When it comes to AC, it's not just about full AC. Dex based characters are good at touch AC, while Str based ones (assuming heavy armor) do well at flat-footed AC. Overall, it seems different but balanced - as it should be.
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So what if arrows are in the air? Dex have higher AC and as mentioned, can have feats to actually cut down the arrows.
And if they get attacked by melee?In a 1 vs 1 fight Dex can stop Str's attacks and still deal out as much if not more damage.
Cut from the Air has both a Strength requirement and Power Attack as a prerequisite. It also requires the Weapon Training class feature, so only Fighters and around four non-Fighter Archetypes can natively take it. You could take the Martial Focus feat for access to it, but then you're adding another feat requirement to an already feat-intensive style of play. Deflect Arrows and Missile Shield would be better comparisons, though they only work once per round, and Bucklers won't work for Missile Shield without another feat.
Strength still has an easier and greater edge in damage. Only the UnRogue can benefit from the few finessable two-handed weapons, and most options don't allow the use of Two-Weapon Fighting, unless you are an UnRogue or take on a greater accuracy penalty, and another feat, with Two-Weapon Grace.
Parry is a massive boon, but a Strength Swash could do it just as well. Attack bonuses between the stats aren't as different as damage is, so that parry is no guarantee either. Sure, Strength will have a few fewer uses per round, but you can only attempt one parry per attack anyways, so at most, all you need is as many as your opponent has attacks. And even then, neither stat-build is at risk from iteratives if your AC is built up well.
TL;DR
Dex is feat intensive or restricted by class and still requires a certain amt of strength in order to maintain damage parity
having at least one person with decent strength at low levels is really nice. If you have played low level without a strength person it can get quite annoying.
I think it's just that Strength builds take so little to work that in comparison Dexterity seems better.
I mean all you really need is a two-handed weapon and power attack. It works so well that there aren't many feats that can take that further. More class options and exploits like dipping into barbarian or champion medium or something like that.
In comparison a dexterity build can use all of its resources to get a high AC and saves as well as initiative.
There are however other tricks the Strength users can afford. They can pick up combat maneuvers or other fun tricks.
I had a concept for a strength based student of war who could afford to do TWF, take Deific Obedience (Magdh) for +4 to all intelligence checks, and still have room to pick up boar style AND grappling feats by level 12.
A dex based build can do some of that, but not all of it, and you have less options for the fun tricks.
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I highly recommend GMs use the Greater Peacebond spell at least once against dex PCs, it can be absolutely hilarious to see them trying to make high Strength checks to use their weapons.
having at least one person with decent strength at low levels is really nice. If you have played low level without a strength person it can get quite annoying.
I've never found this to be true as low levels require low DC's for checks.
"The normal take 10 and take 20 rules apply for ability checks" + crowbars, battering rams and a Traveler’s Any-Tool allow parties to make any checks without a strength based character.
Pack animals are DIRT cheap and bags of holding start at 1000gp. Add to that several abilities/traits/ect that boost carry capacity and moving your stuff isn't an issue.
Again, if low max strength in a party is an issue, the party is doing something wrong.
I highly recommend GMs use the Greater Peacebond spell at least once against dex PCs, it can be absolutely hilarious to see them trying to make high Strength checks to use their weapons.
Is it almost as fun as casting a grease spell on a high strength guy?
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:-) I personally think Str Vs Dex can be summed up pretty niftilly with this qoute from the beginner's book.
Jumai watched as the challenger hefted his huge hammer. The
man was big, no question about it. But even so, that hammer
was ridiculous.
“Compensating for something?” he shouted. Jumai raised
his rapier and gave it a twirl. “Seriously, man, have a little
common sense. Can you even parry with that thing?”
In response, the big man turned and swung his hammer at one of
the arena’s support beams. It burst apart in a shower of splinters, making
the stands above tilt dangerously. The audience screamed.
He turned back to Jumai and smiled. “What do you mean, ‘parry’?”
:-3 most Dex builds use light weapons and can get up there in damage. But it's generally easier to go strength based and swing pretty fearsome weapons. But I don't know every feat and ability out there, and far as I know there could be a feat chain system that can allow a Dex character to use a two-handed heavy thingamajig to do massive damage. :-) But I haven't seen it yet at my table.
Most of my players seem to focus on being Ranged Attackers with Rays and tend to suffer issues as enemies surprise or swarm them.
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Damage sources
- Str 50% better than standard dex.
- Class features are equal (weapon training, percise strike sneak attack, bane, judgements, spell strike etc.)
- Power attack/pirana strike. Strength is equal or better and many Dex to damage builds can't use either.
- Two weapon fighting does not work until two weapon graces equalizes the builds as the 5th feat in a chain. Oh but you take an additional -2 to attacks so your worse off. But now you have the archer problem to two physical offensive starts.
- Training graces gives you +6 over 20 levels + str which is the first competitive damge source so far but you need to keep your strength scaling or risk getting out paces.
One can make the case that what you gain buy using Dex like initiative, ac (sometimes), ref save are worth it. This has to be done on a class by class bases. For example fighters need more ref help than a rogue does depite the rogue being incentivised to use dex. It seems hard too make the case these build do more damage.
None of the above applies to the UnRogue except power attack pirana strike.
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Strength is still very relevant.
Two handed weapon will outpace a one hander unless they have access to precise strike, requiring your build to focus on precise strike. Two-weapon fighter requires either three levels in unchained rogue or two agile weapons (which you won't get till over half your adventuring career).
By the time a fighter can afford two agile weapons, he is better off with Trained Grace.
Use the money you would have spent adding agile to both weapons to pick up Dueling Gloves.
Eh, TWF is for Rangers, (u)rogue, Slayer, and Ubarb. Beyond that its just too g~+&$&n much work and feat investment for too little return.
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Eh, TWF is for Rangers, (u)rogue, Slayer, and Ubarb. Beyond that its just too g%!$#+n much work and feat investment for too little return.
Vigilantes too. Lethal Grace plus the TWF feats works for the dex-based Vig, and if you want to go STR based sword and board (or thunder and fang, or two shields, or whatever) you can take Shield of Fury and the TWF feats.
So it's one class talent plus the TWF feats to get it working, which is reasonable. This is probably the best class for TWFing with whips.
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Eh, TWF is for Rangers, (u)rogue, Slayer, and Ubarb. Beyond that its just too g@@~&+n much work and feat investment for too little return.
Rangers and Slayers make amazing str twf. Your right it is really hard for other classes. Sword and board with shield master, bashing finish work amazingly well together.
Side quesion;
Isn't STR important for Unarmed combat still? You'd need Agile Cestus for Dex I believe
Dexterity is more utility than offense. Without various ways to make that Dexterity go to Hit chance or Damage, Dexterity gives more Armor Class, Initiative, and there are many more skills with Dexterity(7 to Strengths 2).
But when you DO make it into offense it means you can consolidate and prioritize all your Ability Score advancements, and ability scores increasing items into one stat and outright dump strength. To note many classes have even less reason for Strength as a statistic but Dexterity is useful for everyone.
So you can have a character with maybe 30-34 Dexterity with a +10-12 bonus giving you a massive bonus to ALL those factors. Strength on the other hand is mostly there for Hit and Damage. You can have a Strength character being tripped because they have low Reflex saves, and because its likely they arent using armors with low Armor and Movement penalties it means all those skills are 10-15 points lower.
Its easy to make Dexterity characters into Wire-fu warriors with melee, shooting, defense, skills and initiative. Strength is more about bashing and there are many alternatives, like Agile Maneuvers making Dexterity based CMB, using lockpicks, spells, or just critical rolls, or hirelings magical containers to get past weighty items.
Its possible to make Dexterity awesome if you dont neglect it.
NOTE: A subtopic here is two-weapon Fighting. Its mostly useful for classes with Sneak Attack to do damage on every single hit or high bonuses to damage other than strength bonuses. a Two-handed weapon gives 150% strength to damage. Two one-handed weapons give 100% for the main and and 50% for the off-hand. There is a feat that raises the off-hand to 100% so overall you can do more damage than a two-handed weapon but that requires FAR too many feats.
Only Sneak Attack characters really have great benefit in devoting several feats as it potentially do +1d6-10d6 damage with maybe 6-8 attacks.
I am not sure how survivable pack animals are vs fireball or channeled negative energy. Keep in mind the confused condition as well.
The dex party will have higher reflex saves granted but granted but the pack animals won't.
Also totally dumping strength and going into melee can be a bad idea tons of monsters have grab and if you totally dump it your CMD goes down.
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Keeping retainers and non-combat animals safe is a metagaming problem. If youre bringing your pack mules into still hostile areas then you are not being cautious enough.
Dumping strength completely is not a good idea. You wont always have the alternatives and being encumbered by your armor or any random item you pick up is hilariously short sighted. Also having it too low means any Strength Score damage might make you a one-shot kill.
As for Combat Maneuver Defense, Dexterity also contributes to it. There are a ridiculous number of factors for Combat Maneuvers. You can have someone cast Grease on you for a nice time.
For added fun point out that your character is Greased up to the enemies. See if they dont flee a weird greased up guy eager to wrestle with them.
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Also totally dumping strength and going into melee can be a bad idea tons of monsters have grab and if you totally dump it your CMD goes down.
If your GM is fond of shadows, "dumping STR" is hazardous as well.
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I am not sure how survivable pack animals are vs fireball or channeled negative energy. Keep in mind the confused condition as well.
They are quite survivable and in some cases more so than the party low levels, the levels you mentioned had issues:
Pack Animal [yak], 24 gp, same statistics as bison.
Bison
N Large animal
Init +0; Senses low-light vision, scent; Perception +8
AC 17, touch 9, flat-footed 17 (+8 natural, –1 size)
hp 42 (5d8+20)
Fort +8, Ref +4, Will +1
Speed 40 ft.
Melee gore +10 (2d6+12)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
Special Attacks stampede, trample (2d6+12, DC 20)
Str 27, Dex 10, Con 19, Int 2, Wis 11, Cha 4
Base Atk +3; CMB +12; CMD 22 (26 vs. trip)
Feats Endurance, Improved Bull Rush, Power Attack
Skills Perception +8
The dex party will have higher reflex saves granted but granted but the pack animals won't.
How high of a level are you counting 'low'? That yak can take a random channel or fireball of the levels I'M counting as low.
Also totally dumping strength and going into melee can be a bad idea tons of monsters have grab and if you totally dump it your CMD goes down.
There are MANY ways to add to your CMD without strength. From class abilities [monk/shifter/brawler AC Bonus, barbarian strength stance, cavaliers Order of the Penitent, fighters adv armor/weapon training [unmoving/combat maneuver defence, rogues Escaping Stunt, psychic's Self-Perfection, oracles Nature's Whispers, wizard's Knowledge Is Power, bards Exhilarating Prayer of Grace] to feats [Agile Maneuvers, Defensive Combat Training, ect], FCB[halfling fighter/brawler, ratfolk fighter, tengu fighter, ect], racial traits [elf Slender, Unflinching Valor, ect] and traits [Bent Body, Blood of Giants, Equality for All, Giant-Harried, Serpentine Squeeze, and Strength’s Fanfare].
If low strength is an issue, you aren't preparing correctly for it...
Keeping retainers and non-combat animals safe is a metagaming problem. If youre bringing your pack mules into still hostile areas then you are not being cautious enough.
Pack mules are for suckers. for 3 times the cost you have a yak that could carry 3 mules and has the hp and attacks to survive 'hostile areas'
Dumping strength completely is not a good idea. You wont always have the alternatives and being encumbered by your armor or any random item you pick up is hilariously short sighted. Also having it too low means any Strength Score damage might make you a one-shot kill.
I don't suggest a 7 but your fine leaving it at a 10. It not hard to add +7 to carry without touching feats or taking a specific class and magic [item/spell] is ridiculously easy to get that boosts carry and/or carries for you.
Also totally dumping strength and going into melee can be a bad idea tons of monsters have grab and if you totally dump it your CMD goes down.If your GM is fond of shadows, "dumping STR" is hazardous as well.
Well they can at least stay at full combat 'strength' until they die as the damage isn't hitting the combat stat: a strength character may take more hits but does less damage and hits less after each attack [and hit more because of a lower touch ac]. There ARE some dex equivalent monsters like Ozimat though I'll agree shadows are much more 'popular', though I don't even mean then very often. Though varient shadows exist that target other stats like dex... [Other Variants: While most shadows steal strength from their victims, rare variants may drain different aspects of a target’s vitality. A variant shadow’s chilling touch may induce paralysis and numbness (Dexterity damage) or a kind of slow decay of the flesh (Constitution damage). The mere touch of a shadow can cause idiocy (Intelligence damage), madness (Wisdom damage), or an unnerving deadening of the victim’s personality (Charisma damage).{Undead Revisited}]
EDIT: and from an anecdotal experience, low strength and shadows doesn't always favor the strong. With 1d6 damage luck can be as valuable as the stat. I've seen a 17 strength fighter go down in 3 touches [6,6,5] while the 9 strength wizard took 4 and lived [3,1,3,1].
Dex helps avoid that incorporeal touch from the shadow's attack too.
Contributor
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Yes that is true that celestial armor is good. But it still has a max dex of 8. Which can be exceed buy builds with mutagens, rage, or polymorph effects fairly early. The armor can't get a higher enhancement which becomes a second limiting factor. But most importantly for comparison Celestial Plate Armor offers more available AC.
That said, if your game does allow access to that material, there's a few other options you should look into. Guided weapons come to mind, for example, since we're on the topic of using ability scores to replace Strength. The speed armor special quality, from Defenders of the Faith, might also be of interest - that'll certainly be helpful whether you're focusing on Strength or Dexterity. There's doubtlessly others...
it's been far too long since I gave those books a read.
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Being a Dwarf is also helpful if you have to carry a load in excess of Light. Slow and Steady for the win.
@kalindlara - speed armor is a 3.0 item, made with 3.0 haste, and while I've seen many people recommend celestial plate, nobody in their right mind would allow speed armor.
Guided, I forgot about that. It can be a very useful property to handful of classes that are Wisdom spellcasters.
Strength is ready from level 1. It doesnt require any feats but some classes start out with less need in mental stats and better access to high damage two-handed melee weapons like a Great Sword.
Dexterity is more limited but still useful at level 1 so long as you have Weapon Finesse and hopefully Rapier proficiency. Other compatible weapons need +1 AGILE to have dexterity to damage. More classes can use it, but at a later time..
Wisdom is harder as you need the +1 GUIDED weapon for it to work. That isnt going to happen at level 1. Once you do it would be great, especially with the aforementioned Wisdom spellcasters as you would need only Wisdom for melee and spellcasting. A Monk also works with Wisdom for AC, Ki points, and other abilities.
They go from Easy to Hard but none of them are useless.
Pushing things into lava is fun.
Eh, TWF is for Rangers, (u)rogue, Slayer, and Ubarb. Beyond that its just too g+!!~~n much work and feat investment for too little return.
Trained Grace (Ex) When the fighter uses Weapon Finesse to make a melee attack with a weapon, using his Dexterity modifier on attack rolls and his Strength modifier on damage rolls, he doubles his weapon training bonus on damage rolls. The fighter must have Weapon Finesse in order to choose this option.
Starting around the same point a character can afford a pair of agile weapons, a strength-based TWF fighter with Trained Grace starts dealing more damage than a two-handed fighter.
That same fighter will have enough DEX to make a noticeable difference to AC, Initiative and Reflex saves without going all in on DEX.
We have a TWF fighter in the AP I am currently running:
+4 kukri +27/+22/+17 (2d6+35/15-20/x2)
+4 kukri +27/+22/+17 (2d6+29/15-20/x2)
Blinding Critical + Staggering Critical, with an avg. of 2 crits/round on a full attack.
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Yes that is true that celestial armor is good. But it still has a max dex of 8. Which can be exceed buy builds with mutagens, rage, or polymorph effects fairly early. The armor can't get a higher enhancement which becomes a second limiting factor. But most importantly for comparison Celestial Plate Armor offers more available AC.** spoiler omitted **
It is worth warning about 3.5 material. I should have included that.
I don't actually play with that material the reason it the armor is relevent and likely not reprinted is it breaks the formula.
Armor + enchantment + max dex = 17
Which celestial armor follows not being up grade able. You need to get to +14 Dex mod before ditching the armor for bracera makes sense. Which all leads me to the final point of AC is not really a point of comparison once a pc has enough money for heavy armor.
Side quesion;
Isn't STR important for Unarmed combat still? You'd need Agile Cestus for Dex I believe
Not really. An Agile Amulet of Mighty Fists works just as well, costs half as much, and applies for every unarmed strike or natural weapon you use.
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Not really. An Agile Amulet of Mighty Fists works just as well, costs half as much, and applies for every unarmed strike or natural weapon you use.Side quesion;
Isn't STR important for Unarmed combat still? You'd need Agile Cestus for Dex I believe
One of my fellow players uses a Dex unarmed strikes + natural attack build. He can attack with a total of 10 attacks when he full round attack. He uses an Agile Amulet of Mighty Fists which applies to all his attacks.
The character has levels of magus, so he can also cast blade dash to actual move and full round attack at the same time.
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Not really. An Agile Amulet of Mighty Fists works just as well, costs half as much, and applies for every unarmed strike or natural weapon you use.Side quesion;
Isn't STR important for Unarmed combat still? You'd need Agile Cestus for Dex I believe
Amulet are limited to +5 and cost double the price of a weapon. Adding a non plus enchantment to it mean never being able to overcome Dr alignment and being delayed overcoming other types of dr which Dex based are especially vulnerable to.
Eh, TWF is for Rangers, (u)rogue, Slayer, and Ubarb. Beyond that its just too g+!!~~n much work and feat investment for too little return.Trained Grace (Ex) When the fighter uses Weapon Finesse to make a melee attack with a weapon, using his Dexterity modifier on attack rolls and his Strength modifier on damage rolls, he doubles his weapon training bonus on damage rolls. The fighter must have Weapon Finesse in order to choose this option.Starting around the same point a character can afford a pair of agile weapons, a strength-based TWF fighter with Trained Grace starts dealing more damage than a two-handed fighter.
That same fighter will have enough DEX to make a noticeable difference to AC, Initiative and Reflex saves without going all in on DEX.
We have a TWF fighter in the AP I am currently running:
+4 kukri +27/+22/+17 (2d6+35/15-20/x2)
+4 kukri +27/+22/+17 (2d6+29/15-20/x2)Blinding Critical + Staggering Critical, with an avg. of 2 crits/round on a full attack.
The big point being that rangers and slayers don't need to split dex/str, they can stack str, Urogue can just stack dex and meet the feat prereqs and ubarbs can dex stack because their rage is a raw + to hit and damage not a str bonus plus they're a class with access to pounce, making up for the lessened damage by more access to full attacking as well as their stances buffering the stat split.
Trained grace is good but you're now splitting str/dex and tacking another feat requirement onto a feat heavy combat style.
10 attacks, how? You would need so many limbs.
I think you have to have an amulet to level 1 before you can make it Agile and that costs around 16,000g.
Thanks for bringing Agile Amulet of Might Fists up. Thats just a nice reason to dump strength as a Monk or Druid after the early game. If you start games at level 5-10 that problem is averted.
There are just several ways to turn Strength into possibly the least important physical ability score and NOT using obscure 3rd party materials.
Even if you do max out your strength you will still have major problems with lacking Initiative and overall mobility due to speed reductions and terrible Acrobatics skill. Youre a a glacier that can be countered with level 1 Grease spell.
There are ways to make it better, like the Unchained Monks Flying Kick, Barbarian's can gain Pounce while raging, and so on but those also work with Dexterity builds better.
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10 attacks, how? You would need so many limbs.
I think you have to have an amulet to level 1 before you can make it Agile and that costs around 16,000g.
Thanks for bringing Agile Amulet of Might Fists up. Thats just a nice reason to dump strength as a Monk or Druid after the early game. If you start games at level 5-10 that problem is averted.
There are just several ways to turn Strength into possibly the least important physical ability score and NOT using obscure and probably 3rd party materials.
Amulets don't need a +1 they have an acception to the rules.
Doing 2d8+18 Power Attacking without a magic weapon at 4th level while Enlarged with a 20' polearm.
I can top you on that with a Bloodrager using a Lucerne hammer. Im taking that as a counterpoint to the "glacier" comment earlier.
Its not, or at least Im not talking about specific builds, but Strength and Dexterity in general. There is more factors dependent on Dexterity than Strength.
If you build around it of course strength is great. Its easy at level 1 to make characters able to one-hit basically everything with a two-handed weapon. In general Two-handed weapons are better than two-weapon fighting as it requires far fewer feats.
In specific builds you can make two-weapon fighting basically double all your damage but that would require several feats. Having more possible attacks in general can help a lot. Say you have poison or a Critical hit build. Sneak Attack is the best two-weapon fighting build I know of.
There are some crazy builds I can think of and so can other people. Duel-wielding Scorpion Whips on an Unchained Rogue is a nice way to mess with people.
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I can top you on that with a Bloodrager using a Lucerne hammer. Im taking that as a counterpoint to the "glacier" comment earlier.
Its not, or at least Im not talking about specific builds, but Strength and Dexterity in general. There is more factors dependent on Dexterity than Strength.
If you build around it of course strength is great. Its easy at level 1 to make characters able to one-hit basically everything with a two-handed weapon. In general Two-handed weapons are better than two-weapon fighting as it requires far fewer feats.
In specific builds you can make two-weapon fighting basically double all your damage but that would require several feats. Having more possible attacks in general can help a lot. Say you have poison or a Critical hit build. Sneak Attack is the best two-weapon fighting build I know of.
There are some crazy builds I can think of and so can other people. Duel-wielding Scorpion Whips on an Unchained Rogue is a nice way to mess with people.
The whip builds are nice in a vacuum but they still cost you 3 or 5 feat for provicency and threatening at reach. Attacking at a -4 twf with scorpion whips are treated as whips are one handed weapons when used at 10ft reach. On a 3/4 bab class with few accuracy boosts. This is not going to touch the damage of a Reckless Abandon, knock down, strength surge barbarin, have the utility of a spell sunder build or the ability to shut things down as if those feats were put toward grappling.
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I think the best whip-wielding TWFer is still the Avenger Vigilante:
- Full BAB
- Martial Proficiency (so you can get whip proficiency via being adopted by half-orcs and working on a caravan)
- You get Whip Mastery and Improved Whip Mastery with a single vigilante talent.
- You get Weapon Finesse and (not compatible with dex-to-damage) +1/2 level to damage with a single vigilante talent.
I think most of the benefits of strength have been mentioned. But to jump on the bandwagon:
- 2 feats or 1 feat and a +1 weapon enhancement
- 50% more damage from stat and power attack
- being viable from level 1
- carrying capacity
Sigh, bag of worms I opened.
The point was that there are some Reach weapons for Dexterity builds.
You can make a character with long reach and multiple attacks of opportunity if you dont overly focus on damage.
On Other characters its more that a Rapier is a common proficiency and all you have to "spend" is Weapon Finesse as as early as character creation. a Rapier with Power Attack/Piranha Strike would do less damage than a Great Sword, sure. However you would still have more Armor Class from dexterity, skills from dexterity, and initiative.
If all you focus on is raw damage then youre not looking in other areas.
Honestly I can see this whole thread being "Barbarians Versus Rogues" at this point. Any objectivity at the beginning had faded so now its more about classes and builds.
Also dex damage its piercing (i think ever) and some creatures get rd from that. Also to crash things str is the key
Light Hammer, Gladius, Butterfly Sword... a bunch of others.
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Also dex damage its piercing (i think ever) and some creatures get rd from that. Also to crash things str is the keyLight Hammer, Gladius, Butterfly Sword... a bunch of others.
All dex to damage are weapon type specific Fencing Grace, Slashing Grace, Dervish Dance none of which work for bludgeoning weapons.
Agile works for all eligible weapons but it's unlikely that a PC is carrying 3 around to cover DR.
I think both builds are quite balanced at the moment.
Other weaknesses of Dex:
Dumping Strength also hits one's CMD quite hard. Since so many monsters have Improved Grab, you Increase your chance of being shut down quite a lot.
Ability damage obviously hits people with low stats a much harder and Shadows are already dreaded for wiping out low level group without those dumping strength.
Doing 2d8+18 Power Attacking without a magic weapon at 4th level while Enlarged with a 20' polearm.I can top you on that with a Bloodrager using a Lucerne hammer.
As a dex-fighter at 4th? ...That'll take some work....
As a martial strength build, the most possible damage from "cold-boot" (zero buffs or activated abilities at the beginning of the round) with a nonmagical polearm versus target 20' away is probably as a barbarian[drunken brute]1/warpriest2/(any)1 with the Reckless Rage feat who guzzles an Enlarge potion as a move-action and swift-fervors a +3 Fate's Favored/Divine Favor. Stacking on another +5 over the basic 2d8+18 str20/rage/enlarge/2hPA chassis adds up to 2d8+23.
Builds with sidekicks will of course do more if their animal gets in a nip, but for the moment just contemplating solitary attacks without ally presence.
(Side-note: I'm curious what all the fascination is with lucern-hammers. Aside from the bludgeoning thing versus slashing, their stats are otherwise identical to a bardiche except that their crit-range and multiplier is the worst possible: 20x2 versus 19/20x2.)
Im taking that as a counterpoint to the "glacier" comment earlier.
(Huh?) <scan up-thread> Oh.
Well, that's one reason I love dipping Savage Technologist archetype so much: your dex goes up too (and gets converted straight into +2 AoOs if things go your way). Also stacks with Drunken Brute.
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(Side-note: I'm curious what all the fascination is with lucern-hammers. Aside from the bludgeoning thing versus slashing, their stats are otherwise identical to a bardiche except that their crit-range and multiplier is the worst possible: 20x2 versus 19/20x2.)
A medium lucern-hammer is 1d12, a medium bardiche is 1d10. Large would be 3d6 vs 2d8. Personally I like the lucern-hammer more for non-front-line guys who don't care as much about consistently getting crits, but like to have a big as whallop as they can manage if they get rushed.