Please rate Pain Touch

[smetzger]

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[Archer]

Wis 19+ isn't uncommon for monks. 9th level clerics are looking at 24 wis so a monk of equal level should be around 20 at least. Wis is key because it is your AC, will saves and your stunning attack.

Pain touch is one of the better stun enhancers because you get the bonus in addition to your regular stun rather than a replacement. Essentially you are getting double the bang for your buck. Your opponent spends their 2nd round picking up their weapon, triggering an AoO and that's about it. If you stun them again on the 3rd round then its probably all over.

I think 1 feat for pain touch is better than 2 feats for blindsight 5' radius.

I'm surprised that the statistically useless monkey grip got higher ratings.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Monkey Grip got high marks for the kewl 133t d00d factor.

I'm not sure about the benefits of pain touch above blindsight. Blindsight is an awfully powerful ability--even if it only extends to 5 feet and enables all sorts of wickedness when combined with darkness or deeper darkness and listen as a class skill. For a melee focussed class that's generally light on armor class, blindsight could be very useful.

And that's ignoring its defensive value. . . .

 

[DarkMask]

I honestly think Pain Touch is a great ability for any Monk to have, as long, of course, as that Monk utilizes their Stunning Fist ability often. It really does, if you look at it, double the Stun you inflict, although under a different name of nausia. It also leaves a Monk's next turn free to use a Stunning Fist on someone else if desired, against two different foes, if you keep one stunned and the other nausiated in sync, you can easily take down two at once, in theory, anyway.

As long as you have the WIS, I don't see any reason at all not to take this Feat.

 

[Victim]

Upon further reflection, I'd have to rate the feat lower. Sure, Pain Touch greatly increases the effectiveness of a successful stunning attack. But therein lies the problem; it doesn't do anything for unsuccessful stunning attacks. When playing my monk character, I never found stunning fist to be particularly effective in the first place. I used it because after a few levels it was free to use effectively. In a few years of play, my character stunned things only a handful of times, and several of those cases had the target dropping anyway from damage. Not because I expected it to work. So investing a feat to boost a rather unreliable power doesn't seem that effective.

 

[Li Shenron]

4 years, 1 month, and 6 days.

Is this a new record?

 

[BlackSeed_Vash]

FYI, WoTC remade this feat in Complete Warrior. The only difference is they changed the Wis requirement from 19 to 15.

Voted 5-Average