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Basically, brass knuckles did your unarmed damage when you used them and could be enchanted as normal weapons, so if you were a monk with 2d6 then that's what you did, and you could have +3 holy ghost touch brass knuckles for the price of a regular weapon and just punch dudes for your unarmed damage plus everything else all day. Now, they're just 1d3 normal damage things, for people who want to punch but apparently hate the unarmed feat tree (or damage).
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Dec 4, 2012 21:25
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LightWarden posted:Now, they're just 1d3 normal damage things, for people who want to punch but apparently hate the unarmed feat tree (or damage). Which brings them statistically to exactly the same loving thing as a gauntlet, which they've said time and time again that Monks cannot Flurry with.
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Dec 4, 2012 21:43
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Inverse Icarus posted:Which brings them statistically to exactly the same loving thing as a gauntlet, which they've said time and time again that Monks cannot Flurry with. What with how much a disadvantage that martial classes have, does being able to flurry with knuckles or guantlets make Monks just way OP or something?
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Dec 4, 2012 21:56
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LightWarden posted:They also changed the silver/cold iron DR problem along with halving the cost of an amulet of mighty fists. Still no good way to punch an outsider. Jesus Christ, it's about time they addressed this. Also, I think I have a problem: the entire time I was reading this, I was imagining Sean K. "I Hate Non-Battle Clerics" Reynolds stomping around the Paizo office, grumbling and swearing while it was being written. I think I may have an unrealistic mental image of Reynolds. obeyasia posted:What with how much a disadvantage that martial classes have, does being able to flurry with knuckles or guantlets make Monks just way OP or something? It's not that it makes them OP, it just makes them competitive and able to deal reasonable damage, like you'd expect the monk to be able to. Fudge Handsome fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Dec 4, 2012 |
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Dec 4, 2012 21:58
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Ok, history lesson time. In 3.0e, the amulet of mighty fists didn't exist. Monks didn't really have any sort of item that boosted their unarmed attack bonus or damage. This meant that they sucked more than usual. Neverwinter Nights wound up giving monks enchanted gloves to deal with it, while Sword and Fist invented the Amulet of Mighty Fists, which was promoted to the DMG for 3.5e while also being extended to natural weapons in addition to unarmed attacks. Problem was, the AoMF cost as much as three weapons of the same bonus and capped out at +5 to hit and damage, presumably because it might allow a critter with more than three natural attacks (such as a dragon) to benefit from enhancement bonuses on all of them. Unfortunately, monks had no such advantages because they basically spammed away with the equivalent of one weapon, meaning they were overcharged for it. Other thing 3e did was make a change to the way damaging creatures worked. Back in 2e, certain types of monsters such as golems and fiends could only be damaged by weapons of +X or higher- if you didn't have those weapons, you were flat-out screwed. In 3.0e, they changed it so that instead of a demon being immune to weapons that weren't +2 or better, it might have DR 20/+2 or DR 30/+3, so if you didn't have the right numbers on your weapon, you could still do damage. But as you might have noticed, those numbers are kind of big (iron golems had DR 50/+3. Good loving luck there). With 3.5e, they basically halved the DR values and eliminated the DR N/+X in favor of stepping up the material aspect. There were monsters in 3.0e with material DR like the 15/silver for werewolves, but even fiends and celestials were largely focused on DR that used the +Xs. With 3e, DR N/+X got downgraded to DR M/magic, which wound up being something pretty much any low-to-mid-level adventurer could crack. The high-level foes were upgraded to material DR (such as DR M/cold iron), or combination DR (such as DR M/cold iron and good). This pretty much meant you either had to eat lesser damage or find a golf-bag of weapons. The problem with things like DR 10/cold iron and good is that they don't affect all weapon users equally. DR is triggered on each attack, which means that if you hit with five attacks that do 15 damage normally, you're going to 25 damage instead of 75 damage because you lost 10 points of damage from each attack five times, compared to if you hit one attack at 75 damage, you're going to do 65 damage because you only trigger the DR once. And since attack spammers usually have to pay for multiple weapons, that means they have to spend even more money buying and enchanting their toys. This is especially annoying when alignment-based DR starts showing up on outsiders. Pathfinder did fix things somewhat for other classes by allowing generic enchantments to overcome DR, but for the longest time the monk had serious problems. Since flurry of blows is a designed to be a spam attack, monks are one of the worst characters to play as when up against DR they can't crack (along with some TWF and ranged characters), especially since they had to deal with the straight-port of AoMF's pricing at triple the going-rate for a similar weapon. Now, with the new ruling, they're somewhat better because they can naturally punch through cold iron and silver DR as long as they have a point of ki. Alignment-based DR is still going to hose them until they can buy a +5 AoMF for a mere twice the going rate of an equivalent weapon instead of the former triple going rate. And since it caps at +5 bonuses period, they're going to feel it if they want to throw on some Agile, Flaming or Holy bonuses. Monks: Less poo poo than they were before (but still pretty lovely).
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Dec 4, 2012 22:40
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For PF:S is this amulet even feasible? Im level 4 and ive only earned like 5000 gold. Can you buy it, and then just upgrade it? If not, what can of sell price do you get from it?
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Dec 4, 2012 22:47
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Overall I'm pretty happy with these changes. I might house rule (gasp) that it can be enchanted up to +10, but aside from that it should be fine. That history lesson was pretty good; it seems weird to me that they didn't just make the item Gloves of Mighty Fists instead of an amulet, but I guess it was probably to make it so that monsters could wear one.
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Dec 4, 2012 23:00
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obeyasia posted:For PF:S is this amulet even feasible? Im level 4 and ive only earned like 5000 gold. Can you buy it, and then just upgrade it? If not, what can of sell price do you get from it? 50%, same as all wondrous items. And from what my PFS DM said no, it doesn't seem like they can be upgraded like weapons or armor since they're amulets. Which is loving stupid and makes monks rear end in PFS. Man, I really like a lot of what they changed with monks to power them up from 3.5 to PF and with a few of the house rules discussed here they can be as interesting as any non-magic melee character, but without them they just get shitcanned.
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Dec 4, 2012 23:06
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They can be upgraded.quote:For ease of play in Pathfinder Society, a masterwork item can always be upgraded to a +1 item without paying for the masterwork cost again. Instead, you pay the difference between the cost of the +1 item and that of the masterwork item. This rule also applies to upgrading from a +1 item to a +2 item and so on—you never have to repay the original cost or sell your current item for half to upgrade to the next step. Note that this only applies to items of the same kind—
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Dec 4, 2012 23:11
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I can absolutely see a PF:S GM interpret that as only applying to weapons and armor--things with normal numerical enhancement bonuses, and saying that the amulet doesn't count for some reason. I think that is an irredeemably stupid interpretation, but I can see certain GMs holding quite steadfastly to it.
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Dec 4, 2012 23:14
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grah posted:I can absolutely see a PF:S GM interpret that as only applying to weapons and armor--things with normal numerical enhancement bonuses, and saying that the amulet doesn't count for some reason. That interpretation would be against RAW, though, and you could probably get someone to overrule them on it. I think? I'm not really sure how PFS works, but I assume there's judges and stuff to make sure things go smoothly?
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Dec 4, 2012 23:24
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"Well, see, amulets can't really be masterwork and the only examples are weapons, not wondrous items. It doesn't say anything about upgrading wondrous items so you can't upgrade your amulet or your headband or your belt because..." You might be able to go to a different event and get a GM to allow what a previous one didn't, but as far as I'm aware most PF:S things are pretty low rent affairs, and there's often no higher authority present than the GM(s) running it. I do agree with you that upgrading is within RAW though. I've just learned to never underestimate how silly and arbitrary some wanna-be lawyers get when it comes to running these things.
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Dec 4, 2012 23:28
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I always thought the rules were clear that you could upgrade e.g. a Bracers of Armor +1 to Bracers of Armor +2 by paying the difference. Why would an Amulet of Mighty Fists be any different?
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Dec 5, 2012 01:08
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Axiem posted:I always thought the rules were clear that you could upgrade e.g. a Bracers of Armor +1 to Bracers of Armor +2 by paying the difference. Why would an Amulet of Mighty Fists be any different? Because Bracers of Armor are for glorious, noble, and exalted casters, which get all the best toys, and Amulets of Mighty Fists are for filthy peasant meatshield non-caster classes who deserve nothing.
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Dec 5, 2012 01:25
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Axiem posted:I always thought the rules were clear that you could upgrade e.g. a Bracers of Armor +1 to Bracers of Armor +2 by paying the difference. Why would an Amulet of Mighty Fists be any different? This came up when I asked whether I'd be able to upgrade my Int headband from +2 to +4 for my Grenadier Alchemist, but I was told that upgrading only applied to weapons and armor. Was a bit of a bummer, but I really don't take that game in any way seriously and don't give much of a drat. I'm just going to save up for a suit of Celestial Armor. I'm already getting to the point of being laughably unhittable and while AC isn't hugely meaningful, rolling a 33 without even factoring in a deflection or dodge bonus would get pretty solid. Or I can spend way less money and crank up my to hit and damage further or get infusion vials to let the Barbarian crank up and crush people without even costing me extract slots. Options!
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Dec 5, 2012 01:28
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LightWarden posted:Ok, history lesson time. From how I remember 2e working, it was fairly similar to how PF works. Monsters had "cannot be damage by weapons of +X or lower" but iconic monsters like werewolves could also be damaged by silver weapons or that vampires could be held at bay by anyone of courage and conviction brandishing a lawful good holy symbol or a mirror. Note that there was no specific "silver" weapon entree or anything like that; you'd just say "Alright I'm also buying a silver dagger and some wolfsbane because I think there's werewolves nearby."
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Dec 5, 2012 01:47
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Dr_Gee posted:This came up when I asked whether I'd be able to upgrade my Int headband from +2 to +4 for my Grenadier Alchemist, but I was told that upgrading only applied to weapons and armor. Was a bit of a bummer, but I really don't take that game in any way seriously and don't give much of a drat. So why don't the rules say "magic weapons and armor"? The rules very clearly state "magic item", and even give an example with a ring: quote:Sometimes, lack of funds or time make it impossible for a magic item crafter to create the desired item from scratch. Fortunately, it is possible to enhance or build upon an existing magic item. Only time, gold, and the various prerequisites required of the new ability to be added to the magic item restrict the type of additional powers one can place... Where are people getting the idea that it only applies to weapons and armor?  (Then again, I'm probably spoiled by my DM. I pointed out that the Returning quality on a weapon requires telekinesis, even though there's now a Cleric spell "returning weapon", and he's like "Yeah, you can do that quality with the returning weapon spell". He makes a lot of sane calls like that.)
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Dec 5, 2012 02:40
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smashthedean posted:Overall I'm pretty happy with these changes. I might house rule (gasp) that it can be enchanted up to +10, but aside from that it should be fine. That history lesson was pretty good; it seems weird to me that they didn't just make the item Gloves of Mighty Fists instead of an amulet, but I guess it was probably to make it so that monsters could wear one. Or you could just rule both, because why not? Inverse Icarus posted:Which brings them statistically to exactly the same loving thing as a gauntlet, which they've said time and time again that Monks cannot Flurry with.
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Dec 5, 2012 02:41
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Allowing monks to use brass knuckles also opens up silver knuckles, cold iron knuckles, and adamantine knuckles for use, which is also pretty nice. It's also worth noting that with the changes to ki strike being able to overcome silver and cold iron based DR, it's worth even more now to take the style feats in Ultimate Combat that allow monks to switch between bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage types.
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Dec 5, 2012 02:51
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MoonwalkInvincible posted:Honestly, a better and simpler ruling for helping monks would be to just say that Brass Knuckles can be worn while still using your monk unarmed damage and special unarmed abilities. That way monks have the same weapon upgrade costs as everyone else and you aren't shafting them for stupid, arbitrary reasons (because otherwise brass knuckles have basically no reason to exist). Yeah, you're right. I did this with brass knuckles when the quasi-ruling was in effect and did it with gauntlets in that campaign as well because why not. I'm just a big baby about house-ruling things.
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Dec 5, 2012 03:24
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The thing with brass knuckles was a thematic problem if I recall. They thought it would be really dumb for every monk to be walking around punching dudes with brass knuckles, that it would be mandatory. And it would be dumb! ...Except, they offered no other solution. I still don't like the necklace either, because it takes up a rather valuable magic item slot. The problem in the end is that I feel Paizo hilariously overdramatizes the power of "unarmed combat." I know they've been hesitant to buff it, or even "non-nerf" it because they're seriously worried that "not needing a weapon" makes unarmed combat in of itself superpowered.
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Dec 5, 2012 04:11
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Yeah somehow keeping 300 gp, not being disarmed and not fearing rust monsters is the height of overpowered?
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Dec 5, 2012 04:16
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I like 4e's Ki Focus solution of having a slot-less item that gives you its bonuses to any weapon you wield, since it meant that you could pick up a ladder and Jackie Chan your way to victory. Inherent bonuses are even better, as is dropping the whole item bonus treadmill, but I doubt we'll see anything that progressive for a few cycles yet.
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Dec 5, 2012 04:20
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My own houseruled solution is "martial techniques", which are mystical martial arts techniques that grant an enhancement bonus and/or properties to your unarmed strike, cost the same amount to develop as a magic weapon would (plus a flat surcharge to make up for weapon cost) and can be shifted between with a move action's worth of meditation if you know more than one. I also had some rules about stealing secret techniques in duels but you've got the gist of what's basically a pretty simple idea.
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Dec 5, 2012 04:55
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Solution seems really obvious. Same way you can enchant "masterwork cloth armor" that has a +0 armor bonus but otherwise serves to carry the +whatever and other properties, you can enchant "masterwork hand wrappings" that have no stats, but apply their bonus and modifiers to your unarmed attacks. Take up the hands slot. Can also have "masterwork silver embroidered hand wrappings" and "masterwork cold iron dusted hand wrappings" too. Pretty sure I've seen movies were martial arts dudes have something like that (well not the magic part, the "weapon" itself). Not sure how it's not "in flavor" or whatever. Like duh why isn't this just in the rules?
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Dec 5, 2012 06:32
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This season of RPG Superstar is underway.
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Dec 6, 2012 22:38
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Do outsiders age, and die of old age? Is there any information on this? Like, would a demon locked in a room live forever or die of old age, assuming a ring of sustenance?
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Dec 7, 2012 08:30
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I think that is really heavily dependent on the type/species/race of outsider that it is. Like, a Glabrezu probably wouldn't die of old age, but a native outsider like a Tiefling almost definitely would. That said, I don't know where it would be in the rules as written, if it's anywhere at all. And you'd probably be better off looking for it in 3e books as well, given that pathfinder rarely (if ever) elaborates on the existing D&D creature lore.
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Dec 7, 2012 08:53
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I never really liked how the game treated unarmed strikes from other classes. Like the whole nonlethal thing and all of that. It seemed silly that someone could have like 30 STR and punch you only for a knock out. Illvillainy posted:Yeah somehow keeping 300 gp, not being disarmed and not fearing rust monsters is the height of overpowered? They should just bring back Vow of Poverty.
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Dec 7, 2012 09:07
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CB_Tube_Knight posted:They should just bring back Vow of Poverty. http://www.pathfindersrd.com/classes/core-classes/monk/archetypes/paizo---monk-archetypes/monk-vows/vow-of-poverty quote:Benefit: A monk with this vow increases his ki pool by 1 ki point for every monk level he possesses. 
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Dec 7, 2012 09:16
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MoonwalkInvincible posted:Actually, they already did. That's not Vow of Poverty! (You're not my real mom!) Vow of poverty causes massive game breakage and hands out copious amounts of AC!
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Dec 7, 2012 16:58
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CB_Tube_Knight posted:That's not Vow of Poverty! (You're not my real mom!) Vow of poverty causes massive game breakage and hands out copious amounts of AC! Vow of Poverty sucked for monks anyway
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Dec 7, 2012 17:33
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MoonwalkInvincible posted:I think that is really heavily dependent on the type/species/race of outsider that it is. Like, a Glabrezu probably wouldn't die of old age, but a native outsider like a Tiefling almost definitely would. Sucks to not have anything official, but for my purposes I'm just going to say that demons and archons or whatever I decide on using for the story are just unaffected by time, or at the very least can live to be thousands of years old.
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Dec 7, 2012 20:38
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Danhenge posted:Vow of Poverty sucked for monks anyway Vow of Poverty sucked for pretty much everybody with possible exception of Druids if you knew with nearly complete certainty that your game was going to end before you got above the mid levels.
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Dec 7, 2012 21:15
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Some of the other PF Vows are halfway decent, honestly. Just... not that one.
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Dec 7, 2012 21:43
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LGD posted:Vow of Poverty sucked for pretty much everybody with possible exception of Druids if you knew with nearly complete certainty that your game was going to end before you got above the mid levels. It was great if you were playing with a stingy as poo poo GM and knew you'd never get any money/items anyway.
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Dec 7, 2012 21:52
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Or, you know, if you just wanted to play a character without items. Some people do things like that for fun.
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Dec 7, 2012 22:00
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Sometimes I do things for flavor. Like I'm playing an archery rogue and thought it would be fun to play this kind of character. I don't think it's going to be super effective...everyone seems to be so against any kind of character optimization.
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Dec 7, 2012 23:56
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I was looking at Dimensional Dervish a while back for my monk, but it was too feat intensive (I was already fairly high level when the feats came out and that was't really my monk's thing. Then I started thinking how else a character can use it, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it says anything about melee attacks. Prerequisites: Ability to use the abundant step class feature or cast dimension door, Dimensional Agility, Dimensional Assault, base attack bonus +6. Benefit: You can take a full-attack action, activating abundant step or casting dimension door as a swift action. If you do, you can teleport up to twice your speed (up to the maximum distance allowed by the spell or ability), dividing this teleportation into increments you use before your first attack, between each attack, and after your last attack. You must teleport at least 5 feet each time you teleport. Could a Witch 4 / Ranger 4 / Arcane Archer 4 with Dimensional Dervish make a full attack, teleporting around between shots for a total of 60 feet? Or Just Wizard 7 / FULLBAB X with a bow. I guess your BAB is low in most of these mixes. What if you went with a Gunslinger? You could teleport close, unload a full attack against touch AC, and then teleport out. That Spellslinger Wizard archetype. You have to take it to 7th level to get dimension door. Mix in a martial class for BAB and combat-related bonuses. The spellslinger also lets you enhance your gun by melting spells, and you can cast rays/cones/lines through it to raise the DC or add to your hit. You still need to get around the whole reloading bullshit, but let's imagine you have TWF and some revolvers as a 7th level Spellslinger. Your BAB is only a +3. Let's assume your DEX is a +3 too. A 7th level PC has ~23,500gp in wealth. I'm assuming advanced firearms are on the table. Your GM opinion varies. You can make the guns at half price, and if you have Craft Magic Arms, you can make two +1 Reliable Revolvers for 12,000gp. They shoot six times each without reloading, and cannot misfire. That's a +7 to hit, and TWF takes it down 2 more. A +5/+5 to hit isn't great, but it'll be against touch AC. Remember, you're teleporting in, unloading, and then teleporting out, so you'll likely be in range for the Revolver. One of the guns is basically your arcane bond. and with that one you can burn a spell as a swift action and add one of a set of magical weapon properties to it, using the spell's level as the +X modifier. With that weapon bonus the spellslinger can apply any of the following to his arcane bond: enhancement bonuses (up to +5) and dancing, defending, distance, flaming, flaming burst, frost, ghost touch, icy burst, merciful, seeking, shock, shocking burst, spell storing, thundering, vicious, and wounding. An arcane gun gains no benefit from having two of the same weapon special abilities on the same barrel. The effect of the mage bullets ability lasts for a number of minutes equal to the level of the spell sacrificed, or until this ability is used again to assign the barrel different enhancements. That's hilariously flexible and versatile. "Yeah, uhh, I burn a 3rd level spell and now my +1 Reliable Revolver is a +1 Reliable Holy Ghost Touch Revolver for 30 rounds." As a swift action. First round of combat, you move around, cast a buff spell of some sort, and use a swift action to "charge" your gun with whatever properties you want. Second round, you teleport all over the battlefield, firing off bullets from literally every direction. Imagery is solid, mechanics are iffy. Or forget ranged entirely and get a Wizard 1 / Barbarian X with a set of really expensive wands, and a GM who loosely interprets the phrase "ability to cast."
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Dec 8, 2012 01:49
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Real quick question - does the Metal mystery for Oracles make for a decent swingy oracle compared to, say, Battle? I like the Oracle class mechanics and mysteries and curses and all that jazz but I also want to be on the front lines and be useful and I'm thinking if a Battle oracle or cleric with the right god would just be better.
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Dec 8, 2012 07:54
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