Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Keenath 01-23-08, 02:08 PM	I just got around to reading Faiths of Eberron, and I ran across this little... gem. What frustrates me most about the Argent Fist is that it has an interesting concept, but an unfortunately unimpressive execution. Its granted abilities actively encourage a player to avoid the PRC in the future, which is counterproductive, and its abilities do not mesh at all. Prerequisites: Four levels of Paladin (smite evil and turn undead) Two levels of Monk (Improved Unarmed Strike and Evasion) Monastic Training or Knight Training (allows multiclassing with monk/paladin) Comments - That's some tough prereqs! While a 4/2 combination is acceptable (though that multiclassing is difficult for most non-human races), a fifth Paladin level is useful, as it grants a second smite and the special mount (or replacement) ability. Take note that if one intends to finish this 10-level PRC, one may have a maximum of six levels of monk, or eight of paladin. This will be important later. Class overview: While it grants a useful d10 hit die, the argent fist provides the Paladin save progression (Fort and Will good) and the Monk BAB progression. This is unfortunate, a worst-of-both-worlds situation. The saves are somewhat remedied by a few levels of full-progression monk and the Paladin's coveted Divine Grace ability, but the low BAB is fairly inexcusable in what appears to be a melee-centered class. Level by level: 1st - Ascetic Knight, ki focus, stunning smite Stunning smite is a pretty good power -- when using Stunning Fist and Smite simultaneously, the stun DC goes up by your Argent Fist level. Unfortunately, the other two are nowhere near as good. Ascetic Knight is simply a modification of the feat from Complete Adventurer, which allows your Monk, Pally, and Argent levels to all count towards the monk's unarmed strike damage progression and the paladin's smite damage. It also "allows you to multiclass freely" between Monk and Paladin, which is fairly worthless since the Monastic/Knight Training prerequisite feat already did that. Ki Focus is an excellent feature, which makes any special monk weapon you weild act as if it had the Ki Focus special ability -- which makes it able to deliver stunning fist attacks and gain the benefit of any Ki Strike abilities you may have. But notice that we already have an ability conflict -- Ascetic Knight increases your unarmed strike damage, which will be at least 1d8 due to the prereqs, and that goes up to 1d10 as soon as you gain a second Argent level. That tends to direct you towards going weaponless, while Ki Focus tends to encourage weapon use. If we're getting Ki Focus for free, Ascetic Knight ought to provide some OTHER increase to a monk ability, thus keeping unarmed strike damage low and driving players towards use of monk weapons that benefit from Ki Focus and can be enchanted for further damage output. However, this brings up another important point. Remember that maximum monk level of 6? By Monk 6, you only have Ki Strike (magic), which is irrelevant if you can get a +1 weapon (which isn't that hard by 6th level). To attain Ki Strike (lawful), you need 10 monk levels, which simply isn't going to happen here. Which leads to... 2nd - Holy armor, ki strike (silver) Aha! So now that ki focus might mean something -- our fists, and any monk weapon we use, are now considered silver for bypassing DR. But not magic, and certainly not lawful. It's something, at least, and earlier than any other material-imitating ki strike, so I can't complain too loudly -- and magic you can get easily enough, as previously noted. Holy armor, ahh. You still get your monk AC bonus, both the Wisdom and the level-based bonus. Oh, wait, sorry -- You probably won't have the five monk levels necessary to get the +1, and you sure won't have enough to get the +2, so it's really just "add your wisdom to your AC, even in armor". Which is fine, I suppose, but not exactly living up to the advertising. However, Holy Armor does not allow any OTHER monk ability to be active while wearing armor. In other words, you lose Flurry and Fast Movement for this, and you keep Evasion only if you wear light armor. So, oh, look -- you gave up the only thing that marginally makes up for your lousy BAB, and your best chance at getting into position in a timely manner, and you got back a +4 armor bonus. It's not as much of a bonus as it sounds like. 3rd - Balm of the Silver Flame You can spend Turn attempts to double the healing from your Lay On Hands for one turn. Not bad. This ability technically also works on Wholeness of Body, but you'd need seven monk levels for that, which means giving up the capstone power. 4th - Smite Evil 1/day You gain an extra smite per day. Fine and good. 5th - Wrath of the silver flame Spend a turn attempt to engulf your fists (or monk weapon) in silver flames, which deal +2d6 damage to any undead, lycanthrope, or evil outsider you hit, for 5+cha rounds. That's decent, though it sounds like we're starting to pile on the turn-attempt-powered abilities, and the list of affected creatures there was pretty short. 6th - Jack You get nothing at this level. Terrible. There's only ten levels to this PRC, a dead level is a pretty significant gap! 7th - Ki Strike (cold iron) Now we can bypass both demon AND devil DR... except a lot of them that are appropriate for 13th level or higher are going to require Good as well as a metal. It can be handled by spellcasting or a Holy weapon; I'm just sayin'. 8th - Mettle An okay ability. It's evasion for Fort/Will, but that's not as good as it sounds because there really aren't that many Fort Partial or Will Partial effects to be evaded. It really shows up too late to the party. 9th - Smite evil 2/day Another smite use. Fine. 10th - Embrace of the Silver Flame Spend a turn attempt to gain a laundry list of powers for 5+cha rounds. You gain: Fast healing equal to Wis bonus; light as the Daylight spell; any lycanthrope, undead, or evil outsider in the area of the light takes 2d6 damage each round and a -2 AC; critical threats against those enemies with a monk weapon or unarmed strike are automatically confirmed (and you can deal crits to undead); and you can spend an action point to make a free Move action. Awesome ability, though best against undead or outsiders, clearly. The main problems with the class -- other than that dead level -- are Holy Armor and Ascetic Knight. Holy armor encourages you to use equipment that explicitly strips you of most of your Monk-related abilities, while Ascetic Knight conflicts in purpose with some of the class abilities, partially overlaps with a prerequisite feat, and just isn't that great to start with. Suggested changes: I would first change the Ascetic Knight text to say that your levels stack for purposes of AC bonus, instead of unarmed damage. This removes the incentive to stick with unarmed attacks in favor of monk weapons, and at the same time helps boost that Holy Armor ability. Second, I'd note under Holy Armor that the armor also doesn't inhibit your ability to Flurry. Either that, or provide full BAB. As written, this is another of those "worst of both worlds" things. Also, the prereqs ought to specify Stunning Fist, because as it is you can get into the PRC without having the necessary feat to use some of the abilities, which is another bit of bad design, though not the worst one by far.
LunarWolfPrime 01-23-08, 02:21 PM	This little number could help to you know: Unorthodox Flurry You are trained in a monastic tradition that uses nontraditional weapons. Prerequisite: Flurry of blows ability. Benefit: Choose one light weapon. You become proficient with that weapon and can use it as a special monk weapon. You can use your unarmed base attack when striking with it, including your more favorable number of attacks per round.You can also make a flurry of blows attack with this weapon. (You cannot choose a light exotic weapon unless you already have proficiency with that weapon.) Normal: Without this feat, monks only gain these benefits with specific weapons: the kama, siangham, or nunchaku.
Keenath 01-23-08, 02:28 PM	Not seeing how that helps. You can already flurry with monk weapons -- if you replace a quarterstaff with a greatsword, I don't see how my comments change.
The_Shaman 01-23-08, 10:02 PM	Ok, let's see how this can be spicied up or just disassembled. I don't have FoE btw, but I think you're selling the PrC short. Seriously, were you expecting a sacred fist here? Still, if you want to use this PrC, get the Serenity* feat. I just got around to reading Faiths of Eberron, and I ran across this little... gem. Prerequisites: Four levels of Paladin (smite evil and turn undead) Two levels of Monk (Improved Unarmed Strike and Evasion) Monastic Training or Knight Training (allows multiclassing with monk/paladin) Wait, so apart from 4 levels of paladin and 2 of monk, you need 1 feat? Well, if you're going in that direction anyway, could be worse. Way worse. The main problem with the combination is that it needs decent abilities throughout the board, except for, I suppose, dexterity. Oh, and charisma*. Class overview: While it grants a useful d10 hit die, the argent fist provides the Paladin save progression (Fort and Will good) and the Monk BAB progression. This is unfortunate, a worst-of-both-worlds situation. The saves are somewhat remedied by a few levels of full-progression monk and the Paladin's coveted Divine Grace ability, but the low BAB is fairly inexcusable in what appears to be a melee-centered class. Ok, so we have d10, cleric saves (paladins do not get a good will save, unless I missed something in the ECS that says Eberroni ones do), and 7/10 BAB. Oh well, could be better, could be worse. Then again, I know of only 2 monk PrCs with full BAB - sacred fist and shou disciple, and the fort and will save are often the most useful anyway - dexterity usually just does HP damage. Level by level: 1st - Ascetic Knight, ki focus, stunning smite So, you get a couple of freebies. Ascetic Knight serves well to stack monk and paladin for unarmed damage and smite damage; more monk abilities could be welcome but... well, you weren't really expecting to move 50+ feet with full plate, did you? Too bad for the flurry or extra AC bonus. Darn. Stunning smite is nice, and ki focus is normally a +1 weapon enhancement - which you get for free. Kind of like having versatile unarmed strike, I guess - swords and the like can still come in handy. Only the DMG weapon enhancement doesn't allow the weapon to overcome DR as the monk's fists do, so if this does... good for you. Stunning smite sounds nice. Add in a few essentia points and Sapphire fist - or any items or feats that boost it - and you can bump that fortitude DC quite a bit. Oh yeah, and think about getting Pain Touch of Pharaoh's Fist. 2nd - Holy armor, ki strike (silver) So, your fists - and weapons, if the AF ki focus works that way - get to work as silvered, without any of that attack penalty. Pretty nice. If your god buddy the cleric has some GMW spells, now's the time to mooch off him. Oh, and since you're a paladin, it pays to stock up on wands - normal or eternal - with any spells that can help you. Holy armor? Oh yes, thank you. If you used the serenity feat, you can bask in the calm knowledge that you've got one heck of an AC. If not, you still got a nice bump. Too bad for your movement speed, really - but hey, if you wanted it, you wouldn't have taken that PrC anyway. If you sucker the DM into allowing lightweight armor - hey. what's a bit of setting cross-pollination (it's from Underdark) - you're golden. If not, suck it up and wear your full plate - or a mithral medium armor if you've got a decent dexterity as well. Either way you win over those standard monky schmucks. Hey - does this apply to shields as well? 3rd - Balm of the Silver Flame Extra healing, could be useful. It depends if the class counts as paladin levels for the LoH feature. If so, it's good - great if you also double the damage LoH does on undead. 4th - Smite Evil 1/day What it says above. Smite is good, if situational 5th - Wrath of the silver flame You're losing a point of BAB and you're getting no saves this levels. My point? If you got here in a hurry, you can just make it for 10 levels of Sacred Fist. Well, if you are sure...Extra damage on undead, lycanthropes, and evil outsiders is good. See if Serenity counts for this feature too. If it does, great. If not... well, not that great, but few fights last over 5 rounds anyway. 6th - Nada Damn. Oh well, you just got a +1 to all saves and +1 to BAB.. but still. 7th - Ki Strike (cold iron) So, your natural attacks bypass DR/cold iron. Wait, your magical weapons do so too? That's not too bad. Wait, the Scorpion Kama was Eberron material too, wasn't it? I'm just saying. 8th - Mettle Useless in 95% of the situations. In the rest 5%, like when you're on the receiving end of a mass harm, it helps to be the one left standing. Cute as you already have evasion and divine grace. 9th - Smite evil 2/day Ok, but it still doesn't compensate for that 9th level: you just lost a second point of BAB and only got a bump to 1 save. Seriously consider if you want to take this level. I mean it. 10th - Embrace of the Silver Flame Decent capstone ability. I hope you're doing well on turn undead feats. Insert obligatory mention of the Serenity feat once again. The main problems with the class -- other than that dead level -- are Holy Armor and Ascetic Knight. Holy armor encourages you to use equipment that explicitly strips you of most of your Monk-related abilities, while Ascetic Knight conflicts in purpose with some of the class abilities, partially overlaps with a prerequisite feat, and just isn't that great to start with. Permit me to disagree. Holy armor gives you an option most monks do not have and really wouldn't mind getting - a good and relatively cheap boost to your AC. You can choose that or flurry. Most monks don't get to make a choice, so it's your call. Ascetic knight is a freebie you get at level 1, and it progresses two useful features from your previous classes.. If anything, monastic training is an absurd feat - but hey, it's better than Combat casting, which SF and EF require. Suggested changes:... I would first change the Ascetic Knight text to say that your levels stack for purposes of AC bonus, instead of unarmed damage. This removes the incentive to stick with unarmed attacks in favor of monk weapons, and at the same time helps boost that Holy Armor ability. Second, I'd note under Holy Armor that the armor also doesn't inhibit your ability to Flurry. Either that, or provide full BAB. As written, this is another of those "worst of both worlds" things. Also, the prereqs ought to specify Stunning Fist, because as it is you can get into the PRC without having the necessary feat to use some of the abilities, which is another bit of bad design, though not the worst one by far.[/QUOTE] Meh, I think it's fine as it is. Sure, it's a specific PrC for paladin/monk. That's visible from the prerequisites, though. I've already said what I think about ascetic knight - and iirc the scorpion kama makes your unarmed strike as good as you can hope to get (if the necklace of natural attacks from Savage species is not allowed). As for the holy armor - flurry thing, I'd rather not. First, the boost to AC is already a sweet deal. Second, the PrC does not progress flurry anyway, so you can get the same with 1 feat: Two-weapon fighting (second attack at full BAB, all others this round suffer -2). In fact, the Ki strike already gives you a good way to boost both unarmed and weapon attacks, and makes weapons a lot more useful for you than for a regular monk. As for the stunning fist prerequisite, it's your call - it's just better that you can enter the PrC even if you, for whatever reason, do not take the feat. Sure, you'd shoot yourself in the foot, but you can enter anyway. *: Charisma? Dump stat on a paladin? You better believe it. The dragon compendium has a feat called serenity that makes all paladin abilities that require charisma run off... wisdom. Can I get a Halleluya here?
Keenath 01-24-08, 01:01 AM	Wait, so apart from 4 levels of paladin and 2 of monk, you need 1 feat? Well, if you're going in that direction anyway, could be worse. Way worse. The main problem with the combination is that it needs decent abilities throughout the board, except for, I suppose, dexterity. Oh, and charisma*. I meant to mention the extreme MAD but I forgot. Sorry. :D I never heard of Serenity, but that would be a must-have for any pally -- and so much the more for this particular PRC. Ok, so we have d10, cleric saves (paladins do not get a good will save, unless I missed something in the ECS that says Eberroni ones do), and 7/10 BAB. Oh well, could be better, could be worse.I probably messed up on the saves. Doesn't matter. They get two good saves and medium BAB, is the point -- either pure Pally OR pure Monk is better from this aspect, and that's the point of my comment. You get the worst of both worlds -- you lose the high BAB of the pally, and the good saves of the monk. Only the DMG [ki focus] enhancement doesn't allow the weapon to overcome DR as the monk's fists do, so if this does... good for you.I'm not sure what to make of this statement. What do you mean, doesn't allow the weapon to overcome DR? The DMG version of Ki Focus says it allows you to channel "the monk’s stunning attack, ki strike, and quivering palm, as well as the Stunning Fist feat." Ki Strike includes the ability to overcome DR as if your attacks were magic, lawful, and eventually adamantine (depending on class level); and this PRC changes that to magic, silver and cold iron. So, your fists - and weapons, if the AF ki focus works that way - get to work as silvered, without any of that attack penalty.Damage penalty, actually. Holy armor? Oh yes, thank you. If you used the serenity feat, you can bask in the calm knowledge that you've got one heck of an AC. If not, you still got a nice bump. Too bad for your movement speed, really - but hey, if you wanted it, you wouldn't have taken that PrC anyway.Speed isn't an issue so much; the main gripe I have there is that the armor strips your flurry, which is the only thing that makes up for having only average BAB, and also short-circuits your Evasion unless you go with light armor (which limits the ability's effectiveness). Hey - does this apply to shields as well? No. It says you can still gain the wisdom AC bonus while "wearing armor". Extra healing, could be useful. It depends if the class counts as paladin levels for the LoH feature.So far as I know, it does not, which is a MAJOR crippling factor there. Getting Wholeness of Body is nigh impossible due to the level requirements, and LoH stalls out at a very low number. Like I said, the whole class is sort of self-contradictory. That's really what bothered me most -- it LOOKS good, unless you actually think about it and realize that you can't put most of its abilities to any particular use. 7th - Ki Strike (cold iron) So, your natural attacks bypass DR/cold iron. Wait, your magical weapons do so too? That's not too bad. Wait, the Scorpion Kama was Eberron material too, wasn't it? I'm just saying.Oh, no complaint here. With the ability to ki channel with a magic weapon, the ki strike powers are pretty cool. I just hate that Ascetic Knight is going to always make you wonder if it's really worth improving your magic nunchaku, because your fists would deal better damage for free. 8th - Mettle Useless in 95% of the situations. In the rest 5%, like when you're on the receiving end of a mass harm, it helps to be the one left standing. Cute as you already have evasion and divine grace.Like I said, there's not enough partial effects in fort and will for this to really do much, but yeah -- with evasion and grace, you're in a good spot save-wise. Except that you get this at character level 14 at the earliest, which is REALLY late to pick up a power like that. Ok, but it still doesn't compensate for that 9th level: you just lost a second point of BAB and only got a bump to 1 save. Seriously consider if you want to take this level. I mean it.Ummm... By my calculations, because you have to have at least 2 monk levels before you got into this PRC, that "BAB loss" happened when you picked up Cold Iron ki strike. Decent capstone ability. I hope you're doing well on turn undead feats. Insert obligatory mention of the Serenity feat once again.I don't know that you need more than the standard number of turn attempts, honestly. You have 3+cha (or wisdom, with serenity?) per day already. If you need more, a single Extra Turning will probably double that, and Empower Turning would be an utter waste for a pure pally -- much less this guy. Ascetic knight is a freebie you get at level 1, and it progresses two useful features from your previous classes.Eh. As I mentioned, the main complaint from my end is the fact that it's boosting your unarmed damage in a class that really is leaning towards weapon use. the scorpion kama makes your unarmed strike as good as you can hope to getWhat's it do? Deal your UAS damage if it's better than the kama's damage? As for the holy armor - flurry thing, I'd rather not. First, the boost to AC is already a sweet deal. Second, the PrC does not progress flurry anyway, so you can get the same with 1 feat: Two-weapon fighting (second attack at full BAB, all others this round suffer -2).The AC is great, but for this class to be attractive, it should be AT LEAST as good as a basic monk and at least as good as a basic pally. From the monk side, you're losing out on all the speed boosts, flurrying, and special defenses -- in exchange for a decent AC increase. I'd allow holy armor to flurry and have Ascetic Knight increase your flurry progression instead of unarmed damage. (I don't know if I made that clear or not.) The class, then, focuses on armor + wisdom defense, and on damage output with a flurry of ki-strike weapon attacks. As for the stunning fist prerequisite, it's your call - it's just better that you can enter the PrC even if you, for whatever reason, do not take the feat. Sure, you'd shoot yourself in the foot, but you can enter anyway. I think it's just bad design to give out an ability that depends on an optional class feature and then not actually require that class feature. Stunning Smite requires Stunning Fist, and Ki Strike isn't nearly as good without it, but the class doesn't really tell you that up front with a PRC, and I think that's just sloppy. Grapple-happy monks just need not apply, is all.
The_Shaman 01-24-08, 04:19 AM	Ok, I ask to be excused for some of my factual mistakes on ki focus and silver weapons - it was around 4 am (damn my habits) and I was kinda sleepy. Still, what you call uncertainty I call versatility. The AF can use weapon much better than most monks for the case when it has to - like if it happens to have a holy avenger longsword or uses another Dragon Comp feat to treat the halberd as a monk weapon - but is nearly as proficient with its fists as the usualy monk hybrid PrC. That does mean you have to make some decisions every now and then, but it means that, at least, you're able to make them. For extra attacks, you can use TWF nearly the same effect - unarmed attacks can be made even when you hold a two-handed weapon ;). These RotG articles here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20070410a) are a good read for all monks - and others. Extra healing gets you a chance to do almost as much LoH as a typical pally of, well, admittedly lower class level. It's not particularly awesome, I suppose, but as I like to say, better to have it and seldom need it than need it and not have it. It's a pity about the ki strike feature - though quite a few PrCs advance that - but, after all, a 6000 gp ring allows both your natural and weapon attacks to overcome DR as if adamantine (ring of adamantine touch, MIC). All in all, making optimal use of the PrC depends on being able to use its features and, I admit, some less-known feats/equipment. Yet the mere fact that you can use armor makes it good for medium-dexterity builds, and many monks worry about placing a very high dexterity score. Thus, even without serenity, its MAD is at least comprable to that of a normal monk. Unarmed damage, btw, can always be pushed one-two categories higher, and iirc Eberron had a few other ways to boost it. Thus, manufactured weapons are still a backup option - but a backup option AFs are much more proficient with than most other monks. The thing is, I really don't know if heavy armor and flurry should work in the first place. I mean, you've already got a serious defensive advantage... usually it comes at some cost. You could get a feat to flurry in light armor, if you want to... then it comes down to a matter of finding a weapon enhancement to make a full plate light :) . Otoh, as I said, your flurry will be about as effective as simply TWF-ing. So, by and large, this PrC is about average for monk ones, although I'd say it's a bit better than some (Tattoed monk, Long Death Monk, etc). It has a niche and does quite okay for it. I must admit, though, it's not nearly as good as a monk 2/ psychic warrior 18 with Tashalatora.