Hello Uber Nerd! You seem to be having some trouble differenciating between RAW (Rules as written), RAI (Rules as intended/interpereted), and Fluff text (Text that has no mechanical bearing, but gives the mechanics a reason to be.)
Here's Tiger Style
Benefit: While using this style, you gain a +2 bonus to your CMD against bull rush, overrun, and trip maneuvers. You can also deal slashing damage with your unarmed strikes. Whenever you score a critical hit with your slashing unarmed strike, your opponent also takes 1d4 points of bleed damage at the start of his next two turns.
Now, in order to activate Tiger Style, you spend a swift action. Done.
Once that happens, you get a +2 bonus to CMD to the mentioned maneuvers. If you are using Unarmed Strikes, you get further bonuses, but need not use your unarmed strikes at all in order to get the benefits that do not explicitly mention unarmed strikes.
It helps, perhaps, if you imagine it as a way you are standing. Because you know how to hold your weight, your legs allow you to distribute force from, say, a bull rush a little better. It's true whether you have open hands, a sword and shield, or whether you're carrying an injured friend to safety over the battlefield. (This is fluff, mind you, but it may help you think of it in a new way.)
Here it is again:
Benefit: While using this style, you gain a +2 bonus to your CMD against bull rush, overrun, and trip maneuvers. You can also deal slashing damage with your unarmed strikes. [u]Whenever you score a critical hit with your slashing unarmed strike, your opponent also takes 1d4 points of bleed damage at the start of his next two turns.[/u]
The bolded text applies in any situation if you are standing properly. The italic text applies ONLY if you are using unarmed strikes. The italic and underlined text only applies if you are using unarmed strikes that are specifically dealing slashing damage.
Now here is Tiger Pounce:
Benefit: While using the Tiger Style feat, you can apply the penalty from Power Attack to your AC instead of attack rolls. Additionally, once per round as a swift action, you can move up to half your speed closer to a target you hit with an unarmed strike or made a successful [u]combat maneuver[/u] against on this turn or your last turn.
Treat each sentence as a separate clause. The bolded text applies as long as you're using the tiger style feat. If you are getting the bonus to your CMD, you are using the feat. It is not conditional on using slashing unarmed strikes, nor is it conditional upon critical hits. You can use bashing unarmed strikes, slashing unarmed strikes, weapons, or your friend you are attempting to rescue as an improvised weapon and still get the benefit of the penalty to AC instead of to attack rolls.
The second part of the feat gives you the option to spend your turn's swift action to move. You have two options as to how you can do this. Either you can hit with an unarmed strike, or you can use a combat maneuver against them.
If a line of text does not follow the "Benefit:" it does not apply.
I hope that has changed your viewpoint. If it doesn't, you will continue to be met with resistance. If you have questions, I can try to help you understand. If you have further comments from your previous viewpoint that depend upon fluff as evidence, it will be ignored. Thank you for reading.
@Pharmalade -
I understand the differences between RAI, RAW, and Fluff, thanks. I'll try to go a bit more in-depth with my explanations and why I feel the way I do about it, I'll even repeat myself a bit over the course of the post in reference to my other posts, but alas it can't be helped.
1) Tiger Style - Think of it terms of how you are standing, exactly. Your character is prowling around like a tiger (probably growling too!) on all 4's or close to the ground. Think about the old kung-fu movies and you see the monkey style, lotus style, etc. They act like the animal in which they are portraying or channeling. Thus, if you are low to the ground with your hands down close to the ground or even touching you are harder to gain an advantage over and gain the +2 to CMD (defense yay!).
2) Everything alludes to unarmed strike, nowhere is it written that you CAN use this with strikes where you are armed with more than fists/claws. Simple there. It shouldn't be said because it IS NOT written that you CAN do it. That's my whole point here, it says over and over and over again that you have to have these prerequisites to gain this feat and the next, that when doing this with unarmed strike you gain this bonus or that bonus or that bleed effect. The whole reason (at least in my opinion) is that it gives the poor monks and unarmed fighters a bit more oomph for DPR, just like the normal fighters gain weapon specializations and focuses or barbarians gain their rage and rage powers. It's a nice little conciliation prize to monks in UC because they were so underpowered according to a lot of people.
3) Tiger Pounce - The pounce is again most likely intended for the monks. They have higher AC than a lot of other classes due to being MAD and gaining the additional AC because of WIS, this gives them a greater chance to hit, move, grapple, add more damage, etc. It is another adjustment by Paizo to appease the people who like to play monks/unarmed fighters, but who were upset when they dared to compare their DPR with the other classes out there.
4) I gave plenty of bold points, highlighting all the requirements to gain such and such feat/style that the fluff excerpt what just that, it was fluff that was written by Paizo to give us a more imagined feel to what the character was doing when they were attacking using these feats/styles.
Overall, it just smells like absolute cheese to me to even try it. No, it doesn't break the game if a GM allows a player to use their weapons in conjunction with the tiger style and tiger pounce. There are better ways to gain more DPR as a TWF than to try to move into the monk/unarmed fighter territory and try to exploit what some see as a loophole in what is or is not written. There are ways to boost DPR and not take penalties to your ATK (think furious focus or rage powers).
---------------------------------------------------------------
@kaisc006 -
I would, in fact, allow quite a few (crane/panther for example), just not those that specifically say that they require claws/hands/unarmed to do unless I find an errata, FAQ, or post by a Developer on the boards/internet to prove me wrong. Otherwise I will adhere to RAW/RAI as I see fit when I GM. As a GM, I also have plenty of rules I don't care for and will discuss with the group and we come up with house-rules where everyone is agreed and we can all live with.
@Pharmalade -
I understand the differences between RAI, RAW, and Fluff, thanks. I'll try to go a bit more in-depth with my explanations and why I feel the way I do about it, I'll even repeat myself a bit over the course of the post in reference to my other posts, but alas it can't be helped.
1) Tiger Style - Think of it terms of how you are standing, exactly. Your character is prowling around like a tiger (probably growling too!) on all 4's or close to the ground. Think about the old kung-fu movies and you see the monkey style, lotus style, etc. They act like the animal in which they are portraying or channeling. Thus, if you are low to the ground with your hands down close to the ground or even touching you are harder to gain an advantage over and gain the +2 to CMD (defense yay!).
2) Everything alludes to unarmed strike, nowhere is it written that you CAN use this with strikes where you are armed with more than fists/claws. Simple there. It shouldn't be said because it IS NOT written that you CAN do it. That's my whole point here, it says over and over and over again that you have to have these prerequisites to gain this feat and the next, that when doing this with unarmed strike you gain this bonus or that bonus or that bleed effect. The whole reason (at least in my opinion) is that it gives the poor monks and unarmed fighters a bit more oomph for DPR, just like the normal fighters gain weapon specializations and focuses or barbarians gain their rage and rage powers. It's a nice little conciliation prize to monks in UC because they were so underpowered according to a lot of people.
3) Tiger Pounce - The pounce is again most likely intended for the monks. They have higher AC than a lot of other classes due to being MAD and gaining the additional AC because of WIS, this gives them a greater chance to hit, move, grapple, add more damage, etc. It is another adjustment by Paizo to appease the people who like to play monks/unarmed fighters, but who were upset when they dared to compare their DPR...
these are a fine arguments that argue for RAI, not RAW.
While the OP views might be as you feel cheese, the actual text of the rule does support his position, which i believe is simplelywhat most of us were saying.
@ikarinokami -
The problem as I see it is: The RAW doesn't support the other side either. It's too vague and the side I think it supports a bit more is a "can't do it." So all arguments aside, no one "wins" because it's too vague to say a for certain without jumping to a conclusion based on a non-factual RAW specifically saying that it does or does not allow the use of weapons with the styles/feats.
RAI and fluff (2/3) are the only things we really have to go on here where we have the prerequisites and the wording all dealing with bonuses to the unarmed strike parts. That's why I tend towards the conservative side on this and say that it wouldn't be allowed in my games if someone tried to do it that way.
The only way I'd back down is if a developer jumped in and told me I was wrong and that the actual RAI was the way you and your side say, or that they are going to errata it to show that someone could use this with weapons, thus making it an actual RAW.
Hopefully that explains my point of view a bit better and clears up why I'm standing where I am. Of course people will disagree just like they all disagree on the forum topics that deal with alignment :P
Its not even about believing of opinions here. The rules as written allow without any doubts to use tiger style with weapons. What you du ub3r_n3rd is interpreting the text. You add something that is not there - the restriction to unarmed strikes only.
Any feat in the pathfinder roleplaying game tells you what the feat does in the benedit section and then adds restrictions. Pharmalade already did a good job pointing it out - I could only repeat his arguments - or my own ones I used earlier. Actually its necessary to accept this our position as it does not leave any space for doubts when it comes to RAW.
What you are doing in every single post is interpreting things that might be intended but are not written down in the rules.
This is like the question wether Sohei can flurry in armor - after RAW they can, no matter wether it was not intended, no matter wether even the author of the Soher said it was not intended - RAW say Sohei can flurry in armor.
Same is here, just that in this case I dont even think it was intended to USs only because the featchain clearly says which benefits are US only and which ones can be applied all the time.
But honestly at this point I think you just dont want to see and accept it because its just not reasonable to misunderstand RAW in this case.
@wasum, we've already been around and around. Neither can be proven without a reasonable doubt that we are right or wrong. Don't even pretend to think you know the minds of the developers and don't even pretend to think that you know the RAW when it isn't as specific as you are believing it to be.
You say: What you are doing in every single post is interpreting things that might be intended but are not written down in the rules.
That's the problem, what it says doesn't lend itself to what you think either!
The text says what the text says, it's what it doesn't say that is at the heart of the debate. I believe that the Devs should have placed in there that people could or could not do it with weapons to make it black and white clear cut, but it isn't that way so don't say you are right when you are clearly not.
I'm done for the evening as I have to head home and do other things, but think on it before you have your mind closed to the possibility it should be the other way around, because you are doing the exact same thing as I am. You are going based of off what you think the RAI are, not the RAW. Get that clear in your mind too.
|
I would, in fact, allow quite a few (crane/panther for example), just not those that specifically say that they require claws/hands/unarmed to do unless I find an errata
See this is where you just defeated your own argument. Because your argument against Tiger Style is that it implies only unarmed strikes, when EVERY Style feat implies unarmed strikes within the flavor text.
The text says what the text says, it's what it doesn't say that is at the heart of the debate.
Once again you just defeated your own argument. People saying you can use melee weapons are using what the text says to support their arguments (i.e. RAW). You are using what the text doesn't say to support yours (i.e. RAI).
Hello ub3r_n3rd.
So you seem a little hung up on the IUS prerequisites for style feats, and perhaps your mental image of someone using the style.
A question: How does a Paladin using Archon Style act? Why shouldn't he use style feats if he wants?
Also, several other style feats (Boar and Janni) explicitly state, in their Benefits: clauses, that you must perform an unarmed attack to gain the benefits of the feat. Most do not. Why is the clause included in those styles, but not all? Why even have them at all if the intent was understood to be used only by unarmed individuals? Unless,s the developers intended for the feats to be used by anyone who qualified?
You already said you allowed crane style in a previous post, so why can't a fighter hold his sword in a claw like fashion, all fingerlocked or whatever.
Perhaps I'm just a lemming or lacking in moral clarity, but I don't see what you see.
Hi again Uber Nerd.
I will address point two. In point two you present actual positions that I can articulate. In point three you use the word "Intended" which is indicitive that you are viewing intent within the rules. In point one, you make no actual point.
In point two, you state that it doesn't say you CAN.
This is a generalization, but this is not a game of what you CAN do. There are only limits placed upon what you can do beyond what you are capable of in the real world. Spells are where you get abilities that state what you CAN do, because they are fantastic and illogical confabulations of magical energies that break, invert, and oppose the laws of known physics. Were this to be a game of what you CAN do, you would need breathe actions to take in air, step actions to walk, and extensor pollicis brevis actions to give the thumbs up. The rules impose limits upon what we can do and that is what makes it fun. (Otherwise you get two 7 year olds on a playground shooting each other with lazerbeams that are equally because they have everything proof shields. The game has two stopgaps for that, the GM and the Rules and of the two the GM is the more important.)
No, this is a game where everything and anything is possible within boundaries. The boundaries are described within any line of text. Each line is its own entity that relates to the others but is not necessarily dependent upon them.
Prerequisites do not impinge upon further progress in feats. Were that the case, you may see intelligence checks required to use trip combat maneuvers proficiently. This is not the case. It is a requirement to obtain a certain base minimum of intelligence in order to realize that not getting hit in combat is a good idea and applying that effectively (combat expertise) but the extrapolation thereof That A Person On The Ground Don't Hit Me As Hard (improved trip) is not a huge epiphany removed from that premise.
A completely separate and yet similar example. Take the Deadly Stroke feat.
Prerequisites: Dazzling Display, Greater Weapon Focus, Shatter Defenses, Weapon Focus, proficiency with the selected weapon, base attack bonus +11.
Benefit: As a standard action, make a single attack with the weapon for which you have Greater Weapon Focus against a stunned or flat-footed opponent. If you hit, you deal double the normal damage and the target takes 1 point of Constitution bleed (see Conditions). The additional damage and bleed is not multiplied on a critical hit.
You could use Dazzling Display to impose the shaken condition, then follow up with Shatter Defenses to render the opponent flat-footed, and then render you Deadly Stroke, causing your opponent to bleed out. This is entirely within the realm of possibility of the feat and it works well as a coherent chain.
But say you happen to sneak up on someone with your Greater Weapon Focused weapon and Deadly Stroke them. You did not use the entire three rounds intimidating, hitting, and Deadly Stroking. You still get the benefit, yes? Yes, you do.
What if you stopped getting fighter levels after getting Greater Weapon Focus at 8th? Would you still be able go get and use Deadly Stroke? Yes, because while it may have been designed with fighters in mind, it is not exclusive to their use.
If you apply the chain of logic you are going down to every single feat chain you are going to run into non actions and feats even more useless than they would be otherwise. You are putting behind them an intent that need not be present. It was present, but need not be. Innovative use of core material pushes the game in exciting ways. In many cases (such as this one) it may be cheesy, but it is not illegitimate.
You aren't required to read or listen to all of this. If you haven't already, take your question down to the rules forum and argue your point there. We've taken this far enough off topic. After you have done that, feel free to contact me. I can help you think of ways to describe it to make it more palatable if you like.
WOW! I certainly didnt expect all this from my initial post.. I understand that RAI prob didnt want tiger style to be used with weapons, but at our table we play RAW.. And to me the only styles that u cant used weapons in conjunctions with are ones that explicitly say u must use an UAS in the text.. Not in the flavor text, but thats actually in the description on the feat.. Now where in tiger style or tiger pounce does it say u cannot use manufacterd weapons, u gain some static and use abilties, some related to UAS, some not.. Again sorry for the conflict all this has caused lol.. Merry Xmas!
So I thought about this a bit more last night on the way home and came to a few thoughts:
The problem as I see it here is that everyone, not just me is going with what they interpret as RAW. In fact, what we are really doing is placing our own beliefs in what we think should be RAW and going with RAI, so no one is actually quoting RAW. It's that simple, RAW of the tiger style and tiger pounce do not say either way if a PC can or can not use weapons. This leads us all into a realm of ambiguity. For anyone, including me, to say that RAW of this is one way or the other is wrong.
If you could do this with a weapon and it was RAW it should say explicitly, something along the lines of "may be used by anyone with the improved unarmed feat or anyone who can use a weapon." It doesn't say that does it? Nope.
If you couldn't do this with weapons and it was RAW it should say explicitly, something along the lines of "may ONLY be used by someone with the improved unarmed feat and not with the use of weapons other than natural weapons." Does it say this? Nope.
Conclusion: Both sides are peering into the grey area of these feats/styles and trying to define what actually isn't defined as RAW. Thus we move into using what we believe are RAI.
A good example of RAW:
Arcane Strike (Combat)
You draw upon your arcane power to enhance your weapons with magical energy.
Prerequisite: Ability to cast arcane spells.
Benefit: As a swift action, you can imbue your weapons with a fraction of your power. For 1 round, your weapons deal +1 damage and are treated as magic for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. For every five caster levels you possess, this bonus increases by +1, to a maximum of +5 at 20th level.
This says you MUST be able to cast arcane spells to use, so it rules out divine classes who haven't multi-classed and all melee classes who don't have any abilities in the arcane. This is RAW, this is not ambiguous, this is how all things should be written IMHO. No wiggle room, no squeezing it into a build where it wasn't intended, no room for misinterpretation.
So that's where the whole argument comes into play, everyone is going with what they believe is intended by it. Some believe that the Devs intentionally left it vague so that you can do this feat/style with weapons. I personally believe that the fluff written by Paizo and the words that are actually printed in the text defining the styles/feats along with the required prerequisites is meant to be only used with unarmed or claws.
In the end though, you won't change my point of view on this in how I would run it in my game or how I'd fight against it in a game I was a part of, unless it was house-ruled in and agreed upon by everyone. The same is true for people who oppose my point of view, you are entitled to that point of view and I probably won't change it with my many ramblings on the subject. Unless a Dev weighed in (if one did, I'm man enough to admit I'm wrong and apologize for my error).
As long as everyone is having fun, that's all that really matters and I'm done arguing semantics of the language and re-posting my thoughts over and over again when people can just read what I've previously stated as my reasons for my line of thinking. I also won't get into other arguments as to more semantics on other feats. It will just end in the same kind of stalemate.
Have a good day,
UN
Agreed on the "grey area" part of this feat.. Ive(and my grp), have always played that if it doesnt explicitly say u cant do somthing than by all means.. Your just simply on the other side, only do somthing if it says u can.. I feel this is fine by RAW, U dont.. Thats fine and i hold no sore feelings because of it.. Additionally it would be cool if a DEV would put there input on the matter.. Perhaps i will submit a Rules question about it..
|
|
In the end though, you won't change my point of view on this in how I would run it in my game or how I'd fight against it in a game I was a part of, unless it was house-ruled in and agreed upon by everyone.
Great! No one arguing against you said you were wrong in interpreting it that way, just you don't understand the term RAW. Im with you on this that it shouldn't work with Tiger Style, heck so is the OP lol, just we both agree that per RAW it works.
It's clear you don't understand what RAW means so we should just drop the argument. Feel free to PM me if you'd like to discuss further.
By RAW Tiger Pounce is clearly legal as it doesn't have any text saying that it's limited to unarmed attacks.
By RAI I think it's implied that it's meant to be limited to unarmed strikes like many of the other style feats but RAI isn't RAW.
In my own campaigns I'd tend to limit it to unarmed and natural weapon strikes with the possibility of extending it to a handful of manufactured weapons like the katar.
I certainly wouldn't assume that most GMs are going to go with a purely RAW interpretation though.
|
So I thought about this a bit more last night on the way home and came to a few thoughts:
The problem as I see it here is that everyone, not just me is going with what they interpret as RAW. In fact, what we are really doing is placing our own beliefs in what we think should be RAW and going with RAI, so no one is actually quoting RAW. It's that simple, RAW of the tiger style and tiger pounce do not say either way if a PC can or can not use weapons. This leads us all into a realm of ambiguity. For anyone, including me, to say that RAW of this is one way or the other is wrong.
If you could do this with a weapon and it was RAW it should say explicitly, something along the lines of "may be used by anyone with the improved unarmed feat or anyone who can use a weapon." It doesn't say that does it? Nope.
If you couldn't do this with weapons and it was RAW it should say explicitly, something along the lines of "may ONLY be used by someone with the improved unarmed feat and not with the use of weapons other than natural weapons." Does it say this? Nope.
Conclusion: Both sides are peering into the grey area of these feats/styles and trying to define what actually isn't defined as RAW. Thus we move into using what we believe are RAI.
A good example of RAW:
** spoiler omitted **...
The feat will say specifically if the ability is limited to one kind of attack. If it is not, it is free for any kind of attack.
Take Snake Fang "While using the Snake Style feat, when an opponent’s attack misses you, you can make an unarmed strike against that opponent as an attack of opportunity. If this attack of opportunity hits, you can spend an immediate action to make another unarmed strike against the same opponent"
It specifically states that the only kind of opportunity attack you can make is a unarmed strike. If the feat doesn't say it is restricted to a certain kind of x, any x will do.
Tiger Style says: "While using the Tiger Style feat, you can apply the penalty from Power Attack to your AC instead of attack rolls." By RAW, if I am in Tiger Style and I use power attack for any attack (because it doesn't define a specific restriction) I may apply the penalty to AC, not my attack.
Dot.
Could a monk use tiger style with his feet, if his hands are full? Why not?
that's clearly not rai! so, no!
:)
==Aelryinth
Well with tiger style theres no need for furious focus.. I suppose u would keep ur ac bonus for the first attack, but ill be ok w/o i think.. I was actually considering throwing some levels of barbarian in this.. Maybe Urban Barb..