Pathfinder [Dreamscarred Press] Path of War: Fool's Errand [Archive]

Kiton2

2016-05-10, 10:41 PM

Ah, I can put this here. I've gone through a few of the first 3 level powers, trying to keep in mind both the added restrictions on all the [SU] disciplines and maybe how to abuse this a little on occasion.

Let me start by opening with a doozy. I'm choosing Heavy as one of the "monk and pick two" categories. There's precious few not-melee-only abilities, but hey.

Resilience Stance: the THP generator stance is very powerful. someone flurrying can easily keep themselves completely topped off. bit rocket-tag-ensuring. You either take down the initiator in one volley or you never bring down his shields.

Lock Step is proably okay, the restriction qualifies it for being level 1? If it were level 2 it would need something to compensate, as its otherwise the same counter everyone has but "requires grasp".

Whirlwind sweep makes me feel as though the fool's errand feats need to include a teamwork one, involving polearms and people charging. You can't *not* throw people in the general direction of your heavily armed friends and not have them do something with that...

death at ten paces: Oh wind is totally fine, but put a little fire on your blade or try to do it quickly and it's totally preventable by antimagic fields. More an annoyance regarding the blanketing "they're all SU they all fail this way even when the move is just "you move" " of other disciplines than about this one specifically though.

Lead and Follow... needs something. Maybe if it proned them or something instead of just "your movement stops"? might be a bit too much though, but it still feels like it's not quite there yet. It's just stopping movement, not an attack or anything after all.

Hurricane Kick is another one that make me feel "oh sure, but hit two guys with Riven Hourglass and that's totally "only could be magic" guys"

steel shattering fists too powerful. A direct comparison can be made to the level 2 primal fury "devastating rush", which is the same but +2d6 extra damage dice rather than a second entire attack. comparison can also be made to Riven Hourglass' Lv 2 "Rapid Strike", which has supernatural limitations and is two normal attacks with nothing else. Please do recall that while at the lowest levels +2d6 seems higher than an unarmed attack, Partial initiators get this later, and either way that unarmed attack will be getting strength and eventually enhancement bonuses among other improvements to it (including "all attacks this round/while-in-stance" effects of course). This combines the boons of both those compared powers together for a strike of the same level.

Adamantine Grip seems just about right?
Suppression that's gonna get ugly with a railgun...

The Best Weapon is Theirs This is about on par with Blade-Breaker from Primal Fury (also level 3), maybe a little stronger. Thought Primal was in the 'trouble' range? Either way, needs abbreviating, the thing would take like an entire half-page on its own.

Windmill Waltz Flurry No. Just No. This offers 3 attacks, 3 bonus five-foot steps, and a regular move, all for one standard action. As a level 3. Frenzy Strike gets two attacks at +2d6, that's it. Piercing Thunder hammer gets +2d6 on a single attack and reflex(won't fail) or prone. That's it. I found something sorta comparable down at Sands of Time Hurricane, and this is arguably even more violating of temporal laws (while being EX).

Make them Humble The effect in itself is good, but the duration goes against the very concept of "boosts" and tips it over into massively overpowered. I don't see Aurora Break lasting easily 3-8 rounds or more. I don't see Elemental Breach lasting for my initiator mod either. Lightning Step is one level higher, only lets me do a single 90 while charging (which is its own separate action of course), and I don't see THAT lasting for six rounds.
This turn. That's it. If you want more, recover it like everybody else.

Edit: I just read the first of the fools errand style, and WHAT IN THE F***? Have you seen what most of the style feats do, especially the first ones? They don't give a +8 to its every counter and special effect (in addition to other stuff) that's what! Hell, most of them are crappy and forgettable, each usually giving something on the level of ONE of the THREE abilities that Fool's Errand Sensei grants.
Even the second feat is "have any one combat feat you qualify for whenever you want it, and switch as needed". It's better than just grabbing a combat feat AND advances your style unlike the thoroughly crappy "Riven Hourglass Eternity".

Morcleon

2016-05-10, 11:10 PM

Edit: I just read the first of the fools errand style, and WHAT IN THE F***? Have you seen what most of the style feats do, especially the first ones? They don't give a +8 to its every counter and special effect (in addition to other stuff) that's what! Hell, most of them are crappy and forgettable, each usually giving something on the level of ONE of the THREE abilities that Fool's Errand Sensei grants.
Even the second feat is "have any one combat feat you qualify for whenever you want it, and switch as needed". It's better than just grabbing a combat feat AND advances your style unlike the thoroughly crappy "Riven Hourglass Eternity".

...wouldn't this be an issue of the existing style feats rather than of the new one? :smallconfused: I'd certainly prefer that the style feats become better.

Kiton2

2016-05-10, 11:21 PM

I do agree with you overall, but this one's giving you 2 more in the skill than a rank 10+ skill focus, a brand new climb speed that doesn't even need you to be in style and just needs one hand, and a new alteration/upgrade to your melee attack pattern all in one.

Maybe have all the style feats for all the disciplines meet a bit more halfway?

tekevil

2016-05-11, 02:01 AM

Skill check maneuvers were already trivially easy to complete. A feat for +8 to climb that can stack with skill focus makes it criminally easy, so much so that nat 1s will still succeed against many foes.

Sayt

2016-05-11, 02:56 AM

I'm... not entirely on board with the idea of grasp, but I understand some parts of the DSP have a burning hatred for the grapple rules, which I will admit are an unholy cluster****. That being said:
Grasp doesn't inflict concentration checks on spellcasting
You can double dip grapple bonuses and Skill bonuses to climb, and then combine it with Fool's Errand Style for Grasp checks which are likely to be.... unreasonably high, let's put it.
Holding your sword to someone's throat is a climb check?

All that being said, I do like the idea that a style incorporates armed and unarmed strikes within a set of maneuvers.

CGNefarious

2016-05-11, 03:13 AM

Holding your sword to someone's throat is a climb check?

If meditating under a waterfall can make you a better swordsman, there is no reason climbing a mountain and challenging yourself physically as well as mentally can't have a similar effect.

Overall I absolutely love the theme of this discipline, which is saying something considering I'm uninspired by like half of the preexisting ones. And the ability to add in unarmed strikes without focusing on them is pretty cool. I can have my main weapon and still effectively elbow a mofo in the face. It's not really supported in other disciplines, so I like that the option is being added.

I'm neutral on grasp. I like the simpler 'grapple-light'-ness of it, but considering how easy it is to get, I think the ability to move your enemy while grasping them is potentially quite powerful.

I'm not going to go in depth with maneuvers right now, but I love the stance+ that allows you to adopt a lesser stance while still being able to grasp, and I love the 9th.

Forrestfire

2016-05-11, 12:10 PM

Firstly, I want to say thanks for the feedback you've given so far. Getting more eyes on this stuff is very helpful. Incoming massive wall of text.

Ah, I can put this here. I've gone through a few of the first 3 level powers, trying to keep in mind both the added restrictions on all the [SU] disciplines and maybe how to abuse this a little on occasion.

Overall, the only real differences between supernatural abilities and extraordinary abilities are the power source and the thematics. While antimagic field does exist, it and associated areas (such as dead magic zones) are just about the only effect in the system that actually cares about the difference. As such, whether or not something is labeled supernatural or extraordinary tends to come down to the ability in question. Something that can be described as an extension (however unrealistic) of real-world things or physical processes is likely to be extraordinary (because, after all, Ex abilities "do not qualify as magical, though they may break the laws of physics").

Fool's Errand is a discipline that is definitely unrealistic, but based in ideas that we consider valid as extraordinary. Something like Riven Hourglass, where even the "physical" strikes are based on having learned to speed up with time magic, rather than mastering the movements with physical training, is supernatural because of its power source.

Let me start by opening with a doozy. I'm choosing Heavy as one of the "monk and pick two" categories. There's precious few not-melee-only abilities, but hey.

That's alright. Fool's Errand has a single save DC (that might not exist; it's on the 9th-level maneuver), which means that discipline weapon choice is mostly negligible. Picking a Heavy weapon works, but there's not much benefit from it other than being able to take the Discipline Focus feat for extra damage.

Resilience Stance: the THP generator stance is very powerful. someone flurrying can easily keep themselves completely topped off. bit rocket-tag-ensuring. You either take down the initiator in one volley or you never bring down his shields.

This one has been very divisive; at very low levels, recovering the HP is difficult and slower than the damage you'll be absorbing, but the feedback on it is being taken into consideration. It may end up being replaced or changed in the future.

Lock Step is proably okay, the restriction qualifies it for being level 1? If it were level 2 it would need something to compensate, as its otherwise the same counter everyone has but "requires grasp".
Whirlwind sweep makes me feel as though the fool's errand feats need to include a teamwork one, involving polearms and people charging. You can't *not* throw people in the general direction of your heavily armed friends and not have them do something with that...

That might be neat. There's been talk of other feats; I'll keep that in mind.

death at ten paces: Oh wind is totally fine, but put a little fire on your blade or try to do it quickly and it's totally preventable by antimagic fields. More an annoyance regarding the blanketing "they're all SU they all fail this way even when the move is just "you move" " of other disciplines than about this one specifically though.

As noted above, the difference between extraordinary and supernatural tends to come down to the ability in question. Since this one is an extension of something physical the initiator is doing, it's Ex (similarly to how a mid to high-level character can jump out of planes and be fine). Summoning elemental fire on your blade or using time magic to speed yourself is, on the other hand, distinctly magical in power source.

Lead and Follow... needs something. Maybe if it proned them or something instead of just "your movement stops"? might be a bit too much though, but it still feels like it's not quite there yet. It's just stopping movement, not an attack or anything after all.

It also grasps them, opening them up for comboing with other Fool's Errand maneuvers and potentially keeping them in place for a round.

Hurricane Kick is another one that make me feel "oh sure, but hit two guys with Riven Hourglass and that's totally "only could be magic" guys"

Riven Hourglass does its stuff by manipulating time directly, not just jumping good (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwbqr2UjeSg).

steel shattering fists too powerful. A direct comparison can be made to the level 2 primal fury "devastating rush", which is the same but +2d6 extra damage dice rather than a second entire attack. comparison can also be made to Riven Hourglass' Lv 2 "Rapid Strike", which has supernatural limitations and is two normal attacks with nothing else. Please do recall that while at the lowest levels +2d6 seems higher than an unarmed attack, Partial initiators get this later, and either way that unarmed attack will be getting strength and eventually enhancement bonuses among other improvements to it (including "all attacks this round/while-in-stance" effects of course). This combines the boons of both those compared powers together for a strike of the same level.

At lower levels, the +2d6 is roughly equivalent to an unarmed attack (1d3+Strength if you're uninvested is probably slightly lower than 2d6, but more consistently close to that average). It does scale better than the +2d6 (and will outpace it eventually, if you've got investment in it), but that just means that it's a bit more relevant for the 6/9 initiators and people grabbing it with feats, rather than meaning it's problematically strong.

If you're focusing on unarmed strikes, the unarmed attack will be a bit better (likely 1d6 base damage, possibly a +1 amulet of mighty fists), but that comes at the expense of the primary attack being far worse (worse damage die than weapons, worse crit stuff, more expensive magic, etc).

Adamantine Grip seems just about right?
Suppression that's gonna get ugly with a railgun...
While the 3d10 line does like having accuracy boosters, it's also a touch attack already. Adding on flat-footed doesn't actually add much to it, beyond making it difficult to use a PoW counter against.

The Best Weapon is Theirs This is about on par with Blade-Breaker from Primal Fury (also level 3), maybe a little stronger. Thought Primal was in the 'trouble' range? Either way, needs abbreviating, the thing would take like an entire half-page on its own.

Primal Fury's main problems are with massive amounts of damage; its counters and several of its strikes are less troublesome than one might think.

Windmill Waltz Flurry No. Just No. This offers 3 attacks, 3 bonus five-foot steps, and a regular move, all for one standard action. As a level 3. Frenzy Strike gets two attacks at +2d6, that's it. Piercing Thunder hammer gets +2d6 on a single attack and reflex(won't fail) or prone. That's it. I found something sorta comparable down at Sands of Time Hurricane, and this is arguably even more violating of temporal laws (while being EX).

This is something that I'll need to address in parts.

Sands of time hurricane, like the other cited Riven Hourglass maneuvers, is supernatural because powered by super speed magic.
Windmill waltz flurry is a full-round action, not a standard action. Effectively, it has the move action "built in," but it does eat almost all of your turn.
While it's 3 attacks, two of them are unarmed strikes (1d3 base unless you've got class levels invested, and highly unlikely to have magical enhancements if you're weapon-based) and no bonus damage.

If we compare similar maneuvers, assuming, say, a greatsword-wielding character with 20 Strength. WBL is 10,500gp at level 5 when this comes online, so he's probably got a +1 greatsword, and since we're going for damage, we can also say that he's being a glass cannon and got a +2 strength belt. Let's also assume full BAB. The average monster has an AC of 18 at this CR. Attack bonus of 5 (bab) + 6 (strength) + 1 (weapon). His extra unarmed attacks have an attack bonus of 3 less than that (including their penalty).

Frenzy strike is two attacks with +2d6 bonus damage. It has its own problems, but I'm going to run with it as just the TWF use, rather than the omnimauler use that's proven to be one of the things that makes Primal Fury troublesome.

Two attacks at +12 against AC 18, for 2d6 (base) + 9 (Strength*1.5) + 1 (weapon) + 2d6 (maneuver). Average damage per round is (24)*(75%)*(2), or 36.

Raging flux from Elemental Flux is one attack for +4d6 damage, and a knockback. Dogpile strike from cursed razor does similar damage without the knockback.

One attack at +12 against AC 18, for 2d6 (base) + 9 (Strength*1.5) + 1 (weapon) + 4d6 (maneuver). Average damage per round is (31)*(75%), or 23.25. A bit lower, but has a repositioning rider. It also deals another potential 1d6 (average 3.5) damage if you push them into a wall.

Dual crash is a 2nd-level maneuver from Mithral Current that is one attack, then another at -2.

One attack at +12 against AC 18, for 2d6 (base) + 9 (Strength*1.5) + 1 (weapon), then another at +10. Average damage per round is (17)*(75%) + (17)*(65%), or 23.8.

Rapid strike is similar; a 2nd-level maneuver from Riven Hourglass that makes two attacks.

Two attacks at +12 against AC 18, for 2d6 (base) + 9 (Strength*1.5) + 1 (weapon). Average damage per round is (17)*(75%)*(2), or 25.5.

Piercing thunder hammer is one attack at +2d6 damage and a save-or-prone rider.

One attack at +12 against AC 18, for 2d6 (base) + 9 (Strength*1.5) + 1 (weapon) + 2d6 (maneuver). Average damage per round is (24)*(75%), or 18. A bit lower, awkwardly.

I could keep going, but there's more than a couple to compare it to, going down the list of 3rd-level maneuvers. So, the Fool's Errand one:

Windmill waltz flurry is one sword attack and two unarmed strikes at -2. While it moves you, it's a full-round action, so the difference there is negligible.

One attack at +12 against AC 18, for 2d6 (base) + 9 (Strength*1.5) + 1 (weapon), then two attacks at +9 vs AC 18, for 1d3 (base) + 6 (Strength). Average damage per round is (17)*(75%) + (7.5)*(60%)*(2), or 21.75.

This maneuver, obviously, scales a little better than the others with boosts and stances, but overall as a damage maneuver does a bit less than many of the comparable strikes.

Make them Humble The effect in itself is good, but the duration goes against the very concept of "boosts" and tips it over into massively overpowered. I don't see Aurora Break lasting easily 3-8 rounds or more. I don't see Elemental Breach lasting for my initiator mod either. Lightning Step is one level higher, only lets me do a single 90 while charging (which is its own separate action of course), and I don't see THAT lasting for six rounds.
This turn. That's it. If you want more, recover it like everybody else.

The big thing about make them humble is that it's a response to an incredibly problematic ability that tends to become ubiquitous at higher levels. It lasts for several rounds because if an initiator is grappling, grasping, or trying to move someone with freedom of movement, even a slight lapse in duration (such as by the ability ending and them needing to recover, then use it again) means that their entire combat style is invalidated.

Edit: I just read the first of the fools errand style, and WHAT IN THE F***? Have you seen what most of the style feats do, especially the first ones? They don't give a +8 to its every counter and special effect (in addition to other stuff) that's what! Hell, most of them are crappy and forgettable, each usually giving something on the level of ONE of the THREE abilities that Fool's Errand Sensei grants.
Even the second feat is "have any one combat feat you qualify for whenever you want it, and switch as needed". It's better than just grabbing a combat feat AND advances your style unlike the thoroughly crappy "Riven Hourglass Eternity".

Fool's Errand Style was, admittedly, written to be comparable to some of the stronger style feats in Path of War: Expanded. It was also written as a sort of "math fix," for grasp attempts. There are several races races that grant climb speeds from level 1, and Fool's Errand Style is meant to allow races that don't have them to keep up. More on that in a bit, though.

For combat usage, Fool's Errand Style allows you to make grasp attempts, essentially, as if they were combat maneuver attempts. It requires a swift action to turn on, and if you're in Fool's Errand, you likely already have several ways to get grasp (without reducing your damage). If we compare some of the other first-tier style feats:

Elemental Flux Style: your variable-debuffs are now much easier to access, and you no longer need to care about energy immunities or resistances in many cases.
Mithral Current Style: you can feint as a swift action and use your discipline skill for it; with a little more investment, your enemies will always be denied their Dex bonus against your attacks.
Piercing Thunder Style: your enemies provoke AoOs on entering squares you threaten, making you significantly more dangerous to people on the move.
Primal Fury Style: you can use your highly-damaging charges even while running through terrain or enemies.
Riven Hourglass Style: rerolls are pretty nice. Also allows you to get the incredibly strong Riven Hourglass Eternity. I can't say I agree with your assessment of that feat; the ability to boost, then extend the boost to your next round's attacks is amazing in my experience, and can lead to some great second-round novas.
Sleeping Goddess Style: allows you to, with another feat (that you would likely be taking, as a psionic character), recover a maneuver as a move action, even if you just used it.
Thrashing Dragon Style: admittedly not as great as some of the others, but still quite good in some builds. Gives access to Thrashing Dragon Pounce, which can greatly increase a characters' DPR.
Veiled Moon Style: you stop caring about intervening terrain in a fight most of the time and gives you access to some amazing enemy-repositioning tools later.

Many of the PoW style feats are quite good. Fool's Errand Style does give you a good boost to your Climb checks, but the cost to get that is already relatively low (a feat in Bloodforge can get you a climb speed, and as noted, there are a couple races you could pick to just have it on hand). A 4,800gp item (slippers of spider climbing) will also give you a climb speed for 10 minutes per day, which is more than enough to cover your combats.

Now, back to grasp.

I'm... not entirely on board with the idea of grasp, but I understand some parts of the DSP have a burning hatred for the grapple rules, which I will admit are an unholy cluster****. That being said:
Grasp doesn't inflict concentration checks on spellcasting
You can double dip grapple bonuses and Skill bonuses to climb, and then combine it with Fool's Errand Style for Grasp checks which are likely to be.... unreasonably high, let's put it.
Holding your sword to someone's throat is a climb check?

All that being said, I do like the idea that a style incorporates armed and unarmed strikes within a set of maneuvers.

Grasp intentionally doesn't inflict concentration checks on spellcasting; it restricts movement but otherwise doesn't lock down a creature's actions. For what it's worth, I'm someone who likes grappling. However, when designing a discipline based on the concept, rather than the mechanics, there were a lot of issues with grappling being both awkward to implement and dangerously binary, even in ways that other mechanics aren't. Feats like Throat Slicer make easy grappling a dangerous prospect, and freedom of movement effects still make the combat style worthless. Make them humble is in many ways a bone thrown to "real" grappling, in order to help fight grappling's problems without devoting an entire discipline to it.

Skill check maneuvers were already trivially easy to complete. A feat for +8 to climb that can stack with skill focus makes it criminally easy, so much so that nat 1s will still succeed against many foes.

Though this is a quick and dirty approximation (PsyBomb has much more involved math sims on it, but I don't have access to those docs at this moment), here (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12QJ6kLx0fAYSYDgbnmAQhXAhtEvNkvAeHBsA4YkYY0Q/edit?usp=sharing) is a look at climb checks with and without a climb speed, compared to monster CMDs in the bestiaries (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E2-s8weiulPoBQjdI05LBzOUToyoZIdSsLKxHAvf8F8/edit).

Effectively, the way that grasp's math works is that if you're uninvested in climb (i.e. don't have a ring of climbing and/or a climb speed), you'll be able to grasp average enemies on average but have almost no chance against those with higher CMDs (let alone those with defenses against grappling). If you do have that investment, then you can reasonably expect to be able to make your initial grasp attempt against an enemy, except at very high levels, where you'll definitely need to get that ring to keep up.

The result is that if you're actively investing in your checks (through picking a race with a climb speed or taking Fool's Errand Style), you'll be able to have grasp work as intended. At the same time, the escape check is based on your CMD, which means that the flip side is true: if the enemy has a bonus in one of the listed skills worth talking about (or a high CMB), they're very likely to get out on their turn. It's our intent to reward that investment and make grasp core to the "control" playstyle that Fool's Errand is about, which is why Fool's Errand Style exists in the first place. Making the discipline arbitrarily better for some races was not a design choice we wanted to make.

EDIT: As noted in this post below, Grasp has gone through some changes after discussion and remathing. The exact details are in the Fool's Errand doc, and here's a link to a new spreadsheet of numbers (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18NHRql86d_LuAPPeIauesXryxh31a7KqtG4W_mECalw/edit?usp=sharing).

tekevil

2016-05-11, 02:58 PM

Forgot how rarely you guys check Paizo. Here's my feedback from the other thread. Also for your above math I suggest factoring in Discipline Focus: Fools Errand since it is almostt always a given for a Path of War Character and affects the UAS as well as the Great Sword swing. Also almost all the maneuvers you compared it to are part of the problem with early damage in Path of War.

I'll post feedback on each level of the discipline as I read it. I'll only hit to level 3 tonight.

Level 1 Character level 1:
Lesson 1 resilience: I need to playtest this as I really don't know how this would work out in practice. I know a level 1 character will have somewhere between 8 and 12 climb depending on how hard they optimize for it and they will refill 1 THP every hit. So low levels less useful, but at a higher levels it can offer a great lifesaver. The stance can be exploited though since if needed someone can just hot swap between this stance and another defensive stance over and over again to keep the THP at max

Lesson 2 Control: This stance is perfect.

One Two Punch: Is this a two weapon fighting action? Similar maneuvers from other disciplines have you take 2WF penalties (-2 atk, half str, half power attack). Without said penalties this is one of the stronger first level strikes and contributes to scenarios like a level two character walking up to a CR4 monster and killing it in one round. Character level 1 is too early to have a standard action strike better than a ful attack from a level 6 character.

Whirlwind Sweep: I hope I'm reading this right, this strike does no damage correct? If so then I think this is the right direction for a lot of 1st level strikes to be moving in the errata.

Level 2 (Character level 3):
Bob and Weave+Death at 10 Paces: Once again great. I like that instead of boosting damage it gives you a tactical advantage.

Lead and Follow: Wouldn’t it make more sense to say that you can make the grasp attempt as part of your attack of opportunity?

Hurricane Kick: o7

Steel Shattering Fists: Is almost ok. First problem is that you can do this with a Great Sword. Second are the same problems as One two Punch. Character level three is too early to have a Standard action strike better than a full attack from a level 6 character.

Level 3 (Character level 5)

Adamantine Grip: This is the level where I think getting CC combed with Damage is appropriate, hence good in my book.

Lesson 3: Level 3 stances are usually a very iconic stance for the discipline and I think this one manages to very adequately display the tenets of the discipline we’ve seen so far without going overboard. I like it!

The Best weapon is theirs: I don’t particularly like this since it’s too easy to ruin a higher level opponent’s chances of harming you while obtaining a valuable piece of loot for use in combat before the fight has ended. On average at level 5 your opponents who this is useful against will have 20-25 CMD while your climb is about 13 with just a trait and ranks as investment. I’d move this up to a higher maneuver level where the average armed enemy may actually have a backup weapon, it could even add damage dice at that point.

Windmill Waltz Fury: I really like the concept of this strike, a lot. Has the same problem as Steel Shattering Fists in that you can use a great sword when you do this and shatter damage expectations for character level 5. I’d like to see damage and power attack capped as if one handed like base Monk’s flurry and the -2 attack penalty attached to the first attack as well. At that point the strike would just be high damage instead of a “And you thought this was going to be a challenging encounter, maybe next time GM” maneuver.

As a side note going into this I would like to remind you of something experienced on the GM side of the screen that often gets lost in the development process.

My encounters will often feature 1-2 NPCs that are 1-4 levels higher than the players along with some mooks. If I gave them optimized use of Path of war the level 1 mooks using something like 1-2 punch could walk up and potentially chunk a player for 16ish damage no problem. Imagine a Level 5 dude walking up to a level 3 PC and performing Windmill Waltz fury with a Great Sword on them with about 38 being the average damage if everything gets through AC and counters.

A level 3 PC has only about 26 HP most the time and a mook 2 levels lower can chunk off mover half of that while the boos two levels higher can almost negative con you in one full round action.

There is a reason I've never actually used Path of War on my players.

tekevil

2016-05-11, 03:09 PM

My solution to the climb problem is to not have the bonus from a climb speed apply to maneuvers until the third style feat. Just specify at the beginning of the discipline that you do not apply the +8 bonus to climb checks from having a climb speed. In the third Style feat add a sentence stating that while using this style you may add the +8 climb bonus to all checks related to Fools Errand.

If what your argument boils down to is "end game you need it" then end game should be when you get it. No reason to trivialize levels 1-8 where you would, on average, need to roll a 1 or 2 to succeed against foes. According to your chart the bonus isn't really necessary until about level 10ish, so tacking it onto a feat you take at 11th level would solve the issue on both ends.

"Foolery"
Bushi Warlord Level 5 Suli
Str 18
Dex 14
Con 14
Int 8
Wis 10
Cha 15

Gear: +1 Great Sword, +1 Cloak of Resistance, +1 Breastplate, Claws of the Ice Bear (+2 climb and acrobatics), various consumables

Fool’s Errand and Mithril Current Focus. Chosen Groups: Monk, Heavy Blades, Polearms

Traits: +1 Climb, That one trait to use perform dance in place of acrobatics
Relevant Skills: Climb=+21
Perform Dance: +10

Feats:
1: Disc. Focus Fool’s Errand
1WB: Quick Draw
3. Fool’s Errand Style
5. Quick Silver Grip

Bushido:
Honor: Get dat free atk+dmg
Honesty: Useful

Favorite Stance: Let’s go with Lesson Three Suppression. First attack has target flat footed, one free action Grasp per turn, can grasp during AoOs. Free Grasp can be used to re-sheath every turn as needed to get a maneuver recovered.

Basic Sword attack: +11 2d6+10
Basic UAS: +10 1d3+7

Gambits: Victory, Flankers gambit (This is OP, but hey, it got printed), Unbreakable Gambit

While performing a Victory or Flanker gambit I get a +2 bonus to atk rolls, which will be useful for turns where the intention is to murder with the multiple attack maneuvers.
Maneuvers known

1st: Close Quarters combo, Flowing Creek, Lock Step, One two Punch, Whirlwind Sweep, Iron Grip
2nd: Steel Shattering Fists, Dual Crash
3rd: Windmill Waltz Flurry

Generally ready: Close Quarters Combo, Lock Step, Windmill, Steel Shattering Fists, Dual Crash, and Whirlwind Sweep
Stances: Lesson 1, Lesson 3, Running Hunters Stance (Free scent yo)

He has three strikes that can hit very hard, 1 negating counters (+21), and one maneuver to toss a fool on his butt that is almost auto succeed (+21 yo). Victory Gambit, according to the Gambit Rules, can be used without the risk in exchange for no rewards or maneuvers recovered (but I do get the Cha to attack!), so when I can't flanking gambit I can use Pseudo Victory gambit to boost my accuracy.

So Foolery wants to kill X! X is a CR5 Monster with 18 AC (16 flat footed), CMD 22, and 55 HP so I activate pseudo victory gambit (or Close quarters combo if I want rerolls instead of +2 atk) and Windmill Waltz Flurry, I walk up to said monster, grasp them on a nat 1, swing against his flat footed AC with a +13 attack (90% chance to hit) activate honor Bushido, sheath my sword, and punch twice with +13 (75% chance to hit). X is not dead unless I got some crits. Average DPR for that is actually 31, not 21 (though your number assumed no feats, or class features). If Foolery were up against a level 3 party that combo has a good shot of flat out murdering someone to negative con if he wins initiative.

(I was just informed Victory Gambit wouldn't actually work since the manuever in question is neither a standard action nor a full attack action maneuver, so just use Close Quarters combo so all 3 attacks can roll twice and take the highest or move into position for flanking Gambit)

If I was running Elemental Flux Stance (The only third level stance to rival Thrashing Dragon Stance and one of the problem stances in Expanded) the DPR would be much higher since each of those three attacks got a +2d6. I decided to run the character as something relatively similar to what a non-power gamer would be running using mostly feats and maneuvers from the document.

Thealtruistorc

2016-05-11, 05:21 PM

Interesting. A style like this would certainly be fun to experiment with, especially for roguish types.

I do have a question about the grasp ability, however. Do you intend to have it replace grappling completely or act as another combat style altogether? What then becomes of the BB and SS maneuvers that involve grappling?

Forrestfire

2016-05-11, 05:23 PM

Okay, so. After taking a look at the feedback here and in other places, and discussing at length with the rest of the PoW team, we've got some large changes to the math of grasp. Overall, as much as the skill check substitution could have been a good idea in a different system, the math was just not working quite as we'd like it to. Ideally, one would be able to grasp with a reasonable chance of success, but making it so that you had "reasonable chance of success" and "any chance of success against the high-CMD enemies" was problematic.

The math functioned somewhat but not perfectly, so after tinkering with a couple potential fixes, we've ripped it up entirely. Grasp is no longer Climb vs CMD, nor is escaping it. Instead, we're installing a different way of handling it: grasp now prompts a Reflex save to escape being grabbed, or escape a maintained grab. If you want to see some of the expected math on this, here's a link to it. (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18NHRql86d_LuAPPeIauesXryxh31a7KqtG4W_mECalw/edit#gid=436146777)

EDIT: I totally gave the wrong link there. Sorry.

Interesting. A style like this would certainly be fun to experiment with, especially for roguish types.

I do have a question about the grasp ability, however. Do you intend to have it replace grappling completely or act as another combat style altogether? What then becomes of the BB and SS maneuvers that involve grappling?

Grasp is not replacing grapple; it's its own mechanic that, while it fills a similar space, is meant to be distinct in its use and function. :smallsmile:

EternalZiggurat

2016-05-11, 10:37 PM

I honestly see nothing wrong with broken blade, don't know what all these "early damage" complaints are about, and can not comprehend why this discipline was created. I'll get to reading it in a bit, to see what all this fuss is about. I'm saying right now i'm liable to ignore any errata nerfing PoW, because I like its balance just the way it is. also, just thinking about needlessly adding even more discipline bloat and new mechanics makes me gag. hopefully a full read through will change my opinion.

**Edit: alright crap, that was pretty cool, except for the 9th level. that was lame as heck. but i do like this new discipline, and will revise my opinion of it a bit. it's not discipline bloat. the grasp bit is kinda wierd, but I can certainly see builds and characters i would use it on. again, I like just about all the manuvers, and the stances were pretty dope, but that 9th level was hella weak and dumb. nothing about proof of victory was in any way on par with any other 9's, and i used to think some of them were sub par. proof of victory sets a new low. it's not impressive, it's not particularly strong, and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. which is lame because i just brushed.

good BFC, a very slight bit of debuffing, and some decent damage. I like it. the feats were decent too. i like it overall, but would under no circumstances take the 9th when everyone else gets something flashy and awesome. lamesauce power that requires intimate knowlegde of every single 8th and 7th level manuver to use well is just too much paperwork and no where near worth the effort for it's payout or level equivalent expectations. falls totally flat compared to other 9's.

tekevil

2016-05-11, 11:00 PM

I dont wanna get into it, but have a Level 3 character use Flurry Strike while 2 handing a sansetsukon and using the Bronze Knuckle boost.

Sayt

2016-05-11, 11:02 PM

EternalZiggurat

2016-05-11, 11:34 PM

The problem with Broken Blade is that at third level you can activate Steel Flurry Strike and Bronze Knuckle for three attacks at d3+8+5d6 each. (More if you're, say, a Fiendbound Marauder and only wielding fiend's grip.)

Throw in Dragon Ferocity and Power attack and the damage is exceedingly stupid and dramatically outpaces most other options at it's level.

NUMBERS, FINALLY. I have only seen people complain and not show their work. that is a bit much, but such is the purview of the gm to slap them for their shenanigans. or set up a gentlemans accord to not cheese. or any dozen of other things.

still, i just see that as being or par with magic tricks. it's nice to see martials have grevious imbalance work in their favor for a change. my question is, is this a consistently repeating pattern for all levels of broken blade, or one bad early combo?

Mashallah

2016-05-12, 05:37 AM

Okay, so. After taking a look at the feedback here and in other places, and discussing at length with the rest of the PoW team, we've got some large changes to the math of grasp. Overall, as much as the skill check substitution could have been a good idea in a different system, the math was just not working quite as we'd like it to. Ideally, one would be able to grasp with a reasonable chance of success, but making it so that you had "reasonable chance of success" and "any chance of success against the high-CMD enemies" was problematic.

The math functioned somewhat but not perfectly, so after tinkering with a couple potential fixes, we've ripped it up entirely. Grasp is no longer Climb vs CMD, nor is escaping it. Instead, we're installing a different way of handling it: grasp now prompts a Reflex save to escape being grabbed, or escape a maintained grab.

Grasp being Reflex, while might make for decent math, makes little sense when you think about it.
Huge creatures like dragons tend to have lower reflex saves, so grasping them is somehow super easy compared to the average enemy, which feels wrong.
Even if you resort to abstractions like "sheer killing intent", dragons shouldn't be particularly susceptible to that.
Moreover, there's the issue of Reflex saves being passive for the actor rather than active, which also doesn't feel all that good.

Fenryr

2016-05-12, 08:31 AM

Once it's playtested, the discipline will be released as part of Dreamscarred Press’ Patreon release queue.

My apologies, but how does that work? We need to be a Patreon to be able to get the final version?

Prime32

2016-05-12, 09:46 AM

The Fool’s Errand’s associated skill is Climb, and its associated weapon groups are monk and two other weapon groups, chosen when a martial disciple first gains access to the discipline.

This seems a bit overly complicated. Why not just let them treat all weapons as associated?
There's already a maneuver for stealing opponent's weapons, but you can't control which group it will be from. You might also want to pick up an improvised weapon for the maneuvers that combine unarmed and weapon attacks, if nothing else is available.

Also, suggested Broken Blade/Fool's Errand hybrid feat: your strikes from either discipline deal splash damage equal to your Strength modifier (or whichever ability modifier you apply to damage rolls).

Can we get a Fool's Errand PrC based on fighting giant enemies by climbing onto them? Maybe Fool's Errand + Steel Serpent?

phlidwsn

2016-05-12, 10:12 AM

My apologies, but how does that work? We need to be a Patreon to be able to get the final version?

If you're subscribed to their Patreon you get it. If you're not, it shows up in the store just like normal. Psionics Augmented:Soulknife is an example of this type of release.

Fenryr

2016-05-12, 10:22 AM

If you're subscribed to their Patreon you get it. If you're not, it shows up in the store just like normal. Psionics Augmented:Soulknife is an example of this type of release.

I see. Thanks.

Doomeye56

2016-05-12, 12:16 PM

Just a quick look at this so far, but I like what I see

Shackel

2016-05-12, 07:06 PM

Looking at the Style Feats, I'm in love with the idea that the old Tactical Feats might be making a comeback, but don't you think that they're all just a little bit too powerful?

Fool's Errand Style gives a +8 to the discipline skill you rely on(a Str 16 character will now have a +17 to Climb with nothing but this feat and its prereqs), a climb speed even outside the style(which I feel, as a feat, is not something to scoff at: climb can act a lot like a poor man's fly), and then, of course, a more sure way to get grasps. The latter isn't that bad at all, but I think something needs to be done about that +8.

Fool's Errand Scholar gives you the Brawler's Martial Flexibility. At will. I know that Paizo isn't the perfect balance point, but when you look at it's closest comparison as a feat, Barroom Brawler, well... I feel like it might be falling into the ToB trap of obsoleting martials.

Combo Breaker completely and utterly shuts down someone's ability to attack you. At all. Without any ability to respond... for expending any maneuver? Black Seraph's 4th level counter is similar, but still requires an attack, not a roll that is guaranteed to have a +25 (3 from Strength 16, 11 ranks in Climb, 3 from class trained, 8 from Climb speed) unless they've been slacking. Broken Blade's Throw The Blade Down has an Acrobatics roll(which is easy to buff), but it throws someone prone... which can be responded to in a myriad of ways that can still leave you open. Iron Tortoise, a discipline focused on defenses, comes close to this level of strength with its DR 20 and DR 40 counters, but at least there's still a way around that.

Combo Breaker, on the other hand, has no defense. You use any maneuver, make a roll that is utterly trivial, and then you just shut them down. It's only flaw is that you need to be hit in the first place, but, compared to the benefit of never getting hit at all for the rest of that turn? Can it at least be a Fool's Errand maneuver expended?

Oh! I love the 9th level maneuver of the wizard-inspired discipline being Initiator Wish, by the way, that's funny.

Fenryr

2016-05-12, 07:44 PM

Does size comes in play when making/resisting a grasp?

No Escape, 2nd effect. Perhaps add something like "Not usable if target teleported beyond X times your movement"? 'Cause you follow anyone despite any distance covered. Target used Teleport and moved beyond 500 feet... and you follow your target. While the mental image is amazing I think it gets silly.

Aside from that, I love the discipline. All the extra unarmed strikes and the copying techniques are awesome.

Forrestfire

2016-05-12, 10:55 PM

Alrighty. I've just put up some changes to Fool's Errand (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jWw7bVMARxrXfRuOW20NlRqXEnS_XGLPT6LHTbz2qME/edit#heading=h.2p89iv9p48ze), including slight tweaks to some maneuvers (particularly the Dance strikes; we've run some more numbers, then decided to extend the –2 penalty on attacks across the whole strike, not just the bonus attacks; this has also been installed on the two lower-level multihit strikes). More major things:

Escaping a grasp has been made significantly easier for particularly strong creatures.
Fool's Errand Style has been reworked and replaced. Fool's Errand Sensei has also been nerfed, becoming more limited in its usability.
Lesson I: resilience no longer exists. The THP stance proved to have some problems, and there wasn't a good way we found to rework it. A new stance at 1st level, Lesson I: balance has been put into the document to replace it.

There's a couple other minor tweaks (going with Prime32's suggested on just simplifying the discipline weapons) and wording alterations, but the above are the changes that matter.

Grasp being Reflex, while might make for decent math, makes little sense when you think about it.
Huge creatures like dragons tend to have lower reflex saves, so grasping them is somehow super easy compared to the average enemy, which feels wrong.
Even if you resort to abstractions like "sheer killing intent", dragons shouldn't be particularly susceptible to that.
Moreover, there's the issue of Reflex saves being passive for the actor rather than active, which also doesn't feel all that good.

Grabbing hold of them is easier, yeah. We've made a chance to make it much easier for them to escape once grabbed, however (they can use Strength on their Reflex save instead of Dexterity).

Does size comes in play when making/resisting a grasp?

No Escape, 2nd effect. Perhaps add something like "Not usable if target teleported beyond X times your movement"? 'Cause you follow anyone despite any distance covered. Target used Teleport and moved beyond 500 feet... and you follow your target. While the mental image is amazing I think it gets silly.

Aside from that, I love the discipline. All the extra unarmed strikes and the copying techniques are awesome.

Size does not come into play when making or resisting a grasp, other than incidental bonuses from ability scores (especially now that the escape method has been tweaked). Regarding no escape: it's intended to be able to follow teleportation. How that works is that the initiator has figured out how to grab on and "ride" with their opponent, landing next to them on the other end. I've added a sentence to the option noting this.

Looking at the Style Feats, I'm in love with the idea that the old Tactical Feats might be making a comeback, but don't you think that they're all just a little bit too powerful?

<snipped stuff about style feats>

Oh! I love the 9th level maneuver of the wizard-inspired discipline being Initiator Wish, by the way, that's funny.

Your feedback about the style feats is similar to our own thoughts on it; Fool's Errand Style has been reworked completely (no longer has anything to do with climbing), and Fool's Errand Sensei has been nerfed in immediate usability (it's now similar to many of the other style feats, requiring a specific type of maneuver be expended to use its abilities), as well as Combo Breaker now using an attack roll, rather than a skill check, to function. It's similar to Mithral Current's calm the storm maneuver, though it gains more consistency in its defense in exchange for forcing you to actually take the hit.

Shackel

2016-05-13, 12:41 AM

It's looking good, and I like the idea of a stance at least belaying the need for something to boost your unarmed attack damage. Out of curiosity, is there a specific balance reason that the counter-y Sensei move requires boosts while the boost-y Shoryuken takes up counters?

Forrestfire

2016-05-13, 12:46 AM

It's a stylistic choice (Fool's Errand being about mixing and chaining through different types of combat fluidly), as well as a way to create a little bit of diversity of options while still limiting the feat's usage. Sensei allows you to turn a defensive move into an offensive one, and an offensive one into a defensive one, rather than merely replacing your offensive move with a different offensive move and defensive move with a different defensive move.

Shackel

2016-05-13, 01:03 AM

Mashallah

2016-05-13, 01:29 AM

Escaping a grasp has been made significantly easier for particularly strong creatures.

Grabbing hold of them is easier, yeah. We've made a chance to make it much easier for them to escape once grabbed, however (they can use Strength on their Reflex save instead of Dexterity)

While this is a solution and I like it from the math point of view, I can't help but point out that it is a clunky solution. Instead of referring to a ready statistic that is always on hand, it asks to recalculate one value on the fly, which will inevitably slow down gameplay as no other mechanic in the game refers to STR/Reflex, meaning that it's unlikely that that modifier would be at hand in advance.

CGNefarious

2016-05-13, 03:27 AM

But realistically that's almost always an astoundingly simple calculation, assuming you know the difference in their Str and Dex modifiers. Which you should.

Mashallah

2016-05-13, 03:31 AM

Sure, but it gets much more inconvenient if you have to do it for lots of enemies rather than one or two.

CGNefarious

2016-05-13, 04:01 AM

That's a fair point. Hopefully you won't have a player grasping 10+ enemies at a time. *glares menacingly at the Warder*

Kiton2

2016-05-13, 06:08 AM

Galacktic

2016-05-13, 09:15 AM

Regarding the second style feat, don't you think it's a bit strong to have the Brawler's -entire- primary class feature as an easily attainable feat? It's also something that would massively slow down the game as there are a ton of combat feats to go through, and quite a few players won't have a small list prepared in advance.

On a second note, I love this discipline. A game is starting next week where I'm playing a Rubato Bard and this is basically perfect for it. Skulls and Shackles, and this entire thing is swashbucklery as hell.

Forrestfire

2016-05-13, 10:30 AM

Don't forget that combat in pathfinder is around 3 turns, so No Escape is rather well named; there's very few things that can survive long enough to try again (which could give you time to recover no escape anyways).

MUCH better on the style feats. I'd maybe give one last restriction to combo-breaker; further attacks all need to beat your attack roll, rather than auto-miss (with 20's working normally, and being absolutely required to beat a nat 20 on your part). Counters normally don't work against natural 20's for example (this ability isn't being a 'counter' right now) and a lot of groups, particularly those playing online, roll the d20's in a clump, rather than sequentially.

It would still be a powerful counter, given this is an 'exchange any boost' rather than a specific counter, and applies the regular "roll against" procedure to an entire volley.

The new basic style feat is excellent.

That's a good idea. Consider it done.

Regarding the second style feat, don't you think it's a bit strong to have the Brawler's -entire- primary class feature as an easily attainable feat? It's also something that would massively slow down the game as there are a ton of combat feats to go through, and quite a few players won't have a small list prepared in advance.

On a second note, I love this discipline. A game is starting next week where I'm playing a Rubato Bard and this is basically perfect for it. Skulls and Shackles, and this entire thing is swashbucklery as hell.

It's strong, yes, but it's not nearly as good as the Brawler's class feature. By the time Fool's Errand Scholar comes online, the Brawler is getting two feats (or potentially three, if they tool this feat with Martial Training), and theirs only gets better as time goes on. This ability also comes at the high opportunity cost of eating your Style slot (especially as some of the other second style feats in Path of War Expanded are very good). It's good, but the brawler starts much better at it. It'll definitely be something I keep an eye on, balance-wise, though.

I'm glad you like the discipline, in any case :smallsmile:

Abithrios

2016-05-13, 11:21 AM

It's strong, yes, but it's not nearly as good as the Brawler's class feature. By the time Fool's Errand Scholar comes online, the Brawler is getting two feats (or potentially three, if they tool this feat with Martial Training), and theirs only gets better as time goes on. This ability also comes at the high opportunity cost of eating your Style slot (especially as some of the other second style feats in Path of War Expanded are very good). It's good, but the brawler starts much better at it. It'll definitely be something I keep an eye on, balance-wise, though.

I'm glad you like the discipline, in any case :smallsmile:

I am trying to think of a situation where you would rather take a different combat feat if you qualify for Fool's Errand Scholar. The thing I have thought of is if you want to use that other feat as a prerequisite for something that is NOT another feat. Maybe the action cost of entering the style, but I am not sure if you need to spend an action enter the style every fight, just the first one of the day, or if you can do it when you wake up in the morning.

Forrestfire

2016-05-13, 11:23 AM

Style feats have to be entered each time you fight; they don't get maintained out of combat.

Kiton2

2016-05-13, 09:40 PM

Finger of God should probably specify you need to be *able* to wield a weapon that way. You know; so your pixie doesn't start beating on colossals with that greatsword they needed powerful-build to even use.

The wording right now could arguably let you wield anything no matter what for that moment.

Make them Humble is still screwy. Feels like you just tried to reword it while keeping it exactly the same. The dispel is stronger than usual at d20+IL+IMOD (regular getting no modifier) to fully end an effect, or suppress it for... of course, IMOD rounds.

Is this suppression at least, say, an "effect" that could be countered in itself?

Forrestfire

2016-05-13, 10:14 PM

Shackel

2016-05-13, 10:14 PM

Forrestfire

2016-05-13, 10:30 PM

Technically the Brawler is about equal to this feat when it's first available: sure, the Brawler can choose to take two feats as a move action at 6th level, but it only lasts for a minute and, most importantly of all, it's limited. I would only say the Brawler is definitely better when they're level 10+, because then, assuming 4 encounters a day, they can then surpass the style by being able to take two feats once in each encounter. Two feats equaling a pretty solid replacement for a pretty good class feature(and a far and away better version of Barroom Brawler), to me, at least, feels like it's stressing the limits of what is considered acceptable.

It can also run into the same problem as old Polymorph/Shapechange/Summon where now one has to think about every single combat feat and how a skilled user could start obsoleting or invalidating a whole lot of other feats altogether just with this single one.

Just a few things off the top of my head(without really going through and searching feats) are being able to gain another readied maneuver at any time(Extra Readied), never needing to take Martial Charge unless you really need a boost, and having access to any and every stance you could learn by taking Advanced Study(thus making it pretty pointless to take any of those situational ones), same kind of situational block on Extra Stalker Art too if you're a Stalker.

One thing to note is that you can only enter this style once per combat, unless you've taken multiple style feats. It's probable that it'd be good to change it to keep the same feat chosen during a combat, even if you enter or exit the style during a fight. Regarding the feats you just listed: Extra Readied Maneuver does nothing (since you would need to go back and ready a new maneuver, taking ten minutes of time). Advanced Study is the same (adds maneuvers known, not readied). Extra Stalker Art is pretty good for a stalker, definitely.

The question of game time spent on it is a more awkward one; I would expect that, similarly to a player using a character who can summon creatures or commonly uses buff effects, the onus would be on the player to prepare a short list of feats to have on hand.

Gaining two Ki points on the fly as a swift action(Extra Ki), invalidating most 1/day combat feats(like Lightning Recovery) because you can just take the feat as a swift action, use it and then throw it away(unless I read that wrong), etc. Versatility like this is really good. Like, insanely good.

The wording I yanked from the brawler was meant to cause you to only gain the benefits of such a feat once in a given day (if it's got a daily use). I've altered the wording slightly (and actually just went and altered it to cover entering and exiting the style as well). Fool's Errand Sensei is very good. The versatility of it is incredibly useful, and on-par with many of the other Path of War style feats, which include effects like turning readied maneuvers into strong counters or save-or-loses, synergizing to curse a great many enemies at once (potentially all of them in a combat, if you have the right stance), increasing the duration of boosts and spell effects on you, or getting an extra attack when you strike.

Is it too good? That remains to be seen. I'll be keeping this feedback in mind as the playtest moves forward, however.

Novawurmson

2016-05-14, 12:06 AM

Initial impressions:

-I really like the mixed unarmed/armed fighting style.
-I like the easy of pickup for any initiator, especially if DSP is going to be putting out more initiators (a la the Medic) that may or may not have an enormous amount of class-specific support in the future.
-Grasp mechanic seems interesting and unique enough to justify inclusion.
-What was the decision to make all weapons discipline weapons based around? It's a bit of an odd design choice in my opinion.

Suggestions/Feedback:

-Grasp wording
---Might be more complete to say "If the initiator can use his Dexterity modifier for attack rolls or CMB checks (such as through Weapon Finesse or Agile Maneuvers)," instead of just calling out those two feats.

-Lesson II: Control
---Grasp on every attack seems pretty powerful, especially since it seems it would trigger off strikes as well - combine with something like Surround from Within, and you can bog down a gaming table pretty quick with a ton of Reflex saves. Have you considered it just triggering on the first successful attack each round or even the first successful attack per creature per round?
---Another possible fix: It only triggers on attacks made as part of a maneuver.

-One-Two Punch
---Drop "They deal weapon damage as normal." That's already covered explicitly in the discipline description.

-Whirlwind Sweep
---Drop "and," capitalize "If."
---Might include that falling 10ft. deals 1d6 fall damage.

-Bob and Weave
---Might want to include some "up to your movement speed" restriction. Otherwise, a prone/slowed/encumbered creature might be able to swing all the way around a colossal creature.

-Death at Ten Paces
---Seems a bit oddly placed for a discipline all about getting all up your opponent's face and pseudo-grappling them. Unless you've got a reach of 30ft., it actively clashes with the whole grasp mechanic.

-Lead and Follow
---Seems mostly worse than just taking an attack of opportunity against them while in Lesson II: Control. You have to prepare the maneuver, you have to use an immediate action, and you don't get an actual attack (just the grasp attempt). What if you could also reposition them 5ft. on a failed save (as a successful reposition CMB check)?

-Steel Shattering Fists
---Drop "attack rolls during this strike. " fragment.
---I'd suggest dropping the "deals weapon damage as normal," as above, since it's called out in the discipline itself.

-Lesson III: Suppression
---This seems mostly weaker than Lesson II: Control. The flat-footed bit is nice, but LII:C already grants grasp attempts on AoOs as long as you're smacking the opponent with an unarmed strike, plus you're losing the tanking aspect of LII: C. Personally, I wouldn't "upgrade" to this, even if I was accessing the discipline through Martial Training - I'd take Lesson I: Balance instead.

-Windmill Waltz Flurry, Blade-Dance Ballet, Tempest Tango Blitz, etc.
---I'd use phrasing like "Unlike the previous movement" instead of "other" movement.

-The Sincerest Form of Flattery
---This seems potentially frustrating from a player standpoint. Every 7th level or higher NPC initiator could potentially throw their highest level abilities back in their face, especially en masse. For example, four NPC warlord 7 NPCs would be a CR 10-11 encounter (depending on gear and so forth), which should be a pretty easy encounter for a level 11 party. The first player initiates a level 6 strike (which probably obliterates one of them), and the surviving 3 warlords all copy the maneuver and return the favor to the party. This only becomes even more goofy, if, say, you have 16 level 7 NPC warlords (ostensibly a level 14-15 encounter), and the 15 surviving opponents can throw level 8 strikes back at the party. Maybe cap it at 1-2 levels higher than your normal maximum?

-Tornado Slam
---Previous suggestions regarding spelling out fall damage and limiting initiator movement to normal movement speed.

-Lesson IV: The Ladder
---This is goofy and fantastic and I love it.

-Surround from Within
---Might be clearer to say you gain a grasp attempt against each target struck.

-Lesson V: Expression
---See previous discussion of how ranged attacks conflict with grasp, but if it's a theme of the discipline, it makes a little more sense, I guess?

-No Escape
---"Their movement is canceled and they remain grasped (their action is still spent)." How does this work with, say, them casting freedom of movement and walking away? Their first move action is simply wasted, and they continue their turn as normal?

-To the Skies
---Ok, so I use Surround from Within, grasping all creatures I smack that fail their saves. I then throw all of them in the air 55-100ft. depending on my ranks in Climb, dealing 5d6-10d6 damage to all of them? I guess that's not that much higher than most damage-focused boosts of this level.

-Assert Existence
---What is the "You can initiate this counter at any time" wording meant to say? You can normally use immediate actions at any time. You already have the wording that allows using it after failing a saving throw - it might be better to call out whatever edge case you're trying to include.

-Finger of God
---Add to "goofy, fantastic, love" list.

-Utter Commitment
---Whoa, whoa, whoa. Initiation modifier times initiator level? Some initiators (thinking harbingers and zealots especially) are rewarded for investing heavily in their initiation modifier. 18 start+2 race+5 level up+5 inherent+6 enhancement means a 36 is fairly doable with no munchkinery. 13x20=260 base damage in a strike probably isn't the highest damage in the game for a 7th level strike (especially compared with strikes that do multiple attacks), but the potential issue I see is the variation between builds. The warlord in the campaign where he had to roll for stats might have started Cha 12+6 enhancement and is only getting 4x20=80 bonus damage on this strike. I'd recommend finding the value you feel comfortable with and using a flat number - such as 5 times initiator level or 10 times initiator level.

-Proof of Victory
---A satisfying end to the discipline and the final entry in the goofy/fantastic/love list.

Overall, I feel this discipline is a solid entry in the Path of War pantheon. I was wary at first that it would bleed to far into Broken Blade or Shattered Mirror, but it's definitely got its own feel and pizzazz.

Forrestfire

2016-05-14, 12:21 AM

I'm glad you like the discipline. It's getting a bit late, so I'll post addressed specific pieces of feedback tomorrow or Sunday (depending on how timing works), but I've made edits to wording and grammar issues you found, so thank you very much for those.

Axebird

2016-05-14, 02:00 AM

Thanks for the catch; the wording has been adjusted slightly. On make them humble: its current iteration is effectively an dispel magic (with a greater chance of success, as the dispel check DC is inherently weighted against you, and this only targets a specific pair of effects, rather than all spells) against freedom of movement effects. Previously, it had given you immunity to all such effects for the duration, now it only works once per enemy or per source of the defense, requiring you to recover your maneuvers in order to keep using it.

The maneuver may be changing more, but currently it's still significantly nerfed from its original form.

What do you mean by that? A CL check against DC 11 + CL gives you a 50% chance of success against an effect of the same level, how is that weighted against you?

In any case, with the current effect an initiation modifier of +10 (achievable at 12th level with a starting score of 16) gives you a 100% success rate against effects of the same level. Arguably this is a buff after a few levels, since it completely removes the effect instead of allowing you to penetrate it personally.

Kiton2

2016-05-14, 05:13 AM

Two other things with "The sincerest form of flattery" are that there's no level limit, and no duration. So using this one counter 'slot' you could prepare any other party member's level 9 in addition to your own discipline's 9ths between fights, making this the upgraded "Advanced Knowledge" to the second style's "combat feat".

Also dangerous is Proof of Victory in particular on NPCs: those same NPCs that could cause trouble with flattery instead open up on their first turn with the best positioned or most accurate (leader, say) using Shatter Resistance, Lightning Recovery, Cascade of Elemental Wrath, and everyone else giving said person their full-actions with Gift of Time.

Shackel

2016-05-14, 06:46 AM

One thing to note is that you can only enter this style once per combat, unless you've taken multiple style feats. It's probable that it'd be good to change it to keep the same feat chosen during a combat, even if you enter or exit the style during a fight. Regarding the feats you just listed: Extra Readied Maneuver does nothing (since you would need to go back and ready a new maneuver, taking ten minutes of time). Advanced Study is the same (adds maneuvers known, not readied). Extra Stalker Art is pretty good for a stalker, definitely.

The question of game time spent on it is a more awkward one; I would expect that, similarly to a player using a character who can summon creatures or commonly uses buff effects, the onus would be on the player to prepare a short list of feats to have on hand.

The wording I yanked from the brawler was meant to cause you to only gain the benefits of such a feat once in a given day (if it's got a daily use). I've altered the wording slightly (and actually just went and altered it to cover entering and exiting the style as well). Fool's Errand Sensei is very good. The versatility of it is incredibly useful, and on-par with many of the other Path of War style feats, which include effects like turning readied maneuvers into strong counters or save-or-loses, synergizing to curse a great many enemies at once (potentially all of them in a combat, if you have the right stance), increasing the duration of boosts and spell effects on you, or getting an extra attack when you strike.

Is it too good? That remains to be seen. I'll be keeping this feedback in mind as the playtest moves forward, however.

Looks like I got styles and stances mixed up. :smallfrown: Nonetheless, while strong, three feats having been needed for cycling doesn't sound too bad, even with bonus feats.

Advanced Study was in reference to the stance you could gain rather than the maneuvers, my issue being that taking a situational stance would be pointless if you could use the style for it, instead. An anti-cycle clause will fix that up, though. Sensei, I believe, is now good, but it's not silly.

... Though I'd take anything for the tactical feats to make a comeback :smalltongue:. Having even low-level effects at-will available to "normal" martials or initiators would do well to spice things up.

As a question, though, because the wording confuses me even on the Brawler, is it trying to say that if you take one 1/day feat like Lightning Recovery, and then swap it for another 1/day feat, it won't work because they're both daily use feats?
.

Anlashok

2016-05-14, 12:34 PM

Looks neat so far. Though reading through this thread kind of worried about the use of low powered Paizo martials as a balancing point.

Shackel

2016-05-14, 08:35 PM

Looks neat so far. Though reading through this thread kind of worried about the use of low powered Paizo martials as a balancing point.

As bad as the martial vs caster problem is, it's imperative to stay at least somewhere around the Paizo level if only to stop DSP from being considered "overpowered third party guff".

Anlashok

2016-05-14, 09:04 PM

That ship has long since sailed. Most of the initiator classes are comparable or even better than their martial counterparts even if they never use a maneuver ever.

And even if you do want to hold the class to some standard, classes like the Brawler should not be that standard.

ATalsen

2016-05-15, 03:15 AM

"A grasp attempt" is just effectively selecting a target with no (additional) attack rolls needed, and telling them to make a reflex save, right?

How goes Grasping and reach weapons interact?
I assume that you can use a reach weapon to extend your melee reach (as they normally do) and thus Grasp opponents a bit farther away, correct?

I assume that it is intentional that Grasping does not interact with Mirror Image or Invisibility (or other miss chances) in any way, right?

i.e. with Lesson III: Suppression, you can force a Ref save for free once a round without needing to attack first, so you can just 'Grasp' an (adjacent/nearby) invisible opponent because there is no mention of having to be able to see/detect them to target them.

I'd say that you should add something about targeting Grasp requiring the ability to detect your opponent, or the opponent not having total concealment.

New Condition: Grasp
"may ause their Dexterity"
Typo:
"may use their Dexterity"

Lead and Follow
Connect this flavor text with a semicolon, as its really one thought.
"Battle is a dance, and you happen to know all the steps. Your opponents tend to not."

Such as:
"Battle is a dance, and you happen to know all the steps; your opponents tend to not."

Assert Existence
"You can initiate this counter at any time."

This is unclear as to the intent; you can *pretty much* initiate a counter any time you want to already. HOWEVER, if the intention was to be able to use it when surprised or flat footed, then adding that to the statement would clarify it's intent.

Such as:
"You can initiate this counter at any time, even when surprised or flat footed."

I realize its 7th level, and that's pretty high, but being able to use it during surprise, after a failed save, and getting a full round of 100% spell denial (for SR/PR: Yes effects) out of it is really too much. I'm aware this precludes beneficial effects for one round too, but I don't consider that enough of a drawback for balancing this.

How about it just giving SR/PR equal to your Initiator Level + Initiator Mod + 10 for one round?

MilleniaAntares

2016-05-15, 03:24 AM

Lesson IV: The Ladder may need a slight rewording with regard to the bolded: "Making a leap is a free action, and each leap moves you up to 10 feet in any direction (you neither gain nor lose distance for moving vertically)."

This, uh, may potentially allow indefinite climbing, particularly when combined with the mid-air jump stuff.

I believe something like "only movement directly between your starting and ending points is counted" may be a better way to word it... though this in turn should be analyzed due to me posting this at 1 am.

Lesson III: Suppression might be a bit strong, I feel, by giving out a free flat-footed to the first attack... at least when combined with your standard roguish classes. Then again, the math may say otherwise?

I like the discipline overall.

ATalsen

2016-05-15, 03:37 AM

Lesson IV: The Ladder may need a slight rewording with regard to the bolded: "Making a leap is a free action, and each leap moves you up to 10 feet in any direction (you neither gain nor lose distance for moving vertically)."

This, uh, may potentially allow indefinite climbing, particularly when combined with the mid-air jump stuff.

I think it might be enough to just add "when moving this way" to the end.

Such As:
"(you neither gain nor lose distance for moving vertically when moving this way)"

That just exempts the stance's movement, only, from the usual half speed up, double speed down move changes.

Elxir_Breauer

2016-05-15, 06:04 AM

As a question, though, because the wording confuses me even on the Brawler, is it trying to say that if you take one 1/day feat like Lightning Recovery, and then swap it for another 1/day feat, it won't work because they're both daily use feats?

What I take from the wording is that if you grab a 1/day feat, then swap it out for a different one, you'd get each single use, but if you swapped back to one you'd already used then it would still be used up for the day. If it is the way you wondered about then it could be a severe limitation, but not without merit as being able to swap out feats at all is pretty powerful in itself.

Nyaa

2016-05-16, 03:35 AM

Can I make unarmed strike when Windmill Waltz Flurry & co prompts to make a weapon attack?
I assume these already passed internal review and damage calcs? I didn't do the math yet, but my kneejerk reaction is that combination of number of attacks and free movement can be an issue on someone with a reach weapon and big damage boni, like a Mystic.

Forrestfire

2016-05-16, 12:01 PM

Sorry for being gone for a couple days over the weekend, had a couple long shifts at work. Got some responses, tweaks, and a veritable wall of text that I've subdivided into spoilers for ease of reading:

Initial impressions:

-I really like the mixed unarmed/armed fighting style.
-I like the easy of pickup for any initiator, especially if DSP is going to be putting out more initiators (a la the Medic) that may or may not have an enormous amount of class-specific support in the future.
-Grasp mechanic seems interesting and unique enough to justify inclusion.
-What was the decision to make all weapons discipline weapons based around? It's a bit of an odd design choice in my opinion.

The choice of making all weapons discipline weapons came from the discipline's core fluff being about mixing and matching different styles of combat. As the discipline has no save DCs (barring grasp, which includes the +2 from using a discipline weapon by default, and proof of victory, which only has a save DC if it ganks one from another discipline), the actual uses of this are starkly limited in comparison to what it might be in other discs. It only really matters for Discipline Focus, which loses parts of its benefit when you take it for Fool's Errand (as other disciplines would have strong enemy-nullifying debuffs or similar, while Fool's Errand just has grasp).

-Grasp wording
---Might be more complete to say "If the initiator can use his Dexterity modifier for attack rolls or CMB checks (such as through Weapon Finesse or Agile Maneuvers)," instead of just calling out those two feats.

Done.

-Lesson II: Control
---Grasp on every attack seems pretty powerful, especially since it seems it would trigger off strikes as well - combine with something like Surround from Within, and you can bog down a gaming table pretty quick with a ton of Reflex saves. Have you considered it just triggering on the first successful attack each round or even the first successful attack per creature per round?
---Another possible fix: It only triggers on attacks made as part of a maneuver.
While it’s true that that’s a lot of potential saves, it’s not that different from some existing stances (elemental nimbus comes to mind), or things like throwing a grease into the combat at low levels. I’ll definitely keep an eye on this one, though, as time goes on.

One slightly hidden thing to note is that currently, for many initiators, the stance does only work with maneuvers; unless they also shell out for Improved Unarmed Strike, they can’t make their AoOs with punches, so you’d need to be using a Fool’s Errand strike in order to make that work.

-One-Two Punch
---Drop "They deal weapon damage as normal." That's already covered explicitly in the discipline description.

That's actually standardized wording for maneuvers in Path of War: Expanded and onwards.

-Whirlwind Sweep
---Drop "and," capitalize "If."
---Might include that falling 10ft. deals 1d6 fall damage.

Added a note about it.

-Bob and Weave
---Might want to include some "up to your movement speed" restriction. Otherwise, a prone/slowed/encumbered creature might be able to swing all the way around a colossal creature.
Unlike the other maneuvers that involve swift movement, the intent of bob and weave wasn’t quite for it to negate slowing effects, and it seems a bit awkward without it. I’ve made an alteration to it, limiting the movement to your speed.

-Death at Ten Paces
---Seems a bit oddly placed for a discipline all about getting all up your opponent's face and pseudo-grappling them. Unless you've got a reach of 30ft., it actively clashes with the whole grasp mechanic.

Making melee attacks at range (ala the Bloodstorm Blade) and/or being able to attack at both melee and range is a minor subtheme of the discipline, separate from grasp.

-Lead and Follow
---Seems mostly worse than just taking an attack of opportunity against them while in Lesson II: Control. You have to prepare the maneuver, you have to use an immediate action, and you don't get an actual attack (just the grasp attempt). What if you could also reposition them 5ft. on a failed save (as a successful reposition CMB check)?

If you're maintaining lesson II: control, then yes. If you're not in that stance, though, it becomes a decent movement denial effect and sets up your other abilities.

-Steel Shattering Fists
---Drop "attack rolls during this strike. " fragment.
---I'd suggest dropping the "deals weapon damage as normal," as above, since it's called out in the discipline itself.

Fixed the grammar issues; thanks for the catch.

-Lesson III: Suppression
---This seems mostly weaker than Lesson II: Control. The flat-footed bit is nice, but LII:C already grants grasp attempts on AoOs as long as you're smacking the opponent with an unarmed strike, plus you're losing the tanking aspect of LII: C. Personally, I wouldn't "upgrade" to this, even if I was accessing the discipline through Martial Training - I'd take Lesson I: Balance instead.

They do different things. While suppression does let you grasp instead of AoOs, and control is definitely better for that, suppression's main benefits are the flat-footing and that it allows you to move and grasp something before your attacks or maneuvers for the round. Don't forget that you can't take an immediate action while flat-footed.

-Windmill Waltz Flurry, Blade-Dance Ballet, Tempest Tango Blitz, etc.
---I'd use phrasing like "Unlike the previous movement" instead of "other" movement.

That's a good idea. Slightly altered the wording on the Dance strikes.

-The Sincerest Form of Flattery
---This seems potentially frustrating from a player standpoint. Every 7th level or higher NPC initiator could potentially throw their highest level abilities back in their face, especially en masse. For example, four NPC warlord 7 NPCs would be a CR 10-11 encounter (depending on gear and so forth), which should be a pretty easy encounter for a level 11 party. The first player initiates a level 6 strike (which probably obliterates one of them), and the surviving 3 warlords all copy the maneuver and return the favor to the party. This only becomes even more goofy, if, say, you have 16 level 7 NPC warlords (ostensibly a level 14-15 encounter), and the 15 surviving opponents can throw level 8 strikes back at the party. Maybe cap it at 1-2 levels higher than your normal maximum?

Yeah. Whether or not to (and how best to) limit the sincerest form of flattery has been a topic of discussion for a while in internal chats. In the most recent update, I've added verbiage to limit it to 1 level higher than your normal maximum (not counting the 6/9 initiators; they’re treated as full initiators for that purpose).

-Tornado Slam
---Previous suggestions regarding spelling out fall damage and limiting initiator movement to normal movement speed.

The fall damage blurb has been added, but limiting it to normal movement speed is not the intent.

-Lesson IV: The Ladder
---This is goofy and fantastic and I love it.

-Surround from Within
---Might be clearer to say you gain a grasp attempt against each target struck.

I've made an alteration to the wording. Glad you like the ladder.

-Lesson V: Expression
---See previous discussion of how ranged attacks conflict with grasp, but if it's a theme of the discipline, it makes a little more sense, I guess?

-No Escape
---"Their movement is canceled and they remain grasped (their action is still spent)." How does this work with, say, them casting freedom of movement and walking away? Their first move action is simply wasted, and they continue their turn as normal?

It's not intended to work if someone used FoM on it. Altered the wording to state.

-To the Skies
---Ok, so I use Surround from Within, grasping all creatures I smack that fail their saves. I then throw all of them in the air 55-100ft. depending on my ranks in Climb, dealing 5d6-10d6 damage to all of them? I guess that's not that much higher than most damage-focused boosts of this level.

It's roughly on par with the other damage-focused boosts you might be using. Also note that outside of the "primary target" (the one you follow up), a creature with a fly speed (which is many at that level) can make a DC 10 Fly check to completely negate the falling damage (or a DC 15 one to hover). Acrobatics checks can be used too to slightly reduce it. I've changed the wording in the maneuver to be a bit more clear about the intent.

-Assert Existence
---What is the "You can initiate this counter at any time" wording meant to say? You can normally use immediate actions at any time. You already have the wording that allows using it after failing a saving throw - it might be better to call out whatever edge case you're trying to include.

Meant to just be a counter that can be used whenever, since it doesn't have a trigger. I'm now realizing that the reminder text just adds even more confusion, so I've removed it and reworded the last sentence.

-Finger of God
---Add to "goofy, fantastic, love" list.

-Utter Commitment
---Whoa, whoa, whoa. Initiation modifier times initiator level? Some initiators (thinking harbingers and zealots especially) are rewarded for investing heavily in their initiation modifier. 18 start+2 race+5 level up+5 inherent+6 enhancement means a 36 is fairly doable with no munchkinery. 13x20=260 base damage in a strike probably isn't the highest damage in the game for a 7th level strike (especially compared with strikes that do multiple attacks), but the potential issue I see is the variation between builds. The warlord in the campaign where he had to roll for stats might have started Cha 12+6 enhancement and is only getting 4x20=80 bonus damage on this strike. I'd recommend finding the value you feel comfortable with and using a flat number - such as 5 times initiator level or 10 times initiator level.

Utter commitment has been weird, behind the scenes. At most levels, it works out to be roughly fine (it’s nearly impossible to one-shot enemies of an even CR unless something weird is happening with your WBL, for example), but you make a good point about the variation between builds. After some discussion with the rest of the team, I’ve changed the damage to 10 per level, rather than scaling with your IM. It may change again later if it becomes a problem, and it's one we're definitely keeping an eye on.

-Proof of Victory
---A satisfying end to the discipline and the final entry in the goofy/fantastic/love list.

Overall, I feel this discipline is a solid entry in the Path of War pantheon. I was wary at first that it would bleed to far into Broken Blade or Shattered Mirror, but it's definitely got its own feel and pizzazz.

Glad you like it. That's good to hear, since the risk of strong overlap with Broken Blade was a major concern with writing this discipline.

What do you mean by that? A CL check against DC 11 + CL gives you a 50% chance of success against an effect of the same level, how is that weighted against you?

In any case, with the current effect an initiation modifier of +10 (achievable at 12th level with a starting score of 16) gives you a 100% success rate against effects of the same level. Arguably this is a buff after a few levels, since it completely removes the effect instead of allowing you to penetrate it personally.

A CL check against a DC 11 + CL DC would give you a 50-50 shot. However, NPCs of an even CR with your level are one level higher than you, to start with. In addition, many spellcasting NPCs tend to be boss fights, which can add another 1-3 levels, depending. And then, caster level can be boosted on top of that, while initiator level cannot.

The idea of it was that in most cases, your initiation modifier isn't going to be fully maxed. You're right though, it is a problem that it can be maxed. I've removed the addition of initiation modifier to the check. Depending on how playtesting goes, it might end up getting a magic number added to tweak the math, though it's probably fine nerfing it to just a dispel check.

Two other things with "The sincerest form of flattery" are that there's no level limit, and no duration. So using this one counter 'slot' you could prepare any other party member's level 9 in addition to your own discipline's 9ths between fights, making this the upgraded "Advanced Knowledge" to the second style's "combat feat".

Also dangerous is Proof of Victory in particular on NPCs: those same NPCs that could cause trouble with flattery instead open up on their first turn with the best positioned or most accurate (leader, say) using Shatter Resistance, Lightning Recovery, Cascade of Elemental Wrath, and everyone else giving said person their full-actions with Gift of Time.

The sincerest form of flattery has been hit with a level limit (1 higher than the max maneuver you can learn) to help alleviate that power slightly (previously, just having it gave that function; now you need to have a decent initiator level to pull that off). At high levels on actual initiators, it will still have that effect (and also allow you to, potentially, “save” a maneuver you’ve seen until you find yourself needing to change your maneuvers or recover flattery, at least. For full initiators, that is the intended result (in a sense; you can’t use a strong recovery to spam such a maneuver, for example).

Regarding proof of victory; that is true. However, if your party is facing multiple initiators with level 8 and 9 maneuvers, that’s an incredibly dangerous scenario already; in fact, that might be doing them a favor in some ways, compared to them each using their own 9th against someone and not remaining bunched up within 5 feet of each other. Definitely a strong tactic, but it seems roughly on-par with similar tactics at that level.

"A grasp attempt" is just effectively selecting a target with no (additional) attack rolls needed, and telling them to make a reflex save, right?

How goes Grasping and reach weapons interact?
I assume that you can use a reach weapon to extend your melee reach (as they normally do) and thus Grasp opponents a bit farther away, correct?

That's correct.

I assume that it is intentional that Grasping does not interact with Mirror Image or Invisibility (or other miss chances) in any way, right?

i.e. with Lesson III: Suppression, you can force a Ref save for free once a round without needing to attack first, so you can just 'Grasp' an (adjacent/nearby) invisible opponent because there is no mention of having to be able to see/detect them to target them.

I'd say that you should add something about targeting Grasp requiring the ability to detect your opponent, or the opponent not having total concealment.

Grasp was meant to require you to be able to target them, but it slipped my mind to put an explicit declaration of that in the rules. I've changed them to target as if they were attacks, letting you potentially go after an invisible creature you've detected, but also applying miss chances to them to make them less automatic.

New Condition: Grasp
"may ause their Dexterity"
Typo:
"may use their Dexterity"

Thanks for the catch.

Lead and Follow
Connect this flavor text with a semicolon, as its really one thought.
"Battle is a dance, and you happen to know all the steps. Your opponents tend to not."

Such as:
"Battle is a dance, and you happen to know all the steps; your opponents tend to not."

Personally, I feel that the more emphatic current version works better to underline how that's meant to be read.

Assert Existence
"You can initiate this counter at any time."

This is unclear as to the intent; you can *pretty much* initiate a counter any time you want to already. HOWEVER, if the intention was to be able to use it when surprised or flat footed, then adding that to the statement would clarify it's intent.

Such as:
"You can initiate this counter at any time, even when surprised or flat footed."

I realize its 7th level, and that's pretty high, but being able to use it during surprise, after a failed save, and getting a full round of 100% spell denial (for SR/PR: Yes effects) out of it is really too much. I'm aware this precludes beneficial effects for one round too, but I don't consider that enough of a drawback for balancing this.

How about it just giving SR/PR equal to your Initiator Level + Initiator Mod + 10 for one round?

It's not meant to be able to be initiated when surprised; that was reminder text for it being a counter that doesn't have a trigger. However, seeing as it's caused even more confusion than the alternative, I've removed the reminder text and tweaked the wording of the last clause.

Can I make unarmed strike when Windmill Waltz Flurry & co prompts to make a weapon attack?
I assume these already passed internal review and damage calcs? I didn't do the math yet, but my kneejerk reaction is that combination of number of attacks and free movement can be an issue on someone with a reach weapon and big damage boni, like a Mystic.
Yes (it’s spelled out in the section about unarmed strikes that you gain the benefits for all the unarmed strikes you make during the maneuvers, not just the extra ones), and yes. We had some fairly extensive damage mathing before the discipline hit playtest, and we’re comfortable with how it turned out.

Lesson IV: The Ladder may need a slight rewording with regard to the bolded: "Making a leap is a free action, and each leap moves you up to 10 feet in any direction (you neither gain nor lose distance for moving vertically)."

This, uh, may potentially allow indefinite climbing, particularly when combined with the mid-air jump stuff.

I believe something like "only movement directly between your starting and ending points is counted" may be a better way to word it... though this in turn should be analyzed due to me posting this at 1 am.

Lesson III: Suppression might be a bit strong, I feel, by giving out a free flat-footed to the first attack... at least when combined with your standard roguish classes. Then again, the math may say otherwise?

I like the discipline overall.
The stance itself is meant to provide an alternative to a fly speed, though I can see why that absolute in the parentheses would cause problems. I’ve made some changes to the wording, using ATalsen’s suggestion.

Suppression is interesting for rogueish classes, but we’ve found in number-crunching that, overall, it’s not as good as one might immediately think. Since getting sneak attack is so important to roguelikes, having one guaranteed is nice... But at the same time, you’ll be finding yourself much better off with something like elemental flux stance (for bonus damage and utility) and using flanking or high initiative to get your burst damage, or maybe grabbing golden commander stance to just always get your flanking so long as allies are fighting with you. Defending on how mobile you are, getting a defensive stance out of your discipline choices is also a strong option. While suppression is definitely good for the rogue-type characters, it’s of limited use for offensive capabilities (though that one rogue that converts sneak attacks to dirty tricks definitely loves it).

Looks like I got styles and stances mixed up. :smallfrown: Nonetheless, while strong, three feats having been needed for cycling doesn't sound too bad, even with bonus feats.

Advanced Study was in reference to the stance you could gain rather than the maneuvers, my issue being that taking a situational stance would be pointless if you could use the style for it, instead. An anti-cycle clause will fix that up, though. Sensei, I believe, is now good, but it's not silly.

... Though I'd take anything for the tactical feats to make a comeback :smalltongue:. Having even low-level effects at-will available to "normal" martials or initiators would do well to spice things up.

As a question, though, because the wording confuses me even on the Brawler, is it trying to say that if you take one 1/day feat like Lightning Recovery, and then swap it for another 1/day feat, it won't work because they're both daily use feats?
.

I'm glad you approve of the changes. Hopefully the anti-cycle clause should keep it a bit more limited (which was the original intent, but oops). Regarding daily use limits:

What I take from the wording is that if you grab a 1/day feat, then swap it out for a different one, you'd get each single use, but if you swapped back to one you'd already used then it would still be used up for the day. If it is the way you wondered about then it could be a severe limitation, but not without merit as being able to swap out feats at all is pretty powerful in itself.

That's correct.

ATalsen

2016-05-17, 10:54 PM

Utter Commitment
Discipline: Fool's Errand (Strike)
Level: 7
Prerequisites: Two Fool’s Errand maneuvers
Initiation Action: 1 standard action
Range: Melee attack
Target: One creature (see text)
Duration: Instantaneous
Your dedication to your training and determination to exceed has brought you past the normal limits. By committing everything to one strike, you can destroy any enemy. Make an attack. If it hits, it deals weapon damage as normal plus additional points of damage equal to ten times your initiator level. This strike ignores hardness and automatically overcomes damage reduction. In addition, your attack also affects a 30-foot cone behind the target. Use the result of the initial attack roll and compare it to the AC of each creature caught within the area to determine if an affected creature is hit. Creatures hit by the cone take half the damage of the initial attack, and neither you nor the initial target of your attack is affected by the cone.

10 x 13th level = 130 damage
(That's about average damage for 37d6; or max damage for 21d6)

130 damage as a 7th level maneuver seems very high. I don't see any other 7th level maneuvers that are not "full round action / grant a full attack" maneuvers that provide this type of potential damage.

How about Initiator level times 5 for damage, which is average for 18d6?

Can I ask what this move is being compared to for determining its damage level?

I LIKE the maneuver, I just think the damage needs to be toned down to a more mid-range value, and not a top-of-the-line attack. This discipline is very good all around already, so it can afford to tone this maneuver down without any loss of player interest in it.

My concerns are:
1) Its a standard action, not a full round, and I think its being compared to full round attacks for the damage math.

2) Its a single attack / attack roll, which makes it easy to optimize - touch attack boosts, flat footed stance, even basic stuff like True Strike can make missing a non-issue. (This concern mainly plays into what I'm guessing its being compared to: a full round attack, but in a full attack you cannot just optimize one single attack roll).

3) Includes a half damage area effect, which means its cumulative damage is greater than just a flat 130 to one target.

4) It Scales! I like the idea of scaling, but if it does, then that adds in more weight to needing it to be toned down in damage, lest it be a 8th or 9th level move equivalent automatically when a character gains higher IL.

In addition, the Chimeric Soul play-test has a dragon breath maneuver that could use scaling, but the commentary was that DSP was not doing scaling damage maneuvers. If you do go scaling, maybe that maneuver could scale too?

TL;DR: I suggest 5 times level for damage, so that its a good maneuver, with cool area effect, but does not overshadow similar Standard action maneuvers.

MilleniaAntares

2016-05-18, 12:30 AM

Forrestfire

2016-05-18, 12:37 AM

I just realized that Lesson IV: The Ladder's wording allows you to hop around between attacks in a full-round action, or even just after an attack, which allows it to be used akin to the Dragon Fury's Dragon God's War Dance, Spring Attack, Funhouse Waltz, etc.... Is this intended?

That's correct, and the intended function of the stance. It's basically an expanded version of Flyby Attack appended to your "flight."

Eldaran

2016-05-18, 02:42 AM

Ninjaxenomorph

2016-05-18, 12:23 PM

ATalsen

2016-05-18, 05:02 PM

Also, nothing special is required to drag a grasped creature, just half your movement and they come along with you?

I was also wondering about the drag component of grasping.

How does it relate to the combat maneuver Drag?
• Does it share the same limits, such as not being able to drag an opponent more than 1 size larger?
• Not being able to drag them into dangerous locations?

When you drag someone, can you change their square in relation to your own like repositioning, do they move ‘behind you’ like the Drag combat maneuver, or do they stay where they are relative to your square?

In this section:

The grasping character can move freely as long as each creature they have grasped remains within their reach, or can drag creatures when they move by moving at half speed. If they move during a maneuver, they must either relinquish their grasp, or halve the distance moved (to a minimum of 5 feet, even if halving it would result in a lower distance). The movement of dragged creatures does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

I’m confused by the intent of this line:

If they move during a maneuver, they must either relinquish their grasp, or halve the distance moved (to a minimum of 5 feet, even if halving it would result in a lower distance).

Is the intension that you can drag your grasped opponents when you perform a maneuver by halving your movement? If so, that isn’t very clear, and I’d add something like “, to drag creatures with them.” To the end of the above sentence.

It also seems to forbid moving due to a maneuver (but not other movement) and retaining your grasp if you don’t halve your movement, even if you stay and end within melee reach of your grasped target. Is that intentional?

Forrestfire

2016-05-18, 05:42 PM

One of my characters I'm saving, a warlord whom I haven't seen any need to pick up any stuff beyond PoW, could make heavy use of this discipline; I admire how it supports both unarmed and non-unarmed builds. Some questions about Grasp, though: making an attempt requires no roll from the initiator, only the target, right? Also, nothing special is required to drag a grasped creature, just half your movement and they come along with you?

That's correct; grasp attempts don't require a roll from the initiator, and all that's required to drag after they've failed their save and become grasped is to move at half speed.

I was also wondering about the drag component of grasping.

How does it relate to the combat maneuver Drag?
• Does it share the same limits, such as not being able to drag an opponent more than 1 size larger?
• Not being able to drag them into dangerous locations?

When you drag someone, can you change their square in relation to your own like repositioning, do they move ‘behind you’ like the Drag combat maneuver, or do they stay where they are relative to your square?

In this section:

I’m confused by the intent of this line:

Is the intension that you can drag your grasped opponents when you perform a maneuver by halving your movement? If so, that isn’t very clear, and I’d add something like “, to drag creatures with them.” To the end of the above sentence.

It also seems to forbid moving due to a maneuver (but not other movement) and retaining your grasp if you don’t halve your movement, even if you stay and end within melee reach of your grasped target. Is that intentional?

The intention was for it to halve movement while dragging, but not to bar movement entirely. I've cleaned up the wording around grasp, and added a section clarifying exactly how the dragging works. Sorry for the confusion.

ATalsen

2016-05-18, 06:56 PM

I've cleaned up the wording around grasp, and added a section clarifying exactly how the dragging works. Sorry for the confusion.

Awesome, much clearer!

Just caught this typo:

On its turn, a creature can attempt to your grasp whenever it tries to move.

On its turn, a creature can attempt to escape your grasp whenever it tries to move.

Ninjaxenomorph

2016-05-18, 07:24 PM

meemaas

2016-05-19, 10:33 AM

Question on intent. If you, for example, use Wisdom for your attack rolls and CMB, such as with the Soulknife Focused Offense Blade Skill, are you able to key the Reflex save off of Wisdom for Grasp attempts or is Dexterity intended to be the only alternative?

Ninjaxenomorph

2016-05-19, 11:01 AM

Another question: let's say I have Lunge, and I grasp somebody; since Lung only lasts for your turn, would the grasp expire at the end of my turn, if they are within get 5 feet gained with lunge?

Lord_Gareth

2016-05-20, 02:34 AM

So, I see there's mention in the first post about PoW errata. And then it's followed by, not errata, or any attempt at establishing errata, but a new discipline. Why aren't you fixing what's broken instead of making new stuff? Why should people buy your new stuff like PoW:E when it's also riddled with errors, including just plain typos that a spell check would fix? Why does the pdf have a bookmark for every single feat, but no bookmark for the different discipline descriptions AKA the thing you reference the most in the whole book.

Are you guys actually working on the errata for either PoW book? And if so, why is there no thread for it when you have one for every other conceivable product?

We keep having this conversation, you and I. I'm not entirely certain why you've chosen to walk into all of our threads to open it up, because the answer has yet to change, but I'm going to answer it again and hopefully we can maybe have a productive conversation about it instead of having to mark down a note to expect you in the next thread.

So, here it is again: our budget is nonexistent. Dreamscarred Press lives and breathes on tiny margins, and as much as I hate to say this, you know what we get for errata? The warm, fuzzy feeling of quality assurance. That's it, that's 100% of the kickback for it. And that means that, while the team is still behind errata and still tinkering at it, it isn't precisely a priority. Instead, it's something we work on around other projects, during our free time or when we've hit a creative block on something. Even then, we haven't been formally looking at it until very recently because we were focusing our efforts on getting Path of War: Expanded out, something that has finally happened.

Additionally, most of our team are freelancers. Forrest herself here is a freelancer who often edits for us. It is the nature of freelancing to have multiple projects open at a time. This project happened at least in part because of decisions made about the scope and focus of the errata for Broken Blade, in point of fact.

I know we've been saying that the errata is coming for awhile. I understand and sympathize with your frustration, but at this point it's difficult not to feel frustrated in turn. There'll be a thread for the errata when we have enough of it to open up for testing. In the meantime, if you feel you can no longer offer us your patience, I understand, but I cannot bring myself to be sorry. We're doing everything we can, and we're doing it for nothing but the love of the work - work the team is more than a bit burned out on, with the way Expanded just wouldn't end.

I appreciate your time and your interest but, please, work with me here. Thank you.

roko10

2016-05-20, 09:56 AM

A fluff question, rather than a crunch one; does the wizard get the tar beaten out of him by martial initiators using this discipline and get permanent brain damage/INT drain as a result? Because that would be karmically sastifying.

ATalsen

2016-05-20, 11:20 AM

There'll be a thread for the errata when we have enough of it to open up for testing

Though the post by Eldaran was not the most diplomatic, I'm glad you took the time to answer it because your answer has some info I was looking for too!

I was wondering if the errata was going to be open to the public before release, and now I see it will be, which is great news.

ATalsen

2016-05-20, 11:39 AM

Just an observation, but this discipline doesn’t seem to be able to be used against objects.

Pretty much all the attack maneuvers list “Target: Creature(s)”. I’d expect something like Steel-Shattering Fists to be usable against objects, for example.

No Escape
Awkward sentence:

You can initiate this counter in response a creature you have grasped succeeds on their saving throw to escape your grasp

Possible revision:
"You can initiate this counter in response to a creature you have grasped succeeding on their saving throw to escape your grasp"

Possible addition to end of above sentence:
"or otherwise taking movement that would cause them to escape your grasp"

Kiton2

2016-05-21, 05:39 PM

Lord_Gareth

2016-05-21, 05:56 PM

We should definitely have a tech-themed discipline after this.

Short version: no.

Long version: "tech" is a terrible theme to try and build a discipline around. It is simultaneously too broad and too narrow and doesn't lend itself to expression in this particular manner.

Post-script: we keep getting asked about this. The answer is never going to stop being 'no'.

meemaas

2016-05-21, 06:36 PM

Short version: no.

Long version: "tech" is a terrible theme to try and build a discipline around. It is simultaneously too broad and too narrow and doesn't lend itself to expression in this particular manner.

Post-script: we keep getting asked about this. The answer is never going to stop being 'no'.

What about the siege weapon discipline?

Kidding kidding.

Elricaltovilla

2016-05-21, 07:55 PM

By the way. When you literally copy another discipline's ability, and THAT ability/discipline is supernatural only, that *does* apply to the fool's errand copy, right?

We should definitely have a tech-themed discipline after this. And before anyone claims "but that's not something you get from training", I'll point at "Lesson 4: The Ladder" and remind you that *neither is non-supernaturally jumping from empty air to empty air using nothing but skill and training*! At that point, claiming one can't just learn the ancient mystic art of "non-supernaturally missiles from your palms using nothing but skill and training" would really be setting double or triple standards!

Well, I respectfully disagree with you. The Ladder is totally achievable though just training. It's made explicit in the well known pirate documentary One Piece. Of course, in One Piece, they call it Geppo (http://onepiece.wikia.com/wiki/Rokushiki/Geppo).:smalltongue:

Actually, the whole discipline is pretty similar to Rokushiki overall. One of the things I like about Fool's Errand, I suppose.

Prime32

2016-05-21, 09:38 PM

And before anyone claims "but that's not something you get from training", I'll point at "Lesson 4: The Ladder" and remind you that *neither is non-supernaturally jumping from empty air to empty air using nothing but skill and training*!You can do that in real life, actually. You won't get as far as The Ladder, but by the time you're high enough level to use The Ladder you've far surpassed real-life athletes anyway.

tekevil

2016-05-22, 05:07 PM

I'm still a fan of the idea of someone "just being that good" at something. Not everything super needs to be supernatural.

Forrestfire

2016-05-22, 08:14 PM

That makes dragging so much more clear, thanks! Few more questions: I'm guessing 'off a ledge' isn't considered a place they could normally move? Because one could 'drag' someone and end up effectively pushing them. Another: since you could in theory grasp allies (and they could fail their saves willingly), when can the grasper relinquish the grasp? Free action on their turn? It might be a useful emergency trick to, say, drag an ally out of a nasty flank.

Edit: Whoops, noticed you can end a grasp as a free action. Useful!

As of right now, when moving a grasped creature, that line is about physical limitations (much like bull rush, which can knock someone off a cliff if you want it to, unlike reposition). We're keeping a close eye on the balance of this, however, and it may end up changing in the future.

Another question: let's say I have Lunge, and I grasp somebody; since Lung only lasts for your turn, would the grasp expire at the end of my turn, if they are within get 5 feet gained with lunge?

Once they're out of your reach, the grasp automatically ends. I've slightly tweaked the wording on that to be clearer.

Question on intent. If you, for example, use Wisdom for your attack rolls and CMB, such as with the Soulknife Focused Offense Blade Skill, are you able to key the Reflex save off of Wisdom for Grasp attempts or is Dexterity intended to be the only alternative?

It was not quite intended, but that doesn't seem like it would cause any problems. I've amended the worded to allow for it.

A fluff question, rather than a crunch one; does the wizard get the tar beaten out of him by martial initiators using this discipline and get permanent brain damage/INT drain as a result? Because that would be karmically sastifying.

That is entirely possible. I'd expect that within a setting, the exact details of the mage and the retaliation vary from storyteller to storyteller.

Just an observation, but this discipline doesn’t seem to be able to be used against objects.

Pretty much all the attack maneuvers list “Target: Creature(s)”. I’d expect something like Steel-Shattering Fists to be usable against objects, for example.

No Escape
Awkward sentence:

Possible revision:
"You can initiate this counter in response to a creature you have grasped succeeding on their saving throw to escape your grasp"

Possible addition to end of above sentence:
"or otherwise taking movement that would cause them to escape your grasp"

Thanks for the grammar catch, and the note about objects. Several of the target lines and wordings are now changed.

By the way. When you literally copy another discipline's ability, and THAT ability/discipline is supernatural only, that *does* apply to the fool's errand copy, right?

We should definitely have a tech-themed discipline after this. And before anyone claims "but that's not something you get from training", I'll point at "Lesson 4: The Ladder" and remind you that *neither is non-supernaturally jumping from empty air to empty air using nothing but skill and training*! At that point, claiming one can't just learn the ancient mystic art of "non-supernaturally missiles from your palms using nothing but skill and training" would really be setting double or triple standards!

When you use the sincerest form of flattery, lesson VI: supremacy, or proof of victory to emulate a supernatural ability, it remains supernatural. Regarding the ladder, as I said in my first response, that stance falls into the category of things that can be described as an extension (however unrealistic) of real-world things or physical processes. Ex abilities "do not qualify as magical, though they may break the laws of physics;" it's no more of a double-standard than a level 1 barbarian being able to outsprint the best real-world runners for minutes on end, or a high-level character being able to wade through lava and shrug it off.

Eldaran

2016-05-23, 01:40 AM

We keep having this conversation, you and I. I'm not entirely certain why you've chosen to walk into all of our threads to open it up, because the answer has yet to change, but I'm going to answer it again and hopefully we can maybe have a productive conversation about it instead of having to mark down a note to expect you in the next thread.

I know I'm not the only one asking for it, and I keep bringing it up because I feel like it keeps getting postponed. It's especially bizarre to me that this thread was made in anticipation of Broken Blade errata, but as far as I can tell that's still an unknown factor.

So, here it is again: our budget is nonexistent. Dreamscarred Press lives and breathes on tiny margins, and as much as I hate to say this, you know what we get for errata? The warm, fuzzy feeling of quality assurance. That's it, that's 100% of the kickback for it. And that means that, while the team is still behind errata and still tinkering at it, it isn't precisely a priority. Instead, it's something we work on around other projects, during our free time or when we've hit a creative block on something. Even then, we haven't been formally looking at it until very recently because we were focusing our efforts on getting Path of War: Expanded out, something that has finally happened.

This is a very depressing thing to hear. Do you honestly think the only benefit to errata is warm fuzzy feelings? When people are buying products, for any reason, things like reliability and quality assurance are very important. Third party Pathfinder products have a bad reputation for being poorly balanced and poorly edited. Dreamscarred Press earned a reputation with their psionics releases that made them highly regarded among third party publishers for quality content. And I feel like the Path of War team is destroying that. If your only goal is to push more products, you may find that you meet with less success, as people value quality over quantity.

Shackel

2016-05-23, 03:27 AM

ATalsen

2016-05-23, 12:25 PM

But what I will agree on is that it seems a little weird to release something that makes a point to mention the PoW errata... which hasn't come out yet.

I’m not sure that it’s all that weird – what I’m gleaning from what the DSP people have said in this thread is that they are doing errata on Broken Blade and that Fool’s Errand is based on their expectation of the form that the errata to Broken Blade will take.

From that, I extrapolate that they may be modifying Broken Blade to not do some things it used to, and that they are introducing Fool’s Errand (and its easy swapability) in order to ‘fill in’ for things they may take away from Broken Blade. I’m guessing they are approaching it this way so that people using Broken Blade won’t feel like their builds have been ‘destroyed’ by the errata (ala some Paizo errata’s), and instead can trade out some maneuvers / all maneuvers / or another unused discipline for Fool’s Errand to keep their concept.

If they are introducing Fool’s Errand for that purpose, then heck yeah, I want to see Fool’s Errand published before or alongside the errata!

tekevil

2016-05-23, 12:52 PM

As someone who was very into Ultimate Psionics and then took part in both Path of War play tests I can say that my personal stock in the 3PP DSP has definitely gone down. I can't speak for other people, but DSP hasn't been the first 3PP I recommend to other people for a very long time now and with the release of Expanded it has only further dropped down the list. Knowing that the Path of War 1 errata will just move things to Expanded's power level is not a comfort to me and I have completely stopped anticipating the errata and its playtest.

Make martial combat more interesting with the Path of War, a maneuver-based combat system designed and playtested to work side-by-side with all of the standard classes.

Anlashok

2016-05-23, 12:59 PM

As someone who was very into Ultimate Psionics and then took part in both Path of War play tests I can say that my personal stock in the 3PP DSP has definitely gone down. I can't speak for other people, but DSP hasn't been the first 3PP I recommend to other people for a very long time now and with the release of Expanded it has only further dropped down the list. Knowing that the Path of War 1 errata will just move things to Expanded's power level is not a comfort to me and I have completely stopped anticipating the errata and its playtest.

Can you be more specific? I can't even tell what your complaint is with that last sentence.

tekevil

2016-05-23, 02:16 PM

The stuff in Path of War expanded ended up being almost as poorly balanced as Broken Blade and Primal Fury from Path of War 1, so I am assuming the Path of War 1 errata will just nerf stuff to be in line with Expanded materials. In other words it will still be poorly balanced and I still will be reluctant to allow my players to use it.

To put everything even more simply. At one point I felt DSP was synonymous with quality content and I no longer feel this is the case. I also feel that my sentiments are not uncommon.

Edit: As a side note, I so far find Fools Errand to be the most interesting use of maneuvers as an overall discipline. On a level per level basis it has more interesting choices than just about all the others.

Anlashok

2016-05-23, 02:37 PM

Well, what do you think is so broken about expand? Generally I found it pretty fairly compatible with PoW1.

Also a bit confused, you open by comparing PoW:E to Primal Fury and Broken Blade, which are both very powerful disciplines, but then you say you're worried that PoW1 stuff will get nerfed too hard to be in line with POW:E. So which is it? Too powerful or not powerful enough?

tekevil

2016-05-23, 03:14 PM

I dont know how you got that interpretation at all. I said they wouldnt be nerfed enough.

Lord_Gareth

2016-05-23, 03:19 PM

I know I'm not the only one asking for it, and I keep bringing it up because I feel like it keeps getting postponed. It's especially bizarre to me that this thread was made in anticipation of Broken Blade errata, but as far as I can tell that's still an unknown factor.

See above with regard to, "We'll be showing something when we have enough to actually show." I dunno what kind of writers you think we are but none of us are happy to leave PoW 1 where it's sitting. I realize we've said, "it's coming," more than a cultist in a Lovecraft porn parody but if you need cynical assurance, have this: at this point, if we don't deliver, we'll get the hammer dropped on us.

This is a very depressing thing to hear. Do you honestly think the only benefit to errata is warm fuzzy feelings? When people are buying products, for any reason, things like reliability and quality assurance are very important. Third party Pathfinder products have a bad reputation for being poorly balanced and poorly edited. Dreamscarred Press earned a reputation with their psionics releases that made them highly regarded among third party publishers for quality content. And I feel like the Path of War team is destroying that. If your only goal is to push more products, you may find that you meet with less success, as people value quality over quantity.

And we make every effort to deliver quality. Why do you think we run the playtests? It certainly isn't because they're free of stress or negative feedback, man. I get this feeling like you think I'm sitting in an ivory tower laughing at the proles beneath me, but to be frank I've been kicking myself in the ass over things I missed in PoW 1 when I was the editing guy ever since it came out.

Again, I understand your frustration. I am also frustrated, but at this point there's only so many ways I can say, "We're playing the game as it has to be played right now," before I lose patience with it. This is not a homebrew project that we can go back to and edit at will, in real time. We're finally at a point where we've got enough stuff in the "just needs layout" stage that we can afford to focus on the errata without the company folding like a house of cards. You can believe me or not as you wish but that's how it is. Aight?

I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's having an extreme negative effect on DSP's reputation(more than any other Tome of Battle port could, considering its reputation), even if I agree with "quality over quantity". From a business perspective, I don't think there would be anything noticeable from errata: the ones who would benefit most are the ones who already bought it, after all. Those just testing the water have PFSRD, as well, so it's not likely to push someone from the fence, too.

But what I will agree on is that it seems a little weird to release something that makes a point to mention the PoW errata... which hasn't come out yet.

There was a very long and involved discussion as to the fate of Broken Blade. Fool's Errand being created was a direct result of our decisions thereupon, and I feel Forrest is doing a pretty damn good job with it. It's one half of the solution being implemented.

Anlashok

2016-05-23, 03:46 PM

I'm feeling a little impatient about the errata schedule too. Though in fairness, they still have 22 months if they follow the timetable Paizo did for Ultimate Equipment!

I dont know how you got that interpretation at all. I said they wouldnt be nerfed enough.

Well the phrase 'nerfed down to X' tends to imply overnerfing generally. Sorry for the misinterpretation.

That said I'm not sure I can agree. I've generally found most of the PoW1 classes to play very well with their PoW:E counterparts and with the better designed Paizo classes. My current campaign has a warlord, a magus, a harbinger, a psychic and a nightblade (ascension games) and other than a little grumbling about three people running off int and no one wis heavy the characters have all be able to play together really effectively and without overshadowing each other and all of them have a pretty firm grasp of system mastery.

The only real complaint I can make is that by and large POW:E maneuvers are more dynamic than their POW1 counterparts, which often are just stuffed full of maneuvers that just hit people in slightly different ways.

ATalsen

2016-05-23, 11:26 PM

Grasp/Dragging and holding position

As of right now, when moving a grasped creature, that line is about physical limitations (much like bull rush, which can knock someone off a cliff if you want it to, unlike reposition). We're keeping a close eye on the balance of this, however, and it may end up changing in the future.

My understanding from this is that you cannot move creatures into spaces occupied by physical objects, but you can move them into dangerous spaces or open air.

EDIT:
(even if that movement takes them to a harmful location)
The text could use some extra wording to display this intent.
Ah I see there is a section that clarifies this.

Combining that with these sections:

If they are flying (or otherwise midair), they remain in the air and do not not fall

When dragging a creature, they move in the same direction as you, relative to your spaces.

I come to the conclusion that you could drag a creature off the edge of a cliff, but they would not fall until/unless you released your grasp (which is a free action so if you want them to fall, then they do, but you could also just hold them there and let them fall if they escape your grasp).

Similarly, if you can fly (or even climb), you could drag a creature up into the air with you; they would again not fall until you released them.

I’m neither for nor against this, but I wanted to see if this outcome is intentional / desirable.

If it’s not desirable, perhaps add a line to the effect that ‘if a creature is dragged into an area that cannot support them, they fall’.

No Escape

You swiftly react to your opponent’s movements, redoubling your grip or following their path. You have even learned the techniques needed to ride along with a target fleeing through supernatural methods.

I think that the word supernatural in the flavor text (and the way its used) could lead to people assuming this maneuver was a Supernatural maneuver.

With the ability to follow a teleport I think it probably *should be* a supernatural maneuver, I just don’t think it’s intended to be one, so if not, I’d pick another descriptor for the flavor text.

Grasp Typo
Double ‘not’

If they are flying (or otherwise midair), they remain in the air and do not not fall.

Forrestfire

2016-05-23, 11:44 PM

Grasp/Dragging and holding position

My understanding from this is that you cannot move creatures into spaces occupied by physical objects, but you can move them into dangerous spaces or open air.
The text could use some extra wording to display this intent.

I've added a parenthetical clarifying that. Should hopefully be a bit clearer.

I come to the conclusion that you could drag a creature off the edge of a cliff, but they would not fall until/unless you released your grasp (which is a free action so if you want them to fall, then they do, but you could also just hold them there and let them fall if they escape your grasp).

Similarly, if you can fly (or even climb), you could drag a creature up into the air with you; they would again not fall until you released them.

I’m neither for nor against this, but I wanted to see if this outcome is intentional / desirable.

If it’s not desirable, perhaps add a line to the effect that ‘if a creature is dragged into an area that cannot support them, they fall’.

That's correct; right now that's the intended outcome of those rules. This may change if it proves to be particularly problematic, though. We're keeping an eye on it.

No Escape

I think that the word supernatural in the flavor text (and the way its used) could lead to people assuming this maneuver was a Supernatural maneuver.

With the ability to follow a teleport I think it probably *should be* a supernatural maneuver, I just don’t think it’s intended to be one, so if not, I’d pick another descriptor for the flavor text.

I've changed the word. Effectively, the maneuver lets you count as a "passenger" for their teleportation (even if it normally wouldn't allow one); it's possible that it stretches the limits of "extraordinary," but it's not a teleportation effect in itself, and the idea of latching onto someone at the last moment to follow them is a well-established one in fiction.

Grasp Typo
Double ‘not’

Thanks for the catch :smallsmile:

MilleniaAntares

2016-05-24, 02:09 AM

While perhaps this is a fiddly suggestion involving PoW:E, perhaps the grasp condition could be added to the Weaken the Prey feat alongside curses, diseases, and ability damage. It could certainly represent having your foe more at your mercy than Gary Grasper over there without the feat.

ATalsen

2016-05-24, 11:23 AM

That's correct; right now that's the intended outcome of those rules. This may change if it proves to be particularly problematic, though. We're keeping an eye on it.

Is DSP doing an internal playtest with these new rules? If so, can I suggest you 'stress test' the grasp rules using very small with very large creatures?

I love the idea that a human (medium size) can drag around a huge dragon, but it seems to get a bit silly to start thinking that a Grig (tiny size) could do the same thing. I think all the (movement related) Combat Maneuvers specify 'within one size category larger' for this reason.

Maybe just the 'drag' portion can be limited to creatures no more than 2 size categories larger?

That still allows the stopping/controlling of grab, but not the hauling around.

Ninjaxenomorph

2016-05-24, 12:24 PM

What about larger creatures 'reversing' the condition? They move at half when grasped, and the initiator is along for the ride? Things like The Ladder would help with, say, grasping a griffon to slow it down. If you want to limit it, you could use ranks in Climb as a limiting factor (X ranks of Climb lets you grasp creatures Y sizes larger than you). I'd imagine that the rules would become a bit too fiddly at this point, though.

Forrestfire

2016-05-24, 12:33 PM

Is DSP doing an internal playtest with these new rules? If so, can I suggest you 'stress test' the grasp rules using very small with very large creatures?

I love the idea that a human (medium size) can drag around a huge dragon, but it seems to get a bit silly to start thinking that a Grig (tiny size) could do the same thing. I think all the (movement related) Combat Maneuvers specify 'within one size category larger' for this reason.

Maybe just the 'drag' portion can be limited to creatures no more than 2 size categories larger?

That still allows the stopping/controlling of grab, but not the hauling around.

One of the existing problems with grappling and, honestly, the combat maneuver system is that size is a nearly insurmountable advantage. For every person who, like yourself, feels this size difference is realistic, there's another inspired by characters like Ant Man or the Wee Free Men but cannot execute their concept. We're more inclined to favor the latter than the former, in keeping with our desire to open up character concepts rather than restrict them.

squiggit

2016-05-24, 12:49 PM

A grig can already pin and tie up a dragon in Pathfinder and that doesn't really seem any more or less silly than dragging them around.

ATalsen

2016-05-25, 06:58 PM

For every person who, like yourself, feels this size difference is realistic, there's another inspired by characters like Ant Man or the Wee Free Men but cannot execute their concept. We're more inclined to favor the latter than the former, in keeping with our desire to open up character concepts rather than restrict them.

Yeah, I myself and not a fan of 'tiny fighters' type, but I can understand your desire to support them in this way.

Tornado Slam
Discipline: Fool's Errand (Boost) [grasp]
If you do, you automatically grasp them. Neither your target’s movement nor your movement during this strike provokes attacks of opportunity.

This is a boost, so maybe change the word “strike” out for either “boost” or “maneuver”.

Utter Commitment
In addition, your attack also affects a 30-foot cone behind the target.

I’ve been thinking about this one, and since there’s no facing, I’ve been assuming that this means ‘on the other side of the target’ or something similar when applied to a battle map. Is this a correct assumption?

Or do you get to choose the side/direction the cone comes from?

If the target is mounted, does/should the cone affect the mount?

Sky-Shattering Throw
This damage is treated as falling damage, and may be reduced by Acrobatics checks or other abilities as normal.

I remember being able to damp falling damage in 3.5 via Tumble, but from what I understand in Pathfinder you can only reduce falling damage by Acrobatics if you fell deliberately:

PFSRD:
Falling: When you deliberately fall any distance, even as a result of a missed jump, a DC 15 Acrobatics skill check allows you to ignore the first 10 feet fallen, although you still end up prone if you take damage from a fall. See Falling Damage for more details.)

Is there any plan for the future release of Fool’s Errand that can be shared at this time? I'm curious if it will be part of another book, a stand-alone product or whatnot.

Forrestfire

2016-05-25, 07:06 PM

Yeah, I myself and not a fan of 'tiny fighters' type, but I can understand your desire to support them in this way.

This is a boost, so maybe change the word “strike” out for either “boost” or “maneuver”.

Whoops. It was a slightly different strike at one point in the development, and that didn't get caught. Thanks!

I’ve been thinking about this one, and since there’s no facing, I’ve been assuming that this means ‘on the other side of the target’ or something similar when applied to a battle map. Is this a correct assumption?

Or do you get to choose the side/direction the cone comes from?

If the target is mounted, does/should the cone affect the mount?

It's meant to be 'on the other side of the target,' yes. I'll likely be altering the wording to be more functional, or possibly writing up a short sidebar on how those cones work.

I remember being able to damp falling damage in 3.5 via Tumble, but from what I understand in Pathfinder you can only reduce falling damage by Acrobatics if you fell deliberately:

That's my bad. I've removed parts of that note.

Is there any plan for the future release of Fool’s Errand that can be shared at this time? I'm curious if it will be part of another book, a stand-alone product or whatnot.

Fool's Errand (and its feats/tradition) are part of the Dreamscarred Press Patreon releases. When it's ready, it'll be released, funded through that (and available for purchase by everyone else as well).

tekevil

2016-06-01, 03:30 AM

Posted this is the wrong thread earlier....

I'll be back to give more feedback after my finals, but I wanted to step in and say that I like the present course that this ship is sailing!

ATalsen

2016-06-02, 11:36 AM

I really like Fools Errand as well, but I still have a lingering concern about Utter Commitment’s damage being 10x Initiator Level.

I don’t know that repeating myself will help, as I posted many of my concerns already here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20791487&postcount=56

BUT, the one new point that I wanted to bring up was that it isn't a maneuver I can give to any NPC for fear that they will completely annihilate a PC in one hit. I mean 10 times level is one-shotting a 13th level Barbarian (d12 HP, using high average per die: 7HP/level) with a 16 Con score – 130 HP. None of the PCs at my current table will have 130 HP by 13th level, so it’s a maneuver I simply cannot select on any of my level-appropriate NPCs, ever (because it scales too, it will always one-shot a PC who gains less than 10hp per level).

I still say, compared to every other “1 standard action” maneuver that 5x level is more appropriate damage.

On a different subject…
Lesson III: Suppression makes the opponent flat footed for the first attack, and given Flat Footed creatures cannot use immediate actions, it effectively shuts down counters against single attack strikes or other single attacks.

Just pointing that out in case that ramification was missed – perhaps it was intended, I’m not sure. Just seems really powerful in a POW-based campaign.

Forrestfire

2016-06-02, 03:46 PM

Utter commitment's damage will be going down when I get the next update to this written up and put out. Sorry for being silent for a bit, it's been hectic and I've been sick this week.

Re: suppression, that's the intended use (and part of why the Flat-Footed condition at the end of the document includes rules from the Immediate Actions section of the rulebook).

ATalsen

2016-06-02, 06:05 PM

Utter commitment's damage will be going down when I get the next update to this written up and put out.

Thanks for the response; I shall look forward to the next iteration!

Forrestfire

2016-06-06, 07:54 PM

I've put in a small update today; there's now clarified wording and a sidebar explaining how the cones for lesson V: expression and utter commitment work, a couple small grammar edits scattered throughout, and some nerfs to utter commitment itself (damage down, and no longer punches through DR and hardness by default).

ATalsen

2016-06-07, 12:26 PM

I find the cone explanation answers my questions about how it works. If the target is mounted, for example, using the provided explanation I can choose to hit their mount, or not - based on either placing the cone overlapping them (hitting the mount), or placing it behind them (missing the mount).

I certainly like that kind of freedom.

For Utter Commitment at (7xlevel) for damage, that’s the average of 2d6/level, which is interesting to me as a calculation. So the primary target is getting hit with the equivalent of 2d6/level and the secondary targets are hit for the equivalent of 1d6/level.

When I look at things I often check for “Is this better for PCs or NPCs?” While some things are universal, many selectable choices in Pathfinder are better for one or the other simply based on prevalent game assumptions. Right now because of the removal of the cutting through DR/Hardness I’d lean toward this being a more optimal choice for NPCs than PCs, simply because PCs do not tend to have DR/Harness and NPCs do.

Whether that is good or bad in this case, I can’t say.

I do think the damage is still on the high side when being used by NPCs against PCs, but the damage now may not take out a front line fighter in one hit (fighter 13 has about 104+ HP, move deals 91 damage), so it’s become a viable pick for POW NPCs now, I think. So thank you for that change.

I keep re-reading sections and thinking about them.
This part from Fool’s Errand Scholar seems like it may be interpretable 2 ways:

You can only gain a single feat using this ability per encounter; if you leave Fool’s Errand Style and activate it again, you do not get to choose a new combat feat.

I think the intension is if you enter the style, leave the style, and enter it again, you regain the previously chosen feat.

I think it can be interpreted to mean that if you leave the style and reenter it, you don’t get any feat the second time.

Maybe something like:
“…you do not get to choose a new combat feat, instead you regain the previously selected feat.”

Lorrdernie

2016-06-07, 12:30 PM

The nerf for utter commitment definitely seemed like it was necessary. Otherwise I've been doing some playtesting of the discipline and have really been enjoying it so far. I had an 11th level double shield fighting Warden that my DM let me rebuild, switching Broken Blade out for Fool's Errand. My damage output has gone down but the added versatility has been absolutely huge so far. I've primarily used Lesson IV: The Ladder and Surround From Within so far but whenever I level up I'm going to be picking up To The Skies as well. I'm a touch worried that flying upwards with guys I've grasped and teleporting upwards might be a bit much with the falling damage but since it's taking a stance and two maneuvers I kinda figure it had better be good.

I'll report back as I play with the maneuvers more and let you know about anything that seems to be a problem. I'm also probably gonna be using the discipline on some NPCs I'm making in a game I'm running so I should be able to test out a wider variety of maneuvers as well. In general I'm really enjoying the stuff y'all put out and although I'm excited to get the errata just like lots of people I have far fewer concerns about power level than some of the people who seem to have forgotten about the existence of wizards and druids. Excited to see what you guys do in the future!

Forrestfire

2016-06-07, 12:48 PM

I'm glad you're enjoying the discipline!

I keep re-reading sections and thinking about them.
This part from Fool’s Errand Scholar seems like it may be interpretable 2 ways:

I think the intension is if you enter the style, leave the style, and enter it again, you regain the previously chosen feat.

I think it can be interpreted to mean that if you leave the style and reenter it, you don’t get any feat the second time.

Maybe something like:
“…you do not get to choose a new combat feat, instead you regain the previously selected feat.”

That's the correct intention. I've altered the wording, thanks for the catch.

Azoth

2016-06-07, 04:01 PM

So I know this isn't the intent, but this is actually the best discipline for a Druid or Ranger's animal companion to pick up with Martial Training. I noticed it when going over Martial Training and how it determines Initiator Level. Not too many run on physical stats, and for mental attributes most run on Int or Cha. Since IL for Martial Training is 1/2HD+ability mod for discipline skill, it is possible to have a negative IL and inability to initiate manuevers. Fool's Errand being governed by Str gives a good IL and save DCs for animal companions.

Lesson III: Suppression even makes landing your first hit, or for some your only hit, a lot easier.

It is kind of interesting since several races give a FCB of 1 skill point per level, so it is even easy to keep Knowledge (Martial) and Climb maxed out to make full use of it.

Now I am off to see how devastating a Fool's Errand using Ape Animal Companion can be...crazy Kung Fu Monkey inbound.

PsyBomb

2016-06-08, 06:43 AM

Azoth, I look forward to hearing about this. It sounds both crazy and awesome if you can pull it off.

Azoth

2016-06-08, 03:13 PM

Okay, I don't feel like stating up the Druid that's running around with this ape from 1-20. Just know that it is a Human Druid with the alternate race trait Eye for Talent (+2Int of AC) and whose first level feat is Racial Heritage (Half-elf). This let's the Ape choose feats it qualifies for freely and gives it an extra skill point per hit die.

Stats:
Str: 31 (13base+8 lvl7 size increase +6 AC +4 level up)
Dex: 21 (17base -2 lvl7 size increase +6AC)
Con: 14
Int: 4
Wis: 12
Cha: 7

AC: 10+5Dex+15NA-1size=29 TAC=14 FFAC=24

Saves:
Fort: 10+2=12
Ref: 10+5=15
Will: 5+1=6

To Hit: 21/16/11 (12BAB +10Str -1size)
Grasp DC: 28 (10+8(1/2IL)+10(Str mod))

Skills:
Knowledge (Martial): 16ranks -4 Int=12
Climb: 16ranks +10Str=26

Feats:
1) Combat Reflexes
3) Martial Training I (Fool's Errand)
5) Martial Training II
7) Martial Training III
9) Martial Training IV
11) Martial Training V
13) Advanced Study
15) Advanced Study

Manuevers Known:

1st: Whirlwind Sweep, One Two Punch(Retrain at 11 into Tornado Slam), Lesson II: Control

2nd: Dead at Ten Paces, Hurricane Kick

3rd: Windmill Waltz Flurry, Lesson III: Suppression

4th: The Sincerest Form of Flattery, Make them Humble, Tornado Slam

5th: Surround from Within, Moment of Mastery, Lesson IV: The Ladder

7th: Utter Commitment, Assert Existence

8th: Endless Dance of Death, Sky Shattering Throw

Manuevers Readied 5.

All of these values are for an animal companion without any equipment or buffs. I will edit them in when I have more time. This should still give an idea of what an Ape is capable of. They're are stronger AC choices, but Kung Fu ape sounded fun.

Forrestfire

2016-06-08, 03:48 PM

Minor thing: you can't take Advanced Study with Martial Training feats, since it requires you have four levels in actual martial disciple classes. That's pretty great though. Is there a decent way to get him an extending staff? :smallbiggrin:

meemaas

2016-06-08, 04:13 PM

I thought it was noted in the PoWE threads that you could, wasn't it? Or am I misremembering the outcome of that subject?

Forrestfire

2016-06-08, 04:16 PM

Probably misremembering; Advanced Study's interactions with the archetype initiators has been discussed a lot, and the feat itself is a bit wonky mechanically in many cases (like multiclass initiators), however, the prerequisite isn't for initiator level, but actual class levels.

Azoth

2016-06-08, 05:38 PM

If that is the case, replace Advanced Study with Martial Training VI and Victorious Recovery.

It hurts losing the 7th and 8th level manuevers, but that is still an incredibly strong ape companion.

*edit* If that is the case for Advanced Study, when the POW errate comes out, can you change it to read:

Prerequisite: 4th level in a martial initiating class.

Anlashok

2016-06-08, 06:01 PM

It's a cool build, but entirely at the mercy of GM fiat as martial study is not on the animal feat whitelist.

Azoth

2016-06-08, 06:47 PM

It's a cool build, but entirely at the mercy of GM fiat as martial study is not on the animal feat whitelist.

Animal companions with an Intelligence of 3 or higher can select any feat they are physically capable of using.

Martial Training for an Ape is as much GM mercy as Power Attack is for a Fighter.

MilleniaAntares

2016-06-08, 11:14 PM

Looking at the rules for escaping a grasp... don't you think allowing up three attempts per enemy turn is a bit much? Perhaps getting rid of their free attempt at the end of their turn would be a good idea.

For Make Them Humble, how would it interact with Unbreakable Stride? The enemy is pushed out of its stance, and can enter it the next opportunity they have? Or would it be better if they had to wait 1d4 rounds, since a stance is almost as at-will as an item and supernatural ability?

Does Utter Commitment's cone override Lesson V: Expression's, or do they both happen at once? The latter would be a bit overpowered, given that those within 15 ft take 1.5x Utter Commitment damage while the primary target only takes 1.

Forrestfire

2016-06-08, 11:36 PM

Looking at the rules for escaping a grasp... don't you think allowing up three attempts per enemy turn is a bit much? Perhaps getting rid of their free attempt at the end of their turn would be a good idea.

The free attempt at the end of their turn was meant to proc if they didn't move or try to move at all (i.e. they always get one shot at escaping, even if they made no other ones). I've changed the wording slightly.

For Make Them Humble, how would it interact with Unbreakable Stride? The enemy is pushed out of its stance, and can enter it the next opportunity they have? Or would it be better if they had to wait 1d4 rounds, since a stance is almost as at-will as an item and supernatural ability?

I'll have to look into that tomorrow when I'm a bit more awake.

Does Utter Commitment's cone override Lesson V: Expression's, or do they both happen at once? The latter would be a bit overpowered, given that those within 15 ft take 1.5x Utter Commitment damage while the primary target only takes 1.

As noted in expression, "you do not apply the effects of strikes or boosts to the cone’s effects." When you use utter commitment with lesson V: expression, you get utter commitment's cone dealing its damage, and then the significantly smaller base damage of your unarmed strike off of expression's cone (as normal). It doesn't cascade utter commitment across the other targets.

MilleniaAntares

2016-06-09, 12:20 AM

The free attempt at the end of their turn was meant to proc if they didn't move or try to move at all (i.e. they always get one shot at escaping, even if they made no other ones). I've changed the wording slightly.
When you get a chance, change the "another" in "A creature that does not attempt to move during its turn can make another Reflex save against the grasp as a free action at the end of their turn." to "a".

I'll have to look into that tomorrow when I'm a bit more awake.
Sure, take your time! I don't mind either interpretation, but I figure you may desire to think about it and see which category you would want it in.

As noted in expression, "you do not apply the effects of strikes or boosts to the cone’s effects." When you use utter commitment with lesson V: expression, you get utter commitment's cone dealing its damage, and then the significantly smaller base damage of your unarmed strike off of expression's cone (as normal). It doesn't cascade utter commitment across the other targets.
I need more sleep too, heh! Totally forgot about that.

Fenryr

2016-06-09, 08:55 AM

I need more sleep too, heh! Totally forgot about that.

SLEEPING IS FOR THE WEAK. DO NOT SLEEP.

Joke aside, I believe this is my favorite discipline now. Thanks for it.

Kiton2

2016-06-11, 01:17 PM

Is the google doc obsolete or is it still 100ft (so max damage with 2 climb ranks: 40d6 to one and 20d6 to a second if you can aim victim at a flying target) with just the two climb ranks?

1500 feet kinda far outreaches the majority of combat maps.

Forrestfire

2016-06-11, 02:49 PM

Is the google doc obsolete or is it still 100ft (so max damage with 2 climb ranks: 40d6 to one and 20d6 to a second if you can aim victim at a flying target) with just the two climb ranks?

Like normal falling damage (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/environment/environmental-rules#TOC-Falling), the damage from sky-shattering throw is, and has been, capped at 20d6. I've reproduced the rules for falling at the end of the doc to help clear up this confusion.

1500 feet kinda far outreaches the majority of combat maps.

That is, in many ways, the point. It's roughly analogous to a Reflex save-based, significantly higher action cost dismissal (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/d/dismissal) (except far easier to undo by many creatures, especially at the level it comes online).

EDIT: I've also made a slight change to make them humble, lowering its duration for non-spell, non-power abilities, and closing a hole where I forgot that (Ex) freedom of movement exists. Regarding suppressing a stance, it wouldn't kick them out of it, but would turn off the stance itself for 1d4 rounds (they could switch out of it though).

MilleniaAntares

2016-06-15, 09:52 AM

There are three classes that have unique interactions with disciplines, so...

1) Will there be Fool's Errand Path for the Pathwalker?
2) Will there be a War Soul blade skill for Fool's Errand?
3) If an Ambush Hunter trades out their Martial Style discipline for Fool's Errand, what combat styles will they be allowed to take?

In addition, what happens to stealth when someone is grasped? As far as I remember invisibility only provides +2 to CMD when grappled (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/conditions#TOC-Grappled), and stealth cannot be used.

Forrestfire

2016-06-16, 10:13 PM

1 and 2) Potentially a Pathwalker path, probably not a Soulknife blade skill.
3) You'd swap after choosing for your class feature, which I believe would also be how it works if you had used a tradition to swap away your discipline. I'll make a note about it when I get the chance.

Regarding Stealth, currently it doesn't do anything to stealth; you can hide and run away if you've got a way of hiding while observed, etc. I'll discuss that with the team and get back to you on it.

upho

2016-06-19, 09:34 AM

Been lurking here occasionally during the last few weeks to see how things are shaping up, and now that I've been trying out some of Forrestfire's new shiny toys a bit, I thought it's about time I joined the discussion.

First, I must say I'm impressed with the work so far. Not to mention very grateful, 'cause this seems to be heading towards precisely the kind of serious martial control/debuff I've always wanted more of in PoW (and PF in general), a craving which unfortunately hasn't really been satisfied by previous releases. So here's one big e-cookie of appreciation from me to you, Forrestfire, and my thanks to everyone helping out!

Some nitpicks/questions/opinions/wishes:

1. Grasp says "...even though they do not require an attack roll, they are treated as attacks for the purposes of targeting, line of effect, and miss chances". I take it this does not mean that a successful grasp attempt is also treated as a successful melee attack hit, correct? (Although I believe for example Lesson VI: Supremacy and Fool’s Errand Style would be much more fun if I was wrong, especially when combined... :smalltongue:)

2. The grasp DC is too low. Or rather, it's very difficult to have a grasp focus pay off (except maybe for a harbinger), since there are very few ways to increase the DC. I'd like to see some option which allows you to add at least your initiator modifier to the DC against saves made by creatures trying to get free. As is, if you focus very hard on Str and pump the DC, the difference between for example a dragon's normal Ref save and when boosted by its Str otherwise makes grasps feel like a very binary business in higher levels - a colossal dragon is bound to get grasped, but it's also bound to get free as soon as it tries to move.

3. Moment of Mastery easily negates an entire full attack. Isn't this a bit much, considering what other 5th level counters are typically capable of?

4. To the Skies says (my emphasis) "You may follow one of the launched creatures into the air and immediately attack them...". Does this mean you're limited to attack only one of the critters you're "elevating", or all of those you may reach while tagging along? I've assumed the latter, but a clarification might be good.

5. Non-optional CMB replacements are annoying IMO, as these will actually nerf many (most?) Str-based builds and reduce the value and flavor of related CMB investments as well as the martial maneuvers in question. The effect will often be detrimental even to builds which haven't made any feat or item investments in any specific combat maneuver, but try to max their Climb skill (which they'll have good reasons for doing anyways because of other tasty Fool's Errand stuff). Is it possible to change these replacements into being optional, using language similar to that of Lesson I: Balance also in maneuvers such as Whirlwind Sweep?

While the skill check replacement is probably helpful to most during earlier levels, most skills can easily be surpassed by CMB in later levels. Especially with DSP material, ending up with a trip CMB above +55 is trivial, while keeping your Climb skill on par is often impossible.

For example, my test build "Duhrtie" (below) has a very respectable Climb bonus of +59, her best skill by far. That high value required not only an exceptional Str and a specific item, but also a very rare and massive +12 untyped bonus from no less than six shifting feats. And yet, her trip CMB is +69, can easily get above +75 with a few rather cheap items, and would've been +65 even without a single trip-specific investment. Quite a difference, and much more so for builds without access to similar hefty Climb bonuses.

6. More "anti-magic" and utility, less "anti-martial" and combat would be nice IMO. This may be outside the scope of Fool's Errand, but I surely wouldn't mind seeing some more reliable ways to counter magic, especially of the kind which completely invalidates much of the core mechanics (such as grasp and freedom of movement in this case). I think Make Them Humble is a good start, but since AFAICT the dispel cannot be boosted beyond IL, it's bound to become a "mooks only" kind of maneuver in higher levels. Just an idea off the top of my head would be an option which automatically negates FoM etc., but only for the purpose of grasp attempts and only for a very limited time.

7. More options for grasp, allowing for more specialization, expanded applicability and better action economy would be awesome. Stuff like Tornado Slam and To the Skies are great fun and very flavorful, but I when building my test build and trying it out, I kept wishing for more options with significant combo effects and compatibility also with stuff outside of Fool's Errand (unless I was simply too blind to see the obvious, of course). I can think of a few ways to expand the core mechanic, such as allowing for easy repositioning of grasped enemies within your reach. And many interesting options with which to better combine grasp with combat maneuvers and other movement related stuff (like demoralization into frightened or panicked conditions), or class features such as the warder's mark or the harbinger's claim. Or teamwork feats allowing for both "friendly grasping" to get allies into better positions and "co-grasping" of enemies for more severe effects (such as making the enemy flat-footed, removing trip immunity, significantly increase concentration DC for casting defensively, higher grasp DCs etc). But I guess you're also seeing this and more, most importantly that the limited number of letters which can fit into this type of publication means such stuff will have to wait?

...............

Here's my test build (with a name made of bad puns even cheesier than her half-elephant, half-angel race), brought up to 20th and cleansed from house rules. She made heavy use of her shifting feats from Lords of the Wild, but it was her Fool's Errand and dirty trick shenanigans that had the three of us playing laughing out loud several times. Not because her tricks were silly, but because they were not just effective but also so damn cool. (And of course, some Fool's Errand moves just begged to get Kung Fu Hustle-d (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRaJJWKfw-s&list=PLhro_aIT2vcJmxvK4DzfjFIlXUnkWtinw&index=33) in this not very serious one-off game, like a full attack totally wrecking four grasped cloud giant fighters during an over-the-top insane round of To the Skies that simply had to be acted out like a slo-mo movie scene, naturally accompanied by appropriately epic music (https://youtu.be/3GjNX7jcLK0?t=91). Hillarious and awesome. :smallbiggrin:)

Archon-Blooded Aasimar Bloody-Knuckled Rowdy Primalist Bloodrager 5, Formless Master 4, Master of Many Styles Monk 1, Ordained Defender Warder 10
LG Gargantuan female outsider (native, shapechanger)

All values while in bloodrage, Lesson VI: Supremacy with Furyhorn Stance, Ascetic and Fool's Errand fused style stance, and under the effects of blessing, all shifting abilities (short duration), face of the devourer, boots of speed and listed wands.

Initiative +10; Senses blindsense 30 ft., darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, scent; Perception +41
Aegis allies within 10 ft. gain +3 morale to AC and Will saves; Lawful Good Aura as 10th level cleric

DEFENSE
AC 42, touch 24, flat-footed 40 +14 armor, +11 natural, +4 shield, +1 dex, +5 deflection, +1 dodge, +2 sacred, -2 rage, -4 size
HP 291 121 (12+5d10+5d8+9d12) hit die, +160 con, +10 favored class
Fort +30, Ref +23, Will +27; +4 vs. spells and spell-like abilities; +6 vs. mind-affecting; +6 vs. disease, poison, exhaustion and fatigue
DR 1/-; Resist acid, cold, electricity 5
Defensive Abilities 30% chance to avoid sneak attack/crit, all around vision, extended defense (2/day), uncanny dodge

OFFENSE
Speed 100 ft., burrow 100 ft., climb 100 ft. (fly 90 ft. 8 rounds 1/day, as spell CL 8, via celestial plate armor), free move 1/encounter

Melee double-chained kama +39/+39/+34/+29/+24 (8d8+33), bite +34 (6d6+14), 2 claws +34/+34 (6d8+14), gore +34 (8d6+14), 2 hooves +34/+34 (4d6+14) and sting +34 (4d6+14 plus poison);
or unarmed strike +39/+39/+34/+29/+24 (8d6+24), bite +34 (6d6+14), 2 claws +34/+34 (6d8+14), gore +34 (8d6+14), 2 hooves +34/+34 (4d6+14) and sting +34 (4d6+14 plus poison);
or bite +39 (6d6+24), 2 claws +39/+39 (6d8+24), 2 hooves +34/+34 (4d6+14), 2 gores +39/+39 (8d6+24) and sting +39 (4d6+24 plus poison)

Space 20 ft., Reach 35 ft. natural reach / 60 ft. with double-chained kama (+5 ft. 3 rounds/day via longarm bracers), or 50 ft. / 75 ft. using defensive focus

Attack Abilities and Special Attacks Armiger's Mark (12/day, free when dealing melee damage: -6 to attack other, +15% arcane spell failure, 7 rounds), Combat Reflexes (8 AoOs/round)
Dirty Trick (CMB +69, instead of melee (1/round) or AoO, worse condition if repeated, 1d4 rounds +1 round per 5 CMB check is above target's CMD, standard to remove, full-round to remove dazzled/dazed)
Savage Dirty Trick (1/foe/rage, dirty trick CMB +69 instead of melee, 19 damage, Fort DC 33 or worse effect for 1 round)
Fool’s Errand Style and Lesson VI: Supremacy (instead of attack or free on AoO hit: grasp Ref DC 39 or make already grasped foe entangled or sickened 1 round)
Greater Trip (CMB +69, any size, instead of melee, AoO if successful)
Poison (3/day when dealing damage with sting , DC 28 vs. Fort, 1d3 Con damage, 6 rounds), Staggering Strike (Fort DC 22 or target of crit melee staggered for 1 round), Stunning Fist (5/day, free on unarmed hit, Fort DC 27 or stunned, 1 round)

4 Stances and 6 Maneuvers Readied IL 17 (Chimera Soul, Eternal Guardian, Fool's Errand, Iron Tortoise)
Stances Chimeric Body Stance (CS6), Furyhorn Stance (CS3), Lesson VI: Supremacy (FE8), Valiant Keeper’s Stance (EG1)
Boosts To the Skies (FE6)
Counters Adamantine Shell (IT8), Crushing Rebuke (EG8), Invulnerable Shell of the Iron Tortoise (IT9), Moment of Mastery (FE5), No Escape (FE6)
(Known: 1 CS, 1 EG, 2 IT)

Spells and Spell-Like Abilities (WIP) CL 4
1st 2/day: cheetah's sprint, face of the devourer
2nd 2/day: ?, ?

Blessing 8/day: Protection (1 min., +2 sacred to AC and saves).
Bloodline and Rage Powers Aberrant Bloodline, 26 rounds/day: Abnormal Reach, Savage Dirty Trick, Staggering Strike and Superstition
Shifting 18 uses/day, 2 rounds duration/use in combat: Abomination, Beasthide, Longstride, Magnitude, Sensory and Strongclaw Shift

STATISTICS
Str 48, Dex 12, Con 26, Int 14, Wis 24, Cha 14
Bab +11; CMB +50, using AoMF +65, dirty trick or trip +69; CMD 66, using AoMF 81, vs. dirty trick or trip 83
Feats Abomination Shift, Ascetic StyleB, Beasthide ShiftB, Combat ReflexesB, Combat Style MasterB, Dirty Fighting, Dirty Trick Master, Eschew MaterialsB, Fool’s Errand Scholar (Superior Dirty Trick [dazzled/dazed]), Fool’s Errand StyleB, Greater Dirty Trick, Greater Trip, Improved Dirty Trick, Improved TripB, Improved Unarmed StrikeB, Longstride Shift, Magnitude ShiftB, Quick Dirty Trick, Seize the Opportunity, Sensory ShiftB, Strongclaw ShiftB, Stunning FistB
Skills (WIP) Climb +59, Fly +14, Intimidate +41, Perception +41, Sense Motive +32, Use Magic Device +19

Alternate Racial Traits Feelkha heritage (Large size), Variant Ability (+2 Str, no spell-like ability)
Traits Practiced Initiator, Reactionary
Martial Tradition Temple of the Formless Spirit (Chimera Soul)

Gear (basic stuff for test purposes, approx. 660 k) +3 dueling furious amulet of mighty fists and natural armor +5, +5 mithral celestial plate armor, belt of physical perfection +6, headband (+6 wis, +4 int, cha), cloak of resistance +5, ring of protection +5, fleshwarped scorpion's tail (attached), climb thingy +5, cracked dusty rose prism in wayfinder, cracked opalescent white pyramid (double-chained kama), eyes of the eagle, intimidate thingy +10, longarm bracers, skin of proteus (2 claws, +10 ft. speed, Improved Trip), tome of of understanding +1, use magic device thingy +5, wand of long arm, wand of shield, wand of strong jaw

CLASS AND FEAT PROGRESSION (WIP, retraining required)
1, Warder 1 Combat Reflexes, Dirty Fighting
2, Bloodrager 1 Improved Unarmed Strike
3, Bloodrager 2 Ascetic Style, Improved Dirty Trick
4, Bloodrager 3 Eschew Materials
5, Bloodrager 4 Abomination Shift
6, Monk 1 Fool’s Errand Style, Stunning Fist
7, Formless Master 1 Beasthide Shift, Fool’s Errand Scholar
8, Formless Master 2 (Bloodrager 5) Combat Style Master
9, Formless Master 3 (Bloodrager 6) Greater Trip, Magnitude Shift, Sensory Shift
10, Formless Master 4 (Bloodrager 7) -
11, Bloodrager 8 Greater Dirty Trick
12, Warder 2 -
13, Warder 3 Seize the Opportunity
14, Warder 4 -
15, Warder 5 Quick Dirty Trick
16, Warder 6 -
17, Warder 7 Dirty Trick Master
18, Warder 8 Strongclaw Shift
19, Warder 9 Longstride Shift
20, Warder 10 -
Magic Items Improved Trip (skin of proteus), Weapon Familiarity (double-chained kama, cracked opalescent white pyramid)

ABILITY SCORES (20-point buy)
Str 48 16 base, 2 race, 4 level, 6 belt, 4 unbounded ability, 4 bloodrage, 6 inherent strongclaw shift, 6 size magnitude shift
Dex 12 10 base, 6 belt, -4 size magnitude shift
Con 26 14 base, 2 race, 6 belt, 4 bloodrage
Int 14 10 base, 4 headband
Wis 24 14 base, 2 race, 1 level, 1 tome, 6 headband
Cha 14 10 base, 4 headband

SAVES
Fort +30 8 con, 4 bloodrager, 2 formless master, 2 monk, 7 warder, 5 cloak, 2 blessing
Ref +23 7 wis, 1 bloodrager, 2 formless master, 2 monk, 3 warder, 5 cloak, 2 blessing, 1 haste
Will +27 7 wis, 1 bloodrager, 1 formless master, 2 monk, 7 warder, 2 bloodrage, 5 cloak, 2 blessing

ATTACK AND DAMAGE
Attack Bonuses +38 double-chained kama and unarmed strike / +33 bite, claw, gore, hoof +18 / +13 bab, +19 str, +5 AoMF, +1 haste, -4 size
Iteratives Damage Dice 8d8 double-chained kama / 8d6 unarmed strike 1d6 / 1d4 Medium size -> 2d8 / 2d6 Large size 6th level monk -> 4d8 / 4d6 Gargantuan size -> 8d8 / 8d6 strong jaw
Natural Attacks Damage Dice 6d6 bite / 6d8 claw / 8d6 gore / 4d6 hoof and sting 1d6 / 1d8 / 1d8 / 1d4 Medium size -> 1d8 / 1d10 / 2d6 / 1d6 Large size -> 3d6 / 3d8 / 4d6 / 2d6 Gargantuan size -> 6d6 / 6d8 / 8d6 / 4d6 strong jaw
Damage Bonuses +33 double-chained kama / +24 unarmed strike / +14 bite, claw, gore, hoof +28 / +19 / +9 str, +5 AoMF

CMB
Base CMB +50 +18 bab, +19 str, +2 dusty rose, +6 abomination shift, +4 size, +1 haste
AoMF CMB +65 double-chained kama and unarmed strike / +60 bite, claw, gore, hoof +50 as above, 0 / -5 bab, +5 AoMF, +10 dueling weapon
Dirty Trick and Trip CMB +69 double-chained kama and unarmed strike / +64 bite, claw, gore, hoof +65 / +60 as above, 4 feats

CMD
Base CMD 66 10 +18 bab, +19 str, +1 dex, +2 dusty rose, +5 deflection, +1 dodge, +2 sacred, +6 abomination shift, +4 size, -2 rage
AoMF CMD 81 66 as above, +5 AoMF, +10 dueling weapon
Dirty Trick and Trip CMD 83 79 as above, 2 feats

Grasp DC 39 12 base, +8 half IL, +19 str

The basic mechanical concept is really simple: I just looked at what Fool’s Errand Style (and Lesson VI: Supremacy) does and thought that since grasp DCs are unaffected by the BAB of replaced attacks, having a ton of rather crappy attacks to spam grasps, on top of a few really good and far-reaching ones for dirty trick shenanigans would probably work nice. And then I simply tried to pack as much melee reach, defenses, senses and attacks as I could find into the build, using Ascetic Style and a double-chained kama to save up on items and get all those sweet dirty tricks out far beyond enemy frontlines, without compromising action economy. Not in order to deal damage of course (Duhrtie doesn't even have Power Attack, though her size and many attacks made her pretty good at that anyways), but in order to do true battlefield control and mass debuffing for tank/defender purposes.

I also completely ignored strikes and went mostly for counters, freeing up her own turns for full attacks or focused defense made of pure dirty trick, trip and AoO grasp mayhem. Frankly, I don't think I've ever seen a larger "zone of nope" or a more effective "roadblock" than Duhrty, especially against opponents which could get tripped and allow her to set off her chains of dirty tricks and grasps. At 20th, as shown above, she probably wouldn't have any problems keeping a whole family of tarrasques in check and unable to do anything!

(As a side note, the current bad wording of Primal Warrior Stance could've increased her weapon reach by at least another 10 ft., but since I believe that to be up for errata I went for more a more modest reach increase and natural attacks via Furyhorn instead.)

Let me know what you think!

Forrestfire

2016-06-21, 11:59 PM

Okay so, I will get to your post and addressing each point in turn tomorrow or the next day, I have a larger update in the works for this discipline, but tonight I wanted to drop in the following three changes, since they're important balance tweaks:

Moment of mastery now no longer has a clause allowing you to negate their attacks against others if they're in your reach; it can only halt attacks against you (they can just attack someone else if they want).
Assert existence has had its reminder text about how immunities work removed, and now has a clause requiring you to use it before making a saving throw against an effect.
Utter commitment's attack is now an unarmed strike, reducing its overall damage and potential burst from critical hits (though it's still open to anyone to use).

upho

2016-06-22, 09:05 AM

Okay so, I will get to your post and addressing each point in turn tomorrow or the next day, I have a larger update in the works for this discipline,Cool. Perhaps some of my points will also be addressed by the update anyways.

but tonight I wanted to drop in the following three changes, since they're important balance tweaks:

Moment of mastery now no longer has a clause allowing you to negate their attacks against others if they're in your reach; it can only halt attacks against you (they can just attack someone else if they want).
Assert existence has had its reminder text about how immunities work removed, and now has a clause requiring you to use it before making a saving throw against an effect.
Utter commitment's attack is now an unarmed strike, reducing its overall damage and potential burst from critical hits (though it's still open to anyone to use).
Aight. My spontaneous thoughts are:
Moment of mastery better, but still very powerful (considering the attacker would have to make a successful Knowledge (martial) check after the first attack is blocked - or more often simply "waste" at least its two best attacks on you - to have some idea of what you're doing and go for easier targets instead).
Assert existence much better. It's still strong, but the gamble keeps it more in line with other great counters of the same level.
Utter commitment though I guess this will reduce the average damage done by most builds using it, I don't think it'll do much to limit the maximum damage possible, since AFAIK at least the non-crit maximum would be treated as an unarmed strike anyways (see below). But I might be wrong.

In short: A monk-based build can have a 24d8 unarmed strike damage die, at least 3 x crit damage and a damage bonus equal or near equal to that of a typical two-handed weapon wielder, totalling almost 560 points of average damage on a normal hit when using Utter Commitment. Without Vital Strike, can you actually get a weapon that isn't treated as an unarmed strike to have a damage die larger than 24d8? Can you get a higher total average damage on a normal hit with Utter Commitment when using weapon that isn't treated as an unarmed strike?

In detail: I'm thinking something like a mounted build of Huge size charging in Battle Dragon's Stance, wielding a sansetsukon or seven-branched sword boosted by monk unarmed strike damage and strong jaw via Ascetic Style, using Horn of the Criosphinx, Spirited Charge and Power Attack. Assuming a Str 48/initiation stat 30 monk 11/formless master 4/full bab initiator 5 and Practiced Initiator (for IL 14) plus a monk's robe, this would result in 2 x (24d8 + 38 Str + 15 Power Attack + 5 enhancement + 13.5 stance + 98 maneuver bonus (7 x 14 IL) + other stuff like brawling armor etc), ie an average of at least 559 points, or 1118 points (4 times the base damage) on a crit with a seven-branched sword.)

EDIT I may have been in error when doubling the 13.5 stance bonus. /EDIT

ATalsen

2016-06-22, 11:18 AM

Utter commitment's attack is now an unarmed strike, reducing its overall damage and potential burst from critical hits (though it's still open to anyone to use).

While I don’t think its inappropriate to make it an unarmed strike, I'm always a big fan of striking at the root of the issue instead of building around it, so if the reason for the change is just critting, I’d allow the use of any weapon/attack/unarmed strike and just say the strike damage is not multiplied on a crit.

The other changes seem fine to me. :)

ATalsen

2016-06-22, 11:35 AM

ie an average of at least 363 points, or 726 points (4 times the base damage) on a crit with a seven-branched sword.

I kind of follow that, but I'm not really seeing anything in there that uses or relies on Fools Errand to get 'big damage'.

Maybe I'm missing the point, but it seems like if you get that damage level without using Fools Errand, and Utter Commitment is just potential 'icing on the cake', then Utter Commitment isn't the issue, right?

Totally personal opinion on my part, but a 20th level build is not useful to me in evaluating things - Most games don’t go there, and when they do, 300 to 700 points of damage doesn’t seem like it would disrupt that kind of game much. What I would find useful is a few intermediate build points, like a 5th level, 10th level and 15th level evaluations. Then you can see trends and quick ‘snapshots’ of what a PC might be, so as to compare it to other PCs of that same level – levels that are more commonly used in more campaigns than just a 20th level build.

Also while a full write up is good to check math and build, a “TLDR” brief summary of the main point of the build (or the major way it deals damage) would be really useful to me and any other casual readers.

upho

2016-06-22, 01:17 PM

I kind of follow that, but I'm not really seeing anything in there that uses or relies on Fools Errand to get 'big damage'.

Maybe I'm missing the point, but it seems like if you get that damage level without using Fools Errand, and Utter Commitment is just potential 'icing on the cake', then Utter Commitment isn't the issue, right?The general issue is that AFAIK nothing else lets you deal that kind of damage as a swift action. And the damage bonus from the maneuver itself is considerable: 7 x IL - that's up to +140 damage, or +280 with Spirited Charge! But what I questioned was the decision to limit Utter Commitment to unarmed strike in order to tone down the maximum damage potential, since I believe nothing in the game can deal as much damage on a single normal hit as an unarmed strike can anyways. (Or a weapon which is augmented and used as if it was an unarmed strike, to be precise.) So I think the unarmed strike limit does very little in that regard.

I believe the primary factors behind the great damage potential of unarmed strikes are:
Ascetic Style, allowing you to augment a monk weapon as an unarmed strike
Monk unarmed strike damage progression, increasing the most damaging monk weapons' 1d10 (Medium size) base damage die, rather than the normal unarmed strike's 1d4 base damage die
The spell strong jaw, which increases the damage die of a natural weapon with two "virtual" size increases, and applies to a monk's unarmed strike by courtesy of being treated as both a manufactured weapon and a natural weapon
Horn of the Criosphinx, which increases the Str bonus of unarmed strikes to x 2 when made by a charging monk (and thus also increases the Power Attack bonus to that of a two-handed weapon, ie attack penalty x3)

Horn of the Criosphinx also applies to normal two-handed weapon charge attacks, and there are several other bonuses at least more easily accessible to wielders of normal two-handed weapons, of course. But AFAIK, none of those bonuses match that of the damage die increases which a weapon treated as an unarmed strike may have.

Totally personal opinion on my part, but a 20th level build is not useful to me in evaluating things - Most games don’t go there, and when they do, 300 to 700 points of damage doesn’t seem like it would disrupt that kind of game much. What I would find useful is a few intermediate build points, like a 5th level, 10th level and 15th level evaluations. Then you can see trends and quick ‘snapshots’ of what a PC might be, so as to compare it to other PCs of that same level – levels that are more commonly used in more campaigns than just a 20th level build.Sure, but I didn't find that kind of work to be needed in this case, as I believe that what I'm talking about is hardly obscure knowledge, at least to the experienced players reading this thread. I also think most readers are fully capable of extrapolating what the approximate damage output of a build of the type I used in the example would be at lower levels, for example at 13th when the maneuver would be first made available to a full initiator.

Also while a full write up is good to check math and build, a “TLDR” brief summary of the main point of the build (or the major way it deals damage) would be really useful to me and any other casual readers.Sorry 'bout that, I was sloppy. I've edited my post to hopefully make things a little less confusing. And I've included the bonus damage granted by the maneuver itself, which I somehow forgot about.

Forrestfire

2016-06-22, 01:51 PM

Okay, so! I seem to have caused a misunderstanding with my comment about crits. I meant to say that unarmed strikes in general tend to do less critfishing stuff, and limiting the weapon is just another thing tweaking the numbers down. In Path of War, there's an important rule: maneuver bonus damage is not multiplied on critical hits. Not even when it's flat damage. Crits are only multiplying the base damage, ever.

While I don’t think its inappropriate to make it an unarmed strike, I'm always a big fan of striking at the root of the issue instead of building around it, so if the reason for the change is just critting, I’d allow the use of any weapon/attack/unarmed strike and just say the strike damage is not multiplied on a crit.

The other changes seem fine to me. :)

The strike damage isn't multiplied on a crit; it's just that the unarmed strike change is a compromise to lower the general expected numbers (but not your full-investment numbers as much) without killing the scaling of thr strike.

Cool. Perhaps some of my points will also be addressed by the update anyways.

Aight. My spontaneous thoughts are:
Moment of mastery better, but still very powerful (considering the attacker would have to make a successful Knowledge (martial) check after the first attack is blocked - or more often simply "waste" at least its two best attacks on you - to have some idea of what you're doing and go for easier targets instead).
Assert existence much better. It's still strong, but the gamble keeps it more in line with other great counters of the same level.
Utter commitment though I guess this will reduce the average damage done by most builds using it, I don't think it'll do much to limit the maximum damage possible, since AFAIK at least the non-crit maximum would be treated as an unarmed strike anyways (see below). But I might be wrong.

In short: A monk-based build can have a 24d8 unarmed strike damage die, at least 3 x crit damage and a damage bonus equal or near equal to that of a typical two-handed weapon wielder, totalling almost 560 points of average damage on a normal hit when using Utter Commitment. Without Vital Strike, can you actually get a weapon that isn't treated as an unarmed strike to have a damage die larger than 24d8? Can you get a higher total average damage on a normal hit with Utter Commitment when using weapon that isn't treated as an unarmed strike?

In detail: I'm thinking something like a mounted build of Huge size charging in Battle Dragon's Stance, wielding a sansetsukon or seven-branched sword boosted by monk unarmed strike damage and strong jaw via Ascetic Style, using Horn of the Criosphinx, Spirited Charge and Power Attack. Assuming a Str 48/initiation stat 30 monk 11/formless master 4/full bab initiator 5 and Practiced Initiator (for IL 14) plus a monk's robe, this would result in 2 x (24d8 + 38 Str + 15 Power Attack + 5 enhancement + 13.5 stance + 98 maneuver bonus (7 x 14 IL) + other stuff like brawling armor etc), ie an average of at least 559 points, or 1118 points (4 times the base damage) on a crit with a seven-branched sword.)

EDIT I may have been in error when doubling the 13.5 stance bonus. /EDIT

The general issue is that AFAIK nothing else lets you deal that kind of damage as a swift action. And the damage bonus from the maneuver itself is considerable: 7 x IL - that's up to +140 damage, or +280 with Spirited Charge! But what I questioned was the decision to limit Utter Commitment to unarmed strike in order to tone down the maximum damage potential, since I believe nothing in the game can deal as much damage on a single normal hit as an unarmed strike can anyways. (Or a weapon which is augmented and used as if it was an unarmed strike, to be precise.) So I think the unarmed strike limit does very little in that regard.

I believe the primary factors behind the great damage potential of unarmed strikes are:
Ascetic Style, allowing you to augment a monk weapon as an unarmed strike
Monk unarmed strike damage progression, increasing the most damaging monk weapons' 1d10 (Medium size) base damage die, rather than the normal unarmed strike's 1d4 base damage die
The spell strong jaw, which increases the damage die of a natural weapon with two "virtual" size increases, and applies to a monk's unarmed strike by courtesy of being treated as both a manufactured weapon and a natural weapon
Horn of the Criosphinx, which increases the Str bonus of unarmed strikes to x 2 when made by a charging monk (and thus also increases the Power Attack bonus to that of a two-handed weapon, ie attack penalty x3)

Horn of the Criosphinx also applies to normal two-handed weapon charge attacks, and there are several other bonuses at least more easily accessible to wielders of normal two-handed weapons, of course. But AFAIK, none of those bonuses match that of the damage die increases which a weapon treated as an unarmed strike may have.

Sure, but I didn't find that kind of work to be needed in this case, as I believe that what I'm talking about is hardly obscure knowledge, at least to the experienced players reading this thread. I also think most readers are fully capable of extrapolating what the approximate damage output of a build of the type I used in the example would be at lower levels, for example at 13th when the maneuver would be first made available to a full initiator.

Sorry 'bout that, I was sloppy. I've edited my post to hopefully make things a little less confusing. And I've included the bonus damage granted by the maneuver itself, which I somehow forgot about.

There are a lot of problems here. firstly:

Ascetic Style does nothing with Fool's Errand; there is a specific note in the section on unarmed strikes for exactly this reason: "A character cannot substitute other weapons for the additional unarmed strikes granted by Fool’s Errand maneuvers, even if they have an ability that would normally allow them to use a weapon as if it were an unarmed strike."
Strong Jaw or Horn of the Criosphinx is definitely good, but you can't charge and get the benefits of the feat on a strike. Even with Martial Charge, you're making the strike in place of your attack at the end of the charge, and as such are not meeting the requirements for its benefits.
As noted, maneuver damage does not crit. Just the base damage.
Finally, and importantly, Spirited Charge does not interact with maneuvers, ever. Per Path of War: Expanded: "When a character initiates a martial strike or boost during a mounted charge attack, the initiation of the maneuver overrides any damage bonuses that would be gained while performing this action (such as by the Spirited Charge feat or while wielding a lance), and the initiator deals damage as if they were not charging (the effects of the strike or boost are applied to the attack as normal)."

The change from any weapon to just unarmed strikes is intended to lower the expected damage for most users, but still allow you to get more damage if you're fully invested in unarmed strikes. However, its damage is still not as high as you're making it out to be, and it's probably doing less than full attacks overall, as a result of the above factors and limitations.

Vhaidara

2016-06-22, 04:38 PM

So, finally got a chance to actually start building a Fool's Errand character, and the mobility is going to be wonderful. Combining it with Sanguinist Medic and I'm able to dance all over the battlefield leeching blood from my foes and shoving it back in my allies. It's as much fun as I'd expected it to be.

Forrestfire

2016-06-22, 04:52 PM

Okay, so now that I've got some time for this, I've got a couple things. First, the promised response to your larger post, Upho:

Been lurking here occasionally during the last few weeks to see how things are shaping up, and now that I've been trying out some of Forrestfire's new shiny toys a bit, I thought it's about time I joined the discussion.

First, I must say I'm impressed with the work so far. Not to mention very grateful, 'cause this seems to be heading towards precisely the kind of serious martial control/debuff I've always wanted more of in PoW (and PF in general), a craving which unfortunately hasn't really been satisfied by previous releases. So here's one big e-cookie of appreciation from me to you, Forrestfire, and my thanks to everyone helping out!

Glad to hear you like the discipline.

Some nitpicks/questions/opinions/wishes:

1. Grasp says "...even though they do not require an attack roll, they are treated as attacks for the purposes of targeting, line of effect, and miss chances". I take it this does not mean that a successful grasp attempt is also treated as a successful melee attack hit, correct? (Although I believe for example Lesson VI: Supremacy and Fool’s Errand Style would be much more fun if I was wrong, especially when combined... :smalltongue:)

Correct; grasps are not attacks and are not treated as attack hits. I've slightly tweaked the wording on it to be clearer.

2. The grasp DC is too low. Or rather, it's very difficult to have a grasp focus pay off (except maybe for a harbinger), since there are very few ways to increase the DC. I'd like to see some option which allows you to add at least your initiator modifier to the DC against saves made by creatures trying to get free. As is, if you focus very hard on Str and pump the DC, the difference between for example a dragon's normal Ref save and when boosted by its Str otherwise makes grasps feel like a very binary business in higher levels - a colossal dragon is bound to get grasped, but it's also bound to get free as soon as it tries to move.

In a way, that's an intended result; if you're fighting colossal things, you can pump your DC quite high, but they're going to be able to escape once their turn comes around (after you've already dragged them somewhere, likely). Against smaller things, you'll often find the DC is quite good already.

3. Moment of Mastery easily negates an entire full attack. Isn't this a bit much, considering what other 5th level counters are typically capable of?

Already addressed this one; it got nerfed significantly. Still good, but not nearly as good.

4. To the Skies says (my emphasis) "You may follow one of the launched creatures into the air and immediately attack them...". Does this mean you're limited to attack only one of the critters you're "elevating", or all of those you may reach while tagging along? I've assumed the latter, but a clarification might be good.

It only allows you to attack one of them. I've slightly tweaked the wording.

5. Non-optional CMB replacements are annoying IMO, as these will actually nerf many (most?) Str-based builds and reduce the value and flavor of related CMB investments as well as the martial maneuvers in question. The effect will often be detrimental even to builds which haven't made any feat or item investments in any specific combat maneuver, but try to max their Climb skill (which they'll have good reasons for doing anyways because of other tasty Fool's Errand stuff). Is it possible to change these replacements into being optional, using language similar to that of Lesson I: Balance also in maneuvers such as Whirlwind Sweep?

While the skill check replacement is probably helpful to most during earlier levels, most skills can easily be surpassed by CMB in later levels. Especially with DSP material, ending up with a trip CMB above +55 is trivial, while keeping your Climb skill on par is often impossible.

For example, my test build "Duhrtie" (below) has a very respectable Climb bonus of +59, her best skill by far. That high value required not only an exceptional Str and a specific item, but also a very rare and massive +12 untyped bonus from no less than six shifting feats. And yet, her trip CMB is +69, can easily get above +75 with a few rather cheap items, and would've been +65 even without a single trip-specific investment. Quite a difference, and much more so for builds without access to similar hefty Climb bonuses.

That's a general part of Path of War's skill check maneuvers; they replace it to give us a more predictible number and force you to invest in the skill to be good at them. The full replacement of CMB for them is intended, as a result. The hefty climb bonuses are a feat away thanks to Bloodforge, however.

6. More "anti-magic" and utility, less "anti-martial" and combat would be nice IMO. This may be outside the scope of Fool's Errand, but I surely wouldn't mind seeing some more reliable ways to counter magic, especially of the kind which completely invalidates much of the core mechanics (such as grasp and freedom of movement in this case). I think Make Them Humble is a good start, but since AFAICT the dispel cannot be boosted beyond IL, it's bound to become a "mooks only" kind of maneuver in higher levels. Just an idea off the top of my head would be an option which automatically negates FoM etc., but only for the purpose of grasp attempts and only for a very limited time.

It's a bit outside the scope of Fool's Errand. They have their anti-attack counter, and they've got make them humble (as a necessary counter to their hard counter) and assert existence at high levels, but overall, the discipline is nonmagical and its interactions with magic are limited as a result. There also was not enough room for everything that could have been in the discipline, sadly, so we ended up with the focuses we have now.

7. More options for grasp, allowing for more specialization, expanded applicability and better action economy would be awesome. Stuff like Tornado Slam and To the Skies are great fun and very flavorful, but I when building my test build and trying it out, I kept wishing for more options with significant combo effects and compatibility also with stuff outside of Fool's Errand (unless I was simply too blind to see the obvious, of course). I can think of a few ways to expand the core mechanic, such as allowing for easy repositioning of grasped enemies within your reach. And many interesting options with which to better combine grasp with combat maneuvers and other movement related stuff (like demoralization into frightened or panicked conditions), or class features such as the warder's mark or the harbinger's claim. Or teamwork feats allowing for both "friendly grasping" to get allies into better positions and "co-grasping" of enemies for more severe effects (such as making the enemy flat-footed, removing trip immunity, significantly increase concentration DC for casting defensively, higher grasp DCs etc). But I guess you're also seeing this and more, most importantly that the limited number of letters which can fit into this type of publication means such stuff will have to wait?

And on that note, there's just not enough space in the release plans to have as much expansions as we might like. However, if you scroll to the bottom of the Fool's Errand document, you'll find two new archetypes, which are pretty much the final additions to the Fool's Errand playtest.

Here's my test build (with a name made of bad puns even cheesier than her half-elephant, half-angel race), brought up to 20th and cleansed from house rules. She made heavy use of her shifting feats from Lords of the Wild, but it was her Fool's Errand and dirty trick shenanigans that had the three of us playing laughing out loud several times. Not because her tricks were silly, but because they were not just effective but also so damn cool. (And of course, some Fool's Errand moves just begged to get Kung Fu Hustle-d (https://youtu.be/Wu7ep5NzSrs?t=4492) in this not very serious one-off game, like a full attack totally wrecking four grasped cloud giant fighters during an over-the-top insane round of To the Skies that simply had to be acted out like a slo-mo movie scene, naturally accompanied by appropriately epic music (https://youtu.be/3GjNX7jcLK0?t=91). Hillarious and awesome. :smallbiggrin:)

-snip-

This is quite neat. I'm liking how the end result is a strong zone of control and hilarious action scenes. I'd be interested in seeing the build at more realistic benchmarks for levels, personally (5, 10, 15, etc), since level 20 theorycrafting, while useful in some cases and very cool to see, isn't very indicative of how something plays at the levels the game is mostly played at.

So, finally got a chance to actually start building a Fool's Errand character, and the mobility is going to be wonderful. Combining it with Sanguinist Medic and I'm able to dance all over the battlefield leeching blood from my foes and shoving it back in my allies. It's as much fun as I'd expected it to be.

I'm glad you're liking it. I'd love to hear how that goes.

NOW THEN. I've got a large update for Fool's Errand. Specifically, two brand-new archetypes, the Contender brawler (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jWw7bVMARxrXfRuOW20NlRqXEnS_XGLPT6LHTbz2qME/edit#heading=h.fadmo67jlajv) and the Night Terror vigilante (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jWw7bVMARxrXfRuOW20NlRqXEnS_XGLPT6LHTbz2qME/edit#heading=h.dxs5ebrukytt), have been added to the end of the doc.

This pair of archetypes represents two different takes on initiators that are partially based in Fool's Errand and grasp, incorporating the mechanics and thematics into their class features, similar to the Bushi and Mithral Current (they can each also be played without Fool's Errand, don't worry). Hope you enjoy :smallsmile:

AoiEMT

2016-06-22, 05:48 PM

... the Contender brawler (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jWw7bVMARxrXfRuOW20NlRqXEnS_XGLPT6LHTbz2qME/edit#heading=h.fadmo67jlajv) and the Night Terror vigilante (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jWw7bVMARxrXfRuOW20NlRqXEnS_XGLPT6LHTbz2qME/edit#heading=h.dxs5ebrukytt), have been added to the end of the doc.

I have been itching for a Brawler archetype for so long!

What is the best way I can help you test this out? My home game has fairly set characters so it's unlikely I'll be able to enter a Contender in there.

upho

2016-06-22, 09:08 PM

MilleniaAntares

2016-06-23, 01:08 AM

I like the archetypes Forrest!

My main criticism is that some aspects are too awesome to keep to just one particular archetype, though that's more borne of my desire to get all the things on one class.

Ok. Seems I have some huge gaps in my rules-fu... I'd be very grateful if you could answer a few questions to help me fill those gaps:
Do you gain a +2 bonus to hit with the attack granted by the strike initiated via Martial Charge?
Do you take a -2 penalty to AC until the end of your next turn after using Martial Charge?
Do you gain the bonus and/or penalty when you replace the melee attack at the end of a charge with a combat maneuver such as disarm, sunder or trip?
Does Horn of the Criosphinx apply to any attack(s) made as part of a pounce? (And if so, which ones?)
Does Horn of the Criosphinx apply to a sunder attempt made at the end of a charge?
Does Horn of the Criosphinx apply to the melee attack made using the Hurling Charge (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/barbarian/rage-powers/paizo---rage-powers/hurling-charge-ex) rage power?

Completely forgot about this. And I shouldn't have included crit damage or Spirited Charge damage anyways, since those factors were besides the point. Heh, guess you can tell I don't often need to address these kinds of strike related questions in my game... :smallredface:
I'm no DSP person but...

1) Yes.
2) Yes.
3) Yes.
4) From what I've heard regarding rulings involving the lance charge, only the first charge attack benefits from such abilities.
5) Yes.
6) Yes.

It may be best to have Paizo-only questions moved to another thread.

upho

2016-06-23, 01:20 AM

I'm no DSP person but...The more the merrier! :smalltongue:

1) Yes.
2) Yes.
3) Yes.
4) From what I've heard regarding rulings involving the lance charge, only the first charge attack benefits from such abilities.
5) Yes.
6) Yes.Thanks!

It may be best to have Paizo-only questions moved to another thread.Sorry 'bout those, but I believe they're potentially also highly relevant when talking about PoW stuff.

MilleniaAntares

2016-06-24, 01:03 AM

To give a slightly better sort of feedback, the Stay Put Vigilante talent is really good. Really good. Not in the overpowered sense, but I want it so bad, but I cannot imagine having many games in which I could actually use a vigilante.

A version of Stay Put as a Fool's Errand/Tempest Gale feat (similar to Quicksilver Grip and Vortex Rush) would be really nice (especially if it works at a modest range), though I do understand that you can't just keep on adding content!

Taveena

2016-06-24, 01:59 AM

Is DSP doing an internal playtest with these new rules? If so, can I suggest you 'stress test' the grasp rules using very small with very large creatures?

I love the idea that a human (medium size) can drag around a huge dragon, but it seems to get a bit silly to start thinking that a Grig (tiny size) could do the same thing. I think all the (movement related) Combat Maneuvers specify 'within one size category larger' for this reason.

Maybe just the 'drag' portion can be limited to creatures no more than 2 size categories larger?

That still allows the stopping/controlling of grab, but not the hauling around.

It is worth keeping in mind, if this breaks your suspension of disbelief too much, that Grasp can take a lot of forms of area denial. Maybe the Grig isn't dragging the dragon around so much as stabbing it in the shins every time it tries to take a step away from the grig.

khadgar567

2016-06-24, 02:07 AM

upho

2016-06-24, 08:45 AM

Oooh! New toys! Don't know enough 'bout vigilantes to really have a valid opinion, but the brawler sure looks mighty fine. I'll be back once I've played around a bit...

Correct; grasps are not attacks and are not treated as attack hits. I've slightly tweaked the wording on it to be clearer.Looks good and a lot more foolproof! :smalltongue:

In a way, that's an intended result; if you're fighting colossal things, you can pump your DC quite high, but they're going to be able to escape once their turn comes around (after you've already dragged them somewhere, likely). Against smaller things, you'll often find the DC is quite good already.Aight. Guess I'll survive, but let's just say that if you ever find the space in this or another release to include some class independent short-time booster, preferably against the save when the enemy tries to move, it would make me happy.

...and you might just get a bonus cookie!

It only allows you to attack one of them. I've slightly tweaked the wording.Looks foolproof now as well. Though I liked the hilariousness of the option to attack and knock them all prone, this seems better balanced. Still an awesome kung fu stunt...

That's a general part of Path of War's skill check maneuvers; they replace it to give us a more predictible number and force you to invest in the skill to be good at them. The full replacement of CMB for them is intended, as a result. The hefty climb bonuses are a feat away thanks to Bloodforge, however.Well, I guess the reason this one stands out to me is because it's the first Str-based discipline skill. When it comes to the other disciplines, the replacement makes a lot more sense, giving initiators a decent chance to succeed by boosting their discipline skill and related stat instead of being limited by Str. In the case of Fool's Errand, it seems you'd want to boost both your Str and your Climb skill regardless.

That said, I understand and agree that the better predictability of the skill value is a good thing, so I'll let this one rest.

What's the size of and nature of the Climb bonus from Bloodforge btw (don't have the book yet)?

It's a bit outside the scope of Fool's Errand. They have their anti-attack counter, and they've got make them humble (as a necessary counter to their hard counter) and assert existence at high levels, but overall, the discipline is nonmagical and its interactions with magic are limited as a result. There also was not enough room for everything that could have been in the discipline, sadly, so we ended up with the focuses we have now.I sorta suspected as much, and I think the scope of the discipline is a good reason not to get much deeper into "anti-magic" stuff, especially since I find at least two of the existing related maneuvers really good.

But my general wishes aside, what I fear here is the likely increasing proportion of enemies being flat out immune to grasp the further up the levels you go. Having seen more than once the value of grapple being gutted in higher levels due to FoM, I'd really recommend adding some option with which to more reliably counter FoM also in higher levels. I think Make Them Humble is good enough during most mid levels, considering the relatively few higher CL enemies with FoM you're likely to face. But somewhere around level 12 or so, you start needing a dispel check value you can actually boost above your level if you want to be able to retain the value of grasp related stuff. I'd prefer a boost which actually require you to make investments, along the lines of the barb's spell sunder. For the sake of simplicity and saving up on space, how about just adding something like the following to Make Them Humble:

"Make a dispel check (DC 11 + the effect’s caster level or manifester level) against the effect, using your initiator level +1 for every three ranks you have in the Climb skill as your caster level."

And on that note, there's just not enough space in the release plans to have as much expansions as we might like. However, if you scroll to the bottom of the Fool's Errand document, you'll find two new archetypes, which are pretty much the final additions to the Fool's Errand playtest.I figured as much. On a brighter note, if the brawler archetype proves to be as awesome as my first glance has led me to believe, I'm happy anyways!

This is quite neat. I'm liking how the end result is a strong zone of control and hilarious action scenes.Glad you like her! Duhrtie was a truly great "control tank". And take it as a well-deserved compliment that a large majority of the hilarious action scenes were "produced" by Fool's Errand.

I'd be interested in seeing the build at more realistic benchmarks for levels, personally (5, 10, 15, etc), since level 20 theorycrafting, while useful in some cases and very cool to see, isn't very indicative of how something plays at the levels the game is mostly played at.I agree a lower level build would've been better to put up here. The problem was that the 14th level game Duhrtie was originally made for used house rules which reduce combat feat taxes rather significantly. So when realizing I wouldn't be able to replicate that build without increasing the level to at least 18th or introduce less appropriate class dips, I simply maxed her instead.

But I certainly think I can put together a much lower level "control tank" according to the same mechanical principles and a similar DT, grasp, reach and Fool's Errand combo focus. I'll give it a go once I've been able to play around with the new stuff you brought. Especially that brawler which seemed to be compatible with the Shield Champion archetype... Hmm, is that some fantastic cheese I smell? :smallbiggrin:

Now regarding Horn of the Criosphinx and Martial Charge:

Strong Jaw or Horn of the Criosphinx is definitely good, but you can't charge and get the benefits of the feat on a strike. Even with Martial Charge, you're making the strike in place of your attack at the end of the charge, and as such are not meeting the requirements for its benefits.Ok. Seems I have some huge gaps in my rules-fu... I'd be very grateful if you could answer a few questions to help me fill those gaps:
Do you gain a +2 bonus to hit with the attack granted by the strike initiated via Martial Charge?
Do you take a -2 penalty to AC until the end of your next turn after using Martial Charge?
Do you gain the bonus and/or penalty when you replace the melee attack at the end of a charge with a combat maneuver such as disarm, sunder or trip?
Does Horn of the Criosphinx apply to any attack(s) made as part of a pounce? (And if so, which ones?)
Does Horn of the Criosphinx apply to a sunder attempt made at the end of a charge?
Does Horn of the Criosphinx apply to the melee attack made using the Hurling Charge (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/barbarian/rage-powers/paizo---rage-powers/hurling-charge-ex) rage power?

I'd give exactly the same answers as Millenia did to the above questions, ie "Yes" to all of them. And AFAICT, that certainly is not compatible with what Forrestfire is saying regarding a charge using Martial Charge not meeting the requirements HotCS, but it does seem to be very much what the RAW says.

Could Forrestfire or someone please help me out here?

Doc_Maynot

2016-06-24, 09:21 AM

Actually... Are we ignoring the rules about a strike and crits here? Extra damage from a strike already doesn't multiply on a crit.

A strike is a maneuver that allows a special attack. A martial disciple who slays a wyvern in a single blow is using a strike. A strike imparts some bonus or advantage over a standard attack, such as extra damage, or an additional effect such as blinding a foe.

Strikes almost always require a standard or full- round action. Most involve a melee or ranged attack as part of completing the maneuver. If the attack hits, your opponent takes normal melee or ranged damage, as well as suffering the effect of the strike. When making a strike, you use your base attack bonus, all attack and damage modifiers, weapon damage, and so forth, as normal. 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).

Because strikes require a specific form of attack, you cannot benefit from spells or effects that grant extra attacks when making a strike (such as the haste spell or a speed weapon). You are not taking a full attack action when you initiate a strike whose initiation action is 1 full round, unless otherwise specified in the description. Also, you cannot combine special attacks such as disarm or sunder with strikes, unless stated otherwise in the maneuver's description.

And about the Martial Charge thing, the wording "If the attack hits, your opponent takes normal melee or ranged damage, as well as suffering the effect of the strike." could be taken either way. But how I read it as is "any modifiers to your damage proceed as normal"

ATalsen

2016-06-24, 12:59 PM

It is worth keeping in mind, if this breaks your suspension of disbelief too much, that Grasp can take a lot of forms of area denial. Maybe the Grig isn't dragging the dragon around so much as stabbing it in the shins every time it tries to take a step away from the grig.

I appreciate the example, and it makes enough sense in that context that its fine. I just know that there will be times in play that situations will come up that don't present as convenient an explanation, or where the people at the game just can't spontaneously come up with an explanation that fits fluff to rules and will be kind of jarring.

However, I'm one to roll with mechanics over fluff anyway, and I'm the main DM for my group, so when this comes into play, I'll know ahead of time if any PC (or NPC) is planning to make use of it, and can pre-design some fluff if needed.

Forrestfire made sense with the explanation that the goal was to support "mighty-mite" concepts, and this mechanic fits that design goal, so ultimately I personally am fine with it. :)

---

do not multiply extra damage from a strike when calculating the critical hit damage

When Forrestfire initially pointed this out I checked POW1 and saw it is indeed as Doc_Maynot posts above: strike damage doesn’t multiply.

I just wanted to point out that this text is *specifically* under Strikes ONLY and not under Boosts, Counters, or Stances. This leaves multiplication of extra damage from those sources up for debate, and as such maybe a subject to cover in the upcoming errata?

upho

2016-06-24, 03:51 PM

Actually... Are we ignoring the rules about a strike and crits here? Extra damage from a strike already doesn't multiply on a crit.Upho the Dead Horse (has just barely managed to get a pair of pants on): "Ouch! Hey! Stop kicking, pointing and laughing goddammit! Yes, yes, very funny guys... I know I forgot to put my pants on before. But they're on now, see?" (pulls pants up demonstratively) "So can we please stop reminding people and talking about it in front of those who thankfully missed me showing off my naked incompetence?"

IOW: I feel my embarrassingly poor attention to this detail has already been on display more than enough, starting with:
Okay, so! I seem to have caused a misunderstanding with my comment about crits. I meant to say that unarmed strikes in general tend to do less critfishing stuff, and limiting the weapon is just another thing tweaking the numbers down. In Path of War, there's an important rule: maneuver bonus damage is not multiplied on critical hits. Not even when it's flat damage. Crits are only multiplying the base damage, ever.And then I had to admit that I'd been wrong. And sloppy. And stupid and ugly. And that I hadn't made a single crit in my entire life...

Worst is, now *everybody* knows I've been a complete dum-dum walking down the totally lame "Path of Peace" for more than two years! A blind bumbling fool going straight towards Ba Sing Se, where *everybody* knows there's definitely NO war! Like EVAR! All 'cause of my extreme LSM. And now I'll never get to hang out with the cool PoW-PoWEee kids in the Playground again... *sobs* And then... And then... Well okay, you get the picture.

And about the Martial Charge thing, the wording "If the attack hits, your opponent takes normal melee or ranged damage, as well as suffering the effect of the strike." could be taken either way. But how I read it as is "any modifiers to your damage proceed as normal"I agree.

But judging from her reply, my guess is that the issue Forrestfire has with Martial Charge (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/feats#TOC-Martial-Charge-Combat-) and HotCS (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/horn-of-the-criosphinx-combat) is with regards to the action HotCS states it applies to. Basically, that a Martial Charge is not a "charge attack (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat#TOC-Charge)" anymore, since the attack you can normally make at the end of a charge has been replaced by martial strike - a special attack (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat#TOC-Special-Attacks), which comes with its own largely "self-contained" rules and specific action, initiation action type required, etc (just like the special attack charge, btw).

But this is just me speculating. Considering I'm the "Dum-dum in the Playground", I probably just got it all wrong again... :smallsigh:

Doc_Maynot

2016-06-24, 04:06 PM

But this is just me speculating. Considering I'm the "Dum-dum in the Playground", I probably just got it all wrong again... :smallsigh:

Hey, give yourself some credit. You are currently a Barbarian in the Playground. just because you have illiteracy as a class feature doesn't mean you can't have a high int or wis.

But yeah, the replacing the single melee attack (not even an "attack action", which has its own tied up rules) with a strike can lead to some weird rules quandaries. Which is good to address and get designer (and people more versed in RAW-fu and RAI-fu) input back in kind.

upho

2016-06-24, 07:39 PM

Hey, give yourself some credit. You are currently a Barbarian in the Playground. just because you have illiteracy as a class feature doesn't mean you can't have a high int or wis.So that is what it says! I haven't been able to read that for ages! This explains so much - the sudden angry outbursts of miscalculated charge build examples with stupidly high DPR, always followed by exhaustion and then this intense self loathing and pathetic wallowing in misery... Ha! AM BARBARIAN!

Thank you! You seem to be a very kind and enlightened bugbear, not at all like I imagined the product of a horrible wizard's experiment involving giant flesh-eating insects and abyssal teddy bears... :smalltongue:

But yeah, the replacing the single melee attack (not even an "attack action", which has its own tied up rules) with a strike can lead to some weird rules quandaries. Which is good to address and get designer (and people more versed in RAW-fu and RAI-fu) input back in kind.Precisely my thought. Especially since I very much believe most people, myself included, have been taking it for granted that outside of making the attack granted by the strike instead of a normal attack at the end, you follow the normal rules for taking the charge action when using Martial Charge. Meaning most people seem to believe it's still a specific full-round action, you still gain a +2 to the attack(s) granted by the strike used, take a -2 penalty to AC etc. But if the attack granted by the strike used with Martial Charge is not a part of the charge action, then reasonably at the very least none of the "Attacking on a Charge" rules from the CRB would apply, and I'd even say it's highly questionable whether any of the other charge rules applies either (also "because there is no "partial charge" action" according to Paizo).

Sorry if this is a bit messy, I'll try to make it bit less confusing to those who happen to read this and who haven't gathered and made sense of the various spread-out tidbits of info that form the explanations of rather confusing terms like full attack action, special attack and charge action.

Since charge itself is a special attack and a specific full-round action, AFAICT there's nothing which implies that a charge using Martial Charge would somehow require a different action, while there's a lot which at the very least strongly implies such a "Martial Charge charge" remains a charge action.

The terms charge and charge attack are seemingly used interchangeably throughout the rules, including in PoW, both referring to the special attack Charge and the charge action which is taken to make that special attack. AFAICT, this means that HotCS would apply to anything called a charge or charge attack or is otherwise done during the charge action, and which includes any kind of attack which gains the +2 charge bonus and deals two-handed weapon (or monk US) damage at the end. Regardless of whether the attack in question was granted by the normal charge special attack, a combat maneuver replacing it (sunder), a full attack replacing it (pounce), or a strike replacing it (Martial Charge).

To me, this also appears to be the only reasonable way to rule this, as the alternative would involve having to make complicated specific rules detailing whether or not each of every possible form of melee attack that could happen during a charge gains the bonuses and penalties the normal attack at the end of a charge would, and whether these "charged attacks" (pun intended) remain charge actions or something else.

I think the special attack pounce (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/universal-monster-rules#TOC-Pounce-Ex-) should be viewed as a precedent, or at least act as a guideline when solving this. And perhaps interestingly, this is what the Paizo devs have said in the FAQs regarding pounce:

Can a creature with pounce make iterative attacks with weapons as part of my full attack?

Any melee attack sequence you can perform as a full attack is allowed as part of the charge-pounce-full attack. For example, a barbarian with the greater beast totem rage power gains the pounce universal monster ability and could make iterative attacks with manufactured melee weapons as part of her charge-pounce-full attack.

If a creature with pounce is under a slow effect, and it charges, does it still get its full attack from pounce?

According to the rules as written, pounce would allow the creature its full attack, despite the slow effect. (This happens because there is no "partial charge" action.)

Pounce and Haste: If a creature with pounce is under a haste effect, and it charges, does it get the extra attack from haste?
Yes.

Edit 9/9/13: This is a revised ruling about how haste interacts with effects that are essentially a full attack, even though the creature isn't specifically using the full attack action (as required by haste). The earlier ruling implied that pounce did not allow the extra attack from haste because pounce wasn't using the full attack action.
Note in the first FAQ how pounce is described as a "charge-pounce-full attack" to illustrate that the special attack pounce includes all of those attacks simultaneously, how the FAQ on slow confirms that pounce is still a charge action (which includes a pounce special attack and thus in turn a full attack), and how the FAQ on haste clarifies that the action taken when using the pounce special attack is not the full attack action (even though a full attack is included in the charge action).

I think the implications here are pretty obvious, namely that the charge action is the action taken whenever the charge rules are involved, even when the charge includes other elements which normally have their own specific full-round actions. So any attacks (special or not) other than charge which can be made during the charge action consequently no longer have their separate action (if any), but becomes part of the charge action.

Finally, the only exceptions here are strikes which include a charge, since the action taken in order to make the charge will remain the strike's specific action, not a charge action (unless otherwise specified in the strike, of course). As is also the case with full attacks granted by strikes etc.

Feedback much appreciated!

MilleniaAntares

2016-06-24, 08:49 PM

upho

2016-06-25, 02:30 AM

I can't recall the specific post, but one of the devs in the PoW2 thread said that stuff like Ride-By Attack work when making charging maneuvers on a horse, be it a native charging maneuver or a non-charging maneuver used with Martial Charge.Oh yes, I even remember reading about this specifically since I was making my homebrew mounted initiator at the time. Some searching returned this post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19429638&postcount=78) from you and Elric's replies (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19431176&postcount=81) to your questions regarding mounted charge:

Path of War:

Does Ride-by Attack (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/ride-by-attack-combat---final) work with Martial Charge (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/feats#TOC-Martial-Charge-Combat-)?

Does Ride-by Attack work with strikes that call for a charge?

A: Yes, and yes provided that you are mounted when you are making the charge and have the Mounted Maneuver Expertise class ability found on the Hussar and the Omen Rider (I think it's on the Omen Rider, not 100% sure).

Please note that we will be doing some serious work to fix mounted combat/maneuver interaction for Ultimate Path of War, so this answer may change.

Ok, so from this it appears we can conclude you're absolutely right. So almost exactly one year ago, both strikes used with Martial Charge and charges included in strikes definitely were at the very least treated as if they were charge actions (and/or charges/charge attacks) for the purpose of other charge related options (such as Ride-by Attack). Does that seem reasonable?

(Though I doubt it matters, might be worth mentioning that Ride-by Attack actually explicitly says "when you use the charge action", something it seems virtually no charge related options do unless applying specifically to mounted charges. My guess is this is because the Paizo devs want to be extra clear in all rules texts related to mounted charges, as they've been a focus of such lengthy discussions, changing FAQ answers and much errata.)

Thanks a lot Millenia!

Forrestfire

2016-06-26, 09:53 PM

upho

2016-06-27, 12:40 AM

Hmm. At this point, I think that all I can safely say is that Martial Charge is a mess to adjudicate, and already has a bunch of notes marked up on it (some thanks to this discussion) in our internal errata docs (which are definitely happening, and actually having good progress made on, I promise).Calling it "a mess" to adjudicate seems like pretty big understatement... :smallsmile: At least if not going for the most simple and seemingly Paizo-style solution of "anything involving the charge rules is a charge action", which may result in pretty silly damage output in the case of Martial Charge combined with certain strikes and charge boosting feats such as HotCS.

Good to hear you're working on a solution, and I truly appreciate your dedication to finding a good one (so I don't have to in my games). And nice to know this discussion at least gave you a few additional notes to help you out.

On another note though, some discussion in the Paizo.com discussion thread for Fool's Errand has led to a large response and a couple changes to the discipline. The biggest one is that "grasp" has been renamed "lock," and its fluff text and explanations got tweaked a bit. You can read more on why that is here (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2tnlh?Dreamscarred-Press-Path-of-War-Fools-Errand#29).Though I think the meaning of the fluff suggestions in the sidebar remains pretty much exactly the same as I understood the previous, I can see why some might have struggled with translating the abstraction into a suitable in-game description. And the name change also seems like a good idea, differentiating it further from grapple.

In addition, thanks to some useful feedback about the Night Terror vigilante, it’s come to my attention that even though they can use improvised weapons, the fact that magic weapons are necessary to function at later levels means they’re still an awful choice. Their Improvisational Expert ability has been tweaked slightly to allow them to treat improvised weapons as unarmed strikes for amulet of mighty fists and similar items (and only for such items), synergizing well with their unarmed strikes from Fool’s Errand.No weapon enhancements? Ouch! Yeah, I can see why that needed changing. Allowing the AoMF and similar seems like a good solution.

.................

Just in case you missed my earlier feedback and questions (since they're hidden in a spoiler in a post pretty far back by now), I thought I might as well put in a condensed version here:

That's a general part of Path of War's skill check maneuvers; they replace it to give us a more predictible number and force you to invest in the skill to be good at them. The full replacement of CMB for them is intended, as a result. The hefty climb bonuses are a feat away thanks to Bloodforge, however.Well, I guess the reason this one stands out to me is because it's the first Str-based discipline skill. When it comes to the other disciplines, the replacement makes a lot more sense, giving initiators a decent chance to succeed by boosting their discipline skill and related stat instead of being limited by Str. In the case of Fool's Errand, it seems you'd want to boost both your Str and your Climb skill regardless.

That said, I understand and agree that the better predictability of the skill value is a good thing, so I'll let this one rest.

What's the size of and nature of the Climb bonus from Bloodforge btw (don't have the book yet)?

It's a bit outside the scope of Fool's Errand. They have their anti-attack counter, and they've got make them humble (as a necessary counter to their hard counter) and assert existence at high levels, but overall, the discipline is nonmagical and its interactions with magic are limited as a result. There also was not enough room for everything that could have been in the discipline, sadly, so we ended up with the focuses we have now.For the sake of simplicity and saving up on space, how about just adding something like the following to Make Them Humble:

"Make a dispel check (DC 11 + the effect’s caster level or manifester level) against the effect, using your initiator level +1 for every three ranks you have in the Climb skill as your caster level."

I'd be interested in seeing the build at more realistic benchmarks for levels, personally (5, 10, 15, etc), since level 20 theorycrafting, while useful in some cases and very cool to see, isn't very indicative of how something plays at the levels the game is mostly played at.I agree a lower level build would've been better to put up here. The problem was that the 14th level game Duhrtie was originally made for used house rules which reduce combat feat taxes rather significantly. So when realizing I wouldn't be able to replicate that build without increasing the level to at least 18th or introduce less appropriate class dips, I simply maxed her instead.

But I certainly think I can put together a much lower level "control tank" according to the same mechanical principles and a similar DT, grasp, reach and Fool's Errand combo focus. I'll give it a go once I've been able to play around with the new stuff you brought. Especially that brawler which seemed to be compatible with the Shield Champion archetype... Hmm, is that some fantastic cheese I smell? :smallbiggrin:

MilleniaAntares

2016-06-27, 02:10 AM

Shouldn't the dispel check have the mental stat be added to it anyways?

upho

2016-06-27, 02:23 AM

Nope. Dispel is just 1d20 + CL vs. DC (11 + the spell's caster level).

squiggit

2016-06-27, 03:49 AM

upho

2016-06-27, 04:24 AM

With how many exceptions have been written into martial charge to make it work, seems like it'd be easier at this point to just say "as a full round action move up to double your speed in a straight line and initiate a standard action strike"This is also a possibility I guess, but probably the most boring and hard-nerfing one I can think of besides simply removing the feat. But yeah, if it cannot be solved in another way which doesn't require a ton of exceptions, this would be preferable, I agree.

MilleniaAntares

2016-06-27, 08:36 AM

upho

2016-06-27, 11:03 PM

Given that charging multipliers don't apply when using boosts and strikes anyways, there is hardly any reason to try to thread a needle between "you're charging and deal maneuver damage" and "you're not charging, you're using make a charge-like movement and using a strike at the end and benefit from maneuvers that only apply on charges".Well, FWIW, I agree. Charge multipliers (ie mounted charge) had of course presented a much greater problem, had those applied.

Horn of the Criosphinx isn't the end-all be-all of charge damage-boosting feats. Power Attack adds more, even if it does have an attack penalty attached.Certainly not the end-all be-all of charge damage-boosting feats in general, I agree.

But for US builds specifically, this depends very much on whether you rule the extra damage applies only to the first attack or to all attacks in a charge. (RAW, it actually does apply to all attacks and is completely unaffected by the FAQ on mounted charge multipliers.) If you rule the latter, HotCS certainly adds a lot more charge damage than Power Attack for most Str-based US builds. But since it only applies to charges, in practice PA probably adds a proportionally greater damage increase per hit in total during all levels in an "average typical game". Though in terms of actual DPR, HotCS likely causes a greater increase despite being charge-dependent due to PA's attack penalty.

And for a US charge build which also has PA, HotCS is pretty friggin' awesome since it increases PA damage as well. So it's "awesome" in the sense of "allows you to one-shot the tarrasque before 20th level", which may or may not be awesome for the game in general...

The closest competitor is probably Dragon Ferocity, which is of course better in case you're not charging very often anyways. And for 2h weapon wielders, no question PA is better, regardless of how you rule HotCS.

So in the context of Martial Charge, I agree HotCS is kind of a niche consideration, but it may be an important one depending on how the errata on for example Broken Blade and Thrashing Dragon maneuvers will end up.

Forrestfire

2016-07-02, 08:16 PM

Swaoeaeieu

2016-07-03, 05:43 AM

i noticed in Endless dance of death. 8th level manouver. where you make 3 attacks. are these at max BAB or just like normal iteratives with -5 for each next one?

Forrestfire

2016-07-03, 08:14 AM

All attacks during maneuvers are at your highest base attack bonus unless otherwise noted (such as during full attack maneuvers).

upho

2016-07-03, 10:45 PM

Sorry for the quiet in here, it's been a hectic week preparing for the 4th of July at work. I wanted to drop in a couple small updates to this discipline:

Make them humble has a slow-scaling extra bonus to your effective CL, as suggested by upho, to help keep up with boosted CLs on enemies (+1 per four Climb ranks).
Moment of mastery has been nerfed slightly to make it less of a hard nope button (and to make it ever-so-slightly truer to its inspiration (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS7hkwbKmBM)). Instead of Climb checks, it's now an attack roll to parry the attack, like some lower-level counters.

Both very good changes, IMO. The first mitigates the risks of the lock mechanic being made irrelevant against especially more dangerous opponents during higher levels (high CL caster NPCs or high HD creatures with FoM as SLA), and the second means there's a reasonable success rate price to pay for the strong multiple attack negation ability.

Currently, I don't have much to add to the Martial Charge discussion, other than a thanks for showing just how much of a mess that feat is regarding interactions with various rules XDYeah, seems it's currently lurking pretty far down the proverbial dark pit of "ask your DM", in almost every regard related to how it actually interacts with related elements.

Btw, I apologize for bringing up this not in any way Fool's Errand exclusive issue in this thread. Any derailing was unintentional. :smallredface:

Swaoeaeieu

2016-07-04, 01:35 AM

What are some of the ways too boost the grasp/lock dc? we are lvl 18 right now i can havent been able to lock any enemies last session :(
or where those just lucky rolls?

Ninjaxenomorph

2016-07-04, 09:54 AM

Hmm... is Discipline Focus the only way?

Forrestfire

2016-07-04, 10:13 AM

Discipline Focus will increase its DC by 2. The Ability Focus feat for Lock could also do that. Harbingers with Dark Focus (Fool's Errand) up their DC slightly, and the Night Terror/Contender Brawler each have ways of increasing their save DC. Otherwise, your best bet is to penalize the enemies' saves (shaken, sickened, entangled, etc) or to up your main attack stat (increasing the save DC).

MilleniaAntares

2016-07-04, 04:28 PM

Weaken the Prey could also help, as long as you have an appropriate maneuver to activate its effect. (Good opportunity for a discipline fusion feat, eh?)

Similarly, Aura of Misfortune is great for this. Harbingers make good buddies with their abilities to smash down others' saves.

Warden's Rebuke is also good, especially if you have a buddy who can help you with that.

Fendrith

2016-07-07, 03:51 PM

The path of war stretches ever onward.

Hi! Now that Path of War: Expanded is released, the DSP team has been looking forward to what’s next with Path of War,

Just wondering if there are any plans for a Magus archetype in the future? I think something that fits in with the flavor of the Bladebound Kensai would mesh really well with the Bushi class template theme. M. Current, E. Flux, and R. Hourglass come to mind. Maybe even a little F. Errand if that free hand wants to punch things or Eternal Guardian. Challenging to make spells synergize with maneuvers and not break the game, though. And magus is already starved for swift actions... hmm...

Also, for the E. Flux Enter the Vortex maneuver, are those thrown weapons substitutes for any attacks you would otherwise be able to make? Or are you limited by your iteratives? I'm just thinking that for a melee character, while gaining the modes of travel is amazing, the ranged attacks may not be all the helpful without the necessary ranged feats/stats to back it up.

MilleniaAntares

2016-07-07, 04:48 PM

Also, for the E. Flux Enter the Vortex maneuver, are those thrown weapons substitutes for any attacks you would otherwise be able to make? Or are you limited by your iteratives? I'm just thinking that for a melee character, while gaining the modes of travel is amazing, the ranged attacks may not be all the helpful without the necessary ranged feats/stats to back it up.
The blasts provided by Enter the Vortex are treated as thrown weapon attacks. Any time you could make a ranged weapon attack, you can use those blasts. Thus you can use them with most ranged compatible maneuvers, are limited by your number of iteratives, and can even make AoOs if you can.

No word on whether you can two-weapon fight with both sets of attacks being blasts, though I consider it fine.

Also remember you hit versus touch, so you don't necessarily need to invest in ranged.

Fendrith

2016-07-07, 05:29 PM

The blasts provided by Enter the Vortex are treated as thrown weapon attacks. Any time you could make a ranged weapon attack, you can use those blasts. Thus you can use them with most ranged compatible maneuvers, are limited by your number of iteratives, and can even make AoOs if you can.

No word on whether you can two-weapon fight with both sets of attacks being blasts, though I consider it fine.

Also remember you hit versus touch, so you don't necessarily need to invest in ranged.

That's what I'm understanding from the ability as well... seems really cool thematically, but by the time you can get maneuvers of that level, it seems like unless you're *already* a ranged character with PBS, RS, ManyShot, etc, it's really not all that beneficial aside from the modes of travel. For example, if you're running a melee build, you likely don't have tempest gale or solar wind to make them relevant anyway. If the touch attacks are the boon, by the time you have maneuvers of that level, you can solve accuracy problems in different and more effective ways - Making targets flat-footed, knocking targets prone, feats that affect your melee weapons, enchants, etc. If range is the benefit, between mithral current, veiled moon, and charged, there are probably also more effective ways to close the gap. The ranged component of the stance is really great if I'm already a ranged character - I have the ranged feats, my base damage has gone up to 4d6 and is elemental, if I was using a str bow, I can still use str for damage... I can build out a couple of melees of that level to more specifically illustrate my point... but I'm having a hard time imagining using those ranged attacks as a monk/mystic/bloodrager? Assuming that we're staying in theme with the Ele Flux discipline.

meemaas

2016-07-08, 10:10 AM

Just wondering if there are any plans for a Magus archetype in the future? I think something that fits in with the flavor of the Bladebound Kensai would mesh really well with the Bushi class template theme. M. Current, E. Flux, and R. Hourglass come to mind. Maybe even a little F. Errand if that free hand wants to punch things or Eternal Guardian. Challenging to make spells synergize with maneuvers and not break the game, though. And magus is already starved for swift actions... hmm...

The problem with this is that in order to balance a Magus archetype, you have to kill most of what makes the Magus a Magus to begin with. Spellstrike and Spell Combat are not compatible with maneuvers and never should be. And without those, are you really playing a Magus anymore?

Ninjaxenomorph

2016-07-08, 10:42 AM

I think it would be possible. Oh, and unless maneuvers aren't attacks, spellstrike can be used with maneuvers, you just have to hold the charge. Generally inefficient, but not impossible (I have a build planned for a hexcrafter that uses the Martial Training feats to pick up Cursed Razor, for ALL THE CURSES).

Back on the topic of Fool's Errand, how possible would it be to build someone, say, a Warlord, that doesn't really use the unarmed strike parts of Fools Errand?

Vhaidara

2016-07-08, 11:05 AM

Back on the topic of Fool's Errand, how possible would it be to build someone, say, a Warlord, that doesn't really use the unarmed strike parts of Fools Errand?

Should be reasonable. You'll miss out on most of the damage options, so you'd want to focus more on the Lock mechanic and the more supportive options for controlling enemies. Let's look at which maneuvers do require the use of unarmed strikes. Start with stances
Lesson I: Balance. Still a solid stance with Climb replacing Acrobatics (which creates synergy with some other disciplines like Thrashing Dragon on a Str build) and the free action to get up from Prone (tired of being tripped by wolves at level 1?)
Lesson II: Control: You miss out on free lock attempts, but the penalty for enemies still applies, allowing you to draw fire from your allies. Great for a Vanguard Commander.
Lesson V: Expression: Sure you don't want to just treat these as mini rockets? Or shotgun gauntlets? Sadly, no unarmed strikes means no punching cones of kinetic energy at your foes.
One-Two Punch, Steel Shattering Fists, Windmill Waltz Flurry, Blade Dance Ballet, Tempest Tango Blitz, Utter Commitment, and Endless Dance of Death all require an unarmed strike. BUT among these, only One-Two Punch and Utter Commitment only use unarmed strikes, the rest use them to supplement weapon attacks (I like to think of them as shoulder checks, leg sweeps, backhands. I mean, I sometimes get very free with my refluffing and have actually refluffed them as more glancing blows of my weapon (hence the smaller damage amount and not applying the weapon's magic)

Ninjaxenomorph

2016-07-08, 11:22 AM

I would just like to avoid the ones that are unarmed-only. I actually like the 'mixed combat' ones where you can make unarmed attacks in addition to normal attacks, it's just it's not why this character came for the discipline (which would be Lock, the style feats, and some of the more unique maneuvers, such as Whirlwind Sweep and Sincerest Form of Flattery). That last one is a big one; one stipulation for the warlord in question is that he needs to be played with another character (a warder), since we played versions of them once and they REALLY worked well together.

Vhaidara

2016-07-08, 11:44 AM

Oh, in that case the only maneuvers you need to not take are One-Two Punch, Lesson V: Expression, and Utter Commitment. The rest are all either straight combat maneuver, weapon friendly, or mixed

khadgar567

2016-07-08, 11:47 AM

Forrestfire

2016-07-08, 06:41 PM

A fiendbound marauder's Fiend's Grip can be used with any strike or maneuver that requires a weapon, but is not itself an unarmed strike and cannot be used for the unarmed strikes of FE maneuvers.

Fendrith

2016-07-08, 07:46 PM

The problem with this is that in order to balance a Magus archetype, you have to kill most of what makes the Magus a Magus to begin with. Spellstrike and Spell Combat are not compatible with maneuvers and never should be. And without those, are you really playing a Magus anymore?

Hmm. Well I don't want to have a full blown discussion here and take away from the purpose of the thread, but I'm not sure I buy your assertion that they can't be used together with some fiddling.

For example, arcane pool and anima are close enough.

Spell strike is a maneuver in its own right, and the ability to treat it as such if you want to -> Ready it, recover it with a recovery mechanic, and therefore make the spell inside it skip the whole spell resistance thing and benefit from your feats that augment your strikes...

That's not too crazy. Spell recall is a built in spell recovery mechanic - giving a magus the option to choose between spells and maneuvers when it's used... Many magus arcana are basically just boosts or counters. This makes them not too compatible, sure. But there are a couple of options here - give a magus the option to treat the ones that require swift or immediate actions as boosts, removing their point cost, but requiring the usual ready/expend mechanic for boosts. Another option would be to enable a magus to activate use a swift/immediate magus arcana as a free action when using a boost/counter (at higher levels, preferrably).

As the spell combat progression increases, and the levels get higher, giving the magus the option to replace the full attack iteratives from spell combat with a martial maneuver - instead of (Spell) (Full attacks), (Spell) (martial maneuver of 1 SA) - could work. Eventually being able to deliver a spell that requires a touch attack through a maneuver (again later on) much like the bladecaster could also work.

If Spell + Maneuver is too much, then removing spell combat/spell strike/spells altogether might be alright. Instead, you let the magus ready spells with attack rolls as strikes to be delivered via weapon. You let the magus learn personal/touch buff spells as stances. You let the magus treat maneuvers as spells and spells as maneuvers wherever it would be more beneficial. I suppose the approach all depends on whether the consensus is that martial maneuvers are on par with spellcasting (at least offensive spellcasting) or whether they're on par with just attacking normally. If it's the former, then allowing a character to do both at the same time is crazy - that's like two spells every round (I assume this is why the bladecaster's best abilities have /day limits on them); if it's the latter, then making maneuvers and spells interchangeable for whatever purposes you see fit seems like a balanced approach that's unique and fits the flavor of the magus.

MilleniaAntares

2016-07-08, 09:01 PM

The thought about boosting DCs has gotten me thinking about the Contender's Maneuver Training modification.

Have you thought about putting in like a sidebar or something that allows the use of other classes's CMB-boosting abilities on the grip DC? You know, stuff like the Warlord's Battle prowess, Steelfist Commando's Commando's Prowess, and the Fiendbound Marauder Warder's Canny Pugilist...

As a note for the magus, the Bladecaster PrC could help make a decent magus-alike person with maneuvers.

Forrestfire

2016-07-08, 09:39 PM

I have, but currently there's unlikely to be a blanket-allowance to abilities like that boosting the lock DC. The two archetypes in this project have native ways to, and there might be a sidebar or section for other classes' abilities, but we're trying to be careful with the balance on this. For the brawler, they're focused on the discipline and its mechanic, and only have 6 levels of maneuvers; a +x to the DC is not equal in value to a +x to CMB for a combat maneuver, and it'd be much stronger on, say, a warlord, who gets full 9ths.

Personally, I like the Mage Hunter as an initiating magus. If you VMC into magus to get spellstrike, it will let you cast a spellstrike'd spell as a swift action, once you hit higher levels.

upho

2016-07-11, 10:25 AM

I've finally had some time to play with some of Forrest's latest toys. Unfortunately none of the people I usually bully into playing one-off playtest games with me had the time to prepare a proper adventure, and we ended up just being two grumpy grognards fooling around with weird opponents and ranting about PF's still poorly written Stealth and HiPS rules. It was basically just a series of combat encounters, but still interesting and fun.

The 11th level "party" consisted of a couple of old PCs - an aasimar cleric and a human summoner - and my rather weird test build, based on the contender brawler but sharing enough options with my kung fu hustlin' "Lady Duhrtie (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20908716&postcount=122)" to be her younger brother:

Archon-Blooded Aasimar Contender Brawler 5, Formless Master 4, Master of Many Styles Monk 1, Ordained Dervish Defender Warder 1
LN Gargantuan male outsider (native, shapechanger)

Values while in Broken Blade Stance and Dragon Style stance, using Martial Flexibility, and under the effects of all short duration shifting abilities, Time Skitter and listed wands. (Notable values while not in short duration Magnitude Shift in blue.)

Initiative +6; Senses blindsense 25 ft., darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, scent; Perception +29
Aegis allies within 10 ft. gain +1 morale to AC and Will saves; Bracers of Dusk and Dawn natural darkness within 30 ft. Lawful Neutral Aura as 1st level cleric

DEFENSE
AC 27, touch 14, flat-footed 25 (33, 20, 29) +8 armor, +5 wis, +1 natural, +4 shield, +1 deflection, +2 dodge, -4 size
HP 113 61 (10+4d10+5d8+1d12) hit die, +44 con, +8 favored class
Fort +17, Ref +12, Will +14; +5 vs. mind-affecting; +5 vs. disease, poison, exhaustion and fatigue
Resist acid, cold, electricity 5
Defensive Abilities 50% chance to avoid sneak attack/crit, all around vision, in constant natural darkness (50% miss chance), uncanny dodge

OFFENSE
Speed 60 ft., burrow 60 ft., climb 60 ft.
Melee unarmed strike +18/+18/+18/+18/+18/+13 (1st 8d8+37, following 8d8+31) and 2 strongclaws +15/+15 (4d6+15), or 2 strongclaws +20/+20 (4d6+24)
Space 20 ft., Reach 25 ft. (35 ft. using defensive focus)
Attack Abilities and Special Attacks ambush (regain maneuver 3/turn on successful attack or lock vs target denied Dex to AC), chameleon (Stealth +37 as part of moving, even if observed), Combat Reflexes (6 AoOs/round), lock (DC 31, free action on melee hit 2/round, may move locked target to within reach instead of own movement), Lurker in Darkness (special senses and detection magic must oppose Stealth as normal), Nightstalker (no size penalty in dim light or natural darkness, see bracers above), strongclaws (overcomes all magic or material based DR or Regeneration)

Stances and Maneuvers IL 11/8, 16 known, 7 readied, 4 stances
Stances Broken Blade Stance (BB3)W, Lesson I: Balance (FE1), Lesson III: Suppression (FE3), Moon Hound Stance (CS1)
Boosts Time Skitter (RH3), To the Skies (FE6)*
Counters, Moment of Mastery (FE5)*, Temporal Body Adjustment (RH4)W, Temporal Distortion (RH6)*
Strikes Raging Hunter Pounce (PF3)W, Tempest Tango Blitz(FE6)*
Brawler IL 11, max 3rd level: 7 known, 4 readied, 3 stances; Chimera Soul, Fool's Errand, Riven Hourglass)
WWarder IL 8, max 4th level: 5 known, 3 readied, 1 stance; Broken Blade, Fool's Errand, Primal Fury, Riven Hourglass, Thrashing Dragon
*Advanced Study IL 11, max 6th level: +4 known

Shifting 9 uses/day, 2 rounds duration/use in combat: Abomination, Chameleon, Magnitude, Sensory and Strongclaw Shift

Martial Flexibility 7 uses/day, 1 min. duration (active: Dragon Ferocity and Power Attack)

STATISTICS
Str 35 (25), Dex 11 (15), Con 18, Int 12, Wis 20, Cha 7
Bab +9; CMB +33, using AoMF +35, trip +36; CMD 50, using AoMF 52, vs. trip 53
Feats Abomination ShiftB, Advanced Study (x2), Chameleon Shift, Combat ReflexesB, Dragon FerocityMF, Dragon StyleB, Improved Unarmed StrikeB, Lurker in DarknessB, Magnitude ShiftB, Nightstalker, Power AttackMF, Sensory ShiftB, Stealthy, Strongclaw ShiftB, Stunning FistB, Two-Weapon FightingB
Skills Acrobatics +10, Autohypnosis +9, Climb +41, Knowledge (martial, nature, religion) +5, Perception +29, Sense Motive +12, Stealth +37, Survival +19, Swim +16

Alternate Racial Traits Feelkha heritage (Large size), Variant Ability (+2 Str, no spell-like ability)
Traits Practiced Initiator, Wisdom in the Flesh (Stealth)
Martial Tradition Lords of the Wheel (Riven Hourglass)

Gear (62,000 gp) +2 amulet of mighty fists and natural armor +1, +2 mithral breastplate, belt (+2 str, dex, con, wis), cloak of resistance +3 and protection +1, bracers of dusk and dawn, cracked dusty rose prism in wayfinder, eyes of perceptive climbing stealth +5, quickrunner's shirt, wands of shield and strong jaw, armor ointment (10), 100 gp

CLASS AND FEAT PROGRESSION (retraining not shown)
1 Brawler 1 Improved Unarmed StrikeB, Lurker in DarknessB, Stealthy
2 Brawler 2 Abomination ShiftB
3 Brawler 3 Sensory Shift
4 Brawler 4 -
5 MoMS 1 Chameleon Shift, Dragon StyleB, Stunning FistB
6 Formless 1 Strongclaw ShiftB
7 Formless 2Brawler 5 Nightstalker
8 Formless 3Brawler 6 Magnitude ShiftB
9 Formless 4Brawler 7 Advanced Study
10 Brawler 8 -
11 Warder 1 Advanced Study, Combat ExpertiseB, Two-Weapon FightingB
Martial Flexibility Dragon Ferocity, Power Attack

ABILITY SCORES (20-point buy)
Str 25/35 15 base, 2 race, 1 level, 2 belt / 5 strongclaw, 4 unbounded ability, 6 size
Dex 15/11 13 base, 2 belt / -4 size
Con 18 14 base, 2 race, 2 belt
Int 12 12 base
Wis 20 15 base, 1 level, 2 race, 2 headband
Cha 7 7 base

SAVING THROW BONUSES
Fort +17 4 con, 4 brawler, 2 formless master, 2 monk, 2 warder, 3 cloak
Ref +12 4 brawler, 2 formless master, 2 monk, 3 cloak, 1 haste
Will +14 5 wis, 1 brawler, 1 formless master, 2 monk, 2 warder, 3 cloak

ATTACKS
Attack Bonus +18 9 bab, 12 str, 2 AoMF, 1 haste, -2 TWF, -4 size
Damage Bonus +37 first US / 31 US / 15 Strongclaws 24/18/6 str, 2 AoMF, 9/9/3 PA, 2 broken blade, 0/0/2 strongclaw shift
US 8d8 Damage Die 1d4 medium -> 2d8 large 8th level brawler -> 3d8 huge -> 4d8 gargantuan -> 8d8 strong jaw
Strongclaws 4d6 Damage Die 1d4 medium -> 1d6 large -> 1d8 huge -> 2d6 gargantuan -> 4d6 strong jaw

MISCELLANEOUS
CMB +33 / using AoMF +35 / trip +36 9 bab, 12 str, 1 haste, 4 size, 2 ioun, 5 abomination shift / 2 AoMF / 1 maneuver training
CMD 50 / using AoMF 52 / vs trip 53 10 + 9 bab, 12 str, 5 wis, 4 size, 2 ioun, 5 abomination shift, 1 deflection, 2 dodge / 2 AoMF / 1 maneuver training
Lock DC 31 12 + 5 half IL, 12 str, 2 maneuver training
Climb +41 12 str, 3 class, 11 ranks, 5 competence, 10 strongclaw shift
Perception +29 5 wis, 3 class, 11 ranks, 5 competence, 5 sensory shift
Stealth +37 5 wis, 3 class, 11 ranks, 5 competence, 4 stealthy, 2 martial tradition, 2 nightstalker, 5 chameleon shift

Mechanics wise, the idea here came primarily from two things: the recovery mechanic of the contender and the fact that Chameleon Shift gives unrestricted HiPS at five shifting feats. So when combined, I thought it should allow for near automatic recovery with a high enough Stealth and the right maneuvers including some form of movement to trigger a Stealth check. Which especially FE and Riven Hourglass, and to some extent Veiled Moon, seem rather ideal for.

The end goal of the "Hidden Fool" was to be a sneaky damage dealer, pretty much what the rogue has been striving for in more than three editions but never quite managed. And since this requires both size and high Stealth to really shine with unarmed strikes, I also finally found a great use of the Nightstalker feat on a PC - Gargantuan size with no Stealth penalty really is hilarious! The "dim light or natural darkness" limitation of Nightstalker also had me find the nifty Bracers of Dusk and Dawn (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/3rd-party-magic-items/3rd-party-wondrous-items/ascension-games-llc/bracers-of-dusk-and-dawn)(by Ascension Games), which at first might seem OP, but really aren't when considering their light (or darkness) is considered natural. Which again made the Hidden Fool's great size, or rather his reach, a very good thing since it allows him to stay in the dim/dark of his bracers and still be able attack opponents for example carrying torches (the "normal light" radius of a torch is 20 ft.). A membership in the fitting Lords of the Wheel also gave him Lurker in Darkness, making him virtually undetectable for anyone or anything unable to beat his Stealth check.

The end result was the Hidden Fool was basically "blinking" in combat, appearing after an attack and maneuver recovery then vanishing again right in front of his enemies, sometimes several times in the same round. Especially Tempest Tango Blitz, Temporal Distortion (Riven Hourglass) and, again my favorite, To the Skies worked astonishingly well for this combat style. A bit odd to play at first, but once I got the hang of the blinking and maneuver/full attack rhythm, he turned out to be really effective at his job. Not to mention highly resilient - near constant total concealment from Stealth is of course a huge defensive boon in most situations.

My main gripe with the contender is not really about the archetype itself, it's with the standardized PoW:E non-initiator archetype maneuver progression being too limited IMO, at least in the case of most non-casters. Simply dipping into full initiator classes often gives a much stronger build, albeit with a bumpy and odd overall progression. This can be seen in the case of the Hidden Fool as well - the warder level was initially chosen for the suitable bonus feats, but of course the added 5 known and 3 readied higher level maneuvers is a huge boon for him with his otherwise very limited pool of contender maneuvers. I think this says quite a lot: adding one single level of full initiator can let you not only greatly increase readied and known maneuvers, but can also let you access higher level maneuvers than adding even the 8th level of a non-initiator archetype!

The otherwise very low level maneuvers are of course also the reason why I think the two Advanced Study feats really are worth their slots even in this highly feat starved build, even to the point that two of his arguably more vital feats (Dragon Ferocity and Power Attack) had to be outsourced to Martial Flexibility.

In every other respect, I think the contender frankly is a little masterpiece! I mean every unique feature feels very thematically appropriate and most of them also make the archetype a lot more interesting and tactical in play. The Ambush recovery mechanic is simple but also encourages using creative rogue-like tactics, and I believe the broadened use of Martial Flexibility can allow for some pretty awesome versatility (though I didn't get to try that out with my Hidden Fool). And Point of Contention is just brilliant - simple yet extremely powerful when used with the right combinations in the right circumstances - and makes the contender truly feel like the master of lock and Fool's Errand. Even Hidden Fool who usually really wants his movement for Stealth still made great use of the dragging a few times.

So two BIG thumbs up from me!

Finally, a slightly silly question: RAW, you're able to hide from an enemy you're locking. Was this intentional?

EDIT: Added a few missing points to the build. Changed my statement about non-initiating archetypes from the incorrect 11th to correct 8th level. /EDIT

ATalsen

2016-07-11, 11:31 AM

The end result was the Hidden Fool was basically "blinking" in combat, appearing after an attack and maneuver recovery then vanishing again right in front of his enemies, sometimes several times in the same round.

What penalties did you assign to the stealth check for hiding in the same round as attacking, if any?

It's impossible to use Stealth while attacking, running, or charging.

Sniping
If you've already successfully used Stealth at least 10 feet from your target, you can make one ranged attack and then immediately use Stealth again. You take a –20 penalty on your Stealth check to maintain your obscured location.

Forrestfire

2016-07-11, 11:35 AM

You only take that penalty during the special action for sniping. A much more useful Stealth action is to use a Bluff check to make a distraction (listed as part of the Stealth check in the CRB's layout) and then take a 5-foot step or otherwise move to Stealth with only a -10 penalty.

ATalsen

2016-07-11, 11:54 AM

You only take that penalty during the special action for sniping.

Right. I myself have used the sniping rules (as a quick house rule) in instances that *seemed like sniping* but involved melee in my own game, but according to the first part of the rules I quoted, you can't attack in melee and still hide.

So I was wondering if upho assigned any sort of penalty to the stealth rolls, or maybe didn't DO stealth during attack rounds, or did something else entirely to avoid the 'no stealth while attacking' clause.

Forrestfire

2016-07-11, 02:44 PM

ATalsen

2016-07-11, 03:13 PM

In Pathfinder, you can't, and need to make your Stealth check during another action (normally as part of movement, such as a 5-foot step or one of the free moves during a Dance strike). As long as you're not attacking you should be able to Stealth just fine though. It's not delineated on a round-by-round basis.

After re-reading it can I can see a valid interpretation where it is not round-by round, as you say.

But when I really analyze stealth and attacking, I stop my ‘calculation’ at the ‘action’ level, which is to say that that I assume a PC is in the process of attacking (and thus prohibited from using Stealth) if they are in the middle of an Attack type action. So, if the PC is using a full round attack, they cannot stealth between swing 1 and swing 2, even if they 5 foot step, because they are in the middle of an attack action. If they attack once, and then move action, I can see using stealth during the move action as valid.

This is because I cannot see how the prohibition sentence can remain true and reasonable when you break it down by individual activities – Swing 1, then 5 ft. move, then stealth, then swing 2 – because you can never roll stealth during another ‘atomic’ (an uninterruptable or undividable action) activity such as an attack roll. Thus bringing it down to that level means effectively removing that prohibition.

upho

2016-07-11, 08:01 PM

Right. I myself have used the sniping rules (as a quick house rule) in instances that *seemed like sniping* but involved melee in my own game, but according to the first part of the rules I quoted, you can't attack in melee and still hide.

So I was wondering if upho assigned any sort of penalty to the stealth rolls, or maybe didn't DO stealth during attack rounds, or did something else entirely to avoid the 'no stealth while attacking' clause.No, though I might have at least considered house ruling a small Stealth penalty in my regular game. The reason I didn't include any penalty is mainly because I try to play as close to RAW as possible when it comes to trying out new mechanics.

Also remember that sniping (and its penalty) is completely redundant with unrestricted HiPS, since the very reason you need the special action and take the penalty is because you cannot normally use Stealth "while observed" (which you become as soon as you've attacked). So sniping is basically a "poor man's HiPS".

To be fair, the thing with stealth is "It's impossible to use Stealth while attacking, running, or charging."I believe that sentence is an unfortunate left-over from before the 2013 Stealth errata, being especially confusing when combined with HiPS. Note that the errata-ed rules explicitly say you can attack while hidden, though you break stealth immediately after the (first) attack.

In 3.5, you could use Hide while attacking (that is, during the action of the attack, keeping them from seeing you at all even as you fought them). In Pathfinder, you can't, and need to make your Stealth check during another action (normally as part of movement, such as a 5-foot step or one of the free moves during a Dance strike). As long as you're not attacking you should be able to Stealth just fine though. It's not delineated on a round-by-round basis.Exactly. So if you have HiPS, you can attack, and thus break stealth and become observed, and then make some kind of movement allowing you to use Stealth again to regain total concealment and become practically invisible to your target, repeat. Which is why all the Dance strikes, Riven Hourglass' move counters, Tactical Rush and things like the Quickrunner's Shirt (even after the errata) become truly awesome.

After re-reading it can I can see a valid interpretation where it is not round-by round, as you say.

But when I really analyze stealth and attacking, I stop my ‘calculation’ at the ‘action’ level, which is to say that that I assume a PC is in the process of attacking (and thus prohibited from using Stealth) if they are in the middle of an Attack type action. So, if the PC is using a full round attack, they cannot stealth between swing 1 and swing 2, even if they 5 foot step, because they are in the middle of an attack action. If they attack once, and then move action, I can see using stealth during the move action as valid.

This is because I cannot see how the prohibition sentence can remain true and reasonable when you break it down by individual activities – Swing 1, then 5 ft. move, then stealth, then swing 2 – because you can never roll stealth during another ‘atomic’ (an uninterruptable or undividable action) activity such as an attack roll. Thus bringing it down to that level means effectively removing that prohibition.Yes, HiPS does remove that prohibition, since as Forrest mentioned, you don't need to take a move action in order to use Stealth, only to move (ie change your position).

And as mentioned, even the basic stealth rules partially remove the prohibition, since they also explicitly allow for sniping and, more importantly, making one attack while hidden, although once the attack has been resolved, you're "observed" and no longer hidden. The fact that you cannot remain hidden once you attack or run is AFAICT is the very reason the prohibition sentence is there in the first place. With unrestricted HiPS, the only thing that can keep you from using Stealth once you're observed is if you cannot change your position in some manner which isn't "running or charging" (barring stuff like glitterdust, of course).

While HiPS might seem almost too good when compared to the many limitations of using Stealth without it, it's also very costly and stealth can still often be countered rather easily. (Which is why the Hidden Fool has made such many significant investments to decrease the number of possibilities his enemies have to do so, while still allowing him to be effective in his damage dealer(/control) role.)

@Forrestfire: Though I don't have any problems with a brawler waltzing in and out of stealth while attacking, the fact that you can hide from an enemy you've locked does push the limits of even my views on verisimilitude somewhat. At least as lock is currently described. So I've got to ask again: was this intentional?

Forrestfire

2016-07-11, 08:36 PM

Oops. No, it was not intentional. I'll have to get back to you on how that's going to be changed moving forwards.

ATalsen

2016-07-11, 11:52 PM

Oops. No, it was not intentional. I'll have to get back to you on how that's going to be changed moving forwards.

Both sides of the equation probably need to be answered:
1) Can you hide from the opponent you are locking?
2) Can an opponent you are locking hide from you? (If so do they escape your lock?)
3) Can anyone involved in a lock hide at all, from characters outside the lock?

EldritchWeaver

2016-07-12, 02:02 AM

...my views on verisimilitude somewhat.

Are you sure you are using the right word here? This definition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verisimilitude) - truth likeness - seems to be strange in this context. Maybe you mean suspension of disbelief? Or do I miss some other definition?

upho

2016-07-12, 10:26 AM

Are you sure you are using the right word here? This definition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verisimilitude) - truth likeness - seems to be strange in this context. Maybe you mean suspension of disbelief? Or do I miss some other definition?Yes, in the context of fiction the definition differs from the philosophical concept which deals with likeness to actual truth. Verisimilitude in the context of fiction (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verisimilitude_(fiction)) also takes the internal consistency within a fictional reality and an element's plausibility and likeness to the truth of that fictional reality into account.

For example, I would guess the verisimilitude of a pointy-hatted wrinkly old dude in a bath robe "willing" great balls of fire into existence by making certain gestures and sounds is very low according to the definition of the philosophical concept, but high in the fictional reality of PF according to the definition in the context of fiction. In contrast, the verisimilitude of great balls of fire not being hot or able to set flammables on fire is very low according to both definitions and both realities.

ATalsen

2016-07-12, 07:26 PM

You may only lock creatures within your melee reach (including that of reach weapons or other effects that extend your reach). Locking a creature does not provoke attacks of opportunity, and even though it are not an attack, it is treated as a melee attack for the purposes of targeting, line of effect, and miss chances.

In some cases you can substitute a Lock Attempt for an Attack of Opportunity. Given that the description says its "not an attack" I think it could be misconstrued that it doesn't 'cost' a use of an AoO to attempt that lock when substituted that way.

In general, I think the "it is not an attack" text might not be a good idea, unless the intension is to be able to use locking while remaining invisible (2nd level spell version) or under Sanctuary - effects that would normally break upon attacking - or the like.

EDIT: Perhaps say that a locking attempt IS an attack, it just doesn't require an attack roll.

I think that puts across more clearly what the core desires are for this effect.

Forrestfire

2016-07-15, 03:31 PM

Calling out Lock as an attack would cause all manner of odd rules interactions (sneak attack now works with it by RAW, as sneak attack does not require an attack roll. Boosts that add damage "to your next attack" would buff it; stances would do the same).

With this in mind, there's been some discussion about and deliberation on Lock, invisibility, and Stealth, and the current answer we've come up with and added to the Fool's Errand doc boils down to this first paragraph's change:

Several Fool’s Errand maneuvers allow you to lock your target. You may only lock creatures within your melee reach (including that of reach weapons or other effects that extend your reach). Locking a creature does not provoke attacks of opportunity, and even though it is not an attack, it is treated as a melee attack for the purposes of targeting, line of effect, miss chances, and ending an invisibility spell or similar effects. Attempting to lock or drag a creature ends any Stealth you have, though you can still use Stealth after you've locked a creature (if you are otherwise able to do so while observed, such as by having the hide in plain sight ability or making a successful Bluff check). Similarly, locked creatures can use Stealth against you if they have a means to do so, and successfully hiding from you using Stealth ends your lock on them.

Lock is not an attack, but it's still an offensive action that will break invisibility and end your Stealth. However, if you have someone Locked and can somehow still Stealth against them, you can do so. Locking does not prevent someone from using Stealth against you, but since Stealth checks are almost always made as part of movement, and it keeps them from moving, they will find it hard to do so (especially since they still need to sidestep you observing them). It will allow them to escape the Lock if they somehow make it work though.

EDIT: As ATalsen showed, that was a problematic addition to the rules based on what they were meant to do, and it's been removed.

ATalsen

2016-07-15, 04:29 PM

Locking does not prevent someone from using Stealth against you, but since Stealth checks are almost always made as part of movement, and it keeps them from moving, they will find it hard to do so (especially since they still need to sidestep you observing them). It will allow them to escape the Lock if they somehow make it work though.

If successful Stealth will get a target out of a lock, does an invisible target automatically get to get out too?

If so, can you even lock an invisible target? (Previously I assumed that you could lock an invisible opponent if you succeed on the miss chance).

Although stealth usually is part of movement and thus not an action, I don’t see any prohibition on using Stealth while remaing still – something you might do if you had moved behind a rock, and then decided to hide behind it on a subsequent round.

Specifically it it seems like it must be an option to use Stealth while not moving because the Invisibility Modifier is higher when you do.
“Magic: If you are invisible, you gain a +40 bonus on Stealth checks if you are immobile, or a +20 bonus on Stealth checks if you're moving.”

Thus, you should be able to hide while locked if you can meet the cover/concealment requirement or have HiPS.

To stay entirely within what I read as the letter of the rules, I'd declare that I'm moving "up to half your normal speed" by moving 0 and then roll Stealth. Still costs a move action, so not really breaking anything, I think.

If you want to push it, it might be legal to declare movement, roll Stealth as part of movement (before you actually move), then if successful and out of the lock, go ahead and move. Nothing says when in the movement you get to roll, so rolling before you move any distance may totally be valid. Maybe this can be countered by saying that the move action used has a speed of 0 from the lock, but then your getting into weird territory same as if you tried to walk and fly using parts of the same move action.

Ultimately I guess the question is: What do you want to break a lock, and what amount of effort should that take?

EDIT:

Another potential monkey wrench is the ability to burn a full round action to move 5 ft:

In some situations, your movement may be so hampered that you don't have sufficient speed even to move 5 feet (1 square). In such a case, you may use a full-round action to move 5 feet (1 square) in any direction, even diagonally. Even though this looks like a 5-foot step, it's not, and thus it provokes attacks of opportunity normally. (You can't take advantage of this rule to move through impassable terrain or to move when all movement is prohibited to you.)

Lock is definitely a movement-hampering effect that makes it so you don't have sufficient speed, so it still seems you can move 5 feet as a full round action, even if locked. So you can stealth with this movement if nothing else.

This is probably totally ok - it's a whole lot of burned action cost for 5 ft movement, and potentially doesn't suck cinematically as you slowly power through the 'killing intent' toward your opponent.

Forrestfire

2016-07-15, 05:31 PM

Hmm. Those are good points about Stealth and invisibility. You're meant to be able to lock someone who's invisible (if you get through the miss chance), so I guess Stealth should not auto-escape the Lock, just like Stealth doesn't keep you from Locking. Thanks for that catch, I've amended it.

The full-round action currently will not move you (as it's not actually dropping your speed to 0, just keeping you from moving). Since you can try to move (and in doing so, make an attempt to escape the Lock), it would just fall into that area of actions. I've removed some verbiage that implied that movement speeds are changed when Locked.

ATalsen

2016-07-18, 11:38 AM

For what it’s worth, I actually liked the previous wording where the movement modes were dropped to 0. I thought it made it very clear how the status worked, and made it clear that it was not a paralysis-like effect.

For example, dropping movement to 0 would not impact being able to move around within your own square, so there was never a question of if you could stand from prone, perform a maneuver (“First and foremost, to initiate a stance or maneuver, you must be able to move.” PoW pg 25), or manipulate an item. With the new wording, I think it might need to clarification that you can move around in your own square enough to perform non-movement move-actions and maneuvers.

Similarly, dropping movement to 0 showed that it only impacted voluntary movement, not that all movement was prohibited. So it was clear that a bulrush or a Golden Lion Pyrite Strike (move target 5 ft) could be used to move a locked target.

I see why you didn’t want to call it an attack, as that triggers other meanings. It’s definitely a hostile action, and could be considered an ‘offensive combat action’ for interaction with spell effects (see quote below).

I was thinking there may be a way to interlace the description with this part of the spell rules such that it’s not an attack, but does trigger spell effects as if it were one:

Some spell descriptions refer to attacking. All offensive combat actions, even those that don't damage opponents, are considered attacks. Attempts to channel energy count as attacks if it would harm any creatures in the area. All spells that opponents resist with saving throws, that deal damage, or that otherwise harm or hamper subjects are attacks. Spells that summon monsters or other allies are not attacks because the spells themselves don't harm anyone.

Forrestfire

2016-07-18, 11:47 AM

Hmm. Those are good points. I'm probably going to restructure the section in general to better say what it's intended to, hopefully with more clarity.

For the record, that passage is part of why I'm going out of my way to not define lock as an attack. Both DSP and Paizo alike have run into problems with that, because its addition to the rules in the transition from 3.5 to Pathfinder caused all manner of oddities when people wrote abilities that cared about "attacks" while not remembering that PF's "attack" definition includes almost everything you do in combat. For example, by RAW, you can sneak attack with magic missile, and concealment's miss chance blocks demoralize attempts.

Part of the PoW 1 errata will include a section defining exactly what an attack is for the purposes of Path of War's rules.

Ninjaxenomorph

2016-07-19, 12:34 PM

Something weird I realized is that the 'trip and throw' maneuvers won't work on creatures immune to trip. It's not a wide list, certainly, but I think it is a bit of an odd thing for, say, a giant snake being immune to being thrown around, when you could do it to a dragon of the same size just fine. Another is that for Sky-Shattering Throw, I don't think it makes sense that the throw is essentially instant. Well, the problem isn't with the throw, it's rather with the fall. You should be throwing the target a minimum of, if Climb has been maxed out, 1,700 feet. That fall alone should, if my search-fu doesn't fail me, take around 8.6 seconds to complete. Skybourne outlined some useful rules regarding falling, that an object in freefall falls 500 feet the first round, 1000 feet the subsequent rounds.

Also I just love the picture of a Fool's Errand user tossing a monster into the sky and waiting a few rounds for it to land.

ATalsen

2016-07-19, 02:18 PM

I’m having a conversation with the players in my game about introducing the Lock condition (and other Fool’s Errand bits) for playtest.

After they read over the mechanics, some concerns have been raised about how lock works, and its apparent superiority to CMB/CMD based attacks.

Using Lock with an extremely large reach can prevent a melee opponent from being able to retaliate. Reach weapons seem to contribe to this extreme reach potential.
Compared to Grapple/Reposition/Bull Rush, using locking to move opponents is extremely action-economy friendly. When using Grapple/Reposition/Bull Rush you typically burn a Standard action for the privilege of moving (or attempting to move) your opponent, while a locked opponent is moved with neither a check nor an action cost (aside from the move action to actually move).
The goal of Locking seems to be to be able to use the mechanic without too much investment – maybe a feat or a stance or some maneuvers, but nowhere near the investment of feats required to be good at tripping or grappling for example. It doesn’t seem fair that the lock mechanic is at least as good as Grapple/Trip is when Grapple/Trip is heavily invested in, while Lock is not.
Locking seems to be designed with PCs in mind for the Lock DC; that is to say, a PC using it against a tough/strong NPC is the goal. However when Lock ability is given TO such an NPC, the DC become nearly insurmountable due to high CR opponents often having exceptionally high strength. A CR 11 Cloud Giant has a lock DC of 32 28. Maybe it needs to be Initiator modifier only, not strength swappable.
Most PoW counters that block an attack deal with attack rolls, which Locking does not have. And Locking is also not defined as an attack, so counters really don’t seem to be able to be used against it.
Grappling usually has practical limits on the number of opponents you can Grapple at a time, tripping is limited to attacks/AoOs; Lock is unlimited. Unlimited things are *usually* abusable, even if not obviously so. Can I suggest a limit on the number of targets you can lock at once as equal to your (highest) Initiator modifier? For those without such a mod, use dexterity? Something likely to be sufficiently high but not unlimited.

From what I’ve gathered, the idea behind Lock is to sidestep both the complexity of CMB/CMD and dramatic scaling of numbers at higher levels. Potentially with the idea that more characters will be able to use it, with less investment. However lower investment requirements can themselves be a balance issue, and the mechanic may appear too good to those used to having to invest heavily to achieve similar results.

I’m trying to convince my players that the mechanic is balanced and not overly good, but I can absolutely see some of their concerns as valid. If there is anything I can pass along to them to help alleviate their concerns, I’d appreciate the info.

EDIT:
Additional concern:

Juggle-Locking: If you can perform a lock as an AoO, you could re-lock a target that has escaped your lock in the very turn it escaped. While you can do something similar with Trip, trip's chance of escape/success doesn't change like Locking can, due to allowing strength for the escape attempt.

So, for a high strength, low Dex target, they might escape using strength, but then have to face a new lock where they have to use dex again, and are much more likely to fail, making no progress toward the locker.

Possibly this can be fixed by saying that a creature cannot be re-locked in the same turn it escapes a lock.

EldritchWeaver

2016-07-19, 05:09 PM

The goal of Locking seems to be to be able to use the mechanic without too much investment – maybe a feat or a stance or some maneuvers, but nowhere near the investment of feats required to be good at tripping or grappling for example. It doesn’t seem fair that the lock mechanic is at least as good as Grapple/Trip is when Grapple/Trip is heavily invested in, while Lock is not.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. PoW addressed the issue of Dex-builds falling behind the Strength-builds. I'm not familiar enough with grapple-bulilds but they might have the same problem as well.

ATalsen

2016-07-23, 04:16 PM

That's not necessarily a bad thing. PoW addressed the issue of Dex-builds falling behind the Strength-builds. I'm not familiar enough with grapple-bulilds but they might have the same problem as well.

I'm not saying that a discount in required resources is completely bad - in fact to work as I think its envisioned, locking needs to be cheaper than the investments currently required for combat maneuvers.

I am saying that I think *combined with all its other current abilities* that its currently too cheap from an investment standpoint.

Now if it required a bit more investment, and/or some (but not all) of the other concerns were addressed in some way (say, by making it cost a standard to move locked targets around), then the whole condition drops in power level to what I'd say is a more appropriate level.

I just listed all the items my group came up with; if a few of them are addressed, that will likely be enough to feel more in line with what combat maneuvers can do, while still being effective.

Vhaidara

2016-07-23, 06:32 PM

Relaying the message for Forrest: She's going through some personal difficulties, so responses here will probably be delayed

ATalsen

2016-07-25, 11:38 AM

Relaying the message for Forrest: She's going through some personal difficulties, so responses here will probably be delayed

That’s unfortunate to hear, but I am appreciative of the status update.

---

While the locked condition comes about mostly because of maneuvers or stances – things that intrinsically have initiator levels attacked to them, the Fool’s Errand Style feet can be taken by characters both:
A) without an inbuilt initiator level and initiating stat (EDIT: MilleniaAntares point out this is not possible)
B) With multiple initiator levels and initiating stats

The first case seems fine – their DC is 12 + ¼ their hit dice + Strength mod. Good for NPCs. (EDIT: NPCs using the Martial Training feat line will have this kind of DC)

The second case is a question of which level and stat you use. Do you pick an initiator level? Can you pick an initiating stat separately or do you use the stat that comes with the level?

A complex example would be a PC with a Warder initiator level of 7 (Int bonus of +1), and a Stalker initiator level of 5 (Wis Bonus of 4), and assume a Str mod of +0 so it’s not really helping to swap for that.

If you picked the highest IL and matching stat (Warder/Int) the lock DC would be (12+3+1) 16
If you could pick either and selected Stalker it would be (12+2+4) 18.
If you can mix and match it would be Warder IL + Wis Mod (12+3+4) 19

So I guess I’m saying that Fool’s Errand Style or maybe the lock condition itself just needs some line about how to calculate the DC in the event of multiple initiator levels. 'Take highest IL' is probably the most strait forward, but self picking could be fine too.

MilleniaAntares

2016-07-26, 01:25 AM

ATalsen

2016-07-26, 12:07 PM

Fool's Errand Style requires a Fool's Errand stance, so you by necessity get an IL.

For Martial Study the IL is 1/2 HD + strength (or equivalent ability replacement), so the DC becomes 10 + 1/4 HD + 1.5 * strength.

Ok, I did miss that, so the first case above is solved, as all users will have an IL, and initiator stat.

DC base is 12 as per doc (10 +2 DC for use of discipline weapon, which is any weapon for Fools Errand).

I did want to ask how you got the 1.5*STR in your equation though? With martial training as the base, it’s still just Init Mod or Str Mod which happens to be the same mod in this case...

upho

2016-07-27, 01:33 PM

Well, there's also the corner case of a MoMS monk getting FE Style and bypassing the prereqs. But that's indeed very much a corner case.

MilleniaAntares

2016-07-27, 02:42 PM

Ok, I did miss that, so the first case above is solved, as all users will have an IL, and initiator stat.

DC base is 12 as per doc (10 +2 DC for use of discipline weapon, which is any weapon for Fools Errand).

I did want to ask how you got the 1.5*STR in your equation though? With martial training as the base, it’s still just Init Mod or Str Mod which happens to be the same mod in this case...
Thank you for the correction.

The initiator level for Martial Training is 1/2 hd + the stat associated with the discipline's skill.

The DC has "1/2 initiator level" as part of it, so....

10 + 2 + IL/2 + strength mod
12 + (HD/2 + strength mod)/2 + strength mod
12 + HD/4 + strength mod/2 + strength mod
12 + HD/4 + 3/2 * strength mod

ATalsen

2016-07-27, 04:17 PM

The initiator level for Martial Training is 1/2 hd + the stat associated with the discipline's skill.

The DC has "1/2 initiator level" as part of it, so....

12 + HD/4 + 3/2 * strength mod

OH!

Ok, now I get it; thanks for the math break down!

Its a facet of how the feat calculates its IL, which is unique to that feat, and the fact that Fool's Errand is Strength based. That's kind of cool. :)

upho

2016-07-28, 04:26 AM

The DC has "1/2 initiator level" as part of it, so....

12 + HD/4 + 3/2 * strength modMight be worth noting that while this nifty little formula will give you correct results as long as your Str mod is equal to or less than half your character level +1, it will give you an incorrect result if your Str mod is higher since it doesn't take the Martial Training IL cap into account (which is "not to exceed your character level").

Forrestfire

2016-07-29, 12:02 AM

Hello again. I’m sorry for the long delay on this response. It’s been a rough week. Anyway, I’m back now, with some updates in tow. If you just want a changelog, scroll to the bottom.

(There’s a decent amount to say, and it’s more stream-of-thought than anything else, so I’m not going to be responding to individual posts.)

Throw Maneuvers
After some discussion and deliberation, we’ve decided to change the four trip-into-throw maneuvers to simply flat Climb vs CMD checks to get the effect. It wasn’t quite intended for them to not work at all on flying creatures or creatures immune to trip, especially at high levels with sky-shattering throw. This also means that the maneuvers no longer have synergy with feats that boost your trips or combo out of them, but I figure it evens out a bit.

Lock, Reach, Power, Efficiency
The comments on lock’s strengths and efficiency in different situations are the reason this is more of one block than directly responding. One of the more common comments I’ve gotten from people in playtesting (in my group in particular) is that lock, as a mechanic, is incredibly dangerous. It’s strong for doing what it does (stopping their movement, allowing you to reposition), but at the same time, it’s (maybe a bit too subtly) a double-edged sword.

One of the core parts of lock that’s been missed a couple times in discussions I’ve had is that, while it stops movement, it does absolutely nothing to the enemy’s actions or abilities. It’s incredibly efficient to apply and use, but at the same time is fairly inefficient as a debuff. If you lock someone, it probably means that they’re going to full attack you. If you don’t have a way to survive that, you are probably going to be dead or nearly dead (particularly if you’re an NPC using lock against a PC).

This is part of why it allows for reach to be used: reach is one of a couple ways to turn lock from a tanking tool (“you must attack me because I’m now the option you’ve got”) to a lockdown tool (“stay put, okay?”), but even then, it’s still much less efficient than, say, trip—it does not remove any of their actions or penalize anything they’re doing. It doesn’t even necessarily hold them in place; a 5-foot step or move action can break the lock on their turn, especially if they have a high Strength or good Reflex. Even if they don’t move, they’ll still get a free chance to break it, and they’ll have spent their turn doing whatever they felt like other than moving (casting a spell, using an ability, ranged attacks, maybe items, recovery if they’re an initiator, etc).

This is also part of why lock allows you to use your attacking stat, and why it’s got some particularly efficient means of application (stances, rider effects, and the like). Unlike many of the debuffs in Path of War, which range from things like sickened and shaken (debuffs to their ability to attack) to stronger ones like blind, nauseate, stagger, stun, and even daze, lock… Isn’t actually as amazing as a debuff. It’s good at what it does, but it doesn’t take someone out of the fight. Just changes how they have to fight.

Thus, we’ve given people the option of having a stronger save DC with it, as well as helping to make Fool’s Errand as a whole less reliant on initiation modifier (as part of its unique gimmick).

Save DCs when used by NPCs
And as a small side note, while monsters who’re given Fool’s Errand will find that PCs are vastly different animals than NPCs, especially in Path of War. They do have higher save DCs, but PCs also have higher saves, will often have counters that replace saves, and also often (especially initiators) have teleportation effects—which automatically escape the lock. Something to note, at least. See below about counters though.

Ease of Use
With that in mind though, you’ve made some points about AoOs and counters that didn’t quite occur to me when writing it. In order to make Fool’s Errand’s locks easier to counter, I’ve gone through and adjusted some things. There were few locks that didn’t come attached to an attack (which could be countered), and now there are fewer. Lead and follow has been changed to be triggered by hitting with an AoO instead of an AoO being provoked, and both lesson III: suppression and lesson VI: supremacy have the same mechanic of locking on a hit with an AoO, rather than in place of AoOs. Those two stances’ free 1/round locks now require you to be adjacent to the target, rather than them just being in your reach. Hopefully these extra failure points will make them a bit less reliable to use. Fool’s Errand Style remains able to replace attacks with lock attempts, but also has the opportunity cost of requiring a swift to turn it, as well as eating the attacks in question and your style slot.

Regarding AoOs—lock has also been changed to no longer allow you to lock them in the same turn they escaped, preventing juggle-locking.

Unlimited Locks
Given the action costs needed to lock multiple creatures, we’re not going to be instituting a limit to the creatures you can lock (except by the size of your reach). There’s even a maneuver that’s meant to lock everything you can grab hold of, and so far it hasn’t caused problems with abuse. Locking a whole battlefield is cool, but it also means you’ve got a whole battlefield of enemies ready to murder you, with you in the center.

Comparisons to Combat Maneuvers
So, to return to the efficiency topic: it really can’t be underscored enough that oftentimes, locking will cause them to turn around and full attack you. Trip is actually a much stronger lockdown tool if you’re heavily invested in it (keeping them down and making extra attacks as needed, particularly with Piercing Thunder Style or stances), and grapple as a mechanic heavily debuffs them just by succeeding at it, along with having some incredible support like Throat Slicer.

Combat maneuvers as a whole have a problem of requiring significant investment to be good, but they’re weirdly swingy in that once you have that investment, they tend to just never fail. If you’re specced for grappling, you will either end a fight with an instant lockdown/kill, or be useless (if they have freedom of movement). Lock is both much more efficient to use and much less strong as a control mechanic as a result. It’s fairly hard to get the same sort of lockdown (even its harder lockdown effect, night falls, can be ended by them trying to move and making the save).

Initiator Level, Initiation Modifier
I want to thank you guys for the catches regarding IM and IL. The lock save DC wording has been amended to use your highest IM and IL for each. One thing to note is that even if you’ve got Fool’s Errand Style through Master of Many Styles monk, you still do have an initiator level. It’s 1/2 your levels in non-initiator classes. The DC for a MoMS monk with Fool’s Errand Style will probably not be great as a result, though.

One Final Thing
The maneuver assert existence has, after a lot of testing and feedback, hit the chopping block. A new maneuver, lightning strikes twice, has replaced it in the doc.

Thanks again for the playtest feedback you’re giving us, and I hope you have a wonderful night/day/time-zone-appropriate time.

You can no longer lock creatures in the same turn they escape
Added clarifying wording that you don’t provoke from creatures you’re dragging while you drag them
Lock DC is now based on your highest initiator level and initiation modifier.
Lead and Follow now procs on an AoO that hits instead of freely locking.
Lesson III: Suppression now locks on hits with AoOs, its free 1/round lock is only against adjacent creatures
Lesson VI: Supremacy’s free 1/round lock is also only against adjacent creatures.
Assert Existence replaced with Lightning Strikes Twice.
Throw maneuvers no longer trip, they just roll Climb vs CMD.

ATalsen

2016-07-29, 12:38 PM

Thanks for the reply and the revisions!

I am planning to playtest Locking in a session this weekend, so I’ll let you know what the experience is like.

---

I want to clarify and go over some of the difficulty I’m potentially seeing, and maybe in doing so I can show how I’m approaching the Lock condition.

First off, I’m looking thru a particular lens, but I think it is a good lens to look thru in this case:

Aegis with flight, extra reach and a reach weapon.
I’m comparing Lock against Trip (mostly) for utility and ease of use, as I think it compares more closely with Trip than Grapple.
I’m focused on AoO locking, NOT on locking via maneuver.
I’m focused on using locking against its optimal opponent: melee opponents without comparable reach to my PC

(Any time Trip would be better than Locking, there’s nothing stopping the PC from doing a Trip instead! Locking is one tool in the box, and can thus be applied only when it’s the MOST suitable/advantageous tool for the situation).

Aegis can get flight as early as 5th level; 5th level is also the earliest for 3rd level stances and the point at which Wizards can get the Fly spell, and an Enlarge Person can grant the same reach, so this ‘build’ is not purely an Aegis-only concern as other PCs can accomplish this at 5th and beyond.

I think Locking being able to drag ground-bound people into the air is the issue. If the opportunity cost were a Standard action, it would probably still be very strong, but as just part of your movement it appears to be a problem.

Ok, so here is the situation as I envision it:

Enemy turn: Enemy attempts to close with my PC.
Enemy provokes AoO, and gets a lock attempt – let’s assume the lock is successful. Enemy ends their move action.
If the enemy has a 2nd move action left, then they can try to do something, if they don’t they cannot:

Locked Enemy cannot perform any melee attack since they are too far away to melee.
Enemy may be able to switch to ranged attacks, but likely has to spend an action drawing the weapon, ending their turn there.
Enemy can try to escape, if they succeed they are free to move up, but have used their entire turn – no attack and it cost only one AoO.

If multiple enemies approach, AoO locking might occur on several.

Let’s assume that ONE opponent remains locked till my PC's turn.

On my PC’s turn, my PC can use a standard action to do whatever (attacking or even moving to a better position away from full attacks); however using just a move action my PC can move 10 ft into the air (at the cost of 40 ft movement for lock plus upward move costs).

If a locked opponent is adjacent, my PC can drop them right then so as to prevent the upcoming full attack – if the enemy takes even 1 point of lethal falling damage, they end prone (and 10 ft away, downward – an argument can be made that falling is movement and movement provokes an AoO, so maybe the enemy is damaged by an AoO as they fall). If the opponent is NOT within melee range, I’d leave them hanging there, so that on THEIR turn they can try to escape, using their move action (or 5ft move) on the escape attempt, and still fall, and potentially end up prone, burning an action standing up.

So for this scenario, if you can lock an opponent and move upward with them so they fall, you can often gain the benefits of ‘trip’ as well, such that you burn much or all of their turn for the cost of only your move action and an AoO.

Obviously this breaks down if the enemy has DR 5/X – but even then it’s a 1 in 6 to deal 1 point to them (higher DR would negate the damage entirely of course). And it doesn’t work on opponents that can fly already, but again, you can use this as early as 5th where flying and DR are not all that common in opponents.

With reach + reach weapon, it’s likely that IF an opponent is locked, they can be locked outside their own melee reach. If we look at the 5th level Surround from Within strike, we can even potentially lock everyone within reach adjacent (EDIT: oops the maneuver says Adjacent, so only adjacent opponents), and then drag them 10 ft up as the move action for the PCs turn, and wait to see what they do on their turn. Sure it might make them ‘mad’, but if your PC is the Tank/Controller melee anyway, you wanted them to come after you – and if they are not in full attack range, they may end up provoking try close with you, might fall and end up prone, and get an damaging AoO on their movement for their effort. (EDIT: clearly the opponents in this case were already adjacent to you, so your just using the 'go up and drop them' option to avoid full attacks in the next round).

So what I’d propose for this is just saying that: ‘you cannot drag an opponent into the air if they do not possess the ability to move into the air on their own (flight, wind walk, etc), and any attempt to move an opponent into an area that cannot support them causes them to immediately fall and leave your lock. A fall of 5 ft or less deals no damage.’

The other part is that moving them is pretty cheap – you drag them as part of your move action.

Now, on a flat battlefield, that’s not likely an issue, and some people play on a flat (or at least non-dangerous) field. However others play in areas containing lava and pits – areas that moving on to is effectively a death sentence. And many play with maps that lie somewhere in between hose extremes. I think you have to look at the movement part through the lens of the case where movement is at least dangerous and sometimes potentially fatal or highly damaging.

If you want to keep the movement cost low, then I’d suggest taking a cue from Reposition (EDIT: oops its Grapple where you can move them into dangerous terrain, not Reposition) the Grapple Move option, and giving an extra save at the point where moving an opponent into harm. Otherwise, I’d say that moving (any number) of locked opponents with you should require you to spend your standard action to move. In this case you could even decide that movement is at full speed, and it would probably be fine.

This is part of why it allows for reach to be used: reach is one of a couple ways to turn lock from a tanking tool (“you must attack me because I’m now the option you’ve got”) to a lockdown tool (“stay put, okay?”), but even then, it’s still much less efficient than, say, trip—it does not remove any of their actions or penalize anything they’re doing.

Even the most basic of AoO Lock builds is going to cost the opponent part of their move action – when the opponent triggers an AoO and fails the Lock save, they end their move there (likely not in melee range of any PC). Since it’s their turn they can use *another* action (what would have been their Standard attack, probably), to get a new save, and maybe even escape the lock. But in doing so, you have cost them their attack that turn.

A *successful* Trip, would have been better than Lock, sure – but the whole point of Lock is that its more reliable than Trip against opponents that trip would not easily work on (multiple-leg, flying, larger, etc.).

I think I’ve shown above that its possible for Lock to indeed cost the opponent their actions.

---

Ease of Use
There were few locks that didn’t come attached to an attack (which could be countered), and now there are fewer.

I think the changes here are good, but I’m really concerned that the change to Lesson III: Suppression has dramatically increased its power.

Old text: “You may also make lock attempts in place of attacks of opportunity.”
New Text “You may also make a lock attempt against any creature you hit with an attack of opportunity.”

So it went from a decision to trade my damage output on an AoO for an attempt to lock, to getting BOTH damage and lock attempt!

I understand what you wanted to accomplish here and think that keeping the trade decision would be a better choice.

Something like:
‘If you strike an opponent with an attack of opportunity, you may choose to deal no damage, and instead you may make a lock attempt against that creature.”

So you have to hit, which plays into the counters, but you don’t get both damage and lock.

---

Thanks for the read and replies!

Forrestfire

2016-07-30, 05:01 PM

Hmm. You make some good points about the AoO and hazardous dragging stuff. I'm going to run some more testing on these, and will get back to you shortly with an update and thoughts on this.

ATalsen

2016-08-01, 11:50 AM

Playtest Report:

I tried using the lock mechanic this weekend, and due to pretty good luck on the DM’s part, didn’t have much success.

Over the whole adventure I managed to lock one creature as it entered my threat ranged, but it immediately escaped to close with me (so I cost it an attack that round), and I successfully locked another creature that stayed locked (so I cost it both movement and an attack), but it was annihilated by an AoE before I took my turn.

My Lock DC was 21, and I can get as high as a +27 on a trip attempt (for comparison).

Vrock; Ref +10 (w/ STR +13)
CMD 27

Huge Quadruped Skeletons: Ref +6 (w/ STR +16)
CMD 36 (40 vs. trip)

Large Demon: Ref +9 (w/ STR +14)
CMD 28

Large Flying Demon: Ref +9 (w/ STR +12)
CMD 35 (37 vs. trip)

I tried lock multiple times against most of the encountered creatures, but the DM (who rolls in the open) was hitting like 17’s on his dice each time. :(

So, it looks like I’ll have to continue to try out locking on our next session, and hope for a more average set of rolls from the DM.

One thought came to me when we fought some undead, which is that locking doesn’t say anything about incorporeal, so I didn’t try it. Looking at the Incorporeal ability, though, I think it is clear that Locking will not work on incorporeal creatures:

In fact, they cannot take any physical action that would move or manipulate an opponent or its equipment, nor are they subject to such actions.

upho

2016-08-01, 05:53 PM

I've not yet properly digested the changes to have much feedback except a nitpick: Lightning Strikes Twice says (my emphasis):
"They take half the damage they took from the initial attack, as well as any additional effects, such a save against a condition, bonus damage, a delivered touch spell, or the effects of a maneuver or stance."While I understand there's a missing "as" (between "such" and "a save"), the intended mechanical effect of "taking half the damage from a save against a condition" is difficult to decipher for me, especially since most conditions don't deal damage and I don't really see how conditions or many other effects dependent on saves can be divided by half. Is the hit creature supposed to make a new save vs half the original DC, take half the damage it originally took as a result of making a failed or successful save, or something entirely different?

If you want to keep the movement cost low, then I’d suggest taking a cue from Reposition (EDIT: oops its Grapple where you can move them into dangerous terrain, not Reposition) the Grapple Move option, and giving an extra save at the point where moving an opponent into harm.Might be worth noting that strictly according to RAW, grapple doesn't provide an extra save on the initial movement (the automatic one which moves the target you've grappled to an adjacent space of your choice). Which means grab, reach, a ton of AoOs and a friendly AoE control caster making spiked pits etc can be an absolutely devastating combo ("grabdolon" type eidolons and certain similar PCs pimped out with Bloodforge feats in particular can excel at this). Also might be good to remember that you can relatively easily achieve a practically unbeatable grapple CMB, which is far beyond what is possible with the lock DC (at least without some pretty hysterical Str optimization for a mod of say 30+).

Something like:
‘If you strike an opponent with an attack of opportunity, you may choose to deal no damage, and instead you may make a lock attempt against that creature.”This seems like a good suggestion for the default mechanic IMO. As long as especially higher level maneuvers (and costly feats) will retain different lock triggers for additional variety and resolution in terms of power.

I tried lock multiple times against most of the encountered creatures, but the DM (who rolls in the open) was hitting like 17’s on his dice each time. :(Damn, I know how that hurts! Being a soft-hearted type of DM, I feel bad for my players if I keep having lucky rolls during a session, especially if those rolls happen to repeatedly negate a specific PC's abilities... :smallredface:

Another funny thing is that this is virtually the opposite of what I experienced during especially my first playtesting session with "Duhrtie", except when it came to the two enemies with freedom of movement (a high level sorcerer and a linnorm), who both kept resisting Duhrtie's attempts to ignore their magic protection.

So, it looks like I’ll have to continue to try out locking on our next session, and hope for a more average set of rolls from the DM.That's the spirit! And remember that the probabilities should favor you now! :smallbiggrin:

One thought came to me when we fought some undead, which is that locking doesn’t say anything about incorporeal, so I didn’t try it. Looking at the Incorporeal ability, though, I think it is clear that Locking will not work on incorporeal creatures:Yeah, I also don't think this needs any specific mention in the lock rules.

ATalsen

2016-08-02, 01:54 AM

… Lightning Strikes Twice says (my emphasis):While I understand there's a missing "as" (between "such" and "a save"), the intended mechanical effect of "taking half the damage from a save against a condition" is difficult to decipher for me, … Is the hit creature supposed to make a new save vs half the original DC, take half the damage it originally took as a result of making a failed or successful save, or something entirely different?

The way I read it, you take half damage, and you also take (full) any other effect on the attack.

I read it this way because the comma after “initial attack,” in the text indicates that the first part is separate from the second and thus the second doesn’t have the same restrictions of the first part.

Parsing that type of sentence in rules always leads to confusion.

Might be worth noting that strictly according to RAW, grapple doesn't provide an extra save on the initial movement (the automatic one which moves the target you've grappled to an adjacent space of your choice).

Grapple does say this though:

If you successfully grapple a creature that is not adjacent to you, move that creature to an adjacent open space (if no space is available, your grapple fails).

An argument can be made that a pit, for example, is not an available space. Some other hazards might still be considered ‘available’, but others may not be.

And while it does say to move them adjacent, it doesn’t specifically say “of your choice”, so the DM might legitimately intervene and limit your selection of spaces.

Also might be good to remember that you can relatively easily achieve a practically unbeatable grapple CMB, which is far beyond what is possible with the lock DC (at least without some pretty hysterical Str optimization for a mod of say 30+).
I don’t think anyone here is saying that a tricked out grappler is not a beast. I think we are looking at Lock to see how it stacks up to all the Combat Maneuvers that have similar mechanics, and to verify that Lock does what it’s intended to do without odd side effects.

A grappler does need to invest a large portion of resources to do what they do – and some people see that unbeatable grapple success as a rightful outcome of such resource investment. Locking requires much less resource investment (and ALLOWS much less investment); however, so some people will look at it askance if it is more effective than the amount of resources that it requires *should* provide (at least viewed through the lens of the amount of resources it takes now to be good at any given combat maneuver).

I was thinking that dragging into hazards might allow a save, but another way to go, and a way to add some investment cost is to let them drag people around, but not into dangerous situations (similar to reposition), and same as Reposition, make a feat that specifically ALLOWS you to drag opponent’s into dangerous situations. If a feat is good for Reposition, then it should be good for Lock.

Tactical Reposition (Combat)
Benefit: When making a reposition combat maneuver, you can move an enemy into a trap or other hazardous area…

Make a feat like Tactical Reposition for Lock, and you have both investment cost and a solution for people wanting to use it both hazardously (they get the feat) and non-hazardously (they don’t select the feat).

Forrestfire

2016-08-02, 05:37 PM

Alrighty. After running some more scenarios and testing lock's use on hardcore lockdown builds, I (begrudgingly :smalltongue:) have to agree—lock as an AoO+reach lockdown tool is way too good.

Utter Commitment and Lesson V: Expression have wording to only make one cone with AoE effects like destruction zealot (oops)
Lock dragging into hazardous locations has an escape attempt (save to fall prone instead of being dragged into something)
Fool’s Errand Style changed to 1/round free lock ala the stances
Lessons 3 and 6 changed to only lock on damaging AoOs against adjacent targets
Lesson 2 changed to only lock on damaging adjacent targets with unarmed strikes
Contender changed to only lock adjacent
Close-Quarters Combo removed (realized I accidentally had too many 1sts and this one was on the chopping block for being reworked for a while)

After going through a couple different ways of nerfing this to do what I want it to, I've arrived at some changes I've added to the doc. I considered using the suggestion of letting people choose to deal no damage on their attack in exchange for a lock, but I feel that that wouldn't solve the problem of the reach lockdown being better than we want it to be.

So, instead, the ability to lock people with reach using stances and non-strike abilities has been nerfed some. Reach will still be useful, especially if, say, you use a Dance strike to move in, hit someone with a lock off a stance, and then step out after the attack, but as an AoO tool, lessons II, III and VI can only lock adjacent creatures you hit with attacks of opportunity. The Contender brawler's free locks have also been adjusted the same way.

Lead and follow and the Night Terror vigilante's hidden strikes are now the only way to actively lock people with reach regardless of the circumstances; the former because it's a counter and thus has a higher action and opportunity cost, and the latter because of the necessity of surprising or flanking to get it to work, rather than letting you just set up and be an impassible zone of reach.

Fool's Errand Style has been adjusted differently; instead of its previous setup of letting you freely replace attacks with lock attempts (bypassing counters and penalties from iteratives, as well as being similarly strong with reach and AoOs), it now has a 1/round free lock, similarly to lessons III and VI.

In addition, there's been a couple other small changes. Close-quarters combo is no longer a maneuver, as I realized that FE accidentally had one too many maneuvers at 1st level. Lesson V: expression and utter commitment have had some tweaks after someone broke them hilariously with a destruction zealot's cone augment.

Finally, and importantly, locking does not let you freely drag people into hazardous locations anymore. After fiddling with a lot of different options for making this work, including potentially a feat tax or just making it impossible, we've decided to go with something that gives people the ability to escape your lock if you try to move them someone dangerous or into a place they can't go, but having you still get something out of it even if they manage to succeed in stopping the drag and escaping the lock. I hope that this will make the mechanic a bit more balanced as we move forward.

Thanks again for all the feedback you've given, and I hope you have a wonderful day.

ATalsen

2016-08-02, 06:55 PM

Ok! Although to some extent I’m bummed that locking is not as attractive to my current reach-using PC, I’ll take the improved game balance!

I think the new setup more clearly shows that Locking is more of a ‘tanking’ tool where you force opponents to face off with you (and potentially move them away from engaging other PCs) – which was totally not my initial impression of it, as you could probably tell!

So, AoOs/Stances require adjacent, but strikes don’t (necessarily) require adjacent for locking. I think that works.

Lead and Follow
The first part where you “initiate this counter when you hit a creature with an attack of opportunity” is really hard to reconcile with the last part “If a creature is attempting to use Acrobatics … you can roll a Climb check and use it in place of your CMD to determine if you can initiate this counter against them.” Because it kind of requires you use it retroactively or something.

Typo

Bob and Weave
the target then become(s) flat-footed

Lesson V: Expression
“You do not apply the effects of strikes or boosts to the cone’s effects,”

You use Expression with unarmed strikes only, but you don’t apply the effect of strikes to the cone, so I can't tell what IS supposed to be applied to the cone? Base unarmed damage only?

Lightning Strikes Twice
I’m not sure how I feel about this one. On one hand it’s a cool effect, but on the other it may not be worth it. It’s a 7th level maneuver and its really close in effect to the 3rd level maneuver Reflected Blade Style – Lightning hits the same target (a round later) while Reflected hits a second nearby target immediately.

What gets me is that I’ve seen many opponents go down within the round after a good hit, before my turn comes up again. In such conditions, Lightning would be wasted.

My opinion is that Lightning needs to happen faster: as a 7th level maneuver that deals only half damage vs the 3rd level maneuver that does happen the same round at full damage (and effects), I don’t think it would break anything to have the secondary effect happen right then instead of waiting till the next round.

Forrestfire

2016-08-02, 07:14 PM

Ok! Although to some extent I’m bummed that locking is not as attractive to my current reach-using PC, I’ll take the improved game balance!

I think the new setup more clearly shows that Locking is more of a ‘tanking’ tool where you force opponents to face off with you (and potentially move them away from engaging other PCs) – which was totally not my initial impression of it, as you could probably tell!

So, AoOs/Stances require adjacent, but strikes don’t (necessarily) require adjacent for locking. I think that works.

Glad to hear. Sorry about your PC. Hopefully they should still work well for you as a tanky character, at least.

Lead and Follow
The first part where you “initiate this counter when you hit a creature with an attack of opportunity” is really hard to reconcile with the last part “If a creature is attempting to use Acrobatics … you can roll a Climb check and use it in place of your CMD to determine if you can initiate this counter against them.” Because it kind of requires you use it retroactively or something.

Thaaaat is legacy wording from the earlier version. My bad, it's been removed.

Typo

Thanks for the catch.

Lesson V: Expression
“You do not apply the effects of strikes or boosts to the cone’s effects,”

You use Expression with unarmed strikes only, but you don’t apply the effect of strikes to the cone, so I can't tell what IS supposed to be applied to the cone? Base unarmed damage only?

Base unarmed damage, enhancement bonuses, your Strength modifier, power attack or piranha strike, magic weapon special abilities, sneak attack potentially (if they're flat-footed), and the like.

Lightning Strikes Twice
I’m not sure how I feel about this one. On one hand it’s a cool effect, but on the other it may not be worth it. It’s a 7th level maneuver and its really close in effect to the 3rd level maneuver Reflected Blade Style – Lightning hits the same target (a round later) while Reflected hits a second nearby target immediately.

What gets me is that I’ve seen many opponents go down within the round after a good hit, before my turn comes up again. In such conditions, Lightning would be wasted.

My opinion is that Lightning needs to happen faster: as a 7th level maneuver that deals only half damage vs the 3rd level maneuver that does happen the same round at full damage (and effects), I don’t think it would break anything to have the secondary effect happen right then instead of waiting till the next round.

Right now, the balance on this one is in question and I'm going to wait for some more feedback on its effect to make any changes to it. Thanks for the feedback though, it will definitely be taken in mind.

MilleniaAntares

2016-08-02, 10:59 PM

If you have more than one "1/turn make a free lock attempt" effect active, do you get 2+ free attempts?

Forrestfire

2016-08-02, 11:32 PM

Yes, you do. Each ability is used separately (making it possible, at level 15+, to have up to 3 of them per turn, if you get Supremacy and Suppression, then burn a swift on activating Fool's Errand Style).

zyggythorn

2016-08-03, 10:01 AM

Nice to see a Tai Chi Quan inspired discipline, especially when in incorporates weaponry.

Do you see anymore discipline combo feats coming? (Loving the FE/MF feat, btw)

Perhaps something bringing together Broken Blade and Fool's Errand?

The history for the style and associated faction is damned cool, while I'm at it. Replace magic with Firearms and you've got 19th century China in a nutshell!

ATalsen

2016-08-03, 12:19 PM

The 2 stances and a 1 feat that allow locking as a free action 1/round do not say you can use that free action on an opponent's turn. I just want to confirm that is intensional, and that the free action lock is only intended to be used 1/round on your own turn.

Forrestfire

2016-08-03, 02:01 PM

That is correct; they can only be used on your turn.

upho

2016-08-04, 04:06 AM

The way I read it, you take half damage, and you also take (full) any other effect on the attack.Ah, that seems like much more reasonable interpretation. Thanks.

And while it does say to move them adjacent, it doesn’t specifically say “of your choice”, so the DM might legitimately intervene and limit your selection of spaces.Personally, I've always ruled it that the grappled creature is moved as short a distance as possible to end up adjacent, which basically means the combo I mentioned above requires a bit more tactical thinking and perhaps a bit more investments than if you actually had been free to place grappled enemies in a space of your choice. Creatures with grab and great reach and Str can still be very effective.

I don’t think anyone here is saying that a tricked out grappler is not a beast. I think we are looking at Lock to see how it stacks up to all the Combat Maneuvers that have similar mechanics, and to verify that Lock does what it’s intended to do without odd side effects.

A grappler does need to invest a large portion of resources to do what they do – and some people see that unbeatable grapple success as a rightful outcome of such resource investment. Locking requires much less resource investment (and ALLOWS much less investment); however, so some people will look at it askance if it is more effective than the amount of resources that it requires *should* provide (at least viewed through the lens of the amount of resources it takes now to be good at any given combat maneuver).I honestly don't think this isn't true anymore. It used to be the case that you had to make a ton of investments, notably including a boatload of feat taxes, and to focus hard on one or maybe two (three as a fighter) combat maneuvers in order to maintain a competitive CMB, and it was largely impossible to keep most types of combat maneuvers relevant in very high levels without class/archetype specific support, mostly due to the CMD scaling of monsters and immunities caused by increasing size differences. Which people rightfully complain about and indeed make the great wyrm wrestling capacity of the rather lackluster tetori feel very well deserved. (And those who believe otherwise are obviously forgetting that those tetoris, usually only capable of removing one opponentby also removing themselves, are typically pretty darn subpar to the barbs and bloodragers able to reliably one-shot the same great wyrm three or four levels earlier).

Now, with the latest DSP content a Str based melee build can have a practically unbeatable (or near unbeatable) CMB for all combat maneuvers, without having to worry about the size of the target, starting at 9th level or even earlier. And a melee control build now doesn't even have to invest in one single combat maneuver feat to be able to safely and very efficiently use any one of them, regardless of the opponent (even the tarrasque only has a 60 feet reach with its tail, after all).

Which brings us to:

Alrighty. After running some more scenarios and testing lock's use on hardcore lockdown builds, I (begrudgingly :smalltongue:) have to agree—lock as an AoO+reach lockdown tool is way too good.

After going through a couple different ways of nerfing this to do what I want it to, I've arrived at some changes I've added to the doc. I considered using the suggestion of letting people choose to deal no damage on their attack in exchange for a lock, but I feel that that wouldn't solve the problem of the reach lockdown being better than we want it to be.Try running the same scenarios with a similar build opted for combat maneuvers. I think you'll be surprised.

Because with a sufficiently boosted Str, size and reach, most combat maneuvers are good, and quite a few of them are a lot better than Lock, without even requiring any discipline or combat maneuver specific investments. I get the impression the power of Lock is confused with the power of a Str based AoO control build with optimized reach and Str. You don't need Lock or any investments into combat maneuver specific stuff to be good at lockdown. You simply need what every other Str based melee build wants plus size, reach and an ability to make plenty of AoOs per round. Full stop.

To make sure we're talking about the same things, here's a few basic numbers for a Str based melee control build:

Basic numbers for a build somewhat similar to my Duhrtie (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20908716&postcount=122), an Aasimar/Skinwalker/Tiefling (of gamla heritage) Warder 8, Formless Master 4 (warder), Bloodrager 5 (aberrant bloodline), Mongrel 4 (bloodrager), with only Mighty Frame plus the minimum 5 shifting feats resulting from Formless Master (incl. Abomination, Magnitude and Strongclaw), reasonably balanced stats, modest gear and long arm as only active spell buff:

Gargantuan size Large size (gamla heritage), Magnitude Shift
40 ft. natural reach / 70 ft. weapon reach (60 ft. / 90 ft. using defensive focus) 20 size, 5 abnormal reach, 5 unnatural reach, 5 sudden reach, 5 long arm / 20 reach weapon, 10 Colossal size weapon (Mighty Frame) (+20 ft. defensive focus warder IL 17)
Str 48 16 base, 2 race, 5 level, 5 Strongclaw, 6 belt, 4 bloodrage, 6 Magnitude, 4 unbounded ability
CMB +52 / +67 using weapon 18 bab, 19 Str, 5 Abomination Shift, 8 size, 2 dusty rose ioun / 5 enhancement, 10 dueling weapon (a typical CR 20 monster such as a balor has a CMD of 54)
8 AoOs/round 1 + 7 initiation modifier (warder Combat Reflexes)

Simply by adding Seize the Opportunity, this build can make virtually any combat maneuver as an AoO without much risk, despite provoking AoOs (courtesy of having a greater reach than any listed creature AFAIK). Note also that the CMB value is without a single resource invested into a specific combat maneuver, and a dueling weapon (+1 cost) and a dusty rose ioun in a wayfinder (1k) as only CMB boosting gear. The CMB would of course be pretty significantly higher for a few combat maneuvers for a build which actually invested in related feats and gear. Everything besides perhaps a few of the reach enhancers would also be great for basically any other type of Str based melee build.

And as mentioned, this build could very well have at least as competitive numbers (relatively speaking) at 9th level.

From my playtesting with Duhrtie at 14th level, a very control focused build, Lock is primarily good for two things:

Enabling various maneuvers which requires a locked target
"Upgrading" lower bab attacks to some basic usefulness in mass fights

Basically everything else Lock can do, a control build like the one above can do better using a combat maneuver.

So why would adding Lock without the "adjacent" limit make a control build so much better at lockdown? Please help me understand the need for that limitation, because IME the word "adjacent" generally translates into "trap" if found in the rules for a melee control option.

Finally, and importantly, locking does not let you freely drag people into hazardous locations anymore. After fiddling with a lot of different options for making this work, including potentially a feat tax or just making it impossible, we've decided to go with something that gives people the ability to escape your lock if you try to move them someone dangerous or into a place they can't go, but having you still get something out of it even if they manage to succeed in stopping the drag and escaping the lock. I hope that this will make the mechanic a bit more balanced as we move forward.This I agree is a good idea.

ATalsen

2016-08-04, 12:52 PM

Now, with the latest DSP content a Str based melee build can have a practically unbeatable (or near unbeatable) CMB for all combat maneuvers, without having to worry about the size of the target, starting at 9th level or even earlier.

DSP has skill replacements for CMB, using maneuvers. I’m aware of that, but I don’t think there is any sort of unlimited ability to just do any combat maneuver whatsoever using skills.

Maybe I’m wrong?

Assuming that we are taking DSP material, and replacement of CMB with Skill bonus stuff, that still requires an investment – LESS of an investment than core, yes, but still an investment. You need to invest in the skill, plus magic items to boost the skill, plus the maneuvers/stances themselves to perform the skill vs CMD.

Lock (prior to revision) had a total investment required of about 1 feat or 1 stance to work over your entire threatened area.

The other thing to remember is that, when designing new mechanics, it’s not good to only look at the mechanics that DSP has produced but to go back to the core rules for checking balance. If you only look at new content and not the core, you begin to deviate and power creep and the creep increases with each new release. If you always validate vs core as well, you can keep the creep to a minimum while still introducing new things.

And a melee control build now doesn't even have to invest in one single combat maneuver feat to be able to safely and very efficiently use any one of them, regardless of the opponent (even the tarrasque only has a 60 feet reach with its tail, after all).

Ok, so maybe we are talking about different requirements. What I care about is that a selection had an opportunity cost to pick up *something*; whether it’s a ‘combat maneuver feat’, a race, any other feat type, a particular weapon, or any other choice does not really matter as long as a different choice could be made for a different build.

Given that, presenting a 20th level build that obviously burns a bunch of resources to be great at combat maneuvers is *exactly* what I’m talking about when I say a such build requires investment.

In other words, I’d hold up your example as exactly supporting the statement I was making: Being good at combat maneuvers requires dedicated resources and a specific build.

Compare the amount of selectable items in your build that aid in boosting your CMB to the amount of items in my Aegis build that benefit the use of the previous version of Locking.

My Aegis used:

Class (Aegis, +5ft reach)
PoW selection for Aegis Powers (Initiator’s Soul)
Weapon selection (Reach Weapon)
Strength based stats
Strength based race
1 style feat to lock on AoOs

That’s about 6 items at 10th level, and I didn’t plan to spend more on Locking than that, so its still 6 items at 20th level for my build.

If we just take a quick casual look at your build we see easily well over 6 feat choices alone you burn for the CMB boosting, not to mention the baseline requirements of race and racial strength. Your list has multiple class levels and I don’t even know how you are getting a 7 initiator mod (intelligence) without an item to boost that.

If you want to compare Apples to Apples, build a 10th level build that only has 6 selections and is as good at CMB as my Aegis was at Locking under the old rules. It think you will see that the resources used for CMB-stuff are just much higher.

To forestall a particular rebuttal: Just because a resource in a build does double duty, does NOT mean for this conversation you can ignore its selection as an opportunity cost.

For example, strength makes you good at hitting things in general, but you cannot ignore its opportunity cost in this, as it precludes you from assigning those resources to, say, dex for a dex based build instead. Anything that limits your ability to *play something else* is a resource to be counted.

Is a strength-based, size based build good at CMB? Yes, of course.
Now try to make a build that is NOT strength or size based, but is still as good at CMB. (this will be pretty hard)
Then try to make the same non-strength, non-size PC good at locking. (this will be easier)

And You simply need what every other Str based melee build wants plus size, reach and an ability to make plenty of AoOs per round.

First off, not all melee builds want size – it’s nice when it applies, but it’s not always beneficial in 5 ft corridors for example, and it detracts from a Dex based melee build in any environment. It’s why my Aegis doesn’t select the permanent size increase to large, for example.

Second, Locking did not and does not require a Strength build to do. A high initiator bonus is just fine to accomplish that, if you are a PoW type PC.

Simply choosing to BE a strength based PC is part of the opportunity cost.

While locking isn’t really great for my Aegis any more, when I get the chance to play my Monk/Stalker (with his 8 strength), I’m going to give it a try – I can easily see my PC locking and moving opponents due to high Wisdom, and with forced rerolls and invisibility I have a good shot at tanking the full attacks without much issue.

Again, I can invest like 1 resource more than my current build (a stance) to add in Locking to my Monk/Stalker PC – I don’t need a big revision or change. If I wanted to do any sort of CMB stuff, I’d need some bigger changes – I’d need maneuvers that used skills I probably don’t have, plus magic items to boost those skills, etc., not to mention the feat that switches CMB to Dex, just to have a shot that way (and I’d still suck at doing things the CMB way).

Simply put, Lock is easier to add to ANY PC than being good at CMB is. Because lock requires less opportunity cost choices.

So why would adding Lock without the "adjacent" limit make a control build so much better at lockdown?

You didn’t see my post about how to easily abuse Locking someone with reach?

In short, you used to be able to lock them on an AoO at reach, costing them the remainder of that move action, plus requiring them to burn their standard for an attempt to escape the lock which at best costs them all their actions that round for ONE of your AoOs (like getting Trip off on untripable creatures by targeting their worst save!)

You could previously also fly up and drop them to: a) get an extra AoO as they fall, and b) usually end up dropping them prone and costing them a move action too (on top of the action to get up from prone, which provokes!).

That’s quite a bit of bonus out of one extra feat added to a simple reach build.

Please help me understand the need for that limitation, because IME the word "adjacent" generally translates into "trap" if found in the rules for a melee control option.

While Forrestfire can probably give a better and deeper explanation, what I have gleaned is that Lock is and never was intended to be a LOCKDOWN ability, and is intended to be more of a ‘tanking’ ability.

I myself would not even put locking into the ‘control’ category because for ME the control category’s means ‘prevents/costs opponents actions’ (such as forcing them to walk around a wall, or expend actions standing from prone).

---

(And those who believe otherwise are obviously forgetting that those tetoris, usually only capable of removing one opponentby also removing themselves, are typically pretty darn subpar to the barbs and bloodragers able to reliably one-shot the same great wyrm three or four levels earlier).

Just as a note, when I playtested lock, I was focusing on lock to the exclusion of better options - specifically I was trying to lock some opponents that I could one-shot on an AoO with a damage roll 2 points higher than flat average, so I know where your coming from with this, but this isn't about balancing damage vs other options, it’s about balancing other options among themselves.

Anlashok

2016-08-04, 02:15 PM

If you always validate vs core as well, you can keep the creep to a minimum while still introducing new things.
On the other hand, if you're validating toward a core you already know is both wildly inconsistent and defective, you're not really doing yourself any favors and you end up hamstringing your ability to develop further.

Way back when this thread started Locking was a dynamic, powerful and interesting mechanic and over these weeks playtesting it it's slowly become increasingly convoluted as well as significantly less interesting. To the point where now I'm not even sure why anyone would bother with them. Hell, some of my players have had more difficulty keeping up with the layers of lock revisions than they have learning the complicated and cumbersome grappling rules Lock was originally supposed to simplify and replace.

Lord_Gareth

2016-08-04, 02:29 PM

On the other hand, if you're validating toward a core you already know is both wildly inconsistent and defective, you're not really doing yourself any favors and you end up hamstringing your ability to develop further.

Way back when this thread started Locking was a dynamic, powerful and interesting mechanic and over these weeks playtesting it it's slowly become increasingly convoluted as well as significantly less interesting. To the point where now I'm not even sure why anyone would bother with them. Hell, some of my players have had more difficulty keeping up with the layers of lock revisions than they have learning the complicated and cumbersome grappling rules Lock was originally supposed to simplify and replace.

...It's a playtest, Anlashok. There's meant to be revisions. That's sort of the point of the exercise. When things finalize and release, Lock should be intuitive to learn and use.

Anlashok

2016-08-04, 03:00 PM

...It's a playtest, Anlashok. There's meant to be revisions. That's sort of the point of the exercise. When things finalize and release, Lock should be intuitive to learn and use.

I know, but it seems like each revision adds more and more restrictions and caveats on the system, which adds a lot of bulk and makes it harder to do cool things with it. Which are the main problems with grapple, drag and reposition in the first place.

ATalsen

2016-08-04, 03:42 PM

On the other hand, if you're validating toward a core you already know is both wildly inconsistent and defective, you're not really doing yourself any favors and you end up hamstringing your ability to develop further.

I didn’t mean to imply that you ONLY validate to core, which is why I said that you “validate vs core as well.”

There’s nothing wrong with recognizing the issues with core, and pushing past them, but when you do so, you still need to acknowledge and understand core and its limitations, as I think the DSP authors do.

I know, but it seems like each revision adds more and more restrictions and caveats on the system, which adds a lot of bulk and makes it harder to do cool things with it. Which are the main problems with grapple, drag and reposition in the first place.

I do agree that the word count has gotten larger, but the real question I would have for you is:
Do you think any of that can be cut down and still remain clear?

The reason words were added were to curtail issues and clarify things. If you present a case for reducing word count and retaining the clarity I’m sure that Forestfire will seriously consider your proposal. What game book author would NOT want to be both clear and concise?

I do get where you’re coming from with change being frustrating sometimes; I’ve modified my own build a few times to adapt, and I’m not running it in a playtest game, just one I happen to be in right now. But I have to accept that during a playtest things change, and even if the playtest doc looks finalized, I’m going to have to re-read the whole thing once it’s published to verify what may have changed in the publication process.

I’m not active on all the DSP project threads; some hold less interest for me, but for others I’m interested but I cannot devote the mental effort to processing the playtest and change process. The whole playtest setup requires effort, both from the authors and from the people who are participating.

All I can really say is to present your case as best you can and if you can give details and examples that point a path toward improvement, I’m sure they will be reviewed.

upho

2016-08-04, 10:08 PM

First, let me repeat that I'm not against the limitation of uses/round or giving a locked creatures a way out from being thrown into hazardous environment etc. I'm only questioning the specific limitation to adjacent.

Assuming that we are taking DSP material, and replacement of CMB with Skill bonus stuff /snip/We're not. We're talking about CMB only based on a high Str, a great size and the non-specific CMB bonuses that comes along "for free" by optimizing those two factors. Meaning that if you were only looking to optimize a Str build's melee damage and couldn't care less about control/lockdown power, you'd still have basically the same high CMB as that of the example in my previous post.

The other thing to remember is that, when designing new mechanics, it’s not good to only look at the mechanics that DSP has produced but to go back to the core rules for checking balance. If you only look at new content and not the core, you begin to deviate and power creep and the creep increases with each new release. If you always validate vs core as well, you can keep the creep to a minimum while still introducing new things.While I think the balance of the CRB is a total joke that should never be aspired to, I generally agree with you. But what I'm trying to say is that any power creep that may result from not limiting Lock to adjacent is so insignificant it's barely worth mentioning. The real power creep comes from options found outside of FE. Most other melee mechanics are similarly affected by more accessible Str, size and reach increases, typically going from "good but very costly" or "minor but cheap" to "awesome and cheap".

Ok, so maybe we are talking about different requirements. What I care about is that a selection had an opportunity cost to pick up *something*; whether it’s a ‘combat maneuver feat’, a race, any other feat type, a particular weapon, or any other choice does not really matter as long as a different choice could be made for a different build.I believe you're missing the point. Regardless of whether going for pure melee damage or melee control power (using Lock or basically any other melee control/debuff tool), the far most optimized builds for any of these purposes will have especially one set of components in common, namely at least 5 shifting feats. This is simply because no other options will grant as significant boosts to Str, damage die size and reach, while also providing you with several other strong benefits (such as an increased CMB and several defense and utility boosts). Especially not as early and for as small a cost, relatively speaking. (And the preferred way of getting those feats is usually by taking 4 levels in the Formless Master PrC, which also happens to give an additional +4 bonus to Str and an additional +5 ft. reach, while also advancing any other previous class by 3 levels.)

Given that, presenting a 20th level build that obviously burns a bunch of resources to be great at combat maneuvers is *exactly* what I’m talking about when I say a such build requires investment.

In other words, I’d hold up your example as exactly supporting the statement I was making: Being good at combat maneuvers requires dedicated resources and a specific build.Please have a look at the build components again, because what you're saying here is simply not true.

Regardless of what type of optimized Str based melee build we're aiming for, a majority of these options would remain the same. And regardless of whether we intend to focus on using Lock or something else if aiming for a control build, all but two minor options would remain the same (the dueling weapon and putting the dusty rose ioun in the wayfinder).

Meaning that no, the build I showed does not "burn a bunch of resources to be great at combat maneuvers". It burns a bunch of resources to be great at melee. Of any kind. Hence why I said "You simply need what every other Str based melee build wants plus size, reach and an ability to make plenty of AoOs per round". I made the example to show where the true power actually lies, which is not with Lock.

I would however completely agree with you if we were discussing any type of build I can think of besides melee in general and melee control in particular. Probably no other combat focus currently has such a clearly superior set of options (although I guess "controller/summoner wizard" does have a similar kind of über vibe).

Compare the amount of selectable items in your build that aid in boosting your CMB to the amount of items in my Aegis build that benefit the use of the previous version of Locking.Again:
Note also that the CMB value is without a single resource invested into a specific combat maneuver, and a dueling weapon (+1 cost) and a dusty rose ioun in a wayfinder (1k) as only CMB boosting gear. The CMB would of course be pretty significantly higher for a few combat maneuvers for a build which actually invested in related feats and gear. Everything besides perhaps a few of the reach enhancers would also be great for basically any other type of Str based melee build.Outside of the two mentioned items and the reach boosters, which options do you suggest removing that wouldn't hurt say the DPR at least as much as the CMB of this build?

That’s about 6 items at 10th level, and I didn’t plan to spend more on Locking than that, so its still 6 items at 20th level for my build. If we just take a quick casual look at your build we see easily well over 6 feat choices alone you burn for the CMB boosting, not to mention the baseline requirements of race and racial strength.This is what I meant by making sure we're talking about the same things, because while your aegis build is surely competent at melee in general and using Lock in particular, it's not even remotely close to what the "shifting build" is capable of. That is again regardless of whether we're talking about DPR, control, defense/tanking, or anything else melee, and regardless of which Str based tools are being used (combat maneuvers, Lock, demoralization, whatever).

Your list has multiple class levels and I don’t even know how you are getting a 7 initiator mod (intelligence) without an item to boost that.I'm not necessarily getting a 7 Int mod, more likely a 7 Wis mod and the ordained defender archetype. But here's an example stat array:

Assuming a ragebred skinwalker (a tiefling or especially an aasimar can get higher scores) and 20-point buy:
Str 48 16 base, 2 race, 5 level, 5 Strongclaw, 6 belt, 4 bloodrage, 6 size Magnitude, 4 unbounded ability
Dex 12 10 base, 6 belt, -4 size magnitude shift
Con 24 12 base, 2 race, 6 belt, 4 bloodrage
Int 12 8 base, 4 headband
Wis 24 16 base, 2 tome, 6 headband
Cha 12 10 base, -2 race, 4 headband

A more complete build would probably have additional Str boosters, allowing for a more balanced distribution of base points and level-up bonuses while avoiding an expensive tome.

If you want to compare Apples to Apples, build a 10th level build that only has 6 selections and is as good at CMB as my Aegis was at Locking under the old rules. It think you will see that the resources used for CMB-stuff are just much higher.

To forestall a particular rebuttal: Just because a resource in a build does double duty, does NOT mean for this conversation you can ignore its selection as an opportunity cost.

For example, strength makes you good at hitting things in general, but you cannot ignore its opportunity cost in this, as it precludes you from assigning those resources to, say, dex for a dex based build instead. Anything that limits your ability to *play something else* is a resource to be counted.As you probably know, it's easy to put together a 10th level build which has some additional "selections" but which is better at anything melee. Easily way above your aegis' Lock DC of 21, trip CMB of up to +27 and reach of 15-25 ft. (?), besides also having a considerably higher DPR and probably also better durability. Just look at my 11th level contender brawler (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20987330&postcount=175) test build which, despite being an unarmed damage dealer whose lockdown capacity is far down the list of priorities, has a Lock DC of 31, a CMB of +33 (+35 using AoMF, +36 with trip) and a reach of 25-35 ft. As a comparison, CR 11 monsters has an average CMD of 35 (39 at most) and considerably less reach.

But more importantly, I AM indeed going to make that "particular rebuttal"! :smalltongue: Because considering for example Formless Master, Abomination Shift or powerful build (the Mighty Frame feat) a "CMB choice" is very odd, as these kinds of options gives benefits besides boosting melee offense and powers many melee combat values other than CMB, many of which are actually much more vital than CMB for a majority of builds, regardless of their particular focus. We're not just talking "double duty" here, we're talking "triple duty" or more, with the arguably greatest benefit(s) being something other than boosting CMB. So in order to make an at least somewhat valid comparison between Lock and CMB investments, I believe you can only compare the options which a melee build with a different focus wouldn't have much interest in, ie options which are first and foremost boosting Lock or CMB (such as FE Style, certain FE maneuvers/stances, Dirty Fighting, Improved [combat maneuver] etc).

Is a strength-based, size based build good at CMB? Yes, of course.
Now try to make a build that is NOT strength or size based, but is still as good at CMB. (this will be pretty hard)
Then try to make the same non-strength, non-size PC good at locking. (this will be easier)And? To me, this sounds great, as it means Lock enables builds other than those based on Str and size to actually have a chance of being able to do something other than just damage. And considering how much resources it takes just to get for example a Dex melee build up to the Str baseline, I also think it's great that Lock actually don't demand much resources in order to become a viable and at least a somewhat effective melee control tool even in the hands of a medium sized or smaller melee combatant without a great Str. Str-size builds utterly dominates melee in general, and control in particular, Lock or no Lock.

First off, not all melee builds want size – it’s nice when it applies, but it’s not always beneficial in 5 ft corridors for example, and it detracts from a Dex based melee build in any environment. It’s why my Aegis doesn’t select the permanent size increase to large, for example.Of course, but if you're fighting enemies difficult to keep locked, with a greater reach and/or a very high CMD, chances are they're also of great size and thus faced in an environment where there's enough room for them. And besides, the same feat that makes both of my example builds in this thread Gargantuan can make them become Small as a swift action and have them stay Small for a considerable amount of time, despite having a Large base size. (Another good example of "double duty", I guess.)

Second, Locking did not and does not require a Strength build to do. A high initiator bonus is just fine to accomplish that, if you are a PoW type PC."Just fine", yes. Great, no. Because a larger size increases both Str and reach, which exponentially increases the value of melee control tools such as (the old) Lock, while it decreases for example Dex. Meaning the Dex build is pretty much stuck with a reach of no more than a 32.5 ft. radius (excluding boosts from defensive focus and similiar), while a Str build can have a reach radius as great as 80 ft. That's one hell of a difference in terms of threatened area - more than six times larger. And unfortunately, there's currently no way around this for Dex builds AFAIK.

Builds using say Wis for melee might be a bit better off since they're at least not forced into choosing between reach/size or keeping their melee values, but they still don't get the synergy from size which Str builds do, and their melee values are typically far below those of Str builds.

Simply choosing to BE a strength based PC is part of the opportunity cost.Sure. But at least currently it's not a relevant opportunity cost when talking about the relative power of Lock, since an optimized control build won't be anything but Str based. The difference between being and not being Str based is simply far too great, making any discussion about "cost" moot.

While locking isn’t really great for my Aegis any more, when I get the chance to play my Monk/Stalker (with his 8 strength), I’m going to give it a try – I can easily see my PC locking and moving opponents due to high Wisdom, and with forced rerolls and invisibility I have a good shot at tanking the full attacks without much issue.

Again, I can invest like 1 resource more than my current build (a stance) to add in Locking to my Monk/Stalker PC – I don’t need a big revision or change. If I wanted to do any sort of CMB stuff, I’d need some bigger changes – I’d need maneuvers that used skills I probably don’t have, plus magic items to boost those skills, etc., not to mention the feat that switches CMB to Dex, just to have a shot that way (and I’d still suck at doing things the CMB way).Great to hear! Hopefully you can be at least decent at defense (tanking) despite not having reach or a competitive CMB.

Simply put, Lock is easier to add to ANY PC than being good at CMB is. Because lock requires less opportunity cost choices.Yes. What I don't understand is why this would make Lock without the adjacent limitation too powerful. I mean, it's not like the actually hardcore melee control builds are going to be any less über due to the limitation, just a tad less interesting since they'll have very little reason to use lock or invest in any related option (including maneuvers).

You didn’t see my post about how to easily abuse Locking someone with reach?

In short, you used to be able to lock them on an AoO at reach, costing them the remainder of that move action, plus requiring them to burn their standard for an attempt to escape the lock which at best costs them all their actions that round for ONE of your AoOs (like getting Trip off on untripable creatures by targeting their worst save!)

You could previously also fly up and drop them to: a) get an extra AoO as they fall, and b) usually end up dropping them prone and costing them a move action too (on top of the action to get up from prone, which provokes!).

That’s quite a bit of bonus out of one extra feat added to a simple reach build.Sure. And outside of perhaps dragging/dropping/throwing your poor foes into hazards without additional saves (which I think was a good call to nerf), if we gave my 11th level contender test build Seize the Opportunity, he'd be far worse by simply spamming say grapple, dirty trick, reposition and trip (higher success rate and much more powerful debuff/control effects).

While Forrestfire can probably give a better and deeper explanation, what I have gleaned is that Lock is and never was intended to be a LOCKDOWN ability, and is intended to be more of a ‘tanking’ ability.Do you think trip or dirty trick were intended to be lockdown abilities? I mean, they rarely are when used by a typical fighter (who has invested heavily into those combat maneuvers specifically), but very much when used by an optimized Str-size-reach build similar to my contender test build (who hasn't made any such investments). And besides, the lockdown power is significantly reduced by the "once per round" limit of most options, while the "adjacent" limitation simply makes FE a lot less attractive for serious melee control builds.

Think about it: how often do you feel the need to close with an enemy when playing a combatant with melee reach? And how often does that combatant's opponents with reach end up adjacent? Unless we're talking about highly specialized builds using for example Wolf Trip, this happens rather rarely IME. So any mechanic which actually requires you to be adjacent is simply not going to be worth the trouble in a majority of situations.

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Just as a note, when I playtested lock, I was focusing on lock to the exclusion of better options - specifically I was trying to lock some opponents that I could one-shot on an AoO with a damage roll 2 points higher than flat average, so I know where your coming from with this, but this isn't about balancing damage vs other options, it’s about balancing other options among themselves.Why? Is there a rule somewhere which says damage must be a vastly superior melee combat tool, or that no new option in the "other" category may be superior to the older ones?

IMO, the balance of new options should as far as possible be measured by taking the system as a whole and all PC options into account, including everything from control wizards and Sacred Geometry to vanilla monks and Combat Expertise. And build-wise, my personal benchmark for melee control builds is that they have to be at least as valuable in combat as a damage dealer of equal optimization level. Which typically means the control build must at least bring a value equivalent of removing one CR=level opponent per round, in every round of every combat (preferably without having to deal any damage at all). Does any of this seem strange to you?

ATalsen

2016-08-05, 12:30 PM

It seems like your trying to convince me that a high Strength and vast size build is king of combat maneuvers. I agree with that assessment.

And yes in a Strength/Size build the opportunity cost of adding a bit of Locking is minimal at best because everything you got going on synergizes with the Lock DC already.

Let’s talk about adding Lock to builds that are NOT Strength/Size and the opportunity cost therein.

I posit that a build NOT spec’d for Strength/Size that adds Lock has a much lower opportunity cost to get a good, but not overwhelming, lock DC, than it is for that same non-Strength/Size build to add the ability to be good, but not overwhelming, at one or more combat maneuvers.

I actually think in your post you already agree with this.

I don’t think you even need lock or lock like mechanics on a Strength/Size build – you have everything you need already to be great at CMB. Given that, Lock is not for Strength/Size builds, it’s to bring control or tanking or whatever you think lock does, to non-Strength/Size builds!

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Looking at your post actually convinces me that Magnitude Shift may be the issue here.

Magnitude Shift is an un-gated +2 Size shift that’s BETTER than equivalent 2 size shift options: What other 2 size shift in the game gives plus SIX typeless bonus to strength (instead of the +4 size bonus to STR that other effects give), and doesn’t mention taking any penalties for size to attack rolls and such (maybe that’s assumed, but other size shifts spell that out).

An egoist Psion can get 2 sizes by 5th level, but had to dedicate 5 levels of their class build to that trick; a 7th level Psy Warrior with Expansion can do it, but it takes a power and again a class selection. Magnitude Shift can be added to any class that wants to spend the feat (as long as they have 4 other really good combat boosting feats to go with it… What combatant doesn’t want +5 natural & touch AC and +25 movement, just to name 2)

So maybe it’s the Lords of the Wild playtest that needs some reigning in, instead of the Fool’s Errand playtest needing to ‘loosen up’.

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Do you think trip or dirty trick were intended to be lockdown abilities?

Yes.

Trip definitely, I have used it that way in old 3.5 with a (medium sized) spiked chain build that invested a few feats into trip. I have not used dirty trick, but since blinding is an option, and blind characters have impaired movement and impaired combat, then I can see dirty trick being a control method, or maybe soft lockdown due to the reduced movement.

how often do you feel the need to close with an enemy when playing a combatant with melee reach?

With a reach WEAPON, I want to close to only the range that is optimal for my weapon; opponents try to close to get inside my reach. With natural reach, I close in till I can hit them, and then they usually close the remaining distance if they need to. So, sometimes?

And how often does that combatant's opponents with reach end up adjacent?

Every time they grapple my PC, obviously, but sometimes they just want to get in closer in order to ensure my PC can’t move away without provoking. It happened last game for me (the playtest game) in two fights; once to get inside my reach and once to grapple me. So, often.

Which typically means the control build must at least bring a value equivalent of removing one CR=level opponent per round, …Does any of this seem strange to you?

I consider my builds good, but there’s no way that I eliminate one (completely undamaged) CR equivalent opponent per round every round. Some rounds, yeah, but not every round. Movement, positioning, and cover (to prevent AoOs) make it such that I’m just not in position to make a kill every round, and that’s very consistent across most to all of the game sessions I play.

Blocking AoOs for example are really easy – you just have an opponent come up right behind another opponent – the closer opponent provides cover to the second opponent, so no AoOs. This can be used for opponents retreating too, or just general maneuvering. And that’s not using terrain at all, just the opponents already on the field of play.

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So anyway, I think Lock is intended to bring control/tanking to categories of PC other than the Strength/Size builds that are already so good at control, and as such I think that limiting it in ways that work better with non-Strength/Size builds than they do with Strength/Size builds is actually a good direction to take it.

Locking as a new option only makes sense if you’re giving it to a group that doesn’t already have other, better, options for control/tanking.

upho

2016-08-13, 10:52 AM

I posit that a build NOT spec’d for Strength/Size that adds Lock has a much lower opportunity cost to get a good, but not overwhelming, lock DC, than it is for that same non-Strength/Size build to add the ability to be good, but not overwhelming, at one or more combat maneuvers.

I actually think in your post you already agree with this.

[QUOTE=ATalsen;21073754]I don’t think you even need lock or lock like mechanics on a Strength/Size build – you have everything you need already to be great at CMB. Given that, Lock is not for Strength/Size builds, it’s to bring control or tanking or whatever you think lock does, to non-Strength/Size builds!Yep.

Looking at your post actually convinces me that Magnitude Shift may be the issue here.

/snip/

So maybe it’s the Lords of the Wild playtest that needs some reigning in, instead of the Fool’s Errand playtest needing to ‘loosen up’.Yep. Hence:
/snip/ ...the far most optimized builds for any of these purposes will have especially one set of components in common, namely at least 5 shifting feats. This is simply because no other options will grant as significant boosts to Str, damage die size and reach, while also providing you with several other strong benefits (such as an increased CMB and several defense and utility boosts). Especially not as early and for as small a cost, relatively speaking. (But shifting feats aside, Str-Size builds are of course still kings of melee control. Their superiority is just a bit more limited to higher levels when size and reach increases other than shifting feats becomes accessible.)

With a reach WEAPON, I want to close to only the range that is optimal for my weapon; opponents try to close to get inside my reach. With natural reach, I close in till I can hit them, and then they usually close the remaining distance if they need to. So, sometimes?I meant regardless of how your reach got greater than 5 ft., I find that you very rarely want to get closer to an enemy, especially if that enemy also has a reach greater than 5 ft. (thus rewarding your movement with an AoO).

Every time they grapple my PC, obviously, but sometimes they just want to get in closer in order to ensure my PC can’t move away without provoking. It happened last game for me (the playtest game) in two fights; once to get inside my reach and once to grapple me. So, often.I think in at least my current regular game, a grappler who cannot grapple with a reach greater than 5 ft. runs a very significant risk of never being able to close with the party's melee control warder (who doesn't have shifting feats), or any party member within at least 15 ft. of him. That is of course unless such a "mini-grappler" has some way of negating/not triggering AoOs provoked by moving.

I consider my builds good... /snip/Your builds are probably good, but more importantly suitable for your games, I guess. My initial post on the subject was mostly a reply to Forrest's claim regarding a "hardcore lockdown" build, which in my eyes translates into a seriously optimized melee control build.

/snip/ ...but there’s no way that I eliminate one (completely undamaged) CR equivalent opponent per round every round. Some rounds, yeah, but not every round. Movement, positioning, and cover (to prevent AoOs) make it such that I’m just not in position to make a kill every round, and that’s very consistent across most to all of the game sessions I play.Take my "benchmark" with more than a grain of salt, because it's often very difficult to measure actual "combat value". "Of equal value" could be something very different from actually eliminating one CR equivalent opponent per round of every round. But most importantly, for melee control builds, I find it's almost never a question of reducing an opponent to less than 1 hp, but about completely disabling opponents, effectively taking them out of the fight (such as demoralizing them into cowering/panicked for several rounds, making them completely unable to do their "thing" by for example making it impossible for them to close for melee, or other debuff/control shenanigans). For example, it's perfectly possible to build a melee controller/debuffer able to very reliably bring every enemy within 30 ft. into panic (and get one cowering) in virtually every round of every fight, which is quite a bit more effective than any damage build is capable of AFAIK.

So anyway, I think Lock is intended to bring control/tanking to categories of PC other than the Strength/Size builds that are already so good at control, and as such I think that limiting it in ways that work better with non-Strength/Size builds than they do with Strength/Size builds is actually a good direction to take it.

Locking as a new option only makes sense if you’re giving it to a group that doesn’t already have other, better, options for control/tanking.I agree. This is why I think it's a good thing to not limit Lock to adjacent, since it nerfs the less powerful control builds considerably more than than the more powerful Str-Size builds. Because if you're going to do melee control, you still want a reach greater than 5 ft. regardless of what melee stat you're using. With the limit, Lock is turned into a situational "occasionally nifty to have"-tool for non-control builds.

So without the limit, the "power creep" happens for the far less powerful build types where it actually is good for game balance, not the other way around.