Powers128's page

I don't think having the monk trait means we aren't going to see changes to monk weapons, because it could mean that monks now start being proficient with simple weapons and weapons with the monk trait, and then Monastic Weaponry could expand those options into other martial weapons.

That would be neat. Wouldn't mind that

The theming around monk weapons is fine imo. If it's just these handful of weapons, the worst it is is just limiting to other concepts.

Another simple solution I'm thinking could just be that monastic weaponry will give these handful of monk weapons but also let you choose one or two weapons with x requirements and give those the monk trait. That would open it up while keeping the core theming, and it works with what we already know before core 2 comes out.

Secret Wizard wrote:

Qaianna wrote:

The ‘charge in with a greatsword and a tanktop’s worth of armour’ fantasy sounds like another class, honestly. An unarmoured barbarian build sounds nice (as...

Best Monk build in PF1E though -- Aesthetic Style with a Wave Blade or a Sansetsukuon did exactly that.

True. Or not, I never built many 1e monks.

As far as ‘monk’ weapons go … I still like the thought of not pigeonholing ‘eastern’ ones that way. What would the real difference be between a kama and a sickle? Or a sai and some examples of mains-gauche? And could some other more common weapons be ‘monk’ weapons? It is odd that a monk can learn to flurry with a bo but not the lighter staff.

The standard staff and spear actually did gain the monk trait in the remaster interestingly enough.

Yeah, this is what I was hoping would have been clarified with the remaster. Instance is never defined so we're still just guessing.

I do like the idea earlier to have weapon stances that are to a specific group or groups of weapons. Would keep the flavor and identity solid while giving more options

Double slice ain't even bad. Not sure why that's a sticking point. Fighter has great dual weapon support throughout their career.

For monks alone, d12 s wouldn't make much of a difference. The main issue would be poaching. You can poach a d10 weapon now though with the khakkara, so I wouldn't be that worried over balance. Giving them all martial weapons would hurt its identity more than anything imo.

Yeah, extra spirit damage that only applies to opposite sanctifications is just alignment damage again but more complicated and worse.

Why would a Monk raise a shield instead of just Striding or even just Stepping away from their opponent ?

Sometimes it's more desirable for yourself to be targeted than your allies. Especially for a 10 hitpoint class with high AC

Feels like the appropriate day to post this. Drugs(in p2e) are something I always forget about. Do they fit an actual niche in game or are they just something to be avoided or just have a narrative purpose? I don't know how I feel about the addiction mechanics too. Thoughts?

Powers128 wrote:

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Powers128 wrote:

Seems your main issue really is just fortissimo vs lingering. It's already a decent contest between the two, but martial performance definitely is the best use case for it. It's really nice synergy.

It's more than that.

Fortissimo is still good for those one-round boss nukes after setting up with buffs like Haste, True Target, et. al., and debuffs like Synesthesia, Fear, etc. Having seen this in action against boss fights, it's definitely an awesome ability, and obviously the synergy with Martial Performance is there.

But Martial Performance has an inherent action cost to it (Strikes) that aren't guaranteed to work (such as if you miss, either because of bad rolls, high AC, or risking being disrupted/dropped via reactions). It's not like a Spellshape effect or a Spell-Storing weapon cast, where it's automatic, or able to trigger under circumstances of your choosing. With Haste, it's less of a sting, but that's not usually commonplace until the higher levels.

Lingering Performance, while it doesn't have that good burst Fortissimo does, is still solid for constant spellcasting, and since not every fight is a boss fight, it is practical for most combats. Instead of having to cast a spell/cantrip every other round if you're lucky, you're able to cast a spell every round. Bards are a spellcaster first, martial second. Even if they are the most potent "martial" spellcaster, they are, at the end of the day, primarily, a spellcaster.

You just laid out the use cases for both compositions but you still don't have a good point against martial performance. At the end of the day, it's not an action tax, it's saving you actions and focus points. You break-even when you fail to trigger martial performance.

Have some sure strikes. That along with your +2 from fortissimo makes it reliable when you need it to.

The better argument would be that fortissimo is relatively late and you need two muses to make

...

Fortissimo has maestro as a prerequisite so you do need both muses.

There's not much to your argument now if you really just prefer to use lingering composition. There are alternatives as we've talked about. They're reasonable and really good once you get fortissimo.

Bluemagetim wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

A big problem I think with tying weapons to stances is that stance unarmed strikes are overtuned compared to weapon options.

So tying weapons to stances feels like it would necessitate giving massive buffs to those weapons as well. Which just sort of feels awkward all around.

What i was thinking was that by tying weapons into stances the stance could provide benefits to the monk that can be executed with either the given unarmed strike from that stance or the weapons allowed by that stance.

For example
Wolf stance gives the benefit of the wolf jaw unarmed attack. It also gives the trip trait to the unarmed attack when flanking a target.
Wolf drag adds to this unarmed attack when using the wolfdrag action fatal d12 and it knocks the target prone if the attack succeeds.

What I would like to see is specific weapons chosen with balance in mind added to this stance and be allowed to be used and gain the benefits that wolf jaw would gain under the same circumstances.

The reason is to allow weapon wielding monks to still feel like they gain the progression benefits of these stance feats even though they decided their concept proffered using weapons instead or along with the stance given strikes.

I think the idea works best if the list of weapons allowed by a stance are limited to weapons that dont become broke if they gain what the stance would give to the given unarmed strike.

You keep saying "with balance in mind" but you seem to be missing how much worse martial weapons are compared to their monk stance equivalents.

Compare wolf jaw to a short sword, the latter is just worse in almost every respect. Asking someone to enter the former's stance for the privilege of doing less damage with the latter weapon is an incredibly raw deal.

Depends on the other benefits the stance might give. Peafowl for example makes temple sword monks a unique and powerful option that competes well with unarmed stances imo

Oh, that suggestion was something that gives unarmed attacks and access to weapons. Hmm. The better thing would definitely be to separate weapon stances from unarmed stances.

Powers128 wrote:

Seems your main issue really is just fortissimo vs lingering. It's already a decent contest between the two, but martial performance definitely is the best use case for it. It's really nice synergy.

It's more than that.

Fortissimo is still good for those one-round boss nukes after setting up with buffs like Haste, True Target, et. al., and debuffs like Synesthesia, Fear, etc. Having seen this in action against boss fights, it's definitely an awesome ability, and obviously the synergy with Martial Performance is there.

But Martial Performance has an inherent action cost to it (Strikes) that aren't guaranteed to work (such as if you miss, either because of bad rolls, high AC, or risking being disrupted/dropped via reactions). It's not like a Spellshape effect or a Spell-Storing weapon cast, where it's automatic, or able to trigger under circumstances of your choosing. With Haste, it's less of a sting, but that's not usually commonplace until the higher levels.

Lingering Performance, while it doesn't have that good burst Fortissimo does, is still solid for constant spellcasting, and since not every fight is a boss fight, it is practical for most combats. Instead of having to cast a spell/cantrip every other round if you're lucky, you're able to cast a spell every round. Bards are a spellcaster first, martial second. Even if they are the most potent "martial" spellcaster, they are, at the end of the day, primarily, a spellcaster.

You just laid out the use cases for both compositions but you still don't have a good point against martial performance. At the end of the day, it's not an action tax, it's saving you actions and focus points. You break-even when you fail to trigger martial performance.

Have some sure strikes. That along with your +2 from fortissimo makes it reliable when you need it to.

The better argument would be that fortissimo is relatively late and you need two muses to make the combo work. Before that, martial performance is mainly saving you some focus points for other stuff. But as was pointed out earlier, it does stack with lingering to give you 4 or 5 rounds.

Powers128 wrote:

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Powers128 wrote:

Seems pretty good with a bow and fortissimo composition. A little weird that the performance check DC would be related to your allies will DCs though. I don't like that your allies having better stats makes your job harder.

Getting a crit and applying +3 to 2 rounds sounds like a lot of fun though.

That is an interesting change, since last I checked, it was based off of a Standard/Hard Class DC for the highest affected character's level. Nor does it make sense since it means that if you somehow don't impress the most powerful person there that you also don't impress the less powerful people. But until it is Errata'd, I can assume it was a deliberate change.

The thing is that you need to both critically succeed a high Will DC with a Performance check, expend a focus point, while also dealing damage with a (presumably) successful Strike. It is great when it works. It is a bummer when it doesn't. The math is more against you here than if you simply used Lingering Composition. Less yields, yes, but also less chances of success.

When using fortissimo with courageous anthem, you've got a +2 to the strike you need to land on a success and +3 on a crit, so you're more likely to hit something than not unless it's a boss. I don't think the math really screws you over with the combo.

I don't know how much harder or easier it will be with the new DC calculations, but I do know that an optimized Bard will only critically succeed on 20% of those checks at the highest level, with it being only more difficult (on average) as levels get lower.

Just as well, it's less about the math and more about the probabilities of failing. Even if the odds of succeeding any of those checks are equal, the latter combo requires making two checks (meaning two potentially bad rolls), whereas the former requires only one, and isn't tied to action or MAP penalty, and it's not like Bards are spending their focus points on...

Seems your main issue really is just fortissimo vs lingering. It's already a decent contest between the two, but martial performance definitely is the best use case for it. It's really nice synergy.

With all bards having martial weapons, it's not unreasonable for non battle bards to be making strikes too. A decent chunk of ancestries can even start with advanced weapons.

Powers128 wrote:

Seems pretty good with a bow and fortissimo composition. A little weird that the performance check DC would be related to your allies will DCs though. I don't like that your allies having better stats makes your job harder.

Getting a crit and applying +3 to 2 rounds sounds like a lot of fun though.

That is an interesting change, since last I checked, it was based off of a Standard/Hard Class DC for the highest affected character's level. Nor does it make sense since it means that if you somehow don't impress the most powerful person there that you also don't impress the less powerful people. But until it is Errata'd, I can assume it was a deliberate change.

The thing is that you need to both critically succeed a high Will DC with a Performance check, expend a focus point, while also dealing damage with a (presumably) successful Strike. It is great when it works. It is a bummer when it doesn't. The math is more against you here than if you simply used Lingering Composition. Less yields, yes, but also less chances of success.

When using fortissimo with courageous anthem, you've got a +2 to the strike you need to land on a success and +3 on a crit, so you're more likely to hit something than not unless it's a boss. I don't think the math really screws you over with the combo.

Seems pretty good with a bow and fortissimo composition. A little weird that the performance check DC would be related to your allies will DCs though. I don't like that your allies having better stats makes your job harder.

Getting a crit and applying +3 to 2 rounds sounds like a lot of fun though.

I was on the fence for a bit but this extension will work with fortissimo composition. That's a great couple of rounds.

I'm curious to see what shape the taunting mechanic for the Guardian is going to take. I don't think it'll be a straight-up forcing of enemies to attack the Guardian. That doesn't feel like Paizo's style. There's also issues of player agency to consider there, because any PC class is fair game to build NPCs from.

My guess is that the taunt will either make you look like a juicier target, granting enemies a small damage buff or to-hit buff against you which you can then punish, or perhaps it'll be akin to the Champion's reaction and make attacking anyone who isn't the Guardian a worse idea.

Hopefully it's not the former. Barbarian taunts like that just make you die quicker. Penalties to attacks against targets other than you would be my guess. It serves the same mechanical goal but you're not having to give up your own defense to get it.

Best ttrpg on the market plus we get awesome support. That's why I always get hard copies. Y'all have earned it.

I'm slowly digesting all the remaster stuff. Just noticed the buff to martial performance. Looks fun. Is it a meaningful change in its gameplay or is it just redundant with lingering composition?

Built in unburdened iron please. I wanna use full plate and a fortress shield and not be a snail.

I'll guess that guardian will have a general purpose damage reduction reaction for itself along with shield block similar to desecrator.

Awesome. Looking forward to more info

I suggested weapon training be build into stances.

If you go into a stance you also turn on proficiency with all weapons that stance is meant to use just like it also provides use of a special unarmed attack. They could do it by weapon group or by individual weapons but by weapon group allows new weapons to be added later without errata.

I wouldn't mind that. Fits the flavor of specific and specialized training that the monk has.

The monk trait does feel a bit arbitrary. I'm not sure if there's an elegant way to do away with it at this point though. I'm hopeful that monk weapons will get more attention though.

I feel like that religious monk could be a possible archetype to open them up to favored weapons. That'd be neat.

Those might have been written without consideration of the updated grab rules I'm guessing

The tree is not a valid target but you could stack the resistance from a champions reaction with the reduced damage from protector tree since that doesn't actually give resistance, it just splits the damage.

Powers128 wrote:

There are no abilities that grant allies extra attacks at level one from my knowledge. For movement though, one of the best abilities at level one would be the air Kinetisist's Four Winds impulse. Take a look at the Marshall archetype too. That has movement, attack and various other support abilities that you may find relevant to your concept.

So...

Wood / Air
With Hardwood Armor (Raise Shield)
And then alternate between Timber Sentinel and Four Winds...

That should let me contribute without attacking for a bit. Also leaves stats open for whatever.

But where would you go from there?
What's the lowest level to grant attacks?

A charisma focused air/wood Kinetisist with the marshal archetype could be interesting. Wood also has access to healing. It looks like the To Battle! Feat in marshal is the earliest you can grant attacks to your allies unfortunately.

There's plenty of support to striking in general though that doesn't give strikes outright. Bard's inspire courage is the easiest. Gunslinger's fake out is fairly good, and psychic's amped guidance is another notable one.

There are no abilities that grant allies extra attacks at level one from my knowledge. For movement though, one of the best abilities at level one would be the air Kinetisist's Four Winds impulse. Take a look at the Marshall archetype too. That has movement, attack and various other support abilities that you may find relevant to your concept.

Powers128 wrote:

It's a "good" feat but one that's unfortunately a tax for flames and storm oracles.

Flames Oracle, I understand the claim of feat tax - Flames characters are likely to want more fire trait spells than the Divine list gives. I don't necessarily agree with the claim - Divine Access is a top tier feat for its level, but I don't think it rises to must-pick or feat-tax level. But I at least understand the claim in the case of Flames Mystery.

Why does Tempest Oracle need off-tradition spells any more than any other Oracle Mystery?

Mystery benefit gives a damage bonus to air and water spells

Powers128 wrote:

Unicore wrote:

The part of the Oracle class I really hope they don't lose is the incredibly awesome Oracle oracle feats the class had, like glean lore, vision of weakness and read disaster. Those kind of feats really made the class feel different from any other caster.

The feats are definitely the best part, aside from divine access. Hopefully that becomes part of the core chassis.

I actually love divine access

It's a "good" feat but one that's unfortunately a tax for flames and storm oracles.

The part of the Oracle class I really hope they don't lose is the incredibly awesome Oracle oracle feats the class had, like glean lore, vision of weakness and read disaster. Those kind of feats really made the class feel different from any other caster.

The feats are definitely the best part, aside from divine access. Hopefully that becomes part of the core chassis.

I've got reasonably high hopes for pc2 oracle. Favorite caster but I would not turn down some fixes and buffs

Powers128 wrote:

There doesn't seem to be an implication that it aught to be that way.

You can disagree with me on the implications and analysis. But don't try to convince me that I didn't post it.

Not sure what you mean by that last bit. We can disagree, sure.

I dont think crossbow ace as it is should be compared to feats that are meant to increase damage. I mean it can donthat but its not really the main thing it does.

If you were going to reload anyway then crossbow ace is adding mainly a defensive action to that reload. The option to create a diversion is there but it is wasted if your doing a reload as your last action.
If it added hunt prey to the list of actions you could do with your reload then it would probably be better for offense.

That was my suggestion a while back. Should have been called "Hunter's reload" or something to add back the action economy that hunted shot and twin takedown have for their own niche's. Hunt prey + reload would do wonders for loaded weapon rangers.

Powers128 wrote:

Sneak attacking with ranged weapons of higher than a d8 has always been a thing.

... Yes. By RAW.

What I am saying is that we shouldn't complain too much about not getting weapon specialization on them too. Or else the RAW may change, and not in the way that you are hoping for.

I'm skeptical of a change like that. There doesn't seem to be an implication that it aught to be that way.

I mean if we are talking rangers, gravity weapon is in class and probably will boost your damage higher in the long run by itself than crossbow ace did.

If we are talking any other class, feels kind of moot because only 2 classes have native crossbow support.

The crossbow ace vs gravity weapon is fair. I do wonder what the average damage bonus for original crossbow ace is compared to just having a d10 crossbow though. It might just be a wash at that point alone.

Assuming standard crossbow use anyways. The repeating heavy crossbow could have been used with original crossbow ace but I don't know if anyone actually wanted to use that thing.

Powers128 wrote:

Loosing out on the +2 to damage from crossbow ace kinda stinks but I wonder how much of a difference that would make compared to having a consistent d10 with the arbalest. Plus, crossbow terror still exists if you want it. Not sure if that will be reprinted in core 2 though.

The thing is you don't really miss out on the +2 as long as you don't bother taking the new crossbow ace and take the better feats. It's not quite a 1 to 1 comparison because gravity weapon and sniping duo only apply to your first strike in the round, gravity weapon needs a set up action, and sniping duo doesn't trigger unless your ally lands a hit. But you also get significantly better scaling damage (3 per dice in total, as opposed to a flat 2 that never grows), backstabber on top of that, the ability to ignore your partner as soft cover, and access to all the really powerful Sniping Duo reactions and stuff. The old crossbow ace build could also take Sniping Duo at 2nd level, but your circumstance bonuses wouldn't stack so the new version has less redundancy.

They arbalest also makes it easier for other classes to build into crossbows because the only thing you really really want is running reload, there are 3 different archetypes which get you that. Archer got it for you at 6th but compared with crossbow terror. Now you can be pretty functional at level 1, and archer is a solid pick as long as your GM isn't obnoxious about the bow/crossbow split.

I don't like it when archetypes are chosen as the standard way to do things. It's certainly a powerful option but it's probably better to compare things within the class.

I'm guessing that it is intentional. At least mostly. If anything, the fact that you can Sneak Attack with an Arbalest would be what gets put on the chopping block in any errata (From the Ruffian Racket, it seems like Sneak Attack was intended to not work with any weapons with a damage die larger than d8).

For balance considerations I often understand "Agile or Finesse weapons" to mean 'weapons that have relatively lower damage than similar weapons'. Because the first one is explicit in the rules, objectively verifiable, and will be consistent across tables. The second one is very subjective and vague.

Sneak attacking with ranged weapons of higher than a d8 has always been a thing. Melee limitations on ruffian don't suggest limitations on ranged attacks in general.

Loosing out on the +2 to damage from crossbow ace kinda stinks but I wonder how much of a difference that would make compared to having a consistent d10 with the arbalest. Plus, crossbow terror still exists if you want it. Not sure if that will be reprinted in core 2 though.

Forgot about terrifying howl. Makes sense now

Braggarts seem to be the most relevant case for the purpose of the independent timer. I'd wager that's why it's there. That just leaves reach for the sky as a bit weird.

I guess a braggart could also hypothetically take reach for the sky lol.

shroudb wrote:

Errenor wrote:

Powers128 wrote:

I noticed that dazzling display has a different immunity timer than the standard demoralize timer. I'm now wondering if immunity to demoralize is specific to the demoralize action or general to include the demoralize sub action with activities like dazzling display or reach for the sky. Why have a shorter timer when targets would be immune for longer normally? Thoughts?

Both those things are their own actions/activities. Immunities are also to those specific activities. Everything is correct it seems. Demoralize doesn't come into this. They even both don't say this: they say 'Intimidation checks'. 'To Demoralize', yes. Which means you use its effects, that's all.

BTW this also means that all bonuses specifically to 'Demoralize' action (not all Intimidation checks) won't work.

Dazzling Display specifically calls out that it is Demoralise action.

Similar to how you get the bonuses to your Strikes when you do an ability that has Strike as subordinate, you get your bonuses to Demoralise when you do Dazzling.

"attempt a single Intimidation check to Demoralize" "Attempt Intimidation checks to Demoralize"

No, I believe it doesn't.
It would if it were "make one Demoralize action using results for each enemy" or even simply "Demoralize each enemy".
It's not a subordinate Demoralize in short. Strike activities say 'make a Strike'.

I'm with shroud on this one. Demoralize is capitalized so there's no reason to assume it shouldn't function as a straight forward subordinate action

Probably because Firebrands has been written hastily and has several options that are questionable.

But as far as RAW is concerned, all options that Demoralise will be inflicting the regular immunity of Demoralise EXCEPT when specific wording in the ability itself alters that.

So, dazzling display will indeed give 1 minute immunity instead of 10 minutes, because it specifically alters the immunity duration, but all other options that do not mention anything about the immunity will be under the same 10min duration of the base Demoralise.

I considered if it's just a poorly thought out feat, but reach for the sky also has a one minute timer so it would have to be the same mistake.

I'm hoping that the tian xia books will include some more stuff for kitsune's foxfire to better build a magical wand flinging thaumaturge. With how the leshy's seedpod was buffed, it'd be nice to see foxfire get 30 feet too.

I noticed that dazzling display has a different immunity timer than the standard demoralize timer. I'm now wondering if immunity to demoralize is specific to the demoralize action or general to include the demoralize sub action with activities like dazzling display or reach for the sky. Why have a shorter timer when targets would be immune for longer normally? Thoughts?

The only real issue with trying to remaster the spells one to one is that acid grip is a reflex save and not a spell attack like acid arrow is so you can't normally spell strike with it. Probably best to keep acid arrow as it is if you don't just want to homebrew a new staff with some of the new spell attack spells. Custom staves have precedent though so it could just be that.

Echoing weapon is probably the single worst combat buff spell in effect and scaling.

I think if the intensify action made it so fling magic could trigger weaknesses on your target of EV, it would be fairly balanced. Currently, the wands intensify effect is probably the worst one

The wand being save rather than spell attack is why it can’t interact with the weakness granting abilities.

More specifically, it is not a strike which also disallows spell attacks. It would need to grant special permission to interact with exploit vulnerability