ThatGuySteve's page

ThatGuySteve wrote:

I've run numbers on light pick vs short sword, from mundane to +5 and considering whether you get 1, 2 or 3 attacks. This is counting crit specialisation for picks but not for swords, flat footed is not a guaranteed bonus as you might already have flanking, etc, so hard to quantify mathematically but but could situations provide a good boost to landing 2nd/3rd attacks.

If you are hitting between 9+ and 12+ on 1st attack then short sword is better. 8+ or better swings to pick. 13+ or worse and it gradually switches to picks depending on number off attacks; 15+ single attack is the last time short sword is better.

My choice would be short sword as I think between 9+ and 12+ to hit is the normal range for level appropriate enemies. Tougher enemies should be few and far between. Weaker enemies shouldn't need to be optimised against to defeat.

have you included Keen in your calculations? for me that was what pushed light pick in multi attack calculations way above shortswords

No, I hadn't included Keen, which would favour the pick. Keen only comes into play at 13th level and for the cost of Keen I could add several +1d6 energy runes to a short sword instead.

Edit: if you are hitting on a 5+, keen is only giving you a bonus on your 3rd attack with a light pick, why choose it?

I never said it would be every time, just most cases. I doubt most characters will be able to get as high as hitting on 5+ without some serious help and optimisation.

I've run numbers on light pick vs short sword, from mundane to +5 and considering whether you get 1, 2 or 3 attacks. This is counting crit specialisation for picks but not for swords, flat footed is not a guaranteed bonus as you might already have flanking, etc, so hard to quantify mathematically but but could situations provide a good boost to landing 2nd/3rd attacks.

If you are hitting between 9+ and 12+ on 1st attack then short sword is better. 8+ or better swings to pick. 13+ or worse and it gradually switches to picks depending on number off attacks; 15+ single attack is the last time short sword is better.

My choice would be short sword as I think between 9+ and 12+ to hit is the normal range for level appropriate enemies. Tougher enemies should be few and far between. Weaker enemies shouldn't need to be optimised against to defeat.

Maybe the ability is not meant to be used in all combats. Instead, it may be more situational (high dr enemies, for example). Fighter does also get Furious Focus.

If you are just meant to spam one thing, would be pretty boring.

How many level 1 enemies have DR? When you only have 1 class feat you want to be able to make use of it right away, not wait for it to be effective at higher levels.

Point blank shout fighter and double slice fighter will be using their feats every fight without doubt.

ThatGuySteve wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

For the most part it seems like d4 weapons are ones with a huge pile of traits (e.g. whip, sai, starknife), have a reliable way to increase the damage to respectable levels (staves are d8 if you 2 hand them, light picks are fatal d8), or aren't things that will be your primary choice of weapon unless they are your deity's sacred weapon (which you have a class feature to address). Since things like daggers, fists, and light shield bashes are more "holdout weapons" than primary combat options for most people.

Even with fatal, a light pick will do less average damage than a short sword in almost every case. Short swords then get Finesse and Versatile on top.

That's simply not true.

Light pick has a 3.7-3.5x crit multiplier

Your first attack with it, in a build made to crit (high attack bonuses) gives you more than 30% chance to crit with it.

Add keen on it to have 10% flat crit chance (19 is almost always a hit with an agile weapon in such a build) and there's no way a short sword can reach that.

Simple example: you crit on a 15+, you're wielding a +3 weapon and have +5 strength.

That's : 30% crit, 50% hit, 20% miss

Light pick:
0.3*(9d8+8+10)+0.5*(4d4+5)= 25.05
Shortsword :
0.3*(8d6+10)+0.5*(4d6+5)= 20.9

I've not seen a build that hits on 5+ against equal level enemies before, how are you getting your attack bonus so high? Your other post replying to kaid was only assuming a 50% hit rate, rather than 80%.

Not everyone is guaranteed to have critical specialisation, I think. Without it your only doing 22.65 avg with the pick. Just to keep in mind.

Have you calculated the damage of 2nd and 3rd attacks for the round where you will only be criting on 20 (19 with keen)? Once you drop the crit rate, bigger dice will win out.

Igor Horvat wrote:

Historicaly, fighting with 2 weapons was very rare.

It is suboptional to sword&board or big 2hander with more reach and bigger impact.

Two actual weapons, perhaps, but bashing people with your board was a major part of sword and board fighting. Perhaps a new fighter feat for that, even if there's still no mechanical difference between 1 and 2 daggers:

Shield Flurry (Open, [A])

If you are wielding a one-handed weapon in one hand and a shield in the other, you may take a Strike action with each of them, applying the multiple attack penalty as if you had already attacked once this turn. This counts as a single attack for the multiple attack penalty.

You could use double slice to attack with a weapon and shield bash, doesn't need a special feat of its own.

The problem is the people using d4 weapons (that stay d4) are mostly rogues.

So anyone other than a rogue wanting to use a d4 weapon is just out of luck? The dual wielding fighter build is a prime example of someone who might want to use a small weapon in their off hand.

Sneak attack is conditional so there will be occasions when you don't get it and you damage will drop dramatically. Fighters/paladins/etc will always be doing their damage without needing to shuffle around for flanking.

The difference doesn't show up as much when you are just using +1 weapons, it is higher levels that it really breaks down.

6d4 avg 15
6d8 avg 27
6d12 avg 39

Full 4d6 sneak would bring a dagger up to 29 but you could then start comparing other class's features. Barbarians add their rage damage, fighters get higher proficiency so hit more often, etc.

You're not going to see that in a level 1's hand.

The maths needs to balance st every level, not just 1st.

Same bonus to AC as a heavy shield and a free attack at full attack bonus? Compared to the modest damage reduction at the cost of dents that shield offer, this seems quite powerful.

You should at least keep your MAP from your previous turn, same as if you had readied an attack. Most (if not all) weapons with the parry trait also have agile so the MAP would be lower for them.

I agree that the interact action should allow drawing an item in each free hand though.

CommanderCoyler wrote:

3.5 characters also got extra attacks as they levelled up...

You said: The designers need other ways to increase damage (to what it is currently) if they change crit damage to adding D6.

I said: They don't need to increase damage, they can just decrease monster hp.

All spells that do damage would also need to be rebalance then. Probably easier to adjust weapon damage than overhaul half the system.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I would much prefer to be able to play a two weapon character who uses the extra weapon for defense (e.g. it is much easier to parry any line of attack when you have two swords).

In PF2 your sword would probably get dented every time you did this...

You can use an off hand weapon with the parry trait to achieve this. No dents included.

Throwing in a loss of extra attacks for two weapon fighting would cause some serious disruption to the maths of the game. Tracking a two weapon fighting penalty on top of MAP would over complicate what is currently a simple, elegant system.

The small damage dice weapons encouraged by two weapon fighting do seriously lag behind, especially once you have magic weapons granting multiple bonus dice, as has been discussed elsewhere. Something needs to be done to address the balance there but I'd rather see it as a general fix than a two weapon fighting specific fix.

I like the idea of having all the options available but giving specialisation an extra boost. I'm still not sold on automatically assigning feats but giving more classes the druid treatment would work well. Allows for creative combinations to fit a character concept without loss of balance from cherry-picking best options from multiple paths.

Reminds me a bit of 4e dnd where you could pick any power in your class but some would have an extra rider effect I'd you had picked a certain feature at first level.

1) For some classes this is a 50% bump in the number of effective class feats they get. That can potentially make the character creation process much more overwhelming, especially since it may screw with the way the class progression charts flow. I wouldn't mind if everyone just got twice as many class feats, personally. But I suspect this might cause problems for the less system savvy.

2) I struggle to think of why anyone wouldn't want the feats on their path. Again, see the example of the dragon totem. Someone may feel like there are alternative feats outside of that path that are too powerful not to take instead though. Now, hopefully, your character can fully embrace the theme of their class path while still taking those powerful feats and not feeling like you are compromising your character's functionality. Sort of like how cleric's got channel energy separate from their spell points-- they can now provide solid healing without dipping cutting into their options to do other things.

Sticking with the barbarian example, I like the idea of a Giant Totem barbarian lugging around a Giant size weapon, not so keen on magically getting bigger when I rage. Feels a bit too Incredible Hulk.

I'd rather pick up some non-totem feats and use the extras to pick up an archetype instead.

If you give people choice then they can still follow the obvious path if they want to.

Could adding a failure effect balance things out? Str modifier damage on a miss or a single weapon damage dice +Str at 10th level.

If I chose Power Attack as my 1st level feat I want to be able to use it straight away, not wait until I meet a monster with resistance for it to be effective.

I like the fact that +1 weapons now add more of the basic damage die. There's supposed to be a difference between impaling somebody with a massive +2 greatsword or stabbing somebody with a +2 dagger. Too often in Pathfinder 1e, the basic weapon didn't matter all once you'd layered a few things on top of it, and this change returns more importance to the core physical weapon.

At the same time there needs to be a limit to the effect of the basic weapon die. Probably the most sensible dividing line is that bonuses which are inherent to the weapon should, such as +1, flaming, ice etc add the weapon's own die, while those from beyond the weapon use dice of their own. Sneak attack is nothing to do with the weapon used, so it doesn't use the weapon's die.

If flaming/frost/etc also added weapon size dice that would make the disparity even worse. I agree that a big weapon should do more damage than small but the difference as it stands now is just too high.

Traits and critical specialisations could perhaps do more to differentiate different weapons. Give d8 1handed and d12 2handed weapons some more traits to make up for trimming their damage.

I'd like to see higher level ancestry feats give real unique advantages.

Let a 17th level dwarf roll through a whole crowd of enemies scattering them to the wind. Let an elf or gnome continue expanding their innate connection to magic on a similar track to archetype multiclasses.

4th ed dnd did races well, giving them unique powers that could be developed and expanded on in various interesting ways.

Actually, I'm saying all these feats stay as feats. You can just just get some for "free" based on your class path. So a Fighter who takes the Archer class path gets Point-blank Shot for free at 1st level but can choose. To take Reactive Shield, and a Fighter who takes the Defender class path gets Reactive Shield for free but can choose to also take Point Blank Shot.

Why not just give extra feat slots at certain levels so that players can be as creative as they want with their mix and matching? Why restrict choice in any way?

If you take all these feats and turn them into class abilities then a multiclass character won't be able to pick then up unless loads more specific feats are written.

Personally I dislike the way sorcerers are locked into a bloodline and get fewer feat options. I'd rather see things goo the other way, maybe increase the number of class feats available to allow for branching.

I don't think bumping d4s up to d6s is the fix we need as then there is pressure to bump up d6 weapons to d8s, d8s to d10s, etc. That will maintain the difference in damage and small weapons will still be weak.

Making potency add a flat rate of 1d6 (or 1d8 for 2 handed) per plus would do more to balance out weapons and make unusual weapons more attractive at higher levels.

For the most part it seems like d4 weapons are ones with a huge pile of traits (e.g. whip, sai, starknife), have a reliable way to increase the damage to respectable levels (staves are d8 if you 2 hand them, light picks are fatal d8), or aren't things that will be your primary choice of weapon unless they are your deity's sacred weapon (which you have a class feature to address). Since things like daggers, fists, and light shield bashes are more "holdout weapons" than primary combat options for most people.

Even with fatal, a light pick will do less average damage than a short sword in almost every case. Short swords then get Finesse and Versatile on top.

Staffs used 2 handed are the worst 2 handed weapon - lowest damage dice and no other traits. Switching to a 2 handed grip also uses an action so even the wizard looking to crack a head probably won't bother as he wants a hand free to cast.

All this. A lot of these d4 weapons are like Caster back up options in particular.

The other important thing to remember is they do less damage because you can dump strength while wielding one. There are significant benefits to that still, even with the more spread out ability boosts.

Remember only Rogues get +dex to damage with Finesse weapons, anyone else who dumps Str also dumps damage.

Knives have a very good damage buff in their critical specialization, and brawling slows in that regard which is very good too. And shields well, no main weapon there.

So if you decide to go for knives or brawling as your main weapon you are likely a rogue or a monk and it allows you to have a very mobile fighting style with very good crits. You can literally bleed living opponents out over time as a rogue with a knife.

It would take several rounds of bleeding 1d4+1/2/3 to catch up with the higher crit damage of a larger dice. Bleed also doesn't stack so once it is going, that's it, no more bonus from crit specialisation unless they pass their save. I'd rather the constant bonus damage of a bigger dice.

Sure, it is a small difference with a non magical weapon but that 1/2 difference becomes 2/4, 3/6, 4/8, etc as you increase potency.

Agile is certainly a good trait but how often are people using all 3 across to attack? Particularly classes who are likely to be using d4 weapons such as rogues, I don't see them standing toe-to-toe very often.

By level 8 you could have +2 weapons. Is the guy rolling 3d4 going to feel effective standing next to the guy rolling 3d12? Does agile and a 10' range make up the difference?

Leaving aside the question of where should extra damage dice come from which is being discussed elsewhere.

I can't imagine many people choosing the loss of damage required to wield a d4 damage weapon once magic weapons come into play. As more dice are added at higher levels the difference in damage becomes more and more pronounced.

Do the numerous traits that small weapons have really make up for the reduction in damage output?

Could magic weapons add a flat damage dice bonus such as 1d6 per plus? Or 1d6 for 1 handed and 1d8 for 2 handed weapons?

Shouldn't the Cantrips be cast at lv9? Cantrips and Powers are always half your character level.

Detect Magic is gained from the feat Arcane Sense which sets the level based on level of proficiency of Arcana skill. Shield and Light Will be 9th as gained from Wizard Dedication.

Shield is useless if you have Dueling Dance. Both grant a circumstance bonus and don't stack.

Other than that, it looks good at a first glance.

Shield is a verbal only spell so can be used while wielding 2-handed for a little extra damage. Shield can also be dismissed to soak up some damage but then has a cool down period. Switch to 1-handed with the sword and enter Dueling Dance at this point to get defences back up.