| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Nope!
You can get a feat to get Ricochet Toss on any other character. It's two feats with half a Weapon Specialization for a style Fighters are about as good at as an NPC class. I've done the comparison before, but Fighters end up leagues behind other throwing builds. I've been toying with if a switch hitter spear Fighter might be viable, but I'm not yet sold they have the tools in any archetype to be decent enough at it.
Many other classes have or can get Weapon Training. Warpriests like it a lot.
Anyone with VMCing can pick up AWT if they have effective Fighter levels.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I do not believe that WMH focused too much on fighters. Fighters needed pretty much everything in that book, plus Richocet Toss is not at all restricted to Fighters only; you have completely overlooked the Martial Focus feat....
Martial Focus (Combat)
You have honed your skills with a group of related weapons.
Prerequisite: Base attack bonus +5.
Benefit: Choose one fighter weapon group. While wielding a weapon from this group with which you are proficient, you gain a +1 bonus on damage rolls.
Special: The Martial Focus feat counts as the weapon training class feature with the chosen fighter weapon group for the purpose of weapon mastery feat prerequisites and what weapons you can use with weapon mastery feats.
That feat right there opens every single feat that requires Weapon Training. You are welcome!
The Fighter needed help more than any other class, and providing that help is what the WMH set out to do. If person A has 1 thing and person B has two things, giving both people 1 more thing doesn't make things even.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I do not believe that WMH focused too much on fighters. Fighters needed pretty much everything in that book, plus Richocet Toss is not at all restricted to Fighters only; you have completely overlooked the Martial Focus feat....
That feat right there opens every single feat that requires Weapon Training. You are welcome!Martial Focus (Combat)
You have honed your skills with a group of related weapons.
Prerequisite: Base attack bonus +5.
Benefit: Choose one fighter weapon group. While wielding a weapon from this group with which you are proficient, you gain a +1 bonus on damage rolls.
Special: The Martial Focus feat counts as the weapon training class feature with the chosen fighter weapon group for the purpose of weapon mastery feat prerequisites and what weapons you can use with weapon mastery feats.
I'm not a fan of something that's a pretty blatant feat tax, even if it does get the job done.
I agree that Combat Expertise is a far worse feat tax than this... I think the idea was to present great options that vanilla fights have access, but also to create the Martial Focus feat for archetypes that switch out Weapon Training, so as not to screw archetyped-fighters. I'm glad that Paizo created a way for non-fighter folks to gain access to things like Ricochet Toss (which flat-out made Throwing Builds viable without having to resort to the Blinkback Belt).
I'm currently playing a Far Striker Unchained Monk who is going to be so very, very happy when he hits 7th level and finally can afford Ricochet Toss.... Flurry of Throws anyone?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm not a fan of something that's a pretty blatant feat tax, even if it does get the job done.
I think you're greatly underselling what Martial Focus actually does for you. It does look like a blatant feat tax, but I don't think that's true at all.
Fighter-only feats are one of the Fighter's only class features. They're a lot like Rage Powers are for the Barbarian. In fact, you could easily take all of the Barbarian Rage Powers, rewrite them as "Rage Feats" that require the Rage class feature, and give the Barbarian a "Bonus Rage Feat" feature on even levels, and it'd be pretty much the exact same thing.
Martial Focus gives you +1 damage to a set of weapons. That's half of Weapon Specialization (which normally requires you to be Fighter 4), except it applies to an entire weapon group instead of a single weapon. On top of that, it lets you qualify for a subset of the Fighter Feat class feature.
Let's say there was feat to give you a lesser version of the Barbarian's Rage and let you qualify for Extra Rage Power, but only for rage powers that don't have a level requirement. It's limited in scope, sure, but I think it'd be a pretty popular pick for some builds. It's kind of like Variant Multiclass Barbarian, except it comes online more quickly and gives you far more control over how much of a feat investment you put into it. For that reason, I imagine a lot of people would clamor that it's overpowered; why VMC Barbarian when you could just take "Rage Focus" and Extra Rage Power instead?
From that standpoint, what Martial Focus does is incredibly powerful. It lets you pick up a some of the (few) upsides of being a Fighter, without having to take the pain that is actually being a Fighter. It is one of the very few ways outside of archetypes to grab another class's features without needing to multiclass. Even without the partial Weapon Specialization effect, it'd probably still be a feat worth considering for some builds.
But did [WMH] put too much emphasis on the fighter to the detriment of other characters?
Absolutely not. The Fighter needed help more than anything else to begin with. Even when giving the Fighter that much needed help, Paizo still provided a way for anyone else to snag those shiny new toys with a very small cost, somewhat undermining the boost to Fighters.
I'm not a fan of something that's a pretty blatant feat tax, even if it does get the job done.
I like feat taxes. Some things just shouldn't be readily available. It means you have to dedicate to get a pot of gold that otherwise would've been a ridiculous feature to get out of one feat. Considering that you get half of weapon specialization it's more like a trait cost than anything.
It beats not having those feats at all, and if the feats are good enough it's great.
Something as basic as Ricochet toss should never have been put behind a feat tax barrier like that. Aside from anything similar to that I don't believe Weapon Master handbook was bad in any way.
Something as basic as Ricochet toss should never have been put behind a feat tax barrier like that. Aside from anything similar to that I don't believe Weapon Master handbook was bad in any way.
I don't consider trumping every magical quality, item, or effect basic. But, to each their own I suppose.
| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
I consider "making thrown weapon combat viable" to be basic. Just because previously Paizo locked that behind a wall doesn't mean it's special or valuable.
Imagine if shortbows took a move action to draw, longbows took a standard action, and Rapid Reload required the weapon training class feature.
That's essentially what happened to thrown weapons.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Spellcasters have no feat taxes. Quicken Spell can be taken without a single prereq.
Martials have all sorts of horrid feat taxes. Combat Expertise. Weapon Focus. Power Attack (even if it's a good feat, it still should *be* a feat). Weapon Finesse. Etc.
Adding more feat taxes to starve every non-Fighter martial even more than they're already feat-starved is cold-blooded.
Adding more feat taxes to starve every non-Fighter martial even more than they're already feat-starved is cold-blooded.
Making even more Fighter abilities that the Fighter can't use any better than anyone else is even worse, though.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Adding more feat taxes to starve every non-Fighter martial even more than they're already feat-starved is cold-blooded.Making even more Fighter abilities that the Fighter can't use any better than anyone else is even worse, though.
If this was something unique and special I would agree.
But we're talking about using thrown weapons effectively here.
If Fighters instead got a unique feat that let them do something special with thrown weapons that nobody else could do, then yeah I would agree with you.
But we're talking something as basic as "full attacking with the weapon you've invested time and money into"
Would you think it would be fair to lock swinging a great sword more than once a turn behind behind a Fighter feat tax?
I consider "making thrown weapon combat viable" to be basic. Just because previously Paizo locked that behind a wall doesn't mean it's special or valuable.
Imagine if shortbows took a move action to draw, longbows took a standard action, and Rapid Reload required the weapon training class feature.
That's essentially what happened to thrown weapons.
So, essentially if they were crossbows? They may not require the weapon training class feature, but given how many feats are required to make crossbows come anywhere close to longbows and shortbows, they might as well.
I'd argue that's a different issue entirely. Likely as a result of the war gaming roots of D&D, decisions were made regarding weapons that make sense from a realism perspective, but just aren't that great from a gameplay perspective.
Interestingly, the only reason I see that throwing weapons isn't a particularly viable combat style is the game's expectation of magical weapons. Get rid of that and things become a lot simpler (though crossbows are still kind of screwed).
Would you think it would be fair to lock swinging a great sword more than once a turn behind behind a Fighter feat tax?
If I'm not mistaken, that's not that different from how D&D was in early editions. Even recently, in 5th Edition, Fighters get significantly more attacks than everyone else. It doesn't seem like a problem, honestly, as long as the system is balanced around that expectation. As long as you adjust the stats of everything in the bestiary to account for everyone but Fighters only getting one or two attacks and I think it'd go a long way to making Fighters more interesting as a class.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I consider "making thrown weapon combat viable" to be basic. Just because previously Paizo locked that behind a wall doesn't mean it's special or valuable.
Imagine if shortbows took a move action to draw, longbows took a standard action, and Rapid Reload required the weapon training class feature.
That's essentially what happened to thrown weapons.
In fairness, thrown weapons can also be used in melee, so as compared to archery you're almost getting Point Blank Master for free, and you can TWF with them as well.
Not that I don't agree that thrown weapon builds are a little too Feat-heavy (3 Feats just to work is a bit much, even if one does give other minor benefits...even only 2 Feats for Fighters is maybe a bit high), I'm just noting that there are reasons for it not being quite as easy as archery.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Adding more feat taxes to starve every non-Fighter martial even more than they're already feat-starved is cold-blooded.Making even more Fighter abilities that the Fighter can't use any better than anyone else is even worse, though.
There's a peculiar running complaint paradox that goes:
1. Fighters lack features, all they get is more feats. Everyone gets feats, that's not a unique or interesting feature.
2. Damn these feat-taxes on feat-starved characters, I can't create the feat-using character I want to with X class because I'm too short on feats to make it work.
Perhaps the obvious conclusion is that a big 'class feature' of Fighters is that they can build the feat-chains nobody else (oh shut up, Human Warpriest) can?
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
There's a peculiar running complaint paradox that goes:
1. Fighters lack features, all they get is more feats. Everyone gets feats, that's not a unique or interesting feature.
2. Damn these feat-taxes on feat-starved characters, I can't create the feat-using character I want to with X class because I'm too short on feats to make it work.
Perhaps the obvious conclusion is that a big 'class feature' of Fighters is that they can build the feat-chains nobody else (oh shut up, Human Warpriest) can?
On the whole, I'd still love to see most martial feat chains collapsed into scaling feats and dump a lot of the feat taxes. That way, any martially focused class can still get good depth on a single combat style, but Fighters get the advantage of being the only class that can manage both depth and breadth. If one style isn't particularly suitable for a given encounter, they have something else ready to go that they can switch to; they have a great martial answer to most situations. Given the popularity of the Martial Master archetype, I don't think I'm alone in seeing that as a good direction for the Fighter.
As things stand, though, it feels to me like someone sat down to write combat feats and thought, "Gee, the Fighter gets so many feats. Better stretch these out as much as I can."
I consider "making thrown weapon combat viable" to be basic.
That's all fine and dandy, except thrown weapons already come built in with STR damage modifier, so they're much better than almost all bows and crossbows. Their drawback is that it's difficult to use iteratives. That's a huge drawback.
Taking away that drawback makes the thrown weapons better than pretty much anything else, except at extremely long range - but how often do we have encounters at extreme ranges? Stick to dungeons and you'll never need to be able to shoot an arrow 1,000 feet. Throwing an axe 50' will almost always be enough.
Yes, I know about composite bows. They're limited to STR 20 or lower, you don't always find them with the ideal STR mod (it sucks if you have an 18 STR but you just found a wonderful magical composite bow that's better than your current one but it is only composite +1), and you can't just take any old magical bow you found to a weaponsmith and have him add composite to it. So unless your GM is carefully crafting items for you so that you never find a "random" item that's less than perfect, or unless you're waiting around to enchant and upgrade your own composite bow, and assuming you never increase your STR (ever), then finding a magical throwing weapon is almost always more satisfying - at least assuming you can use it with iteratives.
Really, there's a decent chance that easy access to iterative thrown attacks might be the death-knell of bows and certainly crossbows.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Or you use the 1000gp Adaptive property.
Bypassing bows weakness is 1000gp
Bypassing Thrown weakness is: Losing your belt slot and about 4000gp or taking a huge feat tax (Quick Draw, martial Focus, and Ricochet weapon)
Also I mathed it out at one point and a 2wfing thrown weapon specialist only makes marginally more DPR than a Bow user that took manyshot. Bow user had the advantage of having a 100ft range increment though and thus doing more DPR anytime the thrown character had to throw outside his first range increment.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Crossbows being terrible was the death knell for Crossbows. Also the short range increments on thrown weapons does mean that a penalty to hit will apply much more often. Even something like a Javelin will take a penalty outside Point Blank Shot range, unless you invest yet more resources into extending that.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As things stand, though, it feels to me like someone sat down to write combat feats and thought, "Gee, the Fighter gets so many feats. Better stretch these out as much as I can."
For me it depends on the feat chain. I really like the concept behind the new Elven Battle Style, but I find the prerequisites annoying for a few reasons. Weapon Finesse is either a straight feat-tax, or ties you to a dex-based build where there are far, far easier ways to just get dex-to-damage. Elven Battle Training is just padding on a style where you already need 4 other feats to hit the payoff. If the style just wanted Weapon Focus and the two Style Feats to get INT-to-damage, it would give an interesting answer to a lot of 'why would you use an Elf?' situations. I'd love to create an Elven Battle Cleric who wielded a longsword with Guided Hand and Elven Battle Focus, but even poaching two bonus feats off of Fighter and Crusader leaves it coming together at level 9.
So, essentially if they were crossbows? They may not require the weapon training class feature, but given how many feats are required to make crossbows come anywhere close to longbows and shortbows, they might as well.
I'd argue that's a different issue entirely. Likely as a result of the war gaming roots of D&D, decisions were made regarding weapons that make sense from a realism perspective, but just aren't that great from a gameplay perspective.
Interestingly, the only reason I see that throwing weapons isn't a particularly viable combat style is the game's expectation of magical weapons. Get rid of that and things become a lot simpler (though crossbows are still kind of screwed).
In fairness, thrown weapons can also be used in melee, so as compared to archery you're almost getting Point Blank Master for free, and you can TWF with them as well.
I mean, these answers are literally what I was about to say first. Thrown weapons have a ton of advantages and in games without magic items are already totally fine. It's a different weapon style, and honestly you are describing drawbacks that already exist on other weapons so shrug.
You need some drawback to completely outdating every other throwing trick that existed before WMH. Pricing it as a high value class feature worth 1.5 feats with a prerequisite you needed anyways seems totally fair.
Heck, if you don't like it, Startoss Shower makes iteratives use the same weapon and gives you half the bonus of Two-Handed Thrower as a freebie. That makes the Returning weapon quality actually work and packages in Rapid Shot and Weapon Specialization for free. It's a more elegant way of overcoming the flaws of throwing weapon builds without unnecessarily taxing you. Seriously, it's one basic magic weapon quality at that point. I'm sure that makes Spears at least a consideration.
As things stand, though, it feels to me like someone sat down to write combat feats and thought, "Gee, the Fighter gets so many feats. Better stretch these out as much as I can."For me it depends on the feat chain. I really like the concept behind the new Elven Battle Style, but I find the prerequisites annoying for a few reasons. Weapon Finesse is either a straight feat-tax, or ties you to a dex-based build where there are far, far easier ways to just get dex-to-damage. Elven Battle Training is just padding on a style where you already need 4 other feats to hit the payoff. If the style just wanted Weapon Focus and the two Style Feats to get INT-to-damage, it would give an interesting answer to a lot of 'why would you use an Elf?' situations. I'd love to create an Elven Battle Cleric who wielded a longsword with Guided Hand and Elven Battle Focus, but even poaching two bonus feats off of Fighter and Crusader leaves it coming together at level 9.
Agreed.
I considered that build for a few seconds too, then I looked at Guided Weapon Quality and went, "Naaaaaw."
Or you use the 1000gp Adaptive property.
Bypassing bows weakness is 1000gp
Which still doesn't let you go above 20 STR for a damage modifier, the highest listed composite bow. And it isn't found on every composite bow in every treasure hoard.
Basically, if you have a spear and find a better spear, you can absolutely use it. But if you have a composite longbow and find a better longbow:
1. It might not be composite at all
2. If it is, it might be a lower STR - you cannot readily modify that (or even can't do it at all)
3. Even if you get the perfect level of composite goodness, what happens when you increase your STR?
4. If you ever go over STR 20, your composite bow doesn't keep up.
5. Even if you take it to town and have the local wizard add Adaptive to your new bow, that only fixes one bow.
5a. What about your next bow?
5b. What about the one after that?
5c. And the one after that?
5d. Etc. (it could add up to more than the cost of that belt after all)
|
Which still doesn't let you go above 20 STR for a damage modifier, the highest listed composite bow.
Question: where do you see that ruling in adaptive?
An adaptive bow responds to the strength of its wielder, acting as a bow with a strength rating equal to its wielder's Strength bonus.
Also adaptive cost 1k, so to your 5, the answer is always "burn 1k and 1 day to get it adaptive." Players get 'better' weapons all the time they can't use. Ask anyone who wields an exotic weapon. Sure it might end up as more than the belt, but you still have a belt slot, which is worth FAR more.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I considered that build for a few seconds too, then I looked at Guided Weapon Quality and went, "Naaaaaw."
Don't speak of Guided Weapon in my presence. That third-party-Paizo piece of work is an affront to hard-working builders everywhere who want to do things honestly.
I considered that build for a few seconds too, then I looked at Guided Weapon Quality and went, "Naaaaaw."Don't speak of Guided Weapon in my presence. That third-party-Paizo piece of work is an affront to hard-working builders everywhere who want to do things honestly.
Heheheh.
I know what you mean, cheating isn't fun if you can't do it legit!
I do not believe that WMH focused too much on fighters. Fighters needed pretty much everything in that book, plus Richocet Toss is not at all restricted to Fighters only; you have completely overlooked the Martial Focus feat....
That feat right there opens every single feat that requires Weapon Training. You are welcome!Martial Focus (Combat)
You have honed your skills with a group of related weapons.
Prerequisite: Base attack bonus +5.
Benefit: Choose one fighter weapon group. While wielding a weapon from this group with which you are proficient, you gain a +1 bonus on damage rolls.
Special: The Martial Focus feat counts as the weapon training class feature with the chosen fighter weapon group for the purpose of weapon mastery feat prerequisites and what weapons you can use with weapon mastery feats.
It doesn't get you Advanced Weapon Training unless you have enough effective Fighter levels (such as provided by Magus and most of its archetypes at a reduced rate, and by Brawler and Warpriest at full speed).
Anyway, strangely that feat doesn't appear on www.d20pfsrd.com, even though they have a lot of other Weapon Master's Handbook stuff and at least a fairly large fraction of Arcane Anthology stuff (still also missing the Fighter archetype, though). (And Archives of Nethys is still only up to 2015-12-11, with Weapon Master's Handbook listed as being a future addition.)
Anyway, the Weapon Master's Handbook did help other martials and even some semi-martials as well (Magus and Warpriest, as noted above, and especially the formerly underpowered Myrmidarch Magus, which now might still not be great, but at least seems to have become not too shabby). The same thing may occur when the Armor Master's Handbook comes out.
The drawback for thrown weapons is their stats are underwhelming for melee and their range increment is super-low.
Any other drawbacks are entirely unnecessary (and start pushing into the "why must crossbows suck so hard?" realism territory).
I agree, Rogues should suck at throwing daggers and if they want a real option for ranged combat they should pick up a bow.
I agree, Rogues should suck at throwing daggers and if they want a real option for ranged combat they should pick up a bow.
Suit yourself, I'll take my switch hitting Knife Master Rogue please.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I agree, Rogues should suck at throwing daggers and if they want a real option for ranged combat they should pick up a bow.Suit yourself, I'll take my switch hitting Knife Master Rogue please.
You appear to have seriously missed out on some quality sarcasm
I agree, Rogues should suck at throwing daggers and if they want a real option for ranged combat they should pick up a bow.Suit yourself, I'll take my switch hitting Knife Master Rogue please.
That archetype does literally nothing to support throwing combat.
You still have to go through 3 feats and reach level 9 in order to even use your magic dagger effectively for thrown combat.
You appear to have seriously missed out on some quality sarcasmI agree, Rogues should suck at throwing daggers and if they want a real option for ranged combat they should pick up a bow.Suit yourself, I'll take my switch hitting Knife Master Rogue please.
I thought it would be funnier to ignore it. ^_^ I was right.
The Weapon Master's Handbook has a lot of great tools for martial characters and is often brought up (along with the other recent martial sourcebooks) as making fighters not suck anymore.
Unless they release an "unchained" fighter which can replace any of its bonus feats by a "skill tree" that mimics any of the archetypes published so far, the fighter's gonna need all the stuff it can get.
But did it put too much emphasis on the fighter to the detriment of other characters?
*Sees Ascetic Style*
Nope :PBasically, it grants anyone who take this feat tree something similar to the Brawler's close weapon mastery class feature. For a monk who wants to specialize in weapon combat, that's the perfect option.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Fighters should be seen as weapon masters. The character concept of being the best at a weapon should be filled by a fighter.
To be fair most classes get a large number of bonus feats, rangers and slayers both get this and more. They can easily move in on the fighters turf. That feat is the gateway and it adds damage.
Rogues can pick up a few combat feats as talents, gain sneack attack and other tricks. They are great dex characters and can afford the feat. Their bab is the only down side.
Barbarians, are not feat heavy, have no neccisary feats and are possibly the best spelless combat character.
Paladins have amazing class abilities, smite is great. Any non archer build has enough feats to do their job from level 1. They might be frustrated as they have the bab before the feat slots.
Many spell casters get bonus combat feats and abilities (magus, war priest, hunter). they are good classes with unlimited potential. Again these just are behind on bab, but otherwise have feats available.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Still a better feat tax than combat expertise though.
Talk about damning with faint praise...
I do not believe that WMH focused too much on fighters. Fighters needed pretty much everything in that book, plus Richocet Toss is not at all restricted to Fighters only; you have completely overlooked the Martial Focus feat....
That feat right there opens every single feat that requires Weapon Training. You are welcome!Martial Focus (Combat)
You have honed your skills with a group of related weapons.
Prerequisite: Base attack bonus +5.
Benefit: Choose one fighter weapon group. While wielding a weapon from this group with which you are proficient, you gain a +1 bonus on damage rolls.
Special: The Martial Focus feat counts as the weapon training class feature with the chosen fighter weapon group for the purpose of weapon mastery feat prerequisites and what weapons you can use with weapon mastery feats.It doesn't get you Advanced Weapon Training unless you have enough effective Fighter levels (such as provided by Magus and most of its archetypes at a reduced rate, and by Brawler and Warpriest at full speed).
Anyway, strangely that feat doesn't appear on www.d20pfsrd.com, even though they have a lot of other Weapon Master's Handbook stuff and at least a fairly large fraction of Arcane Anthology stuff (still also missing the Fighter archetype, though). (And Archives of Nethys is still only up to 2015-12-11, with Weapon Master's Handbook listed as being a future addition.)
Anyway, the Weapon Master's Handbook did help other martials and even some semi-martials as well (Magus and Warpriest, as noted above, and especially the formerly underpowered Myrmidarch Magus, which now might still not be great, but at least seems to have become not too shabby). The same thing may occur when the Armor Master's Handbook comes out.
Obviously it would not grant Advanced Weapon Training... I never said it would. I stated that Martial Focus would open up all those feats that require Weapon Training as a prerequisite. This was to point out to the OP that his/her initial statement on Ricochet Toss being only available to fighters was wrong.
no
You could House Rule it to pretty easily, though.
If we're at the point where we houserule stuff then 3rd party publishers are probably a better bet honestly.
You could House Rule it to pretty easily, though.If we're at the point where we houserule stuff then 3rd party publishers are probably a better bet honestly.
For such a small thing, that's a pretty drastic reaction.
"Well, if Swashbuckler Weapon Training doesn't count as Weapon Training, then I might as well bring third pastry stuff in."
For...what?
You could House Rule it to pretty easily, though.If we're at the point where we houserule stuff then 3rd party publishers are probably a better bet honestly.For such a small thing, that's a pretty drastic reaction.
"Well, if Swashbuckler Weapon Training doesn't count as Weapon Training, then I might as well bring third pastry stuff in."
For...what?
That was sort of meant for the whole thread too. Thrown weapon fighting, crossbows, firearms, and various other parts of the game are broken or require too many feats to match the baseline of 2 handed fighting and archer, so at that point it's probably better to use 3PP over broken first party options.