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Generally, if I'm going to end up doing math, I prefer SI units, but if I want a good sense of scale or have to measure something myself, then I prefer Imperial units. The only exceptions are distances on the nanometer scale, and pressure, which I prefer in psi.
Interesting. So feats that allow you to deflect attacks don't cause said attacks to count as a miss while deflection bonuses to AC make attacks miss all the time.
All your bold quote 'proves' is that when an attack roll (confirmation roll) fails to exceed the AC that attack is a miss. This has no bearing on the point at hand, an attack that has already hit being altered to do no damage. I think you're confused on something. Once per round while using Crane Style, when you have at least one hand free and are either fighting defensively or using the total defense action, you can deflect one melee weapon attack that would normally hit you. You expend no action to deflect the attack, but you must be aware of it and not flat-footed. An attack so deflected deals no damage to you. The attack would have been a hit, had crane wing not been used. "Would normally hit you" does not mean "did hit you, but did no damage" just like "I would have been late" doesn't mean "I was late, but it didn't matter."
Wow, and here I thought it was a no brainer that these two worked together. Your Armor Class (AC) represents how hard it is for opponents to land a solid, damaging blow on you. It's the attack roll result that an opponent needs to achieve to hit you. So, achieving a hit is dealing a solid, damaging blow. A miss is not explicitly defined. We know that a natural 1 is always a miss. Critical hits says this: Critical Hits: When you make an attack roll and get a natural 20 (the d20 shows 20), you hit regardless of your target's Armor Class, and you have scored a “threat,” meaning the hit might be a critical hit (or “crit”). To find out if it's a critical hit, you immediately make an attempt to “confirm” the critical hit—another attack roll with all the same modifiers as the attack roll you just made. If the confirmation roll also results in a hit against the target's AC, your original hit is a critical hit. (The critical roll just needs to hit to give you a crit, it doesn't need to come up 20 again.) If the confirmation roll is a miss, then your hit is just a regular hit. The part I bolded seems to imply a certain dichotomy. A miss is anything that isn't a hit. I can't see how this wouldn't include deflection by Crane Wing or Deflect Arrows.
I don't see anything wrong with the OP's first post. If anything, he was just being frank. He shared his personal observation, stated some opinions (clearly labeled as such I might add), made a request, and gave some free advice that didn't involve doing something anatomically impossible to yourself. All you have to do is go through the rules/FAQ discussion boards, find all of the ones marked the most as "favorites" by people Don't some of the threads predate the FAQ system though? I know I don't go back to old threads and hit the FAQ button. Also, you seem to have confused what he's asking for with how he's suggesting it be carried out.
I usually do a quick calculation if I know what AC I need to hit. I multiply the number of sides on a d20 that will hit the target by the damage for each case. The higher number wins. It's not exact, but I think it's decent for a rough guide. For example: Say you're level 1 with a greatsword and 18 strength and you hit on a 15 or higher without power attacking, 16 with.
Power attack wins by a hair, so I would probably use it.
I'm having trouble building a bard NPC/Cohort for a game I'm playing. I've read through the guides, but I'm still having trouble. Here's what I've got to work with: Race: Half-Elf
My goals right now are party buffing and some capability in combat. I think that this is pretty doable under normal circumstances using either the standard bard or the arcane duelist archetype. The problem is that this character will always have the disadvantage of being a few levels behind. So, given my goals, what are my best options? Can I build something that will hold up in combat?
You could try making mythic powers that require a swift action usable as part of another swift action so long as that action is not a mythic power as well.
It's too bad endless power excludes classes with 4 levels of spells. It would have really helped a ranger's limited number of spells per day. I couldn't imagine not taking it three times for instant enemy though, so it probably would have been too good. Does anyone else think that fleet charge is strictly better for an archer than distant barrage? You'll usually have feats to get around most cover and concealment anyway, and even if you don't, repositioning can alleviate some of those problems AND help you line up Through Shot. Also, I wonder if there's a deadly aim (mythic) that didn't show up in this play test.
That was exactly what I thought. Also, the theme song was playing in my head.
If you use Vital Strike while wielding a melee weapon, wouldn't you be making an attack action in place of a melee attack? In other words, is it possible that we're separating words that should be left together? I've been reading "as part of an attack action in place of a melee attack" with a comma after attack action but there isn't a comma there. If Vital Strike with a melee weapon is "an attack action in place of a melee attack", then sunder would just be part of that vital strike. You resolve the attack roll and do damage normally, which would be the normal damage for a vital strike. In that case, the wording as is would be there to prevent a ranged vital strike sunder attempt, but wouldn't prevent the use of vital strike altogether. Am I way out in left field here?
We can agree that sunder either was intended to keep being used like trip/disarm ... OR sunder was intended to be changed so that it works like bull rush/grapple/etc. requiring a standard action Wait, are there feats that sunder works with currently? I know you've said vital strike wouldn't because of that tricky "in place of a melee attack" part.
Bard maybe? What kind of split between magical and physical do you want?
I think some people may be interpreting "that enhance or improve either manufactured weapons or natural weapons" as something that applies to effects but not spells. For that to be the case though, it would need to be "spells OR effects", not spells AND effects.That target weapons. It certainly applies to spells as well. That much is clear. It has to specifically enhance or improve the weapon though, which haste doesn't. Really...if you read the thread this is covered in like the first 10 posts, verbatim. I was only pointing out that some people may be applying that rider ONLY to effects. As written, those conditions apply to spells AND effects. I'm not even making any sort of argument here. I'm just pointing out that it looks like some people are doing this.
I think some people may be interpreting "that enhance or improve either manufactured weapons or natural weapons" as something that applies to effects but not spells. For that to be the case though, it would need to be "spells OR effects", not spells AND effects. I think I might start looking through spells and effects to see if there are any that work for the monk solely because of that natural or manufactured weapon text. It might be interesting to see if that text actually does something for the monk. Oh, and can't we all just get along? If not, can we shift it to a format that will allow me to profit off of ticket sales and/or pay per view?
My take is a little different. A hasted creature gains a +1 bonus on attack rolls and a +1 dodge bonus to AC and Reflex saves. 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. Note that it says enhance or improve, not affects or targets. Now, does haste enhance or improve a manufactured weapon or natural weapon? A +1 to attack rolls is an improvement. Therefore, the above monk text comes into play and his unarmed strike counts as both a natural and manufactured weapon.
But it does not make it a manufactured weapon. It's nice to see that they have acknowledged it as a problem and note it shouldn't work that way. Perhaps we will see an errata in the future.An unarmed strike is always considered a light weapon. Therefore, you can use the Weapon Finesse feat to apply your Dexterity modifier instead of your Strength modifier to attack rolls with an unarmed strike. Unarmed strikes do not count as natural weapons (see Combat). It should be in any core rulebook printed within the past 12 months, if the post is accurate. I don't have any way of checking that, so I can't say one way or another.
An unarmed strike is always considered a light weapon. Therefore, you can use the Weapon Finesse feat to apply your Dexterity modifier instead of your Strength modifier to attack rolls with an unarmed strike. Unarmed strikes do not count as natural weapons (see Combat). There's no qualification on when unarmed strikes count as light weapons. They're always light weapons. As for haste, I'm not sure why it still reads that way a year after THIS post.
Our combats are rarely 3 rounds. Usually they're in the 8-15 range. We've got a 5 man party and sometimes have a few npcs. We're usually either outnumbered 2 or 3 to 1 in combat, or are facing an equal number of custom enemies with powerful abilities. Generally we make good use of tactics, positioning, and choke points.
A thrown weapon style would be tough to come up with. I would include: Quick draw
That's not an exhaustive list, but it might be a decent start.
This is basically stunning critical, but with a shorter duration. Would you be able to use keen ki focus monk weapons to stun more often? Looks like you covered it in the original post and I missed it. Sorry about that. I think the cestus is 19-20 as well, but the in the strongest scenario we're looking at threats on a 17-20. It could be powerful early in the game, but it will get overshadowed once the fighter starts getting into the critical feats. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think a few style feats add a use of stunning fist, but that's no biggie. It would be cool flavor if you could expend a use of elemental fist to trigger the stun on a hit, provided that you're using it to deal electricity damage. That may actually be too strong though. Maybe let it boost the save DC a little instead.
This is basically stunning critical, but with a shorter duration. Would you be able to use keen ki focus monk weapons to stun more often?
Those are quotes of "as part of an attack action". There are a few of those. There are places where "in place of a melee attack" are used. That, however, wasn't the statement I made. There was only one place that I found that used "as part of an attack action in place of a melee attack". You can find things that use one phrase or the other. Sunder is the only one that uses both phrases.It's already been covered that the COMBINATION of BOTH action phrasing and in place of attack phrasing results in a unique functional combo: Attack action usage AND weapon usage, benefitting from weapon bonuses. If it missed the latter part, Sunder wouldn't have the words to indicate it's using the weapon, any more than if I wrote a Feat that let you cast a spell with the Full-Attack Action would, because choosing an action doesn't correlate to using a weapon, making an attack with a weapon is what correlates to using a weapon. Said functionality could not have been achieved if either half (action/in place of melee attack) had not been included. And this functionality isn't achieved by saying "make a single melee attack as a standard action"?
Aren't PC abilities that require saves normally terrible? The ranger's capstone has the same DC as a monk's stunning fist. At level 20 he'll be looking at a DC 22-25 fort save.
Other uses have been quoted. There are feats that were made for giants that use the "as part of an attack action" language. Do a search for the word "boulder" in this thread. Those are quotes of "as part of an attack action". There are a few of those. There are places where "in place of a melee attack" are used. That, however, wasn't the statement I made. There was only one place that I found that used "as part of an attack action in place of a melee attack". You can find things that use one phrase or the other. Sunder is the only one that uses both phrases.
So far, I've only turned up one instance of "as part of an attack action in place of a melee attack". Sunder is the only place where those two phrases are stacked together. In my opinion the two phrases are contradictory. Had it said "as an attack action in place of a melee attack" it would be fairly clear. It would take a standard, and couldn't be made as a ranged attack. As is, I would think that "as part of an attack action" means you can combine it with an attack action, such as vital strike. But then it says you use it in place of a melee attack. Why all the confusing wording if a standard action would do the same thing? Does the current wording differ in meaning from a single melee attack as a standard action?
This thread has made me curious about what "as part of an attack action in place of a melee attack" means. If an attack action is a standard action and only a standard action, how does one subdivide it?This question has lead some to believe that the reference to the attack action in the sunder text is an error, and needs to be removed. A legitimate thought, in my opinion. I could see that. It's very easy to paste something into a sentence and forget to delete what it's replacing. Usually things like that get caught because it's likely that they aren't grammatically correct. In this case, there isn't any grammatical error to draw attention to it. Does the phrase "as part of an attack action in place of a melee attack" appear anywhere else in any of the rulebooks? The presence or absence of this phrase anywhere else might help shed some light on it. Also out of curiosity, what else uses the attack action explicitly, besides the vital strike feats and sunder? It seems like the more common wording is "As a standard action, make a single attack"
This thread has made me curious about what "as part of an attack action in place of a melee attack" means. If an attack action is a standard action and only a standard action, how does one subdivide it? Does it simply mean that you can combine it with feats that are used as standard actions? For instance, what about combining vital strike and sunder? What about deadly stroke and sunder? Are these valid combinations? Also, how often does sunder even get used? I've always considered it a combat maneuver made against my pocketbook, no matter who's doing the sundering.
i'm not really sure why people are surprised about Flurry working like 2WF: it directly states that upfront. The entire pricing structure for AoMF as used for UAS/Flurry only makes a shred of sense if Flurry is working like Two Weapon Fighting, with, surprise, TWO WEAPONS. To be fair, the flurry text states that it works as if using the two weapon fighting feat. If you read that feat, you'll see that the only thing it modifies is the penalty for two weapon fighting. Anyone can get extra attacks by using two weapons, but the penalties are prohibitive if you don't have the feat. Now, if that's the way you've read flurry, what do you have? You have a new mechanic that states when you get extra attacks at reduced penalty and specifies that you can use any combination of monk weapons. Actually, based on the wording of flurry, I wonder if using two temple swords makes you take a -4 instead of -2 because your offhand weapon isn't light.
I think the script for Kung Fu was bought in the mid 1960s. I don't think Lee pitched his show until 1970 or so.
I think it's possible that the light armor restriction is in place because they didn't want the property on an armor with built in gauntlets. The consequences for breastplates and bracers of armor was possibly an oversight, but that could all be wishful thinking on my part.
Snake style isn't about the sense motive or the immediate actions. It's about being able to make opportunity attacks because your opponent missed you. That's the best part of the style. I would only take snake style with MoMS or maybe unarmed fighter since you can skip the middle feat in the chain.
But what's the point of that? Are you trying to discourage blasting? If you do that, you might as well have all ranged attacks roll to hit someone else if they miss. They're similar principals.
Each part of the game is unrealistic in different degrees, which is fine. If you use lifting to determine someone's strength, people would have much higher strength scores than you would expect. I sit behind a desk all day and would still land at 16-18 strength based on the chart. I had an uncle who would have been a 24 STR based on carrying and about a 34 STR based on lifting. That's a rough guess since I don't know how much the car weighed. Things like that make it really hard to map even the more mundane parts of the game to real life. That said, fireball is anything but mundane. The spell says it only requires an attack roll under a very few circumstances, so I think placement should be fairly easy.
The combat style master feat allows you to start or switch one style as a free action. Taking it early lets you get 2 styles going in the first round. That's available at level 5. 8th level lets you have 3 active at once, so that's probably the level he's talking about. My big problem with the master of many styles is that requires too many feats to get what I want out of it. If you try to take it to 20, you'll be able to use 5 styles at once. My picks would be crane, snake, tiger, dragon, and panther. Of those 5 styles, I can find maybe 2-4 feats out of the chain that I don't have to have, so that's of 11-13 feats spent just on styles. Add in dodge, power attack, elemental fist, and combat reflexes and you've got 15-17, which means I've basically used every feat on style feats and the feats that make them work. It's really feat intensive to get what you want out of this archetype.
You do realize that Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story had fictional parts right? This is one of those parts. Movement speed and flurry are both important to the monk. They're mutually exclusive however and his attack bonus is weak. Allowing the monk to move up to his fast movement bonus as a swift action gets those two abilities working together. I still think a mechanic that allows the monk to sacrifice his fast movement for a bonus to attack and/or damage rolls would make a world of difference. It then becomes a resource that can either be leveraged towards getting places, hitting things, or doing a little of both.
From the flavor text of the fireball spell, I would assume it's as easy as pointing in the desired direction and making it explode when it has reached the the spot you want. The worst case scenario is that you have to pick a distance beforehand, but this should be as accurate as other spells. When was the last time you told a wizard that he was actually 31 feet away and that his scorching ray stopped just short?
Dawnflower dervish gets that attack back at 15th level, but you take a -2 to all of your attacks. Tiger pounce allows a swift action move up to half your speed toward an enemy that you made a successful unarmed attack or combat maneuver against in the current or previous round. It's available as early as level 9, but it takes at least 2 feats to get. What level of power are you shooting for with this class? How would it perform against say, a ranger making full use of his favored enemy, spells, and animal companion? What exactly is his role?
The thrown from the table comment was a little much. The more I think of it, the more I like the idea of linking the monk's speed to his attack bonus. I think maybe the best way to implement it would be to change the fast movement entry to state that a monk may move up to his fast movement speed and make a full attack after a certain level(link it to flurry and you screw some archetypes). Then, as a new class ability, allow them to "spend" that movement bonus to enhance attack bonus for that round at a rate of 10ft/+1 attack. It gives the monk a flexible resource that isn't exhausted quickly. You could call it something cheesy like encircling assault, multi sided strike, or whatever you want. Thematically, I think it makes the monk fill the role that he's described as filling. What about the balance though? With this change, a level 18 monk could make stationary flurries at 22/22/17/17/12/12/7 +Str +Enhancement. What's a fighter hitting at around this level? His max with TWF would be around 20 +enhancement +strength or dex, depending on his build, but his stats should be higher and his damage should be better. He has dueling gloves which should get him a little higher too. And he still has feats that the monk can't get because of BAB requirements or fighter only feats. Realistically, the monk will want to move some every round, so he won't be taking the full +6. Anyone have any opinions?
There's a fighter archetype that sacrifices 1 hit at highest BAB to be able to move and attack at around level 7 I think. At around level 15 the same archetype grants an extra attack at the cost of a penalty to all attacks, similar to rapid shot. Something like this could work for a monk. If move+attack could be added to the monk in such a way, what about an additional mechanic that allows you to spend some of your movement to gain an attack bonus to flurry? Mechanically, you'd just be standing there, but flavor wise, the monk would be attacking his foe from all sides with blinding speed. If you further restricted it and allowed the monk to spend his fast movement bonus speed and gave say, +1 attack bonus per 10 feet of movement spent this way, you'd cap out at +6 to attacks, which would probably do a lot to fix things. Turns where you have to actually move still let you flurry, but you won't get as much attack bonus, so I think it might balance out fairly well. Combining this with abundant step and taking dimensional agility would let you close, bust someone up, and then move 10 feet away. Seems like a good option to me. You'd get some much needed synergy between fast movement and flurry, while also getting some cool tactical options.
The the subject line of the thread is correct, but the OP's example is a poor illustration. The AoMF cannot possibly be overpriced because it is in fact the cheapest available option in some cases, namely large numbers of natural attacks. The monk however, is a bad example. The class abilities are biased against itemization, but they don't do enough to remove the need for it. I wouldn't mind seeing the monk be able to make unarmed attacks and/or stunning fist attempts as touch attacks. It would make touch AC his specialty both offensively and defensively. Unfortunately, hitting touch AC may give him too much of an advantage.
I'd go with the amulet of natural armor. My reasoning is that barkskin is only a single target spell, while communal resist energy is a 3rd level spell. It's more economical to always have the AC and get the energy resistance via spells when necessary.
Easier still for there and their, just remove the t. That leaves you with "here", which is a location, and "heir" which implies possession, just like their respective words.
If you go with ranger, don't discount the spells entirely. Spells like instant enemy and lead blades are good ways to boost damage. Also, rangers are 6 skill points per level, not 4.
voska66: just as a clarification, sneak attacks work just fine on iteratives, assuming they're getting them from flanking or improved invisibility (or similar thing) and that isn't house-ruled away. I think he might be saying that the chances of landing any of the iteratives are low, not that you're only allowed one sneak attack per round.
As my sister says, "You can get glad the same way you got mad, all by yourself."I'll make no comment right now on the topic of this thread, but I wanted to say I like this line. Heck, sounds like something I could picture about three of my psych professors from college saying. Yeah, you don't win often against a sibling 9 1/2 years older, but you come out of it with a few good lines.
As being offended is highly subjective, I think the best you can be expected to do is to mean no offense. As my sister says, "You can get glad the same way you got mad, all by yourself." I find it infuriating, but true.
Actually, we're both still wrong. I thought it was 10 minutes/level but it's not. Minute/level is times 2. So price is 4,000. Crafting cost is half of the price you come up with on the table, so 2,000.
I don't have much programming experience, but I think I would sort out archetypes by creating an Nx2 array for base class features. The first column would be the name of the feature, and the second column would be all ones. When adding an archetype to a class, I would have the program check for a one in all of the appropriate class features, and then change the class feature name and overwrite the one with a zero. That's the most straightforward way I can think of to prevent multiple archetypes that modify the same class feature. Then you would have an array of class feature names that also tells you which entries are still available for swapping out via archetypes. I have no idea how useful or efficient this approach would be, since my programming experience is limited to fortran, matlab, C, verilog hdl, and a bit of unrealscript. Most of these aren't object oriented.
That was one of the first items I had made for my ranger. Abundant ammunition on a quiver is pretty handy. By the formulas under creations rules, you end up with (1)(1)(2,000)(1.5)= 3,000gp for the price of the item, meaning you can create it for 1,500gp. My GM decided that was a fair price to pay to quit tracking arrows.
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