None of the circus weapons in The Show Must Go On have the Monk trait, but I feel like it would be reasonable for them to have it. Would it cause any balance issues if I made them monk weapons?
I'm about to start the AP, and one of my players is interested in the fire poi as a monk weapon. Another issue is that fire poi is an advanced weapon, which Monks don't get proficiency in. I'm still relatively new to the game, but I think that if he takes the Weapon Proficiency General feat at level 3 and 7, he can become trained in the fire poi. I'm not sure how he would get expert or master. The Monastic Weaponry Monk increases proficiencies to expert or master, but it's unclear to me if that applies to all weapons with the Monk trait, or if that only applies to simple and martial weapons with the monk trait. I guess all the weapons with the monk trait RAW are simple or martial so there is no discrepancy, unless I made fire poi a monk weapon.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Would it take too many feat choices to be worth it just for that weapon by the time level 7 rolls around? Would it be unbalanced for an advanced weapon to be a monk weapon?
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
I won't claim to be a PF2 expert, but here are a few thoughts. My final answer is at the end.
Re: the monk trait
I'd suggest that on a quick look at the equipment chart, the monk trait does have some mechanical "weight" to it (from a game design perspective), in that there are at least two instances where it seems to be balanced against the finesse trait. The Kama is a good example. Compare it to the Kukri: mechanically similar (Martial Uncommon, 1d6 S, agile, trip) except the Kukri has finesse and the Kama has monk. You can see a similar comparison with the Sickle and the Kama (except there, you have to accept that moving from Simple to Martial is equivalent to raising the damage from 1d4 to 1d6). My intent is not to give a TED talk on PF2 weapon balancing, but the overall suggestion is that "the monk trait costs about the same as the finesse trait."
That being said, I don't think the Poi (in this context) are going to be functionally that different than most of the other Monk weapons. Arguably, once you paid into it with Monastic Weaponry, the Nunchaku are probably going to be more effective as a Monk weapon than Poi.
Re: Poi and Fire Poi
I find the difference between Poi and Fire Poi to be peculiar. Poi are Simple, Fire Poi are advanced. But the Fire Poi only deal an additional 1d4 fire damage (with an added critical success benefit). And gain the Twin trait (which is weird the normal Poi don't have). I think it gets even worse when you consider that the fire damage doesn't scale with striking runes, so magical versions of it will do less overall damage than a magical weapon with a d8 damage die (or quite a few of the different stance styles). That is to say, I think the Fire Poi are a bit underwhelming.
[One aside: I think the Twin trait may be doing more work than I give it credit for.]
Re: Advanced monk weapons
Although there are no Advanced monk weapons (that I'm aware of), I don't think Monastic Weaponry would apply to it. As you observed, it makes the monk Trained in Simple and Martial monk weapons. As the monk's proficiency with unarmed attacks increases, their proficiency with "these weapons" increases as well. The Rules Lawyer in me suggests that this is limited to the simple and martial monk weapons (and not other monk weapons).
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I'm not sure if any of that helps. If I had a player that wanted to do it, I'd probably be okay with giving both Poi and Fire Poi the monk trait and let them use the simple Poi at early levels. As for the Fire Poi, I think the most obvious answer would be to create a custom Monk Feat (call it Advanced Monastic Weaponry at level 6, similar to the Fighter Advanced Weapon Training) that lets them choose an Advanced Monk weapon (i.e., our Monastic Fire Poi). Basically, it just does what Monastic Weaponry does but for a single Advanced Monk Weapon. So they'll have the proficiency and all the monk bonuses.
Will it be balanced? More or less. I don't see anything that would make Poi especially unbalanced as a Monk weapon. The biggest problem I see is that the Feat Tax for Fire Poi proficiency may actually be too high a price to pay. But that goes back to my concerns with Fire Poi.
I hope that helps!
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
profounddark wrote:
Re: the monk trait
I'd suggest that on a quick look at the equipment chart, the monk trait does have some mechanical "weight" to it (from a game design perspective), in that there are at least two instances where it seems to be balanced against the finesse trait. The Kama is a good example. Compare it to the Kukri: mechanically similar (Martial Uncommon, 1d6 S, agile, trip) except the Kukri has finesse and the Kama has monk. You can see a similar comparison with the Sickle and the Kama (except there, you have to accept that moving from Simple to Martial is equivalent to raising the damage from 1d4 to 1d6). My intent is not to give a TED talk on PF2 weapon balancing, but the overall suggestion is that "the monk trait costs about the same as the finesse trait."
That being said, I don't think the Poi (in this context) are going to be functionally that different than most of the other Monk weapons. Arguably, once you paid into it with Monastic Weaponry, the Nunchaku are probably going to be more effective as a Monk weapon than Poi.
Giving this a little bit more thought, another way to look at it: Monk is like Orc, Dwarf, or whatever. Taking Monastic Weaponry gives the monk access to all uncommon Monk weapons. And, for the monk, martial monk weapons are simple weapons, and advanced monk weapons are martial weapons. Sort of like how the Ancestry Weapon Familiarity feats work. As the Monk normally doesn't have proficiency in Martial Weapons, it means that taking Monastic Weaponry alone doesn't make them proficient with Advanced Monk weapons. Hence, the additional feat later. Adjust as you feel appropriate.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Okay, final thought: I'd stick with my former suggestion (6th level Advanced Monastic Weaponry feat) than whatever I was saying in my second post. The Monastic Weaponry feat does a bit more than ancestry feats, so it's probably best to treat this a bit different.
I actually just responded to a slightly similar thread profound posted elsewhere, so I'll give the shorter version of the second half of that post.
To me, the problem with monk weapons as a whole is they're struggling to keep up with the unarmed attacks. It's very possible I'm off the mark, but you're either way spending a level 1 feat. So you need to half look at the 13 unarmed stances, which only 5 are a d6 or lower. Of these five, only one has no specific damage (i.e. fire, negative & poison) and doesn't have a ranged element to it. Temple Sword keeps up at a d8, but then again lacks agile/finesse which can really make a monk a bit of a mean-machine. So as long as you're making a strength build monk you should be okay with a temple sword, otherwise I'm not entirely sure why you'd go with weapons.
So with regards to the Pois, I would definitely be open to treating the Simple version as a Monk weapon. It's a d4, it's simple so the Monastic Training would rest well and if they desire fire then there's runes for that (which coincidentally would hit harder). Fire Poi is weird in the sense it has the twin trait. I'm not entirely sure how that'd mechanically roll into things, especially as the fire does not scale. I mean, +1 extra damage at level 1, +2 at level 4 and +3 at level 12 and +4 at level 19. There might be something to it. Backswing is a nothing thing though. +1 if you missed on your prior attack, so the MAP is a bit lower but still there. Plus, Monastic Training means with Poi you just need to add the Monk trait and you're done. Fire Pois, I'm wary due to the advanced nature, but also due to that twin trait (although it does make up for the d4 damage dice). If they want fire on their poi so much, there's runes for that.
I guess overall, I'd be open to pois, but less open to fire poi.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Riobux wrote: I actually just responded to a slightly similar thread profound posted elsewhere, so I'll give the shorter version of the second half of that post. Ha! I think that was my post, which I made after replying to this thread, thinking a lot about monk weapons, and then reading the first Agents of Edgewatch module.
I do actually agree with a lot of your assessment regarding Monk weapons. I think anybody interested in maximizing their damage output should probably stick with stances. My original response was under the assumption that the player knew they were likely taking a lesser choice but wanted it for other reasons.
Honestly, the Poi/Fire Poi distinction is weird to me. For example, if you use Fire Poi (but don't light them), what you have is thematically the same as Poi but mechanically deals a bit more damage (from the Twin trait) and is a lot harder to use proficiently (Advanced weapon). And, as you pointed out, if you add a Flaming rune to a non-Fire Poi, you have a Simple weapon (without the Twin trait) that deals more damage than Fire Poi.
profounddark wrote:
Ha! I think that was my post, which I made after replying to this thread, thinking a lot about monk weapons, and then reading the first Agents of Edgewatch module.
I definitely didn't expect you to crop up here!
Quote: I do actually agree with a lot of your assessment regarding Monk weapons. I think anybody interested in maximizing their damage output should probably stick with stances. My original response was under the assumption that the player knew they were likely taking a lesser choice but wanted it for other reasons. Oh totally. It's not so bad that it's like "why would you even do this?" (especially considering weapon materials, because naturally you can't change your fists into a metallic material without having a Jamie Lannister hand to slap people with), but it's definitely an aspect I'd ask a player if they're aware of what they're doing. If they are, then go nuts! To me it's less about maximising damage output and more making sure they're not behind the curve of the party accidentally thus feeling like dead-weight.
Quote: Honestly, the Poi/Fire Poi distinction is weird to me. For example, if you use Fire Poi (but don't light them), what you have is thematically the same as Poi but mechanically deals a bit more damage (from the Twin trait) and is a lot harder to use proficiently (Advanced weapon). And, as you pointed out, if you add a Flaming rune to a non-Fire Poi, you have a Simple weapon (without the Twin trait) that deals more damage than Fire Poi. I suspect the Advanced nature is because you're not just tossing about a fire rune weapon but rather just a metal ball soaked in oil that can burn you if you're not careful. Since people do actually use fire pois in twos in circus performances (I believe I've seen a few videos of it), they threw in the twin trait. However, yeah, if you ignore the real life uses of pois that its based on the distinction is a bit weird.
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