| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As elegant as many aspects of PF2 are, weapon proficiencies just are not quite there. It is very unintuitive to use any weapon that isn’t a part of your class or granted through a weapon centric archetype. The variance on how different weapons work is just big enough for this to result in a bit of a strange “system mastery” space, but also small enough (and usually possible enough with the right hoops) that it often feels questionably necessary.
Weapon selections tie into class is something many of the developers felt was necessary enough to make it this way. Some weapons just will never get used by certain classes or by most PCs, unless a specific archetype or class gets built for them.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I mean any rogue can get full scaling proficiency in a spiked chain or an elven curve blade starting at level 2 with one class feat (mauler dedication), but to use a main gauche, the most you can really get is to expert, and waaaay too late level wise for that to be valuable, if you go the more obvious fighter MC route. Meanwhile you could get hatchet proficiency as a rogue (a great weapon for a STR rogue, but only with 3 feats and having to be a Viking?
Is that for a clearly logical mechanical balance reason?
Overall, it doesn’t bother me to have a game where weapons are fairly class gated, but a piece meal, arbitrary system for sometimes ignoring that with very convoluted, but identifiably better path to proficiency, just doesn’t feel like it was the best of either worlds : class-based weapon proficiencies or a more open ended system.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, I wouldn't mind if the gates were more straight forward. Mauler and archer give a great variety of weapon access to anyone who simply takes the level 2 dedication. One handed weapons are left with these obscure and annoying means of access. It makes weapon availability lopsided. It's easier for a wizard to start using a greatsword than a shortsword.I mean any rogue can get full scaling proficiency in a spiked chain or an elven curve blade starting at level 2 with one class feat (mauler dedication), but to use a main gauche, the most you can really get is to expert, and waaaay too late level wise for that to be valuable, if you go the more obvious fighter MC route. Meanwhile you could get hatchet proficiency as a rogue (a great weapon for a STR rogue, but only with 3 feats and having to be a Viking?
Is that for a clearly logical mechanical balance reason?
Overall, it doesn’t bother me to have a game where weapons are fairly class gated, but a piece meal, arbitrary system for sometimes ignoring that with very convoluted, but identifiably better path to proficiency, just doesn’t feel like it was the best of either worlds : class-based weapon proficiencies or a more open ended system.
It is even weirder because the wizard also gains proficiency in the bastard sword and the katana (and every other martial weapon with the two handed trait).
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Maybe the right path then is to add Dueling weapon proficiencies into the Duellist archetype... to match the way that Mauler and Archer work.
For the "What kind of street thug uses a rapier?" questions above, I agree, but for a different reason. I do not think Rogue class should include Rapier proficiency. IMO the class-included proficiency should purely be "Simple Weapons". Frankly, including rapier, the one 'off brand' weapon is what started this debate.
Shortswords are also too complicated to use, I guess?
If there were an easy way to pick up scaling proficiency with a martial weapon, then it wouldn't matter so much.
If we accept the basic premise that martial weapons are supposed to be balanced against each other (I know, there are exceptions where that doesn't work), then having access to one martial weapon means having access to others shouldn't break things. We have unofficial previous designer support for this idea. If something does break, then maybe the issue is with that weapon, and not the class.
Rogues already have something built in to prevent getting sneak attack with a larger die melee weapon. It has to be an agile or finesse weapon. Even Ruffian only expands that to include simple weapons. Thief Rogues can't get Dex to damage unless it's finesse, so they are even more restricted.
What kind of street thug uses a rapier? Well, that depends on the setting. Golarion has a wide range of fantasy settings within the same world. Anything based more around 15th - 16th century or later instead of Middle Ages might make sense, which I assume is why it was included (beyond being a legacy weapon, why it might have become part of the legacy weapons in the first place).
I'm not opposed to Duelist adding dueling weapons, though since that isn't a trait on weapons, it still means a static list that might need updated at some point. I'd rather see things simplified and just give Rogues martial weapons and Wizards simple weapons, because it isn't going to break anything to do so.
Mark Seifter mentioned this a while ago (after he quit Paizo though)
Some of the old classics like bespoke Simple minus for wizards or bespoke simple + a few for rogues and bards (or druids balancing around only nonmetal options which are weaker in terms of shields and restrict your high AC armor options), are a little odd. It might have been better to just have wizards and bards go simple, rogues go martial, and druids use metal, from a streamlining gameplay perspective. But sometimes people value the tradition. Designers tend to be the ones who are willing to reexamine tradition and propose radical new ideas, so I'd definitely propose it again!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Treasure Vault is right around the corner, and I'm sure they will put new feats or rules in that will expand access to weapons. After all, it would suck if old classes couldn't use all those shiny new weapons now would it?
While that would be nice, we haven't seen anything (yet) to imply that will be the case. We can hope, but it seems very optimistic to me.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
What kind of street thug uses a rapier? Well, that depends on the setting. Golarion has a wide range of fantasy settings within the same world. Anything based more around 15th - 16th century or later instead of Middle Ages might make sense, which I assume is why it was included (beyond being a legacy weapon, why it might have become part of the legacy weapons in the first place).A setting is not a problem at all. The problem is, clubs and knives are much cheaper, easier to conceal and use in pretty much every setting. At least it's how I understand the remark.
But that also relegates Rogues to only people who can’t afford a decent weapon. That’s not really what the classes are. Especially when NPCs don’t even typically have classes anymore. Rogues are highly trained or self-taught. They have more skill increases than any class except Investigators, and more flexibility in their skill training than Investigators. A 20th level Rogue with enough gold to buy out a small nation can’t get scaling proficiency in main gauche. Player Characters with class levels aren’t “street thugs” to begin with (and the term carries some derogatory connotations), unless that’s their concept, and then they have plenty of weapons to choose from. But there are also plenty of examples where the rapier is the most common weapon seen, and plenty of enemies have them who might also be considered “Rogues” without the class levels.
As for the easily concealable part, locking Rogues out of martial weapons also means they can’t use effectively things like war razors:
A war razor is an exaggerated version of the barbers’ tool. It is a brittle but extremely sharp weapon that is very easy to slip into a pocket or sleeve.
Or fang wires, or fighting fans, or sword canes… I’m sure there are other items designed to be concealed that are also martial. If your highly trained sneaky character that is good at concealing things can’t use those, then it feels like something is off.
EDIT: I guess Fangwire is a Kobold weapon, so it's possible for Kobolds to get scaling proficiency. I left Dogslicer off the list for a similar reason, so it's fair to strike fangwire.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
A Rouge can't use Main-Gauches because Rouge is a color, not a class, and so doesn't have any weapon proficiencies to speak of.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
"Shortswords are also too complicated to use"
>> Well, if you mean fighting effectively with a sword, then yes, takes a lot more training to be good with a sword than a club. If it's a machete... basically a chopping sword, then no. Not sure what they had in mind making shortswords martial. As I said, I'd leave Rogues with only simple weapons though.
Just clarifying that, aside maybe dagger, *the* prototypical Rogue weapon is too complicated for a Rogue to use.
"relegates Rogues to only people who can’t afford a decent weapon"
>> No, that is a misreading. Character starting class and income are not correlated in game... if anything a Rogue might have more money than the average barbarian or fighter (thievery skill after all). It's about class focus. Rogues as a base class are not, or at least shouldn't be, stand-up fighters. They don't spend hours training in martial weapon technique, they spend it on skills. The current base class design essentially provides that. Rogues that *do* want to be more-martial-than-rogue should probably make an investment to do so... spend a class feat on the Mauler or Archer archetype (or Duelist, if it included rapier, main gauche, sword cane, etc.).
Rogue does not equal "street thug" was my point. But also, I guess Investigators are stand up fighters? The only implication in the class they spend any more time training for combat than a Rogue is... that they have Martial weapon proficiency.
Thaumaturge is described as: "You use your implements and diverse arsenal of mystic tools and tricks to assist in combat, always presenting the right bane to exploit enemies' weaknesses or shield your allies against the supernatural." I guess that makes them stand up fighters?
Basically: Rogues are not stealthy martials! Stealthy Fighters are stealthy martials. Rogues are skills focused opportunists.
Rogue, meantime, is described as, "You move about stealthily so you can catch foes unawares. You’re a precision instrument, more useful against a tough boss or distant spellcaster than against rank-and-file soldiers." Sounds like a stealthy martial to me.
Granting rogues free martial weapon expertise just feels like basic goal-post moving / power creep. Five minutes after that gets approved we'll have this same thread again with "why can't rogues do sneak attack damage with a greatsword, it's so unfair. Backstabbing with a giant thing is the same as with a smaller thing, it's not complicated".
Just my current opinion / preference though, not a hill to die on.
Again, giving Rogues martial weapons isn't power creep, if all martial weapons are balanced against each other. It didn't break the Investigator. I haven't heard of it making the Thaumaturge broken. The limiter on Rogues is agile or finesse. They aren't going to be sneak attacking with a greatsword, because it's not agile or finesse.
Duelist granting dueling weapons makes sense, but it isn't going to solve the Rogue issue, because many of the martial weapons that make sense for a Rogue aren't dueling weapons.
If you want to limit it, then give Rogues all Agile or Finesse Martial weapons. That both keeps them from getting free Greatsword proficiency and avoids the issue of them either being shut out of weapons that are thematic to the class (again, war razor, sword cane, main gauche, etc.) without needing additional text with each new weapon published. That would put them on par with Alchemists, who are limited to a type of martial weapon (alchemical bombs) that can be defined without listing specific weapons.
|
|
It's easy to imagine rapier being the weapon of choice somewhere like Galt or even Taldor, but as long as we're in agreement that Rogue does not equal street thug, that's fine. It was the earlier poster's implication that Rogues shouldn't have rapiers, because they are street thugs that was the issue.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Name a martial finesse weapon that would be unbalanced on a Rogue and why. I maintain my contention that if there is one, it’s probably the weapon that is the issue, not a Rogue using it.
If anything is out of bounds, it's a xyloshi kashrishi with Puncturing Horn so you start at 1st level with a 1d8 piercing damage finesse unarmed attack. No melee weapon matches that no-hand unarmed attack.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Fair, but also not a martial weapon.
That WAS my point: I can get a 1b8 finesse unarmed attack but I can manage a 1d4 or 1d6 martial weapon? Lame.
I feel like that kashrishi horn is meant to loose the finesse trait like the d8 jaw option does on the razortooth goblin. It's very out of the ordinary for an unarmed attack.
I assume it traded finesse for persistent bleed on crit while the horn in Brawling [fort or slowed]: also, there's a feat to boost the horn even more by adding two of the following weapon traits: disarm, grapple, shove, and trip. So a 5th, it could be a 1d8 finesse, grapple and trip weapon.
Name a martial finesse weapon that would be unbalanced on a Rogue and why. I maintain my contention that if there is one, it’s probably the weapon that is the issue, not a Rogue using it.If anything is out of bounds, it's a xyloshi kashrishi with Puncturing Horn so you start at 1st level with a 1d8 piercing damage finesse unarmed attack. No melee weapon matches that no-hand unarmed attack.
The Puncturing Horn requires investment so I don't mind it. There is a build there.
Paizo have balanced the weapons well. Everything better than d6 finesse or d6 agile is either two handed or advanced.
Thank you to everyone who has participated in this discussion so far. For those who are curious, here is how this character concept started out:
I have an old RPG accessory book titled Central Castings: Heroes of Legend, originally written by Paul Jaquays and published in 1988 by Task Force Games. Basically, it’s a bunch of tables useful for creating very complex character backgrounds, personalities, motivations, etc. I have often used this to discover interesting character concepts since randomization often forces me to consider skills and other options that I might not otherwise consider using. After creating the concept, I then try to fit the concept (as best I can) within the character creation rules of the game.
So for this character, the concept was fairly straightforward. Some of the key things I rolled for was: an Elf in a civilized-decadent society, born into a comfortable social status which changed to poor after the death of her mother (a prostitute), and a fire at an orphanage. Something good happens to her as a child involving a thief, something good happens in adolescence when when saves a child’s life from slavery and the child becomes a lifelong friend. As a young adult, tragedy occurs when she was captured and sold into slavery herself. Charisma and “playing the long game” become important for her to be in a position to kill her captor and successfully lead a slave revolt before then becoming an adventurer.
After doing a ton of research on in-game history, I decided that she was born in 4597AR to an elven prostitute working at the Pleasure Salon of Calistria, in the great city of Absalom, on the Isle of Kortos. After her mother died when she was just three, the ranking Sacred Prostitute abandoned her at an orphanage located in the Puddles. The character does not know any of this, of course, because she was just too young to remember. Her earliest memories are of the fire that gutted the orphanage, leaving her homeless as a very young child. She also remembers terrible storms that ravaged the city just a few years later (which marks the beginning of the Age of Lost Omens). Living primarily in the sewers under the big city (Cavern Elf = darkvision), she survived the big city by using her wits and her charm (so high-ish Charisma, which is good for Deception, which is good for Feint)—filching food, picking pockets, and performing odd jobs here and there (Ancestral Longevity means she can be trained in any skill and scratch out a legitimate living in the big city if needed). Falling in with a thief as a child taught her the first things she needed to become a thief, and since I knew Charisma was going to play a critical role later in her life, the Scoundrel racket seemed like a perfect fit. At this point, I am already feeling the rapier/main-gauche combo. She could use Feint or Twin Feint to set up her own flat-footed opponents when necessary, and then parry with her third action for a +1 AC so she could stay in the fight with a little protection.
I don’t see her as a common street thug. She steals when she needs to survive, but otherwise can hold down a skilled job. She is kind of a lone wolf good-guy when she sticks her neck out to disrupt the slavers on Misery Row (before that was shut down). Finesse and Agile weapons would be important to her, and so too would be the ability to Parry when needed. I know someone had suggested that I should just play a Swashbuckler. But a Swashbuckler does not feel like a Rogue to me. It feels more like an extremely dexterous fighter with a lot of flair (which is cool, just not her...she wants to be the party Rogue for things like sneak attack, picking locks, traps, etc.). I could give up the main-gauche for a buckler and gain the +2AC bonus instead...but I would happily take only a +1 AC bonus of the main-gauche for the opportunity to use Twin Feint and the Agile MAP. As for typical combat scenarios, I imagine she could “move in/sneak attack/move out” and “move to flank/attack/whatever” like other Rogues. But in the event an enemy closed with her, I was looking forward to possible “feint/attack/parry” or “twin feint/parry” to be able to create my own flat-footed opponents when needed, and then boost my AC a little until my next turn (every +1 matters).
Anyway, that’s how it all started. I filled out some more backstory and fell in love with where it was going, but then got tripped up on the Rogue not being able to use the main-gauche proficiently (doh, I missed that one). If the rapier had been left off the list of allowable Rogue weapons in RAW, I would probably not have been trying to figure out how to acquire proficient use of the main-gauche in the first place. But since the rapier is allowed, it only seemed logical that the main-gauche should also be allowed. It appears to me that the reason a Rogue can’t use a main-gauche proficiently without bending over backwards is simply a design oversight. I’m not sure a Rogue needs to be able to use all martial weapons proficiently. The Rogue can already do a lot of cool things that other characters cannot (massive number of skills, sneak attack damage, etc.), so leaving “all martial weapon proficiency” to the Fighter seems fair (though why does an Investigator, Magus and Thaumaturge gain full access to martial weapons? Hmmm...).
If it wasn’t for Elf, I could possibly pull this off with a Human. Or instead, the Dual-Weapon Warrior Dedication path list above grants Parry at Level 6, which isn’t horrible. Just too bad she won’t have Parry any time sooner.
In short, unless Paizo decides to errata the weapons that are available to core classes, I doubt this restriction will be removed officially.
Anyway, thanks again for the guidance and good discussion :-)
I could give up the main-gauche for a buckler and gain the +2AC bonus instead...but I would happily take only a +1 AC bonus of the main-gauche for the opportunity to use Twin Feint and the Agile MAP.
My mistake...buckler is only +1 AC.
|
|
I tried looking back through the tread but couldn’t find if this is for PFS or not. If not, then your best bet is to just ask your GM to let you be proficient in the main-gauche. Show them this thread and Mark Seifter’s comment.
If it is for PFS, you could maybe do Swashbuckler or Fighter with a Rogue dedication to eventually pick up sneak attack.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Seems like the simple solution would be for Paizo to create a Rogue class feat or two.
Knife Expert: Gain proficiency with one-handed martial melee weapons in the Knife weapon group. This proficiency matches your proficiency in simple weapons and you can benefit from your Weapon Tricks class feature with these weapons.
Knife Master: Choose a single one-handed advanced melee weapon in the Knife weapon group. You become proficient with that weapon. This proficiency matches your proficiency in simple weapons and you can benefit from your Weapon Tricks class feature with this weapon.
For what it's worth, I think it's that rogues don't really parry as much in imagination as usually thought of. They aren't really interested in fighting per se, rather gently easing their enemies' lives away. Hence that they wouldn't learn parrying daggers as such.
That said, I can't imagine unbalancing them with letting them have main-gauches. Especially if one's trying to disguise themself as a swashbuckler. But the classic rapier and dagger thing is more swashbuckler than rogue to me. Not like there's anything stopping that swashbuckler from maxing out Thievery anyway.