The title explains this entire post. Due to the fact the action of Tracing a Rune doesn't have any skill checks or saves is it actually worth keeping a weapon and attempting to use Engraving Strike or is the additional damage of a Strike not worth the additional chance to also miss with your Rune? Debate how Engraving strike is useful over 1 action Tracing a Rune and 1 Additional action to invoke, so 2 Actions total too avoid ruling a Strike and just having the enemy roll a Fort save.
Doesn't trigger reactive strike, and is probably higher DPR than just tracing once your hitchance is high enough.
It's unclear from how things are written now, but it may also bypass the free hand requirements for tracing? I'd be shocked if that wasn't the intent, at least.
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Doesn't trigger reactive strike
I don’t know about that, you still do Trace a Rune activity and it does have Manipulate trait. Similarly to Spellstrike.
I’d rule it still triggers Reactive strike, maybe in the release wording will be changed though.You can do it with Reach weapon though to at least try to avoid Reactive strikes from crratures with standard reach.
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Reach weapons might be the rule that allow Engraving Strike to be just superior to Tracing a Rune and Invoking it, instead you Engraving Strike then Invoke.
Without standard de/buffing using engraving strike with a d8 weapon is about equal on average even against a +3 opponent. The more you have, the better it gets to use over an automatic trace, so long as you only use it once per round.
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Doesn't trigger reactive strikeI don’t know about that, you still do Trace a Rune activity and it does have Manipulate trait. Similarly to Spellstrike.
I’d rule it still triggers Reactive strike, maybe in the release wording will be changed though.You can do it with Reach weapon though to at least try to avoid Reactive strikes from crratures with standard reach.
Ah yeah, that's sloppy of me. I'd forgotten spellstrike was written similarly because I haven't had to look at it in forever. Absolutely my bad.
I never got the impression that engraving strike was overpowered or a trap.
I get the impression that tracing trance needs to be removed or severely limited and have the ranged attack invocation be changed to once a round like engraving strike but it's two actions until level 12 with an optional feat that currently exists.
Reach weapons might be the rule that allow Engraving Strike to be just superior to Tracing a Rune and Invoking it, instead you Engraving Strike then Invoke.
The problem is that Engraving Strike is limited to Once per Round so even being possible to use it to Trace at reach probably most RuneSmith still prefer to Trace again to apply another rune or to reapply the same rune if you had Invoked it. Yet maybe useful to deal with creatures with RS/AoO and have a smaller reach.
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... What makes it a trap? Engraving Strike is a one action level 1 feat with good action compression.
You don't get the action compression on a miss, but the fail state for Engraving Strike is just missing a strike and tracing normally, which is just normal action economy.
The only time Engraving Strike is bad is if you didn't want to strike in the first place.
I mean, nominally the Runesmith is a martial class (you get the same weapons and armor proficiency as the ranger) so you're supposed to be okay hitting people with weapons.
I think the thing that is going to change is "trace is one action with no check against an enemy" TBH, since that's a great option to do like 2-4 times per round since you might eat a reactive strike but you're not going to eat more than one of them if you keep doing it.
... What makes it a trap? Engraving Strike is a one action level 1 feat with good action compression.
You don't get the action compression on a miss, but the fail state for Engraving Strike is just missing a strike and tracing normally, which is just normal action economy.
The only time Engraving Strike is bad is if you didn't want to strike in the first place.
Engraving Strike does not trace a rune if you miss. It has a point of failure.
TBH the sentiment in this thread might be a combination of two handed weapons being disallowed (lower strike damage) and rune damage probably being a bit too high.
If rune damage was lower than strike, why would we spend actions on damage runes at all
Especially if the strike was a shield boss or gauntlet.
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... What makes it a trap? Engraving Strike is a one action level 1 feat with good action compression.
You don't get the action compression on a miss, but the fail state for Engraving Strike is just missing a strike and tracing normally, which is just normal action economy.
The only time Engraving Strike is bad is if you didn't want to strike in the first place.
Engraving Strike does not trace a rune if you miss. It has a point of failure.
TBH the sentiment in this thread might be a combination of two handed weapons being disallowed (lower strike damage) and rune damage probably being a bit too high.
It has a point of failure, but it doesn't have much consequence for failing.
Let me illustrate.
Runesmith w/o Engraving Strike: Move, Strike, Trace
Runesmith w/Engraving strike: Move, Engraving Strike. If you hit, you now have a 3rd action, and if you miss, your turn is the same as the Runesmith without Engraving. The only cost is the opportunity cost of your 1st level class feat.
I believe Squiggit is contrasting Engraving Strike with something like expansive spellstrike, where the benefit of action compression comes with the risk of losing the spell entirely if you critically miss.
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W/o engraving strike you are more likely to move trace trace (repertoire of two melee relevant runes permitting) or move trace invoke (bringing your etched runes into play round 1) than move strike trace, imo.
You need to make case for striking at all instead of tracing a rune or invoking multiples before you can make the case for chancing a strike plus trace combo. If a strike is truly the best option you have, where a "sure thing" traced rune isn't the superior choice, then sure, add engraving strike to it. But I don't know how often that will be the case.
I would like to chime in that the premise of Engraving Strike is kinda "invalid?" from a normal design PoV.
Translating this concept from Runesmith to Fighter: It would be like an a once per turn (no flourish) L1 feat that allows you to make a Strike, and if you hit, you do the effect of another Strike at no cost, no extra MAP, etc.
The fundamental premise of a "if you hit, win much more biggly. If you miss, there is 0 extra cost or consequence for missing"
It's just a completely bad/invalid concept that should not exist.
It should do *something* to the turn's considerations, be it more MAP, flourish, "can't Trace any more that round", "can't Invoke that round", etc.
Fighters will take Runesmith Dedications.
Just being a "superior Strike" that's once per turn is not a "valid"/____ design for a feat.
Looking at the whole playtest doc, there are 0 occurrences of the flourish trait. Moreover, the fact only action compression feats, including two-action Artist’s Attendance, have the “Frequency once per round” entry is suspicious.
Imho, it’s safe to assume the things listed as “Frequency once per round” should in fact be flourish actions.
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It's possible, but it's also worth noting there's a significant mechanical distinction between flourish and 1/round, in that you can stack the latter but not the former.
Flourish hurts multiclassing combos options.
It's possible, but it's also worth noting there's a significant mechanical distinction between flourish and 1/round, in that you can stack the latter but not the former.
True, which is why I think it's notable that circumstantial but significant evidence points to it being an oversight. It's certainly possible that the devs want us to test the limits on flourish vs 1/r, but as has been pointed out in other threads already, the action compression gets out of hand extremely fast.
Flourish hurts multiclassing combos options.
It doesn't hurt multiclassing options, it reduces action compression abuse. The established meta is that almost every action that grants improved action economy is flourish (unless the granted actions are severely limited in scope and power).
I haven't worked out the dpr yet due to lack of time, but what if on a failed strike you still get to trace but the enemy makes their save against any invoke effect at 1 category higher (fail is success, success is critical success, etc.) That would probably still improve DPR past striking and tracing seperately and incentivize the feat and attacking with weapons. I'd think you'd need to include that rider to any modified runes if tou applied a diacritic rune so folks couldn't bypass it.
On a crit failure to strike you don't get to trace. Maybe on a crit they treat their save as one category lower. That would be interesting and incentivize giving flanking or using teamwork to boost the non attack stat KAS martial's likelihood to crit.
The issue with things like this is that a traced rune might not be set off for rounds and there could be multiple other runes traced in meantime, meaning that having one rune that the save works differently on, situationally, is another complication to track.
Lvl 20 Runesmith vs PL+0 High AC (45) High Fort (+36)
Runesmith Attack: +35
Runesmith DC: 44
Engraving Strike (Atryl) w/ Whetstone:
Strike:
Damage Roll: 4d8 + 3d6 + 6 + 6 + 16 (8 Persistent Damage applied over 2 turns) [Average: 56.5]
55% chance of hitting (50% success | 5% crit): 0.6x Damage Modifier
Expected Damage: 0.6x * 56.5 = 33.9
Atryl:
Damage Roll: 20d6 [Average: 70]
5% chance of crit fail | 30% chance of fail | 50% chance of success: 0.65x Damage Modifier
Expected Damage: 0.65x * 0.55x * 70 = 25.025
Total Expected Damage: 58.925
______________________________________________________________________
Atryl Only
Damage Roll: 20d6 [Average: 70]
5% chance of crit fail | 30% chance of fail | 50% chance of success: 0.65x Damage Modifier
Expected Damage: 0.65x * 70 = 45.5
Am I to understand that in 3 actions in the same round, you can Strike a target, Trace a fire rune on it and invoke it (read: detonate it) ?
Ok, sure, the target gets a basic Fortitude save against the fire rune, but... doesn't it look like what Spellstrike should be doing?
Am I to understand that in 3 actions in the same round, you can Strike a target, Trace a fire rune on it and invoke it (read: detonate it) ?
Ok, sure, the target gets a basic Fortitude save against the fire rune, but... doesn't it look like what Spellstrike should be doing?
It's a version of what play test magus could do but with worse spell proficiency.
But you can do more than spend 3 actions to do some damage with this class. Once you start adding in feats and etchings it gets even more interesting.
The magus still has better versatility by nature of using spells and doesn't need a hand free.