They seem.... interesting. The problem is that trip tends to fall off in later levels..
It really fits thematically and mechanically with flowing monk, and I'm considering it as an option with the Half-Orc flowing monk that I'm currently building.
Noireve's comment is what concerns me. My flowing monk isn't really an optimized build, but I'm hesitant to pour such a large number of feats into tripping without really doing any serious damage.
I feel like Snake Style or Crane Style are both just as good and probably better, and require less off the wall requirements than 9 ranks of knowledge(nature).
If anyone would like to change my mind about Wolf Style, I'm all ears. It looks really cool, but I'm just not sure it's worth the investment. =/
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With the inclusion of the Combat Stamina system, you can seriously mitigate some of the problems that plague maneuvers at later levels. I'm not sure if there's a standard option presented for this, but with Agile Maneuvers and Combat Stamina, you can spend stamina to count as a larger size creature for any maneuver, up to Colossal. You can cancel out and sometimes reverse the size category problems you suffer in late game with this, depending on how large your foe is.
Neat. Wish you didn't have to jump through quite so many hoops to make it work, but neat.
With the inclusion of the Combat Stamina system, you can seriously mitigate some of the problems that plague maneuvers at later levels. I'm not sure if there's a standard option presented for this, but with Agile Maneuvers and Combat Stamina, you can spend stamina to count as a larger size creature for any maneuver, up to Colossal. You can cancel out and sometimes reverse the size category problems you suffer in late game with this, depending on how large your foe is.
With that in mind, how do you think Wolf Style stacks up against Snake Style and Crane Style?
Also thanks, I didn't know about this before your post. Combat Stamina is pretty neat.
I mean, I don't know that I'd compare the two. They work for very different things, but they don't really overlap. Snake and Crane Style are both very defensive, but Wolf Style is an offensive style, through and through. Being able to Bestow Curse on someone through completely non-magical means can be pretty harsh, so I'm a fan. I have a player in my home game who uses it to pretty great effect.
I did some thinking on wolf style here.
Basically tripping falls off which makes me sad. I wanted to like this but it went in the rubbish bin. If you can see a way of making it work I would be ecstatic.
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I did some thinking on wolf style here.
Basically tripping falls off which makes me sad. I wanted to like this but it went in the rubbish bin. If you can see a way of making it work I would be ecstatic.
If you want a monk to be able to trip at high levels - there's always the Underfoot Adept. Though much depends upon your GM and how much they like flying stuff & ginormous creatures as opposed to NPCs. Halfling Adept helps with the ginormous creatures at least. (I still kinda miss how in 3.5 when you tripped a flying creature it started to fall. It can sort of be done in Pathfinder, but only with a specific magic item.)
A question about Wolf Savage fluff:
The wording of this feat is rather harsh - do you think a character could obtain and use this feat if they are a Lawful Neutral monk? A Lawful Good monk?
I'm trying to wiggle this feat thematically into my LN flowing monk who is non-aggressive and only believes in fighting to restore order. I like the idea of subduing an aggressive/chaotic opponent, but not so much permanently disfiguring them.
Thoughts?
(I still kinda miss how in 3.5 when you tripped a flying creature it started to fall. It can sort of be done in Pathfinder, but only with a specific magic item.)
Or with the Ace Trip feat from Weapon Master's Handbook.
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A question about Wolf Savage fluff:
** spoiler omitted **The wording of this feat is rather harsh - do you think a character could obtain and use this feat if they are a Lawful Neutral monk? A Lawful Good monk?
I'm trying to wiggle this feat thematically into my LN flowing monk who is non-aggressive and only believes in fighting to restore order. I like the idea of subduing an aggressive/chaotic opponent, but not so much permanently disfiguring them.
Thoughts?
I'm not sure why it'd be okay to kill them but not okay to rip up their face in your efforts to kill them.
I'm not sure why it'd be okay to kill them but not okay to rip up their face in your efforts to kill them.
Well, sorta for the same reason it's often acceptable to execute a criminal, but maybe not acceptable to torture them for hours.
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Who said you had to try and kill them? Unarmed strikes can deal nonlethal damage.
I think Wolf Savage works fine for many nonevil characters, but is not a great fit for a character that specifically aims to be non-aggressive.
On the mechanical side of things, my group doesn't have too many problems with combat maneuvers at high levels because we still fight a lot of humanoid-ish things (including various corporeal undead). But flight is still a pain for trip specifically.
Wolf Style + Toppling Metamagic, as Avoron said. GET OVER HERE!
Wow that seems really good and fun - what class(es) would you roll up around this tactic?
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Wolf Style + Toppling Metamagic, as Avoron said. GET OVER HERE!Wow that seems really good and fun - what class(es) would you roll up around this tactic?
While not a gestalt character, there are quite a few interesting uses of it. The obvious one is the Naga Aspirant druid archetype, as mentioned in the link above, the gets to have all his spell/Combat Maneuver stuff based on Wisdom, which is nice. Toppling Magic Missile + Wolf Style pulls your enemies into Wild Shape craziness nicely.
While it diminishes spellcasting, and is a little bit MAD, the new-ish Esoteric archetype for the Magus could see some use with it, too. Sure, you lose a tiny bit of spellcasting, but the decent unarmed strike bonuses/bonus feat, plus requiring a high dexterity, means that you could run a Dexterity/Intelligence/Wisdom build that worked pretty well. Plus, your high Intelligence means you can qualify for the Improved Trip line more easily, which gives you a lot of bang for your buck when it comes to tripping, and your arcane pool allows you to easily enhance your unarmed strikes, so picking up an Amulet of Mighty Fists (Agile enchantment) shouldn't hurt too much. So you trip everyone, bring them adjacent to you, take an attack of opportunity on as many as you can (if you can squeeze in Combat Reflexes somewhere), and IF you manage to grab Arcane Strike and Gloves of Arcane Striking, you can splash damage when you land your hits as well.
The main problem is that it's a REALLY feat intensive build. You need: Toppling Metamagic, Weapon Finesse, Wolf Style (You COULD skip Wolf Savage and take a lower Wisdom score, but man it's good), the Improved/Greater Trip feats, Combat Reflexes, and Arcane Strike. If you're a human, you get all of this by level 13, though the necessary components you get by level 7. If you skip the Trip feats, it goes online a little earlier, but level 7 is the bare minimum for Wolf Trip.
Avoron and Davor,
Seems like the key ingredients to making this tactic work are magic missile and a wis-based character. Are there any other ways to get magic missile on a divine caster besides the naga aspirant? I did a little googling on this, but no dice.
Spiritual Weapon is a decent 2nd-level divine spell alternative, but it really seems like you'd want a 1st-level spell to get the most out of toppling spell + wolf style feats.
Davor, does the tripping magus you are referring to have 17 wisdom just to qualify for wolf savage? That seems a bit extreme.
It's a shame there isn't a wisdom equivalent of a magus. Besides being focused on int instead of wis, the esoteric wolf tripper is a really cool thematic and mechanical idea.
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It seems like it would combine well with a dip into Swashbuckler for Parry & Riposte. (since riposte is an AOO)Kind of have to disagree on this one... it says it counts as one of your AoO's for that round, not that it counts as an AoO. Subtle difference, but it's there.
Fair enough - I was probably thinking of the Duelist's Riposte.
Seems like the key ingredients to making this tactic work are magic missile and a wis-based character. Are there any other ways to get magic missile on a divine caster besides the naga aspirant? I did a little googling on this, but no dice.Let's see...
Empyreal Sorcerer bloodline
Arcane Enlightenment shaman lore spirit
Dreamed Secrets feat
Pathfinder Savant prestige class
Daivrat prestige classThere's probably a couple more that I'm missing, but Naga Aspirant struck me as the most effective.
Thank you for this extensive list of cool things.
A crossblooded Abyssal/Empyreal sorcerer could be a very interesting character indeed. High dex and wis, make use of weapon finesse and claws to do wolf tripping shenanigans.
Just as feat-starved as Davor's magus, but then at least the character is a sorc and has lots of spells and such. Might roll up one of these just for fun.
The first feat is good because with a hard enough hit you become very sticky. You also don't need to use unarmed strikes for it. So a Barbar or fighter could cripple foes trying to run away from them. Lots of potential for multiple AOOs.
The rest of the feat are meh, because tripping is meh. Tripping is basically impossible and worthless by the time martials really start having problems.
Doesn't Samsaran have some special racial ability to let you get spells from other lists?
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Avoron and Davor,
Seems like the key ingredients to making this tactic work are magic missile and a wis-based character. Are there any other ways to get magic missile on a divine caster besides the naga aspirant? I did a little googling on this, but no dice.
Spiritual Weapon is a decent 2nd-level divine spell alternative, but it really seems like you'd want a 1st-level spell to get the most out of toppling spell + wolf style feats.
Davor, does the tripping magus you are referring to have 17 wisdom just to qualify for wolf savage? That seems a bit extreme.
It's a shame there isn't a wisdom equivalent of a magus. Besides being focused on int instead of wis, the esoteric wolf tripper is a really cool thematic and mechanical idea.
Yeah, but Wolf Savage isn't the best part of the feat: It's the repositioning. TO be fair, free curses is AMAZING, but the magus uses those feats differently.