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I want to say, I really like the concept of the consecrated Panoply. The idea that your signature gear might not be your main weapon but this eclectic knick knacks of holy relics and sidearms. I do think the fact that it does feel overshadowed by the BloodSeeking blade. The weapons it provides are neat but as a sidearm it's inherently situational and going to come up less than the Bloodseeking blade and that feels bad.
For one Bloodseeking blade kind of does having a sidearm better than the Consecrated Panoply. By taken a first level feat you can basically have two permanent more powerful and appropriately geared weapon, with different damage types.
But let's say if we don't want to include feats. The Bloodseeking blade ignores some resistance, gets easy ways to access weaknesses via trophies and can even get the shifting rune for free at level 7, making it far superior at doing what a side arm is supposed to do, deal with weaknesses and resistance your main weapon can't do.
I personally think the 4th level feat that lets you add more weapon types should just be an aspect of the Panoply, expand on the damage types and materials you can have access too, because I think that could help make it shine more.
I'm gonna try and do some testing. But I think leaning into the idea of this is your bag of stakes and other small things to finish off vampires or deal with werewolves is really gonna be nessecary if you want *side gear*, to truly shine.
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Personally I wonder what the Consecrated Panopoly is supposed to be.
as in what is the intended fantasy here?
Bloodseeking blade is obvious, all in on damage.
Warded Mail is about defense
Chymist's Phials are about utlity and alchemy.
But the Panopoly? light weapons? thrown weapons? but it's basic ability is protective and boosting saving throws.
I think, especially if they don't do anything more with those spikes, they should make the Slayer's Tricks tied to the Panopoly explicitly. Chymists Phials have tons of options to add more tools, and the Bloodseeking blade does too.
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Personally I wonder what the Consecrated Panopoly is supposed to be.
as in what is the intended fantasy here?
I sort of read it as like, a Vampire Hunter's bandolier of holy symbols and wooden stakes. I do agree its benefits are a bit restrictive and specific.
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That makes sense, but all of it's abilities are just so... situational. it is a terrible weapon to use until level 7, at which point it becomes just a bad one.
Agreed. I like the flavor, but the mechanics need a massive buff. Shooting daggers out of a crossbow is objectively cool, but they should get the benefits of the crossbows property runes bare minimum.
I recall Trevor throwing a bunch of daggers in the Castlevania Netflix show so I think they probably took it from there? That also explains why its sanctified.
The description of the item made me think like, this was the thaumatuge-adjacent setup (as opposed to the alchemist-y one or the weaponmastery/pf1 ranger one), but the action just doesn't really make a lot of sense to me.
Having a backup weapon always on hand is kind of neat, but daggers are low damage an their throwing increment is really low.
The castlevania subweapon vibe is kind of fun, but they don't have the range or damage or utility to really work like that.
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The specializations feel really weak in all tools honestly. Bloodseeking blade is critical specialization plus an okay-ish rune, chymists' vials reduces the cooldown of two lackluster abilities, and panoply should probably just allow you to use your weapon's runes from the get go instead of being that being the specialization. Warded mail is the only good one, and I still think its fairly mid if I'm being totally honest.
First thing the Panoply made me think of was some of the Church characters in the Fate and Tsukihime setting. A number of characters from those series are holy warriors/assassins of the Church bent on hunting down Vampires and other monsters, who have Holy Nails, that really just look like swords, that they throw. A specific Church member also wears a nun habit kind of garment that I believe provides protective properties that they can remove and turn into a gun? spike throwing crossbow? spike throwing railgun? Some kind of holy weapon that I believe launches the holy nails quickly.
There is also Alexander Anderson from Hellsing/Hellsing Ultimate who uses/throws presumably holy bayonet blades as he fights vampires.
At least some vampire hunters in Castlevania and similar properties also seem to throw holy knives.
I do wish there was a way to increase the damage of the weapons in some way, the ability to apply runes to the Panoply, use the runes of the crossbow, add extra holy? damage to each hit, an ability similar to what the Cleric/Warpriest or Exemplar has that increases the damage of basic weapons.
One benefit of these spikes is that you can throw one for free with the quickened action from On the Hunt.
At the moment Consecrated Panoply seems useless. Slayer gets no inherent damage booster like Fighter's accuracy, Barbarian's Rage, or Thaumaturge's everything. Bloodseeking Blade fulfils this role nicely, especially with Paired Bloodseeker letting you trigger 1d6 to 3d6 additional damage on the first Strike and 1d4 to 3d4 damage on the second Strike, which is decently powerful and independent of Quarry; not to mention that Bloodseeking Blade gets the easiest advanced weapon access in the game, unlocking something like a falcata.
In contrast, Panoply's spikes are restricted to a d6 weapon die at most with a level 4 feat required to buff them from daggers, with an extremely delayed progression, no inherent damage boost, and no ability to boost them with property runes. The bonus to saves is nice to have, but limited to your Quarry (which you won't always get the opportunity to mark, and it's usually 1 creature per encounter at most) or highly specific creatures, so it's a much more niche benefit than Bloodseeking Blade's. And the spikes are incredibly, incredibly weak. At 6th level, where a Thaumaturge throws a 2d8+4+4+(weakness) trident, you throw a 1d6+4 club. At 19th level, where a Thaumaturge throws a 4d8+2d6(damage runes + returning)+5+8+6+(weakness) trident, you throw a 4d6+5+6 club. It's nothing in comparison, and meanwhile Bloodseeking Blade Slayers get to destroy enemies with their chosen weapon.
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The other tangible benefit I can see is that it's a free action to draw a spike when striking with one which is at least somewhat useful.
I think this could be solved pretty easily. The rune situation is unfortunate and they ought to share runes with a weapon in your hands and be given a better specialization effect. A new reinforcement effect could also go a long way towards making this option more appealing. Perhaps an increased range or additional damage when triggering weaknesses
They do have an option for increased range, though it costs a level 1 feat (and gives you Reload, bleh). But being able to make unlimited Thrown Dagger attacks from as far as 200 feet away for the cost of 7 gold (for a Sukgung) is fun. Even more fun when you're shooting clubs at people 200 feet away. Is it the best attack in the world? Definitely not. But it is infinite, and you don't even have to pay or your Potency and Striking Runes (if you're okay with not having Property runes).
I think Consecrated Panoply really has to go down the Crossbow Slayer path. You use the spikes stats except to use the crossbow's range number for it's Thrown number so it retains its Str damage bonus which helps make up for it's lower damage. This lets you put runes on the crossbow solving that problem. Then you can take Expansive Panoply to use Club, Dart or Shortsword stats.
So you could use a Sukgung 1d8 P, Fatal Aim d12, Range 200 ft for normal attacks and can instead deal 1d4 P + Str, 1d4 S + Str or 1d6 B + Str [for triggering physical weaknesses] plus is Holy/Unholy and Silver/Cold Iron or Adamantine. Seems pretty versatile. Vicious Spike also doesn't care about die size.
And then if you're going down that route also pick up the Bloodburst Phial so you can open the fight with that thing's absurd Persistent Damage (12d6 Bleed + 12 Splash Bleed is insane, before getting into the Reinforce and Upgrade) from those 200 feet away, then start plinking them with your ballistic clubs that deal guaranteed damage unless you crit fail.
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There is no way Bloodburst Phial isn't a mistake of some sort, right?
Once per 10 minute abilities are pretty comparable to Focus Spells.
If it wasn't persistent it would be comparable to a strong Focus spell like Fire Ray. (14d6 at level 14 plus set the ground on fire for 7d6 Dot)(I admit, when I first read it I thought it was a typo tho)
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So, IF we re going to retain the spikes (which is weirdly unrelated to the flavor of the panoply) I would say that since they are unique thrown weapons, tie them to handwraps. add runes that way, then make their Specialized Arsenal be that your spikes automatically trigger a weakness the enemy has, and if they don't have one, they gain a weakness to holy equal to the number of damage dice.
Yeah, I was interested in consecrated panoply because of the flavor, but it seems very weak.
And I feel like it (and probably the other tools) need more abilities tied to the trophies.
We have this cool mechanic, with lots of bookkeeping, but it doesn’t do much.
And since the feats are mostly tied to what tool you pick (crossbow slayer), I feel like those abilities can be moved to the tool section, leaving feats that are more general and tied to the trophies.
The slayer is very similar to the monster hunter that Battlezoo put out, which was very long and complex, but this feels over simplified.
I think the slayer needs to be somewhere in between.
With more easy, fun trophy related abilities.