So I am building a concept character with swashbuckler and hate having to take a 1 level dip into fighter to be able to effectively pick up crane style. I found that if I put a Deep Red Ioun Stone in a wayfinder it will give me Improved Unarmed Strike which is just enough to not have to do the one level dip, but since the +2 to dex from the stone wont stack with a belt of dex I am essentially paying 8,000 for the feat, which is a little heavy especially at early levels when I need it. I was wondering if any one knew of any other way to get around or fulfill the feat pre-requirements for crane style?
unarmed fighter or master of many style monk.
Yea, Unarmed Fighter is the way I would go if I have to but was wondering if there was something I was missing, I just found out about the Ioun stone thing last night. I dont understand why the intelligence stone will stack with its self but the dex wont.....
All in all, Swashbuckler isn't a terribly painful class to drop a level or two from; if you're going for a concept character, you might want to look at making a virtue of necessity and go for an interesting dip, rather than looking at having to dip as a burden.
Dipping MonkX instead of Unarmed Fighter is worth looking at for the nice bonus to saves, extra skills, and things like using Master of Many Styles to get full Crane Style very early + cross-styles, or picking up totally free combat maneuver opportunities with Maneuver Master. The Whirling Dervish Swashbuckler with a dip in a specialist Monk seems like an awesome theme to me.
Well, the character concept as far as how he fights is a rapier wielder who doesn't do massive damage but instead does full round attacks defensively and the get to AoO you when you attack. He essentially just widdles you down.
I looked at a 1 level dip in monk and liked a lot of the stuff I would get, feats and skills, I didn't even think of the will save part. However I wasn't sure how I felt about the lawful part with the back story, but that could always be tweaked.
I have also never played a pure class before and was thinking maybe I could with this character, but maybe not.
Thanks for the idea, I am going to take another look at monk and see how I like it.
Thanks for the input and any more ideas would be appreciated!
The real question is, why are you bothering with the barely worthwhile mess Crane Style has been nerfed into, and not using Snake Stye instead?
In addition to having similar (and easier to achieve) defensive benefits, without nerfing your offense, it makes your unarmed strike do piercing damage, so Precise Strike now adds to your retaliatory attacks.
The real question is, why are you bothering with the barely worthwhile mess Crane Style has been nerfed into, and not using Snake Stye instead?
In addition to having similar (and easier to achieve) defensive benefits, without nerfing your offense, it makes your unarmed strike do piercing damage, so Precise Strike now adds to your retaliatory attacks.
Go MoMS and take both...
Snake style is based around unarmed strike and I want to use a rapier. :/
How was Crane style nerfed? When I am fighting Defensively I am taking a -1 to attack but a +6 ac vs my target (4 to every one else). And if I am caught in a bad place I can go total defense and get +7 to ac and automatically deflect an attack then make an AoO.
Oh, yea I knew about that, but it still turns into a -1 to attack for a +6 to ac though, +2 fighting defensively, +1 crane wing, +1 3 ranks acrobatics +2 against a target you can see (who ever your fighting). Still thinking its not a bad feat chain for dueling character with a rapier. Am I wrong though? Not looking to min/max by no means but still want to be able to keep up with other players as far as damage goes....
Don't for get about the Tengu, one of the alternative racial options is to lose sword trained to gain 2 claw attacks and be qualified as if you had Improved Unarmed Strike for purposes of feats.
I have an E.K. build that uses a Tengu Inspired Blade Swashbuckler 1/Scryer Wizard 1/EK 10/Mystery Cultist 8.
Wait what's this about crane style being nerfed?
I saw the errata but I didn't have the feat itself in front of me to compare. So if I get it right now instead of a once-a-round pre-emptive AC boost (Which can trigger a counterattack with Crane Riposte) it gives... +1 to AC vs. one target until the end of the round?
Wait what's this about crane style being nerfed?
I saw the errata but I didn't have the feat itself in front of me to compare. So if I get it right now instead of a once-a-round pre-emptive AC boost (Which can trigger a counterattack with Crane Riposte) it gives... +1 to AC vs. one target until the end of the round?
Originally Crane Wing let you automatically deflect one attack per round. Then it was changed to something like "once per round before an attack is made you may add +4 to your AC against that attack." Now you just declare an opponent and get a flat +2 to your AC against him for one round; the first miss against you by the designated enemy provokes an attack of opportunity from you.
So overall the feat went Good -> Awful -> Meh.
They really need to just ban MoMS from PFS and make Crane Wing better.
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They really need to just ban MoMS from PFS and make Crane Wing better.
I just pretend there is no Crane Wing errata and try to go on with my life. Me even participating in this topic requires a great deal of doublethink.
They really need to just ban MoMS from PFS and make Crane Wing better.
PFS just needs to suck it up and design better encounters, more like.
But if they want to go the lazy route, that works.
Snake style is based around unarmed strike and I want to use a rapier. :/
So is Crane Style. You need a hand free to use both, why not be able to actually USE that hand, since you get an AoO against anybody who misses you with Snake Fang.
Here's how your typical combat would go (assuming you only get one, when they are perfectly compatible together anyway).
With Crane:
-I have a high AC.
-Things miss me sometimes.
-I can sometimes deflect one attack with Parry.
With Snake:
-I have a somewhat lower AC.
-I can deflect one attack with Snake Style, using my Sense Motive bonus...which can EASILY be very very much higher than my attack bonus.
Here's where the fun starts.
-I can also Parry, potentially deflecting two attacks per round outright.
OR
-I can Parry, then I get an attack against them with Snake Style...essentially getting a free Riposte, and then whack them again as an Immediate for extra damage.
OR
-I can Parry one attack, then Riposte, and also get my Snake Style hit in.
Snake Style simply provides more OPTIONS than Crane Style. It is both an offensive and defensive style, and it doesn't even break your theme...watch the Three Musketeers or something sometime. Rapier poke/slash, dodge, followed by punching some dude in the face is a CLASSIC move.
Overall power levels aside, I kind of like the fact that Crane Style changed into something more focused on delivering counterattacks, rather than an automatic deflection machine that actually denied you an extra attack if you didn't get "hit" in the first place.
For a Swashbuckler using dex-to-damage rapier, developing Unarmed Strike for Snake Style seems like a rather weak option; if you're an Inspired Blade it's even worse. Getting one solid riposte from Crane along with a Parry-Riposte by immediate action is already a lot of counterattacking muscle. For Snake Style to be a better option you would first have to develop your Unarmed Strike into something that can rival an enhanced, high-crit, dex-to-damage rapier. Then you would have to be missed repeatedly - and the odds of being missed are considerably lower without the +7ish AC you're getting from Dodge/Crane/Defensive. Snake is also based around using swift/immediate actions, which a Swashbuckler is already making use of. It's totally do-able and cool conceptually, but it seems to me like it's a lot of extra development for a small potential gain and a pretty serious trade-off.
As far as Monk archetypes go, note that Martial Artist removes the Lawful requirement, so you can fit any theme you like with it.
You're probably not getting a riposte from Crane, however. The way it works now it's nigh on impossible to do so (assuming you can figure out how the f%#% it's even supposed to work given that the two FAQs never post the new wording of the Feat, instead opting to, for soem reason, merely state "Remove this line, add a new line, change this other line").
As it is now, you must use Total Defense, which precludes you from doing anything else useful with your turn, to get a deflection from Crane Wing.
Doing Crane Style + Snake Style + Snake Fang is a FAR better option than investing in the now unbelievably s@+*ty Crane Wing and Crane Riposte Feats.
Snake Style works on ANY opponent that misses you. Crane Riposte only works on an enemy you have designated.
Snake Style is simply a more reliable option. A low damage secondary attack you can get off every time someone misses you trumps a slightly better attack you can get, at most, once per round, against a single opponent.
When ever the target of your crane wing attacks and misses you it triggers reposite (once a round). Not my favorite version but it's simple enough.
With Crane Style now, you pick one foe at any time during a round (like when they attack you) to get an AC bonus against, and if they miss you, you get an AoO. Nice and simple, and with all that extra Crane AC the odds of a foe missing in the first place are potentially a lot better.
I totally agree that Snake is a great option, but with the particulars of Swashbuckler already having the opportune parry and riposte option, already using swift action a lot, and typically having a *much* more powerful strike from a rapier than what they could do with Unarmed Strike, it seems to me like it's rarely going to be worth giving up the hefty AC bonus. When under a whole pile of weaker attacks Snake can easily pull ahead in damage - but in mob scenarios pushing your AC from 'rarely hit' to 'never hit' can be pretty invaluable as well.
Don't get me wrong, Snake can be amazing; I just think that a Swashbuckler with a rapier lends itself to using Crane much more naturally.
You could just get a belt of DEX anyway and just deal with it not stacking.
Isn't there also an ioun stone with the same effect, but it stacks with others like it and it costs significantly more (24,000 I believe).
@Master - I also forgot about the rules of rolling for the effects of what a stone does when it gets put into a wayfinder. So when I find a shop that sells alot of Ioun stones I could potentially walk in and be like may I try them and esentially put them in my wayfinder one by one until I find a different Ioun stone that is usefull and gives me the desired effect (kinda like the +5 Knowledge one).
@Rynjin - While snake style is awesome, another problem I face is that as a Inspired Blade Swashbuckler I only get weapon finesse with rapiers, and str is going to be a dump stat. So the AoO become useless since I will probably not be able to hit AND my damage is going to be absolutely terrible with it.
@BadBird - That is kind of what I am going for, a character who does his normal attack but then when he is being attacked by an enemy he has alot of tools in his belt to counter attack/evade the attack and get AoO while doing it. as a rapier wielding character my damage will never be able to match that of a barbarian, fighter or most other melee classes however what I can do is widdle them down. I want to be hitting him so much that between taunting the enemy and hitting so much that they are terrified to attack another character and give me the advantage of flanking them from behind.
Some other considerations for this character is that he is going to be a vampire spawn, though not a full spawn. Back story is he went through a partial resurrection via a wish spell and the caster was attacked half way through the process thus not being able to be fully restored, as such he was partially restored to a vampire spawn, probably take undead traits and every vampire weakness. Hoping to pick up 1 or two vampire perks to balance me back out but if I an denied that and just have to be undead with vampire weaknesses I am ok with that. I build my characters with a 25 pt buy but we usually roll our stats, and usually roll pretty damn well, so the stats below are just kind of a way for me to see about where I will be. Here is what I have so far for the character concept build, obviously some of this will be changed depending on the campaign but I still like having a general idea of how I am gonna build:
Race: Aasimar (Azata-Blooded)
+1 will saves instead of SLA
Exalted Resistance
Scion of Humanity (Azlanti Blood for flavor)
Truespeaker
Starting Ability Scores (25 pt buy): Str 10 Dex 18 Con - Int 14 Wis 14 Cha 16
Swashbuckler Inspired Blade 19, Monk Sensei & Martial Artist 1
1. Iron Will (character), Weapon Focus/Finesse Rapier (class given)
2. Improved Unarmed Strike (class given) & Crane Style (class)
3. Dodge (character)
4.
5. Combat Reflexes (character), Weapon Specialization (class)
6. Improved Critical rapier (class given)
7. Crane Wing (character)
8.
9. Crane Riposte (character), Greater Weapon Focus (class)
10.
11. Critical Focus (character)
12.
13. Signature Deed Opportune Parry & Riposte (character), critical versatility (class)
14.
15. Greater Weapon Specialization (character)
16.
17. Bleeding Critical (character), Critical Mastery (class)
18.
19. Improved Iron Will
20.
Traits: Finding Haleen, Carefully Hidden, Reactionary
Drawback: Cruelty
Some of the feats are just fillers that I felt weren't terrible choices until I can figure out something better. There are definetly other feats I want but am super feat starved with this guy, thus why I was wondering about trying to find other ways to get the prerequirements for he Crane Style chain. Thought maybe some of this information could be useful for the debate on different styles to take and such.... Any input on the general build would be great as well. While I don't like to min/max I also don't want to be a 5th in the group....
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I had a 2 level Monk dip with my Swashbuckler in our Skull & Shackles game recently. The DM basically ignored the new version of Crane Wing as the character had already been playing with the old version and frankly as it was originally changed it totally sucked. In the end tho I found combat to be extremely boring. I felt like Connor Macleod on the battlefield before falling to the Kurgan.
Feat: Fencing Grace. Also don't forget you get Swashbuckler bonus feats.
1. (free Finesse/Focus), Fencing Grace.
2(Monk). (free Improved Unarmed), Monk bonus: Dodge.
3. Crane Style
5. Iron Will, Swashbuckler bonus: Combat Reflexes.
7. Crane Wing
9. Crane Riposte, Swashbuckler bonus: Weapon Specialization
Or something like that. With Precise Strike and Fencing Grace, a rapier is perfectly capable of causing some carnage of it's own.
The only other simple dip for an Inspired Blade that comes to mind would be a level of Urban Barbarian, taking the Extra Rage feat enough times for a workable pool of Dex-Rage. Bonus Dexterity is extremely useful, Furious weapons are awesome, and a Swashbuckler with Controlled Rage sounds like a pretty sweet theme... where the appropriate response to the question "you mad?" is to growl a little as you lance them through the eyes.
I was thinking of getting an agile weapon to free up the feat. Think I am better off taking Fencing Grace instead? Also every feat that has (class) next to it is a class chosen feat
The thing about Fencing Grace as a feat is that a)you can get it right away, b)you don't lose a major part of your build if you lose that weapon, and c)it frees up your weapon for more enchantment. I'd only rely on Agile if you *really* needed the feat.
hmmm, that is true.... thank you every one for the advice