Suggestion: Ki Ruin - Weapon Master Capstone Feat

[zhazz]

Weapon Master is a fairly strong class, with a high investment cost to unlock access. There is no denying its effectiveness against certain enemies. That effectiveness, which is entirely based on offence, does, however, come at the cost of sacrificing defensive opportunities/choices from other classes and/or feats.

Additionally two of the required feats add very little mechanically, though they do have cross-purpose in filling requirements for a few other prestige classes.


All that being true, the class itself is only desirable up to a certain point. Class Level 5 for increased critical multiplier, or Class Level 7 for increased critical range. Further Class Levels beyond 7th level are essentially wasted, and better spent in other classes.


For this very reason, I find it appropriate to introduce a Capstone Feat to the Weapon Master class. Something in line with the class fantasy, how it operates, and what its strengths are.


DISCLAIMER! — All numbers presented here-after are for proof-of-concept only, and not meant to represent how the class feature should be in its final form. Adjustment and balancing is to be done by the developers, if the suggestion is approved.

Ki Ruin

A 10th level Weapon Master can expend 2 of their daily uses of Ki Damage to infuse their Weapon of Choice with the Ruin property. This infusion of lasts 5 rounds plus 1 round per 3 ranks in Craft Weapon, capped at 20 rounds (45 ranks in Craft Weapon).

Upon activating this ability the Weapon Master must choose an enemy type for which to apply Ruin to their weapon. Once a weapon has been infused it cannot be re-infused until the current infusion wears off.

Ruin allows for critical hits against the chosen creature type, even if that creature is normally immune to critical hits, or an effect is making them immune.

Effectively this gives the Weapon Master class some additional usage of the Ki Damage feat, which itself is, considering the bugs with damage calculation for Ki Damage, quite lacklustre.

Similar to the Dervish Dance ability, Ki Ruin scales duration with investment into a Skill. In this case Craft Weapon. At 45 total ranks in Craft Weapon the Ki Ruin feat will last 2 minutes (20 rounds), for a total duration of 10 minutes at 5 uses per day. Unlike Dervish Dance, however, which scales through Perform and thus cross-purposes for Bard, there is no cross-purpose for investment into the Craft Weapon skill.

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Edit: Renamed the ability to Ki Ruin to properly convey what it is supposed to do. Mistakenly named Ki Bane because I mixed up the names. Thank you to Kitunenotsume for pointing this out.

[Father Oneiros]

So what you are suggesting is that weaponmaster must be good against every type of enemy for no good reason?

I don't see how the RP of the class can even justify giving this prestige class one of the ranger epic abilities.

[Kitunenotsume]

So what you are suggesting is that weaponmaster must be good against every type of enemy for no good reason?

I don't see how the RP of the class can even justify giving this prestige class one of the ranger epic abilities.

My understanding is not that the suggestion is not to provide bonus damage, but to permit enemies to reliably be affected by critical-hits (which is certainly a large portion of the Weapon Master class). The use of the word "Bane" is not, in this circumstance, a reference to "Bane of Enemies".

I suspect that the intended term would actually have been "Ruin", reffering to the various feats:
Builder's Ruin (Constructs)
Nature's Ruin (Plants)
Death's Ruin (undead)
Elemental's Ruin (elementals)
Spirit's Ruin (Incorporeal/'Spirits')

The initial suggestion explains that one feat could temporarily be applied to the weapon, making the crit-dependent class less neutered by crit-immune content.

[zhazz]

So what you are suggesting is that weaponmaster must be good against every type of enemy for no good reason?

I don't see how the RP of the class can even justify giving this prestige class one of the ranger epic abilities.

My understanding is not that the suggestion is not to provide bonus damage, but to permit enemies to reliably be affected by critical-hits (which is certainly a large portion of the Weapon Master class). The use of the word "Bane" is not, in this circumstance, a reference to "Bane of Enemies".

I suspect that the intended term would actually have been "Ruin", reffering to the various feats:
Builder's Ruin (Constructs)
Nature's Ruin (Plants)
Death's Ruin (undead)
Elemental's Ruin (elementals)
Spirit's Ruin (Incorporeal/'Spirits')

The initial suggestion explains that one feat could temporarily be applied to the weapon, making the crit-dependent class less neutered by crit-immune content.

Exactly that, yes. Thank you for clearing it up. Somehow I had gotten the names mixed up. It is intended to function as Ruin.

I'll edit the original post to reflect this.

[Steve]

It would be good for the PrC to have a meaningful Feat for Level 10. As pointed out, the PrC is kinda worthless after lvl 7.

[DiceyCZ]

While there is a precedence on opening up specialized builds with a PRC to affect enemies they normally couldn't (with Frost Mage) I think it's not the worst thing in the world to have classes focused on certain mechanics (especially if they are as strong as WM) have weaknesses. There has been before some requests for giving weaponmaster a capstone ability and at the time the general concensus was that they are already one of the most powerful PrCs, which I think still applies, but the idea of incentive for a full 10 lvls isn't inherently a bad one.

That being said, from my personal opinion giving it the ability to overcome ANY crit immune monsters with just press of a button seems a bit too much, but maybe a compromise would be giving it one Ruin as passive, to show their focused training + giving them an activable ability to add a small Crit dmg dice as weapon property, with duration depending on Craft Weapon. Adds variety, doesn't make the class "must have for any melee", adds utility to an otherwise purely fluff skill (which I find interesting).

[BloodRiot]

I think the biggest issue is the class design in general. Its one of the least satisfying classes to level up as anything not level 5 or 7 is pretty much a dead level. That said what they gain at those levels is pretty damned good. I am vehemently opposed to giving them Bane capabilities.

Looking at the class design in 3.5 (https://dnd.arkalseif.info/classes/weap ... index.html) I can come up with 2 versions of redesign but i doubt proponents of this class would appreciate it and would prefer to leave it as is.

Level - Special
1 - Ki damage 1/day/level
2 - ****
3 - Superior Weapon Focus
4 - ****
5 - Rapid Strikes
6 - ****
7 - Ki critical
8 - ****
9 - Improved Whirlwind Attack
10 - Increased Multiplier

The alternative version would be to make Increased Critical work liek the PnP which is on a 1 to 5Uses/Day at levels 2,4,6,8 and 10 like PnP

Rapid Strikes would be a mode where you gain 1 extra attack at the cost of 2 AB. Basically Rapid Shot for Melee.

That said i don't think people woudl like these changes :p

[mrm3ntalist]

I think the biggest issue is the class design in general. Its one of the least satisfying classes to level up as anything not level 5 or 7 is pretty much a dead level. That said what they gain at those levels is pretty damned good. I am vehemently opposed to giving them Bane capabilities.

Looking at the class design in 3.5 (https://dnd.arkalseif.info/classes/weap ... index.html) I can come up with 2 versions of redesign but i doubt proponents of this class would appreciate it and would prefer to leave it as is.

Level - Special
1 - Ki damage 1/day/level
2 - ****
3 - Superior Weapon Focus
4 - ****
5 - Rapid Strikes
6 - ****
7 - Ki critical
8 - ****
9 - Improved Whirlwind Attack
10 - Increased Multiplier

The alternative version would be to make Increased Critical work liek the PnP which is on a 1 to 5Uses/Day at levels 2,4,6,8 and 10 like PnP

Rapid Strikes would be a mode where you gain 1 extra attack at the cost of 2 AB. Basically Rapid Shot for Melee.

That said i don't think people woudl like these changes :p

When a class or feat should be following pnp? Is it like this case "Oh i do not like this PRC so lets suggest a trash version according to PnP"? Or is it something else?
CotW, TA have feats on a cooldown timer instead of X uses for day. DC had smite infidel switched to a cooldown instead of 1xDay
What about mobs, do they follow pnp? What about spells? What gives?

[Endelyon]

When a class or feat should be following pnp? Is it like this case "Oh i do not like this PRC so lets suggest a trash version according to PnP"? Or is it something else?
CotW, TA have feats on a cooldown timer instead of X uses for day. DC had smite infidel switched to a cooldown instead of 1xDay
What about mobs, do they follow pnp? What about spells? What gives?

To be clear there are no plans to redesign this class at this time. If it was redesigned, it probably wouldn't be redesigned to increase its power as it is already (and continues to be) one of the most used and most desirable PRCs on the server. BloodRiot's version was a suggestion he came up with personally based off of the PNP class, but as he mentioned most people would probably prefer status quo instead of the redesigned version. For the class to gain power there simply has to be a better argument than "it's not fun to take it to level 10," adding a level 10 capstone increases its power no matter how minor the capstone is. In truth even the version he posted makes me uncomfortable simply because an extra attack per round is huge, it's not a minor power increase.

As far as designing things based around PNP those are simply our current marching orders from the admins and design in general is moving towards that philosophy until we're told otherwise. If this is displeasing as a philosophy it's best to take those complaints to the administration, as individual devs we are simply not in a position to decide the overall design direction for the server and right now PNP design is what gets approved--and in truth, it probably is better to have one standard holistic design than many competing ones, even if that design is "by PNP."

There is a plan in place to redesign PVE to match pnp monster standards much more closely (if not verbatim in most cases), it is in the pipeline. As far as spells and class features that don't match their PNP equivalents I don't know what the long-term plan is for those at this time and I'll let someone comment who does.

[mrm3ntalist]

As far as designing things based around PNP those are simply our current marching orders from the admins and design in general is moving towards that philosophy until we're told otherwise. If this is displeasing as a philosophy it's best to take those complaints to the administration, as individual devs we are simply not in a position to decide the overall design direction for the server and right now PNP design is what gets approved--and in truth, it probably is better to have one standard holistic design than many competing ones, even if that design is "by PNP."

It is not displeasing. On the contrary it is refreshing for the admins to have guidelines on how they want things to be done - for a change. It is confusing though when these "orders" are in place and a new PRC is implemented and has an ability on cooldown instead of an X uses per day like others do. For example CotC and Corellon's Wrath... i guess the "orders" were not in full effect at the time.

As far the WM prc is concerned, it is alright. It doesnt need anything added really and not all classes have to give something up until the last level, however something like having the whirling attack as a standard action would be nice and would make one of the empty feats ( whirling attack ) more desirable. BTW WM is not one of the most desirable PRCs, lately. At least as far I can tell from those that are into the games mechanics. Most will take PRCs such as the Thief Acrobat over the WM in a heartbeat.

[Steve]

At least as far I can tell from those that are into the games mechanics. Most will take PRCs such as the Thief Acrobat over the WM in a heartbeat.

Because Crit Immunity is a thing and completely nullifies the Weaponmaster PrC.

[Hullack]

Maybe something akin to Epic Precision (https://wiki.bgtscc.net/index.php?title=Epic_Precision) allowing for halved crit damage against crit immune enemies.

[Terankar]

Boss monsters get 50% physical immunity to crits, so why not make that the same for all monsters? Would be a buff for all classes that are able to crit.

[zhazz]

Maybe something akin to Epic Precision (https://wiki.bgtscc.net/index.php?title=Epic_Precision) allowing for halved crit damage against crit immune enemies.

That is something I had considered as well. Not quite as strong as my suggestion in the initial post. However, the critical hit part of the NWN2 engine is likely black-boxed too, and will require some serious work-around to edit this way. Hence why I went for a version simpler to implement, due to the engine already taking Ruin into account.

[EasternCheesE]

Boss monsters get 50% physical immunity to crits, so why not make that the same for all monsters? Would be a buff for all classes that are able to crit.

There is no such thing as "50% immunity to crit".
There are Damage Reduction which offers flat reduction of incoming dmg.
There is Damage Immunity which offers % reduction of incoming damage.
But there are no specific functions to reduce critical damage only.
Immunity to critical hits and feats that allow to still crit with 50% damage are not related to Damage immunity/damage reduction directly, they are their own things.
Also, some of other mechanics are tied to crit/sneak immunities and epic precision/ruin line of feats, it's not only 50% crit dmg on crit-immune targets.