Pathfinder - What are your thoughts on third party feats? For example Martial Stirke

[Emparawr]

So I have two questions here.

1) How many of you as GMs every allow the use of third party material hosted on D20PFSRD? Now I dont mean the pathfinder community, made by some bored dude in has basement in Iowa to make his build more powerful stuff, I mean the made by actual small publishers like Kobold Press etc material. Does anybody actually ever allow its use? Thoughts?

2) I do have on particular example that I am curious to have thoughts on its brokenness/non-brokenness, and that feat is called Martial Strike (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/3rd-party-feats/tripod-machine/combat-feats---3rd-party---tripod-machine/martial-strike-combat).

Having the damage progression of a Monk on your unarmed strikes without actually being a monk could be a very significant damage boost. However on the flip side, unarmed strikes arent exactly very good except under the best of circumstances and builds. Even just the limitations of the only way to get both unarmed damage and weapon enhancements being the insanely expensive Amulet of Mighty fists (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/a-b/amulet-of-mighty-fists) or the unimpressive Body Wrap of Mighty Strike (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/a-b/body-wrap-of-mighty-strikes) aren't terribly inspiring power wise.

I am very very interested to hear opinions on both of these points so thank you in advance for any input.

[TheIronGolem]

For #1, it's case-by-case for me. If it looks reasonably well-designed, I'll usually okay it. Especially since a lot of martial concepts are better done in third-party; compare Adamant Entertainment's Swashbuckler with Paizo's.

Regarding #2, I see no reason why monks need to have a monopoly on decent unarmed damage (or even a shared duopoly with Brawlers). There's precedent in first-party material for non-monks having monk-like damage via the Ninja's Unarmed Combat Mastery trick.

On a side note, the feat you link is not very well written. It has no provision for interacting with actual monk levels. In fact, a single-class monk could actually take this feat and reduce their unarmed damage.

[Flickerdart]

Spending two feats to get nearly as much damage as a Monk? I'm pretty sure I have better uses for feats than that.

[Snowbluff]

I'd allow it, but it's not particularly impressive. The above complaints are valid.

One thing to keep in mind with unarmed damage is that it scales well with size bonuses and feats like improved natural attack. Of course, dealing damage isn't something I'd consider broken.

[Vortenger]

I'd allow it, but it's not particularly impressive. The above complaints are valid.

One thing to keep in mind with unarmed damage is that it scales well with size bonuses and feats like improved natural attack. Of course, dealing damage isn't something I'd consider broken.

IN PF you cannot take INA: unarmed strike. The feat calls this out specifically. If playing in 3.P, there's always the Fanged Ring from Dragon Magic.

[Snowbluff]

IN PF you cannot take INA: unarmed strike. The feat calls this out specifically. If playing in 3.P, there's always the Fanged Ring from Dragon Magic.
For shame. :smallsigh:

I guess the Fanged Ring works because it's specific, right? It is a 3.5 item, IIRC.

[Emparawr]

All valid points. Well here is the situation.

I have a player with a Roc animal companion. He spent the first ability score increase on raising its Int to +3, which means that it can take any feats for which it meets the prerequisites. He had an idea that I particularly really enjoy, of giving his Roc Imporved Natural Attack and then follow up with two weapon fighting feats. I wasn't able to find anything that would contradict this idea in the rules and since he isnt asking to use it Talons (a natural weapon) to perform Unarmed Attacks, which would in fact be against the rules, but wants the Roc to make unarmed strikes with his wings since unarmed strikes can be made with parts of the body other than hands (Roc Fu), I cant see any reason to disallow it as it works by raw as far as I can tell and personally I think its bad ass and friggin hillarious.

While helping him with researching the builds legality and whatnot, the one thing we noticed is the damage is just terrible. A huge sized Roc doing 1d8 per strike is really really low. As is his crit multiplier is only 20/x2 just like his natural attacks, but nowhere near as good as actual weapons, and the only way to get weapon enhancements on him is the overpriced Amulet of Mighty fists. So after some looking around he came across this feat. I know that 3.5 Tome of Battle had a feat called Superior Unarmed Strike that did essentially the same thing so it seems fairly balanced. I am leaning towards ruling it as being fair but it is close enough that I still wanna hear some more opinions.

[Snowbluff]

YEah, if the Roc is already huge, it might be good if HD counts as character level in your games (AFB). It should give a healthy bump to the die size.

Keep in mind that using the Unarmed Attacks will make the talons secondary attacks.

[Emparawr]

YEah, if the Roc is already huge, it might be good if HD counts as character level in your games (AFB). It should give a healthy bump to the die size.

Keep in mind that using the Unarmed Attacks will make the talons secondary attacks.

Yeah I already made sure that he knew that whenever you combine manufactured iterative attacks, including unarmed, with Natural Attacks it makes all your natural attacks secondary which means -5 to attack and .5 str to damage instead of full. Unless you take multiattack which of course he is which makes the attack penalty only -2 but you still only do half str damage. I think it will be worth it though to gain 6 extra attacks by the end of his progression (3 iterative UA attacks, 2 Extra TWF attacks, and 1 Rend). We had toyed around with trying to get him some style feats to emphasize the Roc Fu even more but its just way too heavy of a feat tree to get to the good stuff, so instead this progression just gets him more attacks and fluff wise we are treating it like a Roc who does martial arts in his own fashion. Right now the build is something like

lvl1 Multiattack and Alertness (From the Bodyguard AC archetype)
lvl3 Improved Unarmed Attack
lvl5 Two Weapon Fighting
lvl8 Combat Reflexes
lvl10 Improved Two Weapon Fighting
lvl13 Double Slice (because im pretty sure only monks get the full str bonus to their extra unarmed attacks but if anyone has more info on that please do tell)
lvl16 Power Attack
lvl18 Two Weapon Rend (because it is like an extra attack, like greater two weapon fighting would give, but instead of an extra attack at your -1BAB, it hits as long as you hit with two of your other unarmed attacks and does 1.5 times str damage)

[Emparawr]

and yeah I planned on using his HD as his character level for the use of the feat if I decide it is indeed balanced. Martial strike would likely replace Power Strike on the feat progression.

[StreamOfTheSky]

It depends on the 3rd party, but a lot of it is better balanced and designed than paizo's own work, especially DSP and Tripod Machine's works.

I would totally allow 3rd party in a PF game I ran...if I ran PF games. I'd rather just run 3E, where the martials get nice things w/o needing to dig through 3rd party, and I can just ban or nerf the obvious broken caster abilities.

RE: Monks and no INA - PF really hates monks, that's far from the only thing they could do in 3E that they can't in PF.

[Emparawr]

True enough. Ive never tried to put together a straight Monk build. I do find them exceedingly useful for 1 or a few level dips on certain builds though. 4 levels of Zen Archer Monk was devestating in a Soulbolt build I built at one point. I think what im going to do is allow my player to use the 3.5 feat from Tome of Battle that does the same thing as this Martial Strike feat but is written better. I posted this question on the Paizo forums as well and did not seem to find anyone who thought that this would be unbalanced. Roc Fu style Martial Arts Roc, here we come lol.

[Coidzor]

IN PF you cannot take INA: unarmed strike. The feat calls this out specifically. If playing in 3.P, there's always the Fanged Ring from Dragon Magic.

If playing in 3.P there's the precedent of Superior Unarmed Strike so there's no question about whether Martial Strike is OP.

Granted, just knowing about Superior Unarmed Strike at all even without using 3.5 material in a PF game would answer the question as to whether Martial Strike is OP.

[Psyren]

@ Martial Strike - generally the classes that you want to be attacking unarmed have ways to make it better already, and this feat isn't needed.


the insanely expensive Amulet of Mighty fists (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/a-b/amulet-of-mighty-fists)

FYI the price was errata'ed to be cheaper, so it's not as bad as it was.



RE: Monks and no INA - PF really hates monks, that's far from the only thing they could do in 3E that they can't in PF.

Yeah, they hate them so much they got pounce in the last book.

[Emparawr]

Yeah, they hate them so much they got pounce in the last book.

What book was this? Because I have got to hear about this now.

[ghanjrho]

What book was this? Because I have got to hear about this now.

Advanced Class Guide. The feat(s) in question being Pummeling Style and Pummeling Charge.

[Emparawr]

Ahh yes. I had forgotten about that one. Very nice upgrade for Monks. Not so good for a monk dip because of the Unarmed only restriction but that's not what it was designed for. It would work well for this Animal Companion Roc Fu guy if the strike could include Natural attacks as well as UA but they are different sadly. Its ok though, hes gonna be plenty neat enough as is I think.

[Psyren]

Martial Versatility (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/racial-feats/martial-versatility-combat-human) lets you use Pummeling Style with natural attacks (as well as other close or monk weapons), if you are human or otherwise able to take human feats (e.g. half-orc.)

[Coidzor]

Martial Versatility (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/racial-feats/martial-versatility-combat-human) lets you use Pummeling Style with natural attacks (as well as other close or monk weapons), if you are human or otherwise able to take human feats (e.g. half-orc.)

Only humans, those guys who get nothing in the way of natural weapons unless they take a class that will let them get natural weapons are able to use natural weapons with their flurries. That seems less than useful, especially with the system overtly frowning on multiclassing so going into Ranger for some claws or whatever would be against their design philosophy. Ok, humans and half-orcs, who can get a single bite attack from one of three or four traits, racial feats, or alternate racial traits.

Is there a way to count as human when you're a Roc?

[Psyren]

Only humans, those guys who get nothing in the way of natural weapons unless they take a class that will let them get natural weapons are able to use natural weapons with their flurries.

1) I did say "if you are human" you know :smalltongue:
2) There are non-humans who (a) qualify for human-only feats and (b) can get natural attacks without dipping. (e.g. Half-orcs with Toothy.)

There's probably a way to use Racial Heritage to get a natural attack too though I'm too lazy to dig through all the racial feats.


Is there a way to count as human when you're a Roc?

None that I know of, and rocs with style feats are probably going to earn the guy a CRB upside the head anyway.

[MilesTiden]

Only humans, those guys who get nothing in the way of natural weapons unless they take a class that will let them get natural weapons are able to use natural weapons with their flurries. That seems less than useful, especially with the system overtly frowning on multiclassing so going into Ranger for some claws or whatever would be against their design philosophy. Ok, humans and half-orcs, who can get a single bite attack from one of three or four traits, racial feats, or alternate racial traits.

Is there a way to count as human when you're a Roc?

*ahem* (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/feral-combat-training-combat)

If you want something more relevant to the situation at hand, this feat is a lot more useful, at least for this specific situation, than Martial Versatility.

[Snowbluff]

*ahem* (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/feral-combat-training-combat)

If you want something more relevant to the situation at hand, this feat is a lot more useful, at least for this specific situation, than Martial Versatility.

This, pretty much.

Perhaps as an alternative to slam pummel synthesist... pummel strongjaw flurry stegosaurus druid?

[Coidzor]

1) I did say "if you are human" you know :smalltongue:
2) There are non-humans who (a) qualify for human-only feats and (b) can get natural attacks without dipping. (e.g. Half-orcs with Toothy.)

There's probably a way to use Racial Heritage to get a natural attack too though I'm too lazy to dig through all the racial feats.

Yes, I was pointing out that the only way to do so being an unintended consequence of a human-only feat did not bode well. And also is thematically silly, as humans and even half-orcs have to deliberately do something to deviate from the basline creature in order to have a natural attack in the first place. Even if that something is selecting what kind of half-orc they wanted to be before they existed.

Are there any human-enough races that can get natural attacks other than half-orcs aside from the Racial Heritage potentiality?


None that I know of, and rocs with style feats are probably going to earn the guy a CRB upside the head anyway.

Hey now, we don't know that. :smalltongue: I mean, sure, the PF devs would be spinning in their graves just from the idea being mentioned if, y'know, they had graves.


*ahem* (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/feral-combat-training-combat)

If you want something more relevant to the situation at hand, this feat is a lot more useful, at least for this specific situation, than Martial Versatility.

I'm not sure why you're *aheming* at me, Psyren's the one who brought up Martial Versatility as a solution here unless I missed a post. :smallconfused:


The feat does not allow you to make your normal flurry of blows attack sequence plus one or more natural attacks with the natural weapon. In other words, if you can flurry for four attacks per round, with this feat you still only make four attacks per round... but any number of those attacks may be with the selected natural weapon.

Doesn't the sidebar kinda completely invalidate its usefulness? I mean, I guess this would allow one to make iterative attacks with the talons as long as one was able to flurry. Is there a way to get flurry of blows on a non-monk and have them count as a monk for purposes of feats?

Edit: I think I may have crossed a wire here somewhere, actually.

[Emparawr]

Ehh I like my gamers to run powerful characters. As long as they arent outright ignoring story for it. I like them strong and creative in their use of the rules to become titans, but it all needs to have a real and believable story to go along with it. Balance isnt just for rules :)

So yeah, I am encouraging the hell out of this Martial Arts Roc, because it makes me laugh, its a super fun fluff idea, and it shows some serious creativity with the rules, however doesnt actually break any of them in any way. I love it when they come up with things that I have never seen before or even thought of.

Downside of Feral Combat Training is you have to take it once for every single natural attack you have. Unless you have a super specific ability that you only need to use on one natural attacks it isnt really very useful.

[Ssalarn]

So I have two questions here.

1) How many of you as GMs every allow the use of third party material hosted on D20PFSRD? Now I dont mean the pathfinder community, made by some bored dude in has basement in Iowa to make his build more powerful stuff, I mean the made by actual small publishers like Kobold Press etc material. Does anybody actually ever allow its use? Thoughts?

2) I do have on particular example that I am curious to have thoughts on its brokenness/non-brokenness, and that feat is called Martial Strike (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/3rd-party-feats/tripod-machine/combat-feats---3rd-party---tripod-machine/martial-strike-combat).

Having the damage progression of a Monk on your unarmed strikes without actually being a monk could be a very significant damage boost. However on the flip side, unarmed strikes arent exactly very good except under the best of circumstances and builds. Even just the limitations of the only way to get both unarmed damage and weapon enhancements being the insanely expensive Amulet of Mighty fists (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/a-b/amulet-of-mighty-fists) or the unimpressive Body Wrap of Mighty Strike (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/a-b/body-wrap-of-mighty-strikes) aren't terribly inspiring power wise.

I am very very interested to hear opinions on both of these points so thank you in advance for any input.

1) I do. And it was actually a hard transition for me as 3/3.5 had taught me that 3pp could not be trusted to make balanced material if their life depended on it. But, some really amazing 3pp companies kind of opened the door for me and now there are many that I allow in my games, most just as readily (if not more so) as materials from the CRB. Rogue Genius Games, Rite Publishing, Kobold Press, Dreamscarred Press, Amora Games, Legendary Games, and probably as many more that I'm forgetting at the moment have all really expanded the game we play and made it much more fun and interesting.

2) I'm not as familiar with Tripod Games, but the feat does sound like it's on the outside edge of balanced. Both Paizo and Dreamscarred Press introduced mechanics that improved unarmed damage and neither actually granted the Monk's full progression. That feat could actually be very, very potent on the right build; combined with the Pummeling Style feats you could potentially be dealing absolutely ludicrous amounts of damage as a Fighter, Barbarian, Cavalier, or Paladin who chooses to fight unarmed.

Unarmed strikes aren't actually as bad as all that; scaling up to 2d10 base damage can get really nasty with the right feats. An Impact AoMF gets you up to 4d8 base damage, and a size boost like enlarge person pops that up further to (if I recall correctly) 8d6. If you use strong jaw in place of Impact, you're at 16d6. Pummeling charge with that damage and you're somewhere in the realm of 112d6 (assuming TWF) before counting in your upwards of 7x STR, Power Attack, enhancement bonuses, etc. Lord forbid you get a single crit and multiply all of that. And you have the added benefit of never being sundered, disarmed, or otherwise deprived of your weapon.