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2 action for 3 strike with no map
but need for 3 reload before doing it again make it much weaker than double throw
if doubling ring give both melee and ranged component of crescent cross fundamental and property rune
then player can spend 1 action to take out new crescent cross instead of reload 3 time
Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
It definitely has potential to be very strong, though due to its' reload action cost it'll most likely be a once per combat high-damage strike.
But you can enter combat with the three chambers already loaded,
have three different poisons applied to the bolts,
have a striking rune on the crescent cross,
use a per-strike damage boost such as the Suli heritage's elemental assault,
and ideally have someone else make them off-guard for a rogue's sneak attack damage
(there's probably additional bonus damage options that I cannot come up with off the top of my head right now)
and your 4th level suli rogue/crossbow infiltrator is getting to giant barbarian level damage for that one round.
You're going to have to rewrite your complaint because it makes no sense.
How are you getting three Strikes out of the crescent cross w/o any MAP? The opportunity to make a ranged attack w/o switching modes after a successful melee Strike still would have MAP and isn't a free action. (And is available to other Combination weapons too.)
Even though the crescent cross's aspects share Runes, Doubling Rings have their own limitation of only working w/ melee weapons so I think most GMs wouldn't allow it to work on the bow aspect. This is much like the example given of how a melee Rune on the combo still doesn't apply to the ranged attack. It's such an obvious shenanigan a GM might lose respect for you (or who knows, play along for the hell of it).
Yes, you can swap out instead of reloading, a good tactic at lower levels, but not so good later w/o that trick w/ Doubling Rings.
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Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
"Crescent Cross Training" is a feat in the new Crossbow Infiltrator archetype that was just published in Battlecry. It gives you the two-action activity "Crescent Spray" that lets you fire all three loaded bolts in a crescent cross one after the other, making three strikes while not increasing MAP until after the last attack. So yes, you get three attacks at (potentially) no MAP.
Whether that's OP, or balanced by the need to spend three actions to reload afterwards is up for discussion.
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Castilliano wrote: You're going to have to rewrite your complaint because it makes no sense.
How are you getting three Strikes out of the crescent cross w/o any MAP? The opportunity to make a ranged attack w/o switching modes after a successful melee Strike still would have MAP and isn't a free action. (And is available to other Combination weapons too.)
Even though the crescent cross's aspects share Runes, Doubling Rings have their own limitation of only working w/ melee weapons so I think most GMs wouldn't allow it to work on the bow aspect. This is much like the example given of how a melee Rune on the combo still doesn't apply to the ranged attack. It's such an obvious shenanigan a GM might lose respect for you (or who knows, play along for the hell of it).
Yes, you can swap out instead of reloading, a good tactic at lower levels, but not so good later w/o that trick w/ Doubling Rings.
The new book, Battlecry! has a new archetype (crossbow infiltrator) that replaces the drow shootist. The 4th level feat they are describing requires all 3 chambers to be loaded and for 2 axtions gives 3 strikes including free action chamber swaps between strikes. It specifies that MAP only increases after the 2 action activity.
While they are wrong about the doubling rings you could have 2 fully armed crescent crosses with blazons of shared power applied to them. That would give you 6x0MAP strikes in the first two rounds before you have to get stuck with a underpowered reload weapon from then on. You could switch the primary blazons of power crescent cross to melee mode and the draw a new finesse weapon and use doubling rings for switch hitting.
I've been thinking about this today for builds and the best opportubities I see are for gunslingers who get a +2 to +3 via their expertise feature (potebtially one more shot per round with a +1/dmg dice from the L1 crossbow feat. As a pistelero you could get another +1 to +4 status bonus damage per strike. You could go duskwalker for another +1/+2 at L9/L16. You could try for draconic barrage and burn-it to add more ststic modifiers but your delaying to round 2 to do that. You could go into archer or fighter for PBS for +2 cirumstance damage. Honestly though most of the buffs can only come at L8+ since you have to pay the archetype exit feat tax (the L6 crossbow non risky reload is great for that). Before that your pretty much firing a 1d6+2 weapon (no deadly or what have you to make it better). So I think for most tiers of play it'll be a great opening salvo, but you're round 2+ (or 3+ if you have 2 of them) will be a little lackluster.
It might also be good on a thaumaturge that can bring their own static damage modifiers to the party.
Maybe champions from the dragon domain or vindicators with far shot to get range to 60 ft from far shot and dragon domain. Fighter could be similair to gunslinger but with far less reload suport. Exemplar could get +1 dmg/dice from starshot and has reload support from deft. They could get twin on each one from the twin star feat. Alchemsit for quick silver mutagens to boost to hit.
Defintely a few options to theory craft around, but it is a really mediocre weapon. My gut fealing is that a pistelero gunslinger into champion for draconic barrage and a fearsome rune for nore debuffing will be top of the heap.
Could be neat (though expensive) to pump a bunch of injury poison doses into a single target to more quickly ramp up the stages right away. Dread Striker and/or Mastermind Rogue came to mind first to compensate for the bad base weapon damage, but it certainly seems a bit gimmicky to be spending 3 feats on. The weapon really is rather bad
yellowpete wrote: Could be neat (though expensive) to pump a bunch of injury poison doses into a single target to more quickly ramp up the stages right away. Dread Striker and/or Mastermind Rogue came to mind first to compensate for the bad base weapon damage, but it certainly seems a bit gimmicky to be spending 3 feats on. The weapon really is rather bad Honestly, I think this is meant to be a really cool opening turn. Then you switch off to another weapon. I imagine the assasin that suddenly gets caught mid infiltration and has to clear a path through some guards in the hallway. In that moment of surprise they pepper the crap out of one guard and run the other through with their shortsword.
But its very much a big pain in the butt because even the 1d4 knife melee portion doesnt have finesse, so any dex forward martial would be better off with any other finesse weapon. In an ABP game this thing can shine since you could have a few of them and only miss out on property runes.
A demoralize rogue could be decent to flatfoot at range. But gunslinger with a native +2 to hit, build in damage bonus, and natively faster scaling weapon specialization will probably be nore consistent and can pick up those same tricks at L8 in a FA game or L12 in a non-FA game.
Doing a bit of napkin math it seems that with the Rogue you slightly outpace d8/d6 Double Slice Fighter even without property runes while he has them (though under the unrealistic assumption that all enemies are always off-guard for both). So, if you play with ABP you can probably keep this going competetively for quite a while after round 1 with something like a familiar handing you additional fully loaded crossbows (it's only L bulk) and just spend that property rune gold elsewhere.
It should also be said that while the shots being separate is great for you with regards to added precision damage and weaknesses, it can really screw you with resistances as well (specifically as each individual shot has a comparably low damage roll).
Seems like it's mostly an alternative option over repeating hand crossbow with paired shots with a different set of pros and cons. You lose 30ft of range, gain triple dipping on precision, weakness (less common) and resistance (more common), and make 9 attacks over 4-5 rounds vs paired shots' 8/10 with 6 of those being main weapon vs only 4/5 for paired shots. If fights go longer it comes out way ahead.
Probably better than paired shots at the end of the day assuming you get a precision damage source or somebody in melee carries that lantern that applies weakness to spirit that you can exploit with an astral rune.
yellowpete wrote: Doing a bit of napkin math it seems that with the Rogue you slightly outpace d8/d6 Double Slice Fighter even without property runes while he has them (though under the unrealistic assumption that all enemies are always off-guard for both). Putting aside that it's not all that unrealistic, you do need to watch when you make these melee vs ranged comparisons. The fighter here is also going to have a pair of weapon siphons and, at later levels, an energy mutagen going.
yellowpete wrote: Doing a bit of napkin math it seems that with the Rogue you slightly outpace d8/d6 Double Slice Fighter even without property runes while he has them (though under the unrealistic assumption that all enemies are always off-guard for both). So, if you play with ABP you can probably keep this going competitively for quite a while after round 1 with something like a familiar handing you additional fully loaded crossbows (it's only L bulk) and just spend that property rune gold elsewhere.
It should also be said that while the shots being separate is great for you with regards to added precision damage and weaknesses, it can really screw you with resistances as well (specifically as each individual shot has a comparably low damage roll).
I'm also realizing that in remaster they changed the rogue's poison weapon feat chain to remove the 'use before next round' restriction. So you can legitimately just make 'your level' amount of injury poisons per day and apply it to ammunition for use. At L8 that can be 2d4 with improved poison weapon. At L12 that can be 4d4 with deadly poison weapon.
You can get the first 2 feats via poisoner as well. So gunslinger into poisoner with the first level alchemical feat will give you a scaling amount of actual at level injury poisons as well.
So lets say you're in a Free Archetype game:
Gunslinger L10:
Class Feats:
L1 - Munitions Crafter
L2 - Fakeout (help out your other assassins murder your target)
L3 - Dual Weapon Reload (obligatory feat tax since you're holding 2 weapons nearly always)
L4 - Running Reload (one of the best action compression feats for reload)
L6 - Pistelero Challenge (+2-+4 status damage to each hit vs. challenged)
L8 - Archetype Feat - Poison Weapon (8x1d4 poison arrows a day)
L10 - Archetype Feat - Stab and Blast (round 3 switch hitting)
Archetype Feats:
L2 - Crossbow Infiltrator
L4 - Crescent Cross Training (cornerstone feat 3x0MAP strikes for 2 actions).
L6 - Infiltrator's Reload (reload + strike for round 3+ until you have stab and blast or if you can't get out your piercing wind)
L8 - Poisoner Dedication (now 9x2d4 poison arrows a day
L10 - Improved Poison Weapon
Ancestry: Human
Heritage: Duskwalker
Ancestry Feats:
L1 - Gravesight (darkvision is always worth it)
L3 - Ancestral Paragon General Feat for Natural Ambition for dual weapon reload.
L5 - Reincarnated Ridiculer to re-demoralize or ghost hunter for a free ghost touch rune
L9 - Queiteus Strikes (another +1/+2 per strike)
L13 - Multitalented (pick your favourite MC multiclass) or Lifesense
So at L10 you'll have 10x 2D4 poison bolts and 9x L10 Injury Poisons (i.e., 4 + 1/2 level scaling from munitions crafter/poisoner). The new alchemist benefits let you take levelled injury poisons. If you're using an at level poison the item DC will always be >= class DC so you avoid the worst with alchemical items.
On top of the +2 to hit you'll be +2/+3 ahead from expertise, another +1/+2 ahead on weapon specialization and will have a bunch of +1d4/+2d4 poison shots for the first few combats (yay ammunition that doesn't require activation). I'd suspect you want to be human or adopted human at L3 so by L5 you can pick up dual weapon reload as a bonus L1 feat.
Round 1
Action 1 - Get in range/demoralize/pistelero challenge
Action 2/3 - fire 3 shots.
Round 2
Action 1 - Pistelero Special Reload for demoralize/running reload
Action 2 - fire 3 shots
Round 3
Action 1 - Swap secondary blazons of shared power crescent cross for a piercing wind (this uses doubling rings and will only work in the melee mode
Action 2 - Running Reload
Action 3 - Stab + Blast
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An actual poison assassin I want to play!
Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
It's probably a mistake, but the ranged form of the crescent cross is currently classified as a bow (not a crossbow) so gunslinger *technically* does not work quite as well RAW. It seems fairly obvious that it's intended to be a crossbow, so I can see most GMs allowing a reclassification to crossbow as a house rule.
For some reason, Treasure Vault seems to ignore that crossbow is a seperate weapon group from bow and (mis-)classifies all ranged weapons that appear to be crossbows, and that are described in the flavor text as such, as bows.
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premaster there was no crossbow weapon group and all crossbows belonged to the bow group and I guess they just forgot to update the crossbows when remastering treasure vault.
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Yeah, its a fairly obvious mistake. The weapon description is:
"A crescent cross combines a small scizore with an arm-mounted crossbow apparatus that can hold up to three bolts at a time."
The remaster TV clearly forgot about the crossbow weapon group since they also missed it on gauntlet bow, rotary bow, and taw launcher. All of which explicitly state they are 'crossbows' in their description.
Regardless. It still works. Unlike the fighter L5 feature that specifies a "weapon group", the gunslinger feature just says firearms and crossbows (with no reference to a 'weapon group'). It also doesn't capitalize firearms or crossbows so it isn't an explicit rules element reference that you might tie to the specific firearms/crossbow weapon groups. As, such any reasonable means of identifying something as a crossbow does interface and work (i.e., that the weapon explicitly says it is a crossbow).
This is just like pre-remaster times where 'cross-bows' were identified explicitly from their description text as there was no crossbow weapon group (and all of these weapons worked perfectly fine then without any consternation). I think someone identified this specific thing for errata now that there is a crossbow group, but designers forgot to update TV with these changes.
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Seeing that the thing is called Crescent Spray, it might actually also be an issue of forgetting to add a targeting restriction ('against different targets') in there. All the other MAP-ignoring, single target multi-strikes have the 'combine damage, precision only once' clause iirc. But hey, enjoy it while it lasts.
yellowpete wrote: Seeing that the thing is called Crescent Spray, it might actually also be an issue of forgetting to add a targeting restriction ('against different targets') in there. All the other MAP-ignoring, single target multi-strikes have the 'combine damage, precision only once' clause iirc. But hey, enjoy it while it lasts. I feel like the flavour of the archetype is very much 'assassin's creed' break into the targets room at night and murder this one person (ideally without being spotted). The half page of flavour text before the dedication feat is basically an homage to assassins creed IMO.
The feat text has you reloading between shots, so I'm not 100% sure this is some kind of wild spray so much as its trying to land 3 clustered poisoned crossbow bolts in a weakspot of the targets plate mail.
I will agree that these kinds of feats typically either have a 'combine all damage for purposes of resistance/weakness' like double slice or 'must shoot other targets' like double shot (which eventually lets you do it with separate targets after triple shot anyways). I sort of like it not prescribing a gamestyle since its tied to such an undercooked weapon.
Other than the name there isn't any real flavour text to tell us what is happening in the actual feat itself.
The first question I have before giving my oppinion of it being op or not, Do we have anything that would let someone project runes onto both crescent crossbows? Because to my knowledge Doubling Rings only works with Melee weapons (and the clarifications for CRB regarded abilities that care about what kind of weapon, such as a two handed weapon care about what the weapon is currently used as, not the intrinsics of the weapon)
Blazons work though, but the ability feels very much akin to Magnetic Pinions in terms of power and clunkiness, With so many more actions needed to reload you arent getting many uses out of it as you could with pinions in a long combat.
We will just have to see as I kinda fail to see any OP shenanigans regardless of single target outside of the precision damage clause being missing.
I will say that one of my tables plays with Automatic -Rune- Progression, and I think the rule is a great improvement to the enjoyability of the system.
This means weapons still need to get property runes normally, but all fundamental runes come automatically.
(It's not even solely a gp boost either, as the value of found weapons drops when those runes are removed. It's mostly a convenience thing where all PCs can try out things like crossbows at their choosing, instead of via denying the party resell gp by using found weapons)
So it's good to remember that some fraction of tables play with ARP already solving this rune hassle. If the dev intent was for the feat to be balanced because of the gp cost on runes... I don't see that as being a good idea to start with.
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Another angle for build theory may be the tools that summon / create weapons on the spot, I'm not familiar with them, but assume at least one allows the conjured weapon to scale as if it had runes.
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Overall, the key "is this OP?" line is figuring out how much build investment it would take to up the damage of the burst--> drop --> new Xbow plan, and see if that appears especially egregious when compared with other ranged options.
NorrKnekten wrote: The first question I have before giving my oppinion of it being op or not, Do we have anything that would let someone project runes onto both crescent crossbows? Because to my knowledge Doubling Rings only works with Melee weapons (and the clarifications for CRB regarded abilities that care about what kind of weapon, such as a two handed weapon care about what the weapon is currently used as, not the intrinsics of the weapon)
Blazons work though, but the ability feels very much akin to Magnetic Pinions in terms of power and clunkiness, With so many more actions needed to reload you arent getting many uses out of it as you could with pinions in a long combat.
We will just have to see as I kinda fail to see any OP shenanigans regardless of single target outside of the precision damage clause being missing.
Blazon's of Shared Power and if you want to switch hit with a finesse weapon then doubling rings as well so you could end up with 3 weapons.
Using two of them gets you two great rounds then your potential drops significantly. But that is fine, its better to hit hard in rounds 1 and 2 to focus fire enemies down to deny actions to the enemy.
If you start combat in a good position you could fire all 3 and then reload. Then fire the other 3 in round 2 and reload. The reload at the top of round 3 and fire the first crescent cross again. That's why running reload or other reload compressions are good. But, this is definitely an alpha strike assassin type play style.
You would need to swap weapons in one hand and change the primary crossbow into melee usage on to transfer the runes trough doubling rings though? Remember, Abilities that require a type of weapon like melee, two-handed or similar only count active usage... I would rather just use the reloading trick feat and stay shootin.
Either way its going to get atleast a few changes such as weakness and damage bonuses only being counted once, just consider this on something that gives out weakness or damage bonuses. Ofcourse it may see some targeting/MAP/action changes, wouldn't suprise me
As a fallback, there's also potency crystal talismans, which pseudo provide fundamental runes for one turn.
It's pretty campaign dependent, but it's normal to start getting many extra runes from fallen foes, once you out level them a bit.
NorrKnekten wrote: You would need to swap weapons in one hand and change the primary crossbow into melee usage on to transfer the runes trough doubling rings though? Remember, Abilities that require a type of weapon like melee, two-handed or similar only count active usage... I would rather just use the reloading trick feat and stay shootin.
Either way its going to get atleast a few changes such as weakness and damage bonuses only being counted once, just consider this on something that gives out weakness or damage bonuses. Ofcourse it may see some targeting/MAP/action changes, wouldn't surprise me
Yup it'd be 1 action to swap weapons in one hand and 1 action to flip to melee mode (not a trivial task). It may also be of marginal benefit vs. reloading twice + the reload+shot so on the next round you can do the 3 shots again.
I don't think this was printed/written in error. They're trying to get people to use one of the mechanically worst set of weapons (repeating hand crossbow, hand crossbow, gauntlet bow, and crescent cross). They don't have finesse, they don't have static damage modifiers, they don't have repeating (well 3 of 4), they don't have deadly, they don't have fatal). If they didn't have something like this which turns them into DPR relevant options for 1-2 rounds then why would anyone take this archetype or use any feat beyond the repeating crossbow training (if their GM was forcing them to pay the feat tax for the 2 reload version of a repeating hand crossbow).
I'd suspect their calculus for the archetype is the average of one round of good damage + 1 round of mostly reloading with poor damage evening out. Kinda similar to the rune smith's multi round rotations for set-up/explode (this is just explode the reset instead). It'll be a little better in a few classes hands because they can get ways to add more static damage than a generic martial to these (i.e., gunslinger, thaumaturge, and rogue), but the 'two round average' of 2 strikes + 2 strikes is probably similar in DPR when you math it out.
Yeah no I agree with that, Its very clearly intended as a limited use per combat feature and its certainly suited as such with needing multiple reloads before it can be used again as its main limiter. I will need to add though that ranged weapons never have finesse as they already use dex for their ranged attacks. So it having finesse only matters for the melee part. I don't think crossbows lacking deadly is that big of a deal since they already have 1d8 persistent bleed on crit as part of the remaster when they became their own weapon group, Thats.. just better deadly that keeps on ticking as you are reloading, and you gain it the moment you become expert in weapon attacks too from the dedication alone.
Functionally, Crescent Crossbow Training is the Triple Shot Feat. But for a capacity weapon and with hefty action tax to reuse. Thats the question really... is the action cost to reload enough of a counterweight when compared to a similar feat that can be performed every round has -4 to its attack penalty while being accessible two levels later, Both requires a prerequisite feat so they are somewhat equal in feat and upfront action cost but not neccesarily when it comes to drawbacks, They shouldnt have equal drawbacks obviously with one being reload 0 and can just be repeated every round but to me it feels like this missed something.
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Similarly I really don't see any reason to assume that this feat, which only works with one of the archetype's four weapons, is supposed the archetype's bread and butter. It specifically only works with the Crescent Cross, Not the hand crossbows or gauntlet bow, Even though it lets your Crescent Cross count as a gauntlet bow without agile on its melee attacks.
The archetype is the defacto remaster replacement for Drow Shootist Archetype, Having nearly all of the feats included within the legacy archetype which explains the heavy focus on the repeating hand crossbow, but its been expanded to include more weapons and support several styles. Melee/Range hybrid with a combination weapons, Dual Wield Crossbows, Melee weapon with ranged backup, Free hand ranged backup. This is seen as most of the feats actually do specificy what specific weapons you can use so theres absolutely a case to use it with a gauntlet bow with it being rather especially suitable for a rogue/alchemist/Swashbuckler/fighters or similar wanting to benefit from the free-hand and agile traits which aren't present in the Crescent Cross.
Especially Fighters/Swashbucklers/Rogues wishing to use the dueling featlines or poison weapon would not be able to do so with a rapier in one hand and the Crescent Cross in the other, but can with the Gauntlet Bow.
I am not sure best way to optimize this would actually be. It is a bit of an odd feat, it is incredibly powerful but then you get stuck with either a d4 finesse weapon which you are a Gunslinger and have +2 to your Attack for crits or you go Thaumaturge for the boosted damage per shot. So really you got options, you could go Gunslinger for +2 Accuracy, Thaumaturge for increased base damage or go Rogue and try to get 3 shots with Sneak Attack.
ElementalofCuteness wrote: I am not sure best way to optimize this would actually be. It is a bit of an odd feat, it is incredibly powerful but then you get stuck with either a d4 finesse weapon which you are a Gunslinger and have +2 to your Attack for crits or you go Thaumaturge for the boosted damage per shot. So really you got options, you could go Gunslinger for +2 Accuracy, Thaumaturge for increased base damage or go Rogue and try to get 3 shots with Sneak Attack. You can get a lot out of it if you just keep it simple.
Have a class chassis with bonus damage on hit, like rogue or ranger. That, plus a way to spread runes around, like potency crystals, means that you can drop instead of reloading.
There are a few easy ways to add per-hit boosts, not many though. That poison weapon feat is a great pick (while poison type is the worst in the system, it's just a super simple ability).
Even spellhearts are notable, as their weapon buffs boost all strikes during their up time. Does make it into a 2-turn rotation though, and requires spellcasting.
There's also "first per turn" hit bonuses, like Gravity Weapon, that are much easier to benefit from if you've got 3 shots per turn to proc them.
There are also options to imposes weaknesses, especially for elemental damage types, but that does mean using elemental property runes.
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Whatever buffs you use, I think having three of those xbows preloaded would be as much as one might ever realistically need.
3 turns of burst for 9 MAP 0 attacks is nuts. Still should carry a backup weapon though.
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NorrKnekten wrote:
Functionally, Crescent Crossbow Training is the Triple Shot Feat. But for a capacity weapon and with hefty action tax to reuse. Thats the question really... is the action cost to reload enough of a counterweight when compared to a similar feat that can be performed every round has -4 to its attack penalty while being accessible two levels later, Both requires a prerequisite feat so they are somewhat equal in feat and upfront action cost but not neccesarily when it comes to drawbacks, They shouldnt have equal drawbacks obviously with one being reload 0 and can just be repeated every round but to me it thry missed something...
They did. Its that triple shot is a trap feat and way undertuned. It only pulls ahead with a very high level feat that drops the axcuracy penalty. You get better DPR with the L1 fighter feat extracting strike to map fix a 2nd strike miss. You get more out of a ranger dedication and hunted shot at L4 and that is also 2 levels earlier. Double shot and triple shot are just bad feats.
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ElementalofCuteness wrote: I am not sure best way to optimize this would actually be. It is a bit of an odd feat, it is incredibly powerful but then you get stuck with either a d4 finesse weapon which you are a Gunslinger and have +2 to your Attack for crits or you go Thaumaturge for the boosted damage per shot. So really you got options, you could go Gunslinger for +2 Accuracy, Thaumaturge for increased base damage or go Rogue and try to get 3 shots with Sneak Attack. Optimization paths:
- Gunslinger: +2 to hit, +2/+3 slinger precision, pustelero challenge, munitions crafter + poisoner for pre poisoned no action bolts (from the poison weapon feat and advamced alchemy with scaling item dcs)
- Draconic Barrage: +1 to +15 static damage with a burn-it goblin per shot. Takes a setup round though.
- Thaumaturge: big static modifier damage and with 0 MAP strikes you paste things to the walls.
- Rogue: figure out a ranged off-guard method like dread striker and demoralize, then take the poison weapon, improved poison weapon, and 3rd feat in the chain. Pre poison your bolts outside of combat. Multiclass into alchemist or cleric for draconic barrage or sonething thag ensures you get flst footed conditions.
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I think the Thaumaturge route might the most viable.
Note that Gravity Weapon bonus damage is tied to the first Strike, not first hit nor first successful Strike, unlike a Precision Ranger's bonus which is on first hit.
"On your first weapon Strike each round,..."
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But yeah, this feat does feel cheesy, but in a "catch up to other weapons" kind of way. These weapons do look cool in the mind's eye so it's nice to see them competitive, though yeah, there might be more ways of buffing these tiny hits than the dev had accounted for. Also don't know what routine they based their math on. Monsters with similar abilities often get a -2 to attack or "must attack different people", and I'd have expected precision damage to only apply once like with Double Slice. And I do expect to see one or more limit added in errata. Likely the -2 because Thaumaturge, though maybe a cooldown?
Claxon wrote: I think the Thaumaturge route might the most viable. Perhaps. But if you have more than 1x1H weapon then do you benefit from Implement Empowerment? I think you could have one of the weapons be your regalia and sidestep it, but a lot of people don't like my interpretation of the IE wording when I say that. Thaumaturge also has almost no reload support, but you could get 1 really good round then use the L6 reload + shoot with decent effect.
I feel like to get the most out of this, dual weapon reload, is almost mandatory. At higher levels (L7+) you can use a retrieval belt, but I don't think it is as easy unless you're using regalia/weapon implements, which isn't necessarily ideal for most thaumaturges.
You run into a similar issue with non-gunslinger classes since only the gunslinger can snag it dual weapon reload at L1, but everyone else has to dip into another class for it or pick it up at L6 in the archetype. Even if I wanted to say, be a champion with two of these things and utilize draconic barrage, I'm going to struggle to use two of these things until higher levels when I get reload feat support.
The only other class with really good built in damage riders/reload support is the ranger (i.e., precision/gravity weapon, running reload, the remaster crossbow hide+reload).
This archetype is going to be a fun nut to crack.
I'm not sure why you would even attempt reloading when it's reload 3. It's much easier to dodge the single draw action and carry multiple loaded xbows.
Yeah, reloading these things seems like a bad idea. Just continue with another weapon at that point. What the best strategy is will depend on rune availability, but I'm confident in saying that it won't be reloading. Even with only single-wielding them, a familiar alone can rotate you through 4 loaded ones for free on the first 4 rounds, at which point the average encounter is over.
Draconic Barrage seems okay when you start off too far for your tiny range increment, but otherwise I think the opportunity cost will be too high as it competes for the 2-a slot. I also don't think Burn It is supposed to increase your Strike's damage with that one, just the damage the spell itself deals, but that's an aside.
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Red Griffyn wrote: Claxon wrote: I think the Thaumaturge route might the most viable. Perhaps. But if you have more than 1x1H weapon then do you benefit from Implement Empowerment? I think you could have one of the weapons be your regalia and sidestep it, but a lot of people don't like my interpretation of the IE wording when I say that. Thaumaturge also has almost no reload support, but you could get 1 really good round then use the L6 reload + shoot with decent effect.
I feel like to get the most out of this, dual weapon reload, is almost mandatory. At higher levels (L7+) you can use a retrieval belt, but I don't think it is as easy unless you're using regalia/weapon implements, which isn't necessarily ideal for most thaumaturges.
You run into a similar issue with non-gunslinger classes since only the gunslinger can snag it dual weapon reload at L1, but everyone else has to dip into another class for it or pick it up at L6 in the archetype. Even if I wanted to say, be a champion with two of these things and utilize draconic barrage, I'm going to struggle to use two of these things until higher levels when I get reload feat support.
The only other class with really good built in damage riders/reload support is the ranger (i.e., precision/gravity weapon, running reload, the remaster crossbow hide+reload).
This archetype is going to be a fun nut to crack. IMH, the idea is to just magdump on the first round and swap to another weapon(or another crescent to magdump for two rounds). Doesn't need to be an actual Weapon implement, just a normal weapon. Could even have a finesse unarmed attack so you don't need to bother with switching to melee once it's out.
Why reload all 3 barrels? You can do this as a rotation instead.
Crescent Cross Training
Round 1
2 Action - Crescent Spray
1 Action - Reload
Round 2
2 Action - Reload
1 Action - Strike
Round 3
1 Action - Reload
2 Actions - Crescent Spray
This is assuming single Crescent Cross as a Gunslinger. Which is 7 Strikes unless there is something stopping you from reloading 1 barrel then shooting. In that case you just fire both barrels in round 1 & 2 then you're forced to use the d4 melee option unless you constantly reload which, honestly with some of the feats from Gunslinger you might as well do, D6 is slightly better then d4 unless you got +2 Strength then why bother reloading?
Gunslinger spread of +2, +4, +2, +0, +1, +0 would give you 1d4+2 damage with the melee attack over 1d6 of the ranged shot. Wait with your Gunslinger's Precision your shot is 1d6+2. Does this apply to the melee part it isn't clear. So you would still be better off with stuff liek risky reload if you want to maximize damage, if you care about 1d6+2 vs a possible 2-4 Strength modifier, which is 1d4+2-4, which is you start with 3 Strength modifier, you can cap at +4 at level 5 and have your melee deal 1d4+4 which is the same as 1d6+2.
I assume the Class Feature Gunslinger's Precision doesn't apply to the melee mode of Combination weapons, correct?
Red Griffyn wrote: Claxon wrote: I think the Thaumaturge route might the most viable. Perhaps. But if you have more than 1x1H weapon then do you benefit from Implement Empowerment? I think you could have one of the weapons be your regalia and sidestep it, but a lot of people don't like my interpretation of the IE wording when I say that. Thaumaturge also has almost no reload support, but you could get 1 really good round then use the L6 reload + shoot with decent effect.
I feel like to get the most out of this, dual weapon reload, is almost mandatory. At higher levels (L7+) you can use a retrieval belt, but I don't think it is as easy unless you're using regalia/weapon implements, which isn't necessarily ideal for most thaumaturges.
You run into a similar issue with non-gunslinger classes since only the gunslinger can snag it dual weapon reload at L1, but everyone else has to dip into another class for it or pick it up at L6 in the archetype. Even if I wanted to say, be a champion with two of these things and utilize draconic barrage, I'm going to struggle to use two of these things until higher levels when I get reload feat support.
The only other class with really good built in damage riders/reload support is the ranger (i.e., precision/gravity weapon, running reload, the remaster crossbow hide+reload).
This archetype is going to be a fun nut to crack. I'm slightly confused by your analysis.
The stat block for the Cresecent Cross says it's a 1 handed weapon, period. Which means it should work fine for any Thaumaturge stuff. The fact that it's also a combination weapon doesn't change anything for the Thaumaturge as far as I can see. And it would work fine with empower implement as well. And to be clear, you say you "think one of the weapon could be regalia" but you're thinking about this the wrong way. It's only 1 weapon. It's not 2 weapons in 1, it's one weapon with 2 modes.
You are right that the reload part of it would be challenging, especially as the Thaumaturge has no reload support but I think any class or archetype would have a problem since it's a 3 action reload, I don't think anything works well with it to cut down on the overall reload time to get back to 3 loaded bolts to do your "big attack" again.
And in the meantime you're stuck with a 1d6 30ft range increment weapon.
ElementalofCuteness wrote: Why reload all 3 barrels? You can do this as a rotation instead.
Crescent Cross Training
Round 1
2 Action - Crescent Spray
1 Action - Reload
Round 2
2 Action - Reload
1 Action - Strike
Round 3
1 Action - Reload
2 Actions - Crescent Spray
This is assuming single Crescent Cross as a Gunslinger. Which is 7 Strikes unless there is something stopping you from reloading 1 barrel then shooting. In that case you just fire both barrels in round 1 & 2 then you're forced to use the d4 melee option unless you constantly reload which, honestly with some of the feats from Gunslinger you might as well do, D6 is slightly better then d4 unless you got +2 Strength then why bother reloading?
Gunslinger spread of +2, +4, +2, +0, +1, +0 would give you 1d4+2 damage with the melee attack over 1d6 of the ranged shot. Wait with your Gunslinger's Precision your shot is 1d6+2. Does this apply to the melee part it isn't clear. So you would still be better off with stuff liek risky reload if you want to maximize damage, if you care about 1d6+2 vs a possible 2-4 Strength modifier, which is 1d4+2-4, which is you start with 3 Strength modifier, you can cap at +4 at level 5 and have your melee deal 1d4+4 which is the same as 1d6+2.
I assume the Class Feature Gunslinger's Precision doesn't apply to the melee mode of Combination weapons, correct?
Also, I don't think this is going to work as well as you might imagine.
Remember, your weapon has 30ft range increment. Meaning you're going to be fairly close to your target. I suppose you could be up to 60ft away in exchange for a -2 attack penalty, which might be worth it with how crescent spray works. That still likely puts you in melee attack range, although whether that means taking 1 attack or multiple depends on the enemy's speed. Either way, now they're in your face...you probably don't want to stand their reloading twice and shooting once. Especially if they have attacks of opportunity, they're going to hit you when you shoot.
That's the draw back of using a 30ft weapon, you are going to have to make sacrifices in order to do this, which is why you would probably do well with Running Reload feat, able to Stride and Reload is going to be a god send in this build. You need to find ways of compressing reload actions. Or just fire once and switch to melee mode and do not worry about the fact that you can use Crescent Spray multiple times in battle and treat it more like a Once per Encounter ability.
Also the Thaumaturge point above was the fact most people are trying to Dual Wield Crescent Cross to get 2 Crescent Sprays without needing to reload basically. It's basically round 1 & 2 unload your Crescent Cross, hope 6 attacks with 0 MAP is enough to kill or maim enough enemies so the fight is basically over. Then you can resort to reloading both of them or switch to melee mode to mop up the rest.
The point of the crescent cross is the magdump, and swapping to a different weapon afterward will typically make more sense than reloading the cc. Even a L bulk Gakgung bow, while still a d6, is way better than reloading the cc. And if you do invest in a reload feat (which runs opposite to the cc build) it's still way better to use another xbow for the backup. If you are sticking to a 30ft range, the alchemical crossbow is hard to beat, but I'd probably first pick something else, to be honest.
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I also still think Rogue is the standout way to go for a cc magdump build.
Invisibility potions instantly grant Hidden in almost all cases, are cheap, and 1A to use. You don't have to burn through these every turn, especially at low level, but whenever off-guard looks tricky otherwise, these should be used liberally. The potion is just an example of a 0 feat investment option to get easy Hidden.
Not only do Rogues get the Sneak Attack bonus damage for each hit, they also get to invoke Debilitating Strikes every time that ability triggers.
This means the mag dump Rogue becomes extremely scary if they take one or two debilitation feats, as you can option select a debilitation per each hit. This includes outright imposing piercing weakness at the start of a dump, tag once with bleed, lower AC via clumsy, etc.
It's veeeery important that rogue debilitations have no setup actions, they just happen each time you proc Sneak Attack.
While you can only have one debilitation active at a time per target, it's easy to imagine how tagging a trio of low AC minions with 3d6 bleed (which isn't a single turn debuff like the others) can make for some crazy high damage turns.
Rogue is also a class that is designed as a skirmisher, close to the melee but not a frontline, which matches the 30ft range of the cc perfectly.
The amount of value they get out of an early turn trio of MAP 0 attacks, especially when Hidden only ends after the full magdump, is high enough that I don't think it's a close call when comparing classes. IMO the Rogue chassis synergizes w/ this cc magdump idea more than any other class chassis.
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Another angle to consider is that buffs to PC / ally rolls syngergize with making more rolls. So buffs (and debuffs!) like Bless and Heroism become even better when placed upon a cc magdump build. We should not only be thinking about bonus damage on hit, but things like foe AC penalties, etc, all gain in value from a flurry of shots.
Claxon wrote: I'm slightly confused by your analysis. The topic of the thread is whether the feat is OP. I think if all you're doing is having a fun alpha strike/mag dump turn on Round 1 that this is balanced. You get to have a single round comparable to a 2H martial at range, but otherwise have to switch weapons, reposition, and use another weapon. You could reload one weapon and fire every round but then your average damage is basically half a 2H melee martials per round which is worse than just using another ranged weapon that fires 2-3 strikes per round.
If that is all you want, then its all fine and balanced and you can get off the train. You don't need to have dual weapon reload to juggle multiple weapons, deal with blazons/doubling rings, etc. You could have a dueling pistol or some other better ranged 1H reload weapon and simply work with that.
However, what is better than 1 round like a 2H melee martial? Its 2 rounds with crescent crosses. So round 1 you mag dump, round 2 you mag dump. But now what. You have 2x1H empty ranged weapons that without the feat sort of suck AND you had to burn a blazon's of shared power to keep your fundamental/property runes shared (otherwise you lose out on accuracy or damage). This is where we can optimize and figure out what to do.
NOTE: I'm assuming you are not playing with ABP, otherwise having an infinite supply preloaded crescent crosses is very easy to achieve (as is being suggested by Trip and others). But WBL makes it nearly impossible to keep two fully runed items specced out without significant implications for other parts of your character (e.g., no skill boosting items, delay in major runes for armour and weapons, no consumables, etc.). So lets just assume that is not attainable.
Now you can go 3 paths: You can either, try to reload one of the two weapons and use crescent spray another time, you can switch off to a melee weapon via doubling rings since you can't have multiple blazons of shared power on a single weapon, or you can accept a crappy 1d4 STR knife melee mode of the crescent cross.
Path 1:
Acknowledging that you had 2 spare actions in the past two mag dump turns that you could have used reload action compressions (think running reload or or special gunslinger reloads like demoralize + reload for a pistelero or melee strike + reload for a drifter). That means if you started in range you could mag dump a 3rd round since you'll have 3 spare actions across 3 rounds to reload one crescent cross. At this point, you're probably stuck doing crescent spray every other turn or using the reload + strike feat for a cooldown round + 2 more reloads. If you had to do something weird with the round 1 action, then you're probably still getting a 3rd crescent spray in round 4.
Path 2:
You end up dropping a secondary blazon's of shared power weapon onto the ground (not great in many combats) as a free action so you could free action draw your melee finesse weapon (so if you don't need finesse then just use the melee part of your combination weapons). OR you could use one action for the new weapon exchange action to sheath a crescent cross and draw the new weapon and another painful action to switch the primary blazons of shared power from ranged to melee mode. However, you probably also need to move (so running reload) which leaves you with either a no attack round OR a static turn with one reload+strike (then swapping to melee/drawing your melee weapon).
If your a gunslinger you probably are using a triggerbrand or piercing wind so you still have +2 to hit and are still using a finesse melee weapon. If you're any other martial you're probably using a dogslicer so you're stuck with a 1d6 weapon in the other hand. You could use a bladed gauntlet as the only finesse free-hand weapon (to otherwise avoid the action burn if you drop your secondary crescent cross similar to L7+ with a retrieval belt). On subsequent turns you can probably use stab and blast at L8+ to slowly reload your crescent cross back to full and do another crescent spray 2-3 rounds later if combat isn't over by then.
Path 3:
Go 18 DEX, 16 STR and accept your crappy crescent cross melee mode after your ammo is all gone. Personally I want my accuracy at maximum values, but I will recognize that this is probably very easy to do and accept as your fate. For a gunslinger you'll still be +2 to hit with the combination weapon which can make up for L1-L4 and L10-L15 and L17+ where your STR will be behind by 1 from dex if you're investing STR at every attribute bump level.
Comparison:
So path 1 has a HUGE benefit, which is you don't need any STR investment what so ever because you don't plan to ever use melee. That means you can have better face/int skills (probably picking one over the other) and put into DEX/CON/WIS/INT or CHA. You avoid the cost of doubling rings and upgrading them. However, this path is most viable for the gunslinger because you need a wide and varied reload compression feats to avoid having really dead off turns past round 2-3. Personally I think this path is better. because you're going to be able to crescent spray 3 times in the first 4 rounds with poor performance after that (this is really only doable by the gunslinger and maybe the ranger until much higher levels due to reload support). Otherwise it is more like 2 crescent sprays in R1/R2 and then 1 crescent spray every other round with really bad off rounds.
Path 2 makes you very flexible, but ties up your WBL in both blazons of shared power and doubling rings and I heavily suspect you'll run into hand issues trying to keep things in the right mode at the right time and burn up late combat actions doing next to nothing because you're trying to get things in the right spot.
Path 3, much to my dismay is probably viable. But you need to be heavily investing in STR. The opportunity cost of that vs. Path 1 is very steep. You could be costing yourself up to 7 stat boosts in other stats (if you have an 8 STR ancestry vs. trying to start 16 and drive it to STR 20 by L15.
Summary:
Is it overpowered. In most cases the answer is no. It puts damage up front in combat, which is nice and of greater benefit, but you're on par with a melee martial at range for 1-2 rounds then a crappy archer from then on and it'll balance out over a 4-5 round combat.
If everything comes together though, I can squeeze out a 3rd round of crescent spray which makes it a strong option, but not OP for longer 5-7 round combats. This isn't some kind of true strike amped imaginary weapon alpha strike option.
Preloading with poisoned bolts does shift damage higher in both cases, but you can't 'do that forever' in an adventuring day by any means. You also will run into a lot of poison resistance/immunity that completely negates it (e.g., there are like 2-3x as many poison immune creatures as there are fire immune creatures). So I'm going to choose to ignore this since so many creatures are just outright immune and you'll likely end up wasting most of your preloaded bolts.
Okay, what about something crazy with Shadow Sheathe? If you put a loaded Dagger Pistol into a Shadow Sheathe (possible because the melee mode has Thrown), and you draw, switch modes, fire, then draw a new copy of the Dagger Pistol from the Shadow Sheathe, is the copy loaded?
If yes, then it works with Crescent Cross in a similar way: make the knife half of the Crescent Cross your Gleaming Blade, take Hurl at the Horizon so it gains the thrown trait, which means it qualifies to be put inside a Shadow Sheathe. Then you can draw it for free, switch to ranged mode for one action, then use Crescent Cross Training.
For this to work, you have to keep your spark in the Gleaming Blade I guess, otherwise your Crescent Cross loses the thrown trait. But this way you can get infinite uses of Crescent Cross Training as a three action activity. Maybe usable at level 10 with Exemplar dedication and two ikons. Or give up Transcendence as a Exemplar, which seems bad.
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I'm not sure the RAW, but obviously that's munchkiny and I don't think reasonable GMs should consider allowing such shenanigans.
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queuebay wrote: Okay, what about something crazy with Shadow Sheathe? If you put a loaded Dagger Pistol into a Shadow Sheathe (possible because the melee mode has Thrown), and you draw, switch modes, fire, then draw a new copy of the Dagger Pistol from the Shadow Sheathe, is the copy loaded?
If yes, then it works with Crescent Cross in a similar way: make the knife half of the Crescent Cross your Gleaming Blade, take Hurl at the Horizon so it gains the thrown trait, which means it qualifies to be put inside a Shadow Sheathe. Then you can draw it for free, switch to ranged mode for one action, then use Crescent Cross Training.
For this to work, you have to keep your spark in the Gleaming Blade I guess, otherwise your Crescent Cross loses the thrown trait. But this way you can get infinite uses of Crescent Cross Training as a three action activity. Maybe usable at level 10 with Exemplar dedication and two ikons. Or give up Transcendence as a Exemplar, which seems bad.
You almost had it, it still works but not in the way you think. Drawing a weapon from the sheathe as a free action is part of it's Immanence effect, and as you pointed out, the spark has to be in your Crescent Cross for this combo to work. Meaning that while the sheathe does give you infinite copies of the Crescent Cross to draw (because that's just part of the sheathe's general effect), you still need to spend actions to draw it, so this combo doesn't work.
However, the Crescent Spray action lets you switch mode as a free action before firing so this still works out fine, assuming you jump through all the hoops.
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