (to the best of my... Number 1 is true, but irrelevant to the argument. Plus I'm PRETTY sure it doesn't matter in what order you make your attacks while two-weapon fighting, so long as you make the appropriate number of attacks at the appropriate BAB. Number two I already mentioned in my first post on the matter, but again. Irrelevant. And finally, yes. They can use only a single weapon. But it still IS two-weapon fighting. Just with one weapon. I'm being absolutely technical here. Sure fighting with one weapon isn't two-weapon fighting. But RAW, to a monk it is. Lastly, it should be mentioned that all of this was just me saying "Nope. Doesn't stack. Because who would try using TWF and TWF at the same time?"
. . . Honestly, I don't think Powerful Build is HUGE in terms of game power. . . Along with all the combat maneuver stuff. Ignoring a -2 in penalties seems like a lot less of a big deal than being able to wield weapons like an ogre. At least in how it sounds. . . Large Creatures can't normally swallow medium creatures whole, but I know what you mean. Also, medium creatures can hold large weapons without much of a problem (a -2), and Powerful Build treats you as large, but doesn't make you large for Combat Maneuvers, therefore no +1 to CMB or CMD. I think I also gave the Goliath a -2 to stealth in the game I'm running because logic. According to the Race Builder, a +2 to a skill is 2 RP, even if it is Sense Motive. Lastly, I really like those abilities you came up with. Perhaps they could be implemented as alternative traits for them race.
Flurry of Blows IS Two-Weapon Fighting.No it's not. It was originally meant to be, but nobody treated it as such. Then Paizo tried to clarify it, and it was pointed out that NONE of their own designers had used it as such in all the state blocks, so they retratced the clarification. It's up for review, which basically means for now, it's up to your DM. I clearly don't see what you're talking about. In 3e and 3.5, monks had FoB, which looked nothing like TWF. It was just like 'When making Full Attacks, use this instead of your normal base attack.' and then gave you a bunch of numbers. In Pathfinder, quite literally, to figure out what your 'base attack' is during FoB, all you have to do is change your base attack to equal your monk level and apply TWF. BAM, you have the number listed under FoB. Then, once 6th level rolls around, they get a third attack because of their FoB base attack hits +6. 8th level, they get a fourth attack. Why? The monk's normal BAB meets the prereqs for Improved TWF. Imagine that. So it is exactly the same as TWF as written, whether they review it or not. I think your DM would be silly if he/she claimed it wasn't. Edit: Also, the wording of FoB is "When doing so he may make one additional attack ... as if using the Two-Weapon Fighting feat (even if the monk does not meet the prerequisites for the feat)."
Flurry of Blows IS Two-Weapon Fighting. All Flurry of Blows is for a monk is that monk using Two-Weapon Fighting with the following changes: 1. While using Flurry of Blows, a monk has good BAB instead of medium.
The Flurry of Blows numbers given basically only change the Monk's BAB to equal their Monk level and then apply Two-Weapon Fighting. Those numbers are simply your BAB during a Flurry.
It's interesting, but I think you should give the numbers a little more thought. You gave Heavy Armor a cost of 9, yet Half-Plate (which is the armor with the highest ACP) has a penalty of -7, thus a cost of 7. Same for medium at -5 and light at -3.I assume this was directed at me rather than the OP, which tied burden to only ACP. The light/med/heavy distinction was for armor that was carried but not worn - thus, carrying a half-plate in your backpack is a weight of 9, but wearing it, if you're proficient, is just a weight of 7 (or 6 if it's masterwork) due to better weight distribution. Understood. I really like that. It's much more simple and considers worn armor as being easier to carry than not worn. All of this is just a little strange, as I said before, because it treats strength linearly rather than non-linearly. So, by all technicalities, Hercules could only carry around 46 points worth of stuff. So... About 250 pounds of random junk. In RAW, Hercules can carry around literally tons and tons of stuff.
You remember these little guys from 3.5, right? . . . . Yeah, when I made it, there was no race builder. I made it probably 6 months ago (for what it's worth). Additionally, I was aware that they existed before 3.5, but 3.5 is the closest D&D system to Pathfinder there is. So I related it there. Anyhow, we decided the 6 rp stat set up was alright considering it simplified down to a single +2 somewhere. I know that bonus to strength is pretty huge, but it really MAKES the character. Flavor and all that. I do more damage than anyone in the party, but I'm also rather sluggish and easy to hit. Honestly, I don't think Powerful Build is HUGE in terms of game power. If you wanted to word the effects of wielding large weapons differently, you would just say "Goliaths decrease the penalty for wielding weapons too large for them by 2. So, if a Goliath is wielding a large weapon, they receive no penalty on attacks, and would receive only a -2 for wielding a huge weapon." Along with all the combat maneuver stuff. Ignoring a -2 in penalties seems like a lot less of a big deal than being able to wield weapons like an ogre. At least in how it sounds. I might would evaluate it as being 2 rp for wielding weapons as large (similar to... Say... A +2 Reflex/AC against traps. Titan Mauler Barbarians replace Trap Sense with Massive Weapons, which gets rid of this penalty as well.) And I don't think it's unreasonable to say that a +2 to Reflex/AC against traps is a 2 rp ability. Then the CM stuff might be 2. Honestly, the only time it would matter is if a halfling tried to grapple you or trip you. Which is a semi-big deal. But not more than a static feat. So, if you look at my build, then I count 15 rp. Stats (6)
I could change Darkvision to Low-Light to make it 14, the same as Drow. Then I'm could easily take one of the +2s to a skill off to be around Dwarf and Elf point values. You also have to think that the RP system is... Flawed to say the least. Looking over it for the first real time now, they have humans at a RP value of 9. I think that's hilarious. Humans are the best core, or otherwise, race. If I made Atlas (my Goliath) a human instead, I feel like he'd be marginally more powerful. I don't know, but yeah. 14 or 15 RP as I have it written.
You remember these little guys from 3.5, right? Just throwing this out in the air. I have a character now that is one. Here's what was houseruled for the campaign. Standard Racial Traits Ability Score Racial Traits: Goliath characters gain a +4 to strength, a +2 to Constitution, a -2 to Dexterity, and a -2 to Intelligence. Goliaths are very tough and powerful, but large, clumsy, and often uneducated.
Feat and Skill Racial Traits Mountaineer: Goliaths gain a +2 on Acrobatics and Climb checks because of their generally mountainous homes. Shunned: Goliaths receive a -2 penalty to all Diplomacy checks. While Goliaths do not have difficulty finding a way to connect with other people, people have trouble trusting them. Senses Racial Traits Darkvision: Goliaths can see in the dark up to 60 feet. Other Racial Traits Giant's Grip: Despite being medium in size, Goliaths are nearly large size category and are incredibly powerful for even their size. Goliaths may wield weapons as if they are one size category larger than they actually are. Giant Build: Goliaths are much larger than humans, therefore they are treated differently. Giants are considered large for the purposes of resisting Bull Rush and Grapple attempts. I also considered making a feat for the class called "Improved Giant Build" that allowed Goliaths to be considered large for the purposes of performing Bull Rush and Grapple maneuvers.
Fair enough. I use martial characters 9 times out of 10, so I miss little things like "treat ... as a martial weapon." But the prereq: Elf kind of eliminates the other possibility.
I agree with you fully on a logical basis about larger creatures, however not RAW. Is that just your houserule? Because I like it.
It's interesting, but I think you should give the numbers a little more thought. You gave Heavy Armor a cost of 9, yet Half-Plate (which is the armor with the highest ACP) has a penalty of -7, thus a cost of 7. Same for medium at -5 and light at -3. I mean... I'm honestly just being really REALLY picky, but it sounded like that's what you wanted. Also, if you had four items weighing one pound each, it would encumber just as much as one 2 pound item. This sort of makes sense since it's more difficult to find a way to carry a lot of something, but them that raises the question of the volume of an item. What if you have 8 greatswords? As you stated in your previous description, they cost 2 points apiece. At 8 lbs, that follows. However, greatswords are big and awkward. How would you carry them? Would that make them cost more? Just speculations.
Although I did realize that "proficiency with Elven Curve Blade" and "Elf" are kind of redundant. But hey, the bases are covered.
See, that's always something I thought about. I always thought that wearing armor was easier than carrying it around. However, other than getting certain perks in Oblivion or something, I've never seen that concept implemented. I mean, I would rather wear a 20 lb weighted vest than carry around a 20 lb backpack. That's just me.
This is how I imagine it would look. The Elf prereq is mostly for flavor, but I suppose could be optional to the house ruler. Elven Curve Dance (Combat) You dance across the battlefield with a larger than expected weapon and leave everyone in pieces. Prerequisites: Dexterity 13, Weapon Finesse, Perform (dance) 5 ranks, proficient with scimitar, Dervish Dance, proficient with Elven Curve Blade, Skill Focus: Dance, Elf. Benefit: When wielding an Elven Curve Blade, you can treat it as a scimitar being wielded in one hand for the purposes of Dervish Dance. You must still wield the Elven Curve Blade in two hands. Special: When using Power Attack in conjunction with this feat, you must treat the attack as a one-handed attack. In order to treat it as a two-handed attack while using Power Attack, you must use your strength modifier for damage as normal.
One question. What about large creatures or creatures with multiple legs? In the rules, as I'm sure you know, large creatures can carry twice as much as a creature with the same strength score that is medium. Same with a medium quadruped. By RAW, every 5 points of strength score translate into a doubling of carry capacity. So would that just add 5 to their "Burden Points"?
Yeah, I think he's going for house ruling a feat to allow it to happen. As far as balanced or not, it should be stated that power attack applies only as if you were holding the ECB in one hand and not two. That way you're essentially boosting the damage during Dervish Dance by 2 (Average 3.5 on 1d6 to 5.5 on 1d10) but taking away the ability of the user to hold anything like potions or using touch attacks with their off-hand.
i cannot find anything that references them, just weapons or categories of armor. is it categorized as a weapon? Yes. You receive no DR, but it's masterwork and bypasses DR as Adamantine while shield bashing. It costs 3,175 gp.
My call would be that you could sub a knowledge for another knowledge, but with modifiers. For your example, I would say, just to throw out numbers, if it would be a Knowledge: The Planes DC 20 to recognize the tracks as a barghest, then it would be possible to recognize the tracks based on Knowledge: Religion. However, it would not be a DC 20. It would be the DC to know that goblins worship things called barghests, we'll call it 20, plus 4 to represent being familiar enough with the creatures to recognize what their footprint might look like, plus another 4 to connect a religious idol with identifying a monster. If it were a Knowledge: Local, I would say that it'd be DC 20 plus 4 to recognize the feet plus 4 to realize goblins in the area worship them without knowing about religion plus another 4 to connect all those facts. So it would finish with a DC 20 Planes, DC 28 Religion, or a DC 32 local. Additionally, if I have a character that has multiple applicable Knowledges, I would argue that they could make checks to eliminate certain variables of a DC, but only make one appropriate knowledge check. For instance, say a character doesn't have Knowledge: The Planes, but they have Religion AND Local, but their Local is higher than their Religion. I, as the DM, would roll those checks for them, but as per logical reasoning, I would roll a DC 15 Religion check for them to know that the local goblins worship barghests, which eliminates the plus 4 they get on their Local check for having to know that without Religion. So now I roll a DC 28 Local check for them. It's a little complicated, but as far as I'm aware, there are no RAW on the subject and that is my logic on the matter.
Meh. My Barbarian uses Bull Rush to knock people into things all the time. I know it's not RAW, but we assumed 1d6 damage for ever 5 feet they should have moved but didn't, half damage for less than solid objects. For example, I'm using Knockback (rage power) to knock some poor guard into a stone wall. The stone wall is 10 feet behind him. I roll high enough to move him 20 feet. He takes 2d6 (plus my strength because of the rage power) since he should have moved 10 more feet. If we pretend the wall was another guard, then both take half of 2d6 (since flesh isn't as solid as bone) and the one I used Knockback on takes my strength modifier. Then I roll my bull rush again and they move as normal. So if I roll high enough to move the second guard 15 feet, they both move 5 more feet. It's not the rules, but it makes sense. As far as being in a fight next to a wall and slamming them into a wall, I'd call it a grapple with the wall dealing lethal unarmed damage.
Good point on auto-confirms. My point remains, though, that if you use a lot of conditions inflicted by critical hits, you want as wide a range as possible. Absolutely. I actually hadn't thought of it like that. My point lies solely with damage output alone. Any way you look at it, though, the ECB is better than the greatsword if you're a warrior. Haha
...especially with auto-confirm on critical hits. Actually, you'd be surprised. According to my formula, auto confirming crits just makes ((h+21)-c)/20=1 in all cases. This eliminates the third part of the equation since 1-1=0 and increases the additional average damage based on crits. This is justifiable by the fact that the last thing added in the equation represents the likelihood of rolling a critical and not confirming. That being said, there's a curious relationship between 17-20/x4 and 15-20/x3. When comparing two weapons that do the same amount of damage dice in damage, but with different criticals, there is always one of two relationships between the two. Either one has a superior crit and has a greater slope than the other, or they are exactly the same. A large greatsword and large greataxe are exactly the same with 3d6 and 19-20/x2 or x3. 17-20/x4 and 15-20/x3 have the exact same slope, which should mean that they are identical, but the y intercept, when graphed average damage versus damage bonus of the given attack, of the 15-20/x3 is about 2 damage higher than 17-20/x4. Interestingly, this creates two parallel lines. In order for the 17-20/x4 to be better than 15-20/x3, the weapon must deal at least an average of 2 higher than the weapon with 15-20/x3 to be better, but if it did, it would always be better no matter what. I should also add that this is regardless of whether or not criticals are auto-confirmed. That actually does not affect which of the two is better.
Yes, I believe I covered that. I agree, for that specific build an 18-20/x2 is a better critical than a 19-20/x3. Even then, though, you crit less than 10% more often. Though, if you want damage, the falcata is still a better choice late game. With a single exception. That is, if you want to go a full 20 levels of fighter or kensai, then 15-20/x3 is better than 17-20/x4.
@BeowulfIam: I am pretty sure that what Dabbler mens by "critical effects", is the various critical feats. The adding of debuffs this way, seems to be quite popular. Ah, well if that is your build, then I agree that an 18-20/x2 crit is superior to a x4. Still, though, after improved crit/keen, I think losing the 10% chance of that (it's actually a little less than 10% depending on the enemy's AC and your attack bonus) is worth the extra multiplier to damage. That's more of an opinion than mathematical fact.
Same reason you do not see scythes used so often either, the critical is great when it happens, but if you want critical effects (and there are many), the greater threat range gets more crits which gets more effects more often.If you replace the ecb with the falcata, the intersection jumps down to 20.5. Crit determines slope and the falcata has the best crit of ANY weapon.Indeed. 19-20/3x is just absolute bonkers for a 1-handed 1d8 weapon. Only made slightly worse is when you can increase the multiplier to x4 and keen/improve critical. Someone explain to me why I don't apparently see it used that often? With burst effects, this isn't true at all. The x4 crit and the 18-20/x2 crit are mathematically identical in all cases except for ones in which you must roll within your crit range just to hit your target, in which case x4 is better by a negligible amount. Since burst effects just add a d10 before crit is multiplied, at least with respect to averages, they remain identical. This is true of x3 and 19-20/x2 as well, they are just a step down from x4 and 18-20/x2, with x2 below all of it and 19-20/x3 above all of it. As a long term warrior, falcata's are OP. Period.
Just as soon as you make it keen, it leaps ahead. Basically the greater threat range adds up to 30% more damage. Once you factor in strength-and-a-half and Power Attack/Furious Focus, and that makes a BIG difference. They intersect at 19 damage bonus and the falchion pulls ahead after that.
Correcting myself: a=(g+f)(((b+21)-c)/20)-d)+de(((h+21)-c)/20)+d(1-((h+21)-c)/20)
If you replace the ecb with the falcata, the intersection jumps down to 20.5. Crit determines slope and the falcata has the best crit of ANY weapon.
I know this is sort of old news, but I stumbled on this thread just now and figured you guys would enjoy my input. I developed a formula for determining average damage per attack.
a=(((b+21)-c)/20)-d)(e+f)+de(((h+21)-c)/20)(e+f) If you graph the two with x being damage bonus and y being avg damage, they intersect at x=29.16667. That's with a 95% hit chance. Beyond that, ecb is better. Before then, greatsword all the way. |