Splash Weapons and Weapon Focus

[KnightErrantJR]

Just occurred to me when making up an Alchemist, but can you take Weapon Focus (Splash Weapon) as a feat? While it doesn't seem much stranger than (Ray), given that Throw Anything gives you a bonus to throwing Splash Weapons, I was wondering if that as a back door way of saying that you couldn't Weapon Focus splash weapons.

[voska66]

I'd say you can, nothing directly prohibits it and the feat does give example such as rays and unarmed strikes. Since both the bonuses are different they would stack. Throw anything is +1 Circumstance and Weapon focus is untyped.

[spalding]

From the PSRD:
" Thrown splash weapons require no weapon proficiency, so you don't take the –4 nonproficiency penalty."

It would seem to me that if you don't have a nonproficiency with it then you are proficient with it... since you are proficient with it you can focus in it... just like touch attacks.

[hogarth]

Abraham spalding wrote:

From the PSRD:

" Thrown splash weapons require no weapon proficiency, so you don't take the –4 nonproficiency penalty."

It would seem to me that if you don't have a nonproficiency with it then you are proficient with it... since you are proficient with it you can focus in it... just like touch attacks.

Funny, I got just the opposite conclusion from the same line: if there's no weapon proficiency feat for splash weapons (and it's not one of the explicit exceptions like "unarmed strike", "grapple" or "ray"), then you can't qualify for "Proficiency with selected weapon" as required for the Weapon Focus feat.

To be fair, if a player really wanted it, I'd allow it (although I think it's a waste of a feat).

[Abraham spalding]

I could see a fighter wanting to specialize in it, and improve critical on it though. Granted these would probably only affect the direct damage not the splash but Alchemical items are one of the few ways to deal energy damage without resorting to magic.

[donaldsangry]

Ahem, Splash weapons.

just saying

[Lamashan Dalastonor]

You might instead look at the Splash Weapon Mastery feat from Adventurer's Armory. It's got no prerequisite, and gives many more benefits. Since splash weapons are usually ranged touch attacks, a +1 to hit typically isn't that important.

[0gre]

Lamashan Dalastonor wrote:

You might instead look at the Splash Weapon Mastery feat from Adventurer's Armory. It's got no prerequisite, and gives many more benefits. Since splash weapons are usually ranged touch attacks, a +1 to hit typically isn't that important.

That is a really great feat for splash weapons. The adventurers armory is apparently the Alchemists handbook... lots of good stuff there.