Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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Really, Quivering Palm is nothing crazily powerful. It's a neat, weird 1st Ed ability. It's a supernatural death effect so no SR, but it doesn't affect anything immune to crits, requires a touch attack, and is Fort negates. It's not technically a death effect, so it bypasses death ward, but it is also easier to come back from (breath of life, raise dead, revivify (the latter not PF, but still)). The monk gets it at 15th level.
The cleric has already had slay living for SIX LEVELS. He can do this multiple times a day. It's also a touch attack, affects things immune to crits, and inflicts damage even if the target saves.
True, slay living doesn't automatically kill on a failed save any more. For that effect, empowered poison (which the druid has had for SIX levels) is probably a better bet.
Now maybe the trick is that the quivering palm is exempt from Pathfinder's general nerfage of save-or-die effects, and that's why it has to be reined in. In all, though, I have a hard time seeing how a simple SoD ability, with all the limits it has, needs to be restricted to once a week. It seems an odd choice to me, even as a legacy limit from 1st Ed.
SOLUTIONS?
I'd suggest one of the following:
1. Make it usable once per day.
2. Assign it a ki point cost. Empty Body costs 3 ki points and essentially duplicates ethereal jaunt, a 7th level spell. QP, which I suppose you could compare to finger of death if you were feeling generous, is in the same power level, so why not 3 ki points to do it? That way, it fits in with the monk's extant mechanics.
What if we changed Quivering Palm to work like other Pathfinder SoD type stuff, give it a damage secondary effect for even the failed save or something like that?
Otherwise, why not make it a number of time per day equal to Wis modifier? and if you happen to be a monk with a 0 Wis mod, then it stays once a week?
What if we changed Quivering Palm to work like other Pathfinder SoD type stuff, give it a damage secondary effect for even the failed save or something like that?
Otherwise, why not make it a number of time per day equal to Wis modifier? and if you happen to be a monk with a 0 Wis mod, then it stays once a week?
Well, considering the monk deals unarmed damage in the attack already, the target is taking damage even if they succeed on the save, but I see where you're coming from. Maybe some number of rounds of stun, like the bard's deadly performance.
Not sure about adding wisdom mod uses per day, a high level monk could have a +10 or +12 wisdom mod, and that is a LOT of saves vs. death over the course of the day. If the monk does get more than one per day, the ability would need some sort of limitation on how often it can be used, as otherwise a monk could make a flurry of blows and attack five or six separate targets, and force each of them to save vs. death.
Personally, I like once per day for this and for the bard's deadly performance. It's more than a little silly that a bard can use deadly performance for every single bardic performance every single day at 20th level.
It's more than a little silly that a bard can use deadly performance for every single bardic performance every single day at 20th level.
Why is it at all silly? Wizards can sling out about that many save-or-dies a day at 20th.
-Matt
It's more than a little silly that a bard can use deadly performance for every single bardic performance every single day at 20th level.Why is it at all silly? Wizards can sling out about that many save-or-dies a day at 20th.
-Matt
20 Save or be debuffed/made useless per day, yes, but outright save or dies are a tad harder to come by, as they're essentially all 7th level spells or higher. Though... I guess considering a wizard could finger of death 7 or 8 times a day, perhaps more than one quivering palm/deadly performance a day doesn't seem that bad.
On the whole though, I'd rather see primary casters get fewer Save or Dies than see several other classes gain several a day.
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my take is that Quivering Palm should be based of the actual theory behind it and also give some other benefits, more like the advanced Talents for the Rouge.
Hire is an idea of what 'I Would do with it'.
The Monk would be "depositing" some ki inside the target's body. which later will cause internal organs damage (or other effects) and possible dead.
So quivering palm should be something like this:
1- Can be made as part of a an attack, with normal damage against normal AC or as a touch attack, with out damage against the Touch AC.
2- A variety of ki dependent effects could be added ( effect most be indicated at the time of the attack)
3- Each effect should have a lesser and mayor effect. the lesser effect is applied on successful fort save against the Quivering Palm. and the mayor on a fail.
Example of posible effects.
a) Paralysis: Paralyze the target on a successful Fort save Slow it.
b) Blindness: Blind the Target, on a successful save let it dazzle/nauseate(??).
c) Mute: mute the Target, on a successful save let it Fatigue it(??).
d) Dead: Kill the Target, on a successful save take some damage.
Touch attacks that deal spell effects don't generally deal weapon/unarmed damage. I believe that you can deal damage as normal with a touch attack, but then you expend the spell/effect if you fail to hit, because in attempting to strike, you're no longer "holding the charge".
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Touch attacks that deal spell effects don't generally deal weapon/unarmed damage. I believe that you can deal damage as normal with a touch attack, but then you expend the spell/effect if you fail to hit, because in attempting to strike, you're no longer "holding the charge".
While this is generaly true, we also have spells like [Blade of Blood] which discharge on hit.
For Quivering Palm I would related it more to a martial technique called [Dim Mak] which is quasi identical.
[Dim Mak] pressure points are hard to get bym and while some are superficial, most of them are deep inside the body and well protected, which require for them to be hit really accurately and hard instead of simply touch them.
my take is that Quivering Palm should be based of the actual theory behind it and also give some other benefits, more like the advanced Talents for the Rouge.
Hire is an idea of what 'I Would do with it'.
The Monk would be "depositing" some ki inside the target's body. which later will cause internal organs damage (or other effects) and possible dead.
So quivering palm should be something like this:
1- Can be made as part of a an attack, with normal damage against normal AC or as a touch attack, with out damage against the Touch AC.
2- A variety of ki dependent effects could be added ( effect most be indicated at the time of the attack)
3- Each effect should have a lesser and mayor effect. the lesser effect is applied on successful fort save against the Quivering Palm. and the mayor on a fail.
Example of posible effects.
a) Paralysis: Paralyze the target on a successful Fort save Slow it.b) Blindness: Blind the Target, on a successful save let it dazzle/nauseate(??).
c) Mute: mute the Target, on a successful save let it Fatigue it(??).
d) Dead: Kill the Target, on a successful save take some damage.
I don't know about having Quivering Palm do all of these, but I do think it would be interesting and thematically appropriate to give monks a succession of ki based attacks they can use to inflict status ailments, like blindness, nausea, etc. It fits with Stunning Blows, and has a lot of synergy with feats like Medusa's Wrath.
Plus, if we dropped the one quivering palm per week restriction, a ki pool cost would be a fairly sane way of restricting it's use.