pinpoint poisoner feat


Rules Questions


This is half necroing an oold thread so i decided a new one is better.

So with pinpoint poisoner (

pinpoint:
Pinpoint Poisoner (Combat)

You deftly use specially prepared needles to apply poison for maximum effect.

Prerequisites: Poison use class feature, Craft (alchemy) 6 ranks, Adder Strike, Improved Unarmed Strike, Two-Weapon Fighting or flurry of blows class feature.

Benefit: When you use Adder Strike, you can instead poison up to two blowgun darts that you can then use to strike your opponent in melee. (Drawing such darts is a free action.) While holding these darts, you can spend a standard action to attack with one or a full-attack action to attack with both. Such attacks are considered melee touch attacks that deal 1d2 damage plus any bonuses you gain on your normal unarmed strike damage, and they deliver the poison. You can instead throw such darts as if they were shuriken, making your ranged attack rolls against the target's AC.

Normal: Applying poison to a weapon or single piece of ammunition is a standard action.

(

Adder:
Adder Strike (Combat)

You can quickly apply poison to gloved hands, protected feet, or other protected body parts, delivering the poison with your unarmed strikes.

Prerequisites: Poison use class feature, Craft (alchemy) 1 rank, Improved Unarmed Strike.

Benefit: As a swift action, you can apply one dose of contact or injury poison to two body parts that you use for unarmed strikes. You must still protect yourself against exposure to contact poisons you apply in this way.

Normal: Applying poison to a weapon or single piece of ammunition is a standard action.


The attacks do 1d2+unarmed upgrade? (i.e. monk levels, or monastic legacy feat, even a amulet of mighty fists?) How about when throwing? It lists changes when throwing but it only specifies a change to the ac you target.. so does throwing them do unarmed damage as well?

Is the full attack action mean I get all my attacks, just the first two get the poison usage?

Does the darts break on usage? It doesn't say it does. normally ammo is destroyed if shot but what if im holding it and sticking someone? sometimes ammo is destroyed because you lose sight of it, not just because it breaks..(if so.. is there anyway to avoid them breaking or is it a rolled chance?) because with the alchemist sticky poison it would be a nifty saver. If they don't break, would you say that the rest of my attacks could apply the poison left over via sticky poison ?

Because that could be very cool with my idea for MOMS monk/alchemist/assassin with that monastic feat..


1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.

I read ".. plus any bonuses you gain on your normal unarmed strike damage.." not as damage dice but any additions to the damage such as from Strength modifier and weapon specialization etc. I could be wrong here, but that is what it looks like to me. So an amulet of mighty fists would add its bonus damage.

When throwing a weapon you "..instead.." gain a bonus damage from Strength and from ranged attack feats like point blank shot. This would not extra include unarmed strike bonuses like from the amulet.

The feat seems to indicate that you only get 2 attacks in a full attack action. This would have to be FAQ'd for clarity.

Darts are ammunition and follow the ammunition rules. If they hit, they are destroyed. If they miss, technically there is a 50% chance it breaks, but for a melee attack this makes no sense and as GM I would be comfortable waiving that break chance.

As for sticky poison, if a full attack action allows any "left over" attacks (which currently does not seem likely) and your ammunition doesn't break on a miss (by RAW) then it could work. But this is a stretch imo.

Sticky poison would still work on adder strike which then is followed by a flurry.


hah rez on my own thread.. but seemed easier than making a new one..

So there was errata on feral combat training, http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1g1#v5748eaic9rbe
it says you get the monk class lv's bonus to unarmed damage.
Do you think this changes what bonuses go on the darts?
There is different wording, augment and bonus. I was never sure if bonus meant static damage only, or othe buffs like stunning fist.

Off hand it would be neat if it gave the monk lv unarmed damage bonus to it. (It certainly isn't particularly extreme with the attack number limit)
It would make using this feat a lot more fun and make reasonable sense.
your holding the dart and striking which wouldn't be much different than a martial art finger stab.

thoughts?


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I have thought about these feats a lot and would like to throw in my thoughts. I would just like to make clear what they give you first to weigh the advantages.

Adder Strike
1. Apply poison to 2 body parts as a swift action
2. Use ONE dose of poison for TWO uses

I think it is important to make that distinction clear, since point 2 has a huge monetary effect of getting two poison uses out of one dose, and is possibly the best advantage of these feats

Pinpoint Poisoner
1. Apply poison to 2 blowgun darts as a swift action (drawing these darts is a free action) (still one dose for 2 weapons)
2. Attack with one as a standard action. attack with both as a full-attack action.
3. These attacks are considered melee touch attacks
4. They deal 1d2 damage plus any bonuses you gain on your normal unarmed strike damage, and they deliver the poison.
5. Throw such darts as if they were shuriken, making your ranged attack rolls against the target's AC.

To discuss these points:
2. It seems to be clear that pinpoint poisoner only allows you 2 attacks with a full attack action. However as per 3, they are melee touch attacks and therefor attack the opponents touch AC
4. It also seems clear that you would only do 1d2 damage + strength and feat bonuses,etc., and NOT the unarmed upgrade damage. The name of the feat would suggest you are actually holding the dart like a precision instrument (like you normally hold a throwing dart or pencil) and using it as such for precision over power to bypass the enemy's armor, as it also suggest by the fact that you are making touch attacks with them, not melee attacks.
5. When throwing these darts as shuriken, can you use flurry of blows with the darts and then shuriken for the rest of the attacks? If it says "throwing them as if they were shuriken" This is exactly what a monk would do with shuriken if he had a full-attack action. Also, as a monk you can interchange flurry of blows with flurry of shuriken, so is it possible to be adjacent to an opponent and throw the darts, then finish with blows? If this is the case, then it also seems reasonable that a monk with flurry of blows could forgo the melee touch attack feature of these darts and do a flurry of blows with them while holding them as weapons, even dropping them after the first two strikes to get full damage on his successive attacks. Since this whole point is debatable, I will not continue with it as fact, but would like opinions on this.

What are the advantages to take pinpoint poisoner in addition to adder strike?
1. Use injury poisons over contact poisons, which generally have faster onset and of which there is a greater variety.
2. Melee touch attack against the opponents touch AC
3. Throw the darts in the same round you poison them.

What are the disadvantages?
1. Can't use flurry with the darts.
2. do less damage

How can these be bypassed?
Use adder strike with spiked gauntlets or spiked brass knuckles. (These do not exist, but are not without the realm of any kind of possibility and could easily use the same weapon proficiency as brass knuckles, which monks are proficient with. This I feel is very reasonable). With this you can use flurry, and still use injury poison.

Lets look at some combat examples using both.

Adder Strike
1. Combat starts, apply poisons, move to an enemy in range, attack with one poison. Round 2, Flurry opponent with one poison. Round 3, apply poison, provoke attack of opportunity, flurry
2. Combat starts, apply poison, delay till an enemy is adjacent to you, flurry. Round 2, apply poison, provoke attack of opportunity, flurry

Pinpoint Poisoner
1. Combat starts, apply poison to darts, move next to one enemy, attack with one poison melee attack. Round 2, drop your second needle so you can flurry.
2. Combat starts, apply poison to darts, delay till an enemy is adjacent to you, attack with both darts.
3. Combat starts, apply poison to darts, throw them as shuriken.

There seems to be some problems here, and that mostly comes in the form of provoking attacks of opportunity from applying poisons in combat, and the one advantage, applying poison as a swift action, rarely seems to pull off like you'd imagine.

In the adder strike examples, the best option looks like 2, but regardless of what you do, using the feat again in combat will provoke attacks of opportunity, so the bonus of using it as a swift action seems kind of nullified, as there is no real practicality in applying a poison swiftly to get attacked. If you DIDN'T have adder strike, and say you were jumped and unprepared for combat, you could move away from opponents, apply poison as a standard, and wait for them to approach and attack in the second round. You are still using poisons, only you are delaying for a round and not get attacks of opportunity since you are not tempted to apply poisons in the heat of combat. Really I feel like point 1 of adder strike should be "Apply poison to 2 body parts and provoke attacks of opportunity as a swift action"

In the pinpoint poisoner examples, it looks like option 3, throwing them is always your best bet. The only other case would be to poison and weaken a monster with a really high AC and really low touch AC. But such a creature is more than likely to have high fort saves as it's a tank type, so how will this really pay off? Pinpoint poisoner might be really great if you could do flurry of blows and flurry of shurikens with it, but with adder strike, you get spiked gauntlets and you can use those injury poisons with flurry right away. OR don't bother with Adder, and just apply them as a standard when you know you are going to go into combat, or right at the start if you think you'll need them.

Really I think these feats look cool on paper, but don't really deliver in any practical way.


On the bit about the unarmed damage. I can't say whether or not intent wise. but I thought of it as they either held it and jabbed it in of doing both, held it similar to what x29 from marvel's blades look like.
As for the impact it would have the same "oomf" as the one finger stabbing some of the martial art style feats give.
could see the opposite but it seems like it ought to be fine given that errata. doesn't apply to ranged version of course.

Where does it say applying poison is an AOO? I can't find it off hand, don't swift actions typically not provoke also?


Haha. I hear what you're saying, like holding keys in your fist, or in your hand with a thumb jab; you still do a lot of the physical fist force in the punch.
so i think it should be more like:
do the melee touch attacks as precision attack
-or-
do them with a flurry as a full-attack as per normal
as for the poison AOO
I didn't find poison either, but figured it was like "Drink a potion or apply an oil" from the list of combat actions here:
http://paizo.com/prd/combat.html


I really think there should be a feat like:

Pinpoint Poison Master(Combat)
You deftly use specially prepared needles to apply poison for catastrophic effect.

Prerequisites: Poison use class feature, Craft (alchemy) 10 ranks, Adder Strike, Improved Unarmed Strike, Two-Weapon Fighting or flurry of blows class feature, Pinpoint Poisoner, Quick Draw.

Benefit: When you use Pinpoint poisoner, you can instead spend a standard action to attack with one at your full BAB, or a full-attack action to attack with both with who-weapon fighting or flurry of blows. These attacks deal normal unarmed damage, and deliver the poison. In addition, you can use prepared poison darts to draw and strike with as many different prepared poison darts as you have on your person. You can instead throw such darts as if they were shuriken at your full BAB or if you are a monk, with your flurry of blows range attack, making your ranged attack rolls against the target's AC.

Normal: Applying poison to a weapon or single piece of ammunition is a standard action.

Pinpoint Poison Guru
Would be around lvl 15, and grant the touch attack to the flurry and the shuriken throw


I dont Think the increased damage dice count as bonus. I belive the pinpoint poisoner attacks does 1d2 +sneek, str, dex(if agile amulet of MF), power attack, specialisation and all that stuff.


Related, if using pinpoint poisoner, does the attack count as an unarmed strike, blowgun, or melee touch for the purposes of weapon focus feats?

I'm working on a Grippli character that uses a blowgun. Could I use this to apply blowgun weapon focus and related to the melee touch using the blowgun darts?

Just asking.

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