just-a-bird's page

What are you rolling? An opposed attack roll?

I don't like that idea considering that defensive builds (especially when fighting defensively) often sacrifice a lot of to-hit points. That's why I chose to use CMD, mostly. I do tend to agree with the scaling penalty, or maybe I could just put in a similar restriction to Trip, depending on how the opposed roll works.

I agree with making Parry (Ex) exactly like Crane Wing mechanically, but I of course disagree that the current Crane Wing should be used as a model.

I will concede (as I sort of did in my previous post) that rolling only if they hit makes sense and saves time.

To help streamline what you're trying to do, just-a-bird, I would suggest having the "parry check" occur after a hit is rolled. As you have Crane Wing written, you have a lot of extra rolling, which would really slow down the game. Consider trimming the extra rolling down to the minimum amount needed.

-Matt

Thanks for the suggestion. I ordered it that way since it made the most "sense," that is, you parry a hit before it would actually hit you, but you're right in that comparing to the higher stat first (AC or CMD―it would vary per character, but generally CMD would actually be higher on this kind of build) would streamline gameplay a bit.

I have also considered reducing the checks to only one roll, but I feel that nerfs the ability too much and would also detract from the flavor.

In my previous post I said "Combat Expertise" but obviously I meant Combat Reflexes. Oops.

@Malachi: I agree with most of your points, and my idea for Crane Wing does address the mechanical issues you mentioned. Please reread my proposed changes.

I also agree that the feat shouldn't overshadow class abilities that are designed to parry, but as a player I wanted to modify as little as I could to get a parry mechanic I was happy with (my version of the feat hasn't been run by the DM yet; I was hoping to work out any glaring flaws in this topic first).

If I were the DM, I would do something like make the Duelist Parry ability reflect my changes to Wing and Tip, but without the bonus to AC. That way a Fighter interested in parrying would have to take Duelist levels, but a Monk could just use the Style. *shrug*

I'm much more interested in having workable mechanics than progression logistics at the moment, though.

I don't believe your change it at all necessary. It's a knee-jerk nerf to an ability that doesn't need it.

My position isn't that it's overpowered, it's that it's poorly written. It scales poorly and doesn't clarify what is meant by a "melee weapon attack." I feel that my version is more appropriate to the character's level. Not only does what you can parry scale with your stats (as well as with the size of you and your attacker, while still allowing you to parry Large or Huge monsters, but at a penalty), but with Combat Expertise you are able to parry a number of attacks equal to 1 + your Dex modifier per round when normally, realistically, you will not be able to utilize the full number of attacks granted by Combat Expertise. The original Crane Wing is far inferior in this respect, as you only ever get one parry per round, so when things start to have 6+ BAB, you are quickly outclassed by other abilities.

I put quite a bit of time into reading others' opinions and formulating what I feel is a cohesive fix to common complaints (claiming both that it's underpowered and overpowered).

Can you elaborate on what parts you consider to be a "knee-jerk nerf"?

I get that Crane Wing tends to provoke knee-jerk reactions, but I kind of feel like this thread has basically become "here are my preconceived notions of Crane Wing and how it should be changed" rather than a specific critique of my replacement. All of the replies could have been made without even reading the OP. I know it's kind of long and all, but I did write it for a reason.

I was aware of the Duelist before I was aware of Crane Wing, and really it's just not that good. You need to make a full attack, you need to seriously cut your damage output, and you need to make an attack roll, which monks are typically bad at especially if they're tricking out their AC.

Changing what I have for Crane Tip to the Duelist's Riposte would essentially be a huge nerf, since a character with Combat Expertise can already riposte.

As far as restricting the style to monks only, I feel that's unrelated and also an artificial attempt at buffing monks by taking the feats away from everyone else. (You can also just multi-class Monk, and as it is, that's the most effective way of getting the feats anyway.)

So, after reading a few threads discussing whether or not Crane Wing is balanced, I decided to try my hand at remedying the chief complaints, namely that it's vague, it doesn't make any sense from a realistic perspective, and it doesn't scale to player level properly at all. Because my version is so different from the original, I decided to replace Crane Riposte entirely with something that I felt fits the updated version of Crane Wing better. I'm not the most experienced with Pathfinder or d20 in general, so constructive criticism is welcome, but if you're going to rip apart my suggestions, please at least be polite about it. :)

Crane Wing (Combat)

You move with the speed and finesse of an avian hunter, your sweeping blocks and graceful motions allowing you to deflect melee attacks with ease.

Prerequisites: Crane Style, Dodge, Improved Unarmed Strike, base attack bonus +5 or monk level 5th.

Benefit: When you are attacked with a melee weapon (including unarmed strikes, natural attacks, touch attacks, and melee combat maneuver attempts) while using Crane Style, if you have at least one hand free and are either fighting defensively or using the total defense action, you may use an attack of opportunity to attempt to deflect that attack. You must declare that you are attempting to deflect the attack before the attack roll is made. If you do, the opponent must make an attack roll as if it were performing a combat maneuver against you. If the roll fails, the attack is deflected and is considered to have missed you. If it succeeds, the opponent must make another attack roll as normal in order to hit you. You may not use this feat when you could not normally make an attack of opportunity against the opponent, such as when you are flat-footed or when the opponent is not within your threatened area.

Crane Tip

You are so adept at parrying attacks that you can knock your opponents off-guard.

Prerequisites: Crane Style, Crane Wing, Dodge, Improved Unarmed Strike, base attack bonus +8 or monk level 7th.

Benefit: You take only a –1 penalty on attack rolls for fighting defensively. Whenever you successfully deflect an opponent's attack using Crane Wing, the opponent provokes an attack of opportunity. If the opponent's attack failed by 10 or more when determining whether it was deflected, the opponent is knocked off balance and is considered to be flat-footed until its next turn.

I know the wording is incredibly awkward, and much of that is due to my lack of experience, but at the same time I wanted to explicitly clarify as much of the confusion about the official feat as I could. There are a few reasons that I use a combat maneuver to determine the success of the parry:

• Special size modifiers are applied. A Small monk can no longer (feasibly) parry the claw attack of a Colossal Dragon.
  
• The parry is no longer automatic, which was silly, but the one parrying has plenty of opportunity to improve their ability to do so by improving their Str or Dex bonuses, increasing their size, or increasing their CMD in any number of other ways. This way the ability to parry cleanly scales with the character's power level, and while the attacker is at a disadvantage, with enough of a gap in power level the parryer can still be hit.

In addition, as many of you probably noticed, a character can choose Combat Expertise to greatly expand their parrying/riposting opportunities. This attempts to solve the problem of Crane Wing being unscaleable in terms of number of attacks, which in the early game was too powerful and in the late game was almost useless. With Crane Tip, a character without Combat Reflexes still benefits from the feat if an ally can get an AoO on the opponent, or if the opponent fails by 10 or more, but with Combat Reflexes, the parryer can riposte the opponent themselves. This whole system makes a lot more sense to me than "lol instant hand wave."

So, again, I'm sure these could use improvement and they may be completely off the mark, but please give me your feedback if you have any.