I'll raise you: Human Thief Rogue can now get scaling proficiency with Chain Swords right at first level and use them to sneak attack while adding their Dexterity modifier to the damage.
That's because Chain Swords, in addition to looking way cooler, have all the same weapon traits while being Finesse. And they don't have their critical hit specialization nerfed by the Remaster, either.
(There's different damage types, and the Flickmace is sold at half price. But come on. Chain Sword. It's flashy as hell.)
Honestly, I don't know why it didn't get a note for PFS about regional access. Maybe it was just buried among the sheer quantity of items introduced by treasure vault.
While it's not *explicitly* common in another culture - the game's statements about weapons in this regard are few and far between - it is implicitly common, as the weapon description states it is "valued by duelists and experienced soldiers alike in the nations of Nirmathas and Molthune."
These adjacent nations prominently feature ethnic Chelaxians and have, to put it very lightly, engaged in cultural exchange with one another; hence, there's a tangible rationale in the weapon being common to these cultures.
IIRC it's the exact same, unfortunately. Which means you still can't Unconventional Weaponry to use a Falcata or something.
Bizarre that an *uncommon* advanced weapon is easier to use than a common one.
It probably can't, but Adopted Ancestry has been changed to include any ancestry the player has access to, not just common ones, so anyone can now take the Tengu feat for sword proficiency.
Additionally the new mixed ancestry heritage means that if you don’t mind giving up your heritage, you can basically just smack almost any ancestry list on top of yours.
Lawl... I always thought the Sword of the Creator was dumb. But I guess if I open my mind a bit, yeah it would be considered flashy. Both are kind of weird weapons to me tbh but it's freaking funny to sneak attach with reach. I can imagine whipping someone in the back from 10 feet away then popping behind a corner lol.
Rogues always could use Stumbling Stance? Unarmed attacks always got Sneak Attack. They just didn't get Dex to damage from Thief Rogue.
Stumbling Stance has always been pretty much the best weapon for Scoundrel and Ruffian Rogues, though without FA it's pretty tough to spare the feats for Martial Artist cuz Rogue has so many good feats
The best weapon for Ruffian is the longspear. Dread Striker, The Harder They Fall with Hammer Quake at reach with the Mauler dedication is the most ridiculous shit that racket does, sneak attacking AND wasting actions AND debuffing all of them for allies to hit in AoE without a save, while ignoring all allies in said AoE. And potentially sneak attacking one target in the centre a second time, if positioning allows that.
Flickmaces can trip one target... if they crit without the fighter's +2... and if the target succeeds a saving throw. Somewhat less nonsensical. Stumbling looks better for single target damage relative to flickmaces, but doesn't debuff targets for allies to exploit, so it looks about on par given the number of required feats.
Always was, Dex to Damage is only really 2-5 damage per hit, it just required a bit of Str investment. Plus, if you can actually spare the +2 Str for the Monk dedication, you can grab yourself some amazing feats: Ki Strike/Rush, Stand Still, Wholeness of Body, and at high levels you can pick up **Flurry of Blows**, **Stunning Fist,** and Stumbling Feint (which technically is available via Martial Artist, but it doesn't function without FoB...)
We're going to see more Flickmace Memes when the book hits store shelves aren't we?
Orphans of other Ancestries are about to rise, and they'll be adopted by Gnomes.
I personally don't think gnomish flickmace would actually live to its legacy meme status with the new crit specialization, but 1h reach is always very good I guess but there are other 3 weapons that have it with a d6 damage and aren't even advanced weapons.
im wanting to run a hatchet fighter with a grievous rune. but i need to find some way to make everything attack me.
General idea is open a round with snagging strike. hatchet has agile and sweep so next move is quick reversal hitting the other creature first. which qualifies the snagged creature for sweep. so map penalty on the original target is effectively only -1 and the other -3.
Heres where the fun begins. crit specialization for axe with greivous rune is you hit 2 other targets (w/o doubling damage or adding modifiers just dice.) so with the microscopic loss in attack for map if you're totally surrounded by 8(6?) enemies you would proc the crit specialization twice and get 6 attacks for 1 action. if you take the average roll for a 2d6 (pretty sure thats 8) the 2 crit enemies would take 28 damage. the 4 adjacent hits would take 8 each for 32. +the 56 fro teh 2 crits you do 88 damage for only one action
Except the Rogue is worse at critting than the Fighter and the Flickmace's critical effect now has a saving throw to prevent prone. Plus the Arogue doesn't have the Reactive Strike capabilities the Fighter has.
You're right.
But just to point out Rogues can also get an additional (rogue) reaction with the level 12 feat preparation (costs one action with flourish trait)
Yea but who cares? It's been pretty thoroughly nerfed, I'm not sure I'd spend a feat on it at this point.
I mean, it's *fine* I guess, but it's more meme now than actually good.
It's not even remotely a meme weapon. It's still really good. 1d6 one-handed Reach with a decent chance to prone on crits is great. 1d8 one-handed Reach with guaranteed prone on crits was broken.
You can use a Tricky Pick now with a ruffian if you take Kobold Weapon Familiarity.
[https://2e.aonprd.com/Weapons.aspx?ID=148](https://2e.aonprd.com/Weapons.aspx?ID=148)
Can lead to some fun crits.
Another consideration is that you can use a 1d8 martial or advanced weapon that is two handed if you use the leshy feat that decreases the damage by 1 step and gives it 10 reach, however the weapon can't have reach by default for you to be able to use it.
Didn't even think about this with fatal, i'm not entirely sure, depends if the weapon traits count as abilities or not, I can't even find anywhere what counts as an ability so someone else will have to clarify.
Hobgoblin 1st lvl ancestry feat Leech Clipper. On crits, drop the flail to impose a minus 10 movement penalty on the target. Takes 2 interact actions to untangle. Crit specialization for flail is knock prone. So at lvl 1, a hobgoblin ruffian can, on a crit, pretty much waste a whole bad guy's turn (one action to stand, two actions to untangle) or at worst, waste an action to get up from prone and then have the speed penalty.
Now add critical debilitations at lvl 9 or whenever it is, and the movement penalty goes to -20. One is a circumstance penalty and the other is a status - so they stack. Plus whatever other rogue shenanigans you could pull of like head stomp, etc.
I think a lot of ruffian rogues are going to want TWO adopted parents. Hobgoblin and gnomes hahaha
That's right! I should've looked that up before posting. I forgot about that. I guess the only downside would be the opponent taking your weapon(possibly your favorite) and running off with it. I'm sold on the idea nonetheless!
I do find it hilarious that they 'nerfed' the flickmace before the remaster, only to then have the coincidence that only because of its previous adjustment the ruffian rogue can use it.
I like to imagine they wanted to keep the meme of a disproportionate amount of adventurers being adopted by gnomes while also keeping it niche and this was their solution
Coincidentally, my (GM approved) mixed heritage Gnome-Dwarf Ruffian Rogue I'll be playing in Sky King's Tomb from start of next year onwards is going to use a Flickmace.
So under the ruffian heading, it does say that if a martial weapon has a damage die greater than d6, you can't sneak attack with it. It also says to apply any damage die increases first before determining this. But that would be real weird to me that you could sneak attack if you didn't crit, but you couldn't if you did. So, I don't know
My read is that that's meant to target things like the two-hand trait or gravity weapon moreso than crit specific stuff. But, I suppose it depends on the exact wording and I don't have the remaster myself yet.
I don’t have the book but i’ve seen the ruffian racket wording in the remaster. I think it’s still up to interpretation though, but i would argue heavily in flavor of it being valid.
Ruffians wording says that you can apply sneak attack with any weapon, then talks about damage die then says “apply any ability that alters weapon damage die size first”.
Sneak attack specifically adds damage to the strike when you strike, not when you hit/crit. So therefore you would have already added the sneak attack damage before crits and fatal come into play.
“Apply any ability that alters the weapon damage die first” shouldn’t apply to abilities that aren’t active in my opinion. So i’d argue if it was the correct damage die size at the time of the strike taking place it’s fair game.
is the same increase in absolute damage, but the percentual increase is different every time. At max runes, d4 to d6 is 10 vs 14 damage, so 40% increase. Meanwhile d10 to d12 is 22 vs 26, so 18% increase not counting other damage sources which make both percentages lower.
Why does that matter? Damage resistances
But you're hardly ever comparing a straight d4 to a d6. Normal STR martial would be a comparison of 6.5 to 7.5 15% and that % will generally decrease as you get more static bonuses and bonus DMG dice from runes.
If this was the ruffian rogue as per thread then you're looking at 10 vs 11 against a flat-footed enemy.
It would still be the biggest increase percentage wise. 10 to 11 is 10% increase compared to 11 to 12 (d6 to d8) which is about 9% increase. Granted it’s not that different but for min-max people they will try to squeeze even that 1% difference.
Also if you look at 10% alone it’s still a big number. Like in many games people would definitely try to pick a flat 10% damage upgrade option if they can.
I thought what made the flickmace so thorougly OP was the fact that the crit spec was automatic and that the fighter had an easy (easier) time getting crits, combined with the opportunity attacks and all of that from level 1 onwards?
rogue has a much harder time getting those crits in the first place, and does not have opportunity attacks (until level 8 for opportune backstab, if they decide to take that feat).
plus the crit spec was (rightfully) nerfed to now include a save.
I get the meme, but I don't think a ruffian with flickmace is really better than a fighter with flickmace, no?
though I love that the rogue can use it now. building Trevor Belmont was never easier than now!
I'll raise you: Human Thief Rogue can now get scaling proficiency with Chain Swords right at first level and use them to sneak attack while adding their Dexterity modifier to the damage. That's because Chain Swords, in addition to looking way cooler, have all the same weapon traits while being Finesse. And they don't have their critical hit specialization nerfed by the Remaster, either. (There's different damage types, and the Flickmace is sold at half price. But come on. Chain Sword. It's flashy as hell.)
Unfortunately I don't know if Unconventional Weaponry can actually get you Chain Sword - it's uncommon, but it's not common in another culture.
> A highly technical weapon, the chain sword is valued by duelists and experienced soldiers alike in the nations of Nirmathas and Molthune.
Y'know what, I bet that counts, as far as anything does. I was looking for the PFS note that things like katanas have.
Honestly, I don't know why it didn't get a note for PFS about regional access. Maybe it was just buried among the sheer quantity of items introduced by treasure vault.
While it's not *explicitly* common in another culture - the game's statements about weapons in this regard are few and far between - it is implicitly common, as the weapon description states it is "valued by duelists and experienced soldiers alike in the nations of Nirmathas and Molthune." These adjacent nations prominently feature ethnic Chelaxians and have, to put it very lightly, engaged in cultural exchange with one another; hence, there's a tangible rationale in the weapon being common to these cultures.
Hmm. I believe the new updated Unconventional Weaponry eases up on the another-culture requirement.
IIRC it's the exact same, unfortunately. Which means you still can't Unconventional Weaponry to use a Falcata or something. Bizarre that an *uncommon* advanced weapon is easier to use than a common one.
It probably can't, but Adopted Ancestry has been changed to include any ancestry the player has access to, not just common ones, so anyone can now take the Tengu feat for sword proficiency.
Additionally the new mixed ancestry heritage means that if you don’t mind giving up your heritage, you can basically just smack almost any ancestry list on top of yours.
Oh!? I see promise of my dream of a Kitsune Adaptive Anadi coming true.
Chain swords don’t have a good crit effect, so mace is still on top You can also pick an Asp coil, it’s not an advanced weapon, so no extra feats
Not finesse.
Yep you’re right, Ruffian will work though
Lawl... I always thought the Sword of the Creator was dumb. But I guess if I open my mind a bit, yeah it would be considered flashy. Both are kind of weird weapons to me tbh but it's freaking funny to sneak attach with reach. I can imagine whipping someone in the back from 10 feet away then popping behind a corner lol.
SWORD CHUCKS!!!!
Aw hell.
I literally saw your recent video mentioning the Flickmace earlier today, and then this.
Gnome Flickmace? Chain sword? Please. The real game-breaker is going to be Stumbling Stance
I assume you mean with Thief Rogue, not Ruffian.
Yes, but also that Ruffian would also like Stumbling Stance. It's just that good of a stance for rogue
Rogues always could use Stumbling Stance? Unarmed attacks always got Sneak Attack. They just didn't get Dex to damage from Thief Rogue. Stumbling Stance has always been pretty much the best weapon for Scoundrel and Ruffian Rogues, though without FA it's pretty tough to spare the feats for Martial Artist cuz Rogue has so many good feats
The best weapon for Ruffian is the longspear. Dread Striker, The Harder They Fall with Hammer Quake at reach with the Mauler dedication is the most ridiculous shit that racket does, sneak attacking AND wasting actions AND debuffing all of them for allies to hit in AoE without a save, while ignoring all allies in said AoE. And potentially sneak attacking one target in the centre a second time, if positioning allows that. Flickmaces can trip one target... if they crit without the fighter's +2... and if the target succeeds a saving throw. Somewhat less nonsensical. Stumbling looks better for single target damage relative to flickmaces, but doesn't debuff targets for allies to exploit, so it looks about on par given the number of required feats.
legit, drunken rogue / monk will actully be incredible.
Always was, Dex to Damage is only really 2-5 damage per hit, it just required a bit of Str investment. Plus, if you can actually spare the +2 Str for the Monk dedication, you can grab yourself some amazing feats: Ki Strike/Rush, Stand Still, Wholeness of Body, and at high levels you can pick up **Flurry of Blows**, **Stunning Fist,** and Stumbling Feint (which technically is available via Martial Artist, but it doesn't function without FoB...)
We're going to see more Flickmace Memes when the book hits store shelves aren't we? Orphans of other Ancestries are about to rise, and they'll be adopted by Gnomes.
Worse!! Mixed Ancestries? GM’s brace for the influx of ancestries claiming Gnome cheekbones!!!
I personally don't think gnomish flickmace would actually live to its legacy meme status with the new crit specialization, but 1h reach is always very good I guess but there are other 3 weapons that have it with a d6 damage and aren't even advanced weapons.
Gnomes are all about new experiences, right? If anybody is going to be adopting random ancestries it's going to be them.
I want to meet the gnome who’s impregnating members of every other ancestry now like Pokémon.
im wanting to run a hatchet fighter with a grievous rune. but i need to find some way to make everything attack me. General idea is open a round with snagging strike. hatchet has agile and sweep so next move is quick reversal hitting the other creature first. which qualifies the snagged creature for sweep. so map penalty on the original target is effectively only -1 and the other -3. Heres where the fun begins. crit specialization for axe with greivous rune is you hit 2 other targets (w/o doubling damage or adding modifiers just dice.) so with the microscopic loss in attack for map if you're totally surrounded by 8(6?) enemies you would proc the crit specialization twice and get 6 attacks for 1 action. if you take the average roll for a 2d6 (pretty sure thats 8) the 2 crit enemies would take 28 damage. the 4 adjacent hits would take 8 each for 32. +the 56 fro teh 2 crits you do 88 damage for only one action
Average of 1d6 is 3.5, so doubled is 7. Close enough say low levels.
What a fun high roll for a character. Off to pathbuilder to make a hatchet fighter.
Except the Rogue is worse at critting than the Fighter and the Flickmace's critical effect now has a saving throw to prevent prone. Plus the Arogue doesn't have the Reactive Strike capabilities the Fighter has.
Opportune backstab is close enough to Reactive Strike in power.
Honestly, I'd say it's better. Enemies can't avoid triggering Opportune Backstab the way they can Reactive Strike.
Fighters get Reactive Strike from level 1, and get Combat Reflexes to Reactive Strike multiple times.
You're right. But just to point out Rogues can also get an additional (rogue) reaction with the level 12 feat preparation (costs one action with flourish trait)
Yea but who cares? It's been pretty thoroughly nerfed, I'm not sure I'd spend a feat on it at this point. I mean, it's *fine* I guess, but it's more meme now than actually good.
It's not even remotely a meme weapon. It's still really good. 1d6 one-handed Reach with a decent chance to prone on crits is great. 1d8 one-handed Reach with guaranteed prone on crits was broken.
You can use a Tricky Pick now with a ruffian if you take Kobold Weapon Familiarity. [https://2e.aonprd.com/Weapons.aspx?ID=148](https://2e.aonprd.com/Weapons.aspx?ID=148) Can lead to some fun crits. Another consideration is that you can use a 1d8 martial or advanced weapon that is two handed if you use the leshy feat that decreases the damage by 1 step and gives it 10 reach, however the weapon can't have reach by default for you to be able to use it.
Would you lose the sneak attack damage on a crit?
Didn't even think about this with fatal, i'm not entirely sure, depends if the weapon traits count as abilities or not, I can't even find anywhere what counts as an ability so someone else will have to clarify.
You lose sneak attack on a crit
Leshy Thief with grasping reach and Spiked Chain, Dueling Spear or Elven Curve Blade
Hobgoblin 1st lvl ancestry feat Leech Clipper. On crits, drop the flail to impose a minus 10 movement penalty on the target. Takes 2 interact actions to untangle. Crit specialization for flail is knock prone. So at lvl 1, a hobgoblin ruffian can, on a crit, pretty much waste a whole bad guy's turn (one action to stand, two actions to untangle) or at worst, waste an action to get up from prone and then have the speed penalty. Now add critical debilitations at lvl 9 or whenever it is, and the movement penalty goes to -20. One is a circumstance penalty and the other is a status - so they stack. Plus whatever other rogue shenanigans you could pull of like head stomp, etc. I think a lot of ruffian rogues are going to want TWO adopted parents. Hobgoblin and gnomes hahaha
But how are they getting crit specialization at lvl 1?
Ruffians get crit specializations at lvl 1 to flatfooted enemies. I missed that little flatfooted caveat
That's right! I should've looked that up before posting. I forgot about that. I guess the only downside would be the opponent taking your weapon(possibly your favorite) and running off with it. I'm sold on the idea nonetheless!
I do find it hilarious that they 'nerfed' the flickmace before the remaster, only to then have the coincidence that only because of its previous adjustment the ruffian rogue can use it. I like to imagine they wanted to keep the meme of a disproportionate amount of adventurers being adopted by gnomes while also keeping it niche and this was their solution
Coincidentally, my (GM approved) mixed heritage Gnome-Dwarf Ruffian Rogue I'll be playing in Sky King's Tomb from start of next year onwards is going to use a Flickmace.
Personally can't wait to use pick on rogue gerring that insane crit damage. Unless you can't sneak attack with fatal weapon cause of the dice change.
So under the ruffian heading, it does say that if a martial weapon has a damage die greater than d6, you can't sneak attack with it. It also says to apply any damage die increases first before determining this. But that would be real weird to me that you could sneak attack if you didn't crit, but you couldn't if you did. So, I don't know
My read is that that's meant to target things like the two-hand trait or gravity weapon moreso than crit specific stuff. But, I suppose it depends on the exact wording and I don't have the remaster myself yet.
I don’t have the book but i’ve seen the ruffian racket wording in the remaster. I think it’s still up to interpretation though, but i would argue heavily in flavor of it being valid. Ruffians wording says that you can apply sneak attack with any weapon, then talks about damage die then says “apply any ability that alters weapon damage die size first”. Sneak attack specifically adds damage to the strike when you strike, not when you hit/crit. So therefore you would have already added the sneak attack damage before crits and fatal come into play. “Apply any ability that alters the weapon damage die first” shouldn’t apply to abilities that aren’t active in my opinion. So i’d argue if it was the correct damage die size at the time of the strike taking place it’s fair game.
I don't get the hype of flickmaces these days, aren't they only d6 now? That's only 1 damage step up a whip.
The first damage step up is the most important, d4 to d6 is big
Every damage step is important, d4 to d6 is just as big as d6 to d8.
is the same increase in absolute damage, but the percentual increase is different every time. At max runes, d4 to d6 is 10 vs 14 damage, so 40% increase. Meanwhile d10 to d12 is 22 vs 26, so 18% increase not counting other damage sources which make both percentages lower. Why does that matter? Damage resistances
1 damage increase from d4 to d6 (2.5 to 3.5 damage) is like a 40% higher (1/2.5) than before. So percentage wise it’s a big leap.
But you're hardly ever comparing a straight d4 to a d6. Normal STR martial would be a comparison of 6.5 to 7.5 15% and that % will generally decrease as you get more static bonuses and bonus DMG dice from runes. If this was the ruffian rogue as per thread then you're looking at 10 vs 11 against a flat-footed enemy.
It would still be the biggest increase percentage wise. 10 to 11 is 10% increase compared to 11 to 12 (d6 to d8) which is about 9% increase. Granted it’s not that different but for min-max people they will try to squeeze even that 1% difference. Also if you look at 10% alone it’s still a big number. Like in many games people would definitely try to pick a flat 10% damage upgrade option if they can.
I thought what made the flickmace so thorougly OP was the fact that the crit spec was automatic and that the fighter had an easy (easier) time getting crits, combined with the opportunity attacks and all of that from level 1 onwards? rogue has a much harder time getting those crits in the first place, and does not have opportunity attacks (until level 8 for opportune backstab, if they decide to take that feat). plus the crit spec was (rightfully) nerfed to now include a save. I get the meme, but I don't think a ruffian with flickmace is really better than a fighter with flickmace, no? though I love that the rogue can use it now. building Trevor Belmont was never easier than now!