Hey all. New to the site, but not so new to the Pathfinder system. Haha. Still, I'm having trouble with finding a legitimate rule for achieving non-lethal damage for the piercing damage type as a whole. So let me explain a bit what my player's issue is so you can understand where this is coming from.
We have a player who wants to play a war priest to Rejiksson, a lawful good deity of justice and the elements. But for characterization and role play purposes, she does not want to ever kill or destroy anyone or anything aside from evil outsiders. Her character is armed with the deity's favored weapon (a bastard sword), a heavy steel shield with shield spikes, and 4 short spears.
So she wants to be able to deal non-lethal damage across the board. She took bludgeoner and blade of mercy for the shield bashing and the bastard sword (I made a DM tweak of giving her rounded shield studs in place of pointed spikes. Which I felt was fair.) Now she's hoping to find a way to use her spear as a non-lethal weapon as well. Without the minus 4 penalty of course.
She has weapon versatility for her bastard sword and only has one available feat left. What do you all recommend? I'm open to 3rd party publishing materials as a suggestion, but would prefer something that comes from paizo itself.
Thank you so much!
- S.N. Rivers
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If you're allowing 3rd party, make a feat of your own, same a bludgeoner for spears. Like, rounded point. They have blunted arrows, I don't know off hand what type they do.
I don't want to house rule it. Then the other players may expect the same leniency from me. I want to be able to point out a method from a published Pathfinder book so the others don't claim I'm playing favorites. Also, I'm legitimately curious myself to see if there's anything out there allowing for all piercing weapons (or maybe just melee piercing weapons) to be used in a non-lethal way.
The Merciful weapon ability can be used on any melee weapon.
The Merciful weapon ability can be used on any melee weapon.
She only has about 300GP Left for her character. Otherwise, I'd agree with you that the Merciful Weapon enchantment would be a good solution. Still, I think she's looking more for something that would apply more directly to her character than it would the individual weapon.
Bludgeoner makes all blunted weapons non-lethal. Blade of Mercy does the same with slashing. So not just the one weapon is set, future replacements are as well. Perhaps there's something like Vow of Peace and Vow of Non-Violence from 3.0 D&D, but made in the Pathfinder system?
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The feat you want is Stage Combatant.
Stage Combatant (Combat)
You are a master of stage and nonlethal combats.
Prerequisites: Weapon Focus, base attack bonus +5
Benefit: When you make an attack with a weapon that you have Weapon Focus in, you take no penalty on the attack roll when you are attempting to make an attack that deals no damage or nonlethal damage.
Normal: When making attacks that deal no damage or nonlethal damage, you take a –4 penalty on attack rolls.
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Ask if she can switch out Bludgeoner, for this feat:
Prerequisite(s): Good-aligned. In addition, you must always accept an enemy's surrender. When your enemies are defeated in battle, you must attempt to stabilize them to the best of your ability. You must never bring undue suffering to those who are innocent.
Benefit: When using a weapon that deals lethal damage to instead deal nonlethal damage, you take no penalty on your attack roll.
It's not third party. It fits thematically, and will save her a trait.
Nice find BBT, better than Stage Combatant although it does come with some RP restrictions that the OP's player might find difficult.
(She would be forced to accept the surrender of Evil Outsiders and even attempt to stabilize them.)
The PC described was stated to want to destroy Evil Outsiders.
The feat would force the PC to accept the surrender of Evil Outsiders and to be forced to stabilize Evil Outsiders. So it doesn't completely fit in with the OP's player's concept.
I'd rule that, for the cost of a trait, the Creed of Mercy feat no longer applied to Evil Outsiders.
With the PC described, it would not seem to change anything about how they RP.
It just fits, real nice and smooth.
When you get a good concept, you got stroke it with the mechanics.
It still fits her character's Rp style, to an extent. Evil outsiders, or any outsiders really, aren't ever truly killed when in the material plane. They just get sent back to wherever their native plane is. Native outsiders are the ones who perish upon being slain. So unless it was a tiefling or something similar, she'd have little to fear knowing that the enemy would not truly be destroyed.
This seems to be just what we were looking for.
The PC described was stated to want to destroy Evil Outsiders.
The feat would force the PC to accept the surrender of Evil Outsiders and to be forced to stabilize Evil Outsiders. So it doesn't completely fit in with the OP's player's concept.
I should clarify. Her character is an "extremely devout follower of Rejiksson" and believes no one is to be killed without "prior judgement from a counsel of peers and elders." She doesn't necessarily want to kill evil outsiders and undead, she just sees undead as "soulless, thoughtless, and lifeless" and believes that the outsiders may find redemption for their sins in being banished, as outsiders poof back to their plane when at 0 vitality.
She clarified if an outsider were native, or had plane shifted and anchored itself into the material plane, she'd want to spare them as well to capture them for "judgement" since she's "not worthy of passing the judgement of death" herself. Apparently, she intends to spare mindful and awakened undead as well...
Weird.
- S.N. Rivers
Sounds good Sear, I was responding the parameters initially set. :)
Nice to see someone who is not 'murderhobo'. Hope the character concept survives contact with the murderhobos in the group. :)
Sounds good Sear, I was responding the parameters initially set. :)
Nice to see someone who is not 'murderhobo'. Hope the character concept survives contact with the murderhobos in the group. :)
First session is going great so far. The other players are a little irked that she's taken to standing between them and helpless or fleeing enemies. Lol.
She restrained the party rogue when he tried to stealth kill the gnoll band and voluntarily woke up the band of gnolls to ask them to "please surrender" the band chieftain.
As you can imagine, that didn't go super well. But, she did eventually work out giving the band a political pardon on religious grounds in exchange for the gnolls agreeing to relocating to a new territory. Kind of pissed the rogue off, but I gave her considerable role play experience for the creative solution.
Anyway, thanks guys!
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I've never been a huge fan of "roleplaying xp" as a significant reward. It tends to divide the players even more and often gets used as a "reason" to "favor" certain players when overall the point is for everyone involved to have fun.
Given the fact some classes just don't have the resources to be effective in certain situations or some character concepts aren't meant to shine at times... In your example, if the rogue is the sneaky assassin/combat type, he should be getting rewards for sneaking in and doing exactly what he was doing correct? So not only did she end up disruptive in some way, you rewarded her and it cost him reward experience in a way, no?
Encounters are challenges in and of themselves, I don't believe you should ever give major rewards above and beyond with the possible exception of the very beginning of a group to set the tone of "role playing is encouraged" and it should be given to everyone equally at those times. Some people aren't the type to steal the spotlight or especially outgoing, you are doing them a disservice and provoking inter party politics if you intend to use large "roleplaying rewards" just because others are disruptive due to "reasons" that seem reasonable to you.
Just a warning from previous experiences.