Aptitude

[Irk]

Is aptitude really broken? I hear a lot of people talking about the RAI of it, but can it be used in the sorta cheesy way that a lot of people do? I just wanted conformation of this.

I guess an example a lot of people do for crit fishing is aptitude and lightning maces for 'lightning scimitars,' which might not work RAI, but should work RAW... right?

[Larkas]

Nothing that mostly makes mundane characters stronger in 3.X is inherently "broken". Yes, aptitude seems to be used in very much unintended ways. That isn't nearly enough to throw the game off-balance.

...Eh, at least not as much as any of the core full casters natively, for example.

[Platymus Pus]

Ok, I automatically unload 588 bullets into my chest this next turn.

(2352d6+14112)[22378]

And I reflect it to myself, giving myself a total of 44756 damage :smallbiggrin:

I dunno you tell me :smalleek:

[tyckspoon]

RAW, yes, it works - you can use it for getting Lightning Maces to work with weapons that actually have decent crit abilities and applying Hand Crossbow Focus to Great Crossbows (I'm not sure there are any other notable feats, considering it has to specify just one kind of weapon.) RAI, it was probably meant to mirror the Warblade's class feature that lets you swap around things like Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization.. but since that is kind of useless and the other way actually lets some cool feats/weapons be *usable*, I'm ok with the RAW uses.

[John Longarrow]

As a DM, I tend to read the feat very literally when dealing with Weapon Style feats.

Weapon Style feats do not apply to weapons. They apply when the condition is met. This means if you have spinning halberd, you only get the benefit when making a full round attack with a Halberd. Doesn't apply if you are dual wielding daggers or wielding a staff. Same with weapon and Torch for dazzling enemies, or getting the benefit from lightning maces. Both of these are triggered when a specific criteria is met, not just on the just the weapon.

For weapon focus, as it doesn't have a specific criteria, great. Of course if you retrain weapon focus, you can't use weapon spec unless it goes for the same weapon (Spec depends on Focus). I am sure there are others with a different view on here, but this is how I've always dealt with it.

[Hamste]

I dunno you tell me :smalleek:

Of course that was in a scenario where the person critted everytime. It can be powerful particularly with feats like lightning mace but I don't think it is that bad.

[DogbertLinc]

The thing with the weapon style feats is that Aptitude basically replaces the specific weapon conditions in the text with the Aptitude Weapon in question.

Other good uses are using a Necklace of Natural Attacks to to replace "unarmed strike" with Eldritch Claws in the Eldritch Claws feat (same for beaststrike)


And for replacing "arrows" with whatever you want in Manyshot. (I can't even fathom how this would actually work, don't ask me)


Boomerang Daze and Ricochet are pretty famous too.

[Platymus Pus]

Of course that was in a scenario where the person critted everytime. It can be powerful particularly with feats like lightning mace but I don't think it is that bad.
Make someone pick it up and then use a spell that forces a crit every time on the person.

[John Longarrow]

DogbirtLinc,

If it did just change out the weapons, the if you had sword and torch, you could trade out the torch for a bastard sword and claim it could light targets on fire. Likewise with spinning halberd you could hit with the staff portion of your dagger(s).

For a lot of feats I can see aptitude working as "Replace weapon X with weapon Y", but the weapon style feats only come in play when specific conditions are met. I personally think the weapon style feats are generally worthless, but changing some of the weapon requirements could really cause them to be out of whack. lightning maces is the one most often cited.