I just now got my computer browbeat into letting me read the newest release of the pathfinder rules.
I decided to roll up a couple of characters in order to playtest them. I created an orc barbarian and an elven monk. Both at sixth level and both possessing impressive ability scores. Before I created anything else I decided to pit them against one another in a duel.
The monk starts the scenario 150ft behind the barbarian. It is given that the barbarian doesn't know of the monk's presence, and the monk has sufficient cover to use stealth to close the distance. It is also assumed that the monk has no knowledge of how big a threat the orc is. Otherwise I doubt he would attempt to take him down alone.
The first two rounds the monk sneaks up to within 50ft of the orc and opens the surprize round with a charge/stunning fist attempt.
In the first round the attack hits but the orc makes it's save. The monk wins initiative and uses a flurry of blows and a ki point for an extra attack, missing with the stun attempt but hitting with two other attacks. So far the monk has caused 22 points of damage before the orc has a chance to react.
Then the orc raged and power attacked the monk into negative hit points with a greataxe.
Not a bad show for the monk in my opinion. I wasn't actually expecting him to win, but his armor class and hit points were petty good but the barbarian had two good rolls. And since the barbarians entire class revolves around dealing melee damage two good rolls should be enough to get rid of a monk.
I reset the scenario and the monk fared much better with a bit more luck. The surprise attack hit and the orc was actually stunned, dropping his weapon and taking a serious hit to his AC. The monk won initiative again.
However the rules state that a stunned opponent remains stunned until just before your next turn, but since the monk won the initiative roll it's next turn started immediately after the stun succeeded. Since the monk needed some sort of break if he was going to survive I reasoned that a stunned opponent must lose at least one round worth of actions so I kept the orc stunned until just after it's turn ended. Meaning the monk took a full round beating on him in a stunned state. (what is the official rule on this?)
Also, later in the mock battle I wanted to try some combat maneuvers since the monk had improved trip and his snazzy maneuver training and the barbarian had improved grapple and the animal fury rage power.
I ran into a couple of problems.
Grapple is listed as taking a standard action to perform. If the barbarian attacks with animal fury, (which I'm not positive but I assumed this was a bonus attack used during a full attack action like the monks ki based bonus attack. That's how I treated it anyway) then he started a full attack action and can't actually attempt a grapple this turn since he would need a standard action.
I wanted to bite the monk and start a grapple to take advantage of the +2 grapple bonus from the bite, but I wasn't clear on how the rules worked.
Next I wanted to try tripping the orc with the monk. So on a flurry of blows attack I stunned the orc with the first attack and tried to trip him with the second.
First does a stunned opponent take any kind of penalties to its CMB? Also I wasn't sure what bonus the monk was rolling with to trip. Normal CMB was 9 because of his maneuver training and +3 str mod, improved trip raised it to an 11. But with a flurry of blows the monk was attacking with an accuracy based penalty. For the purposes of the trip I just applied the flurry of blow penalty (-1) to the monks CMB bonus so that he attempted the trip with a +10.
Are their still any bonuses/penalties on jumping for having a speed different than 30ft? I was curious when I was making the monk but I didn't see anything under the new acrobatics skill.
Also the pathfinder character sheets I printed out for them seem to have dex listed as the relevant ability modifier for the spellcraft skill.
I would like an official ruling on what to do for the problematic snags I came across if at all possible.
Other than the few odd bumps on the road I was fairly pleased with the augmented rules. I ran the scenario several times. The monk never really approached victory during the combat but with a small amount of luck he was normally able to live long enough to realize how outmatched he was and easily escape. And by downing a mage armor potion and spending ki points to boost his AC the unarmored monk was able to thwart even the massive attack bonus of the barbarian. In a group I'm sure the monk would have done just fine holding the barbarian off but on his lonesome he still managed ok for my tastes.
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Grapple is listed as taking a standard action to perform. If the barbarian attacks with animal fury, (which I'm not positive but I assumed this was a bonus attack used during a full attack action like the monks ki based bonus attack. That's how I treated it anyway) then he started a full attack action and can't actually attempt a grapple this turn since he would need a standard action.
I wanted to bite the monk and start a grapple to take advantage of the +2 grapple bonus from the bite, but I wasn't clear on how the rules worked.
Nobody is, sadly. The grapple rules are supremely unclear when it comes to making attacks during a grapple. Thus far, requests for clarification have gone unanswered. Maybe the Beta will help things out somewhat.
Next I wanted to try tripping the orc with the monk. So on a flurry of blows attack I stunned the orc with the first attack and tried to trip him with the second.
First does a stunned opponent take any kind of penalties to its CMB? Also I wasn't sure what bonus the monk was rolling with to trip. Normal CMB was 9 because of his maneuver training and +3 str mod, improved trip raised it to an 11. But with a flurry of blows the monk was attacking with an accuracy based penalty. For the purposes of the trip I just applied the flurry of blow penalty (-1) to the monks CMB bonus so that he attempted the trip with a +10.
Alpha 3, pg. 77: "If your target is stunned, you get a +4 bonus on your attack roll to perform a combat maneuver against it."
Reading the rules as strictly as possible, a combat maneuver roll is an attack roll, so anything that affects attack rolls should affect the CM roll. That includes the fully of blows penalty: "...this attack takes a -2 penalty, as does each other attack made that round" (Alpha 3, pg 28). As far as I can tell, you made the right call.
Are their still any bonuses/penalties on jumping for having a speed different than 30ft? I was curious when I was making the monk but I didn't see anything under the new acrobatics skill.
None that we know of, sadly. The monk gets something similar, though, from his ki pool ability.
Also the pathfinder character sheets I printed out for them seem to have dex listed as the relevant ability modifier for the spellcraft skill.
This is a known bug, reported on the errata list. Look for it to get straightened out with the Beta release.
An opponent is stunned until your turn on the next round. This is fairly straightforward, though your example makes it seem a bit odd.
Initiative doesn't change round-to-round. The monk acted on the surprise rouns (let's say at Init count 15), while the barbarian had no action in the surprise round, but rolled Init 11.
The monk acts, stunning the barb. Now, the monk is up again on the first full round. It is now Init count 15 of the full round, and the barb has been stunned for a full round, so loses the stunned condition. He has already lost an action for not acting in the surprise round, and he has lost his weapon.
Also, if the monk had three rogue friends who had Initiatives of less than 15, I'm sure it woule be more obvious why the barb should get to take an action on the first full round of combat.
I like your premise for a playtest, BTW.
I think unless the monk gets revamped (like flurry of blows is a standard action) then the monk is always gonna get a whupping. Try giving the monk a proficiency in spiked chain and giving it another go.
Monks should always lose a toe to toe full attack against a barbarian.
The monk would fare better in a hit and run scenario. With their improved movement, he should run up stun/hit and run off, though this may only be an option for a couple levels higher (given that spring attack is a 3 feat chain, otherwise you eat an AOO for moving in and out)
Alternatively, once you stun the barbarian, grab his axe. If you successfully stun him on the surprise round, you can use a move action on your next init to grab the axe, and a move action to .. move. Move far away. The barbarian can't catch up and you can dispose of the axe in a round or two, then go back and pummel the green goo outta the orc. Unless the orc happened to have a spare wep or unarmed strikes, the Monk would likely make short work of him then.
(a little "tactical" I know, but when facing a 250lb orc barbarian with an axe that's 4 feet long, tactics are what one should be pondering..)
(tho this works best at and after level 6 when your movement speed surpasses the Orc. Still though, once you have his axe its nearly impossible for him to take it back- and his disarm attempts are made unarmed so you get to UA him for even trying.. it becomes an intesting game of 'keep away')
-S
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Out of boredom, basically, I just made up a human monk and a half-orc barbarian and ran them through a similar duel. The monk utterly annihilated the barbarian, thanks to the monk's complete and total lockdown of the barbarian from the very first round. Stunning Fist + Improved Trip and suddenly you're on the ground, followed by Gorgon's Fist to leave you staggered and unable to do anything but stand up (taking the AoO in the process) and stand there to wait for the cycle to begin again. The fact that the first stunning fist also cost the barbarian his spiffy greatsword was actually irrelevant to the final outcome, though it's also nasty to make someone burn their only available action on just picking up their sword. The whole combat was actually quite ugly, to the point that I'm a bit worried I've found an exploit.
Stunning Fist + Improved Trip and suddenly you're on the ground, followed by Gorgon's Fist to leave you staggered and unable to do anything but stand up (taking the AoO in the process) and stand there to wait for the cycle to begin again.
This can be first achieved at monk6, and needs Int13 in addition to the standard monk MAD. Doable but I'm interested to see how this works.
Monk charges on a surprise, and hits to stun. This is something like to-hit +10 vs AC 19 (assuming 20 point buy and static magic item boosts). The attack hits and the barbarian fails his save: Fort +9 vs DC 15.
The monk won initiative (+3 vs +3), and flurries to trip. That's three attempts at CMB +16 against DC 28. The barbarian falls to the ground. On his turn he's stunned.
Gorgon's Fist only needs to hit against the prone barbarian, but that's still +8 vs AC 15. It was critical to win initiative to even get this far.
There are so many points where this could go wrong that I'm not too worried. With these figures the whole combo will work every 23rd time.
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Stunning Fist + Improved Trip and suddenly you're on the ground, followed by Gorgon's Fist to leave you staggered and unable to do anything but stand up (taking the AoO in the process) and stand there to wait for the cycle to begin again.This can be first achieved at monk6, and needs Int13 in addition to the standard monk MAD. Doable but I'm interested to see how this works.
No extra MAD necessary. Monks ignore feat prereqs.
No, wait. Hm. Improved Trip isn't on the monk list until 6th level. I screwed that up. So it's doable at 9th level, or at 6th with the additional Int requirement. Okay, so take what follows with a grain of salt.
Monk charges on a surprise, and hits to stun. This is something like to-hit +10 vs AC 19 (assuming 20 point buy and static magic item boosts). The attack hits and the barbarian fails his save: Fort +9 vs DC 15.
I was using a 25 point buy for both parties, following the OP's suggestion that they had extremely generous stats. The barbarian's AC was nothing like that high, though - only 15, even with his uncanny dodge. He had roughly twice the monk's hit points, however. Also, the monk's Wisdom was 20 (16 point buy, +2 human, +2 handband) and he had Ability Focus as well, so the DC was 20. I built the monk with the idea, discussed elsewhere, that the monk's proper combat role is to strip opponents of combat actions, which is why I went Stun/Gorgon's/Trip in the first place.
The monk won initiative (+3 vs +3), and flurries to trip. That's three attempts at CMB +16 against DC 28. The barbarian falls to the ground. On his turn he's stunned.
The barbarian's init was +1, the monk's +6 (Improved Init). You nailed his CMB, though. I think the DC was only 27, though (15 + 6 [Str] + 6 [BAB]).
Gorgon's Fist only needs to hit against the prone barbarian, but that's still +8 vs AC 15. It was critical to win initiative to even get this far.
There are so many points where this could go wrong that I'm not too worried. With these figures the whole combo will work every 23rd time.
It definitely helped that it was a low-AC, high-hp target, but there are no shortage of those in the game. It might not be broken, but it sure as hell worked in this context.
Improved Trip isn't on the monk list until 6th level. I screwed that up. So it's doable at 9th level, or at 6th with the additional Int requirement.
I guess you meant 10th level, or did your monk have Int 12? At 10th level I'd take Medusa's Wrath for that build, any day.
The barbarian's AC was nothing like that high, though - only 15, even with his uncanny dodge.
I assumed 10 + 3 Dex + 5 Chain shirt + 1 ring of prot. I used 25% of his character wealth on defensive items. I'd guess that's fairly reasonable.
Also, the monk's Wisdom was 20 (16 point buy, +2 human, +2 handband) and he had Ability Focus as well, so the DC was 20.
Hmm.. I never thought of taking monster feats to characters. Is that allowed, usually/RAW? Interesting idea to pump up his Stunning Fist DC. Makes him somewhat vulnerable against constructs and such, though.
The barbarian's init was +1, the monk's +6 (Improved Init). You nailed his CMB, though. I think the DC was only 27, though (15 + 6 [Str] + 6 [BAB]).
Could you list the other feats, as well, for both parties. I'm interested in what was your idea of this combat. Looks like my monk and barbarian were a bit different. Btw, I accidentally looked at the barbarian's raging CMB. I should've written DC 26.
Overall, looks like you addressed the critical parts of the build quite nicely: high Wis, Ability Focus (if allowed), Improved Init. On the other hand, you assumed a barbarian that helps highlighting the problem: low Init, low AC.
I'd summarize the build as "potentially very powerful, but against a fairly limited set of opponents". In my opinion, such builds should exist.
Monks should always lose a toe to toe full attack against a barbarian.
The monk would fare better in a hit and run scenario. With their improved movement, he should run up stun/hit and run off, though this may only be an option for a couple levels higher (given that spring attack is a 3 feat chain, otherwise you eat an AOO for moving in and out)
-S
In principle the idea is good except that barbarians also get faster running. Stunning fist is opposed by fortitude which is hardly the bararians weakest stat and you still have to hit the barbarian in the first place. Also if you don't win initiative he will just beat on you and make you go splut. With his improved strength(especially if he is raging) the chances are that he can do combat manouvers on you far better than you can on him. He probably does more unarmed damage as well.
Your best bet is to take a feat like deadly aim and make him eat missile weapons until he is dead hoping that he doesn't have a strength adjusted bow. Of course if he has any friends then you are screwed because they will be doing the same things to you. As for taking his weapon, what fighter only ever has one weapon?
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I guess you meant 10th level, or did your monk have Int 12? At 10th level I'd take Medusa's Wrath for that build, any day.
No, 9th. Take Improved Trip at 6th, and Gorgon's Fist at 9th.
I assumed 10 + 3 Dex + 5 Chain shirt + 1 ring of prot. I used 25% of his character wealth on defensive items. I'd guess that's fairly reasonable.
I gave him a +1 hide shirt (which means he had an AC of 16, sorry) and a cloak of resistance +1, as a I recall. (Annoyingly, I chucked the builds after I did the playtest. I'm working off of memory, though it was just yesterday and I'm pretty sure I remember most everything.) He also had a +1 frost greatsword and a belt of giant strength +2, which left me about 500 gp short of being able to upgrade the armor to +2. Didn't think to buy a ring of prot or an amulet of nat armor, though I should have - but even so, that would have weakened him against the stunning fist save, because I wouldn't have been able to afford it and the cloak both. He was deliberately frontloaded toward dealing damaging and absorbing it, rather than avoiding it, which is probably why I overlooked it.
The bigger difference, though, is that he only had a Dex bonus of +1. His stats, including items, racial adjustments and the +1 bump at 4th level, were Str 23, Dex 12, Con 16, Int 8, Wis 12, Cha 7. (For comparison, the monk's were Str 19, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 20, Cha 8.)
Edit: and for a build that could use all the listed feats legally, drop the monk's Cha to 7 and raise Int to 12, then put the 4th level stat bump into Int rather than Str and pick up Improved Trip at 5th level. Dodge can be a monk bonus feat instead.
Hmm.. I never thought of taking monster feats to characters. Is that allowed, usually/RAW? Interesting idea to pump up his Stunning Fist DC. Makes him somewhat vulnerable against constructs and such, though.
Sure, it's almost traditional for builds that rely on Stunning Fist. You can take Improved Natural Attack for monks too, and again, most people do. (One of the small ways in which Pathfinder has actually depowered monks is that, thanks to the shift in the feat progression, monks have to wait until 7th level to get INA, when they used to be able to get it at 6th...)
Could you list the other feats, as well, for both parties. I'm interested in what was your idea of this combat. Looks like my monk and barbarian were a bit different. Btw, I accidentally looked at the barbarian's raging CMB. I should've written DC 26.
The monk's feats were Ability Focus (stunning fist), Dodge, Improved Initiative, Improved Trip (as previously established, illegal), Gorgon's Fist, Stunning Fist, Weapon Focus (unarmed). Improved Trip, Gorgon's Fist and Stunning Fist were taken as monk bonus feats; the other four were standard HD advancement feats.
The barbarian's feats were Overhand Chop (good for a +4 bonus to damage while raging), Toughness (end result - barbarian has literally double the hit points of the monk, without raging) and Weapon Focus (greatsword).
Overall, looks like you addressed the critical parts of the build quite nicely: high Wis, Ability Focus (if allowed), Improved Init. On the other hand, you assumed a barbarian that helps highlighting the problem: low Init, low AC.
I'd summarize the build as "potentially very powerful, but against a fairly limited set of opponents". In my opinion, such builds should exist.
Needless to say, it goes very badly for the monk if the barbarian manages to resist more that one or two stunning fist attempts. It would have been particularly ugly had I given the barbarian the Strength Surge rage power (+6 DC to those trip attempts - good luck with that!).