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Mechanically, it's probably fine for the cost. Maybe slightly too good value but not hugely so.
My biggest problem is actually the flavour. It seems like a bit of a silly weapon. And gnomes, having closed down their 1st edition orphanages that turned out 80% of all paladins have now turned instead to training lots of paladins to use their silly yo-yo weapon instead.
Is a player wrong to spend there racial feat to pick unconventional weaponry and pick up arguably the best weapon in the game.
If you are in a game where the GM or the majority of other players are asking for characters built for roleplay and not purely for mechanics, than yeah it can be if the Champion or Fighter just so happens to be raised by gnomes for -insert contrived and forced justification here-.
And before people start with the "well actually, Stormwind fallacy"...
If you are in a game where people are more interested in mechanical play or see feats as merely access to something and you ignore the flavour elements. Go for it nothing wrong in playing the mechanics and minmaxing.
Addendum on the "Stormwind Fallacy"
People often cite it when suggesting that building something mechanically and finding ways to hodge podge a character backstory together after the fact cannot be detrimental. That isn't what the original poster argued and that isn't what the fallacy is about.
A player who only chose an option because it granted access to a mechanical boon is less likely to actually care about the backstory elements and meaningfully tie them into play or their concept of the character than one who chooses it because they had in mind an idea or got inspired.
Often it leads to loops of thoughts like "now why/how can I justify having this weapon" or similar. Something can be made, it can be functional, but it is less likely to be directly impactful or interesting in my experience.
Now if you are an optimiser who squeezes every drop out of a predetermined roleplay concept that is a different kettle of fish.
Regardless, just check with the group and that will tell you what matters to the group. Neither style of play is better, have fun :)
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Eh. It's fine.
I have a paladin with a flickmace. She's about six feet tall but raise by gnomes, so kinda quirky, brightly dyed hair and all cuz that's just how "normal" people look. Paladin of Erastil, and she considers the Pathfinder Society her family. There's so many people with troubled backstories in the Society that just need a bit of mothering. And bad people that need the occasional whack on the head when they touch her family.
Yeah, it's a really good weapon, for certain builds. It's lovely for a sword & board build that intends to use the shield mostly for defense. It's not amazingif you had a double slice build planned, because it's not agile and unless both your weapons have reach, double slice and reach don't love each other. It's also not the best weapon for a host of other classes - really, it's just one "best for build" weapons among many.
I think having to justify something weird as part of your backstory can be a good thing - it's actually extremely similar to how I work creatively as a GM*. However, I do think it becomes an issue when what's being justified is the same thing every time. As an advanced weapon, flickmace is fine. As a weapon gained through ancestry access, I think it's a little overtuned.
*I'll invent something weird as an adventure hook/location/faction and go "okay, so how is the existence of something like this justified in-world" and that's the seed I use for world-building.
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I'd like to see that mace becoming 1d4 damage, like any other 1h reach weapon, + different traits. Then we could start to talk about balance and alternatives.
That seems a bit much to me. I assume you're comparing it to the whip/scorpion whip, since those are the only other 1H reach weapons.
Whip: Martial, 1d4 Slashing, nonlethal, finesse, reach, disarm, trip
Scorpion whip: Martial, 1d4 Slashing, uncommon, finesse, reach, disarm, trip
Gnome flickmace: Advanced, 1d8 Bludgeoning, uncommon, gnome, reach
The flickmace is Advanced which is generally worth a die size increase, and the whips are finesse which tends to earn a die size decrease. Bludgeoning and Slashing are both valued as equally good. Disarm isn't a very popular quality but Trip on a Reach weapon is good, allows you to do the maneuver at range.
So really, the flickmace doesn't drastically exceed the whip/scorpion whip in quality. You could bring it down to a d6 maybe, but then it would have to gain some traits (most likely, Trip and Disarm).
Analyzing the flickmage, it doesn't come ahead of other weapons by that much - it's more that reach + 1handed + flail group has enough synergy to make it more than the sum of its parts.
@HumbleGamer
My Champion has a meteor hammer, and let me tell you, trip has been just as useful to me as reach (though combining the two can be killer). They both take away the same amount of actions, with both having inconsistencies. Reach isn't particularly useful if the enemy also has it, while trip requires an athletics check. However, trip also gives them a -2 to AC until they stand up, which is great for situations where you can't flank.
Ultimately, I think the two traits come out about even, with reach just barely pulling ahead due to AoO/Retributive Strike.
(I wouldn't call disarm useless but it's definitely the riskiest out of the bunch to use, and sweep has its niche uses such as groups of weak enemies/enemies that survived your wizard's fireball.)
EDIT: I want to clarify that I don't think the flickmace isn't the best 1H weapon, just that the gap isn't as big as people make it out to be.
The gnome flick mace is strong, but so what? To get its benefit you have to use a gnome flick mace.
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I think what Waterslethe is saying is that looking silly is in many ways a steep price to pay for wielding a pretty good weapon (maybe).
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I am indeed saying it's just weird and not up high on lots of people's character fantasy weapon choice lists.
In PF1 the falcata was the mathematically best one AND two handed weapon, but it even looks and sounds cool. Didn't see that much fuss about that one.
I feel like the gnome flick mace can just be left as is and the world won't end.
My issue with the flickmace isn't the mechanics.
It's just a stupid weapon idea, conceptually.
"More a flail than a mace, this weapon has a short handle attached to a length of chain with a ball at the end. The ball is propelled to its reach with the flick of the wrist, the momentum of which brings the ball back to the wielder after the strike."
Flails with long chains and short handles are more dangerous to the user than the opponent. There is a reason that historical flails pretty much universally have longer handles that the combined length of the head and the chain. If the chain/head is longer than the handle, the user is going to end up hitting his/her own hand or arm with alarming frequency. A longer chain also allows for far less predictable deflections of the head when it hits an opponent's armor. Historically, the ball-and-chain type flail has very little actual evidence of use in warfare, probably because of the issues mentioned above.
Then there's the whole flicking a wrist to send out the ball which miraculously reverses momentum to return to the wielder. Is chain elastic or something? Also, if the chain is that long, how is merely "flicking" the wrist enough to send the ball flying towards an enemy. As an experiment, get a yoyo and let it hang and full length. Then, without any other movement, "flick" your wrist and see how far the yoyo moves.
The description of the weapon and how it works is complete nonsense.
Yeah, yeah, I know, fantasy-blah-blah-blah. It's still a stupid concept from that perspective because it isn't even a cool idea. Rather, it's just a fundamental misunderstanding of how flails work. The Rule of Cool (though highly impractical) works for things like the Dwarven Waraxe (big ax with two bits), Orc Necksplitter (huge ax reminiscent of a bardiche with serrated blade), or Rhoka Sword (sword with two parallel blades). The flickmace is a ball attached to a short stick by a chain.
To me, the description (except for the "flicking the wrist" part) makes me think of the original Castlevania Morningstar, aka the last upgrade of the Vampire Killer. Or, the metal whip Trevor uses in the series, for those who've seen that but not played the games. Which is a super cool weapon, IMO.
If I ever run PF2 I'd just make it that, and get rid of the silly gnome fluff around it.
As for it being the best weapon for it's class...I don't really care. It's not the only viable weapon, which is what's important.
I've generally found the flickmace to be really overhyped on all fronts.
Although I do think it kind of highlights a problem in how unwieldy PF2's proficiency system is. It's mechanically easy and relatively cheap from a feat perspective for a Champion to upgrade from a similar martial weapon to an advanced (and therefore mechanically superior) Flickmace.
While a Rogue who wants to grab a different kind of martial weapon has absolutely no way to to do so if it's not tied to an ancestry feat (or something similar), even though martial weapons are theoretically intended to be balanced against each other.
Just going to chime in and say that I think that the flickmace is too good and that it would still be a solid choice at d6, even with the feat cost.
Reach is extremely good for all the reason mentioned above and trip is sweet too. The feats spent to unlock it are providing a ton of value relative to other feats.
Of course, this is a small thing, and it doesn't ruin the game/world, but it gets under my skin enough to make me feel compelled to offer my two cents.
Ideally, I would want the most iconic weapons to be optimal for the most builds and the silly ones to be niche or slightly sub-optimal. The flickmace would be fun if I only saw it once in a while and I could tell the gnome-adopted adventurer that they were creative and original.
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My issue with the flickmace isn't the mechanics.
It's just a stupid weapon idea, conceptually.
"More a flail than a mace, this weapon has a short handle attached to a length of chain with a ball at the end. The ball is propelled to its reach with the flick of the wrist, the momentum of which brings the ball back to the wielder after the strike."
Flails with long chains and short handles are more dangerous to the user than the opponent. There is a reason that historical flails pretty much universally have longer handles that the combined length of the head and the chain. If the chain/head is longer than the handle, the user is going to end up hitting his/her own hand or arm with alarming frequency. A longer chain also allows for far less predictable deflections of the head when it hits an opponent's armor. Historically, the ball-and-chain type flail has very little actual evidence of use in warfare, probably because of the issues mentioned above.
Then there's the whole flicking a wrist to send out the ball which miraculously reverses momentum to return to the wielder. Is chain elastic or something? Also, if the chain is that long, how is merely "flicking" the wrist enough to send the ball flying towards an enemy. As an experiment, get a yoyo and let it hang and full length. Then, without any other movement, "flick" your wrist and see how far the yoyo moves.
The description of the weapon and how it works is complete nonsense.
Yeah, yeah, I know, fantasy-blah-blah-blah. It's still a stupid concept from that perspective because it isn't even a cool idea. Rather, it's just a fundamental misunderstanding of how flails work. The Rule of Cool (though highly impractical) works for things like the Dwarven Waraxe (big ax with two bits), Orc Necksplitter (huge ax reminiscent of a bardiche with serrated blade), or Rhoka Sword (sword with two parallel blades). The flickmace is a ball attached to a short stick by a chain.
I agreed with you up to the last paragraph. Yes, it's a ridiculous weapon but then again it's a gnome weapon. Gnomes would happily show up with a monofilament yo-yo if they could. I'm imagining Gogo as a gnome
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flail - martial, 1 gp, 1d6 B, 1 bulk, 1 handed, flail, disarm, sweep, trip
flickmace - advanced, 3 gp, 1d8 B, 2 bulk, 1 handed, flail, gnome, reach, uncommonOkay, so... from another 1-handed flail to get to the flickmace we take away 3 use-based traits, increase the cost, make it bulkier, make it require a proficiency type most classes don't get, and stick it with the uncommon tag.
And what does it get in trade? 1 higher damage die size, and 1 useful trait (that while more useful than any of the 3 in the comparison weapon, isn't worth more than having all 3).
Which is to say the "gap" between it and it's martial counterpart is quite small, just like all other advanced weapons.
For my house rules, I changed the flickmace to 1d6 damage normally when used in 1 hand (just like a regular mace or flail), and gave it an extra trait: two-handed 1d8. This means you can still use it in 1 hand OR you can still do 1d8 damage with it, but not both things simultaneously.
I have two main issues with the gnome flick mace, which however are not linked to this specific weapon alone.
First, while obtaining an advanced weapon unarguably requires some effort, this effort is usually (or mostly) spend before combat in order to gain benefits in combat. So whereas a Flail and a Pick ought to be equally strong by whatever point system Paizo is using an advanced weapon is allowed to be stronger because it comes with a cost, however this cost is largely irrelevant when it comes to actually using the weapon in battle because it has already been spend in advance. This is both a boon and a bane because of the opportunity for customization versus the latent enticement for powergaming.
Second while I don't find the gnome flick mace to be mandatory, however I find (at least) some of the weapons available to be a tad too bad (number of hands, die size, traits, weapons group). For example our dwarven sword and board fighter is using a battle axe just because "dwarves use axes!" and the min-maxer inside me dies a little every single time he rolls a crit (which, given the fact that its a fighter happens on a regular basis). I mean I can totally see two dwarves standing side by side in a 10' corridor, sweeping, swiping and critting the hell out of a horde of lesser enemies, however in our actual skirmishes I have yet to see sweep in action much and as far as I am aware the crit spec effect sucessfully procced exactly once in 3 levels because of its many limitations.
A picture of a human fighter wielding a flickmace.
That looks much cooler than the image I had in my mind.
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First, while obtaining an advanced weapon unarguably requires some effort, this effort is usually (or mostly) spend before combat in order to gain benefits in combat. So whereas a Flail and a Pick ought to be equally strong by whatever point system Paizo is using an advanced weapon is allowed to be stronger because it comes with a cost, however this cost is largely irrelevant when it comes to actually using the weapon in battle because it has already been spend in advance. This is both a boon and a bane because of the opportunity for customization versus the latent enticement for powergaming.
Are you talking about uncommon weapons being hard to get, or advanced weapons requiring special training?
It's been stated numerous times that common/uncommon/rare isn't a power-balancing thing. So that should be irrelevant.
Advanced weapons do come at a cost; you're almost always down one feat to get them, and the feat will usually make them count as martial for you. So it's one feat to get a weapon that's better than other weapons. But that is a feat you're not spending on another way to be stronger. The human fighter who takes Unconventional Weaponry for a flickmace isn't taking Natural Ambition for a second level 1 Fighter feat.
Second while I don't find the gnome flick mace to be mandatory, however I find (at least) some of the weapons available to be a tad too bad (number of hands, die size, traits, weapons group). For example our dwarven sword and board fighter is using a battle axe just because "dwarves use axes!" and the min-maxer inside me dies a little every single time he rolls a crit (which, given the fact that its a fighter happens on a regular basis). I mean I can totally see two dwarves standing side by side in a 10' corridor, sweeping, swiping and critting the hell out of a horde of lesser enemies, however in our actual skirmishes I have yet to see sweep in action much and as far as I am aware the crit spec effect sucessfully procced exactly once in 3 levels because of its many limitations.
This doesn't really have anything to do with the flickmace, but with Sweep, Swipe and Cleave just not being all that great. They require enemies to be standing next to you, instead of trying to flank you. But of course enemies would love to be flanking you, so they have a natural incentive to not cooperate and line up nicely for you.
I think they can be a bit better if you and your party cooperate to deny enemies to flank you. If you're up front of the party and enemies have to go through to get to the rest, you might end up with enemies adjacent to each other. If the other melee character in the party keeps standing shoulder to shoulder with you it gets even harder for the enemy not to end up adjacent to each other if they're both trying to attack you.
Finally, you could take feats like Quick Reversal to do a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" on your enemies; there'll be almost no way they can stand that doesn't put them in some kind of peril. Instead of trying to put all of your feat/weapon eggs in the sweep basket, smash all the baskets.
Also, if the dwarf is a barbarian (sweep/swipe weapons are a fighter/barbarian specialty after all), remember that Deny Advantage helps barbarians cope with standing in the middle of a crowd of admirers. And taking Attack of Opportunity can punish enemies trying to cross around to uselessly flank.
Advanced weapons do come at a cost; you're almost always down one feat to get them, and the feat will usually make them count as martial for you. So it's one feat to get a weapon that's better than other weapons. But that is a feat you're not spending on another way to be stronger. The human fighter who takes Unconventional Weaponry for a flickmace isn't taking Natural Ambition for a second level 1 Fighter feat.
This is of course universally true for at least the first couple of levels, but as you level up it may be losing importance fast as your character accumulates more and more feats in total (not only ancestry feats). At level 1 you will have 1 ancestry, 1 fighter and 1 skill feat, for a total of 3 feats, whereas at level 10 you will have 3 ancestry, 6 fighter, 2 general and 6 skill feats, for total of 17 feats. In comparison the combination of Reach & Flail weapon group never loses its importance, on the contrary it may become even more important the higher the level (due to enemies becoming bigger and bigger). In addition especially Humans can run out of (combat) relevant ancestry feats really fast, however I have to admit that is hugely based on character concept and personal preference, e.g. more general feats earlier via General Training can really be nice but may very well be overkill later on (i.e. when you run out of meaningful general feats).
This doesn't really have anything to do with the flickmace, but with Sweep, Swipe and Cleave just not being all that great. They require enemies to be standing next to you, instead of trying to flank you. But of course enemies would love to be flanking you, so they have a natural incentive to not cooperate and line up nicely for you.
It has to do with the Flickmace as a (low-) point of reference while minding the questions: What kind of one-handed weapons are out there, what do they do and what are the related costs? For example I feel half as bad when I compare the Flickmace to a Warhammer or Flail than I do when I compare it to a Battle axe.
I think they can be a bit better if you and your party cooperate to deny enemies to flank you. If you're up front of the party and enemies have to go through to get to the rest, you might end up with enemies adjacent to each other. If the other melee character in the party keeps standing shoulder to shoulder with you it gets even harder for the enemy not to end up adjacent to each other if they're both trying to attack you.
Well it is all about the current meta. And the "get into flanking position or die trying" meta of PF2 does not promote shoulder to shoulder combat, neither for the group, nor for the enemy. And usually having our Barbarian flanking himself for +2 to hit and severely whacking things with his Maul is a lot better than the Fighter dealing some additional weapon dice to a secondary target only once in a while.
Also thanks for the other tips, well appreciated.
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I agreed with you up to the last paragraph. Yes, it's a ridiculous weapon but then again it's a gnome weapon. Gnomes would happily show up with a monofilament yo-yo if they could. I'm imagining Gogo as a gnomeThis is one of the several things I hate Dragonlance for. The entire idea that gnomes are weird tinkering mad-scientist experimenters comes from Dragonlance. Hate it.
But, Gogo's weapon is a meteor hammer.
And, a meteor hammer doesn't remotely work like a mace and certainly doesn't move around with a "flick of the wrist." It's far more complicated than that.
I wasn't trying to prove that it's that specific weapon. More that really weird weapons are out there and that's neat.
Gnomes in Pathfinder are quirky, but I don't think for the same reasons as Dragonlance. I rather like Pathfinder's "innovate or bleach" gnomes that try all sorts of strange things. It sets them apart from halflings and dwarves.
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This is of course universally true for at least the first couple of levels, but as you level up it may be losing importance fast as your character accumulates more and more feats in total (not only ancestry feats). At level 1 you will have 1 ancestry, 1 fighter and 1 skill feat, for a total of 3 feats, whereas at level 10 you will have 3 ancestry, 6 fighter, 2 general and 6 skill feats, for total of 17 feats. In comparison the combination of Reach & Flail weapon group never loses its importance, on the contrary it may become even more important the higher the level (due to enemies becoming bigger and bigger). In addition especially Humans can run out of (combat) relevant ancestry feats really fast, however I have to admit that is hugely based on character concept and personal preference, e.g. more general feats earlier via General Training can really be nice but may very well be overkill later on (i.e. when you run out of meaningful general feats).
Yeah I'm already running out of great general feats at level 7. But there's a lot of good level 1, 2 and 4th level fighter feats that age well. In general, feats are designed to age well.
The comparison I'd have in mind would be Reactive Shield. My fighter didn't go for the flickmace, he spent his ancestry feat for Natural Ambition and picked up Reactive Shield. At low level it allowed me to walk, Double Slice, and still get a shield bonus to AC. That's been good. Now I'm edging towards higher level feats and getting an additional reaction just for shield blocking. This essentially means that combined with the L1 feat that I took instead of flickmaces, I can Stride, do a two-action move like Double Slice or (Improved) Knockdown, and still do Shield Block. I've come pretty close to earning a fourth action per turn.
This just to show, Unconventional Weaponry isn't the only feat that gets better and better. The +2 AC from Reactive Shield is always going to be worth at least that, but it's also got the potential to grow.
This doesn't really have anything to do with the flickmace, but with Sweep, Swipe and Cleave just not being all that great. They require enemies to be standing next to you, instead of trying to flank you. But of course enemies would love to be flanking you, so they have a natural incentive to not cooperate and line up nicely for you.It has to do with the Flickmace as a (low-) point of reference while minding the questions: What kind of one-handed weapons are out there, what do they do and what are the related costs? For example I feel half as bad when I compare the Flickmace to a Warhammer or Flail than I do when I compare it to a Battle axe.
Right, now I understand where you're coming from.
Looking at the 1H weapons, I'd say you can divide them into "main" and "off-hand". Main weapons tend to deal around a d8 of damage, they're your bread and butter killing tools. The off-hand weapons are usually agile and rarely go up beyond d6. Considering its stats, the flickmace is clearly a main attack weapon, not a secondary one. Its damage is in line with longswords, battleaxes and warhammers. For a weapon whose only gimmick is hitting for damage, it's where it should be. Flails have less damage, but flails have three traits, and Trip is certainly a "something else than damage" gimmick.
If you wanted to scale down the damage of the flickmace because they're becoming obnoxious, I think turning it into a d6 Trip weapon would be reasonable. But that already makes it far more controller-defensive whereas the current one is fairly aggressive.
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I feel like if you have made the decision, based on mechanics, to use the gnomish flickmace as your primary weapon then it's just on you to figure out how to make that seem cool to you aesthetically.
If you can't figure out how to make "I was adopted by gnomes who trained me in the art of the death yo-yo" something cool that you like, you can always play something else.
I feel like if you have made the decision, based on mechanics, to use the gnomish flickmace as your primary weapon then it's just on you to figure out how to make that seem cool to you aesthetically.
Like using one to hunt vampires?
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There's a character in Overwatch who has a mace that can extend on a chain and then rapidly retract it to strike enemies farther away. When I saw the flickmace in PF2 that's sort of where my head went.
Gnomes raised human flickmace user versus Monk