Dreamscarred Press - Path of War Expanded! (Thread VII)

[Vhaidara]

Nope. You get PP, but sleeping goddess doesn't grant you psionic focus, and you'll never get enough PP to really get as much fuel as you want. With those limitations, sleeping goddess is not good at all. Without augments, SG maneuvers are much weaker than almost every comparable maneuver from other disciplines. It's no good unless your character is fully psionic.

Point of order: anyone with PP has the psionic subtype and can gain psionic focus

[exelsisxax]

Point of order: anyone with PP has the psionic subtype and can gain psionic focus

Ah. I was mistaken because although the psionic subtype doesn't give you focus, just PP themselves do.

It still stands though. You'll never have the PP you'll need to make sleeping goddess comparable to other disciplines. The discipline is almost fully reliant on PP expenditure to boost damage, DCs, or bonuses to checks.

[SaintNick]

Details on Psionic Focus can be found here.

Personally, Sleeping Goddess offers quite a few good maneuvers and stances to make it worth considering even for non-psionic classes.

[Castilonium]

I think that Sleeping Goddess is indeed usable without being a class that gains power points, just like Elemental Flux is usable without animus. Most of the time, all the augments do is give you +2d6 damage and +1 DC per 2 PP spent. Remember that actual psionic classes usually spend their PP on class abilities and powers. I'm playing a couple of Zealots in a couple of games, and I rarely use PP to augment my maneuvers, because I use them for Martyrdom instead.

What do you want your warlord to do with Sleeping Goddess? Maybe we can give advice.

[Da Beast]

What do you want your warlord to do with Sleeping Goddess? Maybe we can give advice.

I mostly just want to give a psychic feel to the character and maybe get some mobility out of the discipline while I'm at it. Some utility from the stances looks fun too but It's more about a flavor thing which would also justify another blatantly supernatural discipline, like veiled moon, on an otherwise mundane character. My GM is willing to let me put pretty much any combination of disciplines on to a character so I'm trying to figure out a cohesive identity to create from my various disciplines.

[Castilonium]

I mostly just want to give a psychic feel to the character and maybe get some mobility out of the discipline while I'm at it. Some utility from the stances looks fun too but It's more about a flavor thing which would also justify another blatantly supernatural discipline, like veiled moon, on an otherwise mundane character. My GM is willing to let me put pretty much any combination of disciplines on to a character so I'm trying to figure out a cohesive identity to create from my various disciplines.

You can flavor your supernatural stuff however you want. Flavor Riven Hourglass as using your psionic powers to slow down your own personal time frame, or flavor Veiled Moon as using psychoportation to teleport around and become incorporeal to move through walls. Shattered Mirror as a ton of fun and funky effects, including a teleportation strike at 4th level, and you can flavor its copycat and illusion-like abilities as you psychically messing with the senses and minds of your enemies.

For mobility from Sleeping Goddess, you're gonna be looking at Unbroken Stride, Reactive Reversion, Reunion in Dreams, and Dreaming Nomad Strike. Reactive Reversion works perfectly well without PP, and using PP just makes it more forgiving to use over multiple rounds. For Reunion in Dreams, you need to expend your psionic focus in order to move yourself with it, and you need to move to an ally within close range, so it's definitely a lot easier for a Zealot with a psicrystal and a collective to use. But regardless, it's a swift action teleport, so it's useful. Dreaming Nomad Strike is perfect for Warlords because it's a full attack action with a 50 foot teleport between each attack! You will have plenty of PP to make the most out of those maneuvers.

[digiman619]

Forgive me if this isn't the but place/way to ask, but how is Fool's Errand coming along and is there any clue on when it's coming out? I have a hankering for the Brawler archetype in it and my GM won't let me take it until it's "official", i.e. out of playtest.

[exelsisxax]

It's not that SG will be bad, because it won't be. A sleeping goddess warlord is still a better fighter than fighters unless it's very high op. Like elemental flux, it just isn't optimal without the associated resources. The discipline is balanced around primarily pathwalkers and zealots with deep focus, psi meditation, a few dozen PP, and sometimes sleeping goddess style. A warlord just isn't going to get the most out of it.

[upho]

I mostly just want to give a psychic feel to the character and maybe get some mobility out of the discipline while I'm at it. Some utility from the stances looks fun too but It's more about a flavor thing which would also justify another blatantly supernatural discipline, like veiled moon, on an otherwise mundane character. My GM is willing to let me put pretty much any combination of disciplines on to a character so I'm trying to figure out a cohesive identity to create from my various disciplines.

While I think exelsisxax is right that most non-psi classes won't get the most possible out of SG without a greater PP reserve, I also think that among the non-psi initiators, a warlord is probably the most well suited. This is because your swift action maneuver recovery means you'll often be able to recover at least every second or third round, meaning you'll often be able to spam your top 3-6 readied maneuvers. Hence, you can focus on using the SG maneuvers that are good also without being augmented, such as those mentioned by Castilonium.

And as also mentioned by Castilonium, IME psionic initiator classes spend most of their PP on other stuff anyways, so their main advantage in terms of augmenting SG maneuvers basically boils down to having a greater capacity to do so when a situation calls for it. The same goes for expending psionic focus, which they'll typically have lots of other and usually better options for. IME, the exception to this may be builds dipping into a psi class granting a big PP reserve but which mainly use a few buffing powers (like say a wilder/zealot/awakened blade), leaving them with plenty of PP to use on SG maneuver augmentation.

TL/DR: As long as you pick your SG maneuvers with care, I think you can make SG a great discipline choice for your warlord.

EDIT: And if you want to make your warlord a great psi initiator, consider going into awakened blade. It's a truly great PrC. /EDIT

[calyst]

Is it intended to be able to use jump bonuses to acrobatics for Piercing Thunder maneuvers that fluff wise indicate they are jump related?

[MilleniaAntares]

Is it intended to be able to use jump bonuses to acrobatics for Piercing Thunder maneuvers that fluff wise indicate they are jump related?

In my view, if it specifically states a jump bonus, then use it, otherwise use your regular acrobatics.

The one instance I can see it being ambiguous is the jumping-away counter, which can be explained as not having enough time to do a proper jump, so you only use your base acrobatics bonus.

[Milo v3]

Is it intended to be able to use jump bonuses to acrobatics for Piercing Thunder maneuvers that fluff wise indicate they are jump related?

I'd imagine definitely not, considering how bonuses to jump are higher than for any skill in the game.

[digiman619]

Is it intended to be able to use jump bonuses to acrobatics for Piercing Thunder maneuvers that fluff wise indicate they are jump related?

There's nothing stopping you from going all Final Fantasy Dragoon if that's what you want.

[Fenryr]

Just curious:

Is there gonna be an Unquiet Grave Style feat?

[Da Beast]

Can anyone explain the balance of mirror demon waltz versus fade through to me? Mirror demon waltz is so much better that I don't feel like the two even deserve to be in the same game and I'm trying to decide the proper balance point. Waltz's mobility along is staggeringly better, being essentially an at will quickened dimension door (normally a ninth level spell slot) it even puts spell casting options to shame. On top of that it also flat foots and curses everyone adjacent to your point of origin and destination, targeting 16 squares with two conditions, no save. I'll grant that these conditions do little or even nothing without a character or party built to take advantage of them, but for a build that does abuse these statuses this is crazy good. I'd argue that for the right character/party just being able to curse and flat foot everyone around you as a swift action WITHOUT the teleport would be a worthwhile mid to high level boost. Fade through does leave something to be desired, with only moderate distance and no rider it struggles to justify a maneuver slot while the fifth level stance of the ether gate is available, but Mirror Demon Waltz seems to break a cardinal rule by outshining spell casting mobility options AND THEN SOME by having debuff potential on top of it.

[upho]

Can anyone explain the balance of mirror demon waltz versus fade through to me? Mirror demon waltz is so much better that I don't feel like the two even deserve to be in the same game and I'm trying to decide the proper balance point. Waltz's mobility along is staggeringly better, being essentially an at will quickened dimension door (normally a ninth level spell slot) it even puts spell casting options to shame.

While I agree Mirror Demon’s Waltz is very powerful, especially when looking at Fade Through, I don't think it's quite as ridiculous as you say and can hardly be called "essentially an at will quickened dimension door". First, MDW doesn't let you bring allies. Second, MDW requires line of sight to the destination:

"Teleportation maneuvers require that the destination must be within line of sight to the initiator...".

(This assumes Shattered Mirror poofaports are governed by the same general rules as Veiled Moon poofaports, as implied by the destination having to be an "unoccupied space".)

Since DD doesn't have these limitations, it of course allows for shenanigans on a completely different scale than MDW does, which in turn also means the maneuver's equally long range is not nearly as great a power multiplier in a vast majority of game situations. (And typically only a zealot can actually expect to be able to use MDW at will in combat, and can only do so by also sacrificing a move action for recovery. Also, nitpick: a quickened DD requires at most an 8th level spell slot, and often less due to metamagic reducers, a rod etc.)

Had quickened DD actually existed as a 7th level maneuver, it would indeed have been ridiculously (and overly) powerful, far more so than MDW.

On top of that it also flat foots and curses everyone adjacent to your point of origin and destination, targeting 16 squares with two conditions, no save. I'll grant that these conditions do little or even nothing without a character or party built to take advantage of them, but for a build that does abuse these statuses this is crazy good. I'd argue that for the right character/party just being able to curse and flat foot everyone around you as a swift action WITHOUT the teleport would be a worthwhile mid to high level boost.

As you say, the conditions do little without additional investments. Consider that there are tons of options which could be viewed as at the very least equally silly powerful if primarily taking their full potential in the perfect combo into account.

Look at, say, Stance of the Thunderbrand. Most players probably view it as good or even great, but definitely not OP. And yet, if used by for example a warder with Seize the Opportunity, Shield Slam and Dirty Trick Master, that stance is suddenly hilariously powerful, probably to the point of being the most powerful stance in the game. However, that power is mostly a sign of significant investments paying off, and doesn't necessarily mean Stance of the Thunderbrand OP.

Also, unlike the Thunderbrand example, there are plenty of alternatives to MDW for mass-cursing. And consider that despite their potential, neither Stance of the Thunderbrand or MDW are anyway near as much no-brainer choices as certain other options.

Fade through does leave something to be desired, with only moderate distance and no rider it struggles to justify a maneuver slot while the fifth level stance of the ether gate is available,

Yeah, I honestly think this might be a bigger problem than the power of MDW.

but Mirror Demon Waltz seems to break a cardinal rule by outshining spell casting mobility options AND THEN SOME by having debuff potential on top of it.

As mentioned, I simply don't think this is case.

All that said, I do think MDW is one of the most powerful 7th level boosts, at least for a character able to capitalize on the conditions and/or who'll benefit greatly from the swift action mobility.

[Da Beast]

While I agree Mirror Demon’s Waltz is very powerful, especially when looking at Fade Through, I don't think it's quite as ridiculous as you say and can hardly be called "essentially an at will quickened dimension door". First, MDW doesn't let you bring allies. Second, MDW requires line of sight to the destination:

"Teleportation maneuvers require that the destination must be within line of sight to the initiator...".

(This assumes Shattered Mirror poofaports are governed by the same general rules as Veiled Moon poofaports, as implied by the destination having to be an "unoccupied space".)

Seems I misremembered some of the details of dimension door . I still have a bit of an issue with a swift action long range teleport when spellcasting doesn't have much in the way of comparable options at this level.

Also, unlike the Thunderbrand example, there are plenty of alternatives to MDW for mass-cursing. And consider that despite their potential, neither Stance of the Thunderbrand or MDW are anyway near as much no-brainer choices as certain other options.

Taking a brief glance over cursed razor and shattered mirror I'm not sure I agree. The main options I'm seeing for cursing multiple opponents at once are Aura of Shared Misery which effectively gives two for ones on curses, nice but will generally just let you curse two people per one strike used and which is probably strongest when combined with something like MDW, Warlock's Stride, which potentially curses a limitless number of people but only if they enter its area and allows for a save, or Curse of Chains which has the same issue of requiring enemies be in particular squares after you set up the effect and allowing a saving throw but with the additional limitations of effecting fewer squares and requiring enemies to end their turn in a cursed square rather than just walking over it. Unless I'm missing something (which I certainly might be) all of these fall short of picking two points on the battlefield (you could always move and then initiate MDW, circumventing a need for enemies to be positioned around you at the start of your turn) and cursing everyone adjacent with no save. I also feel like MDW is kind of a no brainer for anyone with access to it, a swift action long range teleport with no daily uses limit is absurd out of combat utility even with its limitations taken into consideration. Add on to that its actual combat uses and it just gets better.

Yeah, I honestly think this might be a bigger problem than the power of MDW.

I do think that fade through could use a bit of a boost, regardless of how balanced MDW is or is not. I kind of feel like both should be medium range teleports to even up the distance and that fade through could use some kind of rider, like maybe creating a burst of clinging shadows to obstruct enemy vision.

[M. Arillius]

My question is fairly straight forward. Does the Lurker in Darkness feat prevent spells like See Invisibility from spotting people who have the feat and go invisible?

Lurker in Darkness
Your training allows you to foil even magical and unusual senses.
Prerequisites: Stealth 6 ranks.
Benefit: Creatures using unusual forms of sensory perception such as blindsight, greensight, or tremorsense cannot automatically foil your use of Stealth; such creatures must make a Perception check as normal to detect you when you make use of the Stealth skill. This feat foils indirect detection (such as a creature using detect magic to search for your magical items while you are using Stealth) in the manner described above, but has no effect on psi-like abilities, powers, spells, spell-like abilities, and/or supernatural abilities specifically used to uncover information about you rather than enhancing the user’s perception, such as the augury spell.

The highlighted sections are what raise the question in my mind. I personally don't know if this would make this too powerful or not. Truth is, once see invisibility comes around a person with invisibility seems to have about a 50% chance of their favorite spell simply not working. Normally this is corrected by a higher level version of the spell but no such spell seems to exist.

This feat would make Invisibility pertinent again and make more mundane means useful again. (As well as glitterdust). But it's doing that on top of blocking other special senses? Is that too much?

[Elricaltovilla]

My question is fairly straight forward. Does the Lurker in Darkness feat prevent spells like See Invisibility from spotting people who have the feat and go invisible?

Lurker in Darkness
Your training allows you to foil even magical and unusual senses.
Prerequisites: Stealth 6 ranks.
Benefit: Creatures using unusual forms of sensory perception such as blindsight, greensight, or tremorsense cannot automatically foil your use of Stealth; such creatures must make a Perception check as normal to detect you when you make use of the Stealth skill. This feat foils indirect detection (such as a creature using detect magic to search for your magical items while you are using Stealth) in the manner described above, but has no effect on psi-like abilities, powers, spells, spell-like abilities, and/or supernatural abilities specifically used to uncover information about you rather than enhancing the user’s perception, such as the augury spell.

The highlighted sections are what raise the question in my mind. I personally don't know if this would make this too powerful or not. Truth is, once see invisibility comes around a person with invisibility seems to have about a 50% chance of their favorite spell simply not working. Normally this is corrected by a higher level version of the spell but no such spell seems to exist.

This feat would make Invisibility pertinent again and make more mundane means useful again. (As well as glitterdust). But it's doing that on top of blocking other special senses? Is that too much?

It's for use against "normal" sensory effects. Blindsight and the like. It doesn't do anything against most magic.

[M. Arillius]

It's for use against "normal" sensory effects. Blindsight and the like. It doesn't do anything against most magic.

No offense but that seems to directly ignore the bolded parts. It specifically says it works against 'magical affects that enhance senses'. See invisibility is not a direct scrying method that directly targets those who are invisible but a magical spell that is cast on ones self and expands their senses, giving the magical sense to see those who are invisible. Like detect magic, it allows the user to see something they couldn't see before. The only difference is what it's allowing the user to see but the feat doesn't care about that as written.

My problem is not determining what it says, so I actually wrote my question improperly. I should not be asking does it do this because it clearly does. I should have asked if it should. My thoughts as of right now: Was it intended to give those who can turn invisible an extra leg? Probably not, but it does. So, is that too much for a single feat? Probably, but considering how useless invisibility eventually becomes I don't actually think that's a big problem.

Other opinions matter though. I often find that others input can inform my own.

[Zulwarn]

I have a quick question if anyone could help me; for one of the base PoW classes if you take a Archetype that switches out on Discipline for another like the Bushi Template would you still gain one of the two additional Disciplines that were introduced in Expanded?

Let's say for a Bushi Warder would he gain access to Piercing Thunder or Eternal Guardian and then switch any of his Disciplines out for Mithral Current; or can he just trade out ones that he gets the base class and forfeits acquiring(besides Unorthodox Method or a Martial Tradition) Piercing Thunder or Eternal Guardian?

[digiman619]

I have a quick question if anyone could help me; for one of the base PoW classes if you take an Archetype that switches out on Discipline for another like the Bushi Template would you still gain one of the two additional Disciplines that were introduced in Expanded?

Let's say for a Bushi Warder would he gain access to Piercing Thunder or Eternal Guardian and then switch any of his Disciplines out for Mithral Current; or can he just trade out ones that he gets the base class and forfeits acquiring(besides Unorthodox Method or a Martial Tradition) Piercing Thunder or Eternal Guardian?

I'd wait for a dev to comment before taking this as gospel truth, but I would say that that yes, you'd get the expanded discipline, Why? Well, let's take a look at this, shall we? A Warder explicitly gets either Eternal Guardian or Piercing Thunder. The Dervish Defender and Hawkguard get alternate extra disciplines (Eternal Guardian/Riven Hourglass and Tempest Gale, respectively.), but the Zweihander Sentinel doesn't, so I must assume it gets the same as an un-archetyped Warder. So as far as I can tell unless it has text saying it adds a discipline (like the Desperado), or changes what your list of available maneuvers are (like the Hussar), there's no language to indicate that it doesn't.

[exelsisxax]

I have a quick question if anyone could help me; for one of the base PoW classes if you take a Archetype that switches out on Discipline for another like the Bushi Template would you still gain one of the two additional Disciplines that were introduced in Expanded?

Let's say for a Bushi Warder would he gain access to Piercing Thunder or Eternal Guardian and then switch any of his Disciplines out for Mithral Current; or can he just trade out ones that he gets the base class and forfeits acquiring(besides Unorthodox Method or a Martial Tradition) Piercing Thunder or Eternal Guardian?

I'm going to offer a second, equally unofficial, opinion that the bushi does happen to get the choice of new disciplines. This is NOT the case for hussars and privateers. Since bushi doesn't replace any class features(or act like PoW:E archetypes and take away those new disciplines without saying so outright), the discipline exchange is never an obstacle like most archetype replacement features. The warder chooses PT/EG, then exchanges any discipline(his extra choice included) for MC.

[Da Beast]

If I take a martial tradition to swap out a discipline and have levels in multiple initiator classes do they all have to make a swap for the martial traditions discipline or can I chose to take the discipline swap with one class but not with the other?

[Wartex1]

Traditions and other things that replace Disciplines are only for a single class.

Source: Related question earlier in this topic about Traditions and Prestige Classes.

[Da Beast]

Traditions and other things that replace Disciplines are only for a single class.

Source: Related question earlier in this topic about Traditions and Prestige Classes.

Does that mean a multiclass character could take different traditions with different initiating classes?

[Wartex1]

Well, I don't think there's anything stopping anyone from joining multiple traditions as long as they don't conflict, unless there's a rule that I missed.

Though if you're going multiple classes and this is for a new character, you could go for a tradition and Unorthodox Training or whatever that Trait is called.

[Zezzy]

Does anyone know the reason as to why mounts for the Hussar template no longer gain the benefit of stances? Was it just for balance reasons?

The Google Docs version of the Hussar contains this line under Mounted Maneuver Expertise.

Unlike with other mounts, a hussar retains the benefits of his martial stances while he is mounted on his class granted mount and the mount gains any benefits of the stance as well, excluding bonus damage (including increased damage from size increases).

This isn't present in the final version. I was looking at playing a Hussar Warlord, primarily focusing on the Piercing Thunder discipline, but due to the style of stances in that discipline the mount would instead just end up getting in the way and preventing some of the funner abilities.

If it was offbalanced, I'm not experienced enough in the system to understand what the implications of re-adding it as a homebrew feat would be. Would it need to have the same restrictions as before, or be more restricted? Or could it just not work entirely?

[Lord_Gareth]

At long last, part 1 of the Path of War Errata is here.

It's been a long time coming and it's not technically done yet; we're still polishing up part 2, which will cover the disciplines. We appreciate your patience and support during this difficult process. The team's especial thanks go out to Forrest, Taveena, and Keledrath, without whom this would not have been done at all.

[Fenryr]

At long last, part 1 of the Path of War Errata is here.

It's been a long time coming and it's not technically done yet; we're still polishing up part 2, which will cover the disciplines. We appreciate your patience and support during this difficult process. The team's especial thanks go out to Forrest, Taveena, and Keledrath, without whom this would not have been done at all.

Yaaaaay!

Thank you very much.

EDIT:

Critical Hits: Regardless of whether or not it is expressed as a bonus or as dice, extra damage from maneuvers and stances is never multiplied by critical hits or other effects that multiply an attack’s damage (though vulnerability functions as normal, as it is not
a multiplication effect and increases the damage taken, rather than the damage dealt).

What about maneuvers like Elemental Drive? Is it considered extra damage?