Path of War question - vulnerabilities and strikes

[thecrimsondawn]

Lets assume I am fighting a creature that takes extra damage from my weapon since its made of something it does not like (50% more damage)
If I do a strike that adds a flat amount of damage, or a number of D6's worth of damage, is that damage considered silver too?

To be honest, I am not even sure how this would work with sneak attack either.

[Elxir_Breauer]

If I remember correctly, Sneak Attack damage is Precision Damage (while not a type in itself, it may prevent vulnerabilities from coming into play at much higher rates). Strikes from PoW are untyped physical damage, unless otherwise stated in the strike or discipline (such as Silver Crane bonus damage always being Sacred and Black Seraph always being Profane).

On the Sneak Attack issue, it may be best to ask your DM for a ruling on that, but PoW is pretty clear about their damage types. Hope this helps, even a little.

[MilleniaAntares]

Maneuver damage is not multiplied on a physical vulnerability. However, elemental damage is on an energy vulnerability.

I believe that sacred/profane damage boost counts as a physical vulnerability, but I am not sure if that was posted on these forums or elsewhere.

[thecrimsondawn]

MilleniaAntares

Re: Path of War question - vulnerabilities and strikes
Maneuver damage is not multiplied on a physical vulnerability. However, elemental damage is on an energy vulnerability.

I believe that sacred/profane damage boost counts as a physical vulnerability, but I am not sure if that was posted on these forums or elsewhere.



The thing about BS and SC is that the profane and sacred damage is 50% stronger when fighting the respective alignment, and that is what makes it rather nice. The main difference tho is every time they say they do damage they have a type with it. Since the damage is typed, it will apply,

With Mithril Current out, part of its gig is making people vulnerable to silver to increase its own damage, or add status effect, but these vulnerability come with a save.
Its looking like I may need to post this one in a PoW Expanded thread tho to really know now that I am looking at it.

Edit: Ok Its verified. The untyped damage is in a way called out as "additional" damage. as such, the damage is added AFTER weapon+ability score+feat damage. So if I had a 1d8+4(str)+2(feat)x2(on crit) It would be an average of 10 damage on a normal hit, or 15 vs silver, (20 on a crit, 30 with silver).
So I guess if I wanted to optimize this I would want to wield a weapon two handed and use power attack since that damage is also silvered.

[Forrestfire]

Maneuver damage, sneak attack damage, and any other damage you deal is increased against vulnerable targets.

There's a couple rules that you might think would apply here, such as the general rule for multiplying damage dice (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat#TOC-Multiplying-Damage):


Exception: Extra damage dice over and above a weapon's normal damage are never multiplied.

And maybe the rules for maneuver damage and multiplication (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/systems-and-use). However, in that case, the rule only refers to critical hits:


You can make a critical hit with a strike, but you do not multiply extra damage from a strike when calculating the critical hit damage. It is treated just as extra damage from another special ability would be (like deadly strike damage or damage from a flaming weapon).

Emphasis mine. However, even if we were talking about a critical hit, rules for vulnerability (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/special-abilities#TOC-Energy-Immunity-and-Vulnerability) do not involve multiplication. They don't involve dice either. All they care about is the total damage dealt to the creature, at which point they step in, after everything else regarding the attack has been resolved:


A creature with energy immunity never takes damage from that energy type. Vulnerability means the creature takes half again as much (+50%) damage as normal from that energy type, regardless of whether a saving throw is allowed or if the save is a success or failure.

This would normally apply only to energy types, but unlike a standard vulnerability to a non-energy source (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/universal-monster-rules#TOC-Vulnerabilities-Ex-or-Su-), Vulnerability to Silver is defined in Path of War: Expanded as working like the energy vulnerabilities:


Creatures with vulnerability to silver take 50% more damage from silver weapons.

If you're dealing with Mithral Current stuff or energy stuff (such as from Flux), you tally the entirety of your attack's damage of the right type, including maneuvers, stances, boosts, conditional modifiers, sneak attack, and the like, when finding out how much more is added by the vulnerability.*

*Unless there's a FAQ on it that I missed. I checked a couple books' worth, but didn't find anything on the topic.

[thecrimsondawn]

While I would like to agree with that (as it would benefit me, the player) FOr balance reasons, we are talking a difference of 60-120 damage a hit here. That is a huge huge deal and I dont think that is what they intended. That is also why I am here of course to find out what if any rulings have been made on this.

So lets pull up a move. Here is one from Scarlet Throne
Scarlet Throne practitioners who know the Noble Blade may use their battle focus to add additional force to their strikes. The disciple may add a +5 insight bonus to his attack roll and +2d8 insight bonus to his damage roll on a single melee attack made during this turn.

This one adds +2d8 insight bonus to your damage. Its a called type of damage in this case so one would assume in this case, your attack hits your target with such force in an area they did not expect and may be a vital point causing that extra damage. It adds to your damage roll, but when does it add? Does it add before you roll the dice, or after? If before, then it would get multiplied in theory since its part of your weapon damage roll. If after, its extra damage like sneak attack.

But then there are strikes like this
The disciple's attacks grow strong with practiced fury and primal power, forgoing accuracy for pure deadly force. The initiator suffers a -4 penalty to his attack roll, and makes an attack against a target creature. If successful, this attack inflicts an additional 20 points of damage, or 35 if the weapon is wielded in two hands.

Its a set amount. It just adds that number to the damage. Nothing more. If it was silver, that would be 30-52 extra damage. That is a huge amount of damage that can be stacked with power attack.


Are there no monsters outside of path of war with non elemental vulnerabilities?

[Forrestfire]

Both sneak attack and the strike's damage are added directly to the damage roll. Sneak attack isn't added "after" (otherwise it would double-dip on damage reduction). Afterwards, the damage is increased (but not multiplied) by the vulnerability.

There are monsters out there with vulnerability to non-elemental sources, but as noted in the above links, they tend to have special rules"


A creature with vulnerabilities takes half again as much damage (+50%) from a specific energy type, regardless of whether a saving throw is allowed or if the save is a success or failure. Creatures with a vulnerability that is not an energy type instead take a –4 penalty on saves against spells and effects that cause or use the listed vulnerability (such as spells with the light descriptor). Some creatures might suffer additional effects, as noted in their descriptions.

Speaking as the editor of Path of War: Expanded: there's no ruling being made here at all. The rules do what they say they do.

However, Primal Fury is a bit of a problem child, and has tweaks and nerfs planned in errata once PoW E gets fully released. I would consider not using it as a comparison point at this point in time. Even then, though, you could be dealing even more damage with a hasted full attack+boost at the level you've got that strike, and on average, it's still only going to 2-round a monster of your CR (they have 85 HP), which is within the expected damage output for a martial. And that's assuming you hit—between the -4 penalty from the strike and the penalty from power attack, that's a pretty significant loss of accuracy.

[Eldaran]

However, Primal Fury is a bit of a problem child, and has tweaks and nerfs planned in errata once PoW E gets fully released.

What does this mean? The book is out, why keep delaying the errata? Should we expect the next errata to come only when the stars align and R'lyeh rises once more?

[MilleniaAntares]

The PoW:E PDF is the only part out.

They will do an editing revision once they finish the PoW:E physical book update.

[ErrantX]

What does this mean? The book is out, why keep delaying the errata? Should we expect the next errata to come only when the stars align and R'lyeh rises once more?

All of us at DSP have day jobs, many of us are students, parents, and have other responsibilities. We don't do this as a day job, and thus, our time is limited to what minutes and hours we can steal away from our families and friends to work on this. I understand your want of the errata, and it's something that the entire team has been working on for months when time allows between other projects that we're working on. We ask that you be patient - we know there is a lot of want for this errata, and we'll get it out in time, but Expanded hasn't even hit the printer yet. Let us at least get that work out into the wild before we tackle errata with any kind of renewed vigor.

Thank you,
-X

[thecrimsondawn]

I, at least would like to thank you guys for taking the time out to reply to my thread. I feel my question was a very important one that will be asked many times in the future.
There is one other PoW Expanded question I have to ask tho, and it is still related to the topic.
The monk archetype that removes your unarmed strike and gives you weapon focus gauntlets (and gauntlet damage progression). In terms of what a gauntlet is, would you be able to use Broken Blade moves that ask for unarmed with it? Right now we are allowing it since really the damage is more or less the same as unarmed, but with a shield and enhancement bonus, but what would the RAI be?

Quick Edit: Also does sneak attack damage with a silver dagger also do 50% more in this case, since you are making them vulnerable with a strike most of the time?

[RolkFlameraven]

If you make them vulnerable and hit with a silver weapon then it should, just as if you hit a white dragon with a scorching ray and SA. The Sneak attack dice are of the same type as the "weapon" used for the attack, all fire or silver or piercing. This way they are only hit once by energy resistance, or DR and in this case would get an extra 50% damage due to the vulnerability.

I haven't looked a current yet but how often is this really a thing? Are you muti-classing rogue and an initiator class or getting the current strike via feats? Or are you just gestalt?

On anything but the gestalt option I don't know if it would ever really get that crazy in real play, now if you ARE gestalt then yeah I could see of huge numbers but then again you're gestalt.

[thecrimsondawn]

If you make them vulnerable and hit with a silver weapon then it should, just as if you hit a white dragon with a scorching ray and SA. The Sneak attack dice are of the same type as the "weapon" used for the attack, all fire or silver or piercing. This way they are only hit once by energy resistance, or DR and in this case would get an extra 50% damage due to the vulnerability.

I haven't looked a current yet but how often is this really a thing? Are you muti-classing rogue and an initiator class or getting the current strike via feats? Or are you just gestalt?

On anything but the gestalt option I don't know if it would ever really get that crazy in real play, now if you ARE gestalt then yeah I could see of huge numbers but then again you're gestalt.

Well its not quite that often. In Current, there are about 3 or 4 moves that on a failed save after a strike, they are vulnerable to silver for a round. The style feat for Current gives the first attack you do in a round counts as if the target was vulnerable to silver.
Currently we have the monk archtype in play and before noticing this, we ruled that even tho you use gauntlets instead of unarmed strikes, that they count as unarmed still for use with Broken Blade. With a boost and a strike the following turn after a target is weak to silver, at level 7 he can dish out about 120 damage.

Out next game, both my roomy and I came up with builds that will still use Current. I am making something sort of a Samurai using the Fighters new archetype and taking Primal Fury, Current, and Scarlet Throne. He will be using a silver katana and also using the archetype two handed fighter. My roomy is making a rogue, and while I dont know the build yet, with two players both making use of Current and silver type attacks, the odds, and damage capability of current is vastly increased.

On a side note, I dont even want to think about a 3.5 gestalt build with pathfinder stuff. that would be broken as F, even by gestalt standards.