RSS RSS RSS RSS Facebook Twitter Email
Paizo People
Mesmalatu

TheDailyLunatic's page

102 posts. 1 review. 1 list. No wishlists.


Profile
Aliases
Campaigns
Posts
Threads
Favorited by Others
Search Posts

Search TheDailyLunatic's posts:


Mass Combat Level Limits Math Insanity

I've been diving deep into the Mass Combat rules in the run up to WOTRK... and I'm hitting some snags.

Here are the Big Questions:
1) What guidelines should I use to cap levels or sizes on player armies?

2) Is there any functional benefit at all for a CR5 army of 500 Level 2 Fighters over a CR5 Army of 25 Level 10 Fighters?

3) All things being equal, is there ever a reason NOT to use a higher level but smaller army?

I lean in general towards capping individual humanoid army units at level 5, but that creates significant problems later on in the game. I also notice that a couple of armies in WOTRK and a number in the addendum to SOATS have humanoid units leveled 6-8. It feels unfair to limit the players if it's considered kosher for other unnamed nations.

The largest possible reserve army is Huge (when stationed in a Garrison). If I keep with a lvl 5 cap, this means that a CR4 base + 4 for huge results in a maximum CR of 8 for regular armies. The first mass combat encounter for WOTRK has a CR10, a CR6 and a CR5. If my players want a ghost of a chance out the gate, they need either several garrisons full of armies or they need to raise massive armies on the fly (which always struck me as weird).

If I allow up to lvl 10 armies... things get really weird. All of a sudden, it makes zero sense to recruit a huge army of anything, since the best armies are the highest levels. Worse, the higher the level, the bigger bonus stats they get from spellcasting etc. and the LESS they pay in upkeep for weapons/armor/mounts/etc. AND the less penalties you take for defeat.

Even in lower levels, size makes no sense. Why make a colossal army of CR1 humans when you can make a huge army of CR3 humans? The latter is the EXACT SAME THING with 1/5 resource costs.

WOTRK's guidelines for armies are pretty unhelpful too. The kingdom will probably be Size 100+ by then... which means they can recruit a gargantuan army of 2nd level fighters? Whoop de doo. Is anyone in Kingmaker actually going to make an army like that?

Anybody have thoughts on this? I'm thinking about implementing an experience point mechanic for armies, but that may just make things even more complicated and less sensible.

Maybe I'll just say they can't recruit units of more than half of APL and use the WOTRK's guidelines for max army size (Huge at this point).
Mythic Arcane Strike + Bane + Ray of Frost?

The mythic version of Arcane strike says "If you expend one use of mythic power when using Arcane Strike, you can also add any one magic weapon special ability with a base price modifier of +1 to your weapons. This base price modifier increases to +2 at 4th tier, +3 at 7th tier, and +4 at 10th tier."

Previously on the forums, it was clarified that rays, ranged touch attacks, melee touch attacks and bombs are all considered weapons for Arcane Strike, as well as other effects. Does that mean that a mythic level 6 Evoker can use Mythic Arcane Strike to give all of his weapons for 1 minute, say, the bane ability and shoot Ray of Frost for 1d3 + 2 (Arcane Strike + 2 (Intense Spells class ability) + 2 (enhancement) + 2d6 with a +2 to attack? A level 6 DPS of 16 isn't really crazy, but it's free. Thoughts?
TDL's Magical Kingmaker GoogleDocs Spreadsheet

Hi! I'm The Daily Lunatic. I made a spreadsheet. It's HERE. I hope people enjoy it!

It includes a list of nearby nations and city-states as well as write-ups for Varnhold, Pitax & Fort Drelev. There's also a list of house rules I recommend.
The template automatically tracks cities, terrain improvements, military units & diplomatic relations as well as all kingdom stats and modifiers.
TDL's Simple Monk Fix
1 person marked this as a favorite.

Most people on the boards can agree that the Monk, as it stands, is broken. The reasons are threefold:
1) Medium BAB combined with low spellcasting/abilities
2) MAD Abilities
3) Poor support for melee options(e.g. AOMF expense & Flurry incompatibility with TWF-feats/natural-attacks)

What's worse, many potential fixes would surely serve to break existing Monk archetypes or to increase the already worrisome tendency to only use the Monk for 1-2 level dips. With those in mind, I've created a simple set of rules to fix the Monk while not breaking archetypes or unbalancing the class.

The philosophy behind these changes is that all Medium BAB heroic classes have spellcasting, heavy skills/abilities or Sneak Attack (usually 2 out of the three) to supplement their weak combat abilities, none of which applies to the monk. The monks abilities are, generously speaking, comparable to that of the Paladin, Ranger or Barbarian. Simply put, my fix is to bring the Monk up to par to the other High BAB combat classes with as few tweaks as possible while minimizing portability for small dips.

Here they are:

TDL's Simple Monk Fix:

1) Bring the Monk up to full BAB

2) Add to the end of the Improved Unarmed Strike Class Feature:
A monk adds 1 point of Wisdom bonus (if any) per monk class level as a bonus to damage with unarmed strikes or monk weapons. This bonus does not apply to any natural weapons other than unarmed strikes. This is not modified by any affect which increases an effective monk level (such as a Monk's Robe).

At 4th level, and every 4 levels thereafter, a monk gains a +1 enhancement bonus to attack and damage with unarmed strikes (maximum +5). This bonus does not allow an unarmed strike to bypass damage reduction. This bonus does not apply to any natural weapons other than unarmed strikes. This is an extraordinary ability which does not stack with any spell which gives an enhancement bonus to attacks and damage such as Magic Fang or Greater Magic Fang.

3) Replace the Flurry of Blows Class Feature description with:
Starting at 1st level, a monk gains the Two-Weapon Fighting feat.
At 8th level, the monk gains the Improved Two-Weapon Fighting feat.
At 15th level, the monk gains the Greater Two-Weapon Fighting feat.

These feats may be used to qualify for any feat which uses one of them as a pre-requisite, but their benefits only apply where the flurry of blows feats would apply. The monk may purchase any of these feats normally, in which case they may be used separately.

The benefits of the monk's flurry of blows feats apply only when attacking with nothing but unarmed strikes or monk weapons. He loses all benefits of these feats while attacking with anything else. The only exception is that primary and secondary natural attacks may be used as secondary attacks, as normal with a full attack action.

A monk applies his full Strength bonus to his damage rolls for all successful attacks made with flurry of blows (except for secondary natural attacks, which are treated normally), whether the attacks are made with an off-hand or with a weapon wielded in both hands. A monk may substitute disarm, sunder, and trip combat maneuvers for unarmed attacks as part of a flurry of blows.

4) Replace Maneuver Training Class Feature description with:
At 3rd level, a monk adds 1 point of Wisdom bonus (if any) per monk class level to Combat Maneuver Bonus. Bonuses granted from other abilities are unaffected and are added normally.

5) Modify the 4th bullet point of Ki Pool Class Feature:
At 16th level, his unarmed attacks are treated as adamantine and epic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction and bypassing hardness.

Explanations:

Basically, what these tweaks do is increase the effectiveness and versatility of a Monk's unarmed strikes while minimizing MAD scores and dip/natural-attack cheese.
With these rules:
A) The monk's BAB is equivalent to other combat classes.

B) Wisdom becomes a primary ability. By adding Wisdom to CMB and UA/MW damage, it brings Wisdom on par in usefulness to Strength and Dexterity.

This way, a Monk can either go WIS/STR to buff damage while keeping STR's attack bonus and WIS's AC bonus or WIS/DEX + Weapon Finesse to buff Attack and AC while keeping decent damage (though not as much as with WIS/STR and with a feat tax). For both of these, Wis applies to CMB so they can effectively do maneuvers. That way both the BEEFMONK and the Bruce Lee win and everybody's happy! By restricting it to 1/level, it reduces the incentive to dip for Clerics and Druids. (also, since the Wis damage bonus isn't limited to unarmed strikes, it doesn't break the Sohei!)

C) Unarmed attacks are buffed in a leveled manner equivalent to Greater Magic Fang, which I feel is fair considering the relative weakness of the Monk's standard abilities. It stacks with AOMF, but not with GMF or GMW. There may be problems with the BWOMS but, since that item is such a piece of crap anyway, I'd just as soon get rid of it entirely.

Also, since this buff doesn't count as a weapon enhancement bonus and is specifically placed in Improved Unarmed Strike rather than Ki Pool, it doesn't break the Ki Pool feature or the Martial Artist archetype (which is by far my favorite one).

For those that feel that this is too great a buff, remember that it only applies to the unarmed strike (not to monk weapons or natural attacks), that the AOMF already costs twice as much as a regular magic weapon, that it's leveled such that it doesn't apply in the case of dips and it's equivalent in power to a 3rd level spell which can already be easily and cheesily made permanent through Permanency. Consider that the Ranger and Paladin already get access to GMF and GMW, respectively! It's just one spell effect which does a lot to fix the relative nerf of Monk unarmed strikes compared to every other main weapon available (also consider that the Monk's unarmed strike still only has a Crit Mod of 20x2). This is for the simple reason that Unarmed Strikes can't be enchanted.

D) Flurry of Blows becomes usable for TWF feats and natural attacks that are generally denied to Monks (but are available to EVERYONE ELSE). This is a stroke of unfairness I'm glad to correct! At the same time, since Monk class bonuses don't apply to natural weapons, it doesn't create a crazy incentive to make hordes of clawmonks.

E) As far as I'm aware, none of these changes breaks any archetypes whatsoever! This means Paizo can make these fixes directly to the Core Rulebook and minimize hassle/costs. Even better, the changes are likely to be helpful to existing monk stat arrays so people don't have to completely rebuild their monks.

Please let me know what you guys think of these changes! I tried to make them as balanced, clean and simple as possible. If you like them, please voice your support so we can convince the Paizo staff to fix the monk.

That said, I'm really open to suggestions here because I really want this thing to work. If anyone would playtest it that would be awesome! I'm going to try to do so in my home game that I GM, but most of my players are pretty attached so their characters so we'll see how that goes.

This whole experiment was inspired by Dabbler's efforts HERE. I'm a huge fan of what he's doing, but my changes are based on a full BAB model. I understand that Paizo's unlikely to make such a radical change, but I really believe it's necessary.