Update 56 Preview 3: Sacred Fist Archetype

[Lynnabel]

Howdy all! Please be sure to check out both the Producer's Letter and the Archetype Overview page before diving in here

Sacred Fist is a Paladin Archetype, joining Stormsinger and Dark Apostate as the first wave of 3 Archetypes.

Changes from Base Class
Feats:
Added:
Armor Class Bonus: (1, 2, 5, 10, 15, 20) This version scales off of Charisma instead of Wisdom. If you are part-monk this will use the highest of Cha or Wis.

Flurry of Blows (1)

Unarmed Strike (1, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20)

Evasion (2) (note: they do not get Improved evasion except as a t5 in the Sacred Fist tree.)

Path of Light (1) This is the Handwraps deity feat. As with all deity feats it grants proficiency with its weapon (in this case Handwraps). It is automatically granted rather than being chosen during feat selection.

Divine Dream (6) This is the level 6 "special" deity feat. It makes you considered to be in Heavy Armor while centered for the purposes of the Sacred Defender tree. This does NOT let you be centered in heavy! It is automatically granted rather than being chosen during feat selection.

Removed:
Sacred Fist Paladins do not gain Shield, Armor, or Martial Weapon Proficiency of any kind. Note that because they get the Path of Light this means they can use Handwraps!

Spellbook:
Level 1:
Added: Ki Bolt. Fire a bolt of pure Ki towards enemies. Deals 1d6 Fire and 1d4 Force damage per caster level, scaling with 300% Melee Power. Note that this spell has been adjusted for playability for this Archetype and Henshin Mystic will also see this increased damage! Cost: 10 Ki
Removed: n/a

Level 2:
Added: Sacred Flame Empowerment. Upon cast, you are empowered by holy magic, granting you +3 Sacred Fist Dice and allowing your critical hits to deal 1d20 Bane damage per Sacred Fist Dice, scaling with 100% of your Melee Power. Cost: 18 Ki, Duration: 20 seconds
Removed: n/a

Level 3:
Added: Incinerating Wave: Creates an incinerating wave of ki fire. Deals 1d6+3 fire and force damage per caster level to targets within the wall, scaling with 300% Melee Power. Note that this spell has been adjusted for playability for this Archetype and Henshin Mystic will also see this increased damage! Cost: 18 Ki
Removed: n/a

Level 4:
Added: Ki Explosion: Waves of fire emanate from your body, dealing 1d6 per Sacred Fist Dice in Fire, Light, and Force damage to enemies in your vicinity, scaling with 200% Melee Power. For 20 seconds after you cast this spell, you benefit from Fire Shield: Hot, which prevents 50% of your incoming Fire damage and deals a small amount of Fire damage to attackers that strike you in melee. Cost: 30 Ki
Removed: n/a

Skills:
None for this Archetype.

Misc Class Attributes:
Ki Ability: Charisma

Ki Progression: Monk

Note: If you are part-monk (which uses Wisdom for ki), the Ki system will ever so politely take the highest of those modifiers. So don't worry that you'll end up wis-based if you multiclass.

Past Life
Sacred Fist: +5 Healing Amp and +5 Pos Spellpower per stack

New Tree: Sacred Fist
Replaces Knight of the Chalice

Themes: Punch paladin! Burn enemies with your sacred fists.

Cores:

• Core 1: Sacred Flame: Toggle: Your melee attacks while centered deal an extra 1d6 Fire damage, scaling with 200% Melee Power. Each core ability in this tree grants you +5 Healing Amplification and +5 Positive Spellpower.
• Core 3: +1 Saves and AC. +1 Sacred Flame dice. Your weapons while using Sacred Flame now bypass Lawful + Good DR.
• Core 6: +1 Saves and AC. +1 Sacred Flame dice. Gain +3 Remove Disease Charges and your Remove Disease now applies Greater Restoration to your target.
• Core 12: +1 Saves and AC. +1 Sacred Flame dice. You gain Immunity to Energy Drain.
• Core 18: +1 Saves and AC. +1 Sacred Flame dice. When you use Turn Undead, you and nearby allies gain +1 Ki on hit and +3 Ki on crit for 20 seconds.
• Core 20: +4 Charisma, +3 Saves, +1 Sacred Flame dice. +10 Melee Power. +1 W with Weapons. You absorb 25% of all Fire damage.

Tier 1:

• Sacred Strike I: +1 to hit and damage with Favored Weapons.
• Extra Smite: +2/4/6 bonus to Smite Evil.
• Disciple of the Fist: +1/2/3 Heal, Concentration, and Intimidate. Rank 3: You gain +1 Reflex saving throws.
• Deft Strikes: You gain +3/6/10% chance to make offhand attacks while centered.
• Ki Shout: Ki Activate: Intimidates nearby enemies, encouraging them to attack you. This ability uses your Concentration skill, and shares a cooldown with the Intimidate skill. (Activation Cost: 5 Ki. Cooldown: 6 seconds)

Tier 2:

• Sacred Strike II: +2 to hit and +1 to damage with Favored Weapons.
• Sacred Whirlwind: Make a sweeping attack against all nearby enemies for +3[W] damage. Shares a cooldown with the Cleave feat. Cooldown: 5 seconds. Cost: 12 Ki
• Critical Mastery: +1/2/3 to confirm critical hits and critical hit damage
• Fast Movement: You run 1% faster for each of your Paladin levels.
• Action Boost: Doublestrike: Activate to gain +10/20/30% Action Boost bonus to Doublestrike for 20 seconds.

Tier 3:

• Sacred Strike III: +1 to hit and damage with Favored Weapons.
• Sacred Smite: An improved smite that adds +1/2/3 to your weapon's critical damage multiplier and +1/2/3 to your weapon's critical threat range. In addition, this applies 1d2 stacks of Armor Destruction and 1d2 Stacks of Vulnerability unless the enemy makes a Fort Save (DC 10+Cha Mod+Sunder bonuses). Cost: 15 Ki (note: this is a Light ki melee attack)
• Light of Hope: +1 Sacred Flame dice. Your Sacred Flame toggle now allows you to strike Incorporeal enemies as if you had Ghost Touch.
• Instinctive Defense: You take 5/10/15% less extra damage when struck while helpless.
• +1 Str / Cha

Tier 4:

• Sacred Strike IV: +2 to hit and +1 damage with Favored Weapons.
• Deflect Arrows: You gain the benefits of the Deflect Arrows feat, knocking aside one incoming projectile that would have struck you every 6 seconds. (Antireq Tempest + Swash Deflect Arrows)
• Light of Glory: +1 Sacred Flame dice. Your Sacred Flame damage is now Light instead of Fire.
• Iron Skin: While centered, you gain an additional 5/10/15 PRR.
• +1 Str / Cha

Tier 5:

• Sacred Strike V: +3 to hit and damage with Favored Weapons, +10 Melee power.
• Evasive Dance: Improves your Evasion ability so on a failed Reflex saving throw against an attack that normally deals half damage on a successful save, you only take 85/70/50% damage.
• Avenging Whirlwind: Make a sweeping martial arts attack against all nearby enemies for +5(W) damage. Damaged enemies gain one stack of Vulnerability. Shares its cooldown with the Great Cleave feat. Cost: 18 Ki
• Violence Begets Violence: While Centered, when an opponent misses you in melee, you gain +1 critical threat range for 6 seconds. This stacks up to 5 times and is reset if you critically hit.
• Divine Strike: You gain On Vorpal: Stun any Demons or Devils with no save for 3 seconds.

Added Tree: Radiant Servant
Replaces Vanguard

Changes from base Radiant Servant: All things that say "Cleric Level" now work off Paladin Level.[/QUOTE]

Bugfixes/Changes from Previous Lamannia:

• Sacred Fist dice are now in the Epic Elemental Dice feat
• Whirling Steel Strike may now be taken by Paladins
• Base Paladin may no longer erroneously access the new Ki Spells
• Path of Light level 6 feat now works while dual-wielding and being centered
• Radiant Servant Tree now says "paladin levels" instead of cleric levels in its tooltips
• Incinerating Wave now scales correctly (this is a pretty huge buff to Henshin, yay!)
• Fixed that one sickle to be centering correctly
• removed saving throw from Incinerating Wave and Ki Bolt

Things that are NOT in this preview but are happening for this release:
Whirlwind Attack is being updated! It is now Whirlwind Attack: Make a martial arts attack that hits all enemies in an area twice. Requires BAB 4 and the feat Mobility. (note: this now hits all enemies the same amount of times regardless of combat style)

[Komradkillingmachine]

Still no Divine Might I see.

Such a shame, this could've been used by all types of players and not just relegated to memers and flavorers.

[Black_Ninja]

Things that are NOT in this preview but are happening for this release:
Whirlwind Attack is being updated! It is now Whirlwind Attack: Make a martial arts attack that hits all enemies in an area twice. Requires BAB 4 and the feat Mobility. (note: this now hits all enemies the same amount of times regardless of combat style)[/COLOR]

This makes me so happy.

[misterski]

This makes me so happy.

No longer requiring a useless feat like combat expertise to get whirlwind???? Yes please!

[Nickodeamous]

Things that are NOT in this preview but are happening for this release:
Whirlwind Attack is being updated! It is now Whirlwind Attack: Make a martial arts attack that hits all enemies in an area twice. Requires BAB 4 and the feat Mobility. (note: this now hits all enemies the same amount of times regardless of combat style)

Lynnabel for President. Thank you so much for hearing us!!!

You rock!!

Nico

[askrj1]

Repeating some things from the last thread:

Ki shout has no place here. Paladins get intim as a class skill and are natively cha-oriented, Ki shout is not going to perform better even if it wasn't wonky. You said you don't want it just be a copy of monk, why do we need this copy of a monk ability that has no use here? Perhaps replace with some MRR cap here - also mentioned before cloth martial is sorely missing MRR with more non-evadable magical damage nowadays and paladins fill the cloth cap extremely trivially.

Sacred Strike IV. Paladins are pretty feat starved, any chance we can get plowshares here like how KOTC gets Knight's Training? I don't think this is too much to ask for.

EDIT: Just messed with the smites again, they're still labelled as exalted smite, I assume this is just a tooltip thing. The light ki attack part though... SacFists that don't multi with monk will have no use of this feature since they do not get access to finishers?

[misterski]

Repeating some things from the last thread:

Ki shout has no place here. Paladins get intim as a class skill and are natively cha-oriented, Ki shout is not going to perform better even if it wasn't wonky. You said you don't want it just be a copy of monk, why do we need this copy of a monk ability that has no use here? Perhaps replace with some MRR cap here - also mentioned before cloth martial is sorely missing MRR with more non-evadable magical damage nowadays and paladins fill the cloth cap extremely trivially.

Sacred Strike IV. Paladins are pretty feat starved, any chance we can get plowshares here like how KOTC gets Knight's Training? I don't think this is too much to ask for.

Don't have time to check on in-game yet, but if the smites still use the awful bare hand slap could we at least get a cosmetic makeover even if it doesn't fold into the attack chain?

Intimidate is single target, ki shout can affect multiple targets.

[askrj1]

Intimidate is single target, ki shout can affect multiple targets.

I have no idea where you got that impression because I'm pretty sure intimidate works in an area when I have an active tank on live and does not require an enemy targeted to activate. Every time I hit the skill anything that's affected by intim comes to me within a radius.

[Mindos]

Whirlwind Attack is being updated! It is now Whirlwind Attack: Make a martial arts attack that hits all enemies in an area twice. Requires BAB 4 and the feat Mobility. (note: this now hits all enemies the same amount of times regardless of combat style)

Is the animation any better? It seemed to be quicker DPS wise (especially if you had any strikethrough at all) to just go target to target and NOT use Whirlwind Attack as it was 1. Slow, and 2. Slow to attack again after using it.

[Steelstar]

Is the animation any better? It seemed to be quicker DPS wise (especially if you had any strikethrough at all) to just go target to target and NOT use Whirlwind Attack as it was 1. Slow, and 2. Slow to attack again after using it.

It's the same animation as before, but we've eliminated most of the gap between when the animation finished and when you are allowed to attack again; it should be significantly smoother and somewhat shorter overall. And if you're any build that has Strikethrough, this now hits twice at 4[w] where before it only hit once at 4[w], so it should be significantly better than before.

(This wasn't in the notes at all because I finished it about 90 seconds ago).

[TPICKRELL]

I have no idea where you got that impression because I'm pretty sure intimidate works in an area when I have an active tank on live and does not require an enemy targeted to activate. Every time I hit the skill anything that's affected by intim comes to me within a radius.

As some one who tanks more than I'd like, I can absolutely confirm that Intimidate is multi target.

[Komradkillingmachine]

It's the same animation as before, but we've eliminated most of the gap between when the animation finished and when you are allowed to attack again; it should be significantly smoother and somewhat shorter overall. And if you're any build that has Strikethrough, this now hits twice at 4[w] where before it only hit once at 4[w], so it should be significantly better than before.

(This wasn't in the notes at all because I finished it about 90 seconds ago).

Finally, some good news! Thanks a lot.

[TPICKRELL]

Without reasonable access to Divine Might or some similar battle trance, this will move from something interesting to play into a 3 life slog to get the healing amp past lives then never touch again.

[Willan]

It's the same animation as before, but we've eliminated most of the gap between when the animation finished and when you are allowed to attack again; it should be significantly smoother and somewhat shorter overall. And if you're any build that has Strikethrough, this now hits twice at 4[w] where before it only hit once at 4[w], so it should be significantly better than before.

(This wasn't in the notes at all because I finished it about 90 seconds ago).

Does the offhand hit as well now? Can it doublestrike?

Any chance to make all cleaves double attack and offhand strike?

[Nickodeamous]

It's the same animation as before, but we've eliminated most of the gap between when the animation finished and when you are allowed to attack again; it should be significantly smoother and somewhat shorter overall. And if you're any build that has Strikethrough, this now hits twice at 4[w] where before it only hit once at 4[w], so it should be significantly better than before.

(This wasn't in the notes at all because I finished it about 90 seconds ago).

Fantastic! Its been a while since I started posting about WWA and delays in attack animation, and I wanted to say thank you for the improvement!! This was very much needed for my handwrap monk. also, 1 less feat

Thank you Devs!l!
Nico

[Steelstar]

Does the offhand hit as well now? Can it doublestrike?

No on offhand, yes on Doublestrike (each of the two hits can independently Doublestrike).

[TPICKRELL]

...
Things that are NOT in this preview but are happening for this release:
Whirlwind Attack is being updated! It is now Whirlwind Attack: Make a martial arts attack that hits all enemies in an area twice. Requires BAB 4 and the feat Mobility. (note: this now hits all enemies the same amount of times regardless of combat style)

Can a Dev confirm that the way this is written about feat requirements is correct. Are spring attack and combat expertise being dropped from the requirements? If so this is a very good change.

Also, can you all find a different color for changes? Some of us who are colorblind/partially colorblind can barely see a difference between the base font and the changed font color here.

[Steelstar]

Can a Dev confirm that the way this is written about feat requirements is correct. Are spring attack and combat expertise being dropped from the requirements? If so this is a very good change.

Correct.

[droid327]

Yeah I still think its going to be handcuffed with /1 Fvs/1 Monk...

Lack of Divine Might is just too much of a drawback for a TWF build (which has no other stat-to-dmg bonuses baked in), and Sun Stance for bonus Ki gen. TWFx3 Dodge/Mob/WWA IC:B S2P, plus Precision if Human

S2P in the second core or Tier 3 seems wholly appropriate and commensurate with similar autogrants in KotC and Thief-Acro. Pal still too feat-starved, literally cant fit it and WWA if you're pure Fist

Whirlwind Attack change is going to be the take-home here...bigger gamechanger than the whole tree itself...

Also, again, Fire Shield Hot prevents cold, not fire, damage

[misterski]

Yeah I still think its going to be handcuffed with /1 Fvs/1 Monk...

Lack of Divine Might is just too much of a drawback for a TWF build (which has no other stat-to-dmg bonuses baked in), and Sun Stance for bonus Ki gen. TWFx3 Dodge/Mob/WWA IC:B S2P, plus Precision if Human

S2P in the second core or Tier 3 seems wholly appropriate and commensurate with similar autogrants in KotC and Thief-Acro. Pal still too feat-starved, literally cant fit it and WWA if you're pure Fist

Whirlwind Attack change is going to be the take-home here...bigger gamechanger than the whole tree itself...

Also, again, Fire Shield Hot prevents cold, not fire, damage

It's a little baffling that they replaced KoTC for this archetype and made the cores similar to KoTC but then didn't put the trance from KoTC in. The feat starvation of paladins in general is just icing on the cake. 2 levels of monk can help if taken early due to the bonus monk feats at levels 1 and 2, but that won't help pure Sacred Fists.

Drop Violence Begets Violence since it's so bad and add Divine Might to the tree, there solved.