How you get 1d8+18 damage per word? Wasnt it 1d8+cha mod? even with specialization im not sure how you got those numbers
Inspire Courage, Prayer, Heroism, Good Hope etc.
As a ranged touch attack, the words qualify as weapons, so any spell or effect that adds to the damage of a weapon adds to the damage of the words, as long as they don't specify melee weapons only.
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Hmmm... Im not very sure a PVP match where caster gets unlimited out of combat turns to buff is balanced, considering the other 2 castings for saves that would make about 7 turns of self buffing prior battle. Most of the times on real game you dont have that much intel prior battle to use a gazillion spells for self buffing. That was a reason clericzilla was broken, on that escenario weird words is not broken if it depends on a very specifica action economy escenario
Hmmm... Im not very sure a PVP match where caster gets unlimited out of combat turns to buff is balanced, considering the other 2 castings for saves that would make about 7 turns of self buffing prior battle. Most of the times on real game you dont have that much intel prior battle to use a gazillion spells for self buffing. That was a reason clericzilla was broken, on that escenario weird words is not broken if it depends on a very specifica action economy escenario
Well, he's playing a 12th level Character, so I guess it really depends on how high his Charisma can get. For example, you can get up to a Charisma of 38 by 20th level without too much difficult, which nets you a +14 bonus. Combine that with Inspire Courage, and he's got +18 right there.
However, he's not 20th level here. I would suspect that he had, probably, a 30 or 32 Charisma by using the Profane Gift of a Succubus. That's a +10 or +11 bonus on damage right there, Inspire Courage as a move action for +3 and I think there's actually a 2 feat combo out there that advances Inspire Courage, but I can't recall it.
So he's already sitting on a +13 or +14 bonus on damage. A Good Hope will give another +2 damage, bumping him to +15/+16, Point Blank Shot can give you another +1 for +16/+17, a +2 courageous weapon could give you another +1 to damage from Good Hope, and Prayer could also give you another +1 to damage etc.
Action Economy wise, you have Nerid's Grace and Bestow Grace, Good Hope and possibly Prayer. So 4 rounds of buff, 3 if he can get one quickened somehow. Not exactly unreasonable.
Bestow Grace isn't an arcane spell, so I'm assuming you had a potion or wand of it.Caster level 12th Cleric scroll.
Bestow Grace is a paladin spell. How are you getting it on a cleric scroll?
Bestow Grace is a paladin spell. How are you getting it on a cleric scroll?Bestow Grace isn't an arcane spell, so I'm assuming you had a potion or wand of it.Caster level 12th Cleric scroll.
He might mean Bestow Grace of the Champion which would be a nasty spell to use because it allows for the Bard to smite as a paladin of half the cleric's casting level. So as a 6th level Paladin.
This would mean, with a 28 Charisma (18 Base +3 levels, +6 item, +1 inherent; or 20 base +3 levels, +4 item, +1 inherent; or 20 base +2 levels, +6 item) for +9 damage, Inspire Courage for +3 damage and Smite Evil for +6 damage, you've reached the +18 damage bonus with only a single round of buffs. A Quickened Nereid's Grace on a previous or following round and the Sound Striker is fully buffed and ready to go.
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IF he is using a scroll, the scroll cl would be the one that counts for Bestow Grace of the Champion so the bonus damage should be much lower.
So Cha +9 damage, inspire courage for + 3 damage, bestow grace scroll would be +2 damage(Unless he is spending millions of gold on that sole spell for higher CL) Also smite evil its a swift action can only be used once on one target. On other regard, he is using cognotagen so he should have a higher charisma. However again it requires a lot of optimization, and the use of many spells, this is not really overpowered, as a mysterious strenger gunslinger at level 12 i can get as much damage and attacks with no prep time. And my attacks dont have 10 fort saves. 1d8+Cha+Dex+ deadly aim x 8 which is 1d8+26x8.
Addding the same buffs would be 1d8+26+3+2x8
IF he is using a scroll, the scroll cl would be the one that counts for Bestow Grace of the Champion so the bonus damage should be much lower.
So Cha +9 damage, inspire courage for + 3 damage, bestow grace scroll would be +2 damage(Unless he is spending millions of gold on that sole spell for higher CL) Also smite evil its a swift action can only be used once on one target. On other regard, he is using cognotagen so he should have a higher charisma. However again it requires a lot of optimization, and the use of many spells, this is not really overpowered, as a mysterious strenger gunslinger at level 12 i can get as much damage and attacks with no prep time. And my attacks dont have 10 fort saves. 1d8+Cha+Dex+ deadly aim x 8 which is 1d8+26x8.
Addding the same buffs would be 1d8+26+3+2x8
Bestow Grace of the Champion is a 7th level Cleric Spell and a 4th level Paladin Spell. That means, if he's using a Cleric Scroll, the minimum CL is 13th, which, half of that, is 6. So a CL 13th scroll of Bestow Grace of the Champion results in a Smite Evil equal to that of a 6th level Paladin.
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How you get 1d8+18 damage per word? Wasnt it 1d8+cha mod? even with specialization im not sure how you got those numbers
Can't Inspire cause it ends when you WW.
+11 CHA, +2 from Good Hope, +1 from PBS, +3 Arcane Strike, +1 moral from trait.
Hmmm... Im not very sure a PVP match where caster gets unlimited out of combat turns to buff is balanced
I apologize for not explaining the competition. Everyone got just two rounds of buffs. Only two buffs went into damage (Cognagen and Good Hope). I managed more than one buff a round due to money spent and class/race options chosen.
Inspire Courage
Profane Gift of a Succubus.
+2 courageous weapon
Buff ... quickened ... Not exactly unreasonable.
Again, can't use Inspire Courage with WW. I didn't use Profane gift, maybe I should. I didn't know about it. Can't use courageous (I don't agree with the community on how it reads.) I also don't agree with the Community interpretation of Weird Words, and did this build as an example of it's brokenness. I did do quicken buffs.
Bestow Grace is a paladin spell. How are you getting it on a cleric scroll?Bestow Grace isn't an arcane spell, so I'm assuming you had a potion or wand of it.Caster level 12th Cleric scroll.
I built the character last year. Sorry I missremembered. It was a CL 12 Paladin Scroll (2nd level Paladin spell.) Bestow Grace. Couldn't use the 7th level Cleric spell due to requiring CL 13 and you couldn't use any item or spell using CL 13 or higher. So no Candles of Invocation, Prayer Beads, etc.
CHA with Cognagen was 33, so +11 from Cha. If I had 27k I'd have bought a +1 Inherent bonus Tome and made it CHA 34.
I actually assumed you might have used Virtuoso Performance to maintain Inspire Courage and still use Weird Words.
So, what is the interaction, if any, between using Weird Words and having Lingering Performance?
I don't mean to make the Words linger, but how about an Inspire Courage in one round, then Weird Words in the next two rounds, while the Inspire Courage bonus persists?
Same as any other performance, if you use Weird Words while making Inspire Courage linger, Inspire Courage immediately ends as per the feat Lingering Performance.
The only real way to get Inspire Courage on your Weird Words is via another Bard, or Virtuoso Performance/Shadowbard.
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How you get 1d8+18 damage per word? Wasnt it 1d8+cha mod? even with specialization im not sure how you got those numbersCan't Inspire cause it ends when you WW.
+11 CHA, +2 from Good Hope, +1 from PBS, +3 Arcane Strike, +1 moral from trait.
I may be wrong but i dont think arcane strike works with weird words since its not a "weapon" its supernatural attack. Aracne strike specify weapons.
I may be wrong but i dont think arcane strike works with weird words since its not a "weapon" its supernatural attack. Aracne strike specify weapons.How you get 1d8+18 damage per word? Wasnt it 1d8+cha mod? even with specialization im not sure how you got those numbersCan't Inspire cause it ends when you WW.
+11 CHA, +2 from Good Hope, +1 from PBS, +3 Arcane Strike, +1 moral from trait.
According to SKR before he left, these are rays and work as such. Thus Arcane Strike is VERY valid...and really cool! :) Say goodbye to DR as your Bard levels up!
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I actually assumed you might have used Virtuoso Performance to maintain Inspire Courage and still use Weird Words.
Wow, I didn't know about that spell. Good idea.
What was banned in the pvp tournament?
It just had it's 12th year, so they built up over time. Off the top of my head this is what I can remember:
Wall of Force on all surfaces (no Earth Melding Druids.)
Leave the arena = lose (teleport out banishment.)
Cube of Force / Antimagic Field banned.
Hardcover books only.
ECL 0 races only but ECL 1+ races (Noble Drow) cost levels = to +CR
No Action points, item creation, Leadership feat, partially charged wands.
Any item using a 7th level spell or higher is banned.
Items with caster level 13 or higher (wands, scrolls, etc) banned.
Aracne strike specify weapons.
Everything in the game that uses an attack roll and deals damage is weapon like, so they always work with things like Arcane Strike, Point Blank Strike, etc. But if you don't agree, SKR did agree.
I actually assumed you might have used Virtuoso Performance to maintain Inspire Courage and still use Weird Words.Wow, I didn't know about that spell. Good idea.
If you think that's fun, stack Dawnflower Dervish on top of Sound Striker and now you get double Inspire Courage bonus. So you'd have something like 1d8+22 or so instead.
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One more rule on the PVP I forgot to mention but is extremely relevant.
You have 3 teams to fight, but you don't have spell memorization in between. So a spellcaster has to decide which spells to use when and during which team.
So if you nova early, you will be doing the later fights with daggers doing 1d4 damage.
I don’t think that a structured PVP contest with a carefully tweaked build and some race specific spells really tells us much about the Sound Striker archetype’s suitability for play as part of an adventuring party. That said, I think that most folks had agreed all along that the 10 Words on one target was a bit too strong rolling damage 10 times with 10 saving throws was just annoying.
The high damage and excessive die rolling is one reason why I thought reducing the number of Words might help. Do you feel that the PC still would have dominated the competition if there was a limit of 3 Words per round and each Word cost a bardic performance round?
I've only played with the 10 words on one target version, which was too strong, and the PDT version, which was too weak. I think abilities like this are tough to balance because the entire touch attack mechanic is kind of troubled, but that's really a complaint for other threads.
I'm pretty content with my proposal, I think it fits a nice middle ground.
Weird Words (Su) At 6th level, a sound striker can unleash potent sounds to attack his foes. He may unleash 1 sound for every 4 bard levels he possesses as a ranged touch attack that deals 4d6 points of sonic damage plus the sound strikers charisma modifier. The sound striker may target one creature, or multiple creatures with these attacks, but all attacks must be made simultaneously. The sounds have a range of 20 ft. which increases by 10 ft. every 4 bard levels. Each sound costs 1 bardic performance to unleash.
This replaces inspire competence, suggestion and mass suggestion.
Word Burst (Su) A sound striker can halve the damage dice of his weird words to fire twice as many sounds in a word burst. Doubling the attacks decreases the amount of control the sound striker has over his words and limits him to targeting each creature with only a single word in a burst. The sound striker pays the normal cost in bardic performance for weird words to make a word burst, but doubles the number of attacks made.
Come 20th level, the max number of words you have is 5, so only 5 applications of charisma+buffs and up to 20d6 damage on a single target. Word Bust, however, allows the ability to target up to 10 creatures, but only a single word each.
However, a big weakness is Resist Energy (sonic) which basically makes you immune to the words, unless you completely twink the damage buffs.
@Tels - Since SKR clarified that weapon buffs apply I feel like 5 Words might be too many. Heck, I can't even get everybody to agree that 3 Words would be OK. Deafening Song Bolts is also limited to 3 attacks and seems pretty effective to me.
I agree that while sonic damage seems more thematic Clustered Shots makes physical damage potentially much better. I mean, this is assuming that you're using a version of Weird Words which can hit the same target more than once. If not then sonic is probably "better" though the entire ability becomes pretty pointless - at least at the increased cost of the PDT version.
Maybe just spending a round of bardic performance to zap a bunch of mooks for 2d8+Cha wouldn't be so bad. Spending 7 or 8 rounds on it is rarely appealing unless you know it is the last fight of the day and you're pretty much just joking around. Anyhow, this is a really old discussion, so your proposal and mine probably have about the same chance of influencing the actual rules now - none
I like SKR's revision if you allow either Deadly Aim or Vital Strike to work with Weird Words somehow.
With Deadly Aim, I would allow it be applied to rays with a cap at either +10 or +15 Damage.
Vital Strike? There would have to be a price, but I don't know what yet.
I prefer the slashing/piercing/bludgeoning damage of Weird Words over your sonic damage revision, Tels. Arcane Strike works with it and so does Discordant Voice and any other energy add-ons! Cool.
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Do you feel that the PC still would have dominated the competition if there was a limit of 3 Words per round and each Word cost a bardic performance round?
It wouldn't have been even a moderate threat like that. Frankly 70 damage a round isn't viable in the PVP environment because you can't one shot someone typically with 70 damage. You need 200+ damage to do so. So it would have invalidated the entire build as a viable option strictly on the damage output. The rounds expended issue would have been ok, as I had 40+ rounds so using 36 of my 40+ during the tournament would have worked ok for me.
Clustered Shots makes physical damage potentially much better.
Unfortunately it says "When you use a full-attack action" in the feat, so it doesn't work for WW.
Deadly Aim or Vital Strike to work with Weird Words somehow.
Neither work now and would need explicit allowance. I think all the other things like Good Hope, feats, Bard Song from another Bard or yourself with tricks, evens it out without the need for either feats to work.
Tels's proposal is ok, except I don't think 5 words is the right amount. Some lesser value. The expended resource is too little and the existance of things like the perfect tuning fork make that way too strong to use as a secondary additional attack along side something like a spell.
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Hmmm, I don't see a dazing sorc losing that pvp tournament, too bad I am not nearby or I would give it a shot
Tell us about what you would build? I'm always open for new ideas.
I don't think I've seen a sorcerer be demo'd there. Usually the casters are Wizards, Witch, Oracles, and Druids.
I don't think I've seen a sorcerer be demo'd there. Usually the casters are Wizards, Witch, Oracles, and Druids.
I was a Sorcerer. Briefly.
Deadly Aim doesn’t work on touch attacks except with firearms. I think Vital Strike probably can't be combined with Weird Words since it has its own specific standard action.
@James Risner - That’s a good catch on Clustered Shots. It wouldn’t have mattered much to my Sound Striker since he had 4 levels of Paladin and lots of Smite Evil. He also didn’t have Clustered Shots since he was very melee focused.
I’d think the damage from the Bard you played would only end up being around 120-130 after the target made Fort saves, but even cutting damage down by 50-60 might be pretty significant. Anyhow, my point was mostly just that if the 3 Weird Word PC wouldn’t do well in the competition then it probably isn’t terribly overpowered. 70 damage with touch attacks seems pretty strong to me, but there are a lot of ways to do 70 damage with touch attacks already.
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I don't think I've seen a sorcerer be demo'd there. Usually the casters are Wizards, Witch, Oracles, and Druids.I was a Sorcerer. Briefly.
Sorry ;-(
I’d think the damage from the Bard you played would only end up being around 120-130 after the target made Fort saves
70 damage with touch attacks seems pretty strong to me, but there are a lot of ways to do 70 damage with touch attacks already.
DC 29 Fortitude Save isn't easy to make. No one made it during the tournament unless I'm confused.
Not doing well in an optimized tournament isn't the same as doing really well in a regular game. All the other ways of doing 70 damage is limited often by spell slots. This would be 11+ uses a day of 70 damage, which is like 11 spell slots of your highest level. Very good.
The other thing is this is multiple hits. I stripped off 9 Mirror Images from someone in one round using WW during the tournament. It completely negated most defenses you employ to survive hits.
Ok, DC 29 is higher than I expected. That would just make cutting it down to 3 Words an even bigger nerf though.
A Bard with UMD should be able to grab a wand of Scorching Ray and pump out 70+ touch attack damage while still buffing the party with performances. A ring of Spell Knowledge could work too if you're worried about SR. I'm personally not sure this a great thing for game balance either, but 70 damage is at least a lot less than 220 I suppose.
Touch attacks are just too easy to hit with.
People are also looking at the damage thru a pvp filter. For most monsters Cr 6+, you have to factor DR in, usually 5 or 10 at higher levels. Can't use clustered shots, can't make them special material, can't use bardsong buffs while using them. Can't use arcane strikewith them, ordeadly aim.
The standard DR for CR appropriate creatures once you have this, should pretty much balance out the +Cha to damage.
In PFS, typically i get d8+1or+2 with a 24Cha at level 9.
Arcane Strike works on the words as far as I'm aware, and you can add inspire courage to the words, but only if you use virtuoso performance or shadow bard.
DR could definitely become significant though in James Risner's example with 1d8+18 damage you'd still be putting through about 12.5 damage per hit for 125-ish damage. Back in down in the realm of less optimized PCs without race specific buff spells I'd guess damage would be more like 1d8+13. That's based on +8 Charisma and +3 for Arcane Strike since I'd think based on SKR's comments that it could in fact work with Weird Words.
That's still somewhere around 75 damage if the foe fails the Fort saves. I'm also not sure how Arcane Strike interacts with DR other than overcoming DR/magic (if at all). You could also take 4 levels of Paladin and beat a lot of DR with Smite Evil though that's probably more practical outside of PFS.
The thing is most pcs dont have DR, and most pcs dont have uberhigh for saves. Monsters however the higher the level the more have Dr and the more have usberhigh fort saves.
I tend to think of things in the context of "what's balanced vs monsters" rather than PvP.
I mean, it would stand to reason that people in a world like Golarion would develop techniques to combat creatures like dragons. But if you have a technique used to kill dragons, if you use that same technique on a person, they are, of course, going to be blown to smithereens.
It's not much different than military technology today. I mean, humans can kill each other with rocks, but we've developed guns, and tans and jets and bombs. One uses a tank to blow up other tanks and fortifications, but if the tank is used to kill a human, he stands no chance.
PCs are like soldiers in the military, but they don't just carry an assault rifle, they also carry little pocket tanks that have the same firepower as the full-sized one.
The thing is most pcs dont have DR, and most pcs dont have uberhigh for saves. Monsters however the higher the level the more have Dr and the more have usberhigh fort saves.
And Arcane Strike punches through DR. Ain't it great?!
The thing is most pcs dont have DR, and most pcs dont have uberhigh for saves. Monsters however the higher the level the more have Dr and the more have usberhigh fort saves.And Arcane Strike punches through DR. Ain't it great?!
Only Dr/magic.
Only Dr/magic.The thing is most pcs dont have DR, and most pcs dont have uberhigh for saves. Monsters however the higher the level the more have Dr and the more have usberhigh fort saves.And Arcane Strike punches through DR. Ain't it great?!
At first level, it is +1. At 5th, +2. At 10th, +3. 15th, +4 and +5 at 20th. So, DR/magic at 1st, DR/silver/cold iron @ 10th, DR/adamantine @ 15th and alignment @ 20!
If it was only DR/magic, Arcane strike would not be such a good feat.
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Arcane Strike does not grant an enhancement bonus, it only grants bonus damage.
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.
Weapons with an enhancement bonus of +3 or greater can ignore some types of damage reduction, regardless of their actual material or alignment.
That's what I get for paying attention to the fluff (which says enhance) and not memorizing the benefit.
Sheesh.
This has no actual impact on the rules but... uh, I'm just going to leave Lindsey Stirling's newest video here.
Seriously, this needs to be a thing.
This has no actual impact on the rules but... uh, I'm just going to leave Lindsey Stirling's newest video here.
Seriously, this needs to be a thing.
That is what I often imagine a bard doing, whether it be spell or as a sound striker.
It seems to do what Thunderous Drums claims to do...it just needs Intensified Spell, IMO.
@Fourshadow - It is kind of off topic, but my PC had the Intensified Spell + Thundering Drums combo along with the trait to lower the metamagic cost by 1. It seemed like it would be really cool, but in practice I ran into some problems:
- full round action to cast the metamagic spell made it tough to get into position and affect multiple foes
- 10d8 with a relatively easy save for half is only mediocre damage at higher levels
- I believe it would still count as a 4th level spell for the purposes of metamagic rods such as empower (plus pulling out the rod as a move action prevents the full round action for the spell)
- The biggest problem of all was that not many other Bard spells benefit from Intensified Spell, so I really felt like I'd wasted a feat
If I were building the same PC again I'd probably skip the trait and feat and just pick up a lesser metamagic rod of intensified spell for those times when the spell might come in handy.
Good point. So, a better Rod than Feat? Got it.
Certainly would like Weird Words to get some attention.
Better drumsticks you mean. ;)
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Cr 6+, you have to factor DR in
can't use bardsong buffs / Can't use arcane strikewith them
I've done the number on DR previously in this thread and they really don't change the average all that much. Unless your GM likes using only monsters with DR as opposed to spreading the love out over the various CR appropriate monsters.
It's been shown how to do Bard Songs with this that I didn't know at the time, and Arcane Strike does work per logic (and per SKR.)
Back in down in the realm of less optimized PCs without race specific buff spells I'd guess damage would be more like 1d8+13. That's based on +8 Charisma and +3 for Arcane Strike
Which race specific are you talking about? The trait for +1 gained via Adopted trait? Good Hope isn't a race specific buff tho, just the trait. But sure, I guess if you could use +13 damage for the lowest level of optimization. I just don't know how many people play at the lowest setting.