[Super Genius Games] Guide to the Vanguard questions.

[Matthew Morris]

Question for RAI for the Geniuses.

The bastard sword and katana can be used two handed as a martial weapon. The Aldori dueling sword and the sawtooth sabre can be used as long swords as marital weapons.

The Vanguard's arcane bond reads:

Genius Guide to the Vanguard wrote:

Arcane Bond Weapon (Ex): At 1st

level, a vanguard forms a powerful bond with a specific weapon. Should the vanguard ever have to replace the weapon (see below), he must choose another weapon of the same kind (longsword, dagger, short bow, etc.).

Does the Vanguard have to be proficient in his bonded weapon? Barring racial familiarity (or the Half Elf trait) they'd be limited to martial/simple weapons only if so. This does forbid them from the above weapons, (which they could used in dimished capacity) as well as other exotic weapons.

Also with the eldrich blast.

The text reads: "At 2nd level, a vanguard may choose to have his vanguard blast deal fire or cold damage, rather than be a force effect. At 5th level, he may choose for it to deal electric damage. At 10th level, he may choose for it to deal acid or sonic damage. The vanguard must make this decision immediately when he gains a new level, and cannot change it until he gains his next level."

Does that mean at 2nd level, the vanguard can choose to do fire, and then his blasts will do fire or force damage? Or does it just do fire from then on? Likewiese at 5th level does it do just electric damage, or will it do (fire or cold) and electrical and force, chosen when he fires the bolt? Force is pretty good, and I don't see, outside of flavor, why he'd give it up.

Thanks for your time.

[Psyren]

Can't speak to RAI, but reading it, I don't see anything in the ability that says you can't pick a weapon you're not proficient with. So you could pick an exotic weapon at 1st-level and gain proficiency later if you needed to, simply eating the non-proficiency penalty until then.

Alternatively, you could start with a martial or simple weapon, then use the "Class Feature" retraining rules from Ultimate Campaign to switch weapon types to something else later on.

[Owen K. C. Stephens]

A vanguard *could* bond to a weapon he lacks proficiency with. He could also use his 1st level feat to select an unusual proficiency.

The damage types are new options. Each time you use it, you can decide what of the damage types available you want to use for your eldritch blast.

[Matthew Morris]

Cool, thanks for the answers :-)