Questions

[Grudge]

*Lowers his head and drags his feat to the back mumbling about how dad would listen to him.*

Edited April 28 by Grudge (see edit history)

[Blue Jay]

36 minutes ago, Grudge said:

Shadow Hand does have not best stances but not the worst either so that makes it popular. However, its weapons are very specific and are not lighting the world on fire: Dagger, sai, siangham, short sword, spiked chain, unarmed strike. In that bunch Spiked Chained I'd rate A class weapon, Unarmed Strike maybe, depending on a build, but others are B+ at best.

Assassin's stance is quite good, especially in gestalt, where you can be a full-leveled rogue in addition to a full-leveled swordsage.

I've always been prejudiced against the spiked chain. It's like the bat'leth from Star Trek: clearly a silly and impractical weapon whose popularity endures purely because "badass". I feel like there are several other core weapons (e.g., nunchaku, sai, shuriken, trident) that are more deserving of a "badass" boost than the spiked chain, but they all got stuck with penalties derived from realism considerations.

12 minutes ago, Steel Warrior said:

@Blue Jay and other GM's. What are your thoughts on players having an XP Pool across all approved characters? It might speed up the process of leveling up one character somewhat vs playing a game and running the risk that the character will take months to level up.

I'm open to it, but not very favorably disposed. We grant bonus XP for running missions, and we advocate mission GMs being generous with XP rewards, so we've tried to boost advancement rates. I suppose we could find ways to do more. But we've also had a bit of history with magic-item crafting being farmed hard, so I'm kind of leery of opening it too far.

Anyone else have an opinion?

@Delia2531, @rogueblade0729, @Rudolf

I am still in favor of letting players build one higher-level character as a loyalty reward, though.

[Rudolf]

Nah. Let it take months. People aren’t going anywhere.
 

Also, it makes you feel like you really earned it. That’s actually very cool. A character that was played from levels 3-11 is always going to have more depth than a character rolled up at 11.
 

And if this encourages people to run games; then good. The incentives are where they should be.

[Delia2531]

Hard no on the XP pool for me I'm afraid; if you want to advance a character, play the character (or run missions). 😀

[Grudge]

3 hours ago, Blue Jay said:

Assassin's stance is quite good, especially in gestalt, where you can be a full-leveled rogue in addition to a full-leveled swordsage.

I've always been prejudiced against the spiked chain. It's like the bat'leth from Star Trek: clearly a silly and impractical weapon whose popularity endures purely because "badass". I feel like there are several other core weapons (e.g., nunchaku, sai, shuriken, trident) that are more deserving of a "badass" boost than the spiked chain, but they all got stuck with penalties derived from realism considerations.

I might be mixing it up with PF version and I'm too lazy to check, but out of the presented weapons (again bear unarmed strike, since unarmed Swordsage is a story in its own) I think it is the best by far. If I'm correct it has reach, helps with some maneuvers, and damage is there with other weapons. Are there better weapons, of course? But the entire point was to show that thanks to subpar weapons you have to use if you want Dex for damage makes the Shadow Hand Swordsages issue overblown if you have a lazy GM who allows Swordsage to use Dex for Damage while armed with whatever. That is not a class or feats issue. While Deadly Agility removes weapon restrictions almost entirely (they have to be Dex weapons) that's why I think both Graces are much more balanced. Which weapon you would take out of that bunch if not chain or unarmed? Dagger? Short Sword? Siangham? Is there "edgy" factor to spiked chain? Undoubtedly. But out of those on offer is in upper echelon edgy or not.

Edited April 28 by Grudge (see edit history)

[Faeryl_]

When's the last time you saw someone using a Siangham? It's an exotic weapon that AFAIK, only monks gain proficiency with by default. Even swordsages have to burn a feat on such things if they want to use one without penalty.

[Rudolf]

My take is that most exotic weapons are terrible, and not worth the feat to learn them. The spiked chain is one of the rare exceptions to that rule.

[Faeryl_]

Because it's relevant, I present to you this lovely argument about spiked chains.

https://i.giantitp.com//comics/oots/oots0216.gif

[Grudge]

11 minutes ago, Rudolf said:

My take is that most exotic weapons are terrible, and not worth the feat to learn them. The spiked chain is one of the rare exceptions to that rule.

Bastard Sword is not bad if someone wants to be a Paladin. But I just checked and was right about Spiked Chain, reach, trip, and disarm help, 2d4 damage. Plus it counts like Light and gets all the benefits from Weapon Finesse and Dex feats. And for Swordsage its really A class weapon for Shadow Blade. Maybe even A+. Compared to it, all other Shadow Hand weapons look pathetic.

[Blue Jay]

On 4/28/2024 at 3:16 PM, Faeryl_ said:

Because it's relevant, I present to you this lovely argument about spiked chains.

https://i.giantitp.com//comics/oots/oots0216.gif

I remember the first time I read that, I didn't know what "cheese" meant. Also, he shouldn't be getting 2 AoOs for a single charge: even with Combat Reflexes, it's still only 1 attack per opportunity, and movement only counts as one opportunity, no matter how many squares of movement it is.

On 4/28/2024 at 3:21 PM, Grudge said:

Bastard Sword is not bad if someone wants to be a Paladin. But I just checked and was right about Spiked Chain, reach, trip, and disarm help, 2d4 damage. Plus it counts like Light and gets all the benefits from Weapon Finesse and Dex feats. And for Swordsage its really A class weapon for Shadow Blade. Maybe even A+. Compared to it, all other Shadow Hand weapons look pathetic.

More reasons why I hate it. It's not just edgy and douchy, but also overpowered and self-contradictory. If you ever see an NPC in one of my missions wielding a spiked chain, you know I want you to kill him hard.

It looks like Pathfinder took away the reach aspect from the spiked chain, so there's one more thing I like better about Pathfinder than 3.5e.

I'm going to argue that Deadly Agility doesn't let you multiply Dex for two-handedness, though. Strength-based characters should retain the edge on the two-handed weapons front, at least; and I certainly don't want to see all polearms being replaced by douche-whips spiked chains. 😛

Edited April 29 by Blue Jay (see edit history)

[Grudge]

3 minutes ago, Blue Jay said:

I remember the first time I read that, I didn't know what "cheese" meant. Also, he shouldn't be getting 2 AoOs for a single charge: even with Combat Reflexes, it's still only 2 attack per opportunity, and movement only counts as one opportunity, no matter how many squares of movement it is.

More reasons why I hate it. It's not just edgy and douchy, but also overpowered and self-contradictory. If you ever see an NPC in one of my missions wielding a spiked chain, you know I want you to kill him hard.

It looks like Pathfinder took away the reach aspect from the spiked chain, so there's one more thing I like better about Pathfinder than 3.5e.

I'm going to argue that Deadly Agility doesn't let you multiply Dex for two-handedness, though. Strength-based characters should retain the edge on the two-handed weapons front, at least; and I certainly don't want to see all polearms being replaced by douche-whips spiked chains. 😛

I knew one version was nerfed, wasn't sure which one. Also, personal hatred for anything is fair, there are some low level spells that drive me up the wall when on the low level. But here I would say it's unwarranted. Warblade I make now showers in Greatswords and Greataxes, Bastard Swords, Double Swords, Dwarven Axes... Shadow Hand has 1 decent weapon unless you want to go unarmed, sorry you hate it. Go back in time and make them create Shadow Hand more viable without it and solve the problem 😛

[Divinedragonslayer]

Are the environmental books kosher? I'd like to build a primal druid but I don't know if Frostburn is available.

[Faeryl_]

Yes. All official WotC books are available. I myself have a Snow Elf Druid wielding a bone bow; both from Frostburn. Sadly, most of the fun spells from that book are big area spells and less useful to a pet druid.

[Divinedragonslayer]

I actually plan on using a sabertooth club with a druid focused on cold spells. I'm actually going to go for a primeval druid if things work out right. But we'll see.

[Blue Jay]

59 minutes ago, Grudge said:

I knew one version was nerfed, wasn't sure which one. Also, personal hatred for anything is fair, there are some low level spells that drive me up the wall when on the low level. But here I would say it's unwarranted. Warblade I make now showers in Greatswords and Greataxes, Bastard Swords, Double Swords, Dwarven Axes... Shadow Hand has 1 decent weapon unless you want to go unarmed, sorry you hate it. Go back in time and make them create Shadow Hand more viable without it and solve the problem 😛

My argument is that, by RAI, it doesn't multiply Dex for two-handed use. The feat says you can use Dex in place of Str. Then it talks about dividing Dex for off-hand use, but it does not talk about multiplying Dex for two-handed use. It seems like, if that was their intention, they ought to have mentioned it; since they thought it was important to mention the dividing thing.

And, from my perspective, the purpose of approving this feat isn't to make Shadow Hand "more viable" or to let Dex-based characters emulate Str-based ones. Shadow Hand is plenty viable the way it is, and swordsages certainly don't need the help. It's never supposed to be about making already-powerful options more powerful. For me, it's more about helping the rogues and swashbucklers with their daggers and rapiers; or the two-weapon rangers who can't afford to put more than a 15 in their most important stat.