Deighton Thrane's page

Recently I've seen a few threads about the advantage of the unchained monk versus the core monk, and I noticed that the way flurry of blows is worded means that it doesn't work exactly as I thought, or how a lot of people I know think it works.

To be clear here, I'm talking about the core monk, and a lot of this applies to the brawler too.

So, flurry of blows says that while making a flurry of blows a monk can make an additional attack as if using two weapon fighting. These attacks use your class level as your base attack bonus, and always deal your full strength to damage, whether using an off-hand or using 2 hands. Also, thanks to the monk blog, it's been clarified you can use 1 weapon to make a flurry of blows.

Two weapon fighting (the combat section, not the feat) says that if you wield a weapon in your off-hand, you may make an attack with it, taking a penalty to all attacks according to whether the off hand attack is a light weapon, and whether you have the two weapon fighting feat.

Then we take into account the armor spikes FAQ that states that while using a 2 handed weapon you cannot use 2 weapon fighting to make an attack with armor spikes or a spiked gauntlet because your off hand is being used with the 2 handed weapon.

Then to make matters more complicated, the monks unarmed strike says that there's no such thing as an off hand attack with an unarmed strike.

So, you combine all these together and you get the following results;

While making a flurry of blows with a 2 handed weapon, you don't gain an extra attack because your off-hand is already used. You only do 1x strength damage, though you do gain the increase to BAB, as well as 1.5x power attack damage.

While making a flurry of blows with a 1 handed weapon, you do gain an extra attack, gaining full BAB, but taking a -4 to all attacks for 2 weapon fighting. You deal 1x strength on all attacks, but power attack deals 1x damage for your main hand and 0.5x damage in your off hand.

While making a flurry of blows with a light weapon, you gain the extra attack, full BAB, -2 to attacks. Then 1x and 0.5x power attack for main and off hand.

While making a flurry of blows with unarmed strikes, you don't gain an extra attack because unarmed strikes for a monk aren't off hand attacks, and as such don't qualify to make an extra attack(?). You gain full BAB, deal 1x strength and 1x power attack.

Now, I'm not saying this is how it should work, or that this even makes sense. The monk table never shows a penalty worse than -2 for flurry of blows, and not being able to flurry with unarmed strikes is ridiculous. But doesn't some of the language for the monk need to be changed for all this to work out? Like instead of saying there's no such thing as an off hand attack for a monk attacking with an unarmed strike, shouldn't it just say instead that a monk takes no penalties for making an offhand attack with unarmed strikes, and deals damage as if it were a main hand attack?

I guess I have a few other questions too. Since my search-fu is pretty terrible, have any of the developers made comments to clarify these issues? And am I missing something in the monk section, or the combat chapter? I've read both numerous times, but am willing to admit I missed something. Also, is this how people have been playing their monks? Because I often see people making 2 attacks with 2 handed weapons while playing monks, or not taking off hand damage for power attack.

TL;DR I think flurry of blows has been broken this whole time, and I've just now noticed, am I wrong?

So, was having trouble sleeping last night, and got to thinking about PF and Monks, and started wondering if maybe the answer to the core monks flurry of misses might be adding an ability where the they can add their dexterity to their attack roll along with strength. The math seems to put them pretty close to other melee characters, gaining likely a +6-8 to attack from the secondary ability score, which, when taking into account that the monk is taking always taking a -2 while flurrying, puts them at similar bonuses to what other martial characters might see. I'm just wondering how others might implement it.

Personally, I think it would make sense to limit the bonus to only apply while making a flurry of blows, or to not apply to combat maneuvers, to keep the monk from receiving an ungodly CMB. And maybe having the bonus capped by level, say at level 6 you may add +1 of your dex mod (if any) to your str bonus when determining attack rolls, at 9th level, and every 3 levels after, the amount of dex you can add increases by 1. That way preventing it from being an easily dipped ability, and capping it at 5 really puts it in line with the fighter bonus.

You could also add something about if you already use dex instead of str for attack rolls, the ability adds strength instead of dex. That way dex based monks aren't left out in the cold.

So what do people think, could something like this be the simple fix that the monk needed to work? Well, maybe this and just giving the monk full BAB, instead of pseudo full BAB. Or am I missing something that makes this too good of an ability?

So, in another thread people were discussing high level arcane abilities, and raising the dead, and it was mentioned that summoned creatures can't cast raise dead because :

A summoned monster cannot summon or otherwise conjure another creature, nor can it use any teleportation or planar travel abilities. Creatures cannot be summoned into an environment that cannot support them. Creatures summoned using this spell cannot use spells or spell-like abilities that duplicate spells with expensive material components (such as wish).

Most people seemed to take this to mean that summoned creatures can't cast spell with expensive material components of any kind. Personally, I've always thought it meant that they can't cast spells (or spell like abilities) that duplicate spells with expensive material components, namely wish or miracle. Both wish and miracle have the specific wording that they "duplicate" a spell, and wish is specifically stated as the example which is not allowed. Doesn't it seem that the limitation was put in to prohibit mass summoning of Glabrezu for wishes, instead of a blanket limitation on all spells with expensive material components. I admit the sentence can easily be read the other way, but spells or spell-like abilities that duplicate spells with expensive material components (such as wish) is an oddly specific wording to mean they can't use material components. And if they did mean all spells with material components, why use wish as an example? Wouldn't almost any other spell be less misleading about how the sentence is supposed to be interpreted.

So, I've been leveling up a level 12 druid for the retirement scenarios of PFS, and have been looking into plant shapes to (possibly) use with the wild shape ability, and the more I look into all these shapes (including animal shapes), I tend to notice a big variation in the way constrict damage is calculated. For the Giant Octopus, it deals half strength like the tentacle attack that provides it's grab. Then you look at the Viper Vine, which also uses tentacles to grab, but then deals full strength on the constrict. Then you take the Sargassum Fiend, or the Alraune, who both deal 1.5x strength damage on a constrict.

So my question is, is there an underlying rule as to why certain creatures do more damage than others? And more importantly, when using the wild shape ability, do you use the strength modifier the form you're imitating uses for it's constrict damage?

I'm guessing the answer to the second question is yes, but I'd love to see a rule that specifically says that, since the constrict rules are kind of silent on the subject, saying only that the amount of damage dealt is listed in the creature entry and is typically equal to the amount of damage dealt by the creatures melee attack.

So, like a lot of the non-subscribers I just got the Occult Adventures PDF, and was looking through the classes. And I got to wondering what is the Medium class actually good at? It seems incredibly versatile, being able to channel a new spirit everyday to change up it's focus, but without being able to change your stats everyday, you're either going to have to be mediocre at everything, or specialize in one spirit, and still be worse than the classes that your spirit emulates. As far as I can see, you play as either a bard with less class features. A warrior with unchained monks flurry and pseudo pounce, but without an actual full BAB for iterative attacks. A worse Stonelord Paladin. A worse Cleric. A cavalier who's a little better at boosting allies, while a lot worse at combat, or a worse rogue/slayer/vigilante/vivesectionist alchemist.

Outside of a few corner cases, like taking the trickster to gain max ranks in different skills on different days, getting answers from the dead, or fighting haunts, I can't see this class as being useful. I would think in a 3-4 PC party you're stuck being the missing role, except being worse at it than other classes, and in a 5-6 PC party you're stuck playing second fiddle to everyone else. I mean sure, you get to choose who you're playing second fiddle to, but it doesn't make that any more fun.

So I guess what I'm asking is, am I missing something here? Do people actually have a good plan for how to use the Medium class so that it's as strong as most other classes? Or is it just the swiss army knife class; does a lot of things, but none of them as good as a standalone tool?

So, I was just looking for the next few magical items I should be getting for my level 11 fighter, and was thinking I should probably just upgrade his Belt of Giants Strength into a Belt of Physical Might, because I knew you could do this, but figured I should find the rule that specifically states you can do so if the GM wants to see before okaying the purchase. So looking back through the Guide to Organized Play, and the Pathfinder Society FAQ, but neither seem to implicitly state that you can do this, if anything it seems to state that you can only upgrade a belt or headband to a higher bonus of the same stat (well technically you can't upgrade a belt or headband at all because you have to use the rules on page 19 of the guide, but page 19 has no rules for upgrading equipment).

So, I know that it's been stated numerous times that you can do this:

SKR said it, though he points out he's not a PFS guy.

Mark Moreland said it.

Kyle Baird made a mini FAQ, where he says it works, and Mike Brock seems to corroborate further down the forum.

Nefreet update the FAQ last summer, in which it still says it works.

But the FAQ reads:

Can I Upgrade a Named Magic Item?

Named magic items—including specific armor and specific weapons—are not upgradeable. Non-magic specific armor and specific weapons may be upgraded normally. Magic armor and weapons may be upgraded to named versions if they are the same basic material and shape as, and meet but do not exceed the enhancement bonuses of the named versions. Wondrous items whose names include a +X value (such as bracers of armor, headband of vast intelligence, amulet of might fists, etc.) may also be upgraded following the rules for upgrading magical items on page 19 of the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play.

Upgraded versions of named magic items may appear on Chronicle sheets.

Intelligent magic items are not available for purchase unless they appear on a Chronicle sheet or are provided as part of a class or archetype (such as the black blade magus archetype).

That seems to read to me like you can only upgrade a belt or headband to a higher bonus for whichever ability it currently improves. So, am I missing something here, or am I misreading this FAQ? It's the same FAQ that's been around since 2011, before the statements that say you can upgrade a belt or headband to include a second/third stat.

So basically, can I still upgrade a Belt of Giants Strength into a Belt of Physical Might? And if so, what am I getting wrong here?

So, I don't know if it's been mentioned before, at least, I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but I think the Foe Collision talent has a bit of a logical problem to it. Say for example you're a stalker with the foe collision talent, and you're fighting a Shadow Demon, and some lowly Dretch accomplices. Now, you happen to not have a magical weapon, but because of the Foe Collision ability, you can use your hidden strike to attack a Dretch, and cause hidden strike damage to the Shadow Demon standing behind it, despite the fact that neither you or the Dretch have any way to hurt the Shadow Demon if you tried to attack it directly.

It seems like there should be some provision for actually being able to harm the creature in the first place to be able to do your Foe Collision damage. As it stands the only limitation is that it's nonlethal damage, which doesn't affect ghosts or other incorporeal undead, but there are other incorporeal creatures that are subject to non lethal damage where this just makes no sense.

Also, I'm less sure of this, but wouldn't you also be able to deal damage against an invisible opponent as long as they were next to the opponent you attacked. Since you don't have to make an attack roll, and it doesn't say you have to target the opponent, it just says you do damage to an opponent adjacent to the original target.

This doesn't really seem like the intent of the talent, as it's an extraordinary ability, not a supernatural ability. I could be wrong though, this might be the intention all along, it just doesn't seem right to me. Am I missing something here?