Staff Combat

[Dogbrain]

Why single out the staff for special treatment and continue to deny other weapons the special abilities and uses they had in real life? Two-handed swords were used for grappling, tripping, the hilt used as a hammer, etc.

 

[Li Shenron]

I'm a big fan of the staff as a weapon. Too bad it pretty much sucks in D&D. I propose a feat might make it a more useful weapon.

Basically, this feat will combine the benefits of more than one feat, but they only apply when using a staff. The idea is that for anyone to be competant with a staff, you'd have to take a number of feats that apply to all weapons anyway, and you'd end up going with a better weapon anyway. This feat is geared toward wizards who want to be better with their staffs, and anyone who likes the idea of a staff-weilding character who wants to actually be reletively effective in combat.

First off, with this feat, you can use the staff as a double weapon as if you had the two-weapon fighting feat. If you already have the Two-Weapon Fighting feat, you fight as if you had the Improved Two-Weapon Fighting feat.

Second, you can use the staff defensively and gain a +3 to AC when fighting defensively (instead of a +2), and a +6 to AC when going full-defensive (instead of +4). In other words, you gain the benefit of having 5+ ranks in Tumble, without needing the actual ranks. If you already have the ranks, you gain a +4 when fighting defensively and +8 when going full-defensive.

Does this sound fair to people?

The Dread Pollock

To me it sounds fair. Every character can use a staff but there is actually no point in doing so (since you can do the same with a club) unless you have Two-Weapon Fighting.

But if you have Two-Weapon Fighting there are many other weapons or weapon combinations that would do more damage or have better criticals and so on (although no one starts proficient with other double weapons IIRC).

Furthermore, fighting defensively is not so much a commonly used option by combat-oriented characters, it's the PCs with little combat ability that mostly use it, and therefore other characters than the Wizard or Sorcerer would find it less useful.

Now that I think better, you may want to add some other benefits to this feat, it's pretty weak

 

[Darklone]

Quarterstaff: Shillelagh. Ugh. Strong enough.

 

[brento766]

hrmm...

I think you guys are forgeting one main point, it is a stick. The reason that everyone wants to boost it is because they see sweet fighting scenes like in the matrix when he pulls that pole out of the ground and opens a can of whoopass. To give a realistic example, if you had to fight just some random guy that was not more or less powerful or proficient than yourself, what would you rather have, a longsword or a staff? Yeah the guy can swing the stick at you but he would have to swing hard and for a long time before he could do some real heavy damage to you. A sword can cut you and you are not really afraid of it breaking because it is mad of steel.

Don't get me wrong, I think the staff is a sweet weapon and harbor a lot of respect for anyone who knows how to use it but there is a reason that it deals less damage and is an overall crappy weapon: it is a stick that technically anyone can swing.

imo I agree with aerodm. If you are going to give it some ability, make it mundane and make there be a partial consequence to it, such as having to take -2 to your attack to use it even though it is better because if you just give it reach or more damage, you are improving on a system we rely on being at least pseudo balenced. It is like saying, i think that because I really trained hard I should be able to take weapon spec twice because I just know how to hit really hard and good.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Bento, your assumption is unjustified.

Taking a closer real life example, I've seen a duel between a katana master and one of his students using a bo staff (fair enough equivalent for quarterstaff) and the swordsman had great difficulty in keeping the staff away from himself despite his superior skill.

Now, RL doesn't easily translate to D&D obviously. The staff was being used in a two-hands-at-one-end grip for reach, and IRL reach is a bit of a bigger issue than it tends to be in D&D.

In the hands of someone who really knows what they are doing a staff is a very formidable weapon indeed: in D&D this could be the fighter with expertise, improved trip, two weapon fighting, improved two weapon fighting, etc. etc.

There's no point in dissing the staff on the basis of a pole being used in a recent movie.

 

[thatdarncat]

The reason that everyone wants to boost it is because they see sweet fighting scenes like in the matrix when he pulls that pole out of the ground and opens a can of whoopass.

Hell no. I want my wizard to be able to use a staff in one hand and a sword in the other, just like Gandalf.

 

[Dogbrain]

In the hands of someone who really knows what they are doing a staff is a very formidable weapon indeed:

Same is true of quite a few other weapons.

If the staff is so magnificent, why were silly things like "swords" invented?

 

[CombatWombat51]

Why single out the staff for special treatment and continue to deny other weapons the special abilities and uses they had in real life? Two-handed swords were used for grappling, tripping, the hilt used as a hammer, etc.

Because greatswords do 2d6, have a crit of 19/x2.
And staffs do 1d6, and have a crit of x2.

IOW, staff's suck, but they should be cool. Not as powerful as a good axe or sword (there's a reason why soldiers use those, not staffs, after all. Including shaolin monks, and all that oriental hoopla

Now, does that mean that we couldn't do something neato with other weapons, like greatswords? No, of course not. As a matter of fact, I do allow darn near every weapon to be used as a double weapon, by hitting with the butt, pommel, or whatever.

Anywho, I just wanted to answer your question. It boils down to me liking staffs

BTW, I wrote this reply after your first post, Dogbrain, but I guess I tryed to post it right after I posted something else. The forum only allows posts every 30 seconds, so it didn't go through, and I didn't notice till now

 

[Fieari]

Swords are faster at killing people, especially in large groups. If you are going to war, you DON'T want to be on the ground with just a stick. Armor is pretty much going to absorb a lot of the pain a staff can dish out as well.

However, it's also a matter of the right tool for the right job. In any non-lethal situation, a staff beats a sword all over the place. If I'm on the dojo (I study kendo) and I have a shinai or boken, I do NOT want to face someone with a staff. I will get my *** handed to me if that person has skill equivelent to mine.

Here's something to consider though... in D&D, we can magically enchant weapons. What about an enchanted staff? Enchanted such that the wielder takes no damage no matter where he holds it, but also such that it acts like a blade or worse to whatever it hits. That sort of thing is going to make the staff... in the hands of someone who knows how to use it... VERY formidable indeed.

Metal staves are also going to be pretty nasty. If I've got myself a katana, I don't want to face someone with a long hollow steel pipe. First of all, if I'm careless they might be able to break my blade with that thing, and second of all, this has the effect of above... making the staff now a lethal weapon. The right tool for the right job. Now, it doesn't cut, but it's going to HURT if I'm hit by it.

No, I think there's merit to having feats to make staff fighting better. In certain situations, I think that these skills may also be able to be transferrable to spears... but then, now I've got visions of Mat Cauthan from Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series stuck in my head... I have no idea about spear fighting, really.

A lot of ideas, I think, could be taken from said books. Things like killing blows (I suppose coup de grac?) which would probably only work if the target was unarmored. This would make fighting with a wooden staff something along the lines of "The purpose is to corner or knock the guy down, then go for the kill"... something which would be usefull in certain combat situations, I think.

One of the staff's big benefits is that you can play both defensively and offensively AT THE SAME TIME. Parry-STRIKE! Parry-STRIKE! One end of the stick parries, the other end strikes. Now, this strike doesn't do as much damage as a sword, true, as stated earlier, but if you're good enough with this weapon, you can keep this up indefinatly... never be hit, and keep hitting them until they quit (again, this takes longer than with a sword, but with more safety to yourself). I think this aspect should be focused on more than any other...

 

[CombatWombat51]

Dogbrain, I also meant to ask you using a greatsword to grapple... how on earth does that work? I'm no history buff, but I just can't see that. Please enlighten me