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I just picked up Champions of Purity to work out the viability of my Paladin/Hellknight. I came across these new trait Weapon of Peace.
Weapon of Peace (Combat): Even though you are a trained combatant, proficient with any number of weapons, you don’t relish killing your enemies. It’s not that you’re afraid of seeing blood, but rather that disabling a foe is superior to killing someone capable of admitting defeat. When using a melee weapon that deals lethal damage to instead deal nonlethal damage, you take only a –2 penalty instead of –4.
However, it seems pretty inferior compared to Blade of Mercy from Legacy of Fire.
Blade of Mercy (Sarenrae): You know that within the heart of even the most hateful and cruel living creature exists a sliver of shame and hope for redemption. You have trained long on martial techniques to use bladed weapons not to kill, but to subdue. When striking to inflict nonlethal damage with any slashing weapon, you do not take the normal –4 penalty on your attack roll, and gain a +1 trait bonus to any nonlethal damage you inflict with a slashing weapon.
Less than half of the benefit. However, it does lift the requirements to be a follower of Sarenrae and works on piercing and blunt weapons. So now to decide which trait to take to go along with my plans to grab the Enforcer feat.
Do you worship Saranrae? If yes, nab blade of mercy. If no, does your GM allow you to grab it without worshipping Saranrae? If yes, grab Blade of Mercy, if no, Consider grabbing a feat to do it. if Yes, take feat, if no, grab weapon of peace.
Personally, I think Weapon of Peace is underpowered. Keep in mind most of the best weapons coincidentally do slashing.
I just wish so many traits that have no business being religion-based were not in the religion traits section. Paying respect to some god houldn't have anything to do w/ learning how to deal nonlethal with a blade, or never being caught flatfooted (Defensive Strategist trait), or so forth. Those are purely combat skills and should be combat traits.
I don't mind some of them, often they replicate traits found in the Combat section or something, same with race traits.
However there are a few that are extremely specific, cool and absolutely unique. And you can't take them because you need to worship a deity that you just can't justify with the background of your character.
Those have no business really being religion based, at least not without some really good explanation.
I see no problem however to replicate those traits as Combat or Social or whatever traits when needed, but obviously that's Houserule territory.
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On the one hand I like the idea of very specific traits that "reward" certain backgrounds. We accept the special abilities of the different PC races without much fuss, I view this as much the same.
That said, maybe it would be nice to treat those specific background traits as a discount: you can get the same effect (usually) through a feat, since feats are move expensive than traits. So having the background becomes a 50% discount on the ability you want.
I just noticed something odd...
On d20pfsrd.com the Religion traits aren't tied to deities anymore.
For example:
Flame of Dawn
If you look at the URL of that trait it was called "Flame of the Dawnflower (Sarenrae)" till recently. I've no idea when it was changed, hadn't actually looked at those in a while.
Is that just something d20pfsrd did, or is there actually a ruling or change about that matter that I missed? I already checked the FAQ, can't find anything there.
Yeah I noticed the picture changing a while ago, but I assumed the names of traits are part of the OGL just like the name of feats and stuff.
On the one hand I like the idea of very specific traits that "reward" certain backgrounds. We accept the special abilities of the different PC races without much fuss, I view this as much the same.
If I can add, with the example of blade of mercy without Saranrae you have been taught how to fight with slashing weapons in such a way you can attack non lethally as easily as you can lethally. That's a very specific background, and open to a lot of fluff that the player is likely to fill in himself. However with the specific on Saranrae added it removes any additional flavor you can add about how you were taught and demands it relate to the church of Saranrae. Specifics also remove the chance to add in your own sometimes.
Yeah, Blade of Mercy made me think Kenshin, if anything.
New a new weapon option, reverse blade, sounds pretty cool really.
It's nice when martials can accomplish things without relying on a magical crutch, though.