Swords to Plowshares

[droid327]

Looks like its not really enough to create a niche for stick builds like KT did for those weapons - they're still coming out as underperforming, and the feat may need a little extra kick. Rather than just upping the crit profile, though - and risking making it too meta and making other builds obsolete - how about giving it a different role, while keeping its current almost-there level of DPS?

Since the mechanic seems to be working well for Vampire PM and for various Filigree sets in Epic....how about Plowshares gives you a % chance for 1d3 per char level in Positive healing? That would give stick builds (and sickles and kamas) a niche beyond just competing with longswords and khopeshes for pure DPS, give an option for self-healing to builds that dont have any (or for passive self-healing for those that do), and thematically kinda fit with the idea that these are supposed to be tools of peace, not weapons of war.

[Indubitably]

Looks like its not really enough to create a niche for stick builds like KT did for those weapons - they're still coming out as underperforming, and the feat may need a little extra kick. Rather than just upping the crit profile, though - and risking making it too meta and making other builds obsolete - how about giving it a different role, while keeping its current almost-there level of DPS?

Since the mechanic seems to be working well for Vampire PM and for various Filigree sets in Epic....how about Plowshares gives you a % chance for 1d3 per char level in Positive healing? That would give stick builds (and sickles and kamas) a niche beyond just competing with longswords and khopeshes for pure DPS, give an option for self-healing to builds that dont have any (or for passive self-healing for those that do), and thematically kinda fit with the idea that these are supposed to be tools of peace, not weapons of war.

I like it, I would go so far to say that it could be a wide variety of effects that SSG felt were balanced / thematic.
Staff could have a percentage based chance to trip, sickle could cause a stacking bleed based on melee power, etc...
If they ever added scythes to the game, now that would make sense to have self healing on it, or a vorpal type effect.

And keep the current crit as well, because, as you say, these are well under performing.

[cru121]

I am certainly a proponent of adding some benefits to mathematically underperforming weapons.
But I don't see any reasonable lore explanation for heal-on-hit for these weapons.

What I could see for these weapons is adding a bonus to trip. Curved/hooked weapons should serve well for tripping. And quarterstaff already has some special trip attacks in TA tree. As for what kind of bonus it would be; it could be simply a straight bonus to trip checks, or increase duration of being tripped, or decrease cooldown, or add a debuff to tripped foe, or grant a short buff to the wielder, etc.