SangoProduction
2020-07-11, 11:26 AM
Specifically, ones that the Armorist in SoP can grant without needing to spend real gold on over priced hunks of steel. (https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/clockworksaga/images/f/f1/Tumblr_m2swe9AfgD1qa3nkyo1_500.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20121222041915)
And even more specifically, I'm ranking it both on how good it is to be able to swap into it, and its general usefulness.
I will be ranking the weapon abilities against themselves and general usefulness. Not comparing them to spells which just blow them out of the water, because they are spells. Or even sphere abilities.
Ranking system:
(S) Super: You always want this. It's awesome.
(G) Good: You would certainly not complain about having this, especially in the right builds / situations.
(B) Bad: While perhaps better than nothing, you are giving up something for it, so probably shouldn't without a good reason.
(N) No.
<Angle brackets> around a rating indicates situational usefulness, and how good it is in that favorable situation.
Menacing (S): Valuing chance to hit as Power Attack does, this is worth +6 damage for a +1 enchant, while elemental enchants are only average 3.5. And it's to *everyone* who flanks the creature, not just you, and not only when you flank it. Holy cow this is good for a weapon ability.
Ghost Touch(S): Having the ability to just spontaneously summon a ghost touch weapon is amazing. Beyond amazing. It means not needing to devote permanent resources to an unlikely enemy and still being prepared.
Cruel (<S>): If you can at least semi-reliably have enemies feared when you go in for an attack (which you can do with the Gladiator sphere), then this is just a no-save debuff when you hit. This is really rather good. If you can pull it off. If you can't, or it takes bunch of actions, then this is pretty bad...obviously.
Flaming / Frost / etc. (G): Armorist can freely swap between them, allowing him to take advantage of weaknesses and avoid immunities. I mean, they are also essentially the equivalent of a single point of power attack trade off. Which isn't good for an exponentially increasing cost. But Armorists don't have that gold cost. Just a level gate.
Merciful (G): It's at least good to have the option to take prisoners. And all it costs is a spell point and a standard action. No potentially wasted investments when coming across an undead.
Vicious (G): You’re only netting a difference of 1d6 of damage, but the important thing is that you’re dealing twice as many d6 as the system normally grants for +1, and that’s probably more important than taking a few extra damage on your turn.
Skeptical [SoP] (G): Bonus vs illusions and you get to attack it to attempt to dispel illusions within 10 feet of you. This is incredibly narrow, but it’s just a free option you can summon in, and typically illusions aren’t something you *need* to have your saves up all the time for. And you can attempt to dispel them.
Driving (<G>): Lets you do CMB stuff from a bow. Pathfinder hates CMB users, so it’s only at all useful if you’ve invested everything into doing such. And you don’t get to do the trip AoO thing unless you take a butt load of feats, or talents.
Mighty Cleaving (<G>): If you've got cleave, and you face down hordes, it can be rather nice to feel like a half-baked fireball.
Keen (<G>): If you're summoning a crit fishing weapon, and have a crit fishing build, this is cool. If you're summoning a crit fishing weapon with elemental burst enchants, that's even cooler. Although the elemental bursts are just really not good for their cost, regardless of chance to crit.
Impervious (<G>): I mean. Normally, I'd rate it as a No, but it's just an option you can summon equipment in at. It sorta helps against a very specific type of enemy who likes to sunder weapons. Although I would argue that you'd be better served by just letting them sunder your weapons rather than someone else's, which actually required permanent gold to replace.
Entangling [SoP] (<G>): On crit, not just hit, entangle. No saves, but they can break out, and you need to crit for it to work anyway.
Quenching (B-G): The stand out is the +2 to saves vs fire. Sure, versus a very specific enemy type, you gain the same bonus damage as a neither vulnerable-to nor resistant-to elemental damage bonus but...eh. I hardly consider that a win. Summon it in as a passive weapon when facing red dragons.
Defending (B-G): I mean. It's not the worst option to summon in some AC boosts when you get low. It's not incredible.. It's not great. But it's there. Could be neat if you have some spare "passively wielded weapon slots" like armor spikes. Or shield spikes. or something.
Shadow Wake [SoP] (B-G): Eh.... It’s like a bad merciful. But instead of converting all damage to nonlethal, you get a consolation prize when you miss. But not when you miss by a lot.
Preventative [SoP] (<B-G>): You know Defending? Yeah, it’s Defending, except it’s for one target. But it also doesn’t sap your ability to hit with the weapon. Which would be great if there weren’t passive weapon slots.So this is a defensive option if your DM doesn’t allow passive weapons.
Agile (<B-G>): If you're a finesse build, and your DM hasn't homebrewed dex to damage, and you have at least 18 dex (to beat the 3.5 average damage of the elemental enhancements), then this could be cool. Nothing incredible. It's held back by you being a finesse build, and need this instead of being a strength build and getting it for free.
Returning (<B-G>): This lets you have a thrown build with bound weapons. I’m not sure it’s worth it as you can literally just summon a bow and use the enchant on something else.
Hungry [SoP] (<B-G>): You can bypass some DR with this. When you could just summon a different weapon. But you can also summon this for a hilarious prop to improve your intimidate score.
Courageous (B): Buy Courageous armor spikes if you're really getting harried by fear. You don't want to not have that summoned if it's a real problem. If it's not, no point looking at it.
Benevolent (<B>): If you're an Aid Other build...I'd say just buy an Aid Other weapon, rather than summoning/binding one. Heck..buy Benevolent armor spikes so that you can wield real weapons while getting that bonus. Binding it wouldn't be a bad option but you don't want it dispelled/disarmed, forcing you to summon it again.
Avalanche [SoP] (<B>): Basically agile, but for Con to damage. Which is actually much better. Except that you are now missing out on the to-hit stat. This does make it an interesting option for Con-based casting traditions who use strength as a secondary stat. But if strength is a secondary, then how much are you really gaining from this?
Fey-Forged [SoP] (<B>): Basically everything I said about Avalanche, but for Charisma. Except it has a penalty vs fey.
Throwing (N-B): Allows melee weapons to be somewhat thrown. Just summon a bow.
Cunning (N-B): Unless you're crit fishing, and still using confirmation rolls...eh. I...I don't like it. Its bonuses are really small and reliant upon having had the skill ranks to have appropriate knowledge skills as a martial-type character.
Hypochondriac [SoP] (N): At most +5 nonlethal bleed on hit. No statement about stacking. Gets a chance to save to stop it. This is...pointless.
Leaping [SoP] (N-): It’s basically just a reflavored Returning. Instead of it returning for your attacks, it just strikes multiple times. EXCEPT! It doesn’t actually return to you when it’s done, and only works on full attacks. Wtf.
Howling [SoP] (N-): Full round action, in a limited situation, to be able to inflict fear on yourself. Good freaking job.
Anchoring (S+): For a +2 ability, you get a flat out “can not move” ability with a massive DC that requires at minimum a 30 strength score to be able to succeed with a nat 20, as a full round action. And then you get whapped again. It can also act as an immovable rod.
Shadowstrike (S): +2 ability for melee, or +3 for ranged. When flanking or denying their dexterity, target touch. Let’s reiterate. You target their touch AC as a martial character. And it doesn’t cost *that* much. It’s a **** ton better with something like a rogue. But just summon the rogue some of these weapons as well. Everyone loves inappropriate touching.
Decisive [SoP] (G-S): The first SoP ability that’s actually pretty good. As a +2 ability, you can whap summoned / extraplanar creatures out of this world. Sure, the DC is based on your charisma, but you should have quite a few attacks per round by the time you get this, and it’s in addition to your attacks. This sucks as a permanent weapon, but for summoning? Hell yeah!
Speed (G): An extra attack per turn at your highest BAB. So long as your average attack deals more than 10.5 damage times the number of non-Speed attacks, modified by your lowered chances of hitting, then this is better than the elemental enhancements.
Blast Vessel [SoP] (G): +2 in order to add 1 die of damage, and bonus effect based on a blast type the wielder has. That is better, in my estimation, than using 2 +1’s on the elemental damages. But there’s a problem. It requires spell casting. And attacking with this is just strictly inferior to casting Destruction spells. It’s less bad when it’s a Destruction caster helping the poor baby martial.
Radiant Edge [SoP] (B-G): Lunge as a +2 ability. But could arguably stack with lunge. I mean. It could be cool. Maybe you’re facing a really large monster with massive reach, and you need to be able to get into range without getting murderized. You could also summon a bow, but that uses different stats.
Dimensional [SoP] (B): A free cleave is not bad...if it were free. It’s a +4 ability.
Wounding (<B>): If you anticipate your target lasting at least 8 rounds of combat after you hit them, and don’t have healing of any kind, then go ahead. This is superior to
Invisible [SoP] (<B>): For a +2 ability, target flat footed first attack made with it per round. This is super GM-specific. But if ammunition counts as “this weapon,” then it could be a sneak attack enabler...but it’s a +3 ability when used with ranged. Summon the weapon for a rogue.
Vorpal (N-B): For a +5 ability, you get to auto-kill head-reliant creatures on a natural 20. You can’t crit fish it. And it offers no bonuses when you don’t roll a natural 20. Way too unreliable.
[Elemental] Burst (N): for this +2 ability, you can average 5.5 extra damage on a crit. For 2 +1 abilities, you could average 7 damage every hit.
Windblast [SoP] (N): On a crit, make a bullrush attempt in a cone.Boo.
(Greater) Destructive Focus [SoP] (--): It’s out of the scope of this review. But it basically lets you enchant your destructive blasts. Which isn’t incredible, as, unlike weapons attacks, the base damage is already great, and it targets touch. But it’s cool.
Hunter (S): Grants Bane as a +1 ability. And you can simply summon in the appropriate bane weapon you need. So that’s basically just a +2d6+2 damage, with a further +2 to hit. It's less good when your enemies are all about racial diversity, but woo, you can hunt with the best of them. There’s a reason it’s restricted to level 10.
Shifting Armory (G-S): All of your weapons have transformative, which allows them to change to any other weapon of the same handedness. That’s great. It saves you from needing to summon new weapons for different enemies. It also grants them Adaptive, which just makes bows grant strength to damage. Taking this a second time for greater transformative is unnecessary.
Windborne Equipment (<G-S>): It grants Seeking as +1 ability. So long as the enemy has any miss chance, this is worth it. It also grants Cyclonic, which makes projectiles ignore air and water and such for a +2. That’s nice if it affects things like the many of the magical shields and walls which are just wind to protect against arrows. A niche counter to a niche counter, to say the least.
Arms of the Outer Planes (G): While the individual enhancements here are worthless except in particular campaigns, so long as you are fighting creatures with any non-true-neutral alignment, you can get the same damage per bonus as the standard elementals, and situationally can bypass some DR.
Cut Magic (G): Grants Dispelling (G), Dispelling Burst (B), and Skeptic… which you already had. But Dispeling is good. And you do have the spell points to dump into it.
Cut Minds (G): Grants Conscription (G), which is basically dominate person on hit, and it only goes on cool down when you succeed. It’s a +3 ability, but still. That’s pretty nice.
Dancing (B-G): Grants Dancing (+4) and Flying (+5) enchant options to weapons. That’s expensive and really not adding much to your repertoire
Space-Bending Equipment(B-G): Grants Phasic [SoP] as an option. Ignoring cover is generally not the most useful. But it’s not the worst. It’s expensive at +2, but it would depend on your group.
Dark Materials (B-G): Free abilities are free (except for having this class feature chosen). You can store your weapons in your shadow, and can grant them Shade-Hexed to get bonuses in darkness (and penalties in light).
Energy Weapons (B-G): Allows you to place Plasma Blade (+3) or Brilliant Energy (+4) on your weapons. Plasma Blade is pretty costly, but so long as they have DR and resistances greater than 11, and you can not otherwise pierce the DR, then yeah, it works. Brilliant Energy is neat. But your baseline enchantments already allow you to hit touch for 1/4 the cost.
Blood Equipment (B): Grants SoP weapon abilities, which generally aren’t great. This is no exception.
Chaotic Armament (N): Looking purely at the one ability it grants: Wild Critical, a very niche, critical-only effect … it really rather sucks.
And even more specifically, I'm ranking it both on how good it is to be able to swap into it, and its general usefulness.
I will be ranking the weapon abilities against themselves and general usefulness. Not comparing them to spells which just blow them out of the water, because they are spells. Or even sphere abilities.
Ranking system:
(S) Super: You always want this. It's awesome.
(G) Good: You would certainly not complain about having this, especially in the right builds / situations.
(B) Bad: While perhaps better than nothing, you are giving up something for it, so probably shouldn't without a good reason.
(N) No.
<Angle brackets> around a rating indicates situational usefulness, and how good it is in that favorable situation.
Menacing (S): Valuing chance to hit as Power Attack does, this is worth +6 damage for a +1 enchant, while elemental enchants are only average 3.5. And it's to *everyone* who flanks the creature, not just you, and not only when you flank it. Holy cow this is good for a weapon ability.
Ghost Touch(S): Having the ability to just spontaneously summon a ghost touch weapon is amazing. Beyond amazing. It means not needing to devote permanent resources to an unlikely enemy and still being prepared.
Cruel (<S>): If you can at least semi-reliably have enemies feared when you go in for an attack (which you can do with the Gladiator sphere), then this is just a no-save debuff when you hit. This is really rather good. If you can pull it off. If you can't, or it takes bunch of actions, then this is pretty bad...obviously.
Flaming / Frost / etc. (G): Armorist can freely swap between them, allowing him to take advantage of weaknesses and avoid immunities. I mean, they are also essentially the equivalent of a single point of power attack trade off. Which isn't good for an exponentially increasing cost. But Armorists don't have that gold cost. Just a level gate.
Merciful (G): It's at least good to have the option to take prisoners. And all it costs is a spell point and a standard action. No potentially wasted investments when coming across an undead.
Vicious (G): You’re only netting a difference of 1d6 of damage, but the important thing is that you’re dealing twice as many d6 as the system normally grants for +1, and that’s probably more important than taking a few extra damage on your turn.
Skeptical [SoP] (G): Bonus vs illusions and you get to attack it to attempt to dispel illusions within 10 feet of you. This is incredibly narrow, but it’s just a free option you can summon in, and typically illusions aren’t something you *need* to have your saves up all the time for. And you can attempt to dispel them.
Driving (<G>): Lets you do CMB stuff from a bow. Pathfinder hates CMB users, so it’s only at all useful if you’ve invested everything into doing such. And you don’t get to do the trip AoO thing unless you take a butt load of feats, or talents.
Mighty Cleaving (<G>): If you've got cleave, and you face down hordes, it can be rather nice to feel like a half-baked fireball.
Keen (<G>): If you're summoning a crit fishing weapon, and have a crit fishing build, this is cool. If you're summoning a crit fishing weapon with elemental burst enchants, that's even cooler. Although the elemental bursts are just really not good for their cost, regardless of chance to crit.
Impervious (<G>): I mean. Normally, I'd rate it as a No, but it's just an option you can summon equipment in at. It sorta helps against a very specific type of enemy who likes to sunder weapons. Although I would argue that you'd be better served by just letting them sunder your weapons rather than someone else's, which actually required permanent gold to replace.
Entangling [SoP] (<G>): On crit, not just hit, entangle. No saves, but they can break out, and you need to crit for it to work anyway.
Quenching (B-G): The stand out is the +2 to saves vs fire. Sure, versus a very specific enemy type, you gain the same bonus damage as a neither vulnerable-to nor resistant-to elemental damage bonus but...eh. I hardly consider that a win. Summon it in as a passive weapon when facing red dragons.
Defending (B-G): I mean. It's not the worst option to summon in some AC boosts when you get low. It's not incredible.. It's not great. But it's there. Could be neat if you have some spare "passively wielded weapon slots" like armor spikes. Or shield spikes. or something.
Shadow Wake [SoP] (B-G): Eh.... It’s like a bad merciful. But instead of converting all damage to nonlethal, you get a consolation prize when you miss. But not when you miss by a lot.
Preventative [SoP] (<B-G>): You know Defending? Yeah, it’s Defending, except it’s for one target. But it also doesn’t sap your ability to hit with the weapon. Which would be great if there weren’t passive weapon slots.So this is a defensive option if your DM doesn’t allow passive weapons.
Agile (<B-G>): If you're a finesse build, and your DM hasn't homebrewed dex to damage, and you have at least 18 dex (to beat the 3.5 average damage of the elemental enhancements), then this could be cool. Nothing incredible. It's held back by you being a finesse build, and need this instead of being a strength build and getting it for free.
Returning (<B-G>): This lets you have a thrown build with bound weapons. I’m not sure it’s worth it as you can literally just summon a bow and use the enchant on something else.
Hungry [SoP] (<B-G>): You can bypass some DR with this. When you could just summon a different weapon. But you can also summon this for a hilarious prop to improve your intimidate score.
Courageous (B): Buy Courageous armor spikes if you're really getting harried by fear. You don't want to not have that summoned if it's a real problem. If it's not, no point looking at it.
Benevolent (<B>): If you're an Aid Other build...I'd say just buy an Aid Other weapon, rather than summoning/binding one. Heck..buy Benevolent armor spikes so that you can wield real weapons while getting that bonus. Binding it wouldn't be a bad option but you don't want it dispelled/disarmed, forcing you to summon it again.
Avalanche [SoP] (<B>): Basically agile, but for Con to damage. Which is actually much better. Except that you are now missing out on the to-hit stat. This does make it an interesting option for Con-based casting traditions who use strength as a secondary stat. But if strength is a secondary, then how much are you really gaining from this?
Fey-Forged [SoP] (<B>): Basically everything I said about Avalanche, but for Charisma. Except it has a penalty vs fey.
Throwing (N-B): Allows melee weapons to be somewhat thrown. Just summon a bow.
Cunning (N-B): Unless you're crit fishing, and still using confirmation rolls...eh. I...I don't like it. Its bonuses are really small and reliant upon having had the skill ranks to have appropriate knowledge skills as a martial-type character.
Hypochondriac [SoP] (N): At most +5 nonlethal bleed on hit. No statement about stacking. Gets a chance to save to stop it. This is...pointless.
Leaping [SoP] (N-): It’s basically just a reflavored Returning. Instead of it returning for your attacks, it just strikes multiple times. EXCEPT! It doesn’t actually return to you when it’s done, and only works on full attacks. Wtf.
Howling [SoP] (N-): Full round action, in a limited situation, to be able to inflict fear on yourself. Good freaking job.
Anchoring (S+): For a +2 ability, you get a flat out “can not move” ability with a massive DC that requires at minimum a 30 strength score to be able to succeed with a nat 20, as a full round action. And then you get whapped again. It can also act as an immovable rod.
Shadowstrike (S): +2 ability for melee, or +3 for ranged. When flanking or denying their dexterity, target touch. Let’s reiterate. You target their touch AC as a martial character. And it doesn’t cost *that* much. It’s a **** ton better with something like a rogue. But just summon the rogue some of these weapons as well. Everyone loves inappropriate touching.
Decisive [SoP] (G-S): The first SoP ability that’s actually pretty good. As a +2 ability, you can whap summoned / extraplanar creatures out of this world. Sure, the DC is based on your charisma, but you should have quite a few attacks per round by the time you get this, and it’s in addition to your attacks. This sucks as a permanent weapon, but for summoning? Hell yeah!
Speed (G): An extra attack per turn at your highest BAB. So long as your average attack deals more than 10.5 damage times the number of non-Speed attacks, modified by your lowered chances of hitting, then this is better than the elemental enhancements.
Blast Vessel [SoP] (G): +2 in order to add 1 die of damage, and bonus effect based on a blast type the wielder has. That is better, in my estimation, than using 2 +1’s on the elemental damages. But there’s a problem. It requires spell casting. And attacking with this is just strictly inferior to casting Destruction spells. It’s less bad when it’s a Destruction caster helping the poor baby martial.
Radiant Edge [SoP] (B-G): Lunge as a +2 ability. But could arguably stack with lunge. I mean. It could be cool. Maybe you’re facing a really large monster with massive reach, and you need to be able to get into range without getting murderized. You could also summon a bow, but that uses different stats.
Dimensional [SoP] (B): A free cleave is not bad...if it were free. It’s a +4 ability.
Wounding (<B>): If you anticipate your target lasting at least 8 rounds of combat after you hit them, and don’t have healing of any kind, then go ahead. This is superior to
Invisible [SoP] (<B>): For a +2 ability, target flat footed first attack made with it per round. This is super GM-specific. But if ammunition counts as “this weapon,” then it could be a sneak attack enabler...but it’s a +3 ability when used with ranged. Summon the weapon for a rogue.
Vorpal (N-B): For a +5 ability, you get to auto-kill head-reliant creatures on a natural 20. You can’t crit fish it. And it offers no bonuses when you don’t roll a natural 20. Way too unreliable.
[Elemental] Burst (N): for this +2 ability, you can average 5.5 extra damage on a crit. For 2 +1 abilities, you could average 7 damage every hit.
Windblast [SoP] (N): On a crit, make a bullrush attempt in a cone.Boo.
(Greater) Destructive Focus [SoP] (--): It’s out of the scope of this review. But it basically lets you enchant your destructive blasts. Which isn’t incredible, as, unlike weapons attacks, the base damage is already great, and it targets touch. But it’s cool.
Hunter (S): Grants Bane as a +1 ability. And you can simply summon in the appropriate bane weapon you need. So that’s basically just a +2d6+2 damage, with a further +2 to hit. It's less good when your enemies are all about racial diversity, but woo, you can hunt with the best of them. There’s a reason it’s restricted to level 10.
Shifting Armory (G-S): All of your weapons have transformative, which allows them to change to any other weapon of the same handedness. That’s great. It saves you from needing to summon new weapons for different enemies. It also grants them Adaptive, which just makes bows grant strength to damage. Taking this a second time for greater transformative is unnecessary.
Windborne Equipment (<G-S>): It grants Seeking as +1 ability. So long as the enemy has any miss chance, this is worth it. It also grants Cyclonic, which makes projectiles ignore air and water and such for a +2. That’s nice if it affects things like the many of the magical shields and walls which are just wind to protect against arrows. A niche counter to a niche counter, to say the least.
Arms of the Outer Planes (G): While the individual enhancements here are worthless except in particular campaigns, so long as you are fighting creatures with any non-true-neutral alignment, you can get the same damage per bonus as the standard elementals, and situationally can bypass some DR.
Cut Magic (G): Grants Dispelling (G), Dispelling Burst (B), and Skeptic… which you already had. But Dispeling is good. And you do have the spell points to dump into it.
Cut Minds (G): Grants Conscription (G), which is basically dominate person on hit, and it only goes on cool down when you succeed. It’s a +3 ability, but still. That’s pretty nice.
Dancing (B-G): Grants Dancing (+4) and Flying (+5) enchant options to weapons. That’s expensive and really not adding much to your repertoire
Space-Bending Equipment(B-G): Grants Phasic [SoP] as an option. Ignoring cover is generally not the most useful. But it’s not the worst. It’s expensive at +2, but it would depend on your group.
Dark Materials (B-G): Free abilities are free (except for having this class feature chosen). You can store your weapons in your shadow, and can grant them Shade-Hexed to get bonuses in darkness (and penalties in light).
Energy Weapons (B-G): Allows you to place Plasma Blade (+3) or Brilliant Energy (+4) on your weapons. Plasma Blade is pretty costly, but so long as they have DR and resistances greater than 11, and you can not otherwise pierce the DR, then yeah, it works. Brilliant Energy is neat. But your baseline enchantments already allow you to hit touch for 1/4 the cost.
Blood Equipment (B): Grants SoP weapon abilities, which generally aren’t great. This is no exception.
Chaotic Armament (N): Looking purely at the one ability it grants: Wild Critical, a very niche, critical-only effect … it really rather sucks.