[Dreamscarred Press] Path of War: Expanded! (Discussion Thread VI)

[ErrantX]

The Path of War continues onward!

Within the pages of this tome, your options for martial characters more than double! Within Path of War Expanded you will find more maneuvers, stances, and feats for your existing martial disciples as well as a host of new options! There are new classes, archetypes, martial traditions, and even the new class template that provides a way to use a single archetype for different character classes.

Within Path of War Expanded, you will find:


Three new base classes, from the ill-omened harbinger, to the psychic zealot, and finally the arcane mystic who all mix supernatural elements into their martial combat styles.
Nine new martial disciplines
A host of archetypes for the three classes from Path of War and the three new classes
Martial archetypes for core classes
Class templates, which provides archetypes that work across multiple classes
Martial style feats
More martial traditions


And new and optional rules and clarifications to martial combat that will take your martial characters to a whole new level!
Come and enjoy the spoils of battle with Path of War Expanded!

Table of Contents for the project:

- The Harbinger (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HCtvRArIRPjcClMf5KVJrDBrkV_gBoaVFuvwA4CmCew/edit?usp=sharing), a melee control class that uses superior mobility and crippling status effects to command the battlefield. These warriors understand grief and anger on a personal level and translate that understanding into deadly curses and reality-warping swordplay. Harbinger also has two archetypes (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EsgZxSmnr9mwAeZRxHdxZSAS95QeUI0RWQ3F7nm4j38/edit?usp=sharing) available in beta. The Crimson Countess emphasizes the Claim mechanic to take her rage out on her victims, while the Ravenlord creates a shadowy servant that aids him in battle. A new archetype, the Bleak Emissary (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tWC_OmiI7QPgDccfQ9m908-537ee4eW2MboJ7suxO5M/edit?usp=sharing), is available for beta testing. The Omen Rider (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iKpNQL2Ou5CA_i0h3p4hEN_xirU4n1ppbKNdsoPtisA/edit?usp=sharing) archetype, a mounted warrior archetype, is available for beta testing. Harbinger introduces two new disciplines: Cursed Razor and Shattered Mirror

- The Zealot (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-cjJab5iFO8kTSYuIJnqyLa8QnYrH04WhSG1AwvsN28/edit?usp=sharing), a psionic guardian who leads his party into battle with the power of his passions and their own collective bond. These psionic initiators augment their maneuvers with power points and aid their party members with telepathy. Zealot introduces the Eternal Guardian and Sleeping Goddess disciplines. Zealot archetypes are found within this document.

- The Mystic (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AtQz8XFrmiBFJxjcatyiodJjo3FebF-WzFOh3XfEDtQ/edit?usp=sharing), a melee support class that uses unstable arcane energies to unleash beneficial magic on his allies and scourge his enemies with the power of the elements. Mystics are founts of energy that they vent through martial discipline and intuition rather than through spells. Mystic will introduce the Elemental Flux and Riven Hourglass disciplines. Mystic archetypes are found at the bottom of the document.

But wait, there's more!

- Dreamscarred Press is happy to announce Class Templates, archetypes that can be applied to more than one class. Class Templates represent ideas too broad for a single-class archetype, letting you create very different versions of the same somewhat broad idea. The three introduced in Path of War Expanded are the Bushi, Privateer, and Hussar (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hHsiSKoL2nR4oWgzPKQwXfqYENuNkDmBiX323SlTPfc/edit?usp=sharing), for all of your samurai, pirate, and mounted warrior needs. At the end of the document you'll find the Mithral Current discipline as well.

Discipline List! (in no particular order)

- The Eternal Guardian (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WdfoLifFCU3dkjiS1hYF7pJM-uFh1RosWShx5vRo9wM/edit?usp=sharing) discipline

-The Sleeping Goddess (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cSrQNi5Fu0JnXsfe3MrooaZZOFS03vGO3Xw1ayo0LTk/edit?usp=Sharing) discipline

- The Cursed Razor (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vupG0mfOE8yU3NwaddxfnRhZ4PiWsLz-ANVkQ8KJftA/edit?usp=sharing) discipline

- The Shattered Mirror (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1A5i_oxGQJUIhIolHf8IMQF9Q6BsuMtKOr6szdvJv5FY/edit?usp=sharing) discipline

- The Mithral Current (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dKCPPIpRoR9CZv0A35gLDnXl5itgRufjWTq83BIsMfs/edit?usp=sharing) discipline

- The Riven Hourglass (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rmHuI_JcLiDJ2_g0jyrP0lQ1a8wyXh-yL4-3njLpnZk/edit) discipline, available for open beta.

- The Elemental Flux discipline (https://docs.google.com/document/d/14BiQj1sEeeEH0Nbyiyf-o0Kg4N5uDM5XwwqeWOJ21dI/edit?usp=sharing) is available for open beta.

- Piercing Thunder (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HcQQIp8ZPqmgMQjUWFvoI2qMFE0xdYFKcB0b30xmzFc/edit?usp=sharing) is available for open beta.

- Tempest Gale (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mmEGGV-7j6ZGZqPXblPeY8cPzYtTweDtggVA0kqyAmM/edit?usp=sharing), a new ranged discipline, is now in beta!

---
Prestige Classes!
Animus Adept (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-q23BMWM3UE-rStFb5FPuDItrSbTGr6Fl_57duN57gk/edit?usp=sharing) - Here! Have some glyphs!
Phoenix Champion (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lZdXjLE6f_cLl6z1wtMdxfQXIlfb4od0Yc_a931tR6o/edit?usp=sharing) - Silver Crane fun with bows!
The Landsknect (https://docs.google.com/document/d/14EfP9e8WfQG19MEYJ7Ts-fN5e-w1HrCgPHTfAnI5B68/edit?usp=sharing)- Einhander defender!

Other Stuff!

Path of War Expanded - Systems and Use Expanded (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UzzPibcqPZObXZ-IoLrd4ikiT6KWiaq92irAJHfIxzc/edit?usp=sharing) - Favored class bonuses, new options for old classes, and more!


Path of War: Expanded Archetypes Document (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tbBIinA90VQW8eriM0TZTZCbHsSU6cdv7_44J8w564s/edit?usp=sharing)

All the Feats for Path of War: Expanded! (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EPARqt5jpie03MIXStgFrNK_si6g218bjT4TFbcizPY/edit?usp=sharing)

Martial Tradition (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vX5QKzsOgPVoXqSuKdu_INbPz5x7OAL_qbH2aia14xk/edit)

- On the agenda: Favored class and racial abilities, traits, more feats, prestige classes, monster stuff, and more!

Dreamscarred Press - FAQ! Check out the answers here! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?420178-Pathfinder-Dreamscarred-Press-FAQ&p=19370298)

----

Thread1 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?373269-Dreamscarred-Press-Announces-Path-of-War-Expanded), Thread2 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?399647-Dreamscarred-Press-Announces-Path-of-War-Expanded-(new-thread)), Thread3 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?406639-Dreamscarred-Press-Path-of-War-Expanded!-(Discussion-Thread-III)), Thread4 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?411495-Dreamscarred-Press-Path-of-War-Expanded!-(Discussion-Thread-IV)), Thread5 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?417748-Dreamscarred-Press-Path-of-War-Expanded!-(Discussion-Thread-V)), Thread6 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?423981-Dreamscarred-Press-Path-of-War-Expanded!-(Discussion-Thread-VI))

It's been an amazing ride so far, and the support from the community for this project has been overwhelming and very touching. We couldn't have gotten this far without you guys, and I hope the Path of War line can continue to be an addition to your tables. With that said, I declare this thread to be officially open!

[AGrinningCat]

Pathwalker Feedback:

New disciplines available - The Pathwalker gains Sleeping Goddess as a class discipline, regardless of what paths he chooses. He may also add the following to the list of disciplines he may choose his other two selections from: Mithral Current, Piercing Thunder, or Tempest Gale.
Sleeping Goddess works; and makes sense.
I'm kinda sad that Pathwalker doesn't have access to the explicitly supernatural Disciplines like Elemental Flux or Riven Hourglass -- It'd make all the sense in the world for them to have access to it. It's a weird theme that I'd like to see discontinued (Why is the Pathwalker so set on separating her martial from her psionics and not making them as one?)

Maneuver Recovery Errata - When manifesting powers during your maneuver recovery, your maximum level for the power manifested cannot exceed ½ of the maximum power level that you can manifest (rounded down). Example: If the pathwalker can manifest a 5th level power, he could manifest a power during recovery with a level no greater than 2nd level. Powers with a duration greater than instant have their durations shortened as well, equaling 1 + your Wisdom modifier in rounds (unless the duration would be shorter manifested normally).
For what purpose? Was this even an issue? This seems largely unnecessary and prevents you from manifesting anything until you've hit 4th level.

Sleeping Goddess Path
Bonus class skill: Autohypnosis
Powers: astral construct, call weaponry
Skills: Autohypnosis, Diplomacy, Sense Motive
Trance: Beginning at 3rd level, while the pathwalker maintains psionic focus and while in a Sleeping Goddess Stance he gains a +1 bonus on attack rolls made with weapons created by the call weaponry power or the call the soul’s blade stance. This bonus increases by +1 for every four psychic warrior levels.
Maneuver: Beginning at 3rd level, as a swift action, the pathwalker can expend his psionic focus to feint one opponent in his threatened area with a +2 bonus on the check. This bonus increases by +1 for every five class levels. The feint attempt does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

Astral construct may be a bit strong here.
Is the Maneuver supposed be a copy/paste of Mithral Current's? Cause if it is, it's a damn shame and I'd like to request a different one, considering there's so much design space for it (In both what's allowed, compared to previous Pathwalker paths, and what Sleeping Goddess can do).

Posting for the new thread.

[ATalsen]

Sidebar: The Elements and Solar Wind

Currently the sidebar is full of awesome flavor, but doesn't actually use any of the energy type keywords to confirm/clarify exactly what type of energy the user may be trading for.

I'd like to suggest noting the keywords next to each element path name, for example:

...the frozen fjords and frigid taigas comes the icy Glacial Frost variant (Cold). From the tropical forests of the world comes the corrosive Virulent Spray variant (Acid).



When a character possesses the Solar Wind discipline you may decide which of the variants used by that character to change the standard elemental damage type associated with Solar Wind.

This sentence doesn't read well to me; seems like it needs a 'to' in there or something.

Possible rewarding:
When a character possesses the Solar Wind discipline you may decide which variant (if any) is used by that character, changing the standard elemental damage type associated with Solar Wind to that of the variant chosen.

[ErrantX]

Changes to some of the FCBs to hammer out weirdness that apparently creeped up in there. Fixed some of the stronger (read as: OP!!!) FCBs as well.

Stalker Arts: Changed Fear Monger to give Dazzling Display and access to Black Seraph, and Graceful Killer to limit to ANY ONE weapon - regardless if it can be finessed normally or not.

Added some info for Bannerman and also clarified Variable Wind feat.

Fixed the warlord presences and the gambits from feedback suggested.

@Nyaa - Variable Wind is needed for manifesters or anyone else who wants to change up at will, otherwise you can simply pick what version of Solar Wind you know. Mystics can use their Elemental Attunement to change it, or use Variable Wind.

@AGrinningCat - Yes there was a problem. People were manifesting some crazy stuff with it freely and it needed locking down. You can manifest from 1st level powers initially for free on your recovery actions, and then as you advance it increases. I don't see how that's cruel - that's free manifesting, recovery of manaeuvers. It was pretty easily abusable since we don't have a silly provision to say you can't use your recovery method outside of combat. Pathwalker alone would have benefit for doing so though, pregaming like a crazy person.

Also changed the Sleeping Goddess Path a bit.

-X

[AGrinningCat]

Maneuver: Beginning at 3rd level, as a swift action, the pathwalker can expend his psionic focus to create a field of defensive psychic force through his skin and body, increasing the pathwalker’s natural armor bonus by +2 . This bonus increases by +1 for every five class levels.

Can we assume this is permanent? :smallsmile:
Also any note about the Pathwalker not getting the actual supernatural disciplines?

[ATalsen]

Fixed the warlord presences and the gambits from feedback suggested.


Flanker’s Gambit
Risk: The warlord successfully attacks a flanked enemy engaged in combat with one of his allies.
Reward: The warlord and his flanking ally are considered to be flanking the target until the end of their next turn, even if the they would not normally be in a position to flank the target.

I think this was changed to try to avoid ranged attacks? But now its just kind of weird.

So now a Warlord can only use the gambit if their target is flanked (either by themselves and an ally, or by 2 allies). In the event that its 2 allies flanking, the warlord can still use ranged attacks to fulfill the Gambit, but now has to interpret the Reward oddly: since we know that there are 3 parties (Ranged Warlord & 2 flankers), and the Reward section only specifies 2 (Warlord & Ally), do we now have to choose which ally gets the ‘free’ flanking?

Or, if that "one ally" was actually meant as a restriction (one and ONLY one, which is a problem since you are your own ally), that means that an opponent flanked by 2 of your allies can't be targeted by this, which is not intuitive.


If we wanted to avoid ranged, just say it requires a melee attack:

Risk: The warlord successfully executes a melee attack against a flanked enemy.

[ATalsen]

Typo, add "it":

Archetypes - When selecting an archetype that causes you to trade disciplines and potentially your class skill set changes, treat it the same as with traditions unless otherwise stated (some archetypes will retain a specific skill if it helps the archetype fulfill its job whereas others would remove the skill if it’s no longer necessary to fill the role of the archetype).

[Mehangel]

Concerning the Racial Favored Class Bonuses, what if every race had attached to it a specific discipline that it could apply a FCB to to? For example Lets say that Dwarf Had Iron Tortoise. If a Dwarf were to level into any of the Martial Initiator classes (which it names as its favored class) it could choose to get 1/6th Learn an Iron Tortoise Maneuver of which it meets the prerequisites, if it were to level into Stalker, Warder, Warlord, or Zealot (of which they named as a favored class) it could choose between the two favored class benefits.

i.e. A Dwarf Warder (Favored Class Warder) could choose whenever it gains a level in the class to either gain the +1/4th AC with Aegis, or get +1/6th Iron Tortoise Maneuver Known to which it meets the prerequisites.

[AGrinningCat]

Favored Discipline Bonus.

Instead of taking a FCB, you may instead gain a FDB.
Mithral Current: +1/2 damage on the first attack made out of a draw
Black Seraph: +1/2 to intimidation checks when using Black Seraph maneuvers
Sleeping Goddess: +1 to all craft checks to making comfortable bedding
etc

[PsyBomb]

Ok, looking back through the Style feats with what we know now. Not going to star-rate them, just putting up thoughts. Time is short, so I may not finish before I have to hit Post, will do so later tonight if possible. if you see asterisks, it is one I think needs close attention for some reason or another.

Black Seraph: For any Dread or Tyranny Daevic that can afford it (and many who really can't), getting this full chain is critical. Long story short, it enables Fear tactics on the multitude of foes normally immune eventually, and gives excellent bonuses for anyone who can keep them up.
Style- Shore up your defenses, which makes the setup time worth it. Fear-users tend to be either tanks or very squishy (or, oddly, BOTH in the case of some Dreads).
Malevolence- Useless for anyone who isn't deep into Black Seraph (but those will still take it as an acceptable feat tax for Eradication), but dramatic in the hands of a full-initiator specialized in the school.
Eradication- pretty much the defining reason to take the Style is to get this. Anything that kills immunities is pure gold for a specialist, especially when the immunities are as common as Fear and Mind-Affecting

Broken Blade: One of the weaker PoW Styles, this one tends to give niche benefits. Generally won't be worth the price of entry for people who aren't naturally initiators, and those who are will probably only nab the Style. Notably one one of the best offensive Disciplines, though.
Style- Ignoring up to 10 DR/- is excellent, but any DR that is able to be penetrated at all is likely to be cut through regularly. Unarmed sometimes has issues here, though, so it is understood.
Crush- Useless against monsters, and destroys valuable loot when it connects. Pass.
Rhythm- Free combat maneuver attempts whenever you hit with a Broken Blade maneuver can be made to break, given the number of hits you can regularly generate. Some minor investment into Tripping to get to the 1/4 success rate will turn this into "anything with legs falls"

Cursed Razor: Only useful to dedicated Cursed Razor practitioners, but highly powerful for them.
Style- The Bleed damage is minor, but can turn the tide or force enemies to waste actions. Not bad
*Plague*- Any Save or SR on this effect? Is it the full effects of the Curse, or just the Cursed status? Either way, it's a good take, since you need those curses to keep rolling whether they have any real effect or not.
Massacre- Unsure if this stacks with haste, which is the line between this being really good or way too strong.

*Elemental Flux*: the advent of Elements As One has made this chain much less attractive, and it conflicts with itself on a couple of points.
Style- It is a truism that enemies use elements that they are resistant to. Making full use of this feat will usually require you to use strikes from other schools, or your opponents will cut much of the damage out. Add the fact that it really isn't much resistance, and this becomes an iffy take.
Shift- going to 50-50 helps mitigate the Style drawback, but if you aren't concerned about energy resistance it's better to use Elements As One to just shift to something they're vulnerable to, instead of using your Swift regularly to do half.
Explosion- Being able to use this means that Style's ER isn't doing you much of anything. Not bad otherwise, but not quite worth going 3 deep into a mediocre chain.

Eternal Guardian: More curses, but this is not nearly as powerful as Cursed Razor Style and its followers. I can see someone who wants to do Razor/Guardian dipping Master of many Styles for double-style to get both chains going, though, and Guardian does enough CMB shenanigans to possibly make it work.
Style- Not too much of a benefit, here, but useful against the chaff. Pity about the duration, though
Oath- Better. It isn't difficult to get many enemies Cursed and also have good reach, so this can be anythign from a mass-tripping earthquake to an explosion of enemies Bull rush.
Endurance- This one is good. Powerful benefit, but won't come up as often due to how many fights work. Most bosses have mooks, though, so it has a lot of potential.

Golden Lion: Notable that they are effectively teamwork feats now, which greatly improves them in recent days. Between the large number of DSP classes able to take advantage of that (Seer Viziers, Dominance Daevics, etc) and a couple from paizo as well, they will get more use. Just make sure you have a good source of AoOs (either Reflexes or being a Warder).
Style- Free attacks is free attacks. They don't need to be flanking WITH you, though they normally will be.
Charge- depends on an enemy missing an ally, but that isn't all that rare of an occurance and the trigger is not only free attacks, but also good battlefield mobility.
Command- The most attacks I've ever made in a round is about 20 on a natural-attack blender, but more typically will be 4-5. 25 temp HP isn't bad, I just wish it lasted more than one round. Even if it was just two, it would make a huge difference. Not really needed though.

Ok, my time is up for now. I will resume with Iron Tortoise once I get the ability to.

[Elricaltovilla]

Thanks for the feedback Psybomb, we definitely need people looking at stuff that hasn't been looked at much yet like the style feats. Can't wait to see you finish those up!

[Callin]

I honestly liked the Flankers Gambit as it was. Being able to Ranged Sneak Attack and freeing up feats to do it, with the caveat that if I failed I took a -2 penalty to d20 rolls. I consider that to be a good trade off. You could not initiate boosts with it, because Swift action, if you did boost the next turn you lost flanking on the 3rd turn.

All in all a decent trade for some builds and actually made the Gambit worth looking at in my opinion.

[Deadkitten]

Thanks for the feedback Psybomb, we definitely need people looking at stuff that hasn't been looked at much yet like the style feats. Can't wait to see you finish those up!

I actually had a few questions awhile back in the old thread about Golden Lion style.
I will see if I can repost it here when I get off work later tonight.

[Elricaltovilla]

I actually had a few questions awhile back in the old thread about Golden Lion style.
I will see if I can repost it here when I get off work later tonight.

Oh yes please do!

[AGrinningCat]

Scarlet Throne Style. Does this grant 1.5x to STR or no?

[Elricaltovilla]

Scarlet Throne Style. Does this grant 1.5x to STR or no?

This has been answered many, many times. No it does not. Feats and abilities folks. Feats and abilities.

[AGrinningCat]

This has been answered many, many times. No it does not. Feats and abilities folks. Feats and abilities.

I've seemed to miss it every time it's been asked then. Trying to decide if it's even worth taking.

[Extra Anchovies]

I've seemed to miss it every time it's been asked then. Trying to decide if it's even worth taking.

It is. That 150% Power Attack damage is super useful, and ST Dignity/Riposte are pretty great.

Also, a one-level Landsknecht dip gets you 1.5*Str to damage with a one-handed weapon.

[AGrinningCat]

I'm typically not a fan of feats that need other feats to function. As it stands, the feat literally does nothing when isolated. Hell, even going through the base 3 classes, there's nothing that requires 2hands to function. I know that Savage Stance from Black Seraph requires two hands, (Furious) Primal Wrath gives +damage damage out of the strike, Iron Hide stance wants a two-hander as well.

It's sort of goofy that this feat works better with Primal Fury than Scarlet Throne.

Hell, the feat by itself actually penalizes you if you're in it's style and trying to do something silly like using your offhand. Since scarlet throne can also utilize Two-handers, it functionally does nothing for people who would use Scarlet Throne with a two-hander, which is a shame considering Dignity and Riposte are excellent.

[ANSeranov]

It is. That 150% Power Attack damage is super useful, and ST Dignity/Riposte are pretty great.

Also, a one-level Landsknecht dip gets you 1.5*Str to damage with a one-handed weapon.

Yep, Landsknecht 1 with Scarlet Throne Style runs around pretending his 1H is a 2H for all intents and purposes, except he can still use it while grappled and can wiggle his fingers or carry junk with his other hand without any problems. It's a bit of a feat investment (Quick Draw, Seize the Opportunity, Combat Reflexes, Scarlet Throne Style on top of whatever else you wanted to get) but it's damn solid.

[stack]

The deficiencies of elemental flux style have come up a few times over the threads. I know I commented on it way back when it first was revealed. Not sure what the solution is, but I wouldn't bother about taking them presently.

[Elricaltovilla]

The deficiencies of elemental flux style have come up a few times over the threads. I know I commented on it way back when it first was revealed. Not sure what the solution is, but I wouldn't bother about taking them presently.

I'm probably going to have to go back and rewrite them. They haven't been updated since the second of... five? rewrites of the discipline.

[Kaidinah]

Every time someone mentions Unchained Rogue as an appropriate balance point I die a little inside. Unchained Rogue is better than regular rogue, but that doesn't mean it's actually something we want to match.

Now, as far as Graceful Killer is concerned there's an issue people haven't actually addressed: by pairing both those feats together, you've made it an unattractive choice to take Weapon Finesse at 1st level. Which means that you'll end up with three typical scenarios for 1st level play:

I actually did address it in my large feedback post that got buried. I am going to repost my feedback, since it probably was not seen. I think some of the stuff I gave feedback on has been updated though, so its not all going to be up to date.

Though as far as Graceful Killer goes, I am happy that it now lets you select it at level 1. I don't see why it was reduced from 5 weapons to 1 weapon though. I think letting it be 3 weapons would be fine. That way they could get a good throwing weapon in.

Feedback on Systems and Use: Expanded
In general, these favored class bonuses are great. Besides the ones I comment on, they are all balanced and have no problems. I in fact adore some of the choices, such as making Aasimar and Dromite Warders excellent defenders with their FCB.

Duergar Stalker get 1/4th their level to their ki pool, but Humans get ½ their level.

Gnome Stalkers get 1/3rd of a Stalker Art, but Half-elves get 1/5th.

Half-Giants and Maenads have a ridiculously strong FCB with Zealots. They basically add another +5 to Zeal. I do not think this is okay. Especially when both were already amazing races to run with Zealot.

I love the clarification on discipline exchanges. Thank you for clearing that up!

New Tactics is also fantastic. There is a ridiculous amount of gold located here. Giving out the free disciplines, and granting other alternatives to their archetypes was a great move. And thank you for providing errata to the Pathwalker. Minimal problems in this section. Just a few things:
I am quite happy with Graceful Killer for the Stalker. Sadly, the Stalker cannot select Graceful Killer at 1st level, since it lacks 1 BAB and the art specifically says that they need to meet all prerequisites in order to take this. I doubt that this was intended? Also, any chance of there being a 2WF version of this, but that requires Graceful Killer and Stalker level 3 as a prerequisite?

Chessman’s Gambit might sound cooler as Chessmaster’s Gambit. Not really a problem though.

Typo in War Soul’s Scarlet Throne Nobility “While in a Scarlet Throne stance and using a mind blade with one hand and nothing in the other, the war soul gains a +1 dodge bonus to his AC and a +1 insight bonus to Sense Motive checks to resist feint attempts or lied to.”

The Variable Wind feat, together with Elemental Flux, leads to a situation where each discipline has an active energy type unique to itself. Though this problem technically already existed, as you multiclassing with psionics was always possible. Elemental Flux with Acid, and Solar Wind with Sonic. When using Sonic, do elemental flux maneuvers turn off? Likewise with Solar Wind maneuvers that would deal energy damage.

[NineThePuma]

And the rework of the mystic on top of that :P

[AGrinningCat]

Elrical, if you want to wait on rewriting, I'm currently putting together a document for feedback on the style feats.

[tekevil]

Both of these changes are moving in weird directions


Fear Monger (Ex): The stalker gains Dazzling Display as a bonus feat; the stalker gains access to the Black Seraph discipline and adds Intimidate to his class skills..

This Art isn't all that useful. Previously it was a cool art for Brutal Stalker since they love intimidate, but now it's a sub par option for base and Brutal. Brutal Stalker already has Black Seraph as a discipline. If a Base Stalker wanted Black Seraph he wouldn't waste a valuable art on it, what with the traditions and traits being around.


Graceful Killer (Ex): The stalker gains the benefits of Weapon Finesse and Deadly agility feats with any one weapon they are proficient with, even if this weapon would not normally be subject to either of these feats. This art may be taken multiple times.

I like that the level restriction is removed, but dislike that it's limited to one weapon. Can we either get it to 2 weapons or at least a weapon group? One of the cool things about the Stalker was that he gets different bonus dice on deadly strikes and you had cool viable builds using different weapons. Wanted to twf with a kukri to farm crits and a light pick/hand axe to reap big deadly strike dice? Sure, got for it.

Also now this is just going to lead to builds like "Imma 2HF with this here finessed/deadly agility'd Nodachi and power attack my problems away!"

[Extra Anchovies]

*sigh* I'm really outvoted in regards to Graceful Killer. I guess I can just ban it in my games and grumble quietly when a fellow player picks it.


Also now this is just going to lead to builds like "Imma 2HF with this here finessed/deadly agility'd Nodachi and power attack my problems away!"

That's not an issue. PA still requires 13 Strength, and Deadly Agility doesn't give 1.5*Dex with two-handed weapons, so you'd get less damage than without Graceful Killer.

[tekevil]

*sigh* I'm really outvoted in regards to Graceful Killer. I guess I can just ban it in my games and grumble quietly when a fellow player picks it.



That's not an issue. PA still requires 13 Strength, and Deadly Agility doesn't give 1.5*Dex with two-handed weapons, so you'd get less damage than without Graceful Killer.

Power attack for 3-1. Also 13 str is not a large investment.

[AGrinningCat]

What's wrong with Graceful killer, Extra? I haven't been paying attention to the last thread due to school issues (But I'm on break now, yay!)

[Extra Anchovies]

What's wrong with Graceful killer, Extra? I haven't been paying attention to the last thread due to school issues (But I'm on break now, yay!)

I just didn't like that it gave two feats for one art when an art has already had its value set at one feat (Combat Art and Extra Stalker Art). Someone else noted that you can't choose any two feats, and that the Steelfist Commando trades one generic bonus feat for two specific bonus feats, but the fact remains that A) Stalkers don't give anything up in exchange for having this art available (Steelfist Commando gives up its generic bonus feat, but Stalkers don't have to if they don't want to) and B) almost any build that wants weapon finesse or deadly agility will also want both. So to me it's two feats for the price of one. This would be good if the Stalker was starved for feats, but the Stalker's problems aren't in that it doesn't have enough feats but in that its other core class features don't hold up well next to those of the other DSP initiators.


Power attack for 3-1. Also 13 str is not a large investment.

Eh. My point was that you'd be spending one of your arts to get potentially higher AC but slightly lower damage than if you'd gone with a standard Strength build (which gets 3-for-1 on power attack and 1.5*strength).

I actually kind of like that. I suppose I can accept Graceful Killer in its new, one-weapon-type form. Two-handed Dex-based combat is a nice thing.

[Kaidinah]

*sigh* I'm really outvoted in regards to Graceful Killer. I guess I can just ban it in my games and grumble quietly when a fellow player picks it.No offense, but considering that the Stalker is the weakest initiator, unless the Stalker gets a rework, arts like these are the only way to fix it.

Would you ban Brutal Slayer as well? Considering it effectively gets Graceful Killer at no cost?

[TheIronGolem]

*sigh* I'm really outvoted in regards to Graceful Killer.
Not completely. I love it, but I also worry that it will turn the Stalker into dip-fodder.

EDIT: But while we're on the subject, does this count as having Weapon Finesse/Deadly Agility for prerequisites?

[tekevil]

All the Path of War classes are already dip fodder.

1 level Warlord dip is waaaay better than Fighter.

Have you seen how insane a Warder dip is?

I could go on, but it's pretty obvious that Path of War is dip fodder to the max.

We also have the problem that a Cleric-X/Warder-1 is significantly better than a Warder-1/Cleric-X


On topic though.

The change to Fear Monger legitimately made a near useless Stalker art of of a functional one.

[Extra Anchovies]

No offense, but considering that the Stalker is the weakest initiator, unless the Stalker gets a rework, arts like these are the only way to fix it.

I just edited in an answer to this in my previous post as a response to AGrinningCat. TL;DR, the Stalker's problem isn't in its feat economy but in its actual class features.


Not completely. I love it, but I also worry that it will turn the Stalker into dip-fodder.

That's a fair point, thank you for bringing it up again. I still hold this objection.


We also have the problem that a Cleric-X/Warder-1 is significantly better than a Warder-1/Cleric-X

Hm. I have to agree here. Graceful Killer does encourage Stalker 1/[other stuff] X, which isn't really that bad. I'd be annoyed that Stalker had been reduced to a dip class next to the other initiators, but it wouldn't be an issue for overall game balance.

[AGrinningCat]

Stalker is the weak class out of the original three anyways; I don't see any problem with giving them a functional melee attack if they want to use Dex instead of STR.

[ghanjrho]

I do think that opening Graceful Killer back up to multiple weapons (at least 2-3) would be a good idea, if for no other reason than I hate bonuses that are only tied to one particular weapon type.

Additionally, the Fear Monger rework is significantly worse than the original. Would be okay in a PoW that didn't have Unorthodox Method or Martial Traditions, but not in the one we have.

Lord of War should really not give a competence bonus. As it stands, it's a restricted Unorthodox Method that also gives a bonus I can buy for 400 gp, which is frankly not worth an Art.

[tekevil]

Agreed, if I wanted to play Soviet Stalker with a sickle and hammer I shouldn't be punished any more than the hilarious build already does.

[AGrinningCat]

Agreed, if I wanted to play Soviet Stalker with a sickle and hammer I shouldn't be punished any more than the hilarious build already does.

Sickle and Hammer is Strength build, Comrade. Not Dexterity.

[tekevil]

Sickle and Hammer is Strength build, Comrade. Not Dexterity.

You are correct, would be best going Brutal Slayer komrad!

Though in all seriousness I want to run a Stalker with a Rapier/Kukri/somethign with 18-20 and with a weapon that has a high crit multiplier so that my Deadly Strikes can be hilariously large dice.

[Extra Anchovies]

You are correct, would be best going Brutal Slayer komrad!

Though in all seriousness I want to run a Stalker with a Rapier/Kukri/somethign with 18-20 and with a weapon that has a high crit multiplier so that my Deadly Strikes can be hilariously large dice.

I wouldn't say it's "hilariously large". Deadly Strikes, at d10s, has less average damage than a full sneak attack progression at all levels except 1st, 2nd, 5th, and 6th, and it falls behind by more and more as you go up in level (eventually putting out only 27.5 vs SA's 35).

Also, now that I've looked at the math, that's another reason for the Vigilante Stalker's sneak attack to run from 1d6 to 7d6 - it keeps the damage in line with that of Deadly Strikes.

[PsyBomb]

Alright, picking up where I left off on the style reviews...

Iron Tortoise: This is the one I use as a benchmark for judging other styles, to be quite honest. All of it is at least solid and useful, and worth investing in for both full initiators and dabblers
Style- Size increase that stacks with everything is actually something almost completely unique to the game. Makes the shield much more worthwhile to use offensively.
Shell- Getting Evasion for a turn any time you use a counter (note: does not have to be from the school) will be frequent for some, and happens often enough even for feat-entry to make it significant.
Snap- This represents a very significant DPR increase for people who invest into TWF with their shield. It's a heavy investment, to be sure, but worth it once you get here.

Mithral Current: I'm going to leave off the arguments about how useful the first feat is for a Bushi. This is a specialist's style again. if you aren't heavy into the school, it isn't worth taking.
Style- Critical to the school and decent for anyone who likes to pretend they aren't ready for combat. Worthless in a vaccuum, otherwise.
Flow- Basically Mobility by another name, and Mobility isn't all that great. has the advantage of protecting you in any turn you don't draw, but that really doesn't come up too often.
Slice- Quite helpful to boost that initial damage before your techniques land the Vulnerability more solidly on the target, a serious practitioner should be getting the bonus every or nearly every round

Piercing Thunder: This one is more "cute tricks" than anything, but the chain has some build-enabling potential.
Style- Being able to Finesse some of these 2-handers is actually moderately significant, but since it doesn't shift your damage stat this more enables reach than anything.
Push- Where the style turned your longspears into shortspears, this turns your shortspears into longspears. It will let you keep certain nasties out of arm's length.
Trample- Free combat maneuvers can't hurt, but you need a different way to take advantage of these (such as a Daevic AoO or Mounted Trample)

Primal Fury: This is one of the big damage disciplines to begin with, so the style has a lot to live up to. This bunch is... well, not all that great.
*Style*- Notably does nothing if you get it at level 3. Can be niche-useful for extending initial charges or lengthening the range to run down people who try to run.
Slash- Extra attacks are always nice to have, if you're willing to accept taking extra attacks on your route.
Savagery- 2d6 bleed is insignificant at level 11, especially when you should already be obliterating charge targets if you're using the school properly. Basically just used to ensure that people you put down bleed out faster, which really isn't worthwhile.

Riven Hourglass: Autohypnosis is a great skill to begin with, the style has plenty of boosts and counters, and these feats are all quite powerful as well. Arguably the strongest of the Style feat lines. Very friendly to get in via martial Training.
Style- Really can't complain here. You get to see that you miss before triggering the reroll, so it will never be really wasted.
Rewind- This is a major game-changer, especially for when you can get it. 10 rounds free to act is HUGE, and will usually let you finish the combat and fix yourself up. Arguably too strong, but I call it on the bare edge of fair
Eternity- Not as good as Rewind, but still quite solid. You will hemorrhage resources like crasy if you abuse it, but getting that one last round out of a major buff (or extending somthing intended to be a 1-round deal) can and will change the nature of the combat

Scarlet Throne: This has been argued to death so I won't go into too much depth. Don't know why it got so much attention where there are so many other major standouts.
Style- Looks like it was intended to help Warders, or strength TWF characters who have to move. Not my favorite
Dignity- Never have to ready a counter again if you have good attack bonus, this will save you a ton of pain over time
Riposte- Given how often you are triggering this condition, the feat is much stronger than it appears on the surface. Should happen nearly every round, except in niche combats (or if the enemy gets an inkling of what you're doing)

Shattered Mirror: Another one that is incredibly friendly to dippers and quite powerful, this one helps casters and more mobile fighters out in a huge way.
Style- The weapon groups associated with Shattered Mirror are very, very broad. Basically just a flat +2 AC bonus at all times, which is decent.
Waltz- This is fighting with Riven Hourglass Rewind for the position of strongest PoW style feat, ignoring all difficult terrain constantly is something normally reserved for high-level buffs (and is one of the only times I've ever seen a feat beat the spell to the punch by multiple levels)
Duality- Again, highly powerful. Adds an average of 3.5 to your attack rolls for the entire round.

Silver Crane: Holy crap, a Tankling line of feats that's actually GOOD. This line will make your team a nightmare to take down as long as you are standing. Made an oradin with this feat chain, freaking impossible to kill and made my allies near-immortal. Good times
Style- As simple as it gets. You get easier to hurt, your allies get much more difficult to hurt. Makes enemies focus on you, which is right where you want them
Feathers- For when you are getting ignored anyway, you can deny them the joy of harming one of your buddies by taking the shot. Bodyguard mechanics are rare, treasure it.
Wing- Now, they don't even get the joy of watching you take the damage on the intercept. Not as good as the others, since damage numbers can get really rough to meet with a Will save... but on ABILITY damage, you'll nearly always make it.

Sleeping Goddess: The psionic discipline, and it meshes well on the multiclass. The feats emphasize this as well, which is good.
Style- Action economy is king, and this will let you add rider effects to when you refocus.
Slumber- Tag a target with an AoO, follow with a Coup. Laugh as they bleed. Even on normal use, this will ensure that every follow-on attack you have will hit.
Strike- Sleeping Goddess has a lot of physical attacks with rider save-based effects, this basically increased the DC of all of them by 2.

*Solar Wind*: One question, does this change element if you use the other schools, or if you utilize the Changing Winds feat? If so, this just got much, much stronger.
Style- Not much damage, but everything counts. The torch thing is mostly flavorful, but it means that you can do a few extra tricks
Flash- Dependent on you not using a Boost beforehand, but getting two rounds of blind off is a fight-ender.
Inferno- Much like Black Seraph Style, this cuts out easy-to-acquire resistances and immunities. Critical for specialists.

Steel Serpent: School is likely to be buffed soon, but the style chain is surprisingly good. You need to be using a lot of Steel Serpent to make the most of it, so it isn't too dip-friendly, but the effects are solid otherwise.
Style- I have nothing bad to say here. Tag with a main attack, they have a hard time attacking back.
Fangs- Plays quite well with Unquiet Grave as well, notably. Cutting out AC is just a part of it, there are tons of ways to take extra advantage of a flat-footed foe and you likely have more than one of your opponents damaged like this.
Venom- Nauseate cuts out an entire turn, and they have to make the save every time they take weapon damage. Good stuff.

Tempest Gale: The other ranged school, this is a very tricksy style chain hooking into a very tricksy school. You'll find that it supports you well as long as you play to the school strengths.
Style- You really never know when the maneuver will be useful, but this importantly allows you to use Dex instead of Strength.
Haze- Simple, direct, and powerful. Most attacks you take will be ranged due to your ranged nature, so this is a superior flat defense.
Storm- By this point, you probably want to be using your standard actions on Strikes, so it will rarely be worthwhile to take this feat.

*Thrashing Dragon*: To be honest, I wasn't impressed by these feats. Flavorful, but not all that effective in most cases. The problem is that you are a specialist in a style that makes these things irrelevant around the time you get them.
Style- If you aren't making a Strike, this helps your mobility out.
Pounce- Mostly used with strikes from outside the school, since most of the good ones in-school give multiple attacks
Whirlwind- Much better than Whirlwind Attack, especially for those with more than 2 arms (Kali summoners come to mind). Much better than the last two feats, but usually not worth grabbing at this point.

Veiled Moon: My favorite school, and the feats are really solid for it as well.
Style- I always love abilities that prevent opponents from getting back at you, and this one will let you Stealth out as long as he doesn't have any buddies.
*Step*- Never take an attack of opportunity again. Question: does this require LOS or LOE? If not, it is a hundred times better than I thought and has major out-of-combat utility
Warp- An odd way to end the series, but powerful. This is crowd control, pure and simple, and your opponent gets basically none of the benefits of it. I wish it wasn't phrased as only being usable on opponents, I can think of a few times I'd like to tag an ally with it.

That wraps up my style feats review, hope it helps.

[Vhaidara]

This would be good if the Stalker was starved for feats, but the Stalker's problems aren't in that it doesn't have enough feats but in that its other core class features don't hold up well next to those of the other DSP initiators.

I actually dispute this. Stalker's are naturally inclined towards Dex builds, which places a 2 feat tax on them beyond anything else. Say I want to play a TWF Stalker: The only way I can have that functional at level 1 is to both spend my Stalker Art on Combat Art AND play a human.

I am opposed to anything that prevents a player from using their combat style at level 1. It's also the source of my biggest complaint against the Ambush Hunter: You don't have the focus of your class until level 4. Players should be able to do their "thing" from level 1. Graceful Killer enables that for Stalkers.

[AGrinningCat]

Benefit: Whenever an ally who is flanking the same enemy as you misses an attack against that opponent, you can make an attack of opportunity against that opponent.
Golden Lion Style.
I know how this is supposed to read, but bear with me for a second:
I am an ally to myself.
I am an ally to myself who is flanking the same enemy as myself. (Assuming I have another individual flanking)
I am an ally who missed an attack against that opponent against a target that an ally is flanking.

If I'm reading this strictly RAW; does this mean I can make attack of opportunities against targets I miss, as long as I'm flanking with someone?

[tekevil]

Yeah, one of the Stalker's biggest weaknesses is just how long it takes for them to get their acts together due to lack of feats.

[Extra Anchovies]

Yeah, one of the Stalker's biggest weaknesses is just how long it takes for them to get their acts together due to lack of feats.

I... don't think that's too much of an issue. Prior to the introduction of Graceful Killer, all of the Stalker complaints that I'd seen were about the recovery method and core class features, not "needs more feats".

[squiggit]

We also have the problem that a Cleric-X/Warder-1 is significantly better than a Warder-1/Cleric-X
Pretty sure that's like 90% of the point behind tying maneuver swaps to character level than class level, because it's really silly to punish someone for taking levels of classes in the wrong order like that and forcing someone to choose between handicapping their style or losing power in the long run is terrible, really terrible. But everyone here except me seems to hate that change.


I... don't think that's too much of an issue. Prior to the introduction of Graceful Killer, all of the Stalker complaints that I'd seen were about the recovery method and core class features, not "needs more feats".
Feats aren't the main issue, but having basically all of its default combat modes take 3-5 levels or humanity to be fully functional didn't help any.

[Nyaa]

As PoW1 classes are getting new disciplines, aren't PRCs going to get them too? I remember Chris mentioning Awakened Blade getting Flux and Goddess and Mage Hunter (or was it Bladecaster?) getting Flux and Mirror.

[tekevil]

I... don't think that's too much of an issue. Prior to the introduction of Graceful Killer, all of the Stalker complaints that I'd seen were about the recovery method and core class features, not "needs more feats".

Most of those complaints were around the time Path of War 1 was pre-print stage and the Mystic was a ball of speculation.

[Extra Anchovies]

Pretty sure that's like 90% of the point behind tying maneuver swaps to character level than class level, because it's really silly to punish someone for taking levels of classes in the wrong order like that and forcing someone to choose between handicapping their style or losing power in the long run is terrible, really terrible. But everyone here except me seems to hate that change.

It scales with initiator level, though, which with the +2 IL trait gets you five swaps at levels 4/8/12/16/20, which can get you maneuvers of level 2/3/4/5/6 respectively. Pretty solid for a 1st-level dip, if you ask me.


Feats aren't the main issue, but having basically all of its default combat modes take 3-5 levels or humanity to be fully functional didn't help any.

Hm. Let's take a look at the commonly used combat styles, leaving out feats that can't be taken at 1st level by anyone (e.g. Greater Unarmed Strike)

TWF: Weapon Finesse, Deadly Agility, TWF, OR TWF, Prodigious TWF - 2 or 3 feats, BAB +1
THF: Power Attack - 1 feat, BAB +1
Archery: Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot - 2 feats [Rapid Shot is useful but not necessary]
Sword+Board: Improved Shield Bash, TWF, Prodigious TWF - 3 feats
Unarmed (Str): Improved Unarmed Strike - 1 feat [TWF and Prodigious TWF are useful but not necessary]
Unarmed (Dex): Weapon Finesse, Deadly Agility, Improved Unarmed Strike - 3 feats, BAB +1 [TWF is useful but not necessary]

So Dex-based TWF, Dex-based unarmed, and Sword+Board are the only ones that aren't fully online at level 1 for a non-human Stalker with Combat Art. All three of those come online at level 3. I don't see any problem with that. Characters shouldn't be completely set feat-wise at level 1, with everything after being gravy.

[tekevil]

You know what would probably make a lot of people happy and restrict nobody to any weapon choices or bypass feat pre-reqs?

What if the art just gave you Weapon Finesse and 2WF instead?

[Vhaidara]

Characters shouldn't be completely set feat-wise at level 1, with everything after being gravy.

You need to preface that with "in my opinion". Because I wholly disagree. I consider not being set up to completely handle your chosen combat style at level 1 to be very bad design. I had the same complaint on Pharaoh (Pharaoh's Bond wasn't there until level 2) and I still have that complaint with Ambush Hunter (the archetype is focused on the animal companion you don't have until level 4).

Tek, I actually dislike that as well. Mostly because it leaves people wanting to go einhander stalker out in the cold.

[tekevil]

You need to preface that with "in my opinion". Because I wholly disagree. I consider not being set up to completely handle your chosen combat style at level 1 to be very bad design. I had the same complaint on Pharaoh (Pharaoh's Bond wasn't there until level 2) and I still have that complaint with Ambush Hunter (the archetype is focused on the animal companion you don't have until level 4).

Tek, I actually dislike that as well. Mostly because it leaves people wanting to go einhander stalker out in the cold.

An Einhander Stalker and a TWF Stalker would still get dex to damage at the same time and have the exact same expenditure of resources by level 3.

Also it's a small peeve of mine when someone says "in your opinion" because what he said is his opinion. No need to add that disclaimer.

[Lord_Gareth]

Sweet freaking hell but we rip through these threads.

[Kaidinah]

Thanks for the feedback Psybomb, we definitely need people looking at stuff that hasn't been looked at much yet like the style feats. Can't wait to see you finish those up!I'll give it a shot too! Here, a review of the entire PoW:E feat document.

Oh look. The traits are here too. I already love these three traits, and have given my opinion on them many times. No problems here.

Agile Dancer is pretty cool, though I honestly think it could have been a trait, like This (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits/religion-traits/wisdom-in-the-flesh-god-of-perfection) or this. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits/social-traits/student-of-philosophy)

Animus healing is hilarious, since I know that in the 10 rounds after combat ends, the Mystic can use this a minimum of 10 times. I don't think it is broken, just funny.

Battle Fervor is cool. Any chance of it being Sacred or Profane damage if the character is aligned?

Channeled Recovery is cool! Though I don't see a reason to keep its maneuvers known prerequisite. This could make a cool feat for a straight cleric that wants to help out its initiating party.

Darksilver Initiate is awaiting future updates. No point in reviewing it here.

Diverse Training feels too strong, but I think it was being changed? Not sure. If anything, I think removing the scaling to the initiator class abilities should be taken out, considering how good the first part of this feat is.

Electrum Manticore is cool in that you can break action economy with it. I think it needs an extra push though. One kind of push it could have would be not limiting it to per-encounter. Mirror of the Moon is a good comparison point, as it is infinite use and quite useful.

Elemental Sun feels superfluous with the new Solar Wind feat that was just released.

Enduring Protector is way cool! I think it should be enhanced to say "temporary Hit Points equal to the slain creatures Hit Dice or equal to the amount of temporary hit points you would gain from Martial Power. Whichever is higher." This is definitely a good feat line for a tough tank.

Feral Goddess needs a rework. One could just take Weapon Group Adaptation and be better served, as it would do everything Feral Goddess does, while also benefiting racial features and class features that grant natural attacks. This feat needs a little push, and probably should get a power point reduction like Forge of the Goddess.

Flowing Mithril Fist deserves a shoutout separate from the "This is all good" section because its just cool. Way too cool. Not only does it give its nice silver bonus, but it also helps get around some of the feat intensiveness that using Mithril Current and unarmed strikes would normally require.

Forge of the Goddess is cool, and it grants a power point cost reduction. I think this feat needs a little more.

Giant Slayer is wonderful for helping get past a very crappy higher level adventurer problem. Better yet, you won't need dodge and mobility anymore!

Mirror of the Moon has a ridiculous amount of cool factor, and is also one of the strongest of the combo discipline feats. It is not broken, but I just wanted to stress how cool it is.

Molten Silver Strike feels like it could use a bit of a boost. Perhaps it could increase the range of the ranged Mithril Current strikes?

Sorcerous Bloodline may be a little hard to use, depending on which bloodline you wish to advance. Its basically best off for bloodlines with minimal reliance of Charisma. Nothing is wrong with it balance wise though, as when it works, it REALLY works.

Now for the style feats.

Black Seraph Style is actually my favorite style. I have already built a Brutal Slayer to utilize it, and I have plans to use it with a Privateer as well. Every one of the Black Seraph feats are powerful, useful, and very cool. They work with the available debuffs of Black Seraph as well.

Broken Blade Style is interesting in that it introduces a new way to play Broken Blade. It doesn't interrupt Broken Blade's action economy, but it certainly adds to it. This style itself is fine, but it might be overwhelming in play until BB gets its nerfs.

Cursed Razor Style is a very strong style feat chain. Thankfully, the classes best at using it are also feat starved. Definitely a good line. Cursed Razor Plague is exceptionally cool, as your character spreads their curses far and wide.

Elemental Flux Style feels weak. The first feat in the line is okay, and doesn't really need to be changed. The second feat is just not good, and wastes a swift action to grant its effects. I'd rather just take Elements as One instead of Shift. The third feat is just not worth it. You would still have to spend the standard action activating the elemental burst effect after using your swift action to enter the style at the beginning of combat. Between entering the style, the standard action to activate the elemental burst, and Shift requiring a swift action, this style eats up way too many actions for less benefit than most styles feat chains.

Eternal Guardian Style is cool, but it is overly reliant on cursing when most classes that would want to use it don't have good ways of getting maximum curses out. Harbingers don't want this discipline, and Eternal Guardian itself doesn't hand out curses the way Cursed Razor or a Harbinger can.

Golden Lion Style needs some work, but is close to where it should be. The flanking requirement should be removed on the first feat, Charge is great, and Command should be strengthened.

Iron Tortoise style is fine. Psybomb's feedback has the right of it.

Mithril Current Style is great. Perfect for someone that would rather take 3 feats than be a Bushi. My only problem is that Mithril Current Slice is really, very strong for anyone with Mithril Current. Sadly, Bushi would have to take a dead feat to access Slice.

I already gave feedback on Piercing Thunder Style, where I said that the 1st feat is completely useless to strength using Piercing Thunder users. My suggestion was to have the feat provide some bonus to strength users that dex users would not be able to access, that way Piercing Thunder Style has no dead feats for anyone. ErrantX seemed to like that. Trample is great, no problems here.

Primal Fury Style is pretty cool I think. The style itself needs a "(minimum 5 feet)" added to it. Slash provides the awesome beserker and risk/reward feeling that Primal Fury should provide. I love Slash. Savagery is okay. I think Savagery should be replaced with a cool utility effect, instead of more damage.

Riven Hourglass Style is perfect. Please keep it the way it is.

Scarlet Throne Style is also just fine.

Shattered Mirror Style is perfect. I also want to point out that certain terrains, such as swamps, aren't actually difficult terrain and still hamper movement when you use Waltz. I personally Don't think Waltz should work on such terrains, but I just wanted to point it out in case the devs did intend for them to be able to move through such terrain.

Silver Crane is perfect.

For Sleeping Goddess Style, Psybomb has the right of it again. I don't think its overpowered though. This is a fantastic style for multiclassers, Pathwalkers, and such to use.

Solar Wind Style definitely needs a rework with how Solar Wind is being changed in this book. The 1st feat needs clarification for how long its illumination lasts.

Steel Serpent Style is very impressive. This will be amazing to use once Steel Serpent gets some updates.

Tempest Gale Style is great too. I especially like the capstone.

Thrashing Dragon Style is pretty cool I think, if I am reading it right. The 1st feat allows you to TWF on AOO's, right?
EDIT: This first feat does not work on AOOs. The 1st feat in Thrashing Dragon style should be buffed now that I know this. It should definitely work on AOOs and other standard attacks.
Pounce in fantastic when you use Thrashing Dragon maneuvers that only grant 1 attack (some of the best TD maneuvers out there!) and helps tremendously when using strikes from other disciplines. Whirlwind is pretty cool, but I will probably skip it in most builds, unless certain Primal Fury maneuvers are significantly nerfed.

Veiled Moon Style is a great feat chain. Especially when combined with Mirror of the Moon. All of its feats are quite useful, though I think the capstone could benefit greatly from being considered a Veiled Moon strike, since currently it would have 4 less of a DC than a Veiled Moon strike, due to not getting the +2 discipline weapon bonus, and the +2 from Discipline Specialization.

[NineThePuma]

Imho, stalker's big weakness is that its core fighting style is Two Weapon Fighting Crit Fishing Thrower. Three relatively feat intensive fighting styles. the fact that it's also Dex oriented by default can go either way, but anything to alleviate some of that feat starvation is a blessing.

[Dusk Eclipse]

While I really like the current version of Bleak Emissary I too think it's recovery method is too strong as it is. I think that keeping the swift action gate would help a lot to curb the power down, simply make the move action an extra requirement. From level 2 to 6 it would create a dynamic where you have to decide "Do I need to claim this round, or would I be better served keeping my action for Panther Style?", I personally think that kind of choice are good for the game.

Also on an unrelated note, is there any chance Thrashing Dragon Style could be buffed so it works in AoO? Because as it is now, it is pretty weak, if you are in a position where you only have an effective standard action I think it would be better to try and recover maneuvers or something else.

I know that Novawurmson hasn't been online for a couple of days and I think he is the designer of Bleak Emissary, so I'm reposting this from the old thread in the hopes he can see it once he is back.

@KKaidinah: Thrashing Dragon Style doesn't allow for double hit on AoO's, I asked that in the FAQ thread and Elricaltovilla said it only worked on standard action attacks, hence my comments of how it is a weak feat by it's own, I agree that the next tier feats are much better.

[Turion]

It scales with initiator level, though, which with the +2 IL trait gets you five swaps at levels 4/8/12/16/20, which can get you maneuvers of level 2/3/4/5/6 respectively. Pretty solid for a 1st-level dip, if you ask me.



Hm. Let's take a look at the commonly used combat styles, leaving out feats that can't be taken at 1st level by anyone (e.g. Greater Unarmed Strike)

TWF: Weapon Finesse, Deadly Agility, TWF, OR TWF, Prodigious TWF - 2 or 3 feats, BAB +1
THF: Power Attack - 1 feat, BAB +1
Archery: Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot - 2 feats [Rapid Shot is useful but not necessary]
Sword+Board: Improved Shield Bash, TWF, Prodigious TWF - 3 feats
Unarmed (Str): Improved Unarmed Strike - 1 feat [TWF and Prodigious TWF are useful but not necessary]
Unarmed (Dex): Weapon Finesse, Deadly Agility, Improved Unarmed Strike - 3 feats, BAB +1 [TWF is useful but not necessary]

So Dex-based TWF, Dex-based unarmed, and Sword+Board are the only ones that aren't fully online at level 1 for a non-human Stalker with Combat Art. All three of those come online at level 3. I don't see any problem with that. Characters shouldn't be completely set feat-wise at level 1, with everything after being gravy.

Nitpick: you left out Deadly Aim for archery, Piranha Strike for... pretty much any dex-based melee, and the crossbow style in general (Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Reload, Deadly Aim; Rapid Shot is nice as well). I'm not even touching firearms :smalltongue:

[Kaidinah]

Imho, stalker's big weakness is that its core fighting style is Two Weapon Fighting Crit Fishing Thrower. Three relatively feat intensive fighting styles. the fact that it's also Dex oriented by default can go either way, but anything to alleviate some of that feat starvation is a blessing.
I am going with Nine on this one.

Deadly Agility+Weapon Finesse should stay. Even with these highly efficient feat granting Stalker Arts, the Brutal Slayer is still more efficient due to basically getting these Arts for free, while also getting to benefit from power attack, and take any Stalker Art it wants at 1st level because it doesn't need 2-5 feats to activate its fighting style. I don't see why someone would be opposed to Graceful Killer while not absolutely abhoring Brutal Slayer.

Keep in mind, I consider Brutal Slayer the closest thing to the balance point all Stalkers should be at. It is great! In no way should the devs take my statements as meaning that I think it is overpowered, because its just not.


I know that Novawurmson hasn't been online for a couple of days and I think he is the designer of Bleak Emissary, so I'm reposting this from the old thread in the hopes he can see it once he is back.

@KKaidinah: Thrashing Dragon Style doesn't allow for double hit on AoO's, I asked that in the FAQ thread and Elricaltovilla said it only worked on standard action attacks, hence my comments of how it is a weak feat by it's own, I agree that the next tier feats are much better.Thank you for that! I edited my feedback accordingly. Such a shame!

[Extra Anchovies]

[QUOTE]Agile Dancer is pretty cool, though I honestly think it could have been a trait, like This (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits/religion-traits/wisdom-in-the-flesh-god-of-perfection) or this. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits/social-traits/student-of-philosophy)

I'm inclined to agree. It would be a really strong trait, but it feels too weak to be worth a feat outside of feat-light combat styles like THF.


Animus healing is hilarious, since I know that in the 10 rounds after combat ends, the Mystic can use this a minimum of 10 times. I don't think it is broken, just funny.

Hm? I don't know what you mean. Maximum of 10 times, yes, but a Mystic stops generating Animus right after the fight ends, and they wouldn't necessarily have 10 Animus at that point (and if they do they probably aren't doing their job right). Font of Animus turns this feat into unlimited healing, but you know what? That's 15th level. If you don't have unlimited healing via items by 15th level, you're probably dead.


Battle Fervor is cool. Any chance of it being Sacred or Profane damage if the character is aligned?

I feel like that's A) a bit much, because of the possibility of 150% damage, and B) unnecessarily punishing CN, TN, and LN warpriests.


Channeled Recovery is cool! Though I don't see a reason to keep its maneuvers known prerequisite. This could make a cool feat for a straight cleric that wants to help out its initiating party.

It actually seems a bit weak to me. Maybe the targets of the healing can forgo any number of dice of healing and recover an equivalent number of levels' worth of maneuvers? e.g. a character gives up four dice of healing to recover a 1st-level maneuver and a 3rd-level maneuver.


Diverse Training feels too strong, but I think it was being changed? Not sure. If anything, I think removing the scaling to the initiator class abilities should be taken out, considering how good the first part of this feat is.

Really? I'd actually prefer the opposite (remove the IL stacking, let the class features stack).


Electrum Manticore is cool in that you can break action economy with it. I think it needs an extra push though. One kind of push it could have would be not limiting it to per-encounter. Mirror of the Moon is a good comparison point, as it is infinite use and quite useful.

Yeah, I agree. Switching stances won't happen often enough that you'll be getting the benefit too often, but it's the slight buff that EM needs.


Elemental Sun feels superfluous with the new Solar Wind feat that was just released.

Agreed.


Enduring Protector is way cool! I think it should be enhanced to say "temporary Hit Points equal to the slain creatures Hit Dice or equal to the amount of temporary hit points you would gain from Martial Power. Whichever is higher." This is definitely a good feat line for a tough tank.

It's a fun one, but not one I'd personally take since I don't like to depend on my character being the one who gets the kill when there's four party members effectively competing for that. Letting them gain the Martial Power temp HP would be a good change, because as it is now the feat isn't particularly good except in parties built around handing every kill to one character.


Feral Goddess needs a rework. One could just take Weapon Group Adaptation and be better served, as it would do everything Feral Goddess does, while also benefiting racial features and class features that grant natural attacks. This feat needs a little push, and probably should get a power point reduction like Forge of the Goddess.

Agreed. Being treated as magic for DR purposes isn't notable enough to make this worth its own feat.


Mirror of the Moon has a ridiculous amount of cool factor, and is also one of the strongest of the combo discipline feats. It is not broken, but I just wanted to stress how cool it is.

Also it's got one of the coolest names out of any of the feats. The name alone is enough to make me want to build a SM/VM-based initiator :smallbiggrin:


Molten Silver Strike feels like it could use a bit of a boost. Perhaps it could increase the range of the ranged Mithril Current strikes?

I honestly don't think there are even enough ranged MC strikes to make this feat worthwhile (I count only four).

Imho, stalker's big weakness is that its core fighting style is Two Weapon Fighting Crit Fishing Thrower. Three relatively feat intensive fighting styles. the fact that it's also Dex oriented by default can go either way, but anything to alleviate some of that feat starvation is a blessing.

Really? Where's the encouragement towards thrown weapons? I don't see it. But then, throwing is so atrociously bad in PF that I disregard it entirely.


Nitpick: you left out Deadly Aim for archery, Piranha Strike for... pretty much any dex-based melee, and the crossbow style in general (Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Reload, Deadly Aim; Rapid Shot is nice as well). I'm not even touching firearms :smalltongue:

Those all fall into the helpful but not necessary category - a character will usually do better with those feats than without them, but they aren't required for a character to fight in that particular style. I listed Power Attack as necessary for THF because they need the extra damage per hit to stand up next to the extra attacks and/or extra range from other fighting styles.

[Kaidinah]

Hm? I don't know what you mean. Maximum of 10 times, yes, but a Mystic stops generating Animus right after the fight ends, and they wouldn't necessarily have 10 Animus at that point (and if they do they probably aren't doing their job right). Font of Animus turns this feat into unlimited healing, but you know what? That's 15th level. If you don't have unlimited healing via items by 15th level, you're probably dead.From Path of War's Systems and Use page. Encounters have been defined.:

"An encounter is a period of time from when initiative begins (starting with the surprise round, if any) to the last initiative has ended and after a total time amount of one minute has elapsed without combat resuming."

Therefore, the Mystic always has 10 rounds of animus generation at the end of every combat. So they get a minimum of 10 uses of Animus Healing since they should be getting 1 free animus for every round in combat.

[Extra Anchovies]

From Path of War's Systems and Use page. Encounters have been defined.:

"An encounter is a period of time from when initiative begins (starting with the surprise round, if any) to the last initiative has ended and after a total time amount of one minute has elapsed without combat resuming."

Therefore, the Mystic always has 10 rounds of animus generation at the end of every combat. So they get a minimum of 10 uses of Animus Healing since they should be getting 1 free animus for every round in combat.

Hm. That needs to be cleared up, because as it is now, Animus Healing grants 20d4 heals at the end of every fight.

[Kudaku]

(...)Piercing Thunder: This one is more "cute tricks" than anything, but the chain has some build-enabling potential.
Style- Being able to Finesse some of these 2-handers is actually moderately significant, but since it doesn't shift your damage stat this more enables reach than anything.(...)

Snapped up this one since Piercing Thunder is very relevant to my current character - if Piercing Thunder Style makes polearms and spears qualify for Weapon Finesse, they would also qualify for Deadly Agility. So Weapon Finesse + Deadly Agility + Piercing Thunder Style would make spears and polearms DEX-SAD. You can already do Weapon Finesse + Deadly Agility with an elven branched spear, but Piercing Thunder Style opens up all the other spear and polearm options as well. Which is awesome. :smallsmile:

As for Piercing Thunder Push: A number of spears and polearms already have the brace quality, which makes the first half of the feat do nothing. Any chance we could add in a sweetener for those weapons?

[PsyBomb]

Snapped up this one since Piercing Thunder is very relevant to my current character - if Piercing Thunder Style makes polearms and spears qualify for Weapon Finesse, they would also qualify for Deadly Agility. So Weapon Finesse + Deadly Agility + Piercing Thunder Style would make spears and polearms DEX-SAD. You can already do Weapon Finesse + Deadly Agility with an elven branched spear, but Piercing Thunder Style opens up all the other spear and polearm options as well. Which is awesome. :smallsmile:

Color me embarrassed that I missed adding DA to that mix, thanks for the catch.

[Kudaku]

thanks for the catch.

Happy to help! :smallsmile:

[Sethis]

Hm. That needs to be cleared up, because as it is now, Animus Healing grants 20d4 heals at the end of every fight.

Fire Aspect Elemental Flux stance already gives you infinite out of combat self-heal at IL 5 anyways.

So, I'm discovering a bit of an issue.

I'm making a rubato bard, and he's trying to focus on Mithral Current with a side of Elemental Flux. He's got aldori swordlord training, and he's using a dueling sword.

The issue is, with a +0 BaB, he's basically SCREWED for feats at level 1. I'm going to have to retrain a lot when I hit level 2 or 3.

I can't take Quick Draw, I can't take Weapon Focus, I can't take Deadly Agility.

I can't take any of the style feats, obviously. I don't get bonus feats, so when I hit level 3, I suddenly need to take everything, and even with retraining and Advanced Study at 5 I'm going to be in a weird place featwise. I'm basically stuck taking fodder and retraining later. * Retraining explicitly does allow you to take things you qualify for now that you didn't then, it was in an FAQ.

Without a +1 BaB or Quick Draw, or the Style feat, I have basically no way to ever draw a weapon and attack as Mithral Current requires at first level, and no related feats I can really take. Any Stalker in my position would have the same issue.

Shouldn't Ready the Draw stance also allow you to draw as a free action once per round? That would fix this issue. It is, I assume, supposed to be to enable Mithral Current to function at low levels.

[Extra Anchovies]

Fire Aspect Elemental Flux stance already gives you infinite out of combat self-heal at IL 5 anyways.

So, I'm discovering a bit of an issue.

I'm making a rubato bard, and he's trying to focus on Mithral Current with a side of Elemental Flux. He's got aldori swordlord training, and he's using a dueling sword.

The issue is, with a +0 BaB, he's basically SCREWED for feats at level 1. I'm going to have to retrain a lot when I hit level 2 or 3.

I can't take Quick Draw, I can't take Weapon Focus, I can't take Deadly Agility.

I can't take any of the style feats, obviously. I don't get bonus feats, so when I hit level 3, I suddenly need to take everything, and even with retraining and Advanced Study at 5 I'm going to be in a weird place featwise. I'm basically stuck taking fodder and retraining later. * Retraining explicitly does allow you to take things you qualify for now that you didn't then, it was in an FAQ.

Without a +1 BaB or Quick Draw, or the Style feat, I have basically no way to ever draw a weapon and attack as Mithral Current requires at first level, and no related feats I can really take.

That's a systemic issue in Pathfinder, and one that's big enough that DSP can't completely fix it (although they could patch part of it by adding a clause to every average-BAB class they make that they count as having BAB +1 at 1st level for prerequisite purposes). I recommend asking your DM to allow retraining and/or houserule away the BAB +1 prerequisite on, well, everything, because it's unfair to average-BAB martials.

[tekevil]

Even if you're a Human Rubato there are plenty of 1st level feats worth taking.

Weapon finesse
Discipline Focus
Power Attack
Piranha Strike

Though I can see the problem if you're trying to make Dueling Sword a thing, something that very few classes can do.

[Sethis]

Even if you're a Human Rubato there are plenty of 1st level feats worth taking.

Weapon finesse
Discipline Focus
Power Attack
Piranha Strike

Though I can see the problem if you're trying to make Dueling Sword a thing, something that very few classes can do.

Yeah, I had to get proficiency from a talent. My GM is using houserules where everyone gets Weapon Finesse, Power Attack, and a few other feat taxes for free. (also, guess what needs +1 BAB? Both Power Attack and Piranha Strike).

I did take Discipline Focus for Elemental Flux though. Gets me some damage and DCs on Variable Strike, plus it's needed for Elements as One, which maybe I'll take at 7? 9? I dunno, feats are going to be an issue.

[Eloelle]

Hello,

I made a post on the DSP forums proper but it seems this place is way more active so I will cross-post things here. I hope that's okay!

Most of my feedback is about the Mystic since that's what I've been interested in lately. I really like it a lot! But there are a lot of issues with it still.

The maneuver cycle for the Mystic
Can you ready fewer maneuvers than your maximum?
> If so, then just ready your number of granted maneuvers, leaving 2-3 ‘unreadied’, and have them refresh every round. This was less effective for the Crusader since they only got 2-4 Granted maneuvers in the first place, but it was still an option.
> If not, then you actually become weaker by choosing Extra Readied Maneuver or at higher levels when you gain more Readied Maneuvers and not more Granted ones. The Crusader always had exactly 3 fewer Granted maneuvers than Readied ones, so it was always on a 4-round cycle (or 3 if you took Extra Granted Maneuver; Extra Readied Maneuver was restricted to the Swordsage). I like the RNG-ish system a little better than I did at first glance, but the math on this iteration just doesn’t work out. You could maybe fix this by allowing the Extra Granted Maneuver feat to be taken more than once, but idk.

Another option would be to grant more than one maneuver per round at higher levels. You’re most likely going to be using at most 2 maneuvers per round, but a lot of them are utility for specific situations like needing to Ghost Touch or penetrate DR or hit multiple opponents.

Another option would be to reduce the number of Readied Maneuvers that they get and instead make Instant Enlightenment usable (way) more often. Like per-encounter often.

Animus and maneuvers only ‘in combat’
One possible solution would be to allow characters to always have access to their ‘chosen’ granted maneuvers (so 2, or 3 if they took the Extra Granted Maneuver) at all times, even out of combat, but the rest of the granted maneuvers go in a pool that are only accessible once things are undeniably in combat. That would solve the Clockwatcher problem, and would allow a few other out-of-combat utility maneuvers to be used while still keeping the ‘surging arcane forces’ dealio.

Font of Animus
No limit? And why so late in their career? I know players who, once they get to level 15, will walk around using Font of Animus every minute (or every round, if they stack – which you should specify) to make sure they always have a zillion anima when an encounter starts. But at levels 9-14, when you’re able to spend 3 or 4 points on a single maneuver, but you’re still only generating one per round, it really doesn’t add up.

Ability scores
Having one of their signature disciplines (Elemental Flux) and several class features be based off Spellcraft when they are already dependent on Wisdom, Strength (probably), Dexterity, and Constitution (because they are squishier than other initiators) is kind of unfair. Either grant a bonus to Spellcraft, or a way to key it off Wisdom instead.

Mystic Artifice
It’s one thing to create a wondrous item, but spell completion/trigger item requires you to have the corresponding spell – if you fail the Spellcraft check while attempting to make a wand, what happens? Did you just waste 750g (times caster level times spell level)?

I think it should be a ‘per day’ thing, since you need to prepare the spell to create the item anyway. Like: “If you fail the Spellcraft check to emulate a spell, you can’t make any progress on the item that day (unless you increase the DC).” That way you’ve got spell completion items covered as well.

Aurora Soul

Yeah it’s underpowered.

Maneuvers/skills are fine.

Improved Unarmed Strike makes up for the loss of martial weapon proficiency. It is not worth an extra feat. Not even when combined with Greater Unarmed Strike. Here’s the table:
Base Attack Bonus Unarmed Strike Damage
+3 – +6 1d4
+7 – +10 1d6
+11 – +14 1d8
+15 or higher 1d10
But because you’re 3/4 BAB, what that actually means is your unarmed strike is still 1d3 until level 4, and increases to 1d6 at level 10, 1d8 at 15, and 1d10 at 20. Barring extensive investment in size modification (which would apply to any other weapon anyway) that means GUS gives you:
Levels 1-3: Nothing
Levels 4-10: +0.5 average damage
Levels 11-15: +1.5 average damage
Levels 16-20: +2.5 average damage

Even for a full BAB class it’s a trap option. If you gave them progression as a monk, it would still only be:
Levels 1-3: +1.5 average damage
Levels 4-7: +2.5 average damage
Levels 8-11: +3.5
Levels 12-15: +5
Levels 16-19: +7
Level 20: +9
Compared to two-weapon fighting with light martial weapons it’s still hardly worth a feat – they start at 1d6 (+1.5 average damage over an unarmed strike), have wider crit ranges, can be enchanted separately, don’t trigger physical contact abilities like elemental auras, can be made out of Silver or Cold Iron – okay, they can be sundered/disarmed, so it’s a tradeoff there, but hey.

Adding WIS to AC makes up for the loss of a shield – at higher point buys, it may outscale it by a little, but that’s the case for any class that has Canny Defense. In any case, the fact that we can use it while two-weapon fighting with our fists is the only redeeming feature of this archetype. But why is it in exchange for an out-of-combat, utility-oriented class feature? If anything, it should replace Arcane Defense and add +1 at levels 6/11/16/20, or something like that. Alternatively, just have it replace light armor proficiency and shield proficiency and not any other class features.

Adding WIS to damage finally makes up for the loss of damage, but now we’re at level 7, and two bonus feats in the hole with nothing to show for it but an unarmed strike that does maybe 2-3 more damage than an equivalent light weapon – unless it crits or the monster has DR other than Magic.

Adding WIS to CMB and CMD is cool but nothing about the archetype or the base class facilitates or benefits from the use of combat maneuvers. There are a few strikes that add combat maneuvers to your damage, and adding WIS to that is certainly a nice bonus, well worth the feat it costs, but it does seem a little out of place in that you need to invest significant resources elsewhere to make it useful, especially when you don’t get it until this late in the game.

Adding WIS to crit confirms is fine but, again, out of place, since an unarmed strike has the worst crit range in the game. It would combine well with Pummeling Style, except you’re not getting any Flurry of Blows or the ability to spend ki to get extra attacks, so you’re limited to whatever extra attacks you spent feats and stances on.

—

Simplest fix would be to move Improved Unarmed Strike to the proficiencies section, take out Greater Unarmed Strike, and make the 2nd-level feat grant Flurry of Blows. I'm sort of looking at the Meditant archetype for the Psychic Warrior to compare it.

[Nihilarian]

Maneuver: Beginning at 3rd level, as a swift action, the pathwalker can expend his psionic focus to brace his weapon against a charge as an immediate action, and gain a +1 bonus to the attack roll of this brace. This bonus increases by +1 at 7th level and every four class levels thereafter.This should probably be one or the other.

[Deadkitten]

I have to ask before giving input on the Path of War style feats: Should I allow Master of Many Styles Monk to influence my opinion of any of the style feats to any degree?

[Lord_Gareth]

I have to ask before giving input on the Path of War style feats: Should I allow Master of Many Styles Monk to influence my opinion of any of the style feats to any degree?

We're not balancing to the existence of that wretched filth, no.

[Kaidinah]

Font of Animus
No limit? And why so late in their career? I know players who, once they get to level 15, will walk around using Font of Animus every minute (or every round, if they stack – which you should specify) to make sure they always have a zillion anima when an encounter starts. But at levels 9-14, when you’re able to spend 3 or 4 points on a single maneuver, but you’re still only generating one per round, it really doesn’t add up.
Yeah, starting a combat with a butt-ton more animus would be problematic, and I do not think Mystics should be generating a bunch of additional animus without sacrificing actions in combat.

However, keep in mind that Elemental Flux was designed to be as effective as other disciplines without needing animus to buff its damage. Animus is a cool bonus, and not something that you should assume the Mystic needs to make Elemental Flux worth it.

You don't need to spend 3 or 4 animus to keep it competitive. If you go nova with your animus, you pay the price.


Aurora Soul

Yeah it’s underpowered.

Maneuvers/skills are fine.

Improved Unarmed Strike makes up for the loss of martial weapon proficiency. It is not worth an extra feat. Not even when combined with Greater Unarmed Strike. Here’s the table:
Base Attack Bonus Unarmed Strike Damage
+3 – +6 1d4
+7 – +10 1d6
+11 – +14 1d8
+15 or higher 1d10
But because you’re 3/4 BAB, what that actually means is your unarmed strike is still 1d3 until level 4, and increases to 1d6 at level 10, 1d8 at 15, and 1d10 at 20. Barring extensive investment in size modification (which would apply to any other weapon anyway) that means GUS gives you:
Levels 1-3: Nothing
Levels 4-10: +0.5 average damage
Levels 11-15: +1.5 average damage
Levels 16-20: +2.5 average damageI agree here. They should count as full-BaB for this particular feat.

This is also a chance to give the Stalker a cool Stalker art that grants Greater Unarmed Strike at full BAB and possibly some other feat or goody, such as TWF when using unarmed strikes only.

[Extra Anchovies]

We're not balancing to the existence of that wretched filth, no.

I'm glad we have similar opinions of that... thing.


The maneuver cycle for the Mystic
Can you ready fewer maneuvers than your maximum?
> If so, then just ready your number of granted maneuvers, leaving 2-3 ‘unreadied’, and have them refresh every round. This was less effective for the Crusader since they only got 2-4 Granted maneuvers in the first place, but it was still an option.

>idiot mystic
pls no

ETA: For those who don't know, there's a 3.5 thing called the Idiot Crusader which is based around having fewer maneuvers known than you do maneuvers granted (this is generally achieved with a Swordsage 1/Warblade 1/Crusader 1). Its main purposes is picking up White Raven Tactics via Martial Study for an arbitrary number of turns per round. Thankfully it doesn't work with the mystic because they have six disciplines available and a lot of maneuvers to choose from all of them.


> If not, then you actually become weaker by choosing Extra Readied Maneuver or at higher levels when you gain more Readied Maneuvers and not more Granted ones. The Crusader always had exactly 3 fewer Granted maneuvers than Readied ones, so it was always on a 3-round cycle (or two if you took Extra Granted Maneuver; Extra Readied Maneuver was restricted to the Swordsage). I like the RNG-ish system a little better than I did at first glance, but the math on this iteration just doesn’t work out. You could maybe fix this by allowing the Extra Granted Maneuver feat to be taken more than once, but idk.

Yeah, Mystics are not really meant to take Extra Readied Maneuver.


Another option would be to grant more than one maneuver per round at higher levels. You’re most likely going to be using at most 2 maneuvers per round, but a lot of them are utility for specific situations like needing to Ghost Touch or penetrate DR or hit multiple opponents.

I agree with this, or at least the idea behind it. As it is now, the Mystic's maneuvers refresh every four rounds from levels 1-11, every five rounds from levels 12-14, every six rounds from levels 15-19, and every seven rounds at level 20. A quick fix would be to have the initial granted maneuvers increase at the same rate as the readied maneuvers (2 at 1st, +1 at 3rd and every three levels thereafter). It would be a slight buff to the Mystic but it wouldn't put the Mystic above the Harbinger or Zealot in terms of power. Eventually granting multiple maneuvers per round at higher levels might also work but would be more complicated.


Animus and maneuvers only ‘in combat’
One possible solution would be to allow characters to always have access to their ‘chosen’ granted maneuvers (so 2, or 3 if they took the Extra Granted Maneuver) at all times, even out of combat, but the rest of the granted maneuvers go in a pool that are only accessible once things are undeniably in combat. That would solve the Clockwatcher problem above, and would allow a few other out-of-combat utility maneuvers to be used while still keeping the ‘surging arcane forces’ dealio.

The issue there is that the maneuvers you hand-pick change each time your maneuvers are granted to you.


Font of Animus
No limit? And why so late in their career? I know players who, once they get to level 15, will walk around using Font of Animus every minute (or every round, if they stack – which you should specify) to make sure they always have a zillion anima when an encounter starts. But at levels 9-14, when you’re able to spend 3 or 4 points on a single maneuver, but you’re still only generating one per round, it really doesn’t add up.

It does need to have stacking clarified. Maybe "when not in combat, a Mystic can only use this ability once per minute"?


Ability scores
Having one of their signature disciplines (Elemental Flux) and several class features be based off Spellcraft when they are already dependent on Wisdom, Strength (probably), Dexterity, and Constitution (because they are squishier than other initiators) is kind of unfair. Either grant a bonus to Spellcraft, or a way to key it off Wisdom instead.

Hm. Wis-based Spellcraft actually makes a lot of sense for this class. Getting Wis to UMD would be nice too but that's a bit much to ask.

[Eloelle]

Yeah, starting a combat with a butt-ton more animus would be problematic, and I do not think Mystics should be generating a bunch of additional animus without sacrificing actions in combat.

However, keep in mind that Elemental Flux was designed to be as effective as other disciplines without needing animus to buff its damage. Animus is a cool bonus, and not something that you should assume the Mystic needs to make Elemental Flux worth it.

You don't need to spend 3 or 4 animus to keep it competitive. If you go nova with your animus, you pay the price.
Ok, that makes sense, but it seems weird to increase your nova potential with levels but not increase your resources to do it with (barring the small buffs to your wisdom modifier as you gain wealth)?


I agree here. They should count as full-BaB for this particular feat.

This is also a chance to give the Stalker a cool Stalker art that grants Greater Unarmed Strike at full BAB and possibly some other feat or goody, such as TWF when using unarmed strikes only.
lol, even then it's still weaker than Monastic Legacy except at precisely level 15 (yeah, yeah, I know you need 2 levels in Monk for that, but you know how little Paizo gives monks). The feat itself is bad imo.


>idiot mystic
pls no
I'm not sure I follow >.> it seems pretty useful to have 5-7 maneuvers of your choice every round. The full-BAB initiators only get that many to begin with.


Yeah, Mystics are not really meant to take Extra Readied Maneuver.

I agree with this, or at least the idea behind it. As it is now, the Mystic's maneuvers refresh every four rounds from levels 1-11, every five rounds from levels 12-14, every six rounds from levels 15-19, and every seven rounds at level 20. A quick fix would be to have the initial granted maneuvers increase at the same rate as the readied maneuvers (2 at 1st, +1 at 3rd and every three levels thereafter). It would be a slight buff to the Mystic but it wouldn't put the Mystic above the Harbinger or Zealot in terms of power. Eventually granting multiple maneuvers per round at higher levels might also work but would be more complicated.
Fair.


The issue there is that the maneuvers you hand-pick change each time your maneuvers are granted to you.
Hm, true. I guess you could change that, too?


Hm. Wis-based Spellcraft actually makes a lot of sense for this class. Getting Wis to UMD would be nice too but that's a bit much to ask.
Yeah. UMD isn't integral to the class the way Spellcraft is, even though it would be nice with the change I suggested for Mystic Artifice.

[AGrinningCat]

Asking again so people don't forget

Benefit: Whenever an ally who is flanking the same enemy as you misses an attack against that opponent, you can make an attack of opportunity against that opponent.
Golden Lion Style.
I know how this is supposed to read, but bear with me for a second:
I am an ally to myself.
I am an ally to myself who is flanking the same enemy as myself. (Assuming I have another individual flanking)
I am an ally who missed an attack against that opponent against a target that an ally is flanking.

If I'm reading this strictly RAW; does this mean I can make attack of opportunities against targets I miss, as long as I'm flanking with someone?

[Dusk Eclipse]

I'm pretty sure it was mentioned somewhere (probably the FAQ thread) that as far as PoW mechanics are concerned you are not considered to be your own ally.

[Lord_Gareth]

I'm pretty sure it was mentioned somewhere (probably the FAQ thread) that as far as PoW mechanics are concerned you are not considered to be your own ally.

You've got'cherself backwards. You're always your own ally. Always. I'll poke it at the team, see if we want to install 'other ally' in there or if it's cute enough to keep.

[Kaidinah]

Ok, that makes sense, but it seems weird to increase your nova potential with levels but not increase your resources to do it with (barring the small buffs to your wisdom modifier as you gain wealth)?

lol, even then it's still weaker than Monastic Legacy (yeah, yeah, I know you need 2 levels in Monk for that, but you know how little Paizo gives monks). The feat itself is bad imo.There is also a feat to get +2 more animus at the start of a fight. Though I like this bounded nova potential. At early levels, there is a limit to how much animus you can spend, in that you literally don't have enough ways to burn it all without gimping yourself. At later levels, you can actually burn it all to do something big and flashy. You basically have to choose between pacing yourself, or making something blow up.

Also, I am okay with their unarmed strikes falling behind, especially since monks don't get 9/9 Broken Blade scaling, and don't get one of the strongest party buffs in the game (Glyphs) that can be used as a move action.

[Eloelle]

There is also a feat to get +2 more animus at the start of a fight. Though I like this bounded nova potential. At early levels, there is a limit to how much animus you can spend, in that you literally don't have enough ways to burn it all without gimping yourself. At later levels, you can actually burn it all to do something big and flashy. You basically have to choose between pacing yourself, or making something blow up.
That's kind of cool. I never thought of it that way. I wonder if that's the intention though?

I don't agree that costing a feat addresses my reservations, but it's something anyway.


Also, I am okay with their unarmed strikes falling behind, especially since monks don't get 9/9 Broken Blade scaling, and don't get one of the strongest party buffs in the game (Glyphs) that can be used as a move action.
Regarding broken blade: You only need 3rd level maneuvers to access the main attraction of that discipline. There's very little above 6th level that isn't just a lower-level maneuver with higher damage numbers.

Regarding glyphs: You get those as a non-Aurora Soul anyway, which is why I compared them to two-weapon fighting with weapons. My point was mainly that it's not worth the feat slot until your BAB reaches 15, and even then it's only 2.5 extra average damage.

[master4sword]

Pretty sure that's like 90% of the point behind tying maneuver swaps to character level than class level, because it's really silly to punish someone for taking levels of classes in the wrong order like that and forcing someone to choose between handicapping their style or losing power in the long run is terrible, really terrible. But everyone here except me seems to hate that change.

This is the exact reason that I like the change.

[Extra Anchovies]

Just a heads up, Idiot Crusader (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=3939.0) tactics work with the Warpath Follower. For example:

Warder (Zweihander Sentinel) 1/Warlord 1/Warpath Follower 1
Learn Angering Smash, Iron Shell, Snapping Strike, Throwing Shell, and Red Zephyr's Strike as Warder maneuvers. Learn Shoulder Rush, Crushing Blow, Blade of Breaking, Prince's Attitude, Panther on the Hunt, and Scything Strike as Warlord maneuvers. Take a level of Warpath Follower for a deity with a heavy blade as their favored weapon, and pick Iron Tortoise, Scarlet Throne, and Primal Fury as your maneuvers. You can only learn 1st-level maneuvers (IL is 2), and although you could learn 3, there's only one available (Primal Wrath). Since you have one granted maneuver and one maneuver known, you can use it every round without needing a recovery action.

I'm sure there are specific abuses with this, but I can't be bothered to find them and the fact that this exploit exists is reason enough to patch it. Maybe prohibit the Warpath Follower from selecting disciplines that they know maneuvers of from different classes?

ETA: The example I provide isn't too horrible, but it can get pretty bad - add in Extra Granted Maneuver and an Advanced Study down the road and you can use a fairly high-level maneuver every round with no recovery necessary.

[Jurai]

Will we get items like the Crown of White Ravens for Path of War?

[Kaidinah]

This is the exact reason that I like the change.To be fair, I would have opposed non-initiator class levels advancing initiator levels without using a feat back in PoW 1 if I was part of that playtest.

You don't see half a class's levels advancing Mind Blades or Astral Suits.

[Eloelle]

Just a heads up, Idiot Crusader (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=3939.0) tactics work with the Warpath Follower. For example:

Warder (Zweihander Sentinel) 1/Warlord 1/Warpath Follower 1
Learn Angering Smash, Iron Shell, Snapping Strike, Throwing Shell, and Red Zephyr's Strike as Warder maneuvers. Learn Shoulder Rush, Crushing Blow, Blade of Breaking, Prince's Attitude, Panther on the Hunt, and Scything Strike as Warlord maneuvers. Take a level of Warpath Follower for a deity with a heavy blade as their favored weapon, and pick Iron Tortoise, Scarlet Throne, and Primal Fury as your maneuvers. You can only learn 1st-level maneuvers (IL is 2), and although you could learn 3, there's only one available (Primal Wrath). Since you have one granted maneuver and one maneuver known, you can use it every round without needing a recovery action.

I'm sure there are specific abuses with this, but I can't be bothered to find them and the fact that this exploit exists is reason enough to patch it. Maybe prohibit the Warpath Follower from selecting disciplines that they know maneuvers of from different classes?
Oh, I see, 'Idiot Mystic' was the technical term. That makes a lot more sense - thank you! Sorry, I'm kind of new (obviously) so I don't know what's been said and done and what not.

[Anlashok]

Flow- Basically Mobility by another name, and Mobility isn't all that great. has the advantage of protecting you in any turn you don't draw, but that really doesn't come up too often.
If you're using MC as intended you're probably drawing at least once a turn, which makes it worse than mobility since at least you Mobility doesn't get turned off after attacking.

Conversely you can turn it into a permanent +4 to AC by outright ignoring MC mechanics and simply carrying a sheathed dagger around with you permanently while fighting normally. That's not very good either though since you're burning two feats and your style for it, but it gets more out of the feat than someone trying to play 'properly'.

Frankly the only reason this isn't one of the worst feats in the entire game of Pathfinder game is because Paizo has printed feats that actually make you worse if you try to use them. Even then Mithral Current Flow is pretty damn close.

Power aside I think it should send up a red flag that the optimal playstyle here is to have a backup weapon you never draw and then optimize for massive single hit attacks with Slice.

Again: I get more mileage out of Mithral Current Flow by being a guy on a horse with a silver lance or a scarlet throne/primal fury specialist in heavy armor with a greatsword and a dagger tucked into my belt than by being anything close to what a mithral current user normally looks like.

[Extra Anchovies]

If you're using MC as intended you're probably drawing at least once a turn, which makes it worse than mobility since at least you Mobility doesn't get turned off after attacking.

Conversely you can turn it into a permanent +4 to AC by outright ignoring MC mechanics and simply carrying a sheathed dagger around with you permanently while fighting normally. That's not very good either though since you're burning two feats and your style for it, but it gets more out of the feat than someone trying to play 'properly'.

Frankly the only reason this isn't one of the worst feats in the entire game of Pathfinder is because Paizo has printed feats that actually make you worse if you try to use them. Even then Mithral Current Flow is pretty damn close.

Power aside I think it should send up a red flag that the optimal playstyle here is to have a backup weapon you never draw and then optimize for massive single hit attacks with Slice.

Again: I get more mileage out of Mithral Current Flow by being a guy on a horse with a silver lance or a scarlet throne/primal fury specialist in heavy armor with a greatsword and a dagger tucked into my belt than by being anything close to what a mithral current user normally looks like.

Yeah, MC Flow is just a tax for MC Slice. It needs some changes.

I also now want to roll up a gangster-rapping Bushi named MC Slice.


Oh, I see, 'Idiot Mystic' was the technical term. That makes a lot more sense - thank you! Sorry, I'm kind of new (obviously) so I don't know what's been said and done and what not.

You're welcome! The idiot crusader isn't exactly the most widely known exploit but it's one of my favorites, so I noticed the similarity as soon as you mentioned readying fewer-than-normal maneuvers as a Mystic.

Also, welcome to the forums! I hope you enjoy your time here :smallsmile:

[PsyBomb]

If you're using MC as intended you're probably drawing at least once a turn, which makes it worse than mobility since at least you Mobility doesn't get turned off after attacking.

Frankly the only reason this isn't one of the worst feats in the entire game of Pathfinder game is because Paizo has printed feats that actually make you worse if you try to use them. Even then Mithral Current Flow is pretty damn close.

Power aside I think it should send up a red flag that the optimal playstyle here is to have a backup weapon you never draw and then optimize for massive single hit attacks with Slice.


It's a bit better than THAT. Not by much, but you do your movement before drawing to gain the defensive bonuses. Thus, Mobility, which gives the same bonuses in extremely similar situations. Mobility doesn't get turned off, but only applies to AoOs from movement

[Elricaltovilla]

Diverse Training has gone the way of the Dodo, and in it's place we've got the following feats:

Pikeman’s Training [Combat]
Militaries across the land rely on lines of pikemen carrying both their long spears and a shield. You are familiar with this fighting style.
Prerequisite: BAB +1
Benefit: You can wield a two handed polearm in one hand, provided you are wielding a light or heavy shield in your other hand.

Short Haft [Combat]
Holding your polearm further up its length, you can strike adjacent foes as well as those further away.
Prerequisite: BAB +6
Benefit: You can attack adjacent enemies with your reach weapon until the end of your turn by taking a -2 penalty to AC for the round. You must decide to use this ability before any attacks are made.

--------------------------------

I've got a list of other feats that need fixing, but those are going to have to wait until tomorrow. I just got back from convincing a horde of over 200,000 kobolds that my friends and I are gods and they should worship us as such. So I'm kind of tired.

[MilleniaAntares]

Ability scores
Having one of their signature disciplines (Elemental Flux) and several class features be based off Spellcraft when they are already dependent on Wisdom, Strength (probably), Dexterity, and Constitution (because they are squishier than other initiators) is kind of unfair. Either grant a bonus to Spellcraft, or a way to key it off Wisdom instead.
All PoW classes have this issue. That's not going to change.

Maybe that should be added to the FAQ.

[Sethis]

Wait, why is Diverse Training gone? That just flat nerfs people who are going into a maneuver class for the first time at later levels.

Even without advancing the other class ability, getting full IL from a feat to pick your maneuvers would be worth a feat.

[tekevil]

Elric has my love and affection for bringing us those two feats.

Even though the second clause makes little sense in RL terms I am more than willing to accept it if it prevents jank from occuring.

Also love the second feat! It's like nega-lunge! Always wanted a feat like that.

[Eloelle]

All PoW classes have this issue.
Not really? The full-BAB ones have disciplines that don't sync up very well with their KAMs (arguably - Warders can take Clever Wordplay and have a billion skill points anyway, Warlords get Golden Lion, Zealots get Eternal Guardian), but Harbinger and Stalker don't at all. More importantly, no other class has non-discipline features that depend on a second mental ability score (unless you count Stalwart, but Will is one of the Warder's good saves!). To be clear: I'm talking about Mystic Artifice and Quell Magic, which both require spellcraft checks to use and aren't optional features.

[Extra Anchovies]

I'm very glad that Master of 1000 Pokes ended up making it into the feats doc, but I'm not going to stop calling it Master of 1000 Pokes.

Say, has anything been decided regarding my suggestion for a trait that lets scaling unarmed damage apply to gauntlets and brass knuckles, etc?

[ATalsen]

Diverse Training has gone the way of the Dodo,

Bummer, now I have to tell a couple of my players their builds need revision.

Any reason for it? Sounds almost like it was cut for space reasons...

[MilleniaAntares]

Here are a two ideas for the Volley formation, though I'm uncertain of their balance:

1) On their turn, the hussar designates a number of squares equal to those in the formation who are using ranged weapons. Enemies in those squares take X damage, and can halve the damage if they roll reflex versus DC 10 + 1/2 hussar level + hussar's initiation modifier. X could be the equivalent of splash damage (minimum dice rolls + static modifiers) of one of the members (randomly determined? averaged? weakest?), or perhaps number of people in the formation + hussar's initiation modifier + some number that rises every few levels.

2) Flanking bonuses with everyone in the Volley formation.

#2 can be strong if you have a bunch of people with sneak attack, but I figure it wouldn't be all that much more abusable than having a whole bunch of lance-wielding mounted people with Spirited Charge using the level 10 ability of the surge formation.

Feel free to steal and refine as appropriate.

[Nyaa]

Why do forgeborn Warders receive FCB different from dwarves, elans and half-orcs? And Warders don't get their aegis bonus to AC without archetypes.

[Swaoeaeieu]

Diverse Training has gone the way of the Dodo, and in it's place we've got the following feats:

Pikeman’s Training [Combat]
Militaries across the land rely on lines of pikemen carrying both their long spears and a shield. You are familiar with this fighting style.
Prerequisite: BAB +1
Benefit: You can wield a two handed polearm in one hand, provided you are wielding a light or heavy shield in your other hand.


So we dont need phalanx stance at later levels anymore? Sweet

[Kaidinah]

So we dont need phalanx stance at later levels anymore? Sweet
Only as much as you don't need Scarlet Einhander at later levels. Sometimes you need that damage boost.

[ErrantX]

Can we assume this is permanent? :smallsmile:
Also any note about the Pathwalker not getting the actual supernatural disciplines?

Pathwalkers are getting the disciplines needed to do their job. Additionally, with psychic warriors being a blend of steel and psionics, having their steel augmented by maneuvers that are more based in just steel is sensible and fitting to the theme, where Sleeping Goddess straddles the line.


No offense, but considering that the Stalker is the weakest initiator, unless the Stalker gets a rework, arts like these are the only way to fix it.

Would you ban Brutal Slayer as well? Considering it effectively gets Graceful Killer at no cost?

Stalker is getting a rework. Eventually. A few other things likely will get retooled a bit. We're a little older and wiser.


Not completely. I love it, but I also worry that it will turn the Stalker into dip-fodder.

EDIT: But while we're on the subject, does this count as having Weapon Finesse/Deadly Agility for prerequisites?

Martial disciples are dip-fodder. It's just a thing. I could spend my whole life fighting it and die a broken man, or accept it and move on. It's a good bit of dip fodder, but it's not the end of the world. And no, you gain the mechanical benefits of the feats with that single weapon but you do not have the feats.


I... don't think that's too much of an issue. Prior to the introduction of Graceful Killer, all of the Stalker complaints that I'd seen were about the recovery method and core class features, not "needs more feats".

Stalker... wasn't supposed to be that way. It's a victim of circumstance.


As PoW1 classes are getting new disciplines, aren't PRCs going to get them too? I remember Chris mentioning Awakened Blade getting Flux and Goddess and Mage Hunter (or was it Bladecaster?) getting Flux and Mirror.

Good question. Frankly, I didn't remember to do it so I'm glad I've got folks like you reminding me to stay honest. Also, don't bring up Bladecaster - Snowbluff will hear you!


Why do forgeborn Warders receive FCB different from dwarves, elans and half-orcs? And Warders don't get their aegis bonus to AC without archetypes.

I got distracted - that's why. I do a lot of my writing between calls at work and between paying attention to my family at home. I was intending to address the fact that the FCB makes your Aegis bonus go silly for the AC buffers on DD and ZS.


From Path of War's Systems and Use page. Encounters have been defined.:

"An encounter is a period of time from when initiative begins (starting with the surprise round, if any) to the last initiative has ended and after a total time amount of one minute has elapsed without combat resuming."

Therefore, the Mystic always has 10 rounds of animus generation at the end of every combat. So they get a minimum of 10 uses of Animus Healing since they should be getting 1 free animus for every round in combat.

...Dagnabbit. I am not really okay with this. :smallconfused:


Hello,

I made a post on the DSP forums proper but it seems this place is way more active so I will cross-post things here. I hope that's okay!

Most of my feedback is about the Mystic since that's what I've been interested in lately. I really like it a lot! But there are a lot of issues with it still.

The maneuver cycle for the Mystic
Can you ready fewer maneuvers than your maximum?
> If so, then just ready your number of granted maneuvers, leaving 2-3 ‘unreadied’, and have them refresh every round. This was less effective for the Crusader since they only got 2-4 Granted maneuvers in the first place, but it was still an option.
> If not, then you actually become weaker by choosing Extra Readied Maneuver or at higher levels when you gain more Readied Maneuvers and not more Granted ones. The Crusader always had exactly 3 fewer Granted maneuvers than Readied ones, so it was always on a 4-round cycle (or 3 if you took Extra Granted Maneuver; Extra Readied Maneuver was restricted to the Swordsage). I like the RNG-ish system a little better than I did at first glance, but the math on this iteration just doesn’t work out. You could maybe fix this by allowing the Extra Granted Maneuver feat to be taken more than once, but idk.

Another option would be to grant more than one maneuver per round at higher levels. You’re most likely going to be using at most 2 maneuvers per round, but a lot of them are utility for specific situations like needing to Ghost Touch or penetrate DR or hit multiple opponents.

Another option would be to reduce the number of Readied Maneuvers that they get and instead make Instant Enlightenment usable (way) more often. Like per-encounter often.

No, you must always ready your full allotment. No idiot mystics need apply.

There would need to be some math and testing required before I would consider officially upping the maneuvers granted allotment.


Animus and maneuvers only ‘in combat’
One possible solution would be to allow characters to always have access to their ‘chosen’ granted maneuvers (so 2, or 3 if they took the Extra Granted Maneuver) at all times, even out of combat, but the rest of the granted maneuvers go in a pool that are only accessible once things are undeniably in combat. That would solve the Clockwatcher problem, and would allow a few other out-of-combat utility maneuvers to be used while still keeping the ‘surging arcane forces’ dealio.

They do have their chosen duo whenever, actually.


Font of Animus
No limit? And why so late in their career? I know players who, once they get to level 15, will walk around using Font of Animus every minute (or every round, if they stack – which you should specify) to make sure they always have a zillion anima when an encounter starts. But at levels 9-14, when you’re able to spend 3 or 4 points on a single maneuver, but you’re still only generating one per round, it really doesn’t add up.

Capping it at 1 + Wis mod (min 1) uses per day. Still enough to be effective when needed, but restrictive so you don't get this. Thank you!


Ability scores
Having one of their signature disciplines (Elemental Flux) and several class features be based off Spellcraft when they are already dependent on Wisdom, Strength (probably), Dexterity, and Constitution (because they are squishier than other initiators) is kind of unfair. Either grant a bonus to Spellcraft, or a way to key it off Wisdom instead.

No. We didn't do it for anyone else, we're not doing it here either. Skills are what they are, and initiator modifiers are what they are. We do this for a reason - balance-wise and flavor wise. I'll leave it to the scientists here to figure out the Wis-SAD Mystic.


Mystic Artifice
It’s one thing to create a wondrous item, but spell completion/trigger item requires you to have the corresponding spell – if you fail the Spellcraft check while attempting to make a wand, what happens? Did you just waste 750g (times caster level times spell level)?

I think it should be a ‘per day’ thing, since you need to prepare the spell to create the item anyway. Like: “If you fail the Spellcraft check to emulate a spell, you can’t make any progress on the item that day (unless you increase the DC).” That way you’ve got spell completion items covered as well.

It's really just like anyone else making an item. I just allow them to do it while not having spells or spending a feat to do it, outside of the item creation feats you'd still need.


Aurora Soul

Yeah it’s underpowered.

*snip*

It fits a role that people wanted, enabling a combat style effectively while maintaining the abilities and theme of the mystic. The mystic isn't intended to be a monk - she's intended to be a mystic. Leave the fisticuff measuring to the brawler, monk, and Steelfist commando.


All PoW classes have this issue. That's not going to change.

Maybe that should be added to the FAQ.

We already sound like jerks half the time, this would be going too far! :P

-X

[ANSeranov]

I don't know what you're talking about, Chris. I have every intention of remaking late-manga Negi Springfield as an Aurora Fist Mystic.

[AGrinningCat]

Sleeping Goddess Path
Trance: Beginning at 3rd level, while the pathwalker maintains psionic focus and while in a Sleeping Goddess Stance he gains a +1 bonus on attack rolls made with weapons created by the call weaponry power or the call the soul’s blade stance. This bonus increases by +1 for every four psychic warrior levels.
Maneuver: Beginning at 3rd level, as a swift action, the pathwalker can expend his psionic focus to create a field of defensive psychic force through his skin and body, increasing the pathwalker’s natural armor bonus by +2 . This bonus increases by +1 for every five class levels.

ErrantX, you're going to be buttering a ton of people's biscuits if that Maneuver doesn't get a duration, unless perma-barkskin was intended.

Also that trance is kinda... Well, it does nothing unless you're actively using what's listed, which is a damn shame to anyone who wants to use an actual weapon, or something like Claws of the Beast. Or their Unarmed strike/natural attacks.

Edit: Maybe move the Armor into the Trance, then let the Maneuver grant some sort of augmentation to Sleeping Goddess Maneuvers?

[ErrantX]

ErrantX, you're going to be buttering a ton of people's biscuits if that Maneuver doesn't get a duration, unless perma-barkskin was intended.

Also that trance is kinda... Well, it does nothing unless you're actively using what's listed, which is a damn shame to anyone who wants to use an actual weapon, or something like Claws of the Beast. Or their Unarmed strike/natural attacks.

Edit: Maybe move the Armor into the Trance, then let the Maneuver grant some sort of augmentation to Sleeping Goddess Maneuvers?

Buttering biscuits? o.O

I do NOT know what kind of fella you take me for, kind sir.

I'll fix that duration, definitely. And good call, I think. Defense first, then work on the offense to shore up the BAB limits of it. 2nd thought, I think your first idea was better.

-X

[Eloelle]

First of all, thanks for the prompt reply! I really appreciate the level of commitment you guys have.

No, you must always ready your full allotment. No idiot mystics need apply.

Capping it at 1 + Wis mod (min 1) uses per day. Still enough to be effective when needed, but restrictive so you don't get this. Thank you!
Cool, works for me :smallsmile: Is the 'always must ready your full allotment' printed somewhere? Did I just miss it?


They do have their chosen duo whenever, actually.
If that's the case, then it's not really clear from the way the text is right now ^^'
Before taking her first action in an encounter, while initiative is being rolled, she may select two of her readied maneuvers to be immediately granted to her at all times (if she is able to act in a surprise round, she is granted her maneuvers as normal but if caught unaware, she is not)
Seems to mean that you still can't use Clockwatcher. Is that intentional?

The way I'm imagining it working, it would be more like,
When readying or recovering maneuvers, she may choose two of her readied maneuvers to be granted to her at all times. The rest are withheld and currently inaccessible. Once she enters combat, at the end of each of her turns, one previously withheld maneuver (randomly determined) is granted to her, and thus becomes accessible for her next turn and subsequent turns.
Then, at the last paragraph of that section,
At 3rd, 6th, 9th and 18th level, she is granted an additional maneuver at random from her readied maneuvers at the start of an encounter and when she recovers maneuvers (if she is able to act in a surprise round, she is granted them immediately but if caught unaware, she must wait until her first action). etc. etc.

Does that work? Or is that going too far?


No. We didn't do it for anyone else, we're not doing it here either. Skills are what they are, and initiator modifiers are what they are. We do this for a reason - balance-wise and flavor wise. I'll leave it to the scientists here to figure out the Wis-SAD Mystic.
For disciplines, sure, I understand, but there are no class features that depend on off-key skills for anyone else. There isn't a way to get Spellcraft keyed off of Wisdom, at least not without 3.5 material. Even just a trait would do the trick.

As for the Wis-SAD mystic... well, there is Guided Weapon and Wisdom in the Flesh to take care of Strength I suppose. That still leaves you with 4 necessary attributes!

Alternatively: Craft and Perform got some loving with the Shattered Mirror and Mithral Current disciplines, but Profession is left out in the rain...


It's really just like anyone else making an item. I just allow them to do it while not having spells or spending a feat to do it, outside of the item creation feats you'd still need.
It's not quite the same, because, from Magic Item Creation:
Note that all items have prerequisites in their descriptions. These prerequisites must be met for the item to be created. Most of the time, they take the form of spells that must be known by the item's creator (although access through another magic item or spellcaster is allowed). The DC to create a magic item increases by 5 for each prerequisite the caster does not meet. The only exception to this is the requisite item creation feat, which is mandatory. In addition, you cannot create potions, spell-trigger, or spell-completion magic items without meeting its prerequisites.
So: If you're trying to make a potion or a wand and you fail the spellcraft check to emulate the spell, what happens? Wastes the materials? Or can she just keep attempting the spellcraft check until she gets it, and then start work on the item? Or should she just not try to make potions/scrolls/wands?

If a wizard doesn't have the spell that day, she can just prepare it another day and finish the item then.


It fits a role that people wanted, enabling a combat style effectively while maintaining the abilities and theme of the mystic. The mystic isn't intended to be a monk - she's intended to be a mystic. Leave the fisticuff measuring to the brawler, monk, and Steelfist commando.
That's understandable, but at what cost? :smallfrown:

[Deadkitten]

Zealot: Add +1/2 to the number of creatures in the zealot’s collective.

So I'm just gonna throw my 2 cents in on this and say that this FCB is hardly worthwhile.

Your collective can hold the Zealot, plus the highest of their Zealot level or Charisma plus their Zeal. That is probably more than enough for what you want to do apart from massive battlefield leader types.

I'm not saying it should go away as a FCB, but it is REALLY common.

[Mehangel]

So I'm just gonna throw my 2 cents in on this and say that this FCB is hardly worthwhile.

Your collective can hold the Zealot, plus the highest of their Zealot level or Charisma plus their Zeal. That is probably more than enough for what you want to do apart from massive battlefield leader types.

I'm not saying it should go away as a FCB, but it is REALLY common.

Actually, as someone who had a Tactician Thrallherd, I actually utilized having massive collectives. I would actually appreciate it if this FCB stays. Just because some people dont use it doesnt make it a bad choice.

[PsyBomb]

Actually, as someone who had a Tactician Thrallherd, I actually utilized having massive collectives. I would actually appreciate it if this FCB stays. Just because some people dont use it doesnt make it a bad choice.

I'll second this one. For people who dip 2 levels of the class, it's excellent to be able to actually cover your entire team. I've run into this on low-level Vitalists, as well as a P6 Oradin build I had. Even if you aren't going Thrallherd to gain a 20+ NPC formation behind you in support, there are quite a few instances where this will be used.

[GhorrinRedblade]

When I looked at the FCBs, I think this was yesterday, there were a lot of blank spaces where I'd have expected fractions (gain this much of a new maneuver, or that much of a new Stalker art, etc.). Might want to take another pass at that.

[ErrantX]

When I looked at the FCBs, I think this was yesterday, there were a lot of blank spaces where I'd have expected fractions (gain this much of a new maneuver, or that much of a new Stalker art, etc.). Might want to take another pass at that.

Not really sure what you're getting at? Could you elaborate more please?

-X

[Eloelle]

When I looked at the FCBs, I think this was yesterday, there were a lot of blank spaces where I'd have expected fractions (gain this much of a new maneuver, or that much of a new Stalker art, etc.). Might want to take another pass at that.
They look fine to me. May be a rendering issue on your browser? Some of them are Unicode fraction characters like '½', whereas others are like '1/2'. GDocs auto-converts if you press spacebar after typing a unicode-compatible fraction.

[GhorrinRedblade]

OK, then it sounds like it could be a browser/mobile issue (I'm on my phone). Assume it is unless I report back to the contrary. :)

EDIT: my phone's version of Chrome doesn't want to display the character for 1/5, there you go. Carry on! :D

[stack]

Sleeping Goddess Style [Combat, Style]
You can tap into the dream state to refresh your mind and body
Prerequisites: 1 or more Sleeping Goddess stances, Autohypnosis 3 ranks
Benefit: You can spend a standard action to gain psionic focus and recover a single maneuver. If you have the Psionic Meditation feat, you can spend a move action to gain psionic focus and recover a single maneuver.

Essence Focus (Akashic)
The blending of akasha and psionics you have mastered gives you unusual focus and recovery.
Prerequisite(s): Con 13, a power point reserve.
Benefit(s): You can invest a point of essence into this feat as a move action to regain your psionic focus. essence invested in this way cannot be reassigned for 3 rounds. In addition, while essence is invested in this feat you gain the ability to activate two abilities which require you to expend your psionic focus as part of the same action (for example, a psion using this ability could gain the benefits of both Quicken Power and Talented as part of the same expenditure).

Can you reword sleeping goddess style to account for essence focus? I know its extremely niche, but may saying 'if you are able to regain focus as a move action, then you may gain focus and recover a single maneuver as part of that move action'? The only time I can think of it coming up is for a few levels on a zealot with an essence pool prior to getting psionic meditation, so it may not be worth changing.

[Deadkitten]

I'll second this one. For people who dip 2 levels of the class, it's excellent to be able to actually cover your entire team. I've run into this on low-level Vitalists, as well as a P6 Oradin build I had. Even if you aren't going Thrallherd to gain a 20+ NPC formation behind you in support, there are quite a few instances where this will be used.
I will agree that it shouldn't go away, I just don't think it should be so prevalent of a FCB
It is 2/3rds of the Zealots FCBs
It actually shows up more than the 1/4th of a new conviction FCB.

I just want more varied options for FCBs for the Zealot.

[ErrantX]

@ Eloelle - Responding your big post.

It's not expressly written one way or the other - it says you ready your allotment. So you ready your maneuvers. I'll specify it.

In order to make this clearer than air, I have beefed up the second on what and how and when those two initial maneuvers can be used to hopefully fail-proof the language. You have two. Always. ALWAYS. They are just there. When combat begins, you begin your normal granting cycle.

Skills aren't changing, nor am I creating additional unnecessary abilities to simply improve on SAD. That's a Wizard's place. You're playing a mystic, you lucky dog.

Well, there wasn't a discipline we felt like making that used Profession. We didn't make one for Appraise either.

As far as failing creating tems, as I said, the exact same thing happens (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items#TOC-Magic-Item-Creation) as it would if a wizard, cleric, sorcerer, my mom, or a fighter with the right feats were to fail a magic item creation check.

The cost? That's kinda dramatic, man.
Mystics aren't monks, brawlers, or a full BAB class. They have access to all the animus use abilities that a mystic normally has, plus has some different abilities to make it so they don't absolutely suck at unarmed combat. Normal mystic would love the Wisdom defense, I feel. They do their talking with their maneuvers anyhow when it comes to damage. To point - the aurora fist is NOT a monk, and while your math equals out to what I expected (i.e. monk fists > mystic fists), monks do not have access to animus (strictly speaking better than ki), animus augments, or maneuvers that go boom. The monk is more focused on beating people to death with its fists (and not well, I may add, Commando arguably does it far better) where as the aurora fist is about delivering maneuvers with its fists (strictly speaking WAY better than monk).

-X

[tekevil]

Both of these changes are moving in weird directions


Fear Monger (Ex): The stalker gains Dazzling Display as a bonus feat; the stalker gains access to the Black Seraph discipline and adds Intimidate to his class skills..

This Art isn't all that useful. Previously it was a cool art for Brutal Stalker since they love intimidate, but now it's a sub par option for base and Brutal. Brutal Stalker already has Black Seraph as a discipline. If a Base Stalker wanted Black Seraph he wouldn't waste a valuable art on it, what with the traditions and traits being around.


Graceful Killer (Ex): The stalker gains the benefits of Weapon Finesse and Deadly agility feats with any one weapon they are proficient with, even if this weapon would not normally be subject to either of these feats. This art may be taken multiple times.

I like that the level restriction is removed, but dislike that it's limited to one weapon. Can we either get it to 2 weapons or at least a weapon group? One of the cool things about the Stalker was that he gets different bonus dice on deadly strikes and you had cool viable builds using different weapons. Wanted to twf with a kukri to farm crits and a light pick/hand axe to reap big deadly strike dice? Sure, got for it.

Also now this is just going to lead to builds like "Imma 2HF with this here finessed/deadly agility'd Nodachi and power attack my problems away!"

[Extra Anchovies]

I like that the level restriction is removed, but dislike that it's limited to one weapon. Can we either get it to 2 weapons or at least a weapon group? One of the cool things about the Stalker was that he gets different bonus dice on deadly strikes and you had cool viable builds using different weapons. Wanted to twf with a kukri to farm crits and a light pick/hand axe to reap big deadly strike dice? Sure, got for it.

I agree about any two weapons, now that you mention the default Stalker kukri-and-pick combat strategy. Opening it up to an entire weapon group is a bit much.


Also now this is just going to lead to builds like "Imma 2HF with this here finessed/deadly agility'd Nodachi and power attack my problems away!"

That wasn't an issue the last time you posted that sentence, and it still isn't an issue :smallbiggrin:

It's spending two feats to get higher AC but slightly lower damage (since DA doesn't give 1.5*Dex to THF). It's a nice option but not an overpowered one.

[ErrantX]

Both of these changes are moving in weird directions



This Art isn't all that useful. Previously it was a cool art for Brutal Stalker since they love intimidate, but now it's a sub par option for base and Brutal. Brutal Stalker already has Black Seraph as a discipline. If a Base Stalker wanted Black Seraph he wouldn't waste a valuable art on it, what with the traditions and traits being around.



I like that the level restriction is removed, but dislike that it's limited to one weapon. Can we either get it to 2 weapons or at least a weapon group? One of the cool things about the Stalker was that he gets different bonus dice on deadly strikes and you had cool viable builds using different weapons. Wanted to twf with a kukri to farm crits and a light pick/hand axe to reap big deadly strike dice? Sure, got for it.

Also now this is just going to lead to builds like "Imma 2HF with this here finessed/deadly agility'd Nodachi and power attack my problems away!"

Deja Vu. I have a feeling I saw you post this before.

I retconned the changes to Fear Monger, please recheck the document on that one. It's back to what it was prior my tinkering.

And no. I like it this way. I think it enables builds that previously were unavailable to stalkers who want to be Dex based but the weapons they want don't reward them for using Dexterity. This art (equivalent roughly of a Feat or Feat+) is granting the benefits of two feats for a single weapon type. I find this to be equivalent exchange. It's distinctly better than other focused feats like Weapon Focus, because it has tangible benefits and grants you the ability fight in a specific way at level 1, even enabling two-weapon fighters if you're using the same weapon type (any race, two-weapon fighting for 1st level feat and use their art for Killer's Implement so you can use those twin kukri or light picks, or power attack with it to use that scythe).

-X

[Vhaidara]

Idea: maybe have graceful killer give another weapon every x levels?

[tekevil]

At least letting you pick two weapons would be nice. Not everyone wants to dual wield 2 of the same weapon.

Also sorry I missed the post where you changed Fear Monger back.

[Eloelle]

@ Eloelle - Responding your big post.

It's not expressly written one way or the other - it says you ready your allotment. So you ready your maneuvers. I'll specify it.

In order to make this clearer than air, I have beefed up the second on what and how and when those two initial maneuvers can be used to hopefully fail-proof the language. You have two. Always. ALWAYS. They are just there. When combat begins, you begin your normal granting cycle.
It is more clear now, but it still says "when initiative is rolled" and then later says "in or out of combat". :s Sorry to be nitpicking so much on this.


Skills aren't changing, nor am I creating additional unnecessary abilities to simply improve on SAD. That's a Wizard's place. You're playing a mystic, you lucky dog.

Well, there wasn't a discipline we felt like making that used Profession. We didn't make one for Appraise either.
Wizard's, Stalker's, Warder's... but oh well, point taken.


As far as failing creating tems, as I said, the exact same thing happens (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items#TOC-Magic-Item-Creation) as it would if a wizard, cleric, sorcerer, my mom, or a fighter with the right feats were to fail a magic item creation check.
so "– the item creation DC increases as normal for the creation of an item without a prerequisite spell in such a case." + "Or, if the item cannot be created without the prerequisite spell, such as for a potion, scroll, wand, or staff, then the materials are wasted as if you failed the check to create the magic item" ?



The cost? That's kinda dramatic, man.
Mystics aren't monks, brawlers, or a full BAB class. They have access to all the animus use abilities that a mystic normally has, plus has some different abilities to make it so they don't absolutely suck at unarmed combat. Normal mystic would love the Wisdom defense, I feel. They do their talking with their maneuvers anyhow when it comes to damage. To point - the aurora fist is NOT a monk, and while your math equals out to what I expected (i.e. monk fists > mystic fists), monks do not have access to animus (strictly speaking better than ki), animus augments, or maneuvers that go boom. The monk is more focused on beating people to death with its fists (and not well, I may add, Commando arguably does it far better) where as the aurora fist is about delivering maneuvers with its fists (strictly speaking WAY better than monk).

-X
Hehe. Makes sense. I don't think their unarmed strikes should be as good as monks. But I do think if they're going to trade away all their weapon proficiencies, 4 feats, and Mystic Artifice, ... well, maybe all that is worth getting Wisdom to AC and damage, I don't know.

[ErrantX]

At least letting you pick two weapons would be nice. Not everyone wants to dual wield 2 of the same weapon.

Also sorry I missed the post where you changed Fear Monger back.

Never said anyone did, I was just providing advice/clarification at that point.


Idea: maybe have graceful killer give another weapon every x levels?

This is a potential concession, because it gives it longevity. Opinions?

-X

[Extra Anchovies]

This is a potential concession, because it gives it longevity. Opinions?

-X

Adding another weapon type at 5/10/15/20 or 6/11/16 seems fair to me. Lets them be adaptable while also keeping the art's effectiveness where it is now for dippers.

[tekevil]

What if it was with any 2 weapons you drill with for 1 hour?

That way if you suddenly get an UBER PLOT WEAPON you can use it almost immediately?

[Elricaltovilla]

What if it was with any 2 weapons you drill with for 1 hour?

That way if you suddenly get an UBER PLOT WEAPON you can use it almost immediately?

Everybody knows that they never make any plot weapons that are finesseable. They're all holy avenger bastard swords in order to encourage people to play paladins.:smalltongue:

[tekevil]

With how the talent is written, they dont have to be :)

[ErrantX]

It is more clear now, but it still says "when initiative is rolled" and then later says "in or out of combat". :s Sorry to be nitpicking so much on this.

I'd rather you nitpick now than after it's published! :smallbiggrin:

Try this:

Mystics are unique among martial disciples in that they rely on surging, primal arcane forces within their being to fuel their martial maneuvers. Because of this, they do not fully control access to their readied maneuvers; she may select two of her readied maneuvers to be immediately granted to her for use at any time (in or out of combat). The rest of her readied maneuvers are withheld and currently inaccessible. The rest of these initially granted maneuvers are granted to her upon her turn. If she is able to act in a surprise round when combat begins, she is granted her maneuvers then as normal, but if she is caught unaware she must wait until her initiative before her maneuvers are granted (beyond the initial two). At the end of each of her combat turns, one previously withheld maneuver (randomly determined) is granted to her, and thus becomes accessible for her next turn and subsequent turns. She can freely choose to initiate any maneuver that is currently granted when her turn begins, but she cannot initiate a withheld maneuver. If the mystic chooses not to employ a maneuver in a given round, her currently granted maneuvers remain available, and a previously withheld maneuver is granted, as described above. In other words, it doesn’t matter if she uses her maneuvers or not—at the end of each of her turns, one withheld maneuver from her selection of readied maneuvers is granted to her. Over the course of a few rounds, all the mystic’s maneuvers will eventually be granted.

How's that look?


so "– the item creation DC increases as normal for the creation of an item without a prerequisite spell in such a case." + "Or, if the item cannot be created without the prerequisite spell, such as for a potion, scroll, wand, or staff, then the materials are wasted as if you failed the check to create the magic item" ?

Both? Moreso I was referring to the 2nd. If you fail the check, the materials are wasted. If you BOMB the check, welcome to your new cursed item. :smallfrown:


Adding another weapon type at 5/10/15/20 or 6/11/16 seems fair to me. Lets them be adaptable while also keeping the art's effectiveness where it is now for dippers.

Cool. Yeah, I think I'm gonna do this. I think at 5/10/15/20 is acceptable.


What if it was with any 2 weapons you drill with for 1 hour?

That way if you suddenly get an UBER PLOT WEAPON you can use it almost immediately?

No. Just no. Srsly, enough with the two initial weapons. It's like fetch, bro - it ain't gonna happen! :smallbiggrin:

(Besides: If an uber plot weapon is dropped and you're intended to use it, the DM will make sure it works for you if they're kind, or not if they don't care)

I'll posit this to the class as options:


Killer’s Implement (Ex): The stalker gains the benefits of Weapon Finesse and Deadly agility feats with any one weapon they are proficient with, even if this weapon would not normally be subject to either of these feats. At 4th level and every four levels after, you may designate an additional weapon type as one of your killer's implements. Once selected, these may not be changed.

OR


Killer’s Implement (Ex): The stalker gains the benefits of Weapon Finesse and Deadly agility feats with any one weapon they are proficient with, even if this weapon would not normally be subject to either of these feats. At 6th level and every five levels after, you may designate an additional weapon type as one of your killer's implements. You may change these weapon types by practicing with a weapon of a new type that you are proficient with for ten minutes or while preparing maneuvers (for each weapon type you change, you must spend ten minutes practicing.)

Which do you like?

-X

[PsyBomb]

Which do you like?

-X

V2 is by far the more powerful and versatile option. I believe it to still be fair, though, which makes it better.

[Forrestfire]

I like version 2 as well.

[Mehangel]

Which do you like?

-X

I actually prefer version 1 if at later levels, the stalker regrets an earlier choice, it can simply retrain the stalker art and trade out an earlier option for what it wanted correct?

Thus I would chose version 1 where they start off with 1 weapon and as they progress add additional weapons.

[Eloelle]

I'd rather you nitpick now than after it's published! :smallbiggrin:

Try this:


How's that look?
:smallredface:

Much better. There's still a passage about "The rest of her readied maneuvers are withheld and currently inaccessible. The rest of these initially granted maneuvers are granted to her upon her turn." which doesn't really make sense anymore because with the chosen maneuvers available at all times, you aren't actually granted extra random maneuvers at the start of combat until you get to level 3, which isn't explained until 2 paragraphs later. Other than that, it's much more concise and clear.

Oh! One other detail - when your cycle 'resets', do you lose all of the maneuvers you had previously granted?
Say I have Eldritch Shield, Spark Strike, Variable Flux, Strike The Hourglass, and Sands of Time Approach in my Readied Maneuvers. Variable Flux and Strike The Hourglass are expended, but the other 3 maneuvers are still in my granted and unexpended pool. At the end of this turn, since all my maneuvers are either granted or expended, I recover the two expended maneuvers and choose two more to be granted - does that mean I empty my previous pool of granted maneuvers as well, thus ending up with fewer granted maneuvers than I had before? That's how I would assume it works, but it might help to add a clause like
If, at the end of the mystic’s turn, she cannot be granted a maneuver because she has no withheld maneuvers remaining, she recovers all expended maneuvers, and a new group of readied maneuvers is granted to her, replacing her previously granted maneuvers if any remain unspent (two of her choice, and an increasing amount of randomly-determined maneuvers as she gains levels).
or something like that.

[Elricaltovilla]

I actually prefer version 1 if at later levels, the stalker regrets an earlier choice, it can simply retrain the stalker art and trade out an earlier option for what it wanted correct?

Thus I would chose version 1 where they start off with 1 weapon and as they progress add additional weapons.

They both add additional weapons as they progress, but version 2 offers it at a slower rate and allows you to change weapon choices without having to retrain.

[tekevil]

Significantly prefer version 2. I prefer not being permanently locked into weapon choices like with weapon focus.

[ATalsen]

I vote for version 2 as well!



I actually prefer version 1 if at later levels, the stalker regrets an earlier choice, it can simply retrain the stalker art and trade out an earlier option for what it wanted correct?

Retraining is an optional rule, so its not in every game.
I use it in my game, but not everyone does.

I'm voting for version 2 because flexibility to choose your weapon eliminates frustration in the face of receiving unsuited random or fixed treasure (such as in an unmodified Adventure path).

[tekevil]

I've had plenty of DMs refuse to personalize loot and some who don't let us "magic mart," so being able to select a weapon as you go is far better since it wont harm the dude who dual wields his Kukris from 1-20, but will be a huge boon to Mr. Mish Mash.

[ErrantX]

:smallredface:

Much better. There's still a passage about "The rest of her readied maneuvers are withheld and currently inaccessible. The rest of these initially granted maneuvers are granted to her upon her turn." which doesn't really make sense anymore because with the chosen maneuvers available at all times, you aren't actually granted extra random maneuvers at the start of combat until you get to level 3, which isn't explained until 2 paragraphs later. Other than that, it's much more concise and clear.

Oh! One other detail - when your cycle 'resets', do you lose all of the maneuvers you had previously granted?
Say I have Eldritch Shield, Spark Strike, Variable Flux, Strike The Hourglass, and Sands of Time Approach in my Readied Maneuvers. Variable Flux and Strike The Hourglass are expended, but the other 3 maneuvers are still in my granted and unexpended pool. At the end of this turn, since all my maneuvers are either granted or expended, I recover the two expended maneuvers and choose two more to be granted - does that mean I empty my previous pool of granted maneuvers as well, thus ending up with fewer granted maneuvers than I had before? That's how I would assume it works, but it might help to add a clause like
If, at the end of the mystic’s turn, she cannot be granted a maneuver because she has no withheld maneuvers remaining, she recovers all expended maneuvers, and a new group of readied maneuvers is granted to her, replacing her previously granted maneuvers if any remain unspent (two of her choice, and an increasing amount of randomly-determined maneuvers as she gains levels).
or something like that.

I think I've cleared these all up now, and yes, your understanding is correct. If at the end of your turn, you have no more maneuvers to be granted, you recover all, reshuffle, choose two (and randomize more, if applicable) and party party party.

I think we'll go with Version 2.

-X

[Eloelle]

I think I've cleared these all up now, and yes, your understanding is correct. If at the end of your turn, you have no more maneuvers to be granted, you recover all, reshuffle, choose two (and randomize more, if applicable) and party party party.

-X
Perfect, thanks so much!

[Anlashok]

The excerpt on Bannerman is pretty nice, but just to clarify when I said two handed weapons had issues with their class features I was referring to Courageous Defense, which gives you level/4 as a dodge bonus to AC if you're fighting einhander or with a ranged weapon.

[Callin]

I must of missed it but why does it allow Weapon Finesse and Deadly Agility with weapons that are not normally allowed to work with those when the Feats dont even let you do it?

[Vhaidara]

I must of missed it but why does it allow Weapon Finesse and Deadly Agility with weapons that are not normally allowed to work with those when the Feats dont even let you do it?

Because it gives you the benefits of the feats, not the feats themselves.

[tekevil]

Also it, very niceley I might add, lets you use discipline weapons that previously were no finessable. This is cool as heck!

For example you can now 2WF with a Monk's Spade and have both ends be finessable without going down that huge feat chain. Very cool and thematic.

[Callin]

Because it gives you the benefits of the feats, not the feats themselves.

That does not make a bit of sense? It gives you the benefits of the feats (for one Stalker Art I might add) and allows them to be used with Greatswords or Polearms or even Ranged Weapons. How is that balanced? The actual feats require them to be used with legal weapons. This breaks that. For zero reason I can fathom.

[Kaidinah]

That does not make a bit of sense? It gives you the benefits of the feats (for one Stalker Art I might add) and allows them to be used with Greatswords or Polearms or even Ranged Weapons. How is that balanced? The actual feats require them to be used with legal weapons. This breaks that. For zero reason I can fathom.Better question. Can you explain why you think it is not balanced? Specifically, can a similarly built Brutal Slayer be outdone by a Stalker using these Stalker arts?

Just because it could not be done before does not make it overpowered. Also, not all feats are created equal, and having a bunch of extra feats does not automatically make you better.

Do you see anyone complaining about the stalker art that grants you a ridiculous number of exotic weapon proficiencies AND a bonus feat?

[Extra Anchovies]

That does not make a bit of sense? It gives you the benefits of the feats (for one Stalker Art I might add) and allows them to be used with Greatswords or Polearms or even Ranged Weapons. How is that balanced? The actual feats require them to be used with legal weapons. This breaks that. For zero reason I can fathom.

*sigh* I guess I'll explain this again. Being able to use Dexterity for attack and damage rolls with a two-handed weapon is not an improvement over using Strength. Because you only get Dex to damage instead of 1.5*Str, you don't hit as hard, and in exchange get a higher AC. And if you want Power Attack, which you do, you still need a 13 in Strength, which can be more than some characters are able to afford.

I do agree that Killer's Implement should be melee weapons only, though. Handing out dex to damage with any ranged weapon isn't a particularly good idea.

[tekevil]

That does not make a bit of sense? It gives you the benefits of the feats (for one Stalker Art I might add) and allows them to be used with Greatswords or Polearms or even Ranged Weapons. How is that balanced? The actual feats require them to be used with legal weapons. This breaks that. For zero reason I can fathom.

-Greatswords are not discipline weapons for any base Stalker discipline.
-In order to benefit fully from using a 2 handed weapon you need disciplines that like 2 handed weapons
-All your disciplines tell you to 2wf, have you do attacks that ignore your weapon, or only works with specific weapon groups
-At that point why aren't you a Brutal Stalker?


*sigh* I guess I'll explain this again. Being able to use Dexterity for attack and damage rolls with a two-handed weapon is not an improvement over using Strength. Because you only get Dex to damage instead of 1.5*Str, you don't hit as hard, and in exchange get a higher AC. And if you want Power Attack, which you do, you still need a 13 in Strength, which can be more than some characters are able to afford.

I do agree that Killer's Implement should be melee weapons only, though. Handing out dex to damage with any ranged weapon isn't a particularly good idea.

I'm pretty OK with Stalkers getting Dex to damage on thrown weapons.... not so much long bows.

[Callin]

Im just saying its a bit much for 1 Stalker Art. Even with only working with a few weapons. It also does not follow the rules of what the actual feats do. I feel its a bad precedent to set.

edit- I was justing using Greatsword as an example dont get hung up on that part of what I wrote.

[Morcleon]

I do agree that Killer's Implement should be melee weapons only, though. Handing out dex to damage with any ranged weapon isn't a particularly good idea.

Why not? It's Dex to damage instead of Str, yes? So it makes ranged attackers a bit less MAD, which is a good thing.

[Extra Anchovies]

-In order to benefit fully from using a 2 handed weapon you need disciplines that like 2 handed weapons

Really? Do disciplines other than Broken Blade have blanket discipline-weapon restrictions? Or is it just with specific maneuvers, like some of the Piercing Thunder maneuvers? I'm not entirely clear on the significance of actually using a discipline weapon with most disciplines other than for thematic purposes, so if someone could explain that aspect of the system to me I would definitely appreciate it.


Why not? It's Dex to damage instead of Str, yes? So it makes ranged attackers a bit less MAD, which is a good thing.

Archers don't need more damage buffs. It's the strongest fighting style as it is. More options besides full attacking for tons of damage would be nice, sure, but piling on more damage isn't good. The only way to get Dex to damage with non-thrown ranged weapons, AFAIK, is via Gunslinger or Bolt Ace, and they both put up with ranged combat styles that are inherently weaker than archery with a standard composite bow (no free-action reload without a feat tax, no innate Strength to damage).


I'm pretty OK with Stalkers getting Dex to damage on thrown weapons.... not so much long bows.

Limiting it to melee weapons would, I think, allow it for thrown weapons too. After all, it would just be applicable to "melee weapons" (e.g. javelin), not "melee weapons when used to make melee attacks".

[tekevil]

Stuff like Primal Fury has added benefits when using a weapon 2 handed for example.

[Mehangel]

I'm pretty OK with Stalkers getting Dex to damage on thrown weapons.... not so much long bows.

Please dont limit this stalker art to only melee weapons. I really want to make a ranged stalker that throws harrow cards, and I think adding dex to damage will really help.

[Callin]

Why not? It's Dex to damage instead of Str, yes? So it makes ranged attackers a bit less MAD, which is a good thing.

Gunslingers cant do it until level 5, with this a Gunslinger 1/Stalker 1 can do it at level 2.



I like being able to do dex to damage with all weapons. I do. Hell I want it for Ranged as well. I just feel that this 1 Stalker Art has too much in it. If 1 Art gave Weapon Finesse and Deadly Agility and then a Second one gave the ability for it to work with non traditional weapons. THAT I feel is balanced.

[Extra Anchovies]

Please dont limit this stalker art to only melee weapons. I really want to make a ranged stalker that throws harrow cards, and I think adding dex to damage will really help.

Hm. That's an interesting point, there are some thrown weapons that aren't usable in melee. Maybe limit it to melee weapons and thrown weapons?

[Turion]

Really? Do disciplines other than Broken Blade have blanket discipline-weapon restrictions? Or is it just with specific maneuvers, like some of the Piercing Thunder maneuvers? I'm not entirely clear on the significance of actually using a discipline weapon with most disciplines other than for thematic purposes, so if someone could explain that aspect of the system to me I would definitely appreciate it.

*Snip*




Maneuvers performed with a favored weapon for the martial abilities’ discipline gain a +2 competence bonus to the DC of the maneuver initiated (if applicable).


Also, I don't have a citation on this, but from what I remember the "discipline weapon only" restriction on Broken Blade was supposed to be removed for the final printing; it was removed in the discipline description in the Systems and Use chapter but not in the maneuver list.

[Kaidinah]

Gunslingers cant do it until level 5, with this a Gunslinger 1/Stalker 1 can do it at level 2.



I like being able to do dex to damage with all weapons. I do. Hell I want it for Ranged as well. I just feel that this 1 Stalker Art has too much in it. If 1 Art gave Weapon Finesse and Deadly Agility and then a Second one gave the ability for it to work with non traditional weapons. THAT I feel is balanced.
Look at the Brutal Slayer. Open your eyes and look at it. It basically gets Killer's Implement for free at level 2, and still gets its 1st level stalker art. Brutal Slayer, despite this supposedly overpowered thing, is pretty balanced. We have a literal example of the kind of power this Stalker Art contains, except the example gets one more Stalker Art than a dexterity Stalker using that art.

[Callin]

And? Lvl 2 Brutal Slayer gets full Str to AC at lvl 6, big deal. Does not have anything to do with what I am talking about. Read what I wrote. I am saying that it working with NON TRADITIONAL WEAPON FINESSE WEAPONS IS THE ISSUE. There. Did I spell it out better?

All of it together as I said I feel is too much for 1 Stalker Art which is supposed to be about on par with a Feat.

[Kaidinah]

And? Lvl 2 Brutal Slayer gets full Str to AC at lvl 6, big deal. Does not have anything to do with what I am talking about. Read what I wrote. I am saying that it working with NON TRADITIONAL WEAPON FINESSE WEAPONS IS THE ISSUE. There. Did I spell it out better?

All of it together as I said I feel is too much for 1 Stalker Art which is supposed to be about on par with a Feat.Brutal Slayer works with non-traditional weapon finesse weapons, like greatswords, bardiches, and nodachi. What is your point?

Also, "on par with one feat" is not a metric to follow, as all feats are valued differently. Also, there is a Stalker Art to get like 7 exotic weapon proficiencies at the same time. That is 7 feats. Is that overpowered?

[Extra Anchovies]

And? Lvl 2 Brutal Slayer gets full Str to AC at lvl 6, big deal. Does not have anything to do with what I am talking about. Read what I wrote. I am saying that it working with NON TRADITIONAL WEAPON FINESSE WEAPONS IS THE ISSUE. There. Did I spell it out better?

All of it together as I said I feel is too much for 1 Stalker Art which is supposed to be about on par with a Feat.

For clarity's sake, the comparison Kaidinah keeps making is that both a Brutal Slayer and a Killer's Implement Stalker use one ability score for attack, damage, AC, and Reflex saves. Brutal Slayer also gets more damage output (because of 1.5*Str to damage).

Anyways. Why are non-traditional finesse weapons an issue? I've already spelled out that using Killer's Implement with a two-handed weapon yields lower damage (and a tighter ability score budget) in exchange for higher AC. What is the issue that you see with Killer's Implement, beyond "finesse with non-finesse weapons = bad"? It would be nice if you could provide some evidence for it being an imbalanced option.

Regarding feat economy, it would be too much if it granted Weapon Finesse and Deadly Agility for all applicable weapons. But it doesn't. It's certainly stronger than a feat, but it's weaker than two feats (since, as I've explained multiple times now, allowing two-handed weapons doesn't make it any stronger of an option, and it doesn't ever apply to more than five weapon types). It's still a good option, but on the Stalker it's not a problematic one.

[Callin]

If it was broken into 2 separate Arts I would not have an issue as I keep saying. He is not drawing a comparison between Stalker Arts he is drawing a comparison between a Stalker Art and a Variant Class Ability. Class Abilities should be defining and should be pretty powerful. It also takes till 6th level before it kicks into full power. Apples to Oranges as far as I can see.


Brutal Slayer works with non-traditional weapon finesse weapons, like greatswords, bardiches, and nodachi. What is your point?
You mean like Strength is supposed to do?

I am also not looking into Damage Outputs. Damage can be upped so much with many things that its not even an issue.

[ATalsen]

I'm pretty OK with Stalkers getting Dex to damage on thrown weapons.... not so much long bows.

I think most people know this if they think about it, but I wanted to illustrate it anyway.

Deadly Agility doesn’t provide Dex to damage, it replaces Strength, so you have to have Strength to damage for Deadly Agility to provide any benefit.

Archers get Strength to Damage via Composite Longbows, which require the strength used or there’s a penalty to hit:
“If your Strength bonus is less than the strength rating of the composite bow, you can't effectively use it, so you take a –2 penalty on attacks with it.”

SO: For Archers to benefit from this stalker art, they must continually take a -2 to their to-hit.

Put that way, is that unbalanced?

[Kaidinah]

If it was broken into 2 separate Arts I would not have an issue as I keep saying. He is not drawing a comparison between Stalker Arts he is drawing a comparison between a Stalker Art and a Variant Class Ability. Class Abilities should be defining and should be pretty powerful. It also takes till 6th level before it kicks into full power. Apples to Oranges as far as I can see.


You mean like Strength is supposed to do?

I am also not looking into Damage Outputs. Damage can be upped so much with many things that its not even an issue.I was making the comparison that through a normal stalker expending 1 highly valuable Stalker Art, they can have an ability almost as good as the Brutal Slayers (Since the Brutal Slayer works with all weapons, not 1+1/5 levels worth of weapons.).

Literally, they can have the same ability score array. The Brutal Slayer gets buffed by using a -2 dex race, meanwhile the dex stalker still wants 13 strength to get the most out of "non-standard finessable weapons."

So, they can have their respective main stats contribute to attack, damage, AC, and Reflex saves. Except the Brutal Slayer gets better carrying capacity.

In other words, the base Stalker with a dex focus can be an almost as awesome Brutal Slayer, at the cost of being behind them 1 Stalker Art.

It is not apples to oranges. This is gala to granny smith.

[tekevil]

Kaidinah is looking at how this impacts the overall character, not how it compares to Stalker Arts.

Edit:basically I see this Stalker Art as a Bandaid to make Stalkers more viable until we finally get errata/rework months or even years down the line.

[Callin]

And I agree its a step in the right direction. I feel its too much for 1 Art though. Also a bad precedent setter but it is what it is.

[Extra Anchovies]

SO: For Archers to benefit from this stalker art, they must continually take a -2 to their to-hit.

Or, ya know, put a 12 into Strength, buy a +1 strength rating composite bow and enjoy their full Dex to damage.


Put that way, is that unbalanced?

Yes.

[tekevil]

Gonna agree with Anchovies.

Under no cirmumstances should bows get dex to damage.

[ATalsen]

Or, ya know, put a 12 into Strength, buy a +1 strength rating composite bow and enjoy their full Dex to damage.

Not the way I read Composite Longbows:

"A composite longbow can be made with a high strength rating to take advantage of an above-average Strength score; this feature allows you to add your Strength bonus to damage, up to the maximum bonus indicated for the bow."

Deadly Agility (Combat)
"You may add your Dexterity modifier in place of your Strength modifier when...determining additional damage inflicted upon a successful attack."

Therefore:
"A composite longbow can be made with a high strength rating to take advantage of an above-average Strength score; this feature allows you to add your Strength Dexterity bonus to damage, up to the maximum bonus indicated for the bow."

---

I'm not arguing in favor of bows getting anything, I'm simply pointing out that any gain from the way this works currently is coupled with a -2 attack penalty, due to the wording of composite longbows.

[Morcleon]

Gonna agree with Anchovies.

Under no cirmumstances should bows get dex to damage.

Why though? Why is ranged not allowed to have nice things? (Also, this is assuming the Dex replaces Str, not is added to damage along with Str)

[tekevil]

I cant twll if you're joking or not, but archers already have all the nicest toys.

[Kaidinah]

Why though? Why is ranged not allowed to have nice things? (Also, this is assuming the Dex replaces Str, not is added to damage along with Str)Because ranged already has the nicest things, and still got incredibly nice things in PoW. Ranged full-attack spam is good, always has been good, and thanks to a 1st level Tempest Gale stance, has one of its few weaknesses removed. Wind Wall and Fickle Winds basically aren't a problem.

[Turion]

Why though? Why is ranged not allowed to have nice things? (Also, this is assuming the Dex replaces Str, not is added to damage along with Str)

We're just talking about damage, though, which bows already can do quite well (via extra attacks, Deadly Aim, Clustered Shots, and various other things). I'd be fine with it on a crossbow, personally, since crossbow characters don't really have a way to increase their damage aside from Bolt Ace and Deadly Aim (and they need extra resources to function reliably anyways), but when it comes to DPR, longbows really don't need the help.

[Anlashok]

Because ranged already has the nicest thingsIf by "ranged" you mean composite longbows. Shortbows, crossbows, guns for anyone that isn't a gunslinger (and even then they don't particularly stand out without using some specific tricks) and thrown weapons are all less than impressive.

[Morcleon]

I cant twll if you're joking or not, but archers already have all the nicest toys.

I'm coming from a 3.5e background primarily, so I'm not sure how much PF changed with regards to melee having better damage than ranged. I'm pretty sure melee is still less MAD with regards to only needing Str for attack and damage, whereas ranged would need Str for damage and Dex for attack. Plus, ranged essentially requires PBS and Precise Shot unless you want to skewer your own allies.


Because ranged already has the nicest things, and still got incredibly nice things in PoW. Ranged full-attack spam is good, always has been good, and thanks to a 1st level Tempest Gale stance, has one of its few weaknesses removed. Wind Wall and Fickle Winds basically aren't a problem.

What are said nice things? Also, yes, their weaknesses have been lessened. But melee also gets a lot of nice things in PoW.

[Turion]

I'm coming from a 3.5e background primarily, so I'm not sure how much PF changed with regards to melee having better damage than ranged. I'm pretty sure melee is still less MAD with regards to only needing Str for attack and damage, whereas ranged would need Str for damage and Dex for attack. Plus, ranged essentially requires PBS and Precise Shot unless you want to skewer your own allies.



What are said nice things? Also, yes, their weaknesses have been lessened. But melee also gets a lot of nice things in PoW.

Deadly Aim (basically ranged Power Attack), Clustered Shots (only check for DR once per full attack), changes to Manyshot (now gives a second arrow in the first shot of a full attack), Point Blank Master (fighter only, threaten with a bow), Zen Archer (monk archetype, allows you to flurry with a bow, gives Wis to attack, several other goodies), Gravity Bow (spell, increases the die size on bows), more ways to deal with DR, an item enhancement that scales a composite bow's rating to the user's strength, and a few other odds and ends. Ranged combat is really quite good in Pathfinder.

[Extra Anchovies]

We're just talking about damage, though, which bows already can do quite well (via extra attacks, Deadly Aim, Clustered Shots, and various other things). I'd be fine with it on a crossbow, personally, since crossbow characters don't really have a way to increase their damage aside from Bolt Ace and Deadly Aim (and they need extra resources to function reliably anyways), but when it comes to DPR, longbows really don't need the help.

I think that Killer's Implements shouldn't be applicable to any non-thrown ranged weapons, both for consistency's sake and to avoid stepping on the Gunslinger/Bolt Ace's toes.


I'm coming from a 3.5e background primarily, so I'm not sure how much PF changed with regards to melee having better damage than ranged. I'm pretty sure melee is still less MAD with regards to only needing Str for attack and damage, whereas ranged would need Str for damage and Dex for attack. Plus, ranged essentially requires PBS and Precise Shot unless you want to skewer your own allies.

Ranged is feat-heavy but is by far the most viable and highest-damage combat style in Pathfinder. It's also rather feat-heavy (PBS, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Deadly Aim, and Manyshot is the standard setup), but the absurd amounts of damage it can output is worth the investment.

Also, Solar Wind has crazy amounts of damage. Too much, IMO.

[Kaidinah]

What are said nice things? Also, yes, their weaknesses have been lessened. But melee also gets a lot of nice things in PoW.
Big changes from the 3.5 > PF transition:
Deadly Aim, which is ranged power attack.
Manyshot now makes your first arrow do double damage in a full attack.
There is a feat that allows all your ranged attacks to add their damage together before applying DR.
Rapid shot is still good.

Basically, before PoW, ranged in pathfinder was so ridiculously better than melee, that PoW managed to equalize them (probably? I think a ranged character might still be better, especially with PoW stuff.)

Tempest Gale discipline has a 1st level stance to get through wind walls and fickle winds.

Tempest Gale has a 3rd level stance to get your initiator modifier to ranged damage rolls as well.

[Turion]

I think that Killer's Implements shouldn't be applicable to any non-thrown ranged weapons, both for consistency's sake and to avoid stepping on the Gunslinger/Bolt Ace's toes.

-snip-


I'm inclined to agree, but more because wording it to say "all weapons except bows" is kinda jarring. I'm kinda against allowing thrown weapons for the same reason.

The options for actually doing damage with a crossbow should go beyond "play a Bolt Ace" and "play a Hawkguard," honestly; it's a cool weapon, but it takes a disproportionate amount of effort to make work (4 feats to make a heavy crossbow even viable, and it's still doing crap damage without investing heavily in maneuvers or Bolt Ace).

Honestly, we'd probably be better off with a separate option for ranged combat, possibly broken down by combat style (e.g. a feat/item/art for crossbow users, a feat/item/art for throwers, etc...). It's easier to predict and control damage output that way, and it looks neater on paper.

[tekevil]

I would be ok with a Stalker Art to be awesome with throwing.

Something like

"This Stalker art gives your Initiator modifier to damage when throwing a weapon. Additionally Thrashing Dragon maneuvers may be applied to thrown attacks"

[Elricaltovilla]

I would be ok with a Stalker Art to be awesome with throwing.

Something like

"This Stalker art gives your Initiator modifier to damage when throwing a weapon. Additionally Thrashing Dragon maneuvers may be applied to thrown attacks"

There's already several thrashing dragon maneuvers that work with thrown weapons

[tekevil]

But more is always cool :)

I know I'd love to use the 2wf Thrashing Dragon maneuvers and Stances while dual wielding Shuriken pouches!

[ghanjrho]

There's already several thrashing dragon maneuvers that work with thrown weapons

Not to mention the entire Steel Serpent discipline.

[tekevil]

Not to mention the entire Steel Serpent discipline.

That's not saying much tbh.

Edit: Just double checked and just about every maneuver and stance in Thrashing Dragon for 2wf specifies melee. Including the Thrashing Dragon Stance.

[Eloelle]

Animus Adept
I love this PrC. Here I will nitpick it or make a fool of myself (probably both!)

Saves: It's a prestige class, so shouldn't it start at 1.0 in the Good save instead of 2.5?

Animus Pool: Since it's required to have an animus pool to enter the class in the first place, wouldn't it be clearer to start off by saying how it changes your existing anima pool (add your Animus Adept level to your Mystic Level, or replace Tap Animus with Extra Animus and the new anima pool)? Or is it supposed to add a second anima pool for Mystics?

Glyphs: General: A lot of them target 'allies' but might be useful to use on enemies - for example, using Brilliant Aura to make someone easier for your ranged attackers to hit, or Corpse Strength to make an enemy unable to be healed by positive energy. I assume that's not possible since it doesn't say what type of saving throw would be involved, but it would be neat if that was an option!

Also: can you only activate one glyph per martial strike? Since it's a free action, it could be argued that you can activate an unlimited number of them as long as you have targets and Anima remaining.

Energy type: what happens if you change active energy types while you have a glyph active? e.g. elemental weapons. Do all active elemental glyphs change when you do that, or do they keep the energy type that they had when you activated them?

Basic Glyphs
Blinding Blade: Grants the ally a chance to temporarily blind an opponent when struck with a critical hit or a martial strike, or when using deadly strikes or sneak attack; a successful Reflex save negates the blinding condition.
1) Blind an opponent when struck or blind an opponent when your ally strikes them?
2) Does this happen only once, or every time they hit with a (critical, martial strike, deadly strike, sneak attack)? Does the blind last until the glyph expires? The end of the encounter?
Suggested revision: Whenever the affected ally strikes a foe with a martial strike, deadly strike, sneak attack, or confirmed critical strike, the foe must make a reflex save or be blinded for one round.

Brilliant Aura: As written, melee attackers with a reach greater than 15ft (e.g. Enlarged person with a reach weapon) still suffer the penalty; intentional? Either way, it seems weirdly mismatched that the effect has a radius of 15ft when the Light spell has a radius of 20ft/40ft.

Dead Steel: Does it heal undead or just do nothing? I assume nothing but some GMs might assume otherwise.

Evasive Armor: Grants the ally of this a single use of the evasion class feature on the next Reflex save they make until the end of the encounter.
How come this has a different duration compared to all the other ones?
Suggested revision: When the ally is affected by an effect which allows a partial effect (such as half damage) on a successful Reflex saving throw, if they succeed, they are instead completely unaffected. This glyph expires after one successful Reflex saving throw, or its normal duration, whichever happens first.

Flowing Blade: Grants the ally the ability to ignore a target’s miss chance for the duration of this glyph.
Does this mean concealment less than total? Does it mean to include total concealment? Does it mean ignoring Mirror Image? 'miss chance' is not specific enough.
Suggested revision: Grants the ally the ability to automatically succeed on rolls to pierce concealment.
Even then, that's pretty powerful for an ability available at level 6 - maybe it should let them roll twice, or ignore concealment less than total, or something.

Ghost Armor: Grants the ally the ghost touch property on worn armor and shield for the duration of the ???.
I assume it's just missing the word 'glyph' at the end there. Still, professionalism!

Shadowmeld: Grants the ally a layer of protective, smoky shadows that grants a 20% miss chance on enemy attacks.
I like the bit of flavour but should just call it Concealment.
Suggested revision: Gives the ally a layer of protective, smoky shadows that grants Concealment (enemy attacks have a 20% chance to miss).

Advanced Glyphs
Corpse Strength: Grants the ally a +4 enhancement bonus to Strength, gain Necromantic Affinity while this is in place.
Should specify that it's a feat. Also, this is a run-on sentence (Maybe not the first D: )
Suggested revision: Grants the ally a +4 enhancement bonus to Strength, and they have the Necromantic Affinity feat for the duration of the glyph.
On second thought, maybe it's better to just list the effects. Granting feats temporarily is tricky business, especially feats that are in campaign supplements (inner sea world guide according to PFSRD).
Suggested revision #2: Grants the ally a +4 enhancement bonus to Strength, and a +2 bonus on saving throws made to resist spells and effects that utilize negative energy, cause negative levels, or cause ability damage, ability drain, or ability penalties. In addition, for the duration of the glyph, damage caused by inflict spells heals them as if they were an undead creature, but they also take damage from cure spells.

Death Shield: Grants the ally energy resistance to negative energy damage equal to the animus adept’s initiator level and a +4 resistance bonus to saves vs energy drain and negative energy effects.
A resistance bonus? Everyone's going to have a cloak of resistance by this point. It's thematically appropriate but it should probably be either untyped or a different type. Death Ward is a morale bonus for example.

Illusionary State: The ally is under the effects of a mirror image spell, using the animus adept’s level as the spell’s caster level.
Seems like it should be the Animus Adept's Initiator Level? This is the only one that doesn't scale with initiator level otherwise.

Spiritual Anchor: When cast on an enemy, this glyph inflicts a dimensional anchor effect on the target.
No save, no attack roll? (Dimensional Anchor the spell is no-save but a ranged touch attack)

Master Glyphs
Dispelling Burn: This glyph acts as a targeted greater dispel magic on the target’s beneficial ongoing effects and each effect dispelled inflicts 1d4 points of damage per level of the effect dispelled.
"beneficial" needs more explanation since it's not part of the default behaviour of Dispel Magic.
Suggested revision: This glyph acts as a targeted greater dispel magic, using your initiator level as the caster level, except that it only dispels effects considered 'harmless' and each effect dispelled inflicts 1d4 points of damage per level of the effect dispelled.

Drowning Curse: Causes the victim to choke and gasp when cast on a victim, nauseating and rendering them unable to speak on a failed Fortitude save; target may make the save each round to negate the glyph.
This needs to be more specific in general (lol)
Suggested revision: Causes the victim to choke and gasp, rendering them nauseated and unable to speak or perform the verbal components of spells. They may attempt a fortitude save each round, including the first; if successful, the glyph expires and they may act normally that round.

Gravity of Iron: Target is under the effects of a hold monster spell (caster level equal to your initiator level) and knocked prone on a failed Reflex save when this glyph is applied; the target must be wearing ferrous metal armor or be composed of metal to apply this glyph.
Again, this is different enough from the original effect that you might as well just spell it out. Also, the ferrous metal armor thing is cool and apropos, but seems kind of unnecessarily specific? Also this kind of effect seems more like a fortitude save than a reflex save.
This glyph can only be applied to targets who are wearing metal armor or are made of metal. The target is paralyzed and knocked prone unless it succeeds on a Fortitude save. It is aware and breathes normally but cannot take any actions, even speech. Each round on its turn, the subject may attempt a new saving throw to end the paralysis effect. This is a full-round action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity. A flying creature falls. A swimmer can't swim and may drown.

Incandescent Array: The ally who bears this glyph emits light as the daylight spell in a dazzling array of colors, and is protected by a 50% miss chance due to the brilliant light.
Again with the 'miss chance'. Does it apply to spells?
Suggested revision: The ally who bears this glyph emits light as the daylight spell in a dazzling array of colors, and attackers have a 50% chance to miss the ally as if under total concealment. This concealment does not allow the ally to use Stealth or treat enemies as flat-footed; it only affects attacks made against them. Spells without attack rolls, and creatures which do not rely on sight to target their attacks, are unaffected.

---

Okay. Some of those suggestions/nitpicks have more meat to them than others but hopefully that will help bring the Animus Adept towards the exceptional level of polish DSP is known for!

[Elricaltovilla]

That's not saying much tbh.

Edit: Just double checked and just about every maneuver and stance in Thrashing Dragon for 2wf specifies melee. Including the Thrashing Dragon Stance.

Tek, the last thing that thrown weapons need is more maneuvers. They have everything in Tempest Gale and Solar Wind; about half the maneuvers in Silver Crane and Steel Serpent; maybe a third or so from Sleeping Goddess and Thrashing Dragon; and a smattering of maneuvers from Elemental Flux and Riven Hourglass. If you're talking about thrown shields specifically, they get additional support in Iron Tortoise. And these are just the maneuvers I can remember off the top of my head. Really, there's probably more maneuvers that play nice with thrown weapons than any other fighting style. Thrown weapons might need some support, but maneuver access is not something they're missing.

[Anlashok]

I'm actually really happy with maneuver options for everything now. Was worried about ranged tricks, but there's a lot of variety smattered throughout different disciplines now too.

Really the only hole I see right now is TWF ranged combat (thrown, pistols, hand crossbows) which is basically only supported by boosts/stances with no attack restriction and the very limited number of full attack maneuvers that don't specify melee combat.

[tekevil]

What Anlashok said.

[Extra Anchovies]

I'm actually really happy with maneuver options for everything now. Was worried about ranged tricks, but there's a lot of variety smattered throughout different disciplines now too.

Really the only hole I see right now is TWF ranged combat (thrown, pistols, hand crossbows) which is basically only supported by boosts/stances with no attack restriction and the very limited number of full attack maneuvers that don't specify melee combat.

TWF ranged combat also has, ya know, Tempest Gale and Solar Wind. I don't see the problem.

[Anlashok]

TWF ranged combat also has, ya know, Tempest Gale and Solar Wind. I don't see the problem.

Between Solar Wind and Tempest Gale there's only one strike that even functions with TWF at all and it's a 9th. Likewise between the two of them you get eight total boosts (and 8 turns into 5 if you only look at boosts that give raw efficacy. Feel the wind and Wind Tunnel are niche countermeasures and Steady Hand is more of a speciality tool).

Plenty of stances, but you only get one of those anyways.

Saying it supports ranged TWF well enough is like saying Scarlet Throne supports melee TWF well enough.

[Extra Anchovies]

Between Solar Wind and Tempest Gale there's only one strike that even functions with TWF at all and it's a 9th. Likewise between the two of them you get eight total boosts (and 8 turns into 5 if you only look at boosts that give raw efficacy. Feel the wind and Wind Tunnel are niche countermeasures and Steady Hand is more of a speciality tool).

What do you mean, "functions with TWF"? I see nothing in TG or SW that requires you to be using a two-handed ranged weapon, or to have a free hand. You mean full-attack strikes? Yeah, there aren't many of those. But guess what: non-TWF ranged combatants give up their full attacks to initiate strikes too. Ranged TWF and melee TWF also both have to give up their full attack most of the time they want to make a strike; hell, even Thrashing Dragon has a good number of single-melee-attack strikes. That's a fact of the maneuver system (i.e. you won't be full-attacking every round if you use strikes), and it's an intentional part of the way martial strikes work.

Besides, if the damage numbers and rider effects for TG and SW are balanced for use with a single ranged weapon (which they are), then they're balanced for use with a single ranged weapon. You'll be able to function perfectly fine even if you don't use your off-hand ranged weapon every round. So stop complaining about the "lack" of ranged TWF support. It's there, and it's exactly the same as the support for non-TWF ranged combat, and it works equally effectively for both fighting styles.

Seriously, people keep bringing up "ranged attacks with thrashing dragon pls" again and again, and the devs have said no to it every time. Why do you think asking again will get you different results?

[Eloelle]

Speaking of Brutal Slayer (okay not anymore but I have a lot of catching up to do!), I was just glancing over it and I noticed


Fear Monger (Ex): The stalker gains Cornugon Smash and Dazzling Display as bonus feats.

doesn't say whether you have to meet prereqs or not. Not in the Archetypes doc or in the Expanded Systems and Use doc.

Then again, since the Expanded Systems and Use doc has it now, it's probably safe to remove the 'new arts for all stalkers' from the archetypes doc?

[Anlashok]

What do you mean, "functions with TWF"?
I mean that holding a second gun/hand crossbow/throwing knife does absolutely nothing at all unless you're initiating the TG 9th level strike. I'm not sure why this is confusing for you.


But guess what: non-TWF ranged combatants give up their full attacks to initiate strikes too.
They also aren't spending resources on a second weapon that serves absolutely no function.

I mean. Do I really have to explain why "just hold a gun in your offhand and never ever use it" is utterly and completely inane?

Seriously, people keep bringing up "ranged attacks with thrashing dragon pls" again and again, and the devs have said no to it every time. Why do you think asking again will get you different results.

My post says absolutely nothing about thrashing dragon why are you even bringing it up?

All I said is that it's the only combat style that comes to mind that PoW doesn't really have any direct support for. Though, that's not entirely true. Drow fighting style/sword and pistol has trouble functioning for similar reasons.

[tekevil]

I would like to point out that the argument Anchovies is making about thrown 2wf could also be made against melee 2wf. By that logic Thrashing Dragon shouldn't exist.

If thrashing Dragon didn't exist would you be arguing that people who want to 2wf should just use Scarlet throne and have their offhand weapon be decoration?

[Eox]

At this point, thrown weapons really really need feat and magic item support. The only thing that makes them sort of usable is the Blinkback Belt, and that screws you out of your physical ability bonus.

[Morcleon]

At this point, thrown weapons really really need feat and magic item support. The only thing that makes them sort of usable is the Blinkback Belt, and that screws you out of your physical ability bonus.

Actually, you can use the magic items stacking rules to get both Blinkback Belt and the + to physical stats, but with the cheaper one at a +50% price increase.


So stop complaining about the "lack" of ranged TWF support. It's there, and it's exactly the same as the support for non-TWF ranged combat, and it works equally effectively for both fighting styles.

But melee TWF gets support through the portion of Thrashing Dragon that isn't standard action strikes (which supports melee but not ranged, IIRC), so it does actually get more.

[Turion]

So, Variable Wind grants the initiator an active energy type, with a note to "see Psionics section." Since there doesn't seem to be a psionics section in the Expanded Systems and Use chapter (unless I missed something really obvious), I assume that's meant to point to the rules in UPsi? Currently the only ways to change active energy are to change it in the morning when regaining power points, or upon regaining psionic focus; both of these methods require the character to be psionic, in which case they already have an active energy type. Currently, I can see a few interpretations for this feat:


The Initiator's active energy type is permanently stuck unless they become psionic or pick up Elemental Flux. I don't think this is the intended reading :smalltongue:
The initiator chooses their active energy type when readying maneuvers. This kinda parallels the "when regaining power points" bit, but initiators ready maneuvers more often than manifesters regain PP.
The initiator sets their active energy type the first time they ready maneuvers each day. Similar to 2, but with the same frequency as a psionic character.
The initiator may change their active energy as a full-round action. This is the closest to the unmodified action cost of losing/regaining psionic focus.
Both 3 and 4 apply. This most closely matches the mechanics for active energy types on a psionic character.
The initiator gains the ability to use psionic focus. I don't think this is intended either, as the feat is't tagged [psionic], and usually a character has to have a PP reserve in order to gain focus.
The initiator must be psionic to use this feat. Again, probably not the intended reading, since the feat isn't [psionic].


So, how is a non-psionic initiator with this feat intended to change their energy type (if at all)?

[Extra Anchovies]

I mean that holding a second gun/hand crossbow/throwing knife does absolutely nothing at all unless you're initiating the TG 9th level strike. I'm not sure why this is confusing for you.

Or, ya know, unless you're making a full attack. You don't need to use a strike every turn. Ready a bunch of boosts and counters if you don't want to use strikes, it's that simple.


All I said is that it's the only combat style that comes to mind that PoW doesn't really have any direct support for. Though, that's not entirely true. Drow fighting style/sword and pistol has trouble functioning for similar reasons.

I'm sorry, did you just say that Path of War has no support for ranged weapons? Because you're either lying, or completely unaware of the two disciplines devoted entirely to ranged weapons. Non-TWF ranged support works perfectly fine for ranged TWF. If you think it doesn't, make your case instead of saying "it doesn't" over and over again in various ways. Let's see some numbers. Prove to me that ranged TWF gets less damage out of Solar Wind and Tempest Gale than non-TWF ranged combat, and then I might agree that it needs style-specific support.


If thrashing Dragon didn't exist would you be arguing that people who want to 2wf should just use Scarlet throne and have their offhand weapon be decoration?
I mean. Do I really have to explain why "just hold a gun in your offhand and never ever use it" is utterly and completely inane?

Both of you seem to be intentionally misinterpreting my words, so I guess I have to explain it again.


Besides, if the damage numbers and rider effects for TG and SW are balanced for use with a single ranged weapon (which they are), then they're balanced for use with a single ranged weapon. You'll be able to function perfectly fine even if you don't use your off-hand ranged weapon every round. So stop complaining about the "lack" of ranged TWF support. It's there, and it's exactly the same as the support for non-TWF ranged combat, and it works equally effectively for both fighting styles.

The single-attack strikes in Solar Wind and Tempest Gale are balanced around use with one weapon.
∴
A Solar Wind and/or Tempest Gale user does not need to use two weapons every round to contribute effectively to combat.

Where do I say that the offhand weapon should be decoration? Where do I say "just hold a gun in your offhand and never use it"? I don't. I don't say either of those. I don't agree with either of those statements. Stop pretending that I said, or even implied, either of those. I said that your off-hand ranged weapon doesn't need to be something you're able to use each and every single round, or at least it doesn't if you want to use single-attack strikes.


But melee TWF gets support through the portion of Thrashing Dragon that isn't standard action strikes (which supports melee but not ranged, IIRC), so it does actually get more.

Again, ranged TWF has Solar Wind and Tempest Gale. Along with a surprising number of maneuvers from other disciplines.

Ranged weapons do not need and should not receive more maneuver support. They already have TWO disciplines fully devoted to their use, along with everything on this list (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?373397-Path-of-War-Ranged-Maneuver-List) - which doesn't even include anything from PoW:E. Almost all if not all of those can be used by a character wielding two ranged weapons.

[Anlashok]

I'm sorry, did you just say that Path of War has no support for ranged weapons? Because you're either lying, or completely unaware of the two disciplines devoted entirely to ranged weapons.
You seemed to have omitted the fact that we're talking about two weapon fighting here.


Prove to me that ranged TWF gets less damage out of Solar Wind and Tempest Gale than non-TWF ranged combat, and then I might agree that it needs style-specific support.
Well. A hand crossbow does 1d4 damage and a composite longbow does 1d6+str damage. 1d6 is clearly more than 1d4 and str mod is clearly more than no mod. The hand crossbow also requires extra feats (EWP and rapid reload). Adding a second hand crossbow adds exactly 0 damage to any Solar Wind maneuver, despite eating a significant chunk of WbL to enchant and maintain.


Where do I say that the offhand weapon should be decoration? Where do I say "just hold a gun in your offhand and never use it"? I don't.
Probably where you kept insisting that someone doing TWF should be using single weapon strikes. You know. Things that don't involve TWF at all.


A Solar Wind and/or Tempest Gale user does not need to use two weapons every round to contribute effectively to combat.
Ever. A SW or TG user does not need to ever use TWF. Because basically none of their maneuvers have anything to do with TWF. That's kind of the whole point of the discussion. There's no functional difference whatsoever between someone using Solar Wind with a single hand crossbow than there is someone using Solar Wind with two hand crossbows. Ergo, no support.

Tekevil has a good point that you completely dodged: If there was no Thrashing Dragon would you be citing Scarlet Throne every time someone wanted to dual wield short swords?


[B]Ranged weapons do not need and should not receive more maneuver support.
I'm not asking for blanket support for ranged weapons. I'm asking for support for two specific combat styles that do not function with the vast majority of PoW content.

[Lord_Gareth]

Okay folks. Siddown. Real talk time.

We like that there's lots of ideas for new content. But we are in the eleventh freaking hour, people. We're finalizing huge swaths of this book so we can get it out the door and exorcise this demon. That means that right now, ideas for new stuff - like more support for ranged TWF or new items or feats - are not really appropriate. Worse, they're kinda distractions from making sure the stuff we have right now is the best it can be.

I like ideas. Some of my more fun bits of writing started as proposals from other people. Hell, Rubato is entirely inspired by Forrest (good job bro). But guys, can we wait until Path of War 3: Good God Where Is This War for that? Please?

Right now we need feedback on the stuff that's already there. In case anyone's wondering where to start, try these:

- Archetypes (don't bother proposing replacing any, 'cause they're all staying)
- Feats (but especially ANY STYLE FEAT THAT IS NOT SCARLET THRONE)
- Prestige Classes
- Racial FCBs and their balance
- Actually just the whole Systems and Use.

We are of course still taking feedback on disciplines and the like. Feedback on Zealot and Mystic are also valuable. But folks, you're wasting your own time trying to propose new content. We're running out of space for the current content. Work with us here, aye?

Once again, I wanted to express my heartfelt appreciation for your enthusiasm. It's nice to have this kinda relationship with our readers, where we feel comfortable around each other and can debate and disagree without, y'know, reams of bad blood. It's one of the things I've come to love about the open beta process. I'm not trying to say that I don't want your help and ideas. I'm just trying to focus in.

Thank you!

[Nyaa]

Feats (but especially ANY STYLE FEAT THAT IS NOT SCARLET THRONE)

I always wondered what's up with Veiled Moon Style. You hit an opponent, which you shouldn't have trouble with with first iterative or a strike, and get improved invisibility against him until your next turn? No action cost, no need to expend maneuvers? At third level? I have a feeling I miss something here.
And unless I'm misreading it, it works with AoE strikes that use one roll for all affected opponents.

[tekevil]

I liked most of the Archetypes and posted feedback on the monster of a beast that is Omen Rider. I have to wait and see how the system changes before I can offer more feedback on the Omen Rider.

Though you should know Mr. Gareth that the Omen Rider bypasses all or most of the weaknesses of the Base Harbinger that you stated in our discussions.

[Tuvarkz]

Ordained Defender archetype: Really good, and a nice alternative to Sworn Protector, although the thing is: Reformation Inquisition is the strongest choice for it. Wisdom to Diplomacy and Intimidate, plus the ability to reroll for either of two and take better roll (Especially good for stuff like Warning Roar or Crushing Rebuke.)
Half-Orc FCBs: The +1/4 to Aegis and +1/4 to Battle Prowess do a lot for half-orcs to bridge the gap between their useful racials (Darkvision is only useful situationally, and when is, a torch or one of many cheap spells will do functionally the same) and those of Humans, who have Skilled AND Focused Study against Orcs who at best get +2 to Intimidate/+1 to Acrobatics and +2 to Perception. The Aegis boost is particularly nice for Zweihander Sentinel.

[Lord_Gareth]

I liked most of the Archetypes and posted feedback on the monster of a beast that is Omen Rider. I have to wait and see how the system changes before I can offer more feedback on the Omen Rider.

Though you should know Mr. Gareth that the Omen Rider bypasses all or most of the weaknesses of the Base Harbinger that you stated in our discussions.

Care to repost and/or elaborate?

[Eloelle]

In the meantime, ranged TWF characters can just focus on Boosts I guess! It's not like you can take every maneuver in a discipline anyway. Sure, you have to wait til level 7 to get Searing Break, but +3d6 on every attack starts to make up for the loss of ... ahahaha okay no but at least it's something?

P.S. I hope my big feedback post about the Animus Adept didn't get lost in the discussion!

[Extra Anchovies]

Path of War 3: Good God Where Is This War

This got a much-needed laugh out of me. Thank you.

On the topic of wars and their paths, I'm going to reiterate the existence of the Idiot Warpath Follower (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19452880&postcount=82) because it really needs to be patched. I suggested a fix in the linked post that I think would work without any issues.

[AGrinningCat]

Okay folks. Siddown. Real talk time.

If I don't finish the feedback before y'all move forward, I want to go down screaming this:

Mithril Current Style, Piercing Thunder Style, and Scarlet Throne style need to be their own feats. These are *passive* feats; you shouldn't have to be in a style to have them function properly. If I wanted to run a Piercing Thunder/Mithril Current character, I'm basically having to choose to not threaten or not have my spear be dex mod. Those are functional parts of combat, and as such, should be their own standalone feats.

[RedOndjage]

I know that Weapon Group Adaptation doesn't allow you to change the initiation requirements of a maneuver, such as not allowing you to make ranged attacks with a greatsword, but how does Weapon Group Adaptation interact with disciplines like Broken Blade and Piercing Thunder? For instance, certain Broken Blade maneuvers specify that you need to use discipline weapons OR unarmed strikes (Such as Iron Knuckle). Does taking Weapon Group Adaptation allow those strikes to apply to different weapon groups?

I would assume that the maneuvers that directly specify unarmed strikes wouldn't function with weapon group adaptation.

Does weapon group adaptation also apply to Piercing Thunder maneuvers?

I'm trying to build a less feat intensive, offensively capable Warder that's not a human or a Zweihander Sentinel. It seems like the best way to do this is to leverage the basic Warder specific disciplines that provide a lot of damage.

Lastly, are there any suggested Broken Blade nerfs that we could/should use since it's a little overtuned damage-wise?

[Elricaltovilla]

Speaking of stuff that needs review, I have a bunch of feats that have been rewritten:

Animus Healing [Combat]
You have learned how to channel your animus into healing energies.
Prerequisites: Possess an animus pool.
Benefits: Once per encounter, you can spend up to one point of animus per four initiator levels as a move action to heal 2d4 hit points per point of animus spent.

Channeled Recovery
You are able to use divine energy to restore your maneuvers.
Prerequisite: Channel Energy class feature
Benefit: When you channel energy to heal allies, allies in your channeled energy area may choose to forgo ½ the healing provided by your channel energy and instead recover 1 maneuver as a free action, even if it’s not their turn.

Silver Fang Initiate [Combat] (Formerly Darksteel Initiate)
You have learned how to combine talents from the Mithral Current and Steel Serpent disciplines.
Prerequisite: Quick Draw, 2 Steel Serpent Maneuvers known, 2 Mithral Current Maneuvers known
Benefit: When you use a steel serpent maneuver to deal ability score damage to a creature with vulnerability to silver, increase that ability score damage by 50%.

Electrum Manticore [Combat]
You’ve learned how to blend the arts of the Golden Lion and Silver Crane disciplines.
Prerequisite: 2 Silver Crane Maneuvers known, 2 Golden Lion Maneuvers known
Benefit: You may initiate a Golden Lion boost as part of assuming a Silver Crane stance, or initiate a Silver Crane boost as part of assuming a Golden Lion stance.

Elemental Sun [Combat]
You’ve trained in the techniques needed to blend your talents with the Elemental Flux and Solar Wind disciplines.
Prerequisites: 1 Elemental Flux Stance, 1 Solar Wind Stance
Benefits: When you initiate a Solar Wind maneuver while in an Elemental Flux stance, if you hit you may reduce the target of your maneuver’s elemental resistances (if any) by ½ your level (minimum 0) until the end of your next turn. Multiple applications of this ability do not stack, but they do increase the duration by one round.

Molten Silver Strike [Combat]
Prerequisite: Quick Draw, 2 Solar Wind Maneuvers known, 2 Mithral Current Maneuvers known
Benefit: You can use Solar Wind Boosts on Mithral Current strikes that allow you to attack enemies at range and when you do so, you can increase the range of the maneuver by 10 ft. plus an additional 5 ft. per 4 initiator levels.
Normal: Mithral Current strikes use melee attack rolls, which prevents them from being combined with maneuvers that affect ranged attacks.

Elemental Flux Style [Combat, Style]
Your understanding of Elemental Energies offers you defense as well as offense.
Prerequisites: 1 or more Elemental Flux stances, Spellcraft 3 ranks
Benefit: While this style is active, your attacks which deal energy damage deal ½ their damage as a second energy type of your choice (acid, cold, electricity or fire).

Mithral Current Flow [Combat]
Every mistake your opponent makes allows you to place yourself in better position to strike.
Prerequisites: Mithral Current Style, Perform (Dance) 7 ranks
Benefit: When an opponent misses an attack against you, you can move up to 10 ft. as a free action (even if it is not your turn). This movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

Primal Fury Style [Combat, Style]
Your fury drives you to close with your foes so that you can tear into them more easily
Prerequisites: 1 or more Primal Fury stances, Survival 3 ranks
Benefit: When you charge a creature, add a +5 ft competence bonus (minimum +5 ft.) to your charge distance for every 4 character levels.

Primal Fury Savagery [Combat]
You strike with speed and strength beyond that of any other
Prerequisites: Primal Fury Style, Primal Fury Slash, Survival 11 ranks
Benefit: When you charge an opponent, you gain an additional +2 bonus on your attack roll and your AC penalty does not apply to attacks made against you by the target of your charge.

Solar Wind Inferno [Combat]
The burning power of your arrows sears the flesh of even those immune to fire
Prerequisites: Solar Wind Style, Solar Wind Flash, Perception 11 ranks
Benefit: Your ranged attacks which deal fire damage ignore an amount of fire resistance equal to your character level. You treat Fire Immunity as Fire Resistance 30 for purposes of this effect.
Special: If you possess the Variable Winds feat, your attacks ignore energy resistance of the same type as your active energy type and treat the energy immunity of your active type as having energy resistance 30 of your active energy type for purposes of this effect

Veiled Moon Step [Combat]
As you move, your form flickers in and out of sight, appearing far away
Prerequisites: Veiled Moon Style, Stealth 7 ranks
Benefit: You may expend one of your readied boosts as a swift action. If you do, increase your base land speed by 10 ft. until the beginning of your next turn, and you may teleport a number of feet equal to your base land speed as a move action this turn. You must have line of sight to your destination.

In addition, Riven Hourglass Rewind and Riven Hourglass Eternity have had their positions switched.

[AGrinningCat]

In addition, Riven Hourglass Rewind and Riven Hourglass Eternity have had their positions switched.

:smallmad:

[Elricaltovilla]

AGrinningCat: The overwhelming majority opinion has been that Rewind is a much stronger feat than Eternity, to the point where it is arguably the strongest style feat we wrote. Moving it up in level is a good way to balance both feats and provides a more natural progression for the style.

[Nyaa]

Mithral Current Flow [Combat]
Every mistake your opponent makes allows you to place yourself in better position to strike.
Prerequisites: Mithral Current Style, Perform (Dance) 7 ranks
Benefit: When an opponent misses an attack against you, you can move up to 10 ft. as a free action (even if it is not your turn). This movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

Looks strong, especially with reach weapon and Lunge or size increases. Does successful counter count as miss?

[Kaidinah]

Speaking of stuff that needs review, I have a bunch of feats that have been rewritten:

Solar Wind Inferno [Combat]
The burning power of your arrows sears the flesh of even those immune to fire
Prerequisites: Solar Wind Style, Solar Wind Flash, Perception 11 ranks
Benefit: Your ranged attacks which deal fire damage ignore an amount of fire resistance equal to your character level. You treat Fire Immunity as Fire Resistance 30 for purposes of this effect.
Special: If you possess the Variable Winds feat, your attacks ignore energy resistance of the same type as your active energy type and treat the energy immunity of your active type as having energy resistance 30 of your active energy type for purposes of this effect

Fantastic! Thank you Elricaltovilla. I now have only one real issue with the feat document. Solar Wind Inferno and Solar Wind Style still do not take into account the variants of Solar Wind that change what energy damage type you start with.

[Extra Anchovies]

Animus Healing [Combat]
You have learned how to channel your animus into healing energies.
Prerequisites: Possess an animus pool.
Benefits: Once per encounter, you can spend up to one point of animus per four initiator levels as a move action to heal 2d4 hit points per point of animus spent.

Scaling feels a little low. One animus per two initiator levels would be better.


Mithral Current Flow [Combat]
Every mistake your opponent makes allows you to place yourself in better position to strike.
Prerequisites: Mithral Current Style, Perform (Dance) 7 ranks
Benefit: When an opponent misses an attack against you, you can move up to 10 ft. as a free action (even if it is not your turn). This movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

I'd make that a 1/round thing but otherwise it looks good.

All of the others are either good where they are or things that I don't have feedback on.

[Elricaltovilla]

Fantastic! Thank you Elricaltovilla. I now have only one real issue with the feat document. Solar Wind Inferno and Solar Wind Style still do not take into account the variants of Solar Wind that change what energy damage type you start with.

That's a deliberate choice that Chris and I made. Elemental Flux is the discipline for switching elements.

None of these feats have been added to the feat doc yet as I want feedback on them first.

[AGrinningCat]

How?

As you move up in levels, you gain better tolerance for conditions, or in some cases, flat out immunity to them(Compare Shaken to a level 3 Harby vs a level 11 Harby).
Conversely, you gain more powerful effects as you move up in levels through Psi, Spells, or Boosts; which if access to unlimited duration, could be breaking.

[ATalsen]

I always wondered what's up with Veiled Moon Style. You hit an opponent, which you shouldn't have trouble with with first iterative or a strike, and get improved invisibility against him until your next turn?.

Simply put, as far are the rules go, Total Concealment does NOT equal invisibility, and total concealment *by itself* doesn't grant sneak attack.

Your better of thinking of the feat like it gives you Displacement or Greater Concealing Amorpha.


Given the confusion on this, it might be a good target for some clarification writing. Possibly just say it gives the benefit of Displacement against the struck opponent for 1 round.

[Kaidinah]

That's a deliberate choice that Chris and I made. Elemental Flux is the discipline for switching elements.

None of these feats have been added to the feat doc yet as I want feedback on them first.Thank you for clarifying. Not fond of that ruling, but I understand the intent.

[tekevil]

Care to repost and/or elaborate?

The Omen Rider:
Accursed Will+Maneuvers+Mounted combat= Way too much damage for the intended purpose of the class. It's already a problem that Maneuvers work on Mounted charges and this is compounded in the Omen Rider.
I've played in a campaign where I was a Ranger riding a Hippogryph doing Mounted Lance Charges and at level 10 the Omen Rider can easily outdamage that character by just using a Boost from Piercing Thunder. Add in a Strike and it's even higher.
Additionally due to Ride By Attack+flight it's very easy to get into a situation where you can Mounted Charge every round and activate Ethereal Rider for a mostly-permanent 50% miss chance while ignoring AoOs from the primary charge Target.
Earlier I remember Prince of Knives talking about how the Hit an Run Tactics of a Harbinger diminish once enemies get big and have huge natural reach, but such concerns become irrelevant when you ignore their Threatened area completely on charges then sail right on past them. Unless they have pounce you will always win that damage race, especially with a 50% miss chance that seems to bypass true seeing?
Areas of Concern: 3xInt on Mounted Charges. Maneuvers+mounted Charges. Huge Safety that far exceeds the original Harbinger's. Capable of damage on par with full BAB damage focused classes while simultaneously unleashing Harbinger's powerful debuffs.
It's a cool archetype, but it's too much of a monster.

[ATalsen]

Is there a big reason to specify base speed over just normal land speed?
I think removing 'base' from the feat will have to work just as intended, unless the intention really to have it ignore armor/encumbrance penalties.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/basics-ability-scores/glossary#TOC-Speed



Veiled Moon Step [Combat]
As you move, your form flickers in and out of sight, appearing far away
Prerequisites: Veiled Moon Style, Stealth 7 ranks
Benefit: You may expend one of your readied boosts as a swift action. If you do, increase your base land speed by 10 ft. until the beginning of your next turn, and you may teleport a number of feet equal to your base land speed as a move action this turn. You must have line of sight to your destination.

[Eloelle]

Speaking of stuff that needs review, I have a bunch of feats that have been rewritten:
Cool, I will leave out the ones that seem spot-on to me.


Animus Healing [Combat]
You have learned how to channel your animus into healing energies.
Prerequisites: Possess an animus pool.
Benefits: Once per encounter, you can spend up to one point of animus per four initiator levels as a move action to heal 2d4 hit points per point of animus spent.
One point per four initiator levels, but you can take it before level 4?

Even then this seems absurdly bad to me - I don't agree that it was overpowered before, but even then. 1/encounter limit, 1/4 initiator levels, move action, and it costs a feat.
That's
levels 1-3: nothing
levels 4-7: heal yourself for 5hp on average - the equivalent of a CLW wand or potion
levels 8-11: 10hp - less than a CMW wand or potion
levels 12-15: 15hp
levels 16-19: 20hp

I would at the very least drop the 1/encounter limit. The 1/4 initiator level limit is enough to stop people from healing to full in one round by saving up their anima. And as mentioned, you can heal to full outside of combat for no cost in a few minutes anyway using the level3 fire stance or Boots of the Earth, so being able to dump your anima at the end of an encounter on it doesn't seem like a problem.



Channeled Recovery
You are able to use divine energy to restore your maneuvers.
Prerequisite: Channel Energy class feature
Benefit: When you channel energy to heal allies, allies in your channeled energy area may choose to forgo ½ the healing provided by your channel energy and instead recover 1 maneuver as a free action, even if it’s not their turn.
This is a lot better than it was. Maybe specify that it can't be used with other forms of variant channeling? Though I guess that's an optional rule anyway, and I remember you saying you give minimal attention to optional rules, but it is one of the PFS-legal optional rules.


Silver Fang Initiate [Combat] (Formerly Darksteel Initiate)
You have learned how to combine talents from the Mithral Current and Steel Serpent disciplines.
Prerequisite: Quick Draw, 2 Steel Serpent Maneuvers known, 2 Mithral Current Maneuvers known
Benefit: When you use a steel serpent maneuver to deal ability score damage to a creature with vulnerability to silver, increase that ability score damage by 50%.
Does that include poison or SS maneuvers that proc poison, rather than dealing the ability damage directly?


Molten Silver Strike [Combat]
Prerequisite: Quick Draw, 2 Solar Wind Maneuvers known, 2 Mithral Current Maneuvers known
Benefit: You can use Solar Wind Boosts on Mithral Current strikes that allow you to attack enemies at range and when you do so, you can increase the range of the maneuver by 10 ft. plus an additional 5 ft. per 4 initiator levels.
Normal: Mithral Current strikes use melee attack rolls, which prevents them from being combined with maneuvers that affect ranged attacks.
All this for a single line of maneuvers in a style that already takes a lot of feat investment to get off the ground? I don't see how this can possibly be worth a feat. Most of the solar wind boosts just add elemental damage which Elemental Flux already does (Elemental Flux boosts generally only affect a single attack, but the Mithral Current Wave Strikes are single attacks anyway). Even as a trap option it's not very good because it's inaccessible and niche to begin with.

Am I missing something here?


Elemental Flux Style [Combat, Style]
Your understanding of Elemental Energies offers you defense as well as offense.
Prerequisites: 1 or more Elemental Flux stances, Spellcraft 3 ranks
Benefit: While this style is active, your attacks which deal energy damage deal ½ their damage as a second energy type of your choice (acid, cold, electricity or fire).
This one seems fine but the flavour text needs adjusting :smalltongue: Unless it's referring to the entire style chain in which case never mind.


Primal Fury Savagery [Combat]
You strike with speed and strength beyond that of any other
Prerequisites: Primal Fury Style, Primal Fury Slash, Survival 11 ranks
Benefit: When you charge an opponent, you gain an additional +2 bonus on your attack roll and your AC penalty does not apply to attacks made against you by the target of your charge.
May want to add a bit 'AC penalty from charging' in case people try to rules lawyer it to apply to other AC penalties like they did with Shield Master.


Solar Wind Inferno [Combat]
The burning power of your arrows sears the flesh of even those immune to fire
Prerequisites: Solar Wind Style, Solar Wind Flash, Perception 11 ranks
Benefit: Your ranged attacks which deal fire damage ignore an amount of fire resistance equal to your character level. You treat Fire Immunity as Fire Resistance 30 for purposes of this effect.
Special: If you possess the Variable Winds feat, your attacks ignore energy resistance of the same type as your active energy type and treat the energy immunity of your active type as having energy resistance 30 of your active energy type for purposes of this effect
Maybe add If you possess the Variable Winds feat or learned a different elemental form of Solar Wind,

edit: I don't understand; it's intentional that the Solar Wind style just doesn't work for people who take Glacial Frost, Virulent Spray, Oncoming Storm, or Endless Howl ?


Veiled Moon Step [Combat]
As you move, your form flickers in and out of sight, appearing far away
Prerequisites: Veiled Moon Style, Stealth 7 ranks
Benefit: You may expend one of your readied boosts as a swift action. If you do, increase your base land speed by 10 ft. until the beginning of your next turn, and you may teleport a number of feet equal to your base land speed as a move action this turn. You must have line of sight to your destination.
Does/doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity?

---

Hope this helps and thanks for your hard work!

[NineThePuma]

It's already a problem that Maneuvers work on Mounted charges and this is compounded in the Omen Rider.

They don't actually. You have to Charge as an action to mounted charge in pathfinder.

[ATalsen]

I like the short haft feat, but I was thinking about using it with a large character and realized that it oddly leaves a zone 10 ft out that they can't attack into, since its just 'adjacent' and normal reach.

I'm not sure how to eloquently fix that though...



Short Haft [Combat]
Benefit: You can attack adjacent enemies with your reach weapon until the end of your turn by taking a -2 penalty to AC for the


Maybe the feats converts reach weapon reach into natural reach?

[Morcleon]

I like the short haft feat, but I was thinking about using it with a large character and realized that it oddly leaves a zone 10 ft out that they can't attack into, since its just 'adjacent' and normal reach.

I'm not sure how to eloquently fix that though...


Maybe the feats converts reach weapon reach into natural reach?

Maybe something like this:

Short Haft [Combat]
Benefit: You can use your natural reach instead of the reach provided by your reach weapon until the end of your turn by taking a -2 penalty to AC

[Extra Anchovies]

One point per four initiator levels, but you can take it before level 4?

Even then this seems absurdly bad to me - I don't agree that it was overpowered before, but even then. 1/encounter limit, 1/4 initiator levels, move action, and it costs a feat.
That's
levels 1-3: nothing
levels 4-7: heal yourself for 5hp on average - the equivalent of a CLW wand or potion
levels 8-11: 10hp - less than a CMW wand or potion
levels 12-15: 15hp
levels 16-19: 20hp

I would at the very least drop the 1/encounter limit. The 1/4 initiator level limit is enough to stop people from healing to full in one round by saving up their anima. And as mentioned, you can heal to full outside of combat for no cost in a few minutes anyway using the level 3 fire stance or Boots of the Earth, so being able to dump your anima at the end of an encounter on it doesn't seem like a problem.

The changes to Animus Healing were implemented, presumably, due to the fact that a Mystic keeps generating Animus for one minute after all of their foes are incapacitated. Removing a per-encounter limit puts Animus Healing back where it was, granting 20d4 healing (or more, if the Mystic uses maneuvers to cut down trees for one minute or something) every encounter from level 1. I agree that the scaling is pretty bad as it is, but changing it to 2d4 per 2 IL would change it to 0/5/10/15/20/25/30/35/40/45/50 points of healing per encounter at levels 1/2/4/6/8/10/12/14/16/18/20. That's enough that it's worth a feat for a frontline Mystic, while still keeping the scaling.

[tekevil]

They don't actually. You have to Charge as an action to mounted charge in pathfinder.

There is a feat to activate Standard Action Strikes after charging in Path of War 1.

[ATalsen]

Maybe something like this:

Short Haft [Combat]
Benefit: You can use your natural reach instead of the reach provided by your reach weapon until the end of your turn by taking a -2 penalty to AC

That means no attacking at reach, just 'nearby'. What I'd be looking for is wording that lets you cover the whole area - for a large creature with a reach weapon, that's from adjacent (5ft away) out to 20 ft.

So more along the lines of "the reach provided by your reach weapon becomes your natural reach until the end of your turn". I'm just not sure how many people actually understand what that means in game terms.

[Eloelle]

The changes to Animus Healing were implemented, presumably, due to the fact that a Mystic keeps generating Animus for one minute after all of their foes are incapacitated. Removing a per-encounter limit puts Animus Healing back where it was, granting 20d4 healing (or more, if the Mystic uses maneuvers to cut down trees for one minute or something) every encounter from level 1. I agree that the scaling is pretty bad as it is, but changing it to 2d4 per 2 IL would change it to 0/5/10/15/20/25/30/35/40/45/50 points of healing per encounter at levels 1/2/4/6/8/10/12/14/16/18/20. That's enough that it's worth a feat for a frontline Mystic, while still keeping the scaling.
I don't understand; why do you keep talking about using this feat after enemies are defeated? You can already heal to full outside of combat at no cost, in many different ways, including the two which I mentioned in the post you quoted. The fact that you can use this feat to do it is a complete non-issue, and 'amount of hp healed per encounter' is a meaningless metric. The only important feature is whether or not it's useful for its intended purpose, which is to allow people to spend an action and some Animus points while still in a hostile situation to heal themselves a bit instead of do more damage or move around or whatever.

Heck, if you're going to heal up by smashing trees or a bag of rats, you might as well pull out Enduring Crane Strike from Silver Crane - it's much more effective for this purpose.

[Morcleon]

That means no attacking at reach, just 'nearby'. What I'd be looking for is wording that lets you cover the whole area - for a large creature with a reach weapon, that's from adjacent (5ft away) out to 20 ft.

So more along the lines of "the reach provided by your reach weapon becomes your natural reach until the end of your turn". I'm just not sure how many people actually understand what that means in game terms.

Ah... I misunderstood the purpose of the feat. :smallredface:

Short Haft [Combat]
Benefit: When wielding a reach weapon, you can attack enemies within both your natural reach and the reach provided by your reach weapon until the end of your turn by taking a -2 penalty to AC.

[NineThePuma]

There is a feat to activate Standard Action Strikes after charging in Path of War 1.

That predates the errata stating that in order to receive the benefits of a mounted charge, you must full round action charge. Which... may or may not mean it requires revisiting.

[Eloelle]

Also, with Variable Winds and your active element: if you're in the 'earth' element, does that mean you can choose to inflict either acid or sonic damage on each attack or...?

[Kaidinah]

Time to give feedback on archetypes!

Primal Disciple is fantastically cool. No problems with it.

Rubato keeps cantrips (0-level spells) funnily enough. Not sure if intended. Either way, this is a very cool class. I really wanted bardic performance somewhere in PoW, and this class does a lot more than that.

Myrmidon still has his own maneuver progression table. This is the first time I have wanted to play a fighter for more than 2 levels of dipping.

Omen Rider needs some work, and Tekevil wrote some stuff about it (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19460131&postcount=214). I agree with what it said. Thematically, this archetype is very cool. Bringing doom-horses to any concept always makes everything fun.

Monk of the Silver Fist is one of my favorite archetypes in the document. It finds a new role and brings it to life.

Knight Disciple recovery, in comparison to Monk of the Silver Fist recovery feels a bit strong. While I am usually a paladin hater, this archetype's Censures Mark and Guardian Shield mechanics were able to win me over. No problems here.

Nothing more to say on Ambush Hunter. I like where it is now.

Hidden Blade is as good of a initiator conversion for the Rogue, and is a trade up, just like the Myrmidon. It looks compatible with most rogue archetypes as well.

Vigilante Stalker is a bit overtuned. It has a few too many sneak attack dice considering how little it gives up. As a 9/9 initiator, the Vigilante should be able to reliably sneak attack nearly every round, making its current 10d6 sneak attack a lot better than the previous Deadly Strikes.

Brutal Slayer is awesome, and I have no real complaints.

Fiendish Marauder is a highly transformative archetype. It gives up very strong class features for other, strong class features. I personally feel that it is a little weaker than the base Warder, but it certainly allows curse using disciplines to function much better. Altogether, a very strong and cool archetype.

Ordained Defender. I still don't think it should switch away from intelligence, but other than that, this feels like a fair archetype.

Desperado is a great Warlord archetype. I see no reason to look at gunslinger with Desperado around. Besides, Tempest Gale Stance is a lot funner than Gun Training, and actually lets you change firearms.

Bleak Emissary is still Harbinger+, and its previous nerfs barely addressed this. Why does it still have scaling bonuses to maneuver save DCs and attack rolls? It already gets buffed usage of a powerful style feat tree, while still being allowed to access other style feats. Withered Bond removes one of the Bleak Emissary's few weaknesses, which boggles my mind because it already is so darn strong.

[Ssalarn]

The Omen Rider:
Accursed Will+Maneuvers+Mounted combat= Way too much damage for the intended purpose of the class. It's already a problem that Maneuvers work on Mounted charges and this is compounded in the Omen Rider.
I've played in a campaign where I was a Ranger riding a Hippogryph doing Mounted Lance Charges and at level 10 the Omen Rider can easily outdamage that character by just using a Boost from Piercing Thunder. Add in a Strike and it's even higher.
Additionally due to Ride By Attack+flight it's very easy to get into a situation where you can Mounted Charge every round and activate Ethereal Rider for a mostly-permanent 50% miss chance while ignoring AoOs from the primary charge Target.
Earlier I remember Prince of Knives talking about how the Hit an Run Tactics of a Harbinger diminish once enemies get big and have huge natural reach, but such concerns become irrelevant when you ignore their Threatened area completely on charges then sail right on past them. Unless they have pounce you will always win that damage race, especially with a 50% miss chance that seems to bypass true seeing?
Areas of Concern: 3xInt on Mounted Charges. Maneuvers+mounted Charges. Huge Safety that far exceeds the original Harbinger's. Capable of damage on par with full BAB damage focused classes while simultaneously unleashing Harbinger's powerful debuffs.
It's a cool archetype, but it's too much of a monster.

I actually share a lot of these concerns. I'd somehow completely overlooked the fact that there was a feat that let you activate any standard action strike on a charge in the first book, which amps my concerns about mounted initiators up to 11. As tekevil mentions, taking the versatility and debuff ingredients of the Harbinger's 3/4 chassis and marrying it to the damage output of a full BAB character using probably the hardest hitting combat style available... it's a lot.

[Azoth]

Simple nitpick. The feat Tap Animus states that you can use the animus it grants to power glyphs, but there are no feats to gain access to glyphs. I know we had them at some point, but they currently do not exist.

[Extra Anchovies]

Just a heads up, I really like how the Rubato keeps its cantrips. I will be annoyed if those are removed.

[Lord_Gareth]

Just a heads up, I really like how the Rubato keeps its cantrips. I will be annoyed if those are removed.

Note to self: remove cantrips, install restriction that prevents them from gaining cantrips from other classes or feats.

[AGrinningCat]

Note to self: remove cantrips, install restriction that prevents them from gaining cantrips from other classes or feats.

Just remove Prestidigitation. Fixed!

[Kaidinah]

Note to self: remove cantrips, install restriction that prevents them from gaining cantrips from other classes or feats.
Give and take. Don't forget to give out a minor feature for Rubatos losing the gloriousness than is light, ghost sounds, and prestidigigigigitation <3

[Eloelle]

Replace cantrips with Dual Identity

it is a joke you know

[Deadkitten]

OK so time for some style feat input:

Broken Blade Rhythm is fantastically good on a Wrath Daevic who dips like 1-2 levels of stalker.

Gives them an effective 3 extra attacks on their full attack routine. Don't know how I feel about that.

The golden lion style line:


Special: This feat may be selected if a character is granted a bonus teamwork feat.

So I'm gonna mention that a very shaky way that this can be Interpreted is that a cavalier can give out a teamwork feat through tactician and you can just select the style feats instead.

If you replace a granted teamwork feat,can you grant these feats to your allies?

And Thrashing dragon style:
Does it work with vital strike?

P.S. this is via phone from work so forgive the format.

[ErrantX]

Also, with Variable Winds and your active element: if you're in the 'earth' element, does that mean you can choose to inflict either acid or sonic damage on each attack or...?

I'm dropping sonic from the Variable Wind feat and just using the language from Flux effectively. So fire, cold, acid, and electrical only. Sorry sonic fans. Makes this question disappear.

-X

[MilleniaAntares]

For the Ordained Defender: is it a deliberate choice to take out the level 3 bonus feat? It disqualifies them from combining with Sworn Protector, which far as I understand is designed to be compatible with most any other warder archetype.

That said, I'm not sure you guys feel it's appropriate to delay receiving the domain/inquisition at a later level while "only" having a -2 penalty to the effective level of the ability.


I'm dropping sonic from the Variable Wind feat and just using the language from Flux effectively. So fire, cold, acid, and electrical only. Sorry sonic fans. Makes this question disappear.

-X
There was a sonic variant? From what I read there was one that had the name that implied sonic, but dealt d4 fire damage instead of d6 fire damage.

[Swaoeaeieu]

The new Taskmaster Presence does not specify a level at wich you can take like the other two. On purpose?

[chaos_redefined]

So, I dunno if this is an actual problem, but Elf/Half-Orc/Human/Maenad/Xeph Warlords using their Favored Class Bonus get almost the same number of feats as Fighters of the same race.

Warlord gets a bonus feat at levels 1, 3 (must be a teamwork feat), 6, 10, 14, and 18. Favored class bonus gives extra ones at 5, 10, 15 and 20. That totals 10.

Fighters get 11. Admittedly, none of them have to be teamwork feats.

Of the other class features that a fighter gets... Compare Bravery to Rallying Presence/Force of Personality, Weapon Training to Battle Prowess/Tactical Flanker/Tactical Assistance, Armor Training to several counters, Armor Mastery and Weapon Mastery to Dual Stance and stances.

I'm not convinced that the fighter is worth taking compared to the warlord...

[Morcleon]

So, I dunno if this is an actual problem, but Elf/Half-Orc/Human/Maenad/Xeph Warlords using their Favored Class Bonus get almost the same number of feats as Fighters of the same race.

Warlord gets a bonus feat at levels 1, 3 (must be a teamwork feat), 6, 10, 14, and 18. Favored class bonus gives extra ones at 5, 10, 15 and 20. That totals 10.

Fighters get 11. Admittedly, none of them have to be teamwork feats.

Of the other class features that a fighter gets... Compare Bravery to Rallying Presence/Force of Personality, Weapon Training to Battle Prowess/Tactical Flanker/Tactical Assistance, Armor Training to several counters, Armor Mastery and Weapon Mastery to Dual Stance and stances.

I'm not convinced that the fighter is worth taking compared to the warlord...

Even if Warlord got no bonus feats, the fighter would still not be worth taking comparatively. PoW is meant to fix the issue with martial classes, bringing them up to about tier 3, so having warlord be much better than the fighter is both expected and wanted.

[Elricaltovilla]

So, I dunno if this is an actual problem, but Elf/Half-Orc/Human/Maenad/Xeph Warlords using their Favored Class Bonus get almost the same number of feats as Fighters of the same race.

Warlord gets a bonus feat at levels 1, 3 (must be a teamwork feat), 6, 10, 14, and 18. Favored class bonus gives extra ones at 5, 10, 15 and 20. That totals 10.

Fighters get 11. Admittedly, none of them have to be teamwork feats.

Of the other class features that a fighter gets... Compare Bravery to Rallying Presence/Force of Personality, Weapon Training to Battle Prowess/Tactical Flanker/Tactical Assistance, Armor Training to several counters, Armor Mastery and Weapon Mastery to Dual Stance and stances.

I'm not convinced that the fighter is worth taking compared to the warlord...

Frankly, if we concerned ourselves with making the fighter worth taking compared to the warlord, we'd end up with a crappy Warlord. It's a sad fact, but the fighter lacks anything approaching useable class features outside of his bonus feats, which even then aren't that useful. The fighter is not the balance point we're comparing ourselves to, instead we try to match classes that have useful, flavorful and diverse abilities like the Inquisitor, Magus, Alchemist, Investigator, Bard and Warpriest.

We can't fix the fighter, it doesn't belong to us (although ErrantX did a darn good job with the Myrmidon fighter archetype). Paizo made the fighter, and then made nearly every other class with martial weapon proficiency better at fighting than the fighter. I agree that it's unfortunate, but we're not going to chain ourselves to badly designed classes.

[Nyaa]

I'm not convinced that the fighter is worth taking compared to the warlord...

You are not the sharpest tool in the shed, are you? :smallwink: Balance point for PoW is T3 - magus, bard, warpriest. Not fighter, rogue and monk. Just like WotC all but replaced fighter, monk and paladin with warblade, swordsage and crusader.

And please don't start fighter talk again. It's now buried with old DSP website, but I'm sure devs still remember having to politely tell that certain someone for weeks that fighters, and other classes for the matter, won't get 9th level initiating.

[chaos_redefined]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the fighter is the ultimate balance point or anything like that...

But let's say I sit down at a table with someone who is worried about the balance of non-paizo material, sees that I have one less feat than the fighter, and so much more other stuff... They might start to think that DSP's work is overpowered, even if it isn't compared to the inquisitor, magus, alchemist, etc...

(And for the record, no, I don't think fighters should get 9th level maneuvers or anything like that. I just think that, if bonus feats is the one thing that fighters do get, then a second class shouldn't come along with almost as many bonus feats.)

[PsyBomb]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the fighter is the ultimate balance point or anything like that...

But let's say I sit down at a table with someone who is worried about the balance of non-paizo material, sees that I have one less feat than the fighter, and so much more other stuff... They might start to think that DSP's work is overpowered, even if it isn't compared to the inquisitor, magus, alchemist, etc...

At that table, I probably would pick a Warder, Vitalist, or Seer Vizier. Something to boost the team while having fun

[Morcleon]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the fighter is the ultimate balance point or anything like that...

But let's say I sit down at a table with someone who is worried about the balance of non-paizo material, sees that I have one less feat than the fighter, and so much more other stuff... They might start to think that DSP's work is overpowered, even if it isn't compared to the inquisitor, magus, alchemist, etc...

(And for the record, no, I don't think fighters should get 9th level maneuvers or anything like that. I just think that, if bonus feats is the one thing that fighters do get, then a second class shouldn't come along with almost as many bonus feats.)

In this situation, I feel like the best solution for the balance concerns is explaining the concept of the tier system and going over the fact that pretty much every other class in the game is more powerful than the fighter, and that you enjoy being able to have options other than charge, full-attack, occasionally perform a combat manuever.

[Elricaltovilla]

In other news, poor Kluk's gotten himself into another spot of trouble (http://dreamscarred.com/a-hero-in-spite-of-himself/).

[Vhaidara]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the fighter is the ultimate balance point or anything like that...

But let's say I sit down at a table with someone who is worried about the balance of non-paizo material, sees that I have one less feat than the fighter, and so much more other stuff... They might start to think that DSP's work is overpowered, even if it isn't compared to the inquisitor, magus, alchemist, etc...

(And for the record, no, I don't think fighters should get 9th level maneuvers or anything like that. I just think that, if bonus feats is the one thing that fighters do get, then a second class shouldn't come along with almost as many bonus feats.)

Then explain to him that 5 of your 10 bonus feats are teamwork feats. There are like, 2 good ones. I think. And one of those is melee while the other is ranged.

[Milo v3]

(And for the record, no, I don't think fighters should get 9th level maneuvers or anything like that. I just think that, if bonus feats is the one thing that fighters do get, then a second class shouldn't come along with almost as many bonus feats.)

Paizo is currently in the middle of playtesting a class that can have 10+ combat feats from their class, can take fighter only feats, and the class is considered really weak. So that's not really a concern.

[Lord_Gareth]

So I've been saying for a bit now that I've been trying to think of a replacement for Tenebrous Reach. I think I have one.

Vengeful Oath (Su): Starting at 13th level, the harbinger may move up to her speed as a free action (even if it's not her turn) whenever she is targeted by a ranged attack, including ranged spells that require an attack roll. This movement must be towards the source of the attack. The harbinger may only move up to twice her highest speed in one round with this ability.

[Callin]

o.0


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