I put this in advice because I allowed 3PP (Path of War from Dreamscarred Press) in this game, and I'm seeing numbers bigger than I expected. I'd like to know if others think it's TOO MUCH damage, though.
Anyway, the party is 5th level, built that way. I have a half-giant Warlord. So right off the bat, she has a large greatsword (3d6). As a Warlord, her 5th level stance is Primal Warrior Stance (Ex).
... Additionally, any melee weapon, unarmed strike, or natural weapon is treated as if it were two sizes larger. The benefits of this stance stack with abilities or effects that increase the initiator's size (such as enlarge person).
So with her large greatsword, this stance makes her every attack hit like a Gargantuan greatsword (skipping Huge altogether). With power attack, a 20 STR and a +1 weapon, she's doing something like 6d6+15 (give or take, I forget all her bonuses). And with an Enlarge Person cast on her, she'll do Colossal damage: 8d6+more.
Is that on par with what you should expect from a 5th level DPR-melee character, or is this way beyond normal?
ETA: cited 3PP title
Doing around 50 damage on an average roll is not something a 5th level character should be able to do. Let's look at a Flame Drake and Bearded Devil (Both common monsters, both CR 5). They both have 57 HP. This means that on an average damage roll, these monsters are both knocking on Death's door - the Bearded Devil is in slightly better shape, having DR 5. A slightly above average roll means these monsters are being 1-shot. This shouldn't be happening after 2nd level, or so. This is why I don't allow 3pp content at my tables.
While I wouldn't be so hasty to disallow all 3pp just because of one bad apple, this does seem disproportionately damaging. And Warlord is from the Path of War I think. Which is weird, because I've heard a lot about how "balanced" that particular book is, then when I looked at it myself, I mostly saw higher numbers than 1st party martials, and a few new tricks.
Well there is a bunch of ways to get around all that, but the long and short of it is that sort of strategy caps out and gets less effective as you ascend in levels.
And its limited to melee.
Has anyone pointed out that a Colossal greatsword is 4d6 damage? This isn't 5e.
2d6 medium
2d8 large
3d6 huge
3d8 gargantuan
4d6 colossalSeriously, this is a basic glaring flaw by the table on this one but I love seeing how quickly people jump on the 3PP is sub=par train.
Not so. You drop 2 steps for a size change, because there are effectively 2 tracks going on.
If the size increases by one step, look up the original damage on the chart and increase the damage by two steps. If the initial size is Small or lower (or is treated as Small or lower) or the initial damage is 1d6 or less, instead increase the damage by one step.
ETA:2d6 (greatsword) ->3d6 (large greatsword) -> 4d6 (huge) -> 6d6 (gargantuan)
Well there is a bunch of ways to get around all that, but the long and short of it is that sort of strategy caps out and gets less effective as you ascend in levels.
And its limited to melee.
Could you define "get around all that?" All what? Doing way too much damage for a level? It might not matter much at level 10 or 13, but right now it looks like it's causing problems.
I've never felt potions of fly or a single casting from a partymate were too hard to come by. Melee only isn't too much of an issue.
Is there other language in that Stance ability that wasn't posted? Something like "as a move action," etc? It could be important.
But I do take your point, I wasn't posting this to disparage 3PP in any sense. It was this combination of things. The player isn't even a powergamer, just stumbled on this via "Oh, this would be good to have, and oh, I should take this."
So I wanted to see if my first impression of the numbers, without seeing it in play, was shared by anyone, and it seems that it's unanimously coming across as overkill. Good to know, I may have to dial it back. Although as GM, I usually do give monsters max HP, so maybe I should let it play out for a bit and see what happens.
I don't know how it scales with future levels because we haven't really read that far ahead.
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Is there other language in that Stance ability that wasn't posted? Something like "as a move action," etc? It could be important.
Not clearly.
[url=http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/disciplines-and-maneuvers/primal-fury-maneuvers][/url]
By taking a wide stance that invites the death of any before him, the mighty disciple of Primal Fury wields the power of overwhelming force to it's greatest effects. The initiator ignores difficult terrain when charging while in this stance, and whenever he is subject to a size modifier for CMB checks or to his CMD, the disciple is treated as one size category larger if doing so would be advantageous to him. He is also considered to be one size larger when determining whether a creature's special attacks based on size (such as grab or swallow whole) can affect him. Additionally, any melee weapon, unarmed strike, or natural weapon is treated as if it were two sizes larger. The benefits of this stance stack with abilities or effects that increase the initiator's size (such as enlarge person).
It starts out talking about a charge, so I initially thought this might only apply on charge damage. But then it talks about something that has nothing to do with a charge, then gives the third power as "Additionally" so that indicates to me that the damage increase has nothing to do with a charge.
And next level, you qualify for Vital Strike. Maybe an Impact Weapon later in your career.
...
The numbers are pretty scary.
I was going to mention that, but figured I probably could go all day on possible ways to go from this.
I mean, maybe this was playtested with no one thinking of using a half-giant. Assuming it was playtested.
I can build a PFS-legal fighter who averages 27 damage a hit at level 5.
Yeah, it's a fair bump. I wouldn't call it broken as long as you allow everybody (including the other party members and enemy NPCs) access to the same abilities.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe there are stances to improve your defense.
And next level, you qualify for Vital Strike. Maybe an Impact Weapon later in your career.
...
The numbers are pretty scary.
I was going to mention that, but figured I probably could go all day on possible ways to go from this.
I mean, maybe this was playtested with no one thinking of using a half-giant. Assuming it was playtested.
We have a Half-Giant character in our Reign of Winter campaign using Psionics and PoW and he averages 4d6+20 at level 4 and frankly its not too bad.
6d6+15 is only about ~36 damage which is reasonable.
That being said, Dreamscarred has acknowledged Primal Fury, Broken Blade and Thrashing Dragon may be too good and IIRC there are some nerfs incoming when PoW Expanded comes out, so keep an eye out (mainly on that Maneuver that grants Pounce at level 2, and Cornered Frenzy).
@CampinCarl: Equivalent stances of that level include ones that grant permanent Blur and See Invisibility, permanent Protection From Evil and Holy, Shot on the Run +4 AC, etc. From PoW Expanded there is one that grants you Mirror Images from Shattered Mirror so there are defensive options.
@CampinCarl: Equivalent stances of that level include ones that grant permanent Blur and See Invisibility, permanent Protection From Evil and Holy, Shot on the Run +4 AC, etc. From PoW Expanded there is one that grants you Mirror Images from Shattered Mirror so there are defensive options.
Sweet Jesus. Now I remember why I don't allow PoW.
Well there is a bunch of ways to get around all that, but the long and short of it is that sort of strategy caps out and gets less effective as you ascend in levels.
And its limited to melee.
Could you define "get around all that?" All what? Doing way too much damage for a level? It might not matter much at level 10 or 13, but right now it looks like it's causing problems.
I've never felt potions of fly or a single casting from a partymate were too hard to come by. Melee only isn't too much of an issue.
Is there other language in that Stance ability that wasn't posted? Something like "as a move action," etc? It could be important.
The character is basically a T-Rex. Anything outside of melee will leave them scrambling. Reach, trip, disarm, old crane wing, invisibility, flight etc...
Pick your poison.
Lots of enemies, coordinated casters...terrain!
Path of War has options for deflecting attacks too! Make use of em
Sometimes it can be two things combining together to break things. For example, half giant might be ok by itself, primal warrior stance might be ok by itself, but together it might be a bit much (size based increases are not linear, so 1 higher start ends up making quite a bit of difference).
From my understanding, while a stance can last as long as you like, it has to be initiated as a swift action for each an every combat, not unlike a Paizo Style.
In general, I think Path of War is not 'balanced' as in a martial with it is roughly equal to a martial without it, Path of War is a straight up upgrade for a martial character. It does help out with some caster martial disparity, particularly the powers that give options outside of just more damage, allowing martial characters to go into a control or support role instead of just being damage dealers. I also think that since path of war powers can be accessed with feats, the path of war classes are balanced ok with other martial characters. A fighter can get plenty of path of war powers for example.
Basically what you have is a third level stance (roughly equivalent in coolness to a 3rd level spell) that is giving the character 3d6 bonus damage, about 10 points a hit. If the character wasn't a 1/2 giant, it would be 2d6 bonus damage or about 7 point. This is nice, but probably not all that game breaking. You might consider though not allowing the 1/2 giant and primal warrior stance to stack, under that concept that both of these are 'virtual size bonuses' and while a real size bonus will stack with a 'virtual size bonus' two virtual size bonuses won't stack with each other. That would probably bring things more in line.
The stance seems a bit over the top.
Can charge over difficult terrain. Other ways to get this:
* Bloodrager with Fey bloodline, level 4
* Recipient of Feather Step or Mass Feather Step spell
* Nimble Moves -> Acrobatic Step and only charging for between 10' and 20'.
* Nimble Moves -> Acrobatic Step -> Light Step and Elf
* Ghost Rider on their mount, 5th level
There are probably a few other options that I've missed.
Ignoring difficult terrain plus a damage bonus plus a bonus to CMB/CMD seems quite a bit too much for a single stance to provide, even if it does have a single prerequisite.
6d6+15 is only about ~36 damage which is reasonable.Would you think it sufficiently reasonable to use in an enemy against the players?
Considering the monsters have level advantages and Fae Witches have a nasty habit of locking people down with Slumber + Color Spray, its really no worse.
Its no worse than a monster with 4 natural attacks (claw, claw, bite, tail) doing 1d6+5 4 times over.
@CampinCarl: I suppose then only the casters should have ways to deal with invisible enemies at 5th level. Nothing, nothing is worse than Mirror Image early on. Its far better than any AC.
Also, the argument of using something against the players is a sticky one. When a monster dies it goes back to the monster box, never to be seen again until Orc # 123 comes out the next day, ready to fight fresh again. When a player dies, they don't just go back into the box. Someone's time and dedication has been quashed.
Its the reason certain classes and features are better on monsters, they don't care if its 1/Day, they only need it 1/Day, for the one encounter against the PCs.
@My Self: Its a (Su) stance that channels your Good. Requires a Good prerequisite and adherence to a strong belief system. Its no worse than declaring a Challenge and getting more powerful, or Raging and growing in size.
There's no method that I can think of using 1st party material that even comes close to replicating this stance ability. I'm a big fan of Dreamscarred Press, but this is a little intense. I was also under the impression that a Colossal greatsword deals 4d6.
The stance seems a bit over the top.
Can charge over difficult terrain. Other ways to get this:
* Bloodrager with Fey bloodline, level 4
* Recipient of Feather Step or Mass Feather Step spell
* Nimble Moves -> Acrobatic Step and only charging for between 10' and 20'.
* Nimble Moves -> Acrobatic Step -> Light Step and Elf
* Ghost Rider on their mount, 5th levelThere are probably a few other options that I've missed.
Ignoring difficult terrain plus a damage bonus plus a bonus to CMB/CMD seems quite a bit too much for a single stance to provide, even if it does have a single prerequisite.
IUS+Dodge+Mobility -> Charging Stag Style
IUS -> Dragon Style
Strix (Flight)
Syrinx (Flight)
Wyvaran (Flight)
Feather Step Slippers.
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I find it somewhat amusing that you can stand in such a way that your sword becomes holier.@CampinCarl: Equivalent stances of that level include ones that grant permanent Blur and See Invisibility, permanent Protection From Evil and Holy, Shot on the Run +4 AC, etc. From PoW Expanded there is one that grants you Mirror Images from Shattered Mirror so there are defensive options.Sweet Jesus. Now I remember why I don't allow PoW.
The Silver Crane Discipline is specifically a supernatural discipline that taps into the celestial realm. It was literally a fighting style passed down by angels so mortals could fight evil.
Has anyone pointed out that a Colossal greatsword is 4d6 damage? This isn't 5e.
2d6 medium
2d8 large
3d6 huge
3d8 gargantuan
4d6 colossalSeriously, this is a basic glaring flaw by the table on this one but I love seeing how quickly people jump on the 3PP is sub-par train.
Nope.
The steps you have given there are wrong.
This here are the correct steps for weapon damage from size increases:
"ETA:2d6 (greatsword) ->3d6 (large greatsword) -> 4d6 (huge) -> 6d6 (gargantuan)"
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@OP
"Is This Too Much Damage?"
Yes.
Hold on, let me get the numbers straight.
20 str = +7 damage.
Power Attack at level 5 = +6 damage
Greatsword = +2d6 damage.
Size increase makes it +3d6 damage which means after the stance it's 4d6.
Now if the Greatsword is large then this is 4d6 and the stance increases it to 6d6.
Now I see this kind of junk all the time because I allow third party feats that let you wield larger weapons because if martials can't cast spells then they deserve to be murder machines, so this doesn't really bother me. Its what happens when you mix and match multiple sources of size category shenanigans. The real problem is whether or not the other players also have access to ridiculous stuff, because you can always throw more or bigger monsters at a party but if one is a heavy hitter and the other's aren't or arent' contributing in other ways to keep the party alive then doing so would be very lethal to the party.
For the original question my answer is "maybe". Depends on the what the other party members are capable of, what they're actually doing (not necessarily the same as what they're capable of) and what kinds of encounters you throw at them on a regular basis.
I haven't looked at Path of War, but I am familiar with 3.5 Tome of Battle, and as I understand it they are relatively similar. Compared to that source, this seems a touch high to me, but that's just my instant gut reaction.
If I think about it a bit more...at 5th level I still say it's a tad high. Compare it to an equally optimized spellcaster, kineticist, smiting paladin, archer, etc...and it's still outdoing them all by a small margin. Not "this is completely broken" (to me), but still a tad high.
At 6th level I think you've gone from "potential problem that deserves some study" to "unmitigated disaster". The difference in encounters between CR 5 and 6 is minimal. The potential damage from iterative attacks, on the other hand (let alone any additional bonus feats or other abilities granted)...well...you would basically have to Justice League your encounters. "Over here you have the waves of minions that Green Arrow and Batman are handling, and over in this corner we have Superman and Wonder Woman beating on a semi-divine planet eater." And the other players, if they aren't on par with this half-giant warlord, will have to decide if they're ok with that or not.
You might consider though not allowing the 1/2 giant and primal warrior stance to stack, under that concept that both of these are 'virtual size bonuses' and while a real size bonus will stack with a 'virtual size bonus' two virtual size bonuses won't stack with each other. That would probably bring things more in line.
Yeah, I looked to find this in there, but the power specifically calls out the size increase affecting the weapon, not the user. It IS a large Greatsword. So L+2=G. And then just to be clear, calls out that it stacks with Enlarge, just so I can truly have nightmares about it.
I jest. Seeing some of the other numbers people are posting, I'll give it a session or two before dialing it back, and I'll DEFINITELY keep an eye out for nerfs from DSP. Thanks for the heads-up on that.
Now imagine PoW and mythic tiers.
Rocket-tag intensifies.
Now imagine PoW and mythic tiers.
Rocket-tag intensifies.
And Gestalt!
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Now imagine PoW and mythic tiers.
Rocket-tag intensifies.
Well Mythic Spellcasting is so far and away more rocket tag than anything the Martials are doing.
I mean the Martial still has to roll to hit you. If you roll dice in mythic something is gonna die. The mythic casters are just like "Nah that didnt happen."
Yeah but mythic martials get scary with one tier. Just add mythic power attack to a two-handed bruiser and the damage already gets terrifying. Mythic casters indeed to get pretty stupid, but they need a few more tiers.
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I put this in advice because I allowed 3PP (Path of War from Dreamscarred Press) in this game, and I'm seeing numbers bigger than I expected. I'd like to know if others think it's TOO MUCH damage, though.
Anyway, the party is 5th level, built that way. I have a half-giant Warlord. So right off the bat, she has a large greatsword (3d6). As a Warlord, her 5th level stance is Primal Warrior Stance (Ex).
First off, I believe DSP have commented that they're intending to look at the Primal Fury discipline in particular as it is somewhat more powerful than most of the other disciplines.
Next; The main issue is actually not the stance alone, but the combination of stance and race, as Powerful Build alone adds +2d6 damage (average 7) when used in this fashion.
Looking at the numbers, the Half-Giant Warlord is looking at around +10 to hit for 6d6+15, but unless they burned a feat to get Heavy Armor Proficiency, is either in medium armor with a 20ft movement, or light armor with full mobility. The average of 33 damage is high, but not so much that I would balk as a GM.
A half giant fighter would be rocking either more AC or more speed, and an average damage around 27. A half-giant invulnerable-rager barbarian would be rocking terrible AC, but DR 2/- along with a higher attack roll at +13, for about the same damage as a fighter with Weapon Specialization of 27. These classes also benefit from having enlarge person cast on them, albeit not quite as much as the warlord, but both bring other abilities to the table than raw damage - speed. A character can only hit what they can reach, and in this the barbarian wins hands down (or a barbarian/warlord multi-class, as the case may be).
TL;DR: It's a lot of damage on paper, but compensated for with lower attack rolls and mobility. If you want to curb potential abuse, throw in the house rule that the stance doesn't stack with enlarge person.
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I would suggest considering reducing the effective size increase of the weapon from the stance to one size larger.
This matches the other effects of the stance.
By taking a wide stance that invites the death of any before him, the mighty disciple of Primal Fury wields the power of overwhelming force to it's greatest effects. The initiator ignores difficult terrain when charging while in this stance, and whenever he is subject to a size modifier for CMB checks or to his CMD, the disciple is treated as one size category larger if doing so would be advantageous to him. He is also considered to be one size larger when determining whether a creature's special attacks based on size (such as grab or swallow whole) can affect him
And matches the description of the power.
The martial disciple and the equipment he is using is considered one size category larger.
It would knock 7 avg damage off his damage, bringing it more into line with other dedicated THF martials.