Question about Superior Impliments & Versatile Expertise

[RigaMortus2]

Trying to pick feats and items for a Monk character I am working on. I have a question on if I can combine certain feats, and certain magic items.

If I take Versatile Expertise (Staff) and Superior Impliment Focus (Accurate Staff), do these feats stack?

Also, what is the damage on a Staff vs. a Quarterstaff? I am trying to take Quarterstaff in Character Builder, but there doesn't seem to be an option for an Accurate Quarterstaff, just Accurate Staff. Are Staves and Quarterstaves the same thing? Do they deal the same damage?

In CB it seems that my MBA with an Accurate Staff is 1d8, which is the same for a Quarterstaff.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, when a staff implement is used as a weapon it is treated as a quarterstaff, so they are effectively the same thing. It is just that "staff" can be enchanted as a weapon (a quarterstaff) or as a staff (implement). In terms of use they are basically interchangeable, though some enchantments may not benefit you depending on which way you happen to be using it.

As for things stacking... There isn't a feat Superior Implement Focus. There is a feat Superior Implement Training. It doesn't give you any bonuses in and of itself. If you took Superior Implement Training (Accurate Staff), then you get a +1 untyped to-hit bonus if you use an Accurate Staff. This will stack with anything since it is untyped. That WOULD stack with the +1 feat bonus to-hit of Versatile Expertise (staff), yes. Note that this is a bit of an odd one because Versatile Expertise gives you a bonus with an implement type and a weapon group. These overlap in the case of staff and you start getting into some tricky rules parsing.

Normally say with Weapon Expertise (staff) it would apply when using the staff as a weapon AND when using it as an implement (since it is also a weapon, same concept as with a dagger if you were a sorc say). However there is the added twist of the weapon being 2 handed, so do you get that bonus if you use the staff as an implement one-handed? It gets a little fuzzy there. Depending on how you interpret this the weapon expertise may or may not be exactly equivalent to the implement expertise when using the item as an implement.

Now Implement Expertise (staff) will NOT count for using the staff as a weapon due to the way that feat is written. HOWEVER Versatile Expertise has a bit different wording and arguably will apply even to weapon attacks with an implement!

So do you actually have to use both halves of your Versatile Expertise on the staff? This is a question that will probably elicit a bunch of arguments both ways. If you don't then you could apply say just the weapon or just the implement half of the feat to the staff and apply the other half to some other item.

 

[Nifft]

Trying to pick feats and items for a Monk character I am working on. I have a question on if I can combine certain feats, and certain magic items.

If I take Versatile Expertise (Staff) and Superior Impliment Focus (Accurate Staff), do these feats stack?

Yes.

Also, what is the damage on a Staff vs. a Quarterstaff? I am trying to take Quarterstaff in Character Builder, but there doesn't seem to be an option for an Accurate Quarterstaff, just Accurate Staff. Are Staves and Quarterstaves the same thing? Do they deal the same damage?

In CB it seems that my MBA with an Accurate Staff is 1d8, which is the same for a Quarterstaff.

There's no difference. A staff is a quarterstaff made back when WotC hadn't decided that making implements = weapons was a great idea. Also, you can use a staff one-handed (but don't, it's seldom a good idea).

So do you actually have to use both halves of your Versatile Expertise on the staff?

No. Rather, you can use either "half" on Staff, and you get the full bonus to all your attacks.

This is a question that will probably elicit a bunch of arguments both ways. If you don't then you could apply say just the weapon or just the implement half of the feat to the staff and apply the other half to some other item.

It shouldn't elicit any arguments. The rules are pretty clear: Versatile Expertise is good, all other forms of Expertise are obsolete.

Cheers, -- N

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yes, the other types of expertise are effectively obsolete. It is still arguable on a few points about exactly how VE will interact with staves though. Trust me, I see these debates over on Q&A now and then. SANE players will go with what you said, which I agree with, but you just never know with various DMs. Its always a good idea to discuss these more complicated areas with the DM and make sure he doesn't have some odd notion of how it will work.