Another comparison is a half-giant archer. Assuming they balance out Str and Dex more for a 'mere' 16 Str and 18 Dex, with Deadly Aim, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization. With a large sized longbow (due to Powerful Build), they can usually full attack with 2 shots at +8/+8 for 2d6+11 per shot. Average 36.
Building on Bob Bob Bob's comment on the lance charge - this becomes 6d6+45 to 6d6+60 for a half-giant using a large-sized lance.
Generally I find that mounted combat is actually more common on small sized characters - halfling cavaliers on medium sized mounts can go almost anywhere a human can go, and while they deal less damage than their medium sized knightly compatriots, they still deal vastly more than they would on foot.
While the Half-Giant warlord is definitely good at dealing damage, it's still the same ballpark as other martial characters.
From what I understand that stance and many maneuvers from that discipline are being nerfed.
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PoW is a huge game changer.
Are PoW martials better than Pathfinder martials and partial casters? Absolutely. The arguement that PoW abilities can be replicated with spells is an unfair comparison. Spells require actions and resources. PoW stuff is mostly unlimited and swift/free.
Are PoW martials better than Pathfinder casters? Probably not. PoW characters never get maze, simulacrum, or any of the other end-game broken spells.
That said, if you're allowing PoW in your game. should be using it. The players, enemy humanoids, undead, dragons, etc. PoW is such a huge increase in power that denying it to anyone that could use it is indirectly, but significantly, nerfing them.
So, it's not quite level 5, but I had a PFS legal character build that could do 12d6+20, maximized, for 14 turns per day at level 7. That's more than enough damage to kill pretty much anything that looks at me funny. And he was wearing full plate and carrying a shield, just because he could. No brakes on the pain train.
I'd love to see the math on that character.
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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).
** spoiler omitted **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
Hoookay. Hi! Jade Ripley, Dreamscarred Press. Please direct angry punches to my general facial region.
For your specific issue: Primal Warrior Stance shouldn't be stacking with Enlarge Person. That in mind, there's some things I should mention.
The first book in the Path of War line - the titular supplement, as you might have guessed - was before a few things happened for DSP, among them being greater internal oversight, the acquisition of some wonderful balance-minded freelancers, and the acquisition of a formal editor. In the time between then and now we've all learned some lessons and that's been reflected in the work on Path of War: Expanded. Other posters in this thread speak correctly when they say that Path of War has errata coming down the pipe once the nightmare that is PoW: E's publishing is finally over.
Primal Fury & Broken Blade are the big offenders in terms of raw damage, and right now we don't have a lot of solutions for that on tap that don't involve going and doing the errata. A common house rule we've seen crop up within the community is to lower the damage of strikes and boosts by about 2d6 up through 3rd or 4th level strikes, but the fact of the matter is we over-tuned, especially during the lower levels, and that's gonna need some correcting. If this isn't disrupting your game at the moment, that's great - keep on keepin' on. If it is, I might suggest you talk to your player about maybe swapping into another discipline of emphasis; Scarlet Throne might be good for what ails them.
Sweet Jesus. Now I remember why I don't allow PoW.
You wound me.
Now, admittedly, the above still remains concerns for content from the original Path of War in general, but that doesn't mean we had a cascade failure from concept to execution. When you're in a stance, that's it; you don't get another one unless you're willing to burn your Swift to change out. If you've got your blur up, you don't get a size increase, or a mirror image, or whatever other capability your other known stances might add.
The questions that got asked, especially during Expanded, were, "At what level is this appropriate?" and, "Is this effect worth the action slot it takes up?"
Feral has a point in that Path of War intentionally changes the martial paradigm. When you can spend all of your actions in a turn, your turn starts looking different, and that was the idea. The specific accusation - it being mostly swift or free actions - is off the mark, but there's something to be said about martials having off-turn abilities, being able to move and attack effectively, and possessing non-AC defenses. I feel those things are good for the game and give martial players a feeling of playing warriors, not just beatsticks. The full-attack paradigm is fairly binary; either you can't fire off, and you're useless that turn, or you do fire off, and the thing you touched is dead.
It can be a lot to take in, but most paradigm changes are. I'd like to invite you to take a look at the Expanded content - you'll find it here - and see what the system looks like after we've had the chance to refine our technique. Do note that the playtest documents are more than a bit out of date at this juncture, though - we kinda stopped devoting time to updating them in favor of updating the internal docs based on feedback and testing so we could get the damn thing published why will this horror never cease.
One of the other goals for the line, and one I personally pushed for, was ease of use. The idea is simple: Does it sound cool? Then it is cool. No traps for new players, no weird sideways options to confuse low-op players. But what that means is that players already good at wringing numbers out of existing martial options - many of which are compatible with Path of War's systems - are going to be able to apply that knowledge here to the higher floor. As you can see from the posted numbers, though, full attacking, especially on a charge, remains the king of producing a fine red mist.
There was an error of design in this particular situation, for which I am sorry. But don't jude so hastily, aye? I'm on deck to handle questions, comments, and feedback.
Darn, this has been moved to a different forum.
Legio, could you PM me if you deign to respond to my request? It would be much appreciated, thank you.
One thing that I've found to help is requesting players to stick primarily to utility disciplines over damage disciplines.
That way they have tactical options and even some out of combat options instead of simply bumping up numbers. Primarily Veiled Moon, , Cursed Razor, Shattered Mirror, Tempest Gale, and Silver Crane.
Also Enlarge person and Primal Warrior Stance do stack. You can have 1 actual size increase and one virtual size increase at a time. So Impact/lead blades/Primal Warrior wont stack, but they will with enlarge person (also it's specifically called out as working in the stance). The player in question is a half giant though and is using Poweful Build to be a medium character wielding a large greatsword.
So, it's not quite level 5, but I had a PFS legal character build that could do 12d6+20, maximized, for 14 turns per day at level 7. That's more than enough damage to kill pretty much anything that looks at me funny. And he was wearing full plate and carrying a shield, just because he could. No brakes on the pain train.I'd love to see the math on that character.This was a while ago, and it was mostly as a thought experiment, so I'll have to try and recreate what I did with him. I'll try and remember it all correctly.
Human, multiclassed to hell.
Traits are the one that lets you drink stuff fast, and one other of your choice.
16 str, 12 dex, 16 con, 10 int 12 wis, 7 cha, racial bonus to str.
Barbarian, power attack and furious focus at first level.
Bloodrager second level for total of 14 rounds of rage
Titan Fighter at level three, can't recall the feat here. Maybe weapon focus (relevant two handed 2d6 weapon)? It's been a while.
Beastmorph Alchemist at four, five, and six, with the vestigial arm discovery, and some other feat I can't recall.
At level seven, take another level of Titan Fighter to pick up Vital Strike and Furious Finish.
Make sure you have enough money for a Large +1 Impact (relevant 2d6 two handed weapon) and a glove of storing, plus cord of stubborn resolve. Some of these can be optional if money doesn't match up, I forget how much the cost came out to here. At the start of a fight, be carrying your mutagen and your extract of Enlarge Person. Drink both liquids, and free action draw your weapon from the glove. You now have a str score of 18+4 mutagen+2 belt+2enlarge, for a nice healthy 26 before rage, so I think my static damage math was off a bit. Your weapon started as a large (relevant two handed 2d6 weapon) counting as huge at 4d6, increased to gargantuan at 6d6 by your size increase. Next turn you move up, rage, and vital strike with power attack, for 6d6+6d6+15+6+1. You...
Haha, that's funny. I did the math a month ago or so to figure out the highest strength score I could munchkin up by 20 and came up with something in the mid-60s. I wonder what that would look like around 7? Maybe I'll do the math again once I vote and get back home.
For your specific issue: Primal Warrior Stance shouldn't be stacking with Enlarge Person. That in mind, there's some things I should mention.
The way it's written now it specifically calls out Enlarge Person as something it does stack with. And I don't see why it wouldn't. The stance is a virtual size increase, as pointed out by Insain Dragoon. I like Samasboy1's suggestion, as he points out it looks like the short-description and the full text disagree primarily on the fact that it increases the weapon by TWO sizes in the text, instead of one as in the short description. Yeah, it only trims off 2d6, but that puts the average under 30 before buffs, and buffs are resources.
Other posters in this thread speak correctly when they say that Path of War has errata coming down the pipe once the nightmare that is PoW: E's publishing is finally over.
You know a timeframe for that? Months? Weeks? A year or so? Will it be updated in the PDF download? Will the errata be included in the PoW:E? How soon will it make it to the HeroLab community pack? Do you think there will be a compilation book as there was for psionics?
Other posters in this thread speak correctly when they say that Path of War has errata coming down the pipe...
I'm actually really curious about this because I've wanted to look at picking up Path of War for a while. Is the errata going to be in new printings of the book?
I'll second a lot of Christopher Dudley's questions as well.
I like the "considered one size larger" bit. That arguably overrides, and does not stack with, any other size increases. XD
(One thing I tend to emphasize for my games is that things shouldn't be stacked if they're not really meant to be...)
I think there was a FAQ for the standard game that would cover this situation. Both the racial size bonus and the stance size bonus are virtual size increases that per that FAQ should not stack.
Here it is.
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You know a timeframe for that? Months? Weeks? A year or so? Will it be updated in the PDF download? Will the errata be included in the PoW:E? How soon will it make it to the HeroLab community pack? Do you think there will be a compilation book as there was for psionics?
Ideally, Expanded will be out before the end of this month and work on the errata will begin essentially Right Then. We'll be testing the tweaks, possibly publicly, before we finalize them, at which point they'll be incorporated into the original's PDF. I don't know if/how reprints will be handled; those sorts of logistics are above my pay grade.
Likewise, we have no particular control over Hero Lab and I can't promise anything there.
A theoretical compilation book would depend on...a lot of factors.
Just out of curiosity, are Primal Fury and Broken Blade going to be straight nerfed, or more tweaked?
I'd love lowered damage but something MORE on many of their low level Maneuvers, since currently all they do from levels 1-7 or thereabouts is MOAR DAMAGE.
The damage is kinda ridiculous, mind you, but I've never seen a big reason to "main" Broken blade or Primal Fury when I can be giving my allies Move actions and AoOs or Nightcrawler-ing my way around the battlefield.
Personally I'd love to see Broken Blade become entirely the discipline of destroying an enemy's balance, posture, and position. Instead of damage a focus on combat maneuver effects, attack penalties, removal of ability to make AoOs, and some status effects like daze or staggered thrown in.
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