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Hi All,
Was recently playing around and realized that it would be very easy to build a Half-Elf Monk focused on Strength, but with a decent Wisdom score, and achieve a +11 to Sense Motive at level 1.
This results in great synergy for the Snake Style feat chain, but considering the Snake Style chain uses up your immediate action for the current round and swift action for the subsquent round I don't know if it would be that great in actual play.
When you consider that Monks (or any class with a Ki Pool) rely on Swift actions for a multitude of cool class features it starts to look like Snake Style and it's subsequent style feats would provide very poor action economy.
Anybody played this style in a PFS game? How'd you find it? Did you find yourself wishing you still had a swift action on basically every round?
Or am I perhaps looking at this the wrong way?
My MoMS Monk is only level 2 at the moment, so he won't get snake style until level 3 because of the prerequisite of 3 ranks in sense motive. I took Dragon Style and Crane Style. If I want to charge in my first action, I activate Dragon, otherwise I activate Crane. Crane Wing doesn't work against missile fire, but Snake does, so once I have that as an option, what I activate first will depend on what I'm facing. Assuming I make it to the second round (!) I can active the other while leaving the first active as well (due to Fuse Style).
As to the Snake chain needing two immediate actions, it can still work as written. Have Snake Style active, but don't spend the immediate to make the Sense Motive check. When your opponent misses, THEN spend the immediate to counter-attack. I can't say what RAI are, but it might have been written that way to force the choice. Do you want to use the sense motive to (possibly) make yourself harder to hit, or do you want to retaliate if missed ?
I once played a snake style monk with an Egyptian flavor once to great effect. Really annoyed the GM that I could confirm crits with a Sense Motive instead of the (crappy) attack roll. Also, picking attacks of opportunity is really nice too!
It is not worth it.
For one thing, immediate/swift actions are precious, so it's not something you want to be relying on.
The once/round nature of it and the fact it applies in full to touch AC (and the difficulty to meaningfully buff it beyond what you could have buffed full AC w/ the same amount of optimizing) means you probably want to use it for touch attacks.
Which a) are uncommon so you may go whole combats w/o using the feat and b) monk *already* has good touch AC. It's one of the few good things about the class!
So yes, the style is a waste. If you can get Snake Fang w/o blowing feats on the entire chain (ie, use MoMS to bypass Snake Sidewind, which is just utterly godawful), Snake Fang is absolutely worth the style feat + itself + combat reflexes.
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Round x: If I go before mob, declare use of Ki for some Ki benefit and wade in. Mob goes, and I have to decide if its attack warrants the use of an immediate action for a chance at a better AC against a single attack. If it does, I roll and A) the result is actually worse than my regular AC; B) DM says the attack missed my regular AC; C) the attack still hits my heightened AC; D) the attack would have hit my regular AC, but misses on my heightened AC. Of all these possible outcomes, only one is a wise use of the immediate action.
Round x+1: If I used the immediate action, now I can't use Ki this round. On Mobs turn, I make the same decision again.
Alternative:
1) Mob goes, hits, take it.This saves your Swift for your own turn.
2) Mob goes, potential crit, activate Snake, crit does not confirm.
This uses your Immediate up, but can make it more difficult for that extra damage to accrue. It should also be a rare use, instead of common.
3) Mob goes, misses.
You still have your Swift for your turn.
Overall, you will still take the hits, but it can give you a better chance of not taking all the extra crit damage. Sure, you can still make a sucky roll for Snake when you try to avoid the crit. Life happens. That is alkso why you do evertything you can to max out your bluff check, so even a sucky roll is comparable to your normal AC.
Anbd, of course, it can also be useful against that opponent using touch attacks, since it is likely to give you a better touch AC than your normal one....
Snake style isn't about the sense motive or the immediate actions. It's about being able to make opportunity attacks because your opponent missed you. That's the best part of the style.
I would only take snake style with MoMS or maybe unarmed fighter since you can skip the middle feat in the chain.
Because it still won't be by much, and it's only 1/round, so relying on it instead of just pumping AC is a crutch.
Because I'd rather have several other styles if limited to only one at a time.
Because I need my swift/immediate for other things.
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All of the three Feats in the snake style chain have other stuff going on besides their various 'immediate action' options; they just each happen to get one immediate action option on top of whatever else they give you. Whether you consider the 'base' bonuses the Feats give you (i.e. +2 to Sense Motive and the option to do piercing damage with unarmed strikes for Snake Style; +4 to CMD / Acrobatics / Saves to avoid being knocked prone and the option to use Sense Motive to confirm criticals for Snake Sidewind; unarmed AoO every time an opponent misses you for Snake Fang) worth taking the style or not is probably more important than focusing on the immediate action options.
All of the three Feats in the snake style chain have other stuff going on besides their various 'immediate action' options; they just each happen to get one immediate action option on top of whatever else they give you. Whether you consider the 'base' bonuses the Feats give you (i.e. +2 to Sense Motive and the option to do piercing damage with unarmed strikes for Snake Style; +4 to CMD / Acrobatics / Saves to avoid being knocked prone and the option to use Sense Motive to confirm criticals for Snake Sidewind; unarmed AoO every time an opponent misses you for Snake Fang) worth taking the style or not is probably more important than focusing on the immediate action options.
I second this - focusing on the immediate actions is really disregarding most of what the snake style feats offers you.
For example, imagine your armored low-dex fighter: great AC, but terrible touch AC. Now let the wraiths appear, or just imagine your evil spellcaster trying to touch you with a bestow curse or a scorching ray. Ensuring that even one attack does not hit you - which is really easy with the basic bonuses you can get at various levels with skills - is definitely worth it IMO. Or imagine you are not in your armor because you're swimming, surprised in your sleep etc. Being able to have an acceptable AC even against just one attack may save your PC's life. For example, it could allow you to fend off the attack of opportunity you provoke while picking up your weapon that's lying on the ground...So to highlight some of what I think this feat offers:
- fend off attacks of opportunity and thus increase your options
- protect against melee and ranged touch attacks
- get by at times when you are not in armor
THEN I see the other benefits
- make lots of extra attacks
- gain an extra bonus to your sense motive
- additional movement options
- critical confirmations
- piercing damage, thus qualifying you for duelist prestige class and overcoming DR
A 19th level bard, being able to take 10 on all skill checks would have a lot of fun with that - when moving almost no creature will be able to hit/grapple/whatever him :-)
I am using Snake Style in a game right now, and it is awesome, or as much as awesome can be with a monk.
I am using Snake Style in a game right now, and it is awesome, or as much as awesome can be with a monk.
Dabbler is right. Even Snake Style feat just on its own is awesome. Just take it alone and don't worry about the extra feats if you are concerned about the immediate actions.
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I don't disagree that the potential benefits of the Snake Style feat chain are very good.
I actually play Monk's quite a bit, and I find that the style of play that I employ I take full advantage of the swift actions available.
Ever since I got Ultimate Magic I use Qinggong as my base archetype - which means I'm using ki points (and therefore swift actions) A LOT.
You can do a lot of amazing things with a Qinggong Monk if you're willing to expend a swift action each round.
Hence my concern. If I understand Immediate Actions correctly I can burn one following a turn in which I used a swift action, but if I do I am prohibited from using an immediate action or swift action until at least a full round has elapsed.
I guess it's not that bad, but you could action yourself into a corner if you aren't careful...
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You can do a lot of amazing things with a Qinggong Monk if you're willing to expend a swift action each round.
Like what ? Most qinggong powers are standard action spell-like abilities or feats you can grant yourself as a free action, unless you are speaking about level 10+ Quickened Spell-like abilities, of course.
In practice, most enemies won't be slinging ranged touches at the monk anyway, because it's blatantly obvious the effort is futile. I know, that's "metagaming," but I have played many monks and "monks" (unarmored AC bonus build, possibly through a monk dip, but not a true monk), and IME...NPC wizards are pretty smart fellows. At least the way my DMs have played them.
After all, you can't attack if you're dead.
The same holds true for your enemy, though. :p
Use the swift for MOAR DAKKA!!! and kill him before he kills you. Hell, being a *ranged* character, that's even more likely to play out as the case than for a melee character!
What are these amazing uses of swift actions that are so much better than not taking damage?
Ki?