Knockdown

[pedsdmd]

Quote:
for all the feats and levels it takes to get those puny increases it aint worth it IMO


I am going to disagree here. While it's true that the benefits of taking more than seven weaponmaster levels are argueable (even though getting up to +6 to hit with your weapon of choice with 28 weaponmaster levels is not a small benefit) and that Ki Damage is worthless, Increased Multiplier and Ki Critical aren't puny increases. You just need to take a look at what certain Avlissian weaponmasters can do: 100+ damage with a katana? So much for a puny increase.

Any fighter can get higher than that +6 to hit just by increasing his strength or taking some feats...AND he gets plus to damage as well.

[pedsdmd]

haha those critical bonuses kick ass sorry but if i could take weaponmaster i would have done

Then why didnt you?

[Yau]

Any fighter can get higher than that +6 to hit just by increasing his strength or taking some feats...AND he gets plus to damage as well.

this comment makes me do what my avatar does

haha those critical bonuses kick ass sorry but if i could take weaponmaster i would have done

Then why didnt you?

because my character is too stupid(low int) to take weaponmaster.

[pedsdmd]

Any fighter can get higher than that +6 to hit just by increasing his strength or taking some feats...AND he gets plus to damage as well.

this comment makes me do what my avatar does

You will have a stressful life if that bothers you

haha those critical bonuses kick ass sorry but if i could take weaponmaster i would have done

Then why didnt you?

because my character is too stupid(low int) to take weaponmaster.

exactly, you dont have enough ability points to take weaponmaster without huge sacrifices

[Yau]

Any fighter can get higher than that +6 to hit just by increasing his strength or taking some feats...AND he gets plus to damage as well.

this comment makes me do what my avatar does

You will have a stressful life if that bothers you

haha those critical bonuses kick ass sorry but if i could take weaponmaster i would have done

Then why didnt you?

because my character is too stupid(low int) to take weaponmaster.

exactly, you dont have enough ability points to take weaponmaster without huge sacrifices

*copies what his avatar does* gawd, taking intelligence isnt a sacfrice, i would love the extra skill points. but "I" choose to RP my character stupid. not because i chose other stats over it.

[pedsdmd]

*copies what his avatar does* gawd, taking intelligence isnt a sacfrice, i would love the extra skill points. but "I" choose to RP my character stupid. not because i chose other stats over it.
_________________

keep butting your head then i guess, Why not RP being a weaponmaster with a not so high intelligience?

Is that 13 in the game mechanics gonna make or break you?

I mean, if its all about the RP..

[mortzestus]

Quote:
for all the feats and levels it takes to get those puny increases it aint worth it IMO


I am going to disagree here. While it's true that the benefits of taking more than seven weaponmaster levels are argueable (even though getting up to +6 to hit with your weapon of choice with 28 weaponmaster levels is not a small benefit) and that Ki Damage is worthless, Increased Multiplier and Ki Critical aren't puny increases. You just need to take a look at what certain Avlissian weaponmasters can do: 100+ damage with a katana? So much for a puny increase.

Any fighter can get higher than that +6 to hit just by increasing his strength or taking some feats...AND he gets plus to damage as well.

I really don't see your point at all. You are failing to see that any weaponmaster can take exactly the same feats with bonuses to hit and increase his strength exactly the same way than a fighter can. Remember that Great STR is not in the bonus feats list for neither fighters nor weaponmasters.

Take these two examples, two humans who started with STR 18, will increase their STR whenever they can and will take Great STR VII (as many as any character can get). Both will take Weapon focus, Epic Weapon Focus and Epic Prowess. But one will be a Fighter 40 and the other will be a Fighter 10 Weaponmaster 30

The fighter will have an AB of 46 = 20 bab + 10 epic ab + 12 STR + 1 weapon focus + 2 epic weapon focus + 1 epic prowess.
The weaponmaster will have an AB of 52 since he can take the same feats than the fighter with his epic bonus feats and also gets the benefits of Superior Weapon Focus and Epic Superior Weapon Focus.

The only advantage the fighter would have is +4 to damage from Epic Weapon Specialization, which is something than the weaponmaster can get with one more fighter level without giving up anything whatsoever. In fact, the "uberbuild" here is Fighter 12 Weaponmaster 28: such a build gets 9 bonus feats less than a pure Fighter 40 but in exchange he'll have +6 to hit, Increased Multiplier and Ki Critical. Both would deal exactly the same damage, except on a critical hit, when the weaponmaster's Increased Multiplier would kick in, not to mention that he'd also be critting more often thanks to Ki Critical. I am not saying that one is better than the other since that's a matter of preference but each of them offers different advantages and disadvantages and the weaponmaster isn't by any means underpowered here. In fact, i daresay that in a one on one the weaponmaster would beat the crap out of the fighter most of the time.

EDIT: And anyway, epic Weaponmasters is not even what we were talking about. I'll quote myself:

You just need to take a look at what certain Avlissian weaponmasters can do: 100+ damage with a katana? So much for a puny increase.

[Rhissaerk Jalesh]

Weaponmasters are great! Honestly, your crit rate basically doubles, and the damage of your crits goes up a huge amount. You give up a few feats for it, but what you give up is well worth the trade-off. I don't regret taking WM levels with Rhiss in the slightest. Seriously, you just can't go wrong with 'you do more damage, more often' when you're a melee.

Oh, and don't forget WM's get listen and spot as class skills! Rar, don't let them rogues sneak up on ya no more!

[Talwin Hawkins]

Weaponmasters are great! Honestly, your crit rate basically doubles, and the damage of your crits goes up a huge amount. You give up a few feats for it, but what you give up is well worth the trade-off. I don't regret taking WM levels with Rhiss in the slightest. Seriously, you just can't go wrong with 'you do more damage, more often' when you're a melee.

Oh, and don't forget WM's get listen and spot as class skills! Rar, don't let them rogues sneak up on ya no more!

You just wait a few levels you F-ing lizard! Ill sneak up on you yet!

[Tangleroot]

Knockdown/discipline and the way they distributed discipline as a class skill sucks. Hard.

[pedsdmd]

I

really don't see your point at all. You are failing to see that any weaponmaster can take exactly the same feats with bonuses to hit and increase his strength exactly the same way than a fighter can. Remember that Great STR is not in the bonus feats list for neither fighters nor weaponmasters.

Take these two examples, two humans who started with STR 18, will increase their STR whenever they can and will take Great STR VII (as many as any character can get). Both will take Weapon focus, Epic Weapon Focus and Epic Prowess. But one will be a Fighter 40 and the other will be a Fighter 10 Weaponmaster 30

My point is a Weapon Master needs a 13 dex AND a 13 Int.

Plus they need 5 Feats.

When are they gonna be able to take alll of that strength?

[krackq]

I play a human fighter and the amount of feats he would get was pretty crazy. Through his earlier levels I seemed to run out of useful feats for my fighter to take.. so much so that he has two weapons with imp crit, weapon focus, weapon spec., epic weapon focus and epic weapon spec. If your base stats are right, fighters get enough feats that you could probably have all 5 of the required WM feats within 3 or 4 levels. As for all of the str feats, if you gave up taking other epic feats, you could get most of those feats fairly easily I think. But only for certain ones.. the great str feats are not fighter feats so every 2 levels (I think) you'd get to take a fighter feat anyway (I think.. unless I'm mixing it up)

*looks at his own post and scratches head wondering what the heck he's rambling on about* I'm not sure what I was trying to accomplish here again.. *goes to get more coffee muttering about sleep griefers*

[mortzestus]

I have crunched enough numbers in my previous post, i think. Just do some math, with those 30 points you get at character creation you can take STR 18, DEX 13 and INT 13 if you feel such inclination. Just in case:
18 13 13 10 10 8?
18 13 13 12 8 8?
18 14 14 8 8 8?

Not to mention that you don't even need to start with STR 18 to take Devastating Critical at some point in your character's career.

If you still need further proof, roll a level 40 fighter and i'll have an epic weaponmaster ready. I'll show you how i hit harder and more accurately.

[Fifty]

I

really don't see your point at all. You are failing to see that any weaponmaster can take exactly the same feats with bonuses to hit and increase his strength exactly the same way than a fighter can. Remember that Great STR is not in the bonus feats list for neither fighters nor weaponmasters.

Take these two examples, two humans who started with STR 18, will increase their STR whenever they can and will take Great STR VII (as many as any character can get). Both will take Weapon focus, Epic Weapon Focus and Epic Prowess. But one will be a Fighter 40 and the other will be a Fighter 10 Weaponmaster 30

My point is a Weapon Master needs a 13 dex AND a 13 Int.

Plus they need 5 Feats.

When are they gonna be able to take alll of that strength?

With low Cha, Wis and Con, there is no reason you should not start with a High Strength as a WM. Now, it is relatively pointless taking only 13 in Dex and Int, so let's have a look.

Str 16 (10 points)
Dex 14 (6 points)
Con 10 (2 points)
Int 14 (6 points)
Wis 8 (0 points)
Cha 8 (0 points)

That leaves 6 creation points to either put your Str up to 18 or improve our other stats. I do not see the problem here.

After all, why should WMs get some advantage of having Dev Crit without getting any disadvantages? Tell you waht, if I ever DM you in PnP, I'll do you a deal. You get access to Dev Crit with the same pre-reqs as fighters, but you lose Ki Crit and the other WM feat.


Also, by the time you start taking the increases to strength at Epic, you will have finished with taking your WM feats. And it is hardly like those 5 feats are useless to you. After all, with those 5 feats you will be harder to kill than a fighter. Plus, with at least a few fighter levels to get that WM PrC in the first place, you are going to have a chance to get lots of the fighter bonus feats.

[pedsdmd]

I posted this topic is in General Discussion Guys.

Thanks for the input.

[Dirk Cutlass]

I thought we were talking about knockdown in this thread, isn't DevCrit the other one?

BTW, Fifty, I don't like your build much. A fighter with only 10 CON, 14 DEX is useless when wearing plate. I agree with the 14 INT though, that extra skill point per level comes in handy.

Of course, I made life hard for myself by taking gnome as a race. I think Leo started off
STR 15
DEX 13
CON 16
INT 13
WIS 10
CHA 8

And, I put all my ability bonuses on STR, bar the last which went on INT. So I am currently...

STR 18
DEX 13
CON 16
INT 14
WIS 10
CHA 8

The WM is at a disadvantage at lower levels though (say 10-20) because the neat abilities don't kick in until quite late (lvl 5 and lvl 7 WM) and the fighter will be getting more feats during this time.

By the time a fighter is epic, he has all the sub-epic feats that he needs (and some that he doesn't). So an epic fighter can put every feat into epic feats (e.g. epic STR, armor skin, etc.). However, as a WM build, I'm still missing a few crucial feats by the time I get to lvl 21, e.g. IKD would be nice, Iron Will would be useful, etc. So, I have the situation where I need to miss out on some epic feats just to take the mundane ones.

Of course, by the time you are lvl 40, things are a bit more even... there is so many feats that a fighter needs, he'll have epic flower arranging and basket-weaving by that time. But, I don't even plan a character above lvl 20, and I have no aspirations to ever get lvl 30 or higher PC.

[mortzestus]

I thought we were talking about knockdown in this thread, isn't DevCrit the other one?

Yeah, but pedsdmd felt the need to bring the issue up here as well.

14 DEX is useless when wearing plate.

By any means. Armour only limits your DEX modifier for purposes of calculating AC. Extra DEX would still affect your reflex saves, ranged AB and skill checks.

[Dirk Cutlass]

14 DEX is useless when wearing plate.

By any means. Armour only limits your DEX modifier for purposes of calculating AC. Extra DEX would still affect your reflex saves, ranged AB and skill checks.

True, but...

a plate-wearing tank is not going to be doing too many ranged attacks
a plate-wearing tank gets big penalty (-8 ) to DEX-based skill checks, so DEX based skills are not going to be things he relies on (they're probably all cross-class anyway)

[mortzestus]

I just said that DEX 14 is not useless, not that going for it should be a priority. Besides, everybody has to do reflex saves every now and then, heh.

[Fifty]

BTW, Fifty, I don't like your build much. A fighter with only 10 CON, 14 DEX is useless when wearing plate. I agree with the 14 INT though, that extra skill point per level comes in handy.

Of course, I made life hard for myself by taking gnome as a race. I think Leo started off
STR 15
DEX 13
CON 16
INT 13
WIS 10
CHA 8

Yes, but yours was a 30 point build, whereas mine was a 24 point build with 6 left to do what you like with them.

Mine could quite easily have been turned into

Str 16
Dex 14
Con 15
Int 14
Wis 8
Cha 8

Which is not significantly different to you own, and by the time you use one increase at level 4 the Str and Con will be equal again. The only difference between the builds is that mine gets a plus to reflex saves instead of will saves, plus more skill points.

[WrathOG777]

Plate wareing tanks that want to dual wield are going to have that dex. In fact they are going to have 15, because that is the pre-req for ambi.

That makes it very un-useless.

Unless you are one of the wise folks that realize that with all the pre-req stats, feats, and the penalty for dual wield that a two hander is just as good as dual wielding and better for two reasons. Then you use the points for extra dex on str or con.

[Fifty]

Plate wareing tanks that want to dual wield are going to have that dex. In fact they are going to have 15, because that is the pre-req for ambi.

That makes it very un-useless.

Unless you are one of the wise folks that realize that with all the pre-req stats, feats, and the penalty for dual wield that a two hander is just as good as dual wielding and better for two reasons. Then you use the points for extra dex on str or con.

Well this is precisely the route I went down with Shaktar, not because I thought dual-wield was better than two-hander, but because I liked the idea of a dual wielder (Well, double-blader in thsi case actually)

[Dirk Cutlass]

BTW, Fifty, I don't like your build much. A fighter with only 10 CON, 14 DEX is useless when wearing plate. I agree with the 14 INT though, that extra skill point per level comes in handy.

Of course, I made life hard for myself by taking gnome as a race. I think Leo started off
STR 15
DEX 13
CON 16
INT 13
WIS 10
CHA 8

Yes, but yours was a 30 point build, whereas mine was a 24 point build with 6 left to do what you like with them.

Mine could quite easily have been turned into

Str 16
Dex 14
Con 15
Int 14
Wis 8
Cha 8

Which is not significantly different to you own, and by the time you use one increase at level 4 the Str and Con will be equal again. The only difference between the builds is that mine gets a plus to reflex saves instead of will saves, plus more skill points.

I thought the point of yours was that you were putting the extra 6 points onto STR to get it up to 18. Isn't that what we were talking about, i.e. a WM build with a starting STR of 18? I thought your end build in that case was 18, 14, 10, 14, 8, 8. Haven't done the math, but I thought that's what you were saying. Sorry if I didn't understand you right.

Plus, you can't do your build with a gnome it takes 33 points

[Fifty]

Well, if I had been talking about a specifically 18 point build I could have just written that out to start with. The point was, the guy was complaining that you have to spend lots of points to get dex and int stats that suit a WM, and I was just demonstrating that you can get a perfectly good build fit for either fighter or WM with a decent strength and still get those stats up high and useful and have 6 left over for personalising your fighter.

Beyond that, if you then take certain races with their bonuses things will alter slightly, but overall you can still make a perfectly acceptable WM starter-build with a decent strength.

Basically, the Dex and Int req's are not a significant impediment to someone take a Str-based WM.

edit: Ta Dirk

[Dirk Cutlass]

Well, if I had been talking about a specifically 18 point build I could have just written that out to start with. The point was, the guy was complaining that you have to spend lots of points to get dex and int stats that suit a WM, and I was just demonstrating that you can get a perfectly good build fit for either fighter or WM with a decent strength and still get those stats up high and useful and have 6 left over for personalising your fighter.

Beyond that, if you then take certain races with their bonuses things will alter slightly, but overall you can still make a perfectly acceptable WM starter-build with a decent strength.

Basically, the Dex and Int req's are not a significant impediment to someone take a Str-based WM.

((I think you mean Dex and Int - I corrected it for you))

Ah, I see. Well then yes, true enough. And Leo is a perfect of example of a STR based WM, and he even started with a -2 penalty due to race. OK, so maybe 18 STR at lvl 20+ isn't everything in the world, but it does very nicely and with buffs and equipment, Leo regularly operates at 30 STR.