So I found myself confronted by a player on the subject that he felt his monk was being overshadowed by a half dragon fighter (adjustment +3 by houserule +4 at 11th level & +5 at 16th).
Of course, this is basically a problem where an optimised character is outdoing an unoptimised one (and a monk at that). Regardless I poured over the math to determine if perhaps I had been too lenient to allow a half dragon player and turns out that an equal level fighter without the template had the exact same dpr and a few slurpus HP and feats.
I did however find crunch proof for the superiority of two handed weapons in general, especially in combination with high crit.
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Though I hate the idea of taking a nice thing away from martials in general, isn't this build, high crit weapon two handed + power attack, just outright better then anything else in terms of martial melee combat?
In my next story I'm considering a nerf or alternative build to induce variety. I prefer to build up the other options over nerfing existing ones, so feel free to add some ideas.
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Build up, idea 1: Make power attack give +3 damage instead of 2, no benefit for 2-handing.
This ramps up damage for all melee martials without benefitting the problem builds. Instead of reducing the problem I help the rest catch up.
Nerf+build up, idea 2: Make Keen and Improved critical a flat +2 bonus to critical rate. This simultaneously reduces critical rate for the problem weapons (25% crit rate is just crazy) and incentives players to go for the normally unpopular hammer or axe the weapons.
Nerf+build up, idea 3: remove the 2-hand damage boost from power attack and implement the modification in idea #2. Outright nerf 2-handed weapons in general while slightly improving hammers and axes.
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Currently I'm leaning towards implementing ideas 1 and 2 combined. Idd rather give out cool things then just take them away. Do you have any thoughts oh great and mighty pathfinder community
P'S. I know the dangers of allowing characters with templates, there are some extra house rules undisclosed here affect the math in this scenario. Please focus on the power attack and crit rate discussion from the standpoint of playing with only official pathfinder rules.
Instead of nerfing one character(and option 1 is a nerf), why not help buff the monk instead?then everyone can be happy.
Instead of nerfing one character(and option 1 is a nerf), why not help buff the monk instead?then everyone can be happy.
I don't understand how option 1 is a nerf. Normal power attack 1-hand gives +2 damage and +2 per 4 bab. 2-hand gives +3 damage and +3 per 4 bab. Option 1 simply makes it +3 for both sides. Or do you mean that it's a nerf by comparison because 1-handed weapons become better by comparison?
Monk mod in my games:
2 ki = pounce charge.
Reduce DR by monk level for unarmed & monk weapon attacks.
MAY substitute Wis for str on attack rolls to hit, CMB and CMD.
I'll keep this monk happy by giving him plenty of stuff only he can do with his substantially higher amount of skills and saves, which he forgot to include when comparing character viability ;)
If I make any changes they won't be implemented until next story at the soonest, idd rather not give in to player pressure to "balance" someone else's character on the spot.
Hmm, I saw that as no scaling at all. Disregard that bit.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that part of the problem comes from that fact that your Fighter is allowed to be a Half Dragon.
Here's my advice-
Look at/build the Half Dragon using the Racebuilder's tools. My bet is that it will be 25-40 Race points in total.
Subtract the Monk's race point total from that number.
The number you end up with loosely represents the mechanical difference in the two characters' races.
Give the monk that number of Race points to buy neat stuff with.
That should go a long way toward bridging the power gulf between them. You might need to boost your other players similarly.
Basically, Half Dragons are much more powerful than standard races. Because of the way two handed damage scales, that +8 strength is a really big deal.
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Twohanders are more powerful than monks and than some of the other melee styles. They're not more powerful than spellcasting, alchemist bombing, guns or archery.
As a normal monk (i.e. not one of the good archetypes), it's not likely that you'll tie with the fighter for sheer damage output. That's ALL the fighter has, and he's good at it.
A monk gets a lot more different abilities though, both skills and weird class abilities.
However, a half-dragon fighter is a lot more versatile than a normal fighter too.
P'S. I know the dangers of allowing characters with templates, there are some extra house rules undisclosed here affect the math in this scenario. Please focus on the power attack and crit rate discussion from the standpoint of playing with only official pathfinder rules.
As I said. I'm familiar with the dangers of templates and there is a rather huge amount of houserule changes big and small that contribute to allow a non-half dragon fighter with a similar build to keep pace with a half-dragon one, the only disparity between them is that the all-human fighter has more SP (my fighters get 4sp) and extra feats while the half dragon-human has flight and a breath weapon, though the dragon has better AC he also suffers reduced HP and saves
Primarily, the race point disparity is made up for in level adjustment, an adjustment of +3 at this level that scales to 4 at 11th and 5 at 16th.
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In other words, I know half dragons and templates are risky to permit. But I have plenty of experience with the issue I'm bringing to this discussion, seen enough classes and enough races use essentially the same build to yield better then average results. My party now has 5 characters, 2 who don't use weapons at all (caster, monk) the rest all have said high-crit weapons. A dervish dancing bard, a nodachi wielding fighter and a nodachi wielding inquisitor.
The half dragon incident merely reminded me that I find High-crit weapons to be owerwhelming, case-in-point the way a variety of players playing a variety of (non template) races and classes have depended on them to dominate combat at my gaming table. Case in point the only martial to play a hammer wielding character at my table in years admitted that he only selected the hammer out of flavor knowing that there were better options, kudos to him.
In regards to using a two-hander being the one true melee style, I think a big issue there is just how much better it is than any other style and it does it with needing only a single feat, one with negligible prerequisites to boot... as opposed to Two Weapon Fighting's 15 dex. That pretty much locks anyone who wants to melee and who doesn't have bonus feats into the style by default if they want to be effective, and hey why not? It's better with less investment anyway.
Not saying two-weapon fighting should be more feat intensive, oh no, that would just screw over people without bonus feats even more. The other fighting styles should have their feat tress collapsed a bit and/or over a bit more benefit for their use.