Quote: Weapon Focus (Combat)
Choose one type of weapon. You can also choose unarmed strike or grapple (or ray, if you are a spellcaster) as your weapon for the purposes of this feat.
Prerequisites: Proficiency with selected weapon, base attack bonus +1.
Benefit: You gain a +1 bonus on all attack rolls you make using the selected weapon.
Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new type of weapon.
So, apparently like everyone else, I've always assumed that "type of weapon" meant "Longsword" or "Dire Flail" or "Hunga-Munga" or whatever.
However, this is Pathfinder, and we shouldn't assume that what "everyone knows" from 3.0 and 3.5 is still valid. And, as far as I can tell, the only definition of "Weapon Type" or "type of Weapon" in the rules is in the "Equipment - Weapons" section:
Quote: Type: Weapons are classified according to the type of damage they deal: B for bludgeoning, P for piercing, or S for slashing. Some monsters may be resistant or immune to attacks from certain types of weapons.
Some weapons deal damage of multiple types. If a weapon causes two types of damage, the type it deals is not half one type and half another; all damage caused is of both types. Therefore, a creature would have to be immune to both types of damage to ignore any of the damage caused by such a weapon.
In other cases, a weapon can deal either of two types of damage. In a situation where the damage type is significant, the wielder can choose which type of damage to deal with such a weapon.
So, RAW, can you take Weapon Focus/Specialization for "type" B, or P, or S? RAI, almost certainly not. But as written...
Uh no, the feat states "selected weapon" , B/P or S are not weapons. They are damage types. No where does it even imply you may select a damage type. This really does not need to be made more clear then it is man.
What do the example characters have?
dunelord3001 wrote: What do the example characters have? No surprises there; any pregens with Weapon Focus apply the feat to a single weapon of choice.
seekerofshadowlight wrote: Uh no, the feat states "selected weapon" , B/P or S are not weapons. They are damage types. No where does it even imply you may select a damage type. This really does not need to be made more clear then it is man. Before it says "selected weapon", it says "type of weapon", and the entry on weapon damage types says "type of weapon".
Silly? Yes.
But "Brew Potion" says you have to know the spell, *and* the entry on Potions in the section on creating magic items says you have to know the spell, *and* the Item Cost section says that "The caster level must be low enough that the spellcaster creating the item can cast the spell at that level"; and yet plenty of people still say you can use Brew Potion to create a potion of a spell you don't know. (No, knowing the spell isn't a "prerequisite in it's description" for a potion that can be skipped with a penalty to the roll, it's a requirement of the feat. Potions don't have "prerequsites in their descriptions", since they don't have descriptions per se (in the magic item lists)).
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
That's damage type, not weapon type.
The wording is exactly the same as in 3.5, and I don't think anybody has doubts as to how this feat works.
Gorbacz wrote: That's damage type, not weapon type.
Quote: Weapons are classified according to the type of damage they deal: B for bludgeoning, P for piercing, or S for slashing. Some monsters may be resistant or immune to attacks from certain *types of weapons* {my emphasis; and this seems to be the only place in the rules that "type(s) of weapon(s)" is defined}.
Heck yes, it's a silly argument. However, it seems to me to be a *less*-silly argument than the one about Brew Potion.
ACW wrote: Heck yes, it's a silly argument. However, it seems to me to be a *less*-silly argument than the one about Brew Potion. I don't see why. Create a magic item is very clear.
The only mandatory requirements for the creator are:
1) the feat of creation
2) For bonus to Attack and bonus to AC: caster level
caster level >= (3 x bonus of Attack/AC of item) or if noted as requirements
ex: longsword +3........need caster level 9 for creator
3) know the spell if spell completion (scrolls,...) or spell trigger (wand, staff,...) items
All other requirements can be "skipped with a penalty to the roll", as "knowing himself the spell" to make a potion...
Gorbacz wrote: The wording is exactly the same as in 3.5, and I don't think anybody has doubts as to how this feat works. +1
Defraeter,
I disagree, but this isn't the place for details. Instead, I've put them in my response to you in the "Brewing Any Old potion with Brew Potion?" thread.
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ACW wrote:
So, RAW, can you take Weapon Focus/Specialization for "type" B, or P, or S? RAI, almost certainly not. But as written...
The part you're quoting is the flavor text part of the feat description. It should never have any bearing on game mechanics.
Brogue The Rogue wrote: ACW wrote:
So, RAW, can you take Weapon Focus/Specialization for "type" B, or P, or S? RAI, almost certainly not. But as written...
The part you're quoting is the flavor text part of the feat description. It should never have any bearing on game mechanics.
I'm not sure I'd agree on "never", but I can agree in this case. Thanks.
ACW wrote: seekerofshadowlight wrote: Uh no, the feat states "selected weapon" , B/P or S are not weapons. They are damage types. No where does it even imply you may select a damage type. This really does not need to be made more clear then it is man. Before it says "selected weapon", it says "type of weapon", and the entry on weapon damage types says "type of weapon".
Silly? Yes.
But "Brew Potion" says you have to know the spell, *and* the entry on Potions in the section on creating magic items says you have to know the spell, *and* the Item Cost section says that "The caster level must be low enough that the spellcaster creating the item can cast the spell at that level"; and yet plenty of people still say you can use Brew Potion to create a potion of a spell you don't know. (No, knowing the spell isn't a "prerequisite in it's description" for a potion that can be skipped with a penalty to the roll, it's a requirement of the feat. Potions don't have "prerequsites in their descriptions", since they don't have descriptions per se (in the magic item lists)). Well yeah, it says weapon type before selected weapon, let's ignore that selected weapon is very clear for a moment. Right after type of weapon it gives examples of grapple and unarmed strike (or ray). None of which is in those categories. Unarmed strike especially is a B weapon negating that that is a selectable category.
I realize this is a very old thread, but I just wanted to say that I had this issue today with a friend playing a dual weapon dwarf. He wants to use a dwarven waraxe MH and handaxe OH for the light weapon. In the Ultimate Combat book, they have a table of weapon categories (axes, swords, etc.). I made a GM decision to let him take axes so that he doesn't have to use two feats so that he can use his OH weapon effectively.
Anyone else done this?
That's what Fighter Weapon Training is for. WFocus and WSpec and related feats require you to choose a particular weapon (ie. Longsword). In fact, there are a pair of Human feats from the ARG which allow you to broaden the application of these feats to the entire weapon group. Martial Versatility allows you to choose a particular feat such as Weapon Focus (Longsword) and apply it to any other weapons in the same group as Longsword (Blades, Heavy in this case). Another feat, Martial Mastery, allows you to broaden all such feats. The prereq is pretty steep, as well, with Mastery requiring 16 levels of Fighter to qualify as well as the racial prereq of being Human.
It doesn't say weapon type it says type of weapon. Tell him welcome to the English language.
Grignok wrote: I realize this is a very old thread, but I just wanted to say that I had this issue today with a friend playing a dual weapon dwarf. He wants to use a dwarven waraxe MH and handaxe OH for the light weapon. In the Ultimate Combat book, they have a table of weapon categories (axes, swords, etc.). I made a GM decision to let him take axes so that he doesn't have to use two feats so that he can use his OH weapon effectively.
Anyone else done this?
Given that for focus you can choose 'ray' without it being 'ray of enfeeblement' (rather than some other spell), and you can choose 'unarmed strike' rather than 'punch' or even 'flurry of blows', it might make some sense to choose 'axes' rather than 'battle axe' (esp. for small weapon groups). Anyone?
Kwauss wrote: Grignok wrote: I realize this is a very old thread, but I just wanted to say that I had this issue today with a friend playing a dual weapon dwarf. He wants to use a dwarven waraxe MH and handaxe OH for the light weapon. In the Ultimate Combat book, they have a table of weapon categories (axes, swords, etc.). I made a GM decision to let him take axes so that he doesn't have to use two feats so that he can use his OH weapon effectively.
Anyone else done this?
Given that for focus you can choose 'ray' without it being 'ray of enfeeblement' (rather than some other spell), and you can choose 'unarmed strike' rather than 'punch' or even 'flurry of blows', it might make some sense to choose 'axes' rather than 'battle axe' (esp. for small weapon groups). Anyone? There's no such thing as a "punch" in the Pathfinder system. Unarmed Strikes are entirely abstracted. Flurry of Blows is a class ability that allows certain benefits; it isn't "an attack", it's an ability that lets you make attacks. Magic is far more versatile than mundane sharpened metal sticks so, while you have "just a longsword" with which you can focus, a "Ray" is the magical equivalent of a "Longsword", except that a Ray can do so many more kinds of things... scorch, enfeeble, frost, etc. But they are all shaped, aimed, and behave by the same basic principals so training to hit with one type of Ray naturally extends to any other type of Ray because Rays behave predictably. Touch Spells fall indirectly under Unarmed Strikes since Touch Attacks are "armed" unarmed attacks. So the only thing left are the multitudinous misc. magical effects which really don't have set categories to fall into. It also invalidates a feat with both Human racial prereq and lvl 16 Fighter prereq. It'd be like saying, "Yeah, you can just skip all that prereq stuff and take Greater Weapon Spec at lvl 4 cause how much harder can it really be than normal Weapon Spec? Amiright?" Weapons are vastly different; even between a battle axe and a hand axe. Balance, heft, effective arc, etc. Without a good amount of training (Fighter Weapon Training) or racially tangible versatility guided by professional training (Human + Fighter), it's hard to get your mind around the similarities between swinging a longaxe, a battleaxe, a hand-axe, and every other kind of axe. Dwarves, especially, aren't exactly the most broad-minded of races, even when it comes to one of their two great fetish weapons. I don't think it's a good allowance.
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Is letting a dwarf fighter choose "axes" as his choice for weapon focus / specialization RAW? Certainly not.
Are the RAW police going to come and arrest you and your friend for not playing the game the right way? Equally certainly not.
It sounds like your friend has a fun concept that isn't entirely optimized. There's nothing wrong with bending the rules to help him out.
Well there are feats you can take to make weeapon focus apply to axes ( at least i think so..) but applying it to a broader group is beyond the intended scope and makes it quite a bit more versatile.
ACW wrote: Before it says "selected weapon", it says "type of weapon", and the entry on weapon damage types says "type of weapon".
Silly? Yes.
Weapon Type != Type of Weapon
Mojorat wrote: Well there are feats you can take to make weeapon focus apply to axes ( at least i think so..) but applying it to a broader group is beyond the intended scope and makes it quite a bit more versatile. Martial Versatility lets you take a single feat like Weapon Focus or Improved Critical and apply them to all weapons in the same Fighter group. For example, if you have Weapon Focus (Battleaxe), Weapon Spec (Battleaxe) and Improved Critical (Battleaxe), you could take Martial Versatility and designate Weapon Spec as the feat it applies to and now you get your +2 damage to all weapons in the Axes fighter weapon group. Martial Mastery gets you the bonus from all 3 feats (focus, spec, and crit) to apply to Axes. But both Martial Versatility and Martial Mastery have the racial prereq of Human so you'd have to have the Human subtype to qualify; ie. Human, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Aasimar w/ Scion of Humanity. They also require lvl 4 and lvl 16 fighter respectively.
Yes you kind of supported my point that thhe game did not intend weapon focus to be so broad.
so I can choose to do weapon focus Flail, and it would apply to dire flail, heavy flail and regular flails ?
No they are all different weapons. There are feats to have it apply to broader groups but weapon focus flail is just the regular flail.
Mojorat wrote: No they are all different weapons. There are feats to have it apply to broader groups but weapon focus flail is just the regular flail. To be more precise:
Weapon Focus: Flail does not exist as a possibility.
Weapon Focus: Light Flail, Weapon Focus: Heavy Flail, and Weapon Focus: Dire flail would all be possible choices, but only apply to weapons of that particular type.
A Human Fighter 4 would have an option to take the Martial Versatility feat, which would allow one of those feats to apply to all weapons in the Flail weapon group, which includes several other weapons, as well, including whip.
Note: Taking Martial Versatility for Weapon Specialization, unless you have also taken Martial Versatility Weapon Focus for the same weapon group, will NOT give the extra damage, except to any weapons in the group that you have Weapon Focus for.
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