Martial Study Feat
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Kmart Kommando
First Post
Cephid said:
blargney the second
blargney the minute's son
If he's using this to get to gargantuan size, you should know that effects that increase size don't stack. The polymorph increases size to Large and the augmented expansion increases to Huge at best, assuming he starts as a Medium creature. And as Kmart Kommando said, that's assuming he actually can manifest the hugifying expansion!nobodez said:
Bo9S isn't the problem here...
-blarg
Arkhandus
First Post
Cephid said:
Snap kick is an off-hand unarmed strike, with a penalty to hit. Unless you're a mid or high level Monk, it won't do much good. You need to use a melee weapon attack first. You get a -2 penalty on attacks similarly to a low-level monk using flurry of blows. Again: it's not much good unless you're a monk, and even then it's limited. Half Str bonus to damage with the kick, and -2 to hit with all attacks that round, and the Monk's already-mediocre attack bonus and Multiple Ability Dependency.....
Joe Fighter 6 does 1d3+2 nonlethal damage in exchange for -2 on all attack rolls for the round....woop dee doo. Joe Monk 9 does 1d10+1 normal damage in exchange for the same attack penalty, and is lucky if he even hits at all....woop dee doo. The feat requires +6 BAB and Improved Unarmed Strike, so that's the earliest either guy could take it. Think of it as a sort of alternative to TWF. It could be used with TWF, of course, but then you'd have an even worse chance of hitting anything at all (and if you're a monk, you're better off not even trying to use both at once).
I really, really don't think Snap Kick is any problem.
Superior Unarmed Strike is a good feat. It allows non-Monks to suck less at grappling and unarmed combat when they get disarmed. And for Monks, it boosts their piddly damage.
At 6th-level (the earliest they're likely to get it, with its prereqs) the Monk will be dealing 1d10 damage instead of 1d8, so a bastard-sword-equivalent instead of a longsword-equivalent. At 8th-11th level it'd boost their unarmed damage to equal a greatsword, but it's only an average increase of +1 damage from where it would normally be. Later it improves to 2d8 a bit sooner than normal, and then later it improves to 2d10 (that's as high as Monk damage goes).
So eventually it is worth +2 damage on average. Kind of the Monkish equivalent of weapon specialization but not quite. The Monk doesn't get weapon enhancements for his unarmed strikes. He doesn't get +5 or flaming burst or other stuff to boost his damage and accuracy; the Monk doesn't really get access to anything for greater accuracy or damage, except for Weapon Focus' piddly +1 to-hit and, in ToB, Superior Unarmed Strike's 1 or 2 points of extra damage on average.
I don't know where you get those higher damage values, since a Monk's Belt also won't exceed the normal limit of a 20th-level Monk's damage (2d10 if Medium, etc.). If you're playing a Large or bigger race, then you've already got a level adjustment and/or several racial hit dice holding you back.
If someone casts Enlarge Person on you, well, that's easy enough for an enemy to dispel, and it's really not a problem with the monk (an Enlarged fighter does 3d6 with a greatsword, and an Enlarged goliath can do 4d6 with a greatsword, and a half-giant psychic warrior can Expansion themselves up to Huge to do 6d6 with a greatsword....). It's really a problem with Enlarge Person/Expansion in 3.5E more than anything else.
The Monk's Belt might be something of a problem, but I dunno. It's certainly not hard to destroy if the DM really felt it was causing a problem with the character (Disintegrate anyone?).
Arkhandus
First Post
blargney the second said:
Yep yep, agreed on each point. The guy can't combine all those size increases, can't even manifest Expansion at the necessary number of power points (and will have very scarce PP in his reserve anyway), and his whole problem is the loads of magical buffing! At that level, there is NO REASON an enemy mage wouldn't be using Dispel Magic or Greater Dispelling or a Dispelling Screen, which would knock the cheeseball off his magic pedestal.
And if the enemy mage has an Arcane Sight active (perhaps Permanencied) he'll see that guy's aura lit up like a Christmas tree (not that he wouldn't already want to try and remove any possible buffs on the nasty cave troll approaching his guards).
Martial Study would help a Ninja or Rogue, certainly, but it would only be 1 time per encounter that they would get to use their Sudden Strike or Sneak Attack for free. Then they'd have to try and find opportunities to use SS/SA normally. And that's a rather narrow selection of classes that would get a sufficient benefit from the feat as it already is.
Kmart Kommando
First Post
the best thing about Martial Study is that it's a prerequisite for Martial Stance, and that's where the good stuff comes in for non-martial adepts. +2d6 sneak attack, threatened targets considered flanked, +5ft reach on your turn, immunity to fire, etc. loads of good stuff. Nothing better than what any buffing spell couldn't give you, and it's up as long as you want it.
Martial Study isn't too bad, though getting really good use out of it requires investing at least one more feat for Martial Stance as others have noted. For non-martial adept classes a stance is a total freebie which doesn't conflict with any of their class features.
The other use for it is for qualifying for prestige classes in the Bo9S while taking only 1 or even no levels in initiating classes. It's a bit of a hack in that regard.
The other use for it is for qualifying for prestige classes in the Bo9S while taking only 1 or even no levels in initiating classes. It's a bit of a hack in that regard.
Wolfspider
Explorer
*groan*
Not another character who polymorphs into a blasted troll....
Is he invisible and flying too?
Not another character who polymorphs into a blasted troll....
Is he invisible and flying too?
Ok, thats interesting.
A few issues here...
I'll have to look into them and sort them out with my friend.
1) are you sure that Psy War and Warmind levels don't stack to determine manifester level? (he's just taken warmind 1, so if you're right, he'll take PsyWar 3 instead to get double expansion)
2) Multiple effects that increase size don't stack, but polymorph changes him into a entirely new form. Then he gets a size increase effect. I don't see any reason why this would not increase his size.
3) "You need to use a melee weapon attack first" are you sure? So it can't be added to a flurry of blows?
I agree with what you are saying about dispell etc. (I've seen it hapen to him), but until that happens, he still deals a TON of dammage.
With a monks belt and the feat a monk can do 2d10 at 12th level. with just 2 size increases (levels in the psionic monk PrC) that damage reaches 6d8. (if he was a Goliath it would be 9d8).
A few issues here...
I'll have to look into them and sort them out with my friend.
1) are you sure that Psy War and Warmind levels don't stack to determine manifester level? (he's just taken warmind 1, so if you're right, he'll take PsyWar 3 instead to get double expansion)
2) Multiple effects that increase size don't stack, but polymorph changes him into a entirely new form. Then he gets a size increase effect. I don't see any reason why this would not increase his size.
3) "You need to use a melee weapon attack first" are you sure? So it can't be added to a flurry of blows?
I agree with what you are saying about dispell etc. (I've seen it hapen to him), but until that happens, he still deals a TON of dammage.
With a monks belt and the feat a monk can do 2d10 at 12th level. with just 2 size increases (levels in the psionic monk PrC) that damage reaches 6d8. (if he was a Goliath it would be 9d8).
