Combat maneuvers are attacks. They don't, however, usually deal any damage for Crane Wing to negate.
So instead he browbeat me with a rather ingenious (and much argued) ruling:
A monk's unarmed strike is treated as both a manufactured weapon and a natural weapon for the purpose of spells and effects that enhance or improve either manufactured weapons or natural weapons... Thus the opposite should be true, and Sunder means I break your arms or legs or head...
He then proceeded to CMB me and deal full weapon damage + Strength to individual limbs i.e. my HP total for every encounter. Also, since it is a dodge bonus, if it becomes too much; DM's can simply flat-foot your CW user with whatever viable option necessary every round to remove the poor fool.
Kyaaadaa, if you should ever find yourself in a similar situation again, you could point out that your GM was so busy looking at the monk's unarmed strike rules and arguing that they made the unarmed strike count as a weapon for Sundering, he forgot to go back and check that the being a 'weapon' is what lets you Sunder something in the first place. Sunder doesn't require that its target be a 'weapon' - it requires that it be an 'item held or worn by your opponent.' While a monk's unarmed strike is treated as if it were a weapon when adjudicating beneficial spells and effects, it still is not an item. It also is neither held nor worn.
I don't know, are combat maneuvers weapon attacks? They certainly aren't listed under the "attacks" heading, and are called out as a potential replacement for an attack, but literally they are attacks.No, and this was what eventually pounded my MoMS monk. My GM essentially went "AHA! They errata'd Crane Wing!" and told me the rules, but it really didn't matter since my AC was high enough anyway. So instead he browbeat me with a rather ingenious (and much argued) ruling:
A monk's unarmed strike is treated as both a manufactured weapon and a natural weapon for the purpose of spells and effects that enhance or improve either manufactured weapons or natural weapons... Thus the opposite should be true, and Sunder means I break your arms or legs or head...
He then proceeded to CMB me and deal full weapon damage + Strength to individual limbs i.e. my HP total for every encounter. Also, since it is a dodge bonus, if it becomes too much; DM's can simply flat-foot your CW user with whatever viable option necessary every round to remove the poor fool.
While I understand the thinking behind it, unfortunately Unarmed Strikes or creature limbs are not valid candidates.
You can attempt to sunder an item held or worn by your opponent as part of an attack action in place of a melee attack. If you do not have the Improved Sunder feat, or a similar ability, attempting to sunder an item provokes an attack of opportunity from the target of your maneuver.
If your attack is successful, you deal damage to the item normally. Damage that exceeds the object's Hardness is subtracted from its hit points. If an object has equal to or less than half its total hit points remaining, it gains the broken condition (see Conditions). If the damage you deal would reduce the object to less than 0 hit points, you can choose to destroy it. If you do not choose to destroy it, the object is left with only 1 hit point and the broken condition.
Looks like your GM is scraping the threads of fate to try and bring a stop to a character that extremely frustrates him. Unarmed Strikes aren't items, nor can they really receive the Broken condition. Even if they feasibly could, they don't qualify as an item set by the Broken condition, so it does nothing.
He could try to extrapolate the rules regarding severing Hydra heads, but those are specific rules made for that creature, and that creature only. To suggest otherwise is houseruling, and therefore not really a valid argument.
Quite frankly, he'd have a better argument by saying "Rocks Fall, All Monks Die, and anyone who takes the Crane Style Feat Chain will have their soul condemned to Asmodeus' Private Chambers."
Kyaaadaa, if you should ever find yourself in a similar situation again, you could point out that your GM was so busy looking at the monk's unarmed strike rules and arguing that they made the unarmed strike count as a weapon for Sundering, he forgot to go back and check that the being a 'weapon' is what lets you Sunder something in the first place. Sunder doesn't require that its target be a 'weapon' - it requires that it be an 'item held or worn by your opponent.' While a monk's unarmed strike is treated as if it were a weapon when adjudicating beneficial spells and effects, it still is not an item. It also is neither held nor worn.
Which was what the long and arduous debate between myself and the DM was. In the end, to just move the game along, I went with it, and ultimately he never managed to kill my character, but I used that story as a bit of a warning to individuals who crank up the AC. Your DM shall find a way to combat maneuver your tanky CW user, whether its non-stop tripping, grappling and beating into submission. Also, drowning works, can't Crane Wing water in a cave...
Man, T-Rex and his Monk killing troubles are making me kind of depressed at this point. I doubt that “T-Rex can’t kill the Monk!” was the complaint PFS DMs were calling in with though. I mean, maybe I’m wrong, but I’d guess it was the “infinite” AC and nat 20 negation. Anyhow, T-Rex has finally eaten all the 2nd level Masters of Many Styles with Crane Wing. They’re all gone, and they’ll never be back. My guess is that getting to auto-deflect an attack while fighting defensively with Crane Wing won’t either (at least not short of a combat trick, mythic feat, etc)
Kyaaadaa’s DM could have simply used a bunch of legal combat maneuvers like Awesome Blow. Up until a week or two ago he also could have sent in the double double-barreled Pistoleros to blow away anybody using Crane Wing. Can you deflect 14 attacks? If so then great, but you'd still take around 70 damage from the misses. That’s also all in the past now though. The road ahead has a 5th level or higher PC who gets an additional +4 AC once per round while fighting defensively, possibly more than once per round with combat stamina. At least I think it does - Crane Wing has already seen 3 revisions, and it still seems to be a contentious issue.
Is there something short of auto-deflect while fighting defensively which folks do feel would make Crane Wing "good enough" to be a viable feat choice? I mean, +4 AC once per round doesn't seem that bad to me, but obviously a lot of folks don't seem to like it. Would +8 be enough? How about +4 for the entire round and an AoO on the first attack which misses? Should the AoO from Crane Riposte be a "Vengeance Strike" which does double damage? Is there any change other than the restoration of the original Crane Wing which would make people happy about the Crane Style feat chain again, or has Crane Wing become so emblematic of caster vs martial disparity or other issues that no compromise can possibly be reached?
I'm always surprised at how little Mirror Image gets mentioned during these sorts of debates. It would combine well with any version of Crane Wing, especially v1, and at least to me it seems more useful in general if a bit slower to deploy (standard action vs swift)
All of it...
Wow... catch your breath.
As far as my experience goes, it wasn't the Crane Riposte that made my DM upset, it was the Snake Fang + Combat Reflexes with a Dex mod of +7 that he really didn't like, Riposte was just another extra attack that didn't consume an AoO on top. Add in Duelist's own Riposte and Parry maneuver... well you get the idea.
Mirror Image would have been a nice touch though, as would Shield, Mage Armor, Blink, Displacement...
For me, the finicky nature of the feat is something that would keep me away from it, regardless, but it's current incarnation fails to provide the primary bonus of cranewing.
The main lure of the original version is the nat 20 negation once per round as you say. It's doable, though non-trivial, to get an AC where 20s are the only way to hit you for many same CR monsters; so having that one nat 20 save is one of the few ways to improve your defenses.
Adding in something like "only natural 20 rolls that result in a rolled crit confirmation are automatic hits while crane wing is active. This produces a critical strike as it would if cranewing had not been in effect." would probably be enough to make it appealing.
Adding in something like "only natural 20 rolls that result in a rolled crit confirmation are automatic hits while crane wing is active. This produces a critical strike as it would if cranewing had not been in effect." would probably be enough to make it appealing.
Keep in mind there are magical items, spells and abilities that make crits into regular hits automatically, does this by extension convert it to a miss as well since it didn't confirm?
Using my wording as the raw? It leaves the confirmed crit alone. If there is something that turns that crit into something else then I don't think there would be further interaction with cranewing as it has become a crit without cranewing in effect.
Is there something short of auto-deflect while fighting defensively which folks do feel would make Crane Wing "good enough" to be a viable feat choice? I mean, +4 AC once per round doesn't seem that bad to me, but obviously a lot of folks don't seem to like it. Would +8 be enough? How about +4 for the entire round and an AoO on the first attack which misses? Should the AoO from Crane Riposte be a "Vengeance Strike" which does double damage? Is there any change other than the restoration of the original Crane Wing which would make people happy about the Crane Style feat chain again, or has Crane Wing become so emblematic of caster vs martial disparity or other issues that no compromise can possibly be reached?
I'm always surprised at how little Mirror Image gets mentioned during these sorts of debates. It...
Short answer? No, nothing else will ever do. It is as you say emblematic of the martial v caster issue, I know it is for me.
Longer answer? At the end of the day, as good as any other feat is it's not the same feat. There could have been countless patches to the feat they could have tried(can't negate crits, size/weapon restrictions, or or adding some sort of check), and instead they completely overhauled it and made it something else that was distinctly different. If we hadn't ever had that first version, or they had at least tried a less severe errata, maybe it would feel less like the slap in the face that it was.
@Kyaaadaa - I type fairly fast and guess I can really get going sometimes. I didn't meant to give the impression that Crane Riposte was "the problem" though - sorry if my post was misleading somehow...
@ErichAD - I think it would be a lot easier to just say it doesn't work against nat 20s. I'm not sure if changing infinite AC to infinite AC as long as you don't roll a nat 20 would be enough of a nerf to satisfy DMs or not. I guess it might depend on who they tend to see using Crane Wing, mid-AC folks trying to get hit one less time per round or high-AC folks looking to never get hit at all. I'd guess that the super high ACs would probably make that nerf seem more effective.
@Darth Grall - If they had jsut ruled that Crane Wing doesn't work against nat 20s would that have been OK with you? I don't think that ruling is likely to ever happen at this point. I'm just curious what different folks would find acceptable.
@Darth Grall - If they had just ruled that Crane Wing doesn't work against nat 20s would that have been OK with you? I don't think that ruling is likely to ever happen at this point. I'm just curious what different folks would find acceptable.
Personally, yes. Granted, it was one of the prime selling points but from a structural point deflecting 20's when fighting defensively was probably the most contentious aspect of old crane wing and one I would have given up for the feat to otherwise stay the same.
I would point out that spell casters attack negation(mirror image, blink, etc) all still work on crits though so <insert caster v martial disparity rant here>.
Even if the nat 20 couldn't be deflected I'd expect that the attacker should still have to make another attack roll to confirm the crit. If your AC is high enough to annoy the DM then that second roll could easily miss.
I've had to talk several groups down from adopting a "nat 20 is an auto crit" policy in the past. A lot of people apparently find it very disappointing when they roll a nat 20 and nothing special happens. I'm kind of surprised that Mirror Image doesn't have a clause about failing against nat 20s.
Even if the nat 20 couldn't be deflected I'd expect that the attacker should still have to make another attack roll to confirm the crit. If your AC is high enough to annoy the DM then that second roll could easily miss.
I've had to talk several groups down from adopting a "nat 20 is an auto crit" policy in the past. A lot of people apparently find it very disappointing when they roll a nat 20 and nothing special happens. I'm kind of surprised that Mirror Image doesn't have a clause about failing against nat 20s.
Oh yeah, which is why it's a fair trade. I would point out though that it specifically was picked up by some Super High AC builds though because it could deflect a 20, the only thing hitting them as it was 20's. As it is, I still think I'd be okay with that.
And yeah, I have played with those people too. A 3.5 game I used to play in had a rule where whenever you crit it auto-confirmed but also went against a separate HP called Wounds(Your level + CON, IIRC) so it was VERY possible to get random crit killed. The weird part is that it also did that on expanded crit ranges. Attack negation was the only way my Monk made it through that game(though for the record it didn't use Crane Wing, it used an Oriental Adventures feat called Grappling Block IIRC).
Can't Divine Casters simply give up orisons to make people reroll one attack/round with a single feat that doesn't require a feat chain?
at lv11