I'm not sure where exactly this thread should go, but I'm putting it here because it's primary focus is putting a particular weapon on display. If it should go elsewhere mods feel free to move it.
I have a lot of criticisms about PF2, but this thread is not about any of them: rather, it's about the new addition I love the most, namely weapon properties. I love the "build game" in Pathfinder as much as I do actually playing the game itself; I adore quirky additions that make me say "that's interesting. What do I do to make it good?" With the new properties weapon choice is added to the list of things I can tinker with to make a unique character.
Before I go into details about how it works, first let me list the "must take" class feats for the character build:
-Combat Grab
-Improved Combat Grab
-Certain Strike
-Desperate Finisher
-Savage Critical
-Weapon Supremacy
The build "comes online" with Certain Strike and the rest is just gravy, though it is very good gravy and not something you want to skip when you have the opportunity to pick them up. This Fighter build is essentially an experiment to get the most out of the Forceful property; I'm using the Orc Necksplitter partially because I need a 1-handed weapon for Combat Grab but mostly because of unabashed orc favoritism. I do think unlocking Combat Grab makes the Necksplitter preferable over the glaive but there's definitely some room for debate on that.
All right, so you're a level 20 Fighter and you have two feats that give you extra strike actions; Weapon Supremacy gives you free Haste, and Desperate Finisher means you can trade out the reaction you aren't using anyways for another Strike. The way you're going to dump all these attacks is as follows: Strike->Combat Grab->Certain Strike->Certain Strike->Certain Strike.
There is unfortunately not a good 1-action Open Strike so we have to go vanilla for our first action, but after that we have some juicy abilities going on. Even at a -5, you're a Fighter and Combat Grab is very likely to succeed, so you have your target grabbed. Now you Certain Strike over and over again on the poor sucker, having not a care in the world about the -10 hit penalty because even on a miss you do plenty respectable damage.
How respectable, you ask? Let's compare the necksplitter to a more standard choice for an Open Hand Fighter, the longsword. A +5 Longsword is going to do 6d8+7 damage, or 34 average, or 13 minimum. The necksplitter does 6d8+19 damage, or 46 average, or 25 minimum. 25 near-guaranteed damage for three actions a round is pretty dang gud! I think most people can agree that +12 to damage is probably worth a feat. If anything, I might have just proven that Forceful is too powerful. Oops.
The only issue I see is that Weapon Supremacy only allows a Strike action. While Certain Strike has you make a Strike, it is not itself a basic Strike action, and unable to be used through Weapon Supremacy.
That's true, and I hadn't thought of that, though I'm pretty sure it still works; there's no stipulation that your Quick action must be the last action in your turn, so you simply use the Weapon Supremacy action first (since we were doing a normal Strike for that anyways) and then continue as normal.
That's true, and I hadn't thought of that, though I'm pretty sure it still works; there's no stipulation that your Quick action must be the last action in your turn, so you simply use the Weapon Supremacy action first (since we were doing a normal Strike for that anyways) and then continue as normal.
In fact it must be the first.
Quick
You gain 1 additional action at the start of your turn each round. [...]
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I'm pretty sure the intent there is to show that your bonus action refreshes each round. There's no way the intention is that you lose your capstone ability if you have to move first.
Hmm, I'll buy that interpretation. Certainly the restriction would be kind of annoying.
