Wyroot

[rayous brightblade]

This material says it can be put on any weapon with a wooden haft. Can we have clarification of what type of weapon this means, as a Haft is the part of a hilt that you hold. As it os, every magus will be adding this to their weapon

[godoffire04]

I'm very curious about this Wyroot material as well, I crated a separate forum asking if it makes a weapon masterwork.

Can't wait to use it! Link to my thread: Does Wyroot make a weapon masterwork?

[Andro]

Generally, haft and hilt are not synonimous words when it comes to weapon anatomy. A haft usually refers to pole-like, usually wooden weapon "body" commonly found on either polearms or weapons eith striking heads such as axes, maces or hammers. A hilt, on the other hand, is a weapon grip specifically positioned at or near te end of weapon, far from the 'business end' of the weapon, usually protected by a crossguard or the like. While some hafted weapons may have hilts, most do not.

[deuxhero]

"usually".

How many swords even had wooden hilts though? Isn't the blade built into the hilt for stability? There may be some wood AROUND it, but not the actual whole hilt.

Now a whip, that can have a holding thingy made from wood, and would make a great weapon for Wyroot due to hitting but not dealing damage. I can see "would otherwise do damage" being added in errata, as even without whips, poking your DR 1 possessing friend/self with a tiny Wyroot steak (which oddly enough uses the same 1000 GP of material a much larger weapon would use) is still open

[Andro]

Well, now you're getting into a far more complex discussion. The part of the sword blade "embedded" in the hilt, commonly called tang, has historically been made more comfortable to grip through a wide variety of approaches. Using a "sheath" made of wood, ivory or other fairly lightweight, easy to work and durable materials was fairly common - but I'll readily agree with you that's nowhere enough for Wyroot's benefits to kick in.

To be reasonable, Wyroot's description specifies weapon has to be "made entirely of wood... or (have) a wooden haft" - this, to me, reads as "must be made of significant amount of wood" so, at least in my book, swords wouldn't work, containing fairly small quantity of wood; neither would whips, as the wooden handle is both small and rather far from the striking areas of the weapon.

[deuxhero]

Google gives whips with half their length being the handle. Admittedly they are modern whips, but still.

[Remco Sommeling]

I am reading it like the intention was that the weapon was constructed entirely from Wyroot, the mention of completely wooden weapons or weapons with a wooden haft is clarifying which weapons can, traditionally, be made out off wyroot.

A whip would be out in my opinion, an axe would infact be constructed of wyroot entirely and not have a metal blade and so on.. though that is what I get from context and likely intent, having a crit dealing no damage on a metal bladed axe seems a bit strange..

[Illeist]

As long as we're on the topic, it's worth noting that Wyroot weapons enable their wielder to regain all of his or her Ki or Arcane Pool after any combat in which there is an unconscious enemy (or, for particularly ruthless PCs, an unconscious ally).

The wielder of a Wyroot weapon can choose to coup de grace as a full-round action, choosing to deal no damage and instead place a Ki or Arcane point into the weapon. He or she then takes a swift action to retrieve the point. Rinse and repeat until you're at full.

The only possible problem with this is that, theoretically, the target still needs to make a Fort save (DC 10) or die each time you use this trick.

[Illeist]

Andro wrote:

Generally, haft and hilt are not synonimous words when it comes to weapon anatomy. A haft usually refers to pole-like, usually wooden weapon "body" commonly found on either polearms or weapons eith striking heads such as axes, maces or hammers. A hilt, on the other hand, is a weapon grip specifically positioned at or near te end of weapon, far from the 'business end' of the weapon, usually protected by a crossguard or the like. While some hafted weapons may have hilts, most do not.

No, actually the term haft specifically refers to the handle of a sword or handheld tool. Polearms have shafts, not hafts.

Definition
Wikipedia Entry

EDIT: Compare this with the etymology of "shaft", which specifically refers to the "long, slender rod of a staff or spear."

[Chris Mortika]

Three notes:

1) I strongly suspect that wyroot weapons can eliminate the critical damage from a weapon, but not the original, non-critical damage.

So a let's take a look at a hooked axe with a wyroot shaft. The hooked axe does 1d8 damage, triple on a critical hit. It is a disarm weapon and a trip weapon. In the hands of, say, an elf fighter, it might do 1d8+2 /x3. Normally, a confirmed critical would do 3d8+6.

It doesn't make sense to me that a wyroot shaft should eliminate the damage entirely. It's not magic unto itself. But it allows a critical hit to do, instead, the normal damage, 1d8+2, and then stores some of the victim's life force.

I understand that this isn't how the text currently reads. ('creature hit is unharmed") But it's the only interpretation that makes sense, and I suspect the text will be errataed.

2) As the text currently reads, the wielder of the weapon doesn't have to be the recipient of the arcane pool / ki point. So a monk can have a bunch of minions with bo sticks whack at the party and then absorb all the ki the minions steal. I suspect that will also be errataed.

3) Currently, the target doesn't need to have any life force to start with. It works whether you're hitting constructs, undead, etc. I suspect that'll be changed up, too.

--+--+-

I wonder, if the wielder uses the hooked axe to trip a foe, and confirms a critical to do so, can the wielder both drain a bit of life-force and toss the target onto her backside?

Also, I wonder about the effects of a wyroot weapon under the effects of the wand weapon spell from "Inner Sea Magic". If I choose to do wand damage instead of weapon damage, and confirm a critical hit, can I do spell damage and drain some life energy?

[GreenMandar]

I restarted the "what is a haft" discussion in another thread that was meant to discuss wyroot bows.
Wyroot-bows
I figured I should move it back to this one.
In addition to what Illeist posted above, I found dictionary.com specifically mention sword handle in the definition of a haft- "a handle, especially of a knife, sword, or dagger."
Haft at dictionary.com
But I see from various other posts, many who disagree with this.
RAW it appears to me swords (and most other weapons) should be in. Is there something solid to make people believe Paizo meant different?

[avacar]

Your definition is overly simplistic. There is no need to consider hafted vs unhafted if anything that has a handle of any kind is hafted. By this definition, any melee weapons save the chain/spiked chain is a hafted weapon. If I attach throw some wood as a handle on a whip, is it hafted?

The understanding comes from what are traditionally referred to as medieval hafted weapons. This includes axes, maces, flails, and polearms, primarily. Put most simply, a club or staff also counts, but it's a fair bit nitpicky. These are really going to fall into wooden weapons, since a haft without anything on it is scarcely a hafted weapon.

Hafting refers to putting a tool (in military cases almost always either a weight or a blade) onto a long handle (haft) for purposes of force. While the dagger is the original hafted weapon, I would argue that advances in dagger technology have changed it from a hafted weapon to simply a miniature sword.

The haft is, in this case, a primary part of the weapon's design and effectiveness, whereas in the case of the sword and the medieval dagger (no longer a stone shoved into a stump), the handle is simply more comfortable than holding onto the blade's tang.

--------------------------------------------------------------
TL;DR: We use the hafted weapon definition preferred by historians and experts, rather than extending the definition of hafted. No historian out there is saying "hafted weapons" and talking about swords.

[GreenMandar]

avacar wrote:

We use the hafted weapon definition preferred by historians and experts

While that may very well be the case, many are not simply going to accept that statement as true just because you say so. What I was trying to get at above was for more evidence to be provided. A link to something to support it perhaps.

However that said,
since my last post I stumbled accross this table that would indicate that the interpretation that you, mplindustries, Andro, ect have is probably the right one, edit - in regards to how Paizo sees it, at the very least. Your post was a good reminder to come on here and basically say "yeah, you're right"

Table 7-12 Common Armor and Shield Hardness and Hit Points