Is there a feat like weapon finesee but for damage?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


I.E add your dex bonus instead of str bonus?

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Yqatuba wrote:
I.E add your dex bonus instead of str bonus?

I assume you mean a feat that lets you use "DEX" in place of STR for damage?

There are various feats/abilities/magic that let you substitute other stats for STR for damage, but off the top of my head I don't know of any feats that do this for DEX.

If you take 3 levels of Unchained Rogue and you are using a finesse weapon, you can do it. But that's all I can think of at the moment.


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Slashing Grace, Fencing Grace, Starry Grace, and Two-Weapon Grace are the usual feats for this.


Slashing grace, fencing grace, dervish dance, etc. alternatively, the Agile enchantment is the most common approach.


Bladed brush is a feat which will let you use slashing grace with a glaive, to expand the list of weapons which can do this by one. Probably anyway; it's famously poorly worded.

Dance of chains is a feat which gives dex to damage with a spiked chain.

Oh, and if you're willing to deal with the Ultimate Evil that is 3rd party products, deadly grace allows dex-to-damage with any finessable weapon.


It's also worth noting that Slashing grace doesn't give you Dex to hit, it just goves you Dex to damage. They wrote this feat with Swashbucklers in mind, so taking a level in Swashbuckler or using an effortless lace (or using Bladed brush for a glaive) may be needed to make the weapon finessible.

If your chosen weapon is a light weapon the it's already finessible and you don't need to worry about this.


There is also the divine fighting technique for Desna which give Cha to hit and range with a starknife. Not what you asked for, but it is another way to dodge using strength.


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You can add any stat but Con to a starknife's damage. Using a developer's pet weapon is cheating.


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avr wrote:
You can add any stat but Con to a starknife's damage. Using a developer's pet weapon is cheating.

But it lets you make a face fighter with AWT. maxed diplomacy/bluff/intimidate. Thats hot.


There is also the Unchained Rogue Class Ability Finesse Training, which works for any 1 Finesseable Weapon.


avr wrote:
You can add any stat but Con to a starknife's damage. Using a developer's pet weapon is cheating.

How can you do int or Wis? I do agree that it is a developer's pet, but sometimes you just have to accept that. I personally despise the starknife as it is a stupid idea of a weapon, but there's a lot of things in Pathfinder you can only do with it.


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The reason why there's a dearth of Dex-to-Damage options is more or less because Dex is already a powerful stat. It already gives bonuses to:

* ranged attacks, include ranged-touch-attacks which are much easier to hit
* melee via Weapon Finesse
* Reflex saves
* Initiative
* CMD
* AC
* 7 skills which include Acrobatics (for avoiding AoO's) and Stealth (for surprise).

That is a lot of direct combat power concentrated in one stat. Adding general Dex-to-damage makes an already powerful and important stat even more so. I mean, why bother having other stats if you apply Dex to everything?


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All that being said, you probably want the Getting X to Y Guide.


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There is also the Dervish Dance feat for scimitar wielding worshipers of Sarenrae. It has one fewer prerequisite feats than the "Grace" feats but cannot be taken before 2nd level.

And a 3rd level unchained rogue can get this benefit with any rogue weapon at 3rd level without using up any feat slots.


David knott 242 wrote:
There is also the Dervish Dance feat for scimitar wielding worshipers of Sarenrae. It has one fewer prerequisite feats than the "Grace" feats but cannot be taken before 2nd level.

Unless you take one of several archetypes that grant the feat at 1st level.


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There's a 3pp feat called Deadly Finesse in the Path of War book that does this. Check it on pfsrd.com.


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Zhayne wrote:
There's a 3pp feat called Deadly Finesse in the Path of War book that does this. Check it on pfsrd.com.

You mean Deadly Agility.


avr wrote:
You can add any stat but Con to a starknife's damage. Using a developer's pet weapon is cheating.

How do you add into to damage, and does it still use STR for to hit?


Elven Battle Focus for Intelligence to damage. It has Weapon Finesse as a prerequisite, but doesn't say that you must be using Weapon Finesse to get the benefits of Elven Battle Focus.


VoodistMonk wrote:
Elven Battle Focus for Intelligence to damage. It has Weapon Finesse as a prerequisite, but doesn't say that you must be using Weapon Finesse to get the benefits of Elven Battle Focus.

Does that mean you can't add power attack damage?

VoodistMonk wrote:
While using Elven Battle Style, you can add your Intelligence modifier to that weapon’s damage (instead of any other ability bonus or modifier you can add to your weapon damage). The weapon must be one appropriate for your size.

Can't be?

Shouldn't that be "ability bonus modifier"?

The "or" makes it odd as that could mean all kinds of other bonuses...weapon training etc. Or am I insane? :)

Sovereign Court

That is an interesting way to read it, but I could see the argument for how its written to exclude any other bonuses. Up to and including enhancement bonuses. Intention-wise they probably meant other things you could substitute for your ability bonuses... if there are any. Future-proofing if you will.


Ambiguous order of operations is one of English's many weaknesses.


Yeah I think that is the intent. :)


I don't think Elven Battle Focus is all that great, honestly... it has Weapon Finesse as a prerequisite, which means that you can already get the Agile enchantment on your weapon and be done with it. To my knowledge, there is no way to get Intelligence to attack, so you are still relying on either DEX or STR for your accuracy... thus still MAD as ever.

Sovereign Court

VoodistMonk wrote:
I don't think Elven Battle Focus is all that great, honestly... it has Weapon Finesse as a prerequisite, which means that you can already get the Agile enchantment on your weapon and be done with it. To my knowledge, there is no way to get Intelligence to attack, so you are still relying on either DEX or STR for your accuracy... thus still MAD as ever.

Specifically with Elven Battle Focus? Maybe not, because it requires specific weapons.

The closest I can find is: Hand of the Apprentice, which is somewhat thematic. It would be as if its a thrown weapon, but seems to be fine with throwing non-normally thrown weapons so you could throw an Elven Curve Blade just fine. Int to attack and Str to damage, which should convert to Int to damage with Elven Battle Focus.
Similarily, Splintered Spear, but unfortunately creates a spear and not allows any spear, but its Int to attack and damage. It would be nice if you could apply it to Elven Branched Spear.

There are a number of 'add int as a bonus though'.
Bladed Dash(and greater) allows a bonus equal to your int bonus on the attack roll.
Inspired Blade can add Int at 11 for 1 panache to one attack.
Arcane Accuracy for bonus Int to all attacks for 1 round.
Tactical Expertise from Divine Strategist Cleric 8 adds Int to all attack rolls while flanking or an attack of opportunity.


Do you get 1-1/2 int damage with an Elven Curved Blade?


Corvo Spiritwind wrote:
avr wrote:
You can add any stat but Con to a starknife's damage. Using a developer's pet weapon is cheating.
How do you add into to damage, and does it still use STR for to hit?

If you play a kensai you get INT to damage vs flat footed opponents at 13th level. You get access to greater invisibility at 10th level. You keep STR to damage.

Kirin Strike allows x2 INT to damage as a swift action in addition to any other stat.

Sovereign Court

Just saying, Kirin Strike is terrible.
Swift action to activate the stance (or feat tax)
Swift action to Identify Creature using Kirin Style
Swift action to gain bonus damage to a single attack
3 rounds of the creature trying to kill you before you get maybe 20 damage.
Compare to something like Startoss Style/etc which adds up to 6 damage to every attack.


I would love a feat that lets you use your caster stat for to hit with spells, spell powers, and supernatural abilities both ranged and melee. It would really awesome for kineticist to use their con to hit.

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