underling's page

I've been with you guys from day 1, and while I am just as happy with your product now as I was 116 issues ago, I sadly need to ask you to cancel my adventure path subscription.

Thanks,

Underling

Since I've been GMing for most of the last 25 years, I've used a number of setting, mostly Greyhawk with a little gaming in Darksun and Ravenloft for variety.

Since the end of dungeon magazine, I have only run games in Ptolus (we did the spire campaign) and my own homebrew, which is a bronze age world. Golarion doesn't really appeal to me. Feels too huge, like Forgotten Realms did.

I actually use the APs (so far we have used Kingmaker and The Red Hand of Doom) to flesh out parts of my world. I just modify the trappings and make it fit, but leave the stories otherwise intact. I think Tides of dread mixed with selected parts of other APs will be the next campaign set in my homebrew. I'm envisioning Robinson Crusoe meets Jurassic Park.

This style works pretty well with the magus, as well. Especially a kensai, as the more things you can pile onto their int stat, the more you can deemphasize their other stats.

Honestly, I'd go for the wolf (or another single attack large creature) for several reasons.

1- it reaches large, making it a very strong animal.

2- Since it only has 1 natural attack, it does 1.5 strength damage as if using a 2-handed weapon. See large size above and note high strength.

3- when you read greater magic fang, you should note that it can give +1 to all attacks or its full bonus to ONE natural attack. Wolves only have the bite, so this is good. As an animal companion base attack begins to lag at higher levels, this can help compensate for that problem.

4. When multi-attack is reached, the wolf instead gains a second attack with the bite at -5, much like a character would with a weapon. this still counts as a single natural attack, so enjoy your 1.5 strength bonus.

5. Trip on all attacks against large targets or smaller for free.

6. No need for an amulet of natural attacks. Those things are stupid expensive, and if you shape change as a druid, you might need one for yourself. No one can afford 2 of those things.

With some minor magic items and all of the druid's long duration buff spells (greater magic fang, barkskin, etc...) my 13th level druid's wolf fights slightly better than the 3/4 BA characters in the party. Average damage is in the mid 20s- mid 30s range per power attack with a +21/+16 to hit.

I learned that unlike WoTC, Paizo realized that a company built around quality adventures could be more successful than one built around hardcover rulebook bloat. The APs are what keep me coming back here. No one makes adventures as good as Paizo's.

On the negative side, I feel that I have learned that the opinions of organized play members/PFS management matter more than general customers. If its a problem for PFS it gets solved, even if the solution is unpopular with the community at large. If its a problem for the community (monk), it gets studied.

I know some board members will take offense to this observation. Don't. I've been here an awful long time (since the plain blue site, actually). I've spent a boatload of dollars with Paizo. I'm not walking in out of the wild and slamming Paizo. This is just my opinion about things. I think they are a solid company, but no one is perfect. Monday morning rules quarterbacking (this is what we always meant when its a clear rules change based off their own publication history) and pandering to organized play are the problems i see here.

FallofCamelot wrote:

Hmmm...

Conflict is the essence of drama. However, abusing your female characters has become somewhat of an unfortunate trope in fantasy writing. Using rape and humiliation as drama is depressingly common especially in comics (both Marvel and DC are guilty of this).

This is something my fiancee thinks as well. On of the most recent novels I've read was The Painted Man by Peter V. Brett, which featured the rape of a woman without any reason whatsoever. That was a major cause for anger.

I have no such qualms when it comes to drama, abuse, etc. regardless of gender. But that's just me.

To all of you, thank you for all the recommendations, I'll check them out, as well as the mentioned threat. My fiancee already read the two first Pathfinder Tales, maybe Plague of Shadows would be something.
Again, thank you so much!

While I understand and sympathize with your (and your fiance's ) distaste for such situations in your fantasy novels, I need to call shenanigans on this post. I have also read this book, and the rape in question was committed by bandits who had every intention of killing their victims (by leaving them helpless in the wilderness as the corelings were about to rise). This, while unpleasant, was not gratuitous. It was realistic. There is a reason that the terms rape and pillage go together in the vernacular. In this case, the distateful event (which occurs off camera I might add) is a piece of versimilitude that fits the environs and circumstances of the story.'

Please understand that I am not questioning your reaction, just the statement that it was unwarranted in the novel. I hope you are successful in finding books that appeal to both of your tastes. I recommend the Mara of the Acoma novels (empire?) by Raymond Feist. Very strong female protagonist.

As a wizard you HAVE to use mage armor until you can replace it with something better. Something better means bracers of armor or at least +5 (25000gp). Since wealth per level cramps your purchasing power for an item like this until about 11 or 12th level (you need to buy spells and too many other items), there is no logical reason to eliminate mage armor from your rotation until then.

have you considered the unarmed fighter or brawler archetypes for the fighter class? They have a lot of monk-like combat ability, but drastically reduce your MAD. Eldritch knight is also a very good viable choice here.

If you do go with monk, you really need a 3/4 - 1/4 split between the classes at most. Either you are a monk with a little arcane power, or a wizard with some monk training. With this philosophy, the MAD also goes down. In a 20 pt buy that focuses on wizard, put a 17 (racial bonus applied) in int and you would still have 13 points to spread around your monk stats. You could easily dump chr to 8 and have 14s in dex, con and wis. Not great, but you would be effective. go 2 or 3 levels of monk and then wizard for a good long time.

The monastic legacy feat (selectable at monk3) also helps with damage as half your non-monk levels are applied when calculating unarmed damage.

Dragonchess Player wrote:

An arcane archer makes a highly effective mage-killer with antimagic field imbued arrows, not to mention color spray, flare burst, fog cloud, frost fall, glitterdust, gust of wind, web, daylight, hydraulic torrent, lightning bolt, pellet blast, shifting sand, sleet storm, stinking cloud, vision of hell, black tentacles, confusion, crushing despair, detonate, fear, obsidian flow, river of wind, shout, solid fog, etc.; note that you can also make the argument that the various pit spells are area spells.

... I... I'm going to go build a bard/arcane archer now.

The Barcher is a very nice combo. bard 8, and then all arcane archer.

Take a look at adding the black blade archetype to your kensai. you'll always stay ahead of the weapon bonus curve plus you don't have to pay for your sword freeing up more money for other purchases.

It's more important than damage rolls, but you need to consider that your monk's single attack is made with his 3/4 BAB rather than the flurrying full BAB. You have about the same chance to hit, but you have less attacks.

True for a straight monk. But the design I posted is a monk/unarmed fighter. Most levels end up in the fighter column, so you're advancing with full BAB. That's why you invest in monastic legacy and its also how you can benefit from fighter only benefits like weapon training, greater focus, weapon spec and greater specialization.

You have very low offense with this build.

W/o flurry you don't have a lot of attacks - and our damage calculations are off, since your unarmed attack STR bonus (w/o flurry) is (with Dragon Ferocity) x1.5 for your main hand attacks (x2 on the first one every round) -- but at level 6 you still only get a single attack per round. If you want offense and you are giving up Flurry, you really need to either pick up a two handed weapon or invest the DEX and go TWF (Dragon...

I beg to differ. I have the number somewhere, but don't want to look for them right now - I'll just explain the logic here. DPR stays ahead of the curve for flurry based monks the whole way for 2 reasons. 1st, your chance to hit is far superior with this build. Between no 2 wpn fighting penalty from flurry and no to hit penalty from power attack, you will always be power attacking at a very high chance to hit. The 2nd reason is getting tiger claw at 7th level. You now roll once at full BAB and hit twice. 2 dice, 2 bonuses, and if you crit, 2 criticals. Those are both at x2 strength damage since they are one strike.

at 6th level you should be +12 to hit for d8+15. At 7th that jumps to 2d8 + 30. at 8th (with better equipment, wpn spec and a stat bump) it goes up more. By 10th level you should be over +20 to hit and doing 2d8 + 50 or more. Don't forget that you are eligible for fighter weapon training bonuses as well as greater focus and greater spec. That all adds up fast.

Don't ever underestimate the role to hit chance plays in DPR. In many ways its equally important to damage rolls.

I've posted this idea in several threads right after Ultimate Combat hit the stores, but I love it enough to post again. Its all about early feat entry to gain abilities well below the level a standard monk would have them.Go Fighter/Monk and use the unarmed fighter with a Quigong Master of Many Styles.

Here is a potential feat progression to level 6.

F1 = power attack, weapon focus unarmed (HB), and Dragon style (FB)
F1/M1 = Tiger style (MB)
F1/M2 = Tiger Pounce (MB), improved grapple
F2/M3 = Dragon Ferocity, monastic legacy (FB)

at 7th level (F3/M4) you'd grab tiger claws as your final style feat.

Now a Master of Many styles gives up flurry, but this character would never go beyond Monk4. you'd continue as an unarmed fighter for the rest of your career. You wear armor and your only Quigong power is barkskin, which you can use 3-4 times a day at level 6 to get a natural armor bump. But the benefits of this fighting style are sick.

since you can use them at the same time, by 6th level you can:
1 always power attack at no penalty to hit (off AC instead)
2 add 2x str to your 1st hit, and 1.5 str on all other hits.
3 critical or stun will result in your opponent being shaken for d4+str rounds.
4 also, unarmed strikes can deal slashing dmg and do d4 bleed on a crit
5 ignore difficult terrain on a run/charge/withdraw AND charge through allies
6 +2 vs sleep, paralysis, stunning, bull rush, overrun or trip.

In a 15 point buy I'd start with 17/14/13/10/12/8
In a 20 point, I'd go 18/14/14/10/12/8

Bomanz wrote:

I seriously don't get the whole "Monks have lousy AC" trope...I have yet to see any game, home brew 25pt buy or PFS or anything where the monk didn't have the highest AC by at least 4, and often 6-10 AC points, and that was before the ki channeling for an additional 4.

I'd like to see this explained. How does a monk have better AC than a fighter in level-appropriate armor, barring cherry-picking of items on the monk's part, and not on the fighter's.

Lets set the level arbitrarily at 8:

Fighter totally unoptimized for AC: Fullplate+2, Dex13. Leaves him with 22. Hardly GOOD, but this guy is likely doing around 50-70 damage per round, since all his stats, money and feats are going towards hurting someone real bad. Hits reliably and hard.

Fighter considering AC: Fullplate+2, Maguffin+1, Dex14+2, Dodge. Suddenly 26. A more balanced build.

Fighter optimized for AC: Fullplate+2, Shield+2, Two maguffins+1, dodge, combat expertise and shield focus, Dex14+2. AC32 unless his shield is a tower shield. Not gonna hit too hard or reliably.

How does a monk beat this by at least 4?

8th level dwarf monk

20 pt buy (PFS standard)
str 20 (10pt, plus 2 for leveling, plus 2 for belt)
dex 12 (2 pt)
Con 16 (5 pt, plus 2 racial)
int 10
wis 18 (5pt, plus 2 racial, plus 2 belt)
chr 6 (-2, minus 2 racial)

Quiggong power @ lvl 4 barkskin (+3 NA, 80 minutes, 1 ki)
bracers of armor +3, ring of protection +2, headband of wisdom +2, belt of strength +2, amulet of mighty fist +1, plus 3000gp of crap

AC: 26 (with dodge) if you fight defensively (with acrobatics and crane style your AC goes to 30+. Note that this is not an AC optimized monk with a 12 dex))

chance to hit in a flurry: +13/+13/+8/+8 (with wpn focus). damage is d10+6 x 4.

Is it the fighter's equal? no. Is it good enough to be a valuable combatant? yes. When you factor in the best saves in the game, plus all of your myriad of other abilities, you have a character every bit as good as other classes.

People really become myopic about character building. Just because a class is not the BEST at any one thing does not make them ineffective. being good enough at many things can be invaluable in a party.

StabbittyDoom wrote:

Uh... Grick? How is something explicitly listed on the weapons chart not a weapon?

I don't see lines like this anywhere: "The damage from a longsword is considered weapon damage for the purposes of effects that give you a bonus on weapon damage rolls."

Why? Because a longsword is a melee weapon.

but it's there for an unarmed strike...

SKR said, in the thread about gauntlets/cestus/brassknuckes: "Making all of these weapons act 100% like weapons and not refer to unarmed attacks at all"

If you have weapons permanently attached to each of your limbs, how can you be unarmed?

If every unarmed strike is a weapon, why do monk's get called out as treating them that way for certain effects?

"Striking for damage with punches, kicks, and head butts is much like attacking with a melee weapon..."

When the town guard demands you drop your weapons, they don't cut off your hands and feet.

Under Natural Attacks it mentions "melee weapon and unarmed strikes" twice.

Magic Weapon: You can't cast this spell on a natural weapon, such as an unarmed strike (instead, see magic fang). A monk's unarmed strike is considered a weapon, and thus it can be enhanced by this spell.

Yes, it's mentioned on a table, (a table which is in error - see SKR's post) and because it's a handy place to have the damage to compare to, say, a gauntlet or sword. It's also mentioned under Nonlethal damage "You can use a weapon that deals nonlethal damage, including an unarmed strike, to deal lethal damage instead" which bundles unarmed in with weapons.

I don't believe the intent was for a fist to be a melee weapon. Why bother with Amulet of Mighty Fists when you could just enchant your fists directly?

Ice Titan wrote:

There's a very absurd idea going around the Paizo boards that natural weapons are not weapons.

Even if natural weapon are weapons, that doesn't affect unarmed strikes.

Equipment: "Unarmed strikes do not count as natural weapons (see Combat)."

There must be some mighty upset rabbits on these boards, because you my friend are splitting some mighty fine hares.

See what I did there? And for the record, I believe that you are reading entirely too much into this circumstance. An unarmed attack is a weapon that always counts as light. Story over.

Why do adventure paths begin at level 1? I been looking through the various Adventure paths and I noticed that they all begin at Level 1, which I find to be the most boring level

Um... because many people like those levels. Low level play requires smart tactics, and encourages improvisation and creative use of resources. In other words, fun.

Adding the monk levels I reviewed the styles and none of them peaked my interest for this character, or either the stats above didnt meet the prereqs. Am I missing anything?

With master of many styles you ignore prereqs and can use two styles at the same time in exchange for giving up flurry.

Personally I like the master of many 2/ninja x STR instead of Dex

By level 10 you have full crane style tree, sap mastery/knockout artist, enforcer/shatter defenses.

Nice defense, tons of damage, lots of sneak attack.

And evasion.

And Wis to AC (wear bracers of armor).

Can do Wis to ninja Ki too. But with the need for Cha on all the intimidate checks, might be best not.

The only problem with wisdom for ki is I am almost possitive that you actually have to have reached the class feature to make that choice. Thus you need 4 levels of monk.

If you did go this route, the advantage is that you can further prop up one of your weakest saves, Will. Since many Save or suck spells target will, this is a good thing.

... but until you can roll higher than an 18 on 3d6, I don't see much of a point in claiming that they're wrong. They're not. 18 (20 with racial mod) is the highest a starting human can have, and every character having it becomes incredibly droll.

with respect, the statement above is not only irrelevant, its actually wrong. What you can roll on a 3d6 is completely irrelevant in PFRPG - it is not the norm of character building for home games or organized play. It is an optional rule system that some people like, but no more. I've been playing since 1982, and I happily abandoned the randomness of rolling for the order and balance of point buy.

EDIT: removed a redundant statement

monk[flowing]1/ninjaX

If I were not going to go straight ninja, I would much prefer a 2 level dip into monk (master of many styles). With just those 2 levels, you can complete all 3 feats of the crane style, which work with both unarmed strike and weapons. As a ninja, the +4 AC when fighting defensively (-1 to hit instead of -4) would be a huge boon for a strength build. PLus the ability to negate a hit without rolling and get an immediate retaliatory strike is huge. Having this at 2nd level would ensure that your ninja could get into melee even if con was a little low.

If you go straight ninja, I would suggest int be your dump stat. An 8 is no problem since you get so many skill points and a bonus rank for human ( you are human, right?)

try S:16(18) D:13 C:12 I:8 W:10 CH:13 as your array.

put your 1st 2 stat bumps into dex and chr, and you're ready to roll. Use Katana for the beautiful threat range, plus str x 1.5 and power attack x1.5 for great damage.

I can see how it has extreme utility for a Magus,

For an equally valid (and stylistically pleasing) alternative, try the katana wielding, strength based bladebound-kensai magus. Intelligence replaces dex for AC, init, and provides many other benefits. You can basically dump dex and only have AC issues at the very lowest of levels. By 10th, you're a beast.

For me, its an attractive Feat entirely because of style. I vastly prefer the idea of a nimble, skill based fighter to a brutish, strength based one... Dervish Dance lets the little guy compete.

I know that the comparison I'm about to draw is coincidental, but after Drizzt I'm completely burnt out on nimble scimitar wielding fighters. I know Paizo created this feat because of their love for Saranrae (evidenced by all of the dawnflower references in feats, traits, modules, pregens, campaign stories from the devs, etc...)

Regardless of origin, I honestly would prefer that any weapon that can be used with weapon finesse would function with this feat. Failing that, I'd rather see the feat not exist at all. We already see far more scimitars than I'd prefer. To have it be the ONLY weapon that gets this benefit makes me groan every time a 'new'

Does the enhancement bonus from Magic Weapon and Magic Vestment stack with existing bonuses on the gear in question?

So if I had a magic +1 greatsword and +1 full plate, could I also have Magic weapon and vestment cast on them to raise their bonuses temporarily?

Thanks

Since both spells provide enhancement bonuses (same as the items), the spells bonuses would not add to, but rather supercede the items. This would occur only if the spell's bonus was greater than the bonus of the item, otherwise you would get no benefit at all.

Terry is...often quite unintentionally hilarious: .... homosexuality... should be allowed on the basis that this means hot lesbians can hang out in his kingdom
Goodkind is ... fond of insulting his own readers and seems to have an inexplicable grudge against the nation of Canada,

WOW I've got to give this guy another chance! Sounds great! 3 for 3!

I intentionally left the context as neutral as I could, not wanting to color anyone's perceptions. You are not in the orc's home. The orc doesn't have blood-splattered clothes. You are not in a princess's tower. You are not at the town's treasury. It's a neutral place. He may be holding his weapon, but heck, so are you. Don't most characters explore a dungeon with a weapon drawn? However, to those that want "more context":

Context) You are investigating a dungeon/caverns/ruins/canyon/whatever, and you have no information on what may be there, other than a rumor of lost wealth.

Perhaps saying "roll initiative" was a bad choice. Perhaps I should have said "you suprised the orc, and have the chance to make an action". The point was, I think most people (myself included) that were playing supposedly good characters have been/will be guilty of attacking a creature unprovoked, and is that really what a good character should do? I think not. This is particularly important for Paladins, but could be important to anyone (like my example of almost killing the new PC).

This is why I no longer play good characters. Neutral lets me kill the damn orc for the general good and move on with the adventure. Many of my neutral characters do good and heroic things in ways many of you consider 'not good' or 'bad wrong think'. So fine, you can call me neutral, I'll ditch the good moniker, and get on with what I consider good behavior.

Seriously, how is it reasonable to hobble a good character with peaceful, sensitive morals of the 21st century in a roleplaying game simulating a much more primitive, violent period. In many periods of history, killing a predator or a cultural enemy was good, as it increased the chance of your clan/family/village's survival. Now you're eradicating an endangered species or committing murder. This type of projecting morals and values onto other cultures and time periods is the very definition of ethnocentrism, and frankly, it seems to be getting wildly out of control in these type of discussions.

Rhino hide barding

Start with the cost of hide armor (15 gp) and multiply it by 4 for a large non-humanoid animal. That yields 60 gold for the barding. Add 150 for masterwork. The total is now 210. Reverse engineering the cost of Rhino Hide armor yields 165 for the masterwork, 4000 for the +2, and an additional 1000 for the charge bonus.

Would it seem correct then to say barding of the Rhino would cost 5210? That would be 60 for the barding, 150 for the masterwork, 4000 for the enhancement and 1000 for the charge bonus.

twisting your mind and smashing your dreams
blinded by me you cant see a thing
just call my name 'cuz I'll hear your scream
Master! Master!

Nice reference. Great album.

There are a couple of problems around this concept. First, Boar style does not give you piercing. Boar Ferocity does, but not Boar Style. Snake Style does it in one feat as opposed to the 2 that you'd have to spend for boar style. So that is a waste, unless you like bleed damage.

The other problem is coming up with a way to get a better crit range than just 20. There's what... Improved Critical that you can get at BAB 8? Yeah, 19-20 threat range happens, just not enough. If there was a way to lower it, then I'd be all about this as I love your description of the sock puppet style.

Hey nice catch on the boar style. I was misled by the table in the UC pdf which says boar style allows bludgeoning or piercing. Its actually slashing. So I guess you can officially switch Sock-Puppet (Meat-Puppet?) prerequisites to serpent style for the piercing damage.

As for the efficacy of this combo, I know it sucks. The chances of pulling this off in a fight are so close to nill that its barely worth considering as an option. But the humor factor is unmatched in PFRPG. Heck, the fact that it IS possible (if highly improbable) amusing me to no end. If you want this to actually be somewhat practical, use a cestus and get the keen enchantment on it. 17-20 crit range on a piercing weapon. You still need to be at least a 13th level fighter to get all of the feats, so its no easy task.

I think I saw that feat used in a movie once.

The classic 80's anime Fist of the Northstar had a similar scene. One guy was punching his finger into the helpless protagonist. Come to think of it, that movie is a great source of visual ideas for over the top unarmed combat for a PF game. You had exploding heads (Quivering palm?) iron bodies, vorpal fingers, and more.

As for the combo, with improved impaling critical, once you impale the guy he needs a grapple check against you to pull free. If he fails that first one and you grapple him, he gets on check a round, so he can either break the grapple or pull your hand out - not both.

Quote:

I just received my copy of UC in the mail today, and began working on a plan to add the Dimensional series of feats to my Magus. My idea was to get to level 10 as a Magus (in order to get forth level spells) and then finish off with two levels of fighter using bonus feats to pick up Dimensional Assault and Dimensional Dervish as my level 12 capstone...

However, just as I was patting myself on the back for my ingenuity, I realized that none of the Dimensional feats are Combat feats. So I'm back to square one.

Dimensional Dervish is another one of those pounce-like gimmicks -- if that's what you really wanted to do....

01 rogu1 TWF
02 rogu2 Quick Getaway

...spot unaware target; declare INIT.

...spend surprise round and possibly subsequent rounds sneaking adjacent to victim (or drink potion of Invisibility beforehand).

...full-attack flat-footed opponent with sneak-attack for 2x(1d4+1d6+?) = ~12hp, enough to drop any non-boss at Tier 1-2.

...(if unsuccessful in dropping opponent) Quick Getaway withdraw action.

* * * *

Pounce is overrated if a 1st-level character with the right skills or cheap equipment can approximate a reasonable facsimile.

Ummm... your 'facsimile' requires expending potions ($$$) or multiple rounds (2+) PLUS successful stealth checks against opposed perception and it depends on lighting conditions (stealth modifiers) to replace an ability that can be done in a single round for free. Sorry, but that is not a reasonable facsimile.

Even pounce is not a true facsimile of the dimensional dervish ability. Its a teleport effect. That ignores intervening enemies, most battlefield distance, and terrain between you and the target. Can a rogue do that? Heck, can pounce? Dimensional dervish has a lot of upside, that's why its so difficult to fit in under 12th level.

And by giggle, I mean really more of that evil GM chuckle that makes player go oh Shit!

So lets imagine an unarmed fighter who uses boar style. If he has boar style, body shield, impaling critical and improved impaling critical all sorts of fun can ensue. Boar style lets unarmed strikes do piercing damage. With impaling critical (that requires critical focus and weapon spec in your piercing weapon) you actually impale your victim on your weapon when you critical. In this case, your hand. Improved impaling critical, while unnecessary, does make it harder for your victim to escape. So, now that your hand is literally somewhere inside your opponent and you are doing damage every round until they manage to remove it, what should you do? grapple.

Once they are impaled and then grappled, you can use body shield to move them between you and one attack each round. If the provided cover forces a miss, your impaled victim takes the damage instead.

I call this my Sock Puppet combat style. Oh man, now I'm giggling again. Gotta go re-stat that arena barbarian from Kingmaker 5 to use this style.:)

underling wrote:

Master of many styles multiclassed with a fighter with the unarmed archetype ftw. look at how this works.

You must start with 1 level of fighter. You get any style feat (ignoring prereqs) and can take power attack and weapon focus at 1st level.

I'm inspired by your build to include a 1 level dip of unarmed fighter into any monk archetype. You get good hit die, access to all the yummy new martial/exotic monk weapons (three sectioned staff is 1d10 19-20 crit, that sure beats the 1d6 damage you're doing at 1st level), and a free style feat that is pre-reqs free (I'm thinking snake fang myself, that way I can take snake style later and have the full revenge combo (snake style/panther style) up and running early).

prototype00

Agreed. One level of unarmed fighter compliments any monk build quite well. the weapons, the BAB and HP, and also the free style feat make it practically a no-brainer for almost any build. And yes, snake-panther is quite nice.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Tiger Style: the Tiger Pounce ability to apply your Power Attack penalty to your AC, instead of your attack, is amazingly powerful.

I guess I don't understand the fascination with the Nodachi and various deities' favored weapons: you still only get to add 1xSTR when you use a weapon with flurry of blows. The Power Attack bonus to damage is nice, it's not as nice as it is for a fighter wielding a two handed weapon. It does look like there might be some synergy between this weapon-wielding approach and Tiger Pounce...

Master of many styles multiclassed with a fighter with the unarmed archetype ftw. look at how this works.

You must start with 1 level of fighter. You get any style feat (ignoring prereqs) and can take power attack and weapon focus at 1st level.

Your 2nd and 3rd levels would be master of many styles monk. At each level, you get an additional free style feat, (ignoring prereqs again!). After this, you can go with either class and you will have a strong character. My prefered route is 4 levels of monk (for ki pool and monastic legacy) and straight fighter.

PROS: in those 1st three levels, you can get power attack, weapon focus and one other useful feat with your 1st/3rd and human bonus feat. The beauty lies in your bonus style feats. Take tiger style, dragon style and tiger pounce. By 3rd level, you can do 1.5 strength damage AND power attack with no penalty to hit. At 5th level, you can get dragon ferocity, and at 7th you qualify for tiger strike. That means by 7th level, you can do a power attack tiger strike where you roll once to hit at max bonus, while power attacking and enjoying double strength damage on each of two damage rolls. Until base attack reaches 11, this is the only full attack option you will ever want to make.

CONS: you lose flurry of blows. I'm not gonna lie, this is a biggie. That's why in many respects, I view Master of many style as an awesome dip option rather than a single class. If you multiclass, you'll never have a great flurry anyway, so its not as big a sacrifice. Now with the new unarmed archetypes for fighter and barbarians, there are a lot of attractive options to consider. Other than the loss of flurry, there really isn't a downside to the archetype.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

you can sneak attack multiple times with them in a round.

Don't see why not.

I believe you need the quickdraw feat to throw more than one weapon in a round. Other than that, you're spot on. A high strength ninja with the clustered shot feat and the flurry of stars trick (or just rapid shot) can shred damage reduction with these.

The feat says that a 15'cone issues from the monk doing his unarmed damage to all in the area. Is that just the monk's unarmed damage roll from the class table? Does it include the effect of items like the monk robe or stat bonuses? What about amulet of the mighty fist?

Essentially, the feat seems unclear whether this is a simple die roll at whatever die a monk of your level would use, or an actual damage roll for one of your unarmed attacks. At the investment of 2 uses of stunning fist, the straight die roll seems a paltry result, but again, the text is not specific. However, the difference is significant, as the answer makes this feat either a nice tactical option or one that would never be taken.

These days I only see it come out...why, in threads just like this. To "prove" that 3e is better then 4e.

3rd edition is better. 3 IS the magic number, after all. I grew up with a song telling me that, so it has to be true.

And if you are fighting unarmed, why aren't you a monk?

Let me see if I can provide you with a good argument why you won't be a straight monk. The below design uses a fusion of dragon and tiger style, relies on armor in lieu of wisdom, and ignores two weapon fighting. The idea is to maximize damage and chance to hit unarmed, while gaining abilities as early as possible. Earlier access to core abilities increases performance through all levels, which in my opinion, makes any build stronger.

You must start with Fighter (unarmed kit) so you can get power attack and weapon focus at 1st level. You also get a bonus style feat (ignore prereqs)as well. You would then follow with 3 levels of monk (master of many styles) to earn 2 more bonus style feats, and finally an additional level of fighter so you can take monastic legacy and dragon ferocity at the same level. After this, I would take 1 more level of monk and then you can choose to go fighter or monk from then on out, depending on which class has the features you want. Here is the basic level progression through level 6:

human F1 = power attack, weapon focus, tiger style
f1/m1 = dragon style
f1/m2 = tiger pounce (taken well before the 10th level you would normally earn it!), improved grapple
f1/m3
f2/m3 = monastic legacy, dragon ferocity
f2/m4 = either ki pool (magic), or exploit weakness (if playing martial artist instead of quigong)

by level six, you:
1 have a way past DR.
2 you subtract your power attack penalty from AC, allowing full bonus Power attacks
3 you do 2x strength bonus (dragon style + ferocity) on 1st hit. you will do 1.5 strength bonus damage on all additional hits
4 you ignore difficult terrain while charge/run/withdraw and can charge through opponents.
5 you do damage as a monk level 5
6 on a critical, you do d4 bleed for 2 rounds.

and more. I'll edit later with the full list. Still, very interesting power build unarmed fighter

I was looking over Druid related feats in UM today and ran into greater wild empathy. On the surface, this feat looks quite nice. You can intimidate with wild empathy instead of just using diplomacy and you get to choose an entire new group (fey, elementals, plants, lycanthropes, or vermin) and have the ability apply to them as well. Sign me up!

However, in closer examination there is a glaring problem with the feat as written. It limits the use of wild empathy against the new group to members who have an intelligence of 1 or 2. Ok.... that limits its utility quite a bit. Lets check the PFd20SRD for all Paizo published monsters that meet the criteria.

Elementals = 0
Fey = 0
vermin = 0 (they are all mindless by definition!)
Lycanthropes = 0
plants = 1 (as pointed out below. plus an additional 3rd party plant).

So, the 2nd half of this feat cannot be used with any creature existing in the game? To make matters more confusing, the feat offers rules for taking it multiple times (you may add another group for the feat to work with. or not work, actually). I suspect the feat was never intended to have the 1 or 2 intelligence restriction applied. Or perhaps this never came up during play testing. Can we get some official clarification on this please?

Thank you for making a great game!

The 'Ling

Any response? I can't be the only one wondering about this. Is this a candidate for the ask James Jacobs thread?

Mark Gedak 27 wrote:

Is there any chance that future Planet Stories would also be available in ePub? It would be nice to be able to read them on ereaders as well as in print as subscribers.

We only have print rights for most of the books, but creating ePubs and PDFs of the others is on our to-do list.

That's good to hear. I'd love to read these on my kindle. Were there any Planet Stories announcements at Gencon? I'm not keen on listening to the podcasts, so I'm looking for some news in print.

Gorbacz wrote:

Good grief, why nerf the only weapon worth blowing EWP on?

Because it's starting to reach the point where it is not just a good choice, but they ONLY choice worth making. The falcata, and all comparable high damage die 19-20 x3 crit weapons need a drawback to bring them back to reality.

This is why we cant have nice things! I recommend nerfing posters who want to nerf things. Their posts should be invisible to game devs so the rest of us can get on playing a game with some VARIETY. As it stands, nerfing the Falcata is ridiculous. I'd want other exotics upped in power. Right now, there is really NO reason to take EWP except for a paltry 1 or 2 good weapons. Nerfing them out of some misguided attempt to have people 'start taking other exotic weapons' (yeah right! why would you?) makes no sense from a design standpoint.

You want differentiation, not universal mediocrity.

Go 3 levels for still mind, then you can also take monastic legacy as well. You also pick up fast movement, +1 to all saves, and you don't lose on BAB.

That's a good idea. I see a progression that starts with 1 level of fighter (Unarmed fighter achetype) followed by 3 levels of monk (master of many styles archetype) and then all fighter. You'd get to use 2 styles at once, and many of the fighter archetype's abilities work nicely with your monk styles. I'd honestly avoid crane style because of the 'fighting defensively' restriction. A hard hitting version might look like this:

Human Fighter (Unarmed)/Monk (many styles)
F1 - weapon focus(unarmed), power attack (human bonus), Dragon style (fighter bonus)

F1/M1- Tiger style (monk bonus - to get fusion right away)
F1/M2- Tiger claws (monk bonus - harder to get than dragon feocity), improved initiative (or whatever else floats your boat)
F1/M3
F2/M3 - monastic legacy(fighter bonus), dragon ferocity

by 5th level, you are hitting for double str on the 1st strike and 1.5 str on every other. This is due to combining dragon and tiger with your fuse ability. You don't have flurry, but with a figher HP and BAB progression, you should be substantially better off than a straight master of many styles. Plus, as your monk AC bonuses and stunning fists are really just a low level sideshow in this build, you can do all of this while wearing light armor as well.

Isn't Spring Attack it's own full-round action these days, meaning you can't fight defensively (the option for which is only available for a standard action or a full-attack action) while using it?

HAHAHHAHA! Oh, how did I miss that! You are correct. Spring attack is a full round action. You can't fight defensively or total defense and still spring attack.

I delcare this thread officially over. Crane attack is useful, but no more than that, as it is of limited utility. Bow strings do not exist in the game, cannot be sundered and do not need to be enchanted seperately. A locking gauntket IS NOT part of a sword. That's why they have a seperate entry in the equipment list. So many silly arguments slain. YAY logic!

Jiraiya22 wrote:

First glance at this archetype made me cringe. Who would want a monk without flurry of blow? Secong glance though, I noticed that they get style feats in the same way that monks get their normal feats, no prereqs necessary. So does this mean my level 2 human monk can blow all his feats to get the full Crane Style tree? If so, could this make up for a lack of flurry or is it still not enough to make a Master of Many Styles viable compared to Average Joe Monk?

I had wondered about that as well. As written, I am lead to believe that the only prerequisite the Master of Many Styles has to meet is that he has the previous style feat in the chain (IE: Crane Style before Crane Wing, Crane Wing before Crane Riposte).

It reads that way to me. It's a shocker if that's actually the case.

** spoiler omitted **

Emphasis mine. He requires no other prerequisites than the style feat. Kinda crazy. I'm rolling one up now.

See, I read that as referring only to monk bonus feats. When he takes a bonus feat at 1,2,6, 10, etc... he can take any style feat, or feat in a style he already has ignoring prerequisites. Regular feats every odd level would not get this benefit.

Aelryinth wrote:

There's nothing in the rules that defends a bowstring being as hard to damage as the bow it's attached to...

Really? You're going there?

Just walk away. There is no winning this one.

TL;DR: Yes, you could choose time stop as your Magical Lineage if you wanted to. I wouldn't recommend it, but it's perfectly legal. Maybe you were conceived during a time stop? That's actually a cool bit of flavor for a character. I see no reason to disallow it.

Wow, that would take some fast work. I'd probably require the wizard to have quickdraw to pull it out er... pull it off. :)

Ok, I'm ashamed. and done.

Jiggy wrote:

So to make sure I'm understanding you correctly:

The "shenanigans" refers to the flavor dissonance created by picking a spell you can't cast yet?

That's pretty much it.

To be completely fair here, LazarX, it appears to be your reading of the fluff that suggests experimentation. The actual text explicitly states your parents were great users of magic and you have inherited their knack. That's it. Nothing about you experimenting or learning a trick, but rather due to heredity you are somehow better at using a spell than normal. I honestly can't see how the fluff would suggest that taking a non 1st level spell would be metagamey.

As a PFS judge, I'd have to allow it. I'd forbid pulling such shennanigans on any campaign I run though.

How is that shenanigans? Your dad was an entertainer so you pick charm monster or pyrotechnics. Or mom was an exterminator so you pick fireball ;) there's really no harm done by allowing this. Honestly, the higher level the spell they choose, the longer they have to wait for any benefit out of this trait.

makes sense to me.

I really hope you're not suggesting that a taut string is harder to cut then a loose one laying on the ground...and somehow you're mistaking a hilt as something 'detachable on demand', instead of 'replaceable by a skilled craftsman with a lot of time and work.'

As for slugfests, if you read the Drizz't duels, they're all about movement, footwork, and correct placement of blows...they aren't about sitting in place and slugging one another. Since there are no parries in standard D@D at ANY level of the game, none of the duels that Drizz't fights are even possible...ingame, he would have hit Entreri with EVERY SINGLE SWING, and Entreri would have hit him. Drizz't had, what, a 24 AC? 20th level fighter? Specialized, finesse with a 20 dex, +3 to +5 weapon, and no penalties for dual wielding in earlier versions of the game?

He couldn't miss.

And also note that Drizzt wears his bracers of speed on his feet, not his hands. Because footwork and mobility is important.

Authorial characters can do all sorts of stuff game characters can't.

==Aelryinth

I give up. You ignore the rules that you don't like and continue to argue as if no one has pointed out how your position doesn't line up with the RAW. What you are doing when you change rules for things like sunder is called creating house rules. I have no desire to discuss your house rules, as they are 100% under your control. If you think the feats are broken after numerous people demonstrated how they are most assuredly not, than house rule them. ban them. Heck, color over those entries in your UC book with a sharpie. Make any rules you want.

But realize that they are not the RAW. In the non-house ruled Paizo universe, the crane style feat chain adds some pretty decent defensive boosts to the characters that use it. But it is situational and easily circumvented.

Now, I'm going to go download the Ultimate Combat PDF in a couple of days, and my group and I will try the rules out the way they are intended to be used. No sundered +0 bowstrings, no bouncy cartwheeling duels specifically with more restrictions than olympic fencing (all to favor the crane guy!), but actual correctly used RAW PFRPG. I'll come back and let you know how they work after that.

Hyla Arborea wrote:

The cost was lowered from three times to two-and-a-half times as a magical weapon with the equivalent bonus in PF, but its still insanely expensive.

Why? Please give me a reason, I can`t think of one.

Because it's like being able to enchant a double bladed or triple bladed weapon all parts at once for the price of one. The amulet affects any part of your body that you use to make an unarmed attack whether it's hand strike, foot strike, or head butt.

Yeah, I'm sorry, but this is just plain wrong and contrary to the RAW. "unarmed attacks" is an abstract single weapon. Essentially, all parts of the monk's body are a single weapon. You can't enchant a fist or a foot, and each limb does not count as a separate weapon. The entire monk is one thing to enhance.

Also, the amulet is limited to +5 total, while weapons are not. Don't even get me started on the price differential. Bras knuckles were a reasonable, appropriately priced item to solve this problem and should never have been nerfed. It certainly wasn't done for balance reasons. I've yet to see the endless threads about overpowered monks winning the game because of their brass knuckles of doom. Actually, most threads are about how monks suck.

Looks like I'm back to bargaining for magic weapon or magic fang from a party member. Its sad that enchanting unarmed attacks has become so expensive that the best move (again) is to outsource the job.

EDITED FOR CLARITY

Underling, would a fighter not be able to get all of those feats AND make better use of his full base attack bonus?

You're right that a monk isn't that great with the build, but what about the fighter?

As I don't yet have the book, I have no idea if this feat chain works with weapons. However, I can't imagine any reason a fighter with imp unarmed strike wouldn't make use of the feats.

But as we saw upthread, magic, missile attacks, combat maneuvers and grapples already would bypass this defense. The only reasons I focused on the fighter vs. monk angle was that the OP keeps rigidly defining the parameter for what qualifies as a duel. Since he feels free to discard any conditions that don't support his position, I felt it best to just disprove his position on his own terms.

Great examples of how the argument keeps being more narrowly defined is the OP's stance that you can sunder parts of enchanted items that somehow are not enchanted? The entire bow is enchanted, but the OP thinks you can dismiss the threat posed by a missile attack against this build by saying they'd sunder the '+0 bowstring'. Um...that has no basis in any incarnation of D&D, Pathfinder or whatever that I have ever played. We're not here to argue about house rules, just the RAW and this feat chain.
Another one is the insistence that a duelist wouldn't stand toe to toe. They'd prance around using spring attack, running around their opponent. When I suggested that going toe to toe, was dueling I was told that was a slugfest - evidently dueling must be mobile to count. All of those iconic duels where lightning fast steel weaves between opponents were evidently not duels. Drizzt and Artemis, any samurai duel ever described, Friar Tuck & Robin Hood on the log, any Arthurian knight's challenge, hell the black knight from Monty Python all were 'slugfests' and don't qualify as duels. This ridiculously favors this chain, as it sidesteps the major limitation in an artificial and, frankly outlandish way.

RD, the deal is that this argument is silly. And I have a problem with it because monks have so few things to be happy about, that if new feat chains are added that give monks/martial artists some new tricks, I'm happy. The last thing I want to see is overblown complaints doom another usable monk idea to the trash heap (brass knuckles anyone?) because of (wrongly) perceived imbalance.