Here's how Northlander Hewing is going to look with the update.
Northlander Hewing
Northlander hewing is a style of melee combat made famous by the Northern barbarian tribes, who are renowned for the savage strength they can put behind each blow. You limit yourself to 2/3 of your attacks (rounded to nearest integer). You add your strength modifier as extra physical damage up to a maximum of +10 damage at 30 strength. Due to the strength you must put behind your blows you suffer a dodge AC penalty of 2.
Gameplay Notes
- All attacks are counted, whatever their source is (haste, whirlwind frenzy). You lose the last attacks of your normal attack schedule, even though those are not shown on your character sheet.
- The combat stance Northlander Hewing can be combined with combat modes like Power attack, Combat Expertise and their upgrades.
- Northlander Hewing doesn't add damage to Shieldbash attacks nor does it reduce Shieldbash attacks per round.
- The in-game description notes that Northlander Hewing deactivates upon item equip, which is no longer the case and will therefor work under Polymorph effects.
And here are the two others for comparison
Sembian Fencing
You limit yourself to two attacks per round but your AB is raised by two for every lost attack. You additionally gain a tumble skill bonus of twice the amount of attacks lost, and a dexterity bonus for every attack lost, owing to your increased attention on positioning. Additionally you do two points of extra damage when you hit.
Gameplay Notes
- This style (as well as Athktatlan Triparite) will instantly deactivate upon casting any spell.
- DEX bonuses from items or spells do not stack with Sembian Fencing.
- The DEX bonus is capped at 4 and the other bonuses are capped at 8.
Athkatlan Triparite
You limit yourself to three attacks per round. In exchange you gain both 1 damage and dodge AC per lost attack, to a maximum of +4 for both.
When dual-wielding, only the attacks of the main hand are limited, while the bonuses are applied to attacks with both hands. Keep in mind, it means if you have less or exactly 4 attacks with main hand, it will reduce them to zero, thus your PC will only attack with offhand weapon. Reaching 5 attacks per round with mainhand will allow to have 1 mainhand attack/your maximum offhand attacks per round.
Gameplay NotesPoster Notes
- This style (as well as Sembian Fencing) will instantly deactivate upon casting any spell.
- This style will instantly deactivate upon equipping/unequipping an item, making it incompatible with polymorph effects (Shapechange, Wild Shape, Bear Form, etc...)
- Does not work with other combat style feats (e.g. Sembian Fencing) but works with combat stances (e.g. Power Attack/Combat Expertise).
- Does work with Monk´s Flurry and Greater Flurry. Your Attacks per Round are still reduced to your 3 highest AB, but you will get extra Damage and AC for the loss of the extra attacks from Flurry.
- As of 8/8/18 update the bonus AC and damage was capped to a maximum of +4.
- The description of how loss of attacks is handled seem strange. Either the description is incorrect, and activating Athkatlan Triparite at 3 or fewer attacks will simply confer no bonuses; or the implementation is faulty. Limiting something to a maximum of X doesn't mean reducing it by X. And what's up with the mention of needing more than 4 attacks to gain a bonus?
- For the purposes of this discussion the Poster (that being me) will assume that activating Athkatlan Triparite at 3 or fewer attacks simply confer no bonuses, and every attack thereafter adds to the bonus.
For both Sembian Fencing and Athkatlan Triparite the bonuses are determined by the number of attacks lost, where as Northlander Hewing's bonuses remain constant regardless of number of attacks lost.
Furthermore it is possible to mitigate the lost number of attacks with Northlander Hewing by gaining additional attacks. Greater Flurry will add 1 additional attack after Northlander Hewing. While adding Haste on top of Greater Flurry will add 1 additional attack for a total of 5 and 6 attacks respectively. While this is a niche use of both Monk and Haste, it does allow for the aforementioned mitigation of loss of attacks. It won't ever negate it entirely, but the impact will be lessened, leaving the only real cost that of -2 AC.
Sembian Fencing and Athkatlan Triparite have no such opportunities. Adding more attacks on top won't yield more attacks after-the-fact. Nor will the bonuses scale with added attacks. In fact the power of these two combat styles, as opposed to Northlander Hewing, are entirely dependant on number of attacks, rather than an outside factor.
This makes Northlander Hewing useful from as early as level 6 for classes with high BAB progression, and a little later for other classes. 2 attacks turn into 1 attack, with that one attack having much higher damage, and a chance for a bonus effect on hit. The other two only offer anything of value upon reaching BAB values of 11 BAB for Sembian Fencing (+2 AB, +2 Damage) and 16 BAB for Athkatlan Triparite (+1 AC, +1 Damage).
The bonus Dexterity offered from Sembian Fencing is neglible until at least 3 attacks are lost, due to most characters having a +2 Dexterity item available to them early on, with many even having +3 or +4 Dexterity items. As such Sembian Fencing's bonus to Dexterity is not all that impactful. Neither is the Tumble bonus relevant in this context, aside from mitigating loss of AC from moving. In most combat scenarios movement only happens when one target is dead, and travel is necessary to get to the next. The bonus of +2 to damage as soon as at least 1 attack is lost is a nice one.
Athkatlan Triparite offers perhaps the most balanced version of a the three combat styles, but is only useful at higher levels due to the BAB requirement of gaining multiple attacks. Haste, Flurry, and Greater Flurry can allow Athkatlan Triparite to be useful earlier on, but unlike Northlander Hewing they offer little-to-nothing once the natural number of attacks from BAB reach higher numbers.
Regardless of the combat style chosen, they all remove the attacks that come last in the attack cycle. Which in most cases will mean attacks at a low AB that are unlikely to hit anyway, except on a high d20 roll or Natural 20. The key difference lies in two basing their bonuses on number of attacks lost, while one is based on an outside factor (strength).
To recap (TL;DR)
Northlander Hewing lower the number of attacks by a proportion of the maximum, retaining more attacks the higher the maximum is. In exchange a bonus to damage is added from Strength, and the AC is lowered by 2.
Sembian Fencing limits the number of attacks to a hard cap of 2. In exchange a damage bonus of 2 is gained, and each lost attack adds a bonus of +2 AB up to a maximum of +8 AB. The bonus to Dexterity is neglible due to not stacking with items and buffs, making it essentially non-existant in some cases. The bonus to Tumble is only relevant when moving about in combat.
Athkatlan Triparite limits the number of attacks to a hard cap of 3. In exchange an AC and damage bonus of +1 each is gained for each lost attack up to a maximum of +4. The threshold for gaining bonuses from this combat style only comes into play with at least 4 attacks per round, which is only attained fairly late for most classes.
Suggestion for discussion
Sembian Fencing
Change the Dexterity bonus from Sembian Fencing to stack with both items and buffs. It is already described as being an increase due to the heightened focus and awareness of the combatant, and not a magical effect. Treating it as an Extraordinary Ability rather than a magical one can be one way of achieving this.
Athkatlan Triparite
Change Athkatlan Triparite to always provide a +1 bonus to both AC and damage as soon as at least 1 attack is lost from its activation; stacking with bonuses from lost attacks. Thus bringing it to +2 AC and +2 Damage initially and therefore closer to the +2 AB and +2 damage of Sembian Fencing's initial bonus, with a slightly higher bonus throughout. Not unreasonable considering it isn't useful before level 16 for even high BAB classes.
Northlander Hewing
Put a hard cap on the number of attacks with Northlander Hewing active. Limiting it to 4 attacks per round is still plenty strong, without allowing for shenanigans with Haste, Flurry, and Greater Flurry to gain back lost attacks.
Or set the loss of AC to -1 initially, further reducing AC by -1 per attack lost. This will keep the loss of AC to -2 initially, scaling to -3 AC at a loss of 2 attacks, and finally -4 AC at a loss of 3 attacks (26 BAB + Greater Flurry + Haste).
