I'm trying to figure out the value of knock back strike.
On the face it's obviously a disengage tool. A reverse sudden charge.
Issue is, it does nothing against reactions. And requires being able to attack the enemy. So you cannot say, 5ft step back and safely move away.
Just doesn't feel right having a disengage tool that does nothing against reactions.
Am I alone in that this seems strange? I'd settle for one move action with the strike and not eating a reaction.
Most fun I've had with it is to switch targets. Knock back strike and aim myself towards another enemy.
It's not my favorite. Unlike Sudden Charge which gets your melee combatant into the fray, Kickback Strike seems less useful for a character that's specifically building for melee combat. There also aren't any significant, baseline speed boosts so you can't disengage from melee like a Monk and necessarily be at an advantage with higher speed and Flurry.
It also doesn't work well with Explode because they're both two actions, so even if you have a ranged Weapon Innovation you can't Explode, Kickback Strike and stay at range. I think this only works with a ranged weapon, where you should probably try to sit at max range to begin with, so its benefit doesn't seem all that beneficial in your typical dungeon crawl.
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I agree and intend to test it in my game tomorrow. The other odd thing is that it isn't as reliable as the wording suggests you not only have to make a strike, you have to LAND a strike. So if you miss, you'll have basically spent two actions to miss one time and get no other benefit. As such, if you are using it for an emergency disengage, it is extremely risky as you could end up missing and staying right where you are at.
From what I can see, the best use of this skill is as a finishing blow and move on. If you have an enemy that is nearly dead, and another enemy some distance away, you can use this ability to kill the one you are currently attacking and then use two stride actions to get up to the other enemy. Then have an action left to make an attack on them.
That certainly doesn't seem to be its intended use, but it is the best use I can think of at the moment.
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I was at this point recently as well. I do think giving the player the option to Step as part of the effect's movement options would be nice for Melee players, but after playing it yesterday, I do think the feat works fairly well for ranged Inventors at least. It's a very powerful disengage tool for when an enemy manages to make its way into the backline.
In the example game, I got engaged by an Interlocutor and knew I was about to get wreaked if I stayed in Melee, so I instead opted to move once, taking its AoO (which was okay here since as a Crossbow wielder I was thoroughly untouched bye fight up till this point, so it was only able to eat 72 of my remaining 100-ish HP) and using Kickback Strike to launch myself to the other side of the field, far enough away that it'd have to eat its entire next turn if it wanted to just reach me. So yeah, it is a bit janky, but if you're a far-backline unit that hasn't been touched in the combat, taking an AoO isn't the worst thing that can happen.
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I agree and intend to test it in my game tomorrow. The other odd thing is that it isn't as reliable as the wording suggests you not only have to make a strike, you have to LAND a strike. So if you miss, you'll have basically spent two actions to miss one time and get no other benefit. As such, if you are using it for an emergency disengage, it is extremely risky as you could end up missing and staying right where you are at.I see where you'd get that ruling from, but I don't think that that's necessarily the case.
You activate devices on your innovation, causing your weapon to strike with extreme recoil that helps you disengage. Strike a foe and then Stride twice. You must end each Strike further from the foe than you began.
I'm not sure if there's anywhere in the CRB that clarifies if the exact terminology "Strike a foe" means "Attempt a Strike against a foe successfully." If anything, the feat could be clearer with its terms by saying, "Attempt a strike against a foe. On a success, you may..." if its going by your ruling. I think its worth playtesting both ways and just attaching a note in the feedback saying, "Please clarify, there will be debates on the forums about what this means in 10 months."
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I agree and intend to test it in my game tomorrow. The other odd thing is that it isn't as reliable as the wording suggests you not only have to make a strike, you have to LAND a strike. So if you miss, you'll have basically spent two actions to miss one time and get no other benefit. As such, if you are using it for an emergency disengage, it is extremely risky as you could end up missing and staying right where you are at.I see where you'd get that ruling from, but I don't think that that's necessarily the case.You activate devices on your innovation, causing your weapon to strike with extreme recoil that helps you disengage. Strike a foe and then Stride twice. You must end each Strike further from the foe than you began.I'm not sure if there's anywhere in the CRB that clarifies if the exact terminology "Strike a foe" means "Attempt a Strike against a foe successfully." If anything, the feat could be clearer with its terms by saying, "Attempt a strike against a foe. On a success, you may..." if its going by your ruling. I think its worth playtesting both ways and just attaching a note in the feedback saying, "Please clarify, there will be debates on the forums about what this means in 10 months."
Couldn't agree more, it needs to be clarified. My original thought was that it was the act of making a strike, however it can easily be interpreted that a missed strike did not "strike a foe" and therefore that trigger was not met. I also play a lot of PFS and the tendency there seems to be to make the more conservative ruling and therefore often would be using the stricter interpretation (it also makes sense from a physics standpoint for melee weapons at least)
That said, I'm hoping for it to be just "attempt a strike" and will certainly include that in my feedback and hopefully I'm not the only one who does.