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And if not, is there a compelling reason?
I submit that since the Halfling Sling Staff is the racial weapon for halflings, it seems completely reasonable to allow the Halfling racial feats designed for slings with the sling staff.
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They use the same language as the Warslinger Hafling Racial Trait, which was ruled only to work with slings and not sling staffs.
Yes, it is as dumb as it sounds.
@ Capital Q: I am playing a Halfling gestalt Ranger/Cavalier specializing in the sling-staff. Technically by RAW w/the FAQ these and Warslinger do not count toward that weapon. My GM graciously allowed Warslinger houseruled in as valid however.
My advice would be: if you have to go RAW w/the staff-sling, go down the Vital Strike road. It's not optimal and you'll eventually fall behind dedicated archers/crossbow specialists, but there you are.
The reality is that currently vanilla PF suggests that bows are the best option, crossbows are viable, and slings are third based on the feats available. This puts the Halfling sling-staff as fourth unfortunately.
Upside: any enchantment to this weapon that works for either melee or ranged works on either function of the sling-staff. It's not a Double Weapon, so you only need to spend once. Also you add your Str bonus at no extra cost to the weapon's construction. Over and over I've seen on the boards that the biggest advantage of the sling-staff is you don't need to spend a lot of cash on it. Halflings are nothing if not frugal...
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"a lot of cash"
a few hundred gold to use a +2 or +3 strength pull bow, or 1000gp to get it adaptive.
at most you save 200-1000gp. its the cost of a few potions. its not going to save any halflings in garundi.
in PFS the order becomes guns, bows, crossbows, slings, thrown weapons, the sling staff.
it is the red-headed stepchild of pathfinder weapons.
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I too agree that the FAQ ruling is ridiculous.
I get the concept that not every option is going to be as powerful as any other option. Everything can't be 100% equal across the board. That would make things boring.
But there is a point at which making rulings like this make particular options completely non-viable after 5th level.
In this case, there would be no reason, whatsoever, for a character to specialize with the halfling sling staff unless they were purposely trying to nerf themselves for flavor.
Sounds like the nerfing is bad for the hoopak.
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They didn't nerf slings. They clarified that the language, as written, specifically only applies to slings. That's not something they can (or should) fix in a FAQ. It should, however, probably be changed in subsequent printings/errata.
If you're optimizing, you picked a bad weapon.
You'll need the alt racial to load it quicker, which isn't a big deal.
*edit* Come to think of it, if Slingstaff<>Sling, that doesn't even work. And more suck is that none of the Feats or items that improved bows make a Slingstaff better. Rapid Shot, Bracers of Archery, etc.
And you need to be a martial Hafling to use it.
Admittedly, I didn't spend a lot of time looking at it. If someone figured out a way to be a Halfling, use the Slingstaff, and have it keep up with a bow I'd enjoy reading their ideas.
I would say that the sling staff text should be edited to say "any ability or feat that applies to slings also applies to the sling part of a sling staff." Or something along those lines.
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I don't understand why they make these items, then don't spend five minutes to consider what they've just done. Maybe it's 20-20 hind sight, but if they were to ask their QA power gamer on staff to try and make a build with said item, five minutes later they'd have their eyes opened.
I too understand the tenet that not all options were created equal. There are certain corner builds that make lances ridiculous, crossbows deadly, and even whips more versatile.
The "tricks" you can use w/a sling don't always translate to a sling-staff; I can accept that too. It is a highly versatile, albeit low-damage weapon. You can still stack on a few feats and the Vital Strike chain to make yourself useful in combat. Not a totally optimized ranged DPR guy mind you, but useful.
Where I think I get confused is PF takes the time to make a weapon for Halflings, they then design weapon feats and traits specific to Halflings, but in the end they are incompatible. What's worse, there is no effective "corner build" that takes advantage of the staff-sling, save perhaps a vanilla rogue with SA damage stacked on.
Is THAT what this weapon is intended for?
I too understand the tenet that not all options were created equal. There are certain corner builds that make lances ridiculous, crossbows deadly, and even whips more versatile.
The "tricks" you can use w/a sling don't always translate to a sling-staff; I can accept that too. It is a highly versatile, albeit low-damage weapon. You can still stack on a few feats and the Vital Strike chain to make yourself useful in combat. Not a totally optimized ranged DPR guy mind you, but useful.
Actually, the sling staff does the same damage as a small sized longbow. It has a slightly shorter range than the longbow, but longer than a regular sling. You can also add your strength to damage and use it in melee without switching weapons. It's a nice, optimized version of a sling, which made it a perfect racial weapon of a sling-focused race.
Where I think I get confused is PF takes the time to make a weapon for Halflings, they then design weapon feats and traits specific to Halflings, but in the end they are incompatible. What's worse, there is no effective "corner build" that takes advantage of the staff-sling, save perhaps a vanilla rogue with SA damage stacked on.
Is THAT what this weapon is intended for?
From a "literary analysis" perspective, I would guess the sling staff is a hold over from 3.5 that the author of the Halflings book was not aware of. Otherwise, there's no reason to invent the Sling Flail feat or the Stitched Sling. In the Halflings racial book, the only substantive mention of the only Halfling-named racial weapon is in the equipment list. It feels like an editor added it to the list on a review pass, and no one noticed the discrepancy.
If that's the case, it probably makes the most sense to just kill off the sling staff as an unintended carryover from 3.5. If that's not the case, then... well, I got nothing.
That's not completely true. I have a 3rd level Weapon Master fighter archetype whose chosen weapon is the sling staff. All the feats and traits I have are technically still "legal", but they don't work with each other, and I can't afford to retrain. Maybe she can run off and join a circus or something...
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There was a real big debate on this.
Unfortunately, the people who don´t like halflings and slings won.
What is quite a big faction, including at least one person in the design team.
Mechanically, it wouldn´t be overpowered. Just about the same as humans or others with a bow. I suggested a halfling monk archetype Zen-slinger, using the sling staff.
But, halflings are just not seeing much support or love in PF and that probably won´t change anytime soon. We got that "awesome" other small races for it, like goblins you can´t really play in PFS or Wayang.
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Sadly it seems that in PF the only viable ranged weapons that get any support are bows and guns.
The rest is just flavor and should not even have a damage code as nobody wants you to use them.
Sling staves are from 1E unearthed Arcana, actually, and actually exist in real life.
They are indeed slow and hard to load. But when you're tossing stones as big as your fist, there's a reason for it. When they hit, they crush helmets, skulls, and break bones.
They're like miniature catapaults.
And seriously, its the best ranged weapon for any Halfling under BAB 6, which is 99% of halflings in existence. They are probably thrilled to use the thing!
==Aelryinth
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They didn't nerf slings. They clarified that the language, as written, specifically only applies to slings. That's not something they can (or should) fix in a FAQ. It should, however, probably be changed in subsequent printings/errata.
You are wrong. The ruling could just as easily have gone the other way.
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By the way, I analyzed things and a fifth level halfling does about half the damage of a human with a composite longbow using a generic Simple sling. Surely we could at least allow the feats compatibility with sling staves.
Any possibility of a new ruling getting made for us PFS slingers? Racial weapon familiarities shouldn't be a trap.
And let's just remind everyone that by Pathfinder rules, a crossbow/gun can be loaded in less than six seconds. Why are slings the only weapons we decide to impose realism on?
Seriously. The logic is insane. So it's unrealistic to fast-reload a sling, but an arbalest is fair game?
The whole idea of Halflings of Golarion was to make slings and their cousins viable so halflings weren't just worse than elves in every way. It failed. It's like trying to make dwarven melee weapons perfectly viable and only giving feats for handaxes!
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At the end of it, at least the other racial weapons work. The elven curve blade remains one of the highest damage two-handed weapons in the game. The orc double axe, while incredibly silly, is a fantastic choice for a half-orc that plans to use two-weapon fighting. The gnome hooked hammer and dwarven urgrosh are likewise fine for two-weapon fighting.
So what happened to the halfling weapon? Why would anyone make a ranged weapon that you cannot ever use to full attack, even with advanced training? By the way, being able to use it in melee is not a viable substitute for being able to full attack. This is especially the case for a race that has a strength penalty.
Every other racial weapon from the CRB does what it is supposed to do. Unless the sling staff's purpose is to be a new player trap, it's not functional.
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The regular loading speed for guns is of these types is screwy. Fast loading them is super screwy. Using screwy rules as justification for why slings should be better is looking pretty closely at some mangled trees without reference to the forest.A screwy mechanics should neither be a justification to make slng as terrilbe as they are.
Which I did not do.
Yeah, I think house rules are easy to make. Just that PFS doesn't allow those, for some reason. ;D
This is like the 100. try to do that.
I never understand the reason they ruled it out that way,
but there was a lot of cries (also from a lot of GM´s, some of them on the several stars end as far as i remember).
Arguments were made that a racial trait is more powerful than feats and the sling already has the advantage of thrown weapons that STR is added.
Some even were concerned that the sling get´s more powerful than a bow.
Anyway, i´m all for it. For that little trait, halflings have to give up the 30 feet base speed option, what is plain evil anyway.
Anyone reading this thread, please consider hitting the FAQ button.
A sling is one sling.
A halfling sling staff is a stick with one sling attached.
A double sling is a stick with two slings attached.Ammo Drop and Juggle Load are applied to one sling and a stick with two slings, but they don't apply to a stick with one sling?
That makes no sense.
Also it makes no sense that a simple weapon takes more work to load as a free action than an arbalest or musket.
Well the halfling sling staff is an exotic weapon, but it still doesn´t make more sense, that´s quite right.
Especially if you look at those double-barreled firearms and gimmicks like paper cartridges.
Plus, the limitation applies to the feats, too, so the trait is still more powerful than them.
How potent can a slinger be in a campaign though especially as the game progresses?
How potent can a slinger be in a campaign though especially as the game progresses?
Sadly not very much for the sling and not at all for the staff sling. That's how the devs want it because for them using a sling in combat is like throwing waterballoons. That slings have been widely used in warfare for some period seems irrelevant.
A Warpriest can do all right. At least using the current Playtest rules.
How potent can a slinger be in a campaign though especially as the game progresses?Sadly not very much for the sling and not at all for the staff sling. That's how the devs want it because for them using a sling in combat is like throwing waterballoons. That slings have been widely used in warfare for some period seems irrelevant.
I know. The sling can be a pretty dirty weapon. I saw something on the Military channel about slings and warfare. Those things could crack skulls.
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How potent can a slinger be in a campaign though especially as the game progresses?For a halfling, you can stay decently competitive with a bow if you take the Warslinger racial trait (from the Advanced Player's Guide). You'll lose a couple points of damage on the weapon die, but in the end, the weapon die is small potatoes.
For anyone other than a halfling, it requires two extra feats from an aging Paizo Companion book to be able to use a sling as an appropriate ranged weapon. If you don't have access to that book, scrap the slinger idea for a non-halfling slinger.
Except even the Warslinger trait doesn't remove the AoO for reloading - and I'm not aware of any feats that would do so for a Sling. So, while you can eventually lose the AoO for firing the sling (Point blank master) you'll always eat one for re-loading.
So even if you get your damage to remain competitive with the bow, you'll never truly be on par.