Anyone Know if Knight Training Stacks with STR bonus?

[Postumus]

Description for Cormyran Knight Training states:

You now use Charisma or Strength, whichever is higher, for attack and damage with shortswords, longswords, bastard swords, and greatswords.In addition, as long as your Charisma remains higher than your Strength and you are wielding one of the above weapons, you receive a bonus to the DCs of your Tactical Feats equal to 1/3 your Charisma modifier.


Regarding the sentence in bold: Does the 1/3 CHA modifier stack with the strength modifier for tactical feats? If so, is it actually working?

[redspecter23]

Description for Cormyran Knight Training states:

You now use Charisma or Strength, whichever is higher, for attack and damage with shortswords, longswords, bastard swords, and greatswords.In addition, as long as your Charisma remains higher than your Strength and you are wielding one of the above weapons, you receive a bonus to the DCs of your Tactical Feats equal to 1/3 your Charisma modifier.


Regarding the sentence in bold: Does the 1/3 CHA modifier stack with the strength modifier for tactical feats? If so, is it actually working?

I certainly hope it stacks and is intended to. Getting 1/3rd your cha mod INSTEAD of your str mod would be entirely pointless.

Slightly off topic, is there some way to "make this work" better than just putting a small investment into str and having it be higher than your cha anyway? I've got a melee toon I'd love to use this on, but can't find a way to make my cha higher than my str and actually deal more damage than if I just maxed out my str instead. Divine Might mucks up the math in favor of str far too much.

[Steelstar]

Regarding the sentence in bold: Does the 1/3 CHA modifier stack with the strength modifier for tactical feats?

Yes.

[Postumus]

I certainly hope it stacks and is intended to. Getting 1/3rd your cha mod INSTEAD of your str mod would be entirely pointless.

LOL, right? But what makes sense to Turbine doesn't always make sense to me so I never really know until someone has tried it out.

Slightly off topic, is there some way to "make this work" better than just putting a small investment into str and having it be higher than your cha anyway? I've got a melee toon I'd love to use this on, but can't find a way to make my cha higher than my str and actually deal more damage than if I just maxed out my str instead. Divine Might mucks up the math in favor of str far too much.

I'm in the same boat. Didn't see any builds that really leveraged this ability. Tried playing around with PDKs when they first came out, hit a wall, now I'm back again.

Let me state up front that I'm looking at more of a flavor build for a static group rather than something to solo EEs, max out EDs, or anything like that.

[Postumus]

Yes.

Awesome. Thanks!

[Seikojin]

As written, it should be in addition. Does it work? Haven't tried.

[redspecter23]

I'm in the same boat. Didn't see any builds that really leveraged this ability. Tried playing around with PDKs when they first came out, hit a wall, now I'm back again.

Let me state up front that I'm looking at more of a flavor build for a static group rather than something to solo EEs, max out EDs, or anything like that.

I've got a build right now where this ability would be so amazing, but it's like there's only one or two missing pieces to the puzzle to make it work. There are too many ways to boost strength and not nearly enough ways to boost charisma. Between Divine Might, defender stances or rages, Tenser's Transformation and Power Surge, how is anyone specializing in melee supposed to get cha higher than str without purposefully skipping out on one or more of the amazing str buffs listed above with no cha equivalent to fill the gap. That being said, the build is one cha boosting effect away from going ahead with this plan. If the new divine tree gives some sort of cha boosting equivalent to one or more of the abilities listed, it could move from unusable, to quite effective. The problem with adding a large cha booster is how it effects spellcasting DC in a huge swingy way unfortunately. It would have to be placed deep in a melee tree to avoid negative consequences.

[Havok.cry]

I was working on a paladin/fighter/monk build that was intended to make use of this, but when doing the math I found that with divine might in active you get 1/2 your charisma bonus added instead of 1/3, along with higher dps, making it completely irrelevant to have the knight training on that build.

If divine might is not involved, then the plan was to keep my strength just a single point below my charisma. With all the strength boosts available out there this was very easy even with minimal strength investment. I never actually did the math to see if the numbers would add up to higher than just pure strength investment though.

[Ralmeth]

This ability is a build trap, and not very well thought out IMO. I calculated the numbers when it first came out and you will have a higher DPS and tactics DCs if you max out strength.

[InsanityIsYourFriend]

I'm in the same boat. Didn't see any builds that really leveraged this ability. Tried playing around with PDKs when they first came out, hit a wall, now I'm back again.

Let me state up front that I'm looking at more of a flavor build for a static group rather than something to solo EEs, max out EDs, or anything like that.

http://pastebin.com/BPi84VB8


This build I did for someone a while back, go ahead and covert it to whatever you like, but it is a build based on a TACTICAL FEAT with WISDOM mod as the primary basis for it's DC, meaning wis mod + 1/3rd cha mod and all you need to do is keep your cha mod higher than your str mod for it!

[Robai]

What a pointless bonus.
Why Cha has to be lower then Str on a melee?
Why only 1/3 of Cha modifier? (that means: +6 Cha = +3 mod = +1 DC, lol)

[Scrag]

What a pointless bonus.
Why Cha has to be lower then Str on a melee?
Why only 1/3 of Cha modifier? (that means: +6 Cha = +3 mod = +1 DC, lol)

Example: Strength lower than cha (you have it backwards), after divine might, strength of 40, cha of 44. tactical feat is higher than tactical feat at 40. 1/3 of 17 is almost 6 (pretty sure it doesnt round up), +15 for 40 str to tactica, +5 from cha for +20 to tactical feats, +17 for all cha bits. That is an obvious example, and in a paladin or bard, that is _amazing_. Obviously it goes way higher with ship buffs, cookies, and whatever other nonsense you use. Bottom line, you can abuse the snot out of it.

[Violith]

Example: Strength lower than cha (you have it backwards), after divine might, strength of 40, cha of 44. tactical feat is higher than tactical feat at 40. 1/3 of 17 is almost 6 (pretty sure it doesnt round up), +15 for 40 str to tactica, +5 from cha for +20 to tactical feats, +17 for all cha bits. That is an obvious example, and in a paladin or bard, that is _amazing_. Obviously it goes way higher with ship buffs, cookies, and whatever other nonsense you use. Bottom line, you can abuse the snot out of it.

until someone puts a primal scream on ya and those +6 to tactics are erased into nothingness.

[Robai]

Example: Strength lower than cha (you have it backwards), after divine might, strength of 40, cha of 44. tactical feat is higher than tactical feat at 40. 1/3 of 17 is almost 6 (pretty sure it doesnt round up), +15 for 40 str to tactica, +5 from cha for +20 to tactical feats, +17 for all cha bits. That is an obvious example, and in a paladin or bard, that is _amazing_. Obviously it goes way higher with ship buffs, cookies, and whatever other nonsense you use. Bottom line, you can abuse the snot out of it.

Useful tactical feats costs feat slots.
How many feat slots you can afford on Paladin or Bard?
You can get some Fighter or Monk lvls, but then I really doubt that you'll invest into Cha, because:
- for Wis based Monk you'll go Wis (+6 Wis = +3 DC vs +6 Cha = +1 DC), not to mention that you'll still try to keep not too low Str for bosses
- for Fighter/Paladin those tactical feats are Str based (+6 Str = +3 DC vs +6 Cha = +1 DC)

If requirement Str < Cha would be removed then it would be a nice bonus (small, but stacking).

[Havok.cry]

Example: Strength lower than cha (you have it backwards), after divine might, strength of 40, cha of 44. tactical feat is higher than tactical feat at 40. 1/3 of 17 is almost 6 (pretty sure it doesnt round up), +15 for 40 str to tactica, +5 from cha for +20 to tactical feats, +17 for all cha bits. That is an obvious example, and in a paladin or bard, that is _amazing_. Obviously it goes way higher with ship buffs, cookies, and whatever other nonsense you use. Bottom line, you can abuse the snot out of it.

On a paladin with 40 strength and 44 charisma
knight training will increase DC by 5
or
divine might will increase strength by 17, increasing DC by 8 (While also increasing damage by that much or more.)

Divine Might simply outclasses Knight Training in every way and if you take knight training while having access to Divine Might you are making your character worse for the sake of flavor. Now on a bard I could see it as much more useful (only because they don't get divine might), but if you are maxing out your charisma, what do you need tactics for on a bard anyway... just use your songs and spells (or multiclass some cleric or fvs in there and get divine might).

[Scrag]

Divine Might simply outclasses Knight Training in every way and if you take knight training while having access to Divine Might you are making your character worse for the sake of flavor. Now on a bard I could see it as much more useful (only because they don't get divine might), but if you are maxing out your charisma, what do you need tactics for on a bard anyway... just use your songs and spells (or multiclass some cleric or fvs in there and get divine might).

I think you missed my point. You use _both_, not just one or the other. On bards getting no use from tactics, there are plenty of barbarian/bards out there. You can mix in 1 cleric, a bunch of bard, and splash some barbarian for a raging warchanter bard maxing out on the appropriate tactical feats. Fighter doesnt have as much rage synergy as barbarian, but since you splash just 1 cleric for enhancement bonuses, you can lr +1 it easily.

Bards arent just songs and healing and discoballs. They are a very dynamic class which can be approached many ways for different effects. PDK just helps them out a bit.

[Postumus]

http://pastebin.com/BPi84VB8


This build I did for someone a while back, go ahead and covert it to whatever you like, but it is a build based on a TACTICAL FEAT with WISDOM mod as the primary basis for it's DC, meaning wis mod + 1/3rd cha mod and all you need to do is keep your cha mod higher than your str mod for it!

Awesome, thanks!

[Postumus]

Example: Strength lower than cha (you have it backwards), after divine might, strength of 40, cha of 44. tactical feat is higher than tactical feat at 40. 1/3 of 17 is almost 6 (pretty sure it doesnt round up), +15 for 40 str to tactica, +5 from cha for +20 to tactical feats, +17 for all cha bits. That is an obvious example, and in a paladin or bard, that is _amazing_. Obviously it goes way higher with ship buffs, cookies, and whatever other nonsense you use. Bottom line, you can abuse the snot out of it.

I see a very narrow range of builds this might be useful for since it requires feats spent on tacticals and a high charisma.


I don't get is why the iconic default is a fighter. A pure fighter seems to be the least likely to benefit from the CHA bonus to tacticals since it's STR will always be higher than CHA.


I wish whomever designed this race would explain what they were thinking and how they envisioned the final build. Shadar Kai I get. Bladeforged is a no-brainer. Sun Elf I can almost understand, but PDK is just baffling. Did they have something else in mind and this is just sort of how it turned out?

[Violith]

If requirement Str < Cha would be removed then it would be a nice bonus (small, but stacking).

^This. with how many ways there are to increase str. to make a purchased ability become completely useless with a rage buff or something similiar is just stupid.

[Havok.cry]

I think you missed my point. You use _both_, not just one or the other. On bards getting no use from tactics, there are plenty of barbarian/bards out there. You can mix in 1 cleric, a bunch of bard, and splash some barbarian for a raging warchanter bard maxing out on the appropriate tactical feats. Fighter doesnt have as much rage synergy as barbarian, but since you splash just 1 cleric for enhancement bonuses, you can lr +1 it easily.

Bards arent just songs and healing and discoballs. They are a very dynamic class which can be approached many ways for different effects. PDK just helps them out a bit.

I think you missed my point: Your numbers WILL be higher by making strength higher and having divine might with a secondary in charisma than by trying to finagle in some use out of knight training.

In your example you have strength low enough that divine might takes it up to 40 and you have charisma at 44. This means that your strength is only 23 before divine might (if you are a bard/barbarian, then your base strength is even lower assuming you are raging also, meaning you aren't qualifying for overwhelming critical among other things). You can easily get your strength much much higher than that. I know I can easily get both a 40 strength and 40 charisma on the same character before divine might. Assuming I do that, I then get +15 to strength from divine might, making my strength a 55, and getting +7 tactics DCs from divine might. Your example doesn't give that much using both Knight Training and Divine Might. That is because in order to make use of Knight Training you Must handicap your strength, and by doing so, your DCs.

That is fine if you are going for flavor builds, but not if you are trying to optimize your DCs.

And yes Bards are more than Disco balls and songs, but you are talking about maxing out charisma on a bard in order to get better tactics DCs. Seriously. The tactics feats' sole purpose is crowd control. You are maxing out charisma. You get charisma based CC for FREE without spending a feat. With just 1 level of bard you get a song that can CC entire groups with a DC far beyond anything a tactics feat can possibly reach, even if you dump charisma. And FYI even if you do have a high charisma bard/barb that uses tactics, splashing for divine might will still give you more than Knight Training will.

Knight training is a terrible enhancement. It is however the most cunningly and skillfully designed trap in the game. Okay, it is second. The Improved fortification feat is first.

I am interested in seeing the performance of the build that uses wisdom based tactics and adds knight training to them however as that might have some potential there.