Class Vs. Art

[master]

hey guys, i made a cleric of Sharess and been thinking on Multyclassing him. i planned to have him Master his weapon and pretty much protect the church and jazz. now my logic is

Weapon Master: is more of a art then a class

allow me to explain.

Barbarian: Class, type of people
Fighter: Class type of people
Monk: CLass Type of people
so on so forth

but a Weapon Master is a art. to master your weapon is not a type of person or a way of life or anyway to contradict it. you master your weapon by the spiritual ki that links with it.

what i am asking is if it is playable?

(Another Example could be a Pale Master, but that is very weak example.)

[ShadowCatJen]

Not sure how the DMs would have a say on this, but I'd say it's very possible.

I played a cleric/bard of Sharess before and her form of fighting was far more of a dance. She was a helpful sort and when asked why she would fight I would have her say that cats do have claws. Got to remember that Sharess is also Bast of the Mulhorandi Pantheon.

[hexer]

Well, we don't really enforce it, but in PnP I'd say no unless the weapon you were using for your weapon master focus was your diety's favored weapon.

But, since we don't really hold clerics to the favored weapon rule, I think it would be an interesting combo to see so long as it doesn't turn into a powerbuild.

Just be sure you don't focus too much on what you will be taking in a few levels. Try focusing on roleplaying your character and seeing what happens. Don't think of your character as a build (ie, a sheet with feats, stats, skills, etc), think of it as a living person. This is my own opinion though.

I don't see a problem with a Weapon Master/Cleric combo, but I would have to say that the prestige class choice should fit your diety if your primary class is cleric. Meaning, Weapon Master is an extremely marital class to take (about as martial as it gets) and it would better fit a diety with a portfolio that has more to do with battle. If you think it fits, then run with it, but be sure to have a valid roleplaying reason behind it and not just abuse it as a powerbuild or you may be talking with a DM about changing from Weapon Master to something else.

[Munroe]

Weapon Master is a lifestyle. A weapon master doesn't love a woman, a weapon master loves his weapon. A weapon master obsesses over his sword and his technique. It is, simply, one of the most martial classes there is. A weapon master takes his Art, as you call it, as seriously as any monk takes his self-perfection.

Sharess happens to be one of my favourite deities in the pantheon, so much so that I take how her clerics are played very personally. I used to play a rogue 3/cleric 15 of Sharess on another server myself and have certain expectations when it comes to clerics of Sharess. I'm not saying a cleric of Sharess couldn't be a weapon master, I'm merely saying I may be inclined to be critical of elements that don't fit with Sharessan clergy. Of course so little has been documented in 3e about Sharessan clergy.

At the time that I played my Sharessan cleric, I used rules I found posted online regarding minimum CHA, inability to wear armour, and restriction against using weapons that weren't light weapons. Those rules are, to my knowledge, apocryphal, but I always rather liked them and I'd love to see some source material come out focused on Sharess and her clergy that canonized them. That having been said, I'm not personally aware of any canon rules against a Sharessan cleric using heavy armour or a two-handed weapon.

Weapon Master is not merely an Art but a Discipline. Are you sure a Sharessan cleric has the discipline to pursue weapon master?

[master]

oh i understand fully, its not like im going to start him out as a weapon master wana-be lol, i planned in rp that is if it leads me there (by me, people and dms) that he will get his discipline, his love for his weapon and love for life, my initial idea was, to make a cleric who protected the church and the people of the city. as for the armor thing i plan to only have him in armor if it is of dire need (a battle or coming up to a battle) but in town or anywhere else he would most likely never be seen in such

[Manshin]

Well as one of the only weapon masters of FRC (Besides Red), I suppose I will chime in here. First, its okay to start off at level one knowing that you want to be a weapon master. Infact, I would frown upon anyone who decided to take weapon master later in their carreer, as the devotion and training neccessary to become a weapon master should start at an early age. I would encourage making it a focus from the start, and RPing toward that end. Weapons master should be a persuit you start at from the beggining of your training. And besides, you have to take certain feats and skills to achieve them, and those start at level 1. Taking mobility and dodge when you are in your lower levels instead of and cleave are really defining to the differant styles of a weapon master vs. a fighter, and should be RPed appropriatly. A weapon master is working on his "footwork" so that he can master the difficult techniques which are beyond the scope of average fighters later in his career. Fighters who train as weapon masters arent as powerful early on as fighters who wish to stay fighters and take the more damaging feats. Much like a monk is not as powerful early on as a fighter.

I think Munroe nailed it when he compared a weapon master to a monk in that he is as devoted to his weapon as a monk is to self perfection. It is for this reason that a weapon master / cleric doesnt make a lot of sense to me. To me, an external reason, such as "defending the faith" isnt what a weapon master trains for. Those who wish to hone their skills to defend their faith call upon their god to give them the strength they need... thus, they are paladins, blackguards or divine champions. A weapon master is too self reliant and might even seem as a slight to the god or goddess you intend to defend. A weapon master looks to his own personal strength, or ki, to fight, and asks nothing of a god. His devotion is to his training, when it SHOULD be to his faith when it comes to a cleric cross class. Of course, I suppose anything is possible with good RP, thats just my opinion. For instance, I could see a cleric of tempus viewing his sword as an extension of Tempus... like a holy symbol, an thus whorshipping the blade and learning to master it like a weapon master does. But, I could only see this happening with the heavily martial focused gods... and even then it may be a stretch.

Manshin

[helaman]

manshin said:

Well as one of the only weapon masters of FRC (Besides Red), I suppose I will chime in here. First, its okay to start off at level one knowing that you want to be a weapon master. Infact, I would frown upon anyone who decided to take weapon master later in their carreer, as the devotion and training neccessary to become a weapon master should start at an early age. I would encourage making it a focus from the start, and RPing toward that end. Weapons master should be a persuit you start at from the beggining of your training. And besides, you have to take certain feats and skills to achieve them, and those start at level 1. Taking mobility and dodge when you are in your lower levels instead of and cleave are really defining to the differant styles of a weapon master vs. a fighter, and should be RPed appropriatly. A weapon master is working on his "footwork" so that he can master the difficult techniques which are beyond the scope of average fighters later in his career. Fighters who train as weapon masters arent as powerful early on as fighters who wish to stay fighters and take the more damaging feats. Much like a monk is not as powerful early on as a fighter.

I think Munroe nailed it when he compared a weapon master to a monk in that he is as devoted to his weapon as a monk is to self perfection. It is for this reason that a weapon master / cleric doesnt make a lot of sense to me. To me, an external reason, such as "defending the faith" isnt what a weapon master trains for. Those who wish to hone their skills to defend their faith call upon their god to give them the strength they need... thus, they are paladins, blackguards or divine champions. A weapon master is too self reliant and might even seem as a slight to the god or goddess you intend to defend. A weapon master looks to his own personal strength, or ki, to fight, and asks nothing of a god. His devotion is to his training, when it SHOULD be to his faith when it comes to a cleric cross class. Of course, I suppose anything is possible with good RP, thats just my opinion. For instance, I could see a cleric of tempus viewing his sword as an extension of Tempus... like a holy symbol, an thus whorshipping the blade and learning to master it like a weapon master does. But, I could only see this happening with the heavily martial focused gods... and even then it may be a stretch.

Manshin

Sorry for this bit of thread necromancy...

Are Monks and Weapon Masters a compatable class then? Many servers (not sure about here) say that once you stop being a single class monk you can no longer progress as a monk but it seems to me that this is a natural extention of a Monks development... especially if their favoured weapon is Unarmed Combat...

Is that allowable here on the FRC server?

[tbone]

As I recall, it wouldn't work. Unarmed Strike does not count as the WF: needed to attain the Weapon Master PrC, just as WF: Crossbow wouldn't - the game actually requires you to have WF: in an actual melee weapon. Sorry.

[tbone]

I suppose I should add, Unless the builders have done some interesting 2da editing to add WF: Unarmed Strike to the list of prereq feats to make Weapon Master selectable - but this would go against the sourcebook weaponmaster write up, too, so I kinda doubt they did that.

[tleilaxughola]

Monk/ Kama WM is possible but in all honesty it's only playable on extremely high level/magic worlds. A weaponless weaponmaster, isn't that just a plain old monk?

[Laurk]

I think the classes would be interchangable so long as the weapon master monk was mastering one of his monk weapons. i.e. the kama or quarter staff. I cant really see this making a lot of sense to do as a monks unarmed strike would still be more powerful than the meager 1d6x3 you would achieve at level 5 WM. Afterall, your fists would be doing 1d20x2 by then. or close too. Anyway, I cant see why it isnt possible though... and if you can do unarmed strike (which I honestly dont know) than more power to you.

Laurk

[Nevajas]

tleilaxughola said:

Monk/ Kama WM is possible but in all honesty it's only playable on extremely high level/magic worlds. A weaponless weapon master, isn't that just a plain old monk?

Unfortunately, no. On the table top game an unarmed weapon master is allowed. However, this option was not coded into NWN so a monk cannot be an unarmed master, which makes me sad.

EDIT: As for why they're different, a monk/unarmed master focuses heavily on the martial aspects of his style at the expense of the spiritual and other physical pursuits. He knows how to use is body as a weapon but not how to harmonize with it as well as a "normal" monk of the same experience (level) does.

In purely game mechanics terms, the monk/weapon master gets the better attack bonus, more attacks per round, better crit range, etc. but is slower to get bonus AC, movement speed, ki strike and abilities like diamond body and higher unarmed damage dice.

[Munroe]

I posted this in another thread about Weapon Masters recently. It seems like it has a place in this conversation as well.

Monks kind of get shafted on this class in NWN.

According to Sword and Fist (page 39):

Weapon Master The monk, the red avenger, the drunken master, and the master samurai all harness ki energy as part of their martial disciplines; they are not, however, the only such persons to do so. Some pursue the study of ki by mastering a single melee weapon. To unite this weapon of choice with the body, to make them one, to use the weapon as naturally and without thought as any other limb, is the goal of the weapon master. Monks who follow this path may choose unarmed attacks or the kama, nunchaku, siangham (see the Player's Handbook, Chapter 7) or the three-section staff (see Chapter 5 of this book) as their weapon of choice. In order to gain any of the special abilities of the weapon master class, you must use your weapon of choice. Once chosen, the weapon of choice cannot be later changed. This does not mean that, if your weapon of choice is the longsword, you can only use the longsword you owned when you first became a weapon master. The only material requirement for the class is a masterwork version of your weapon. It means you can use any masterwork longsword and gain the benefits of the weapon master. If you use any other weapon, you can use none of the special abilities of the prestige class. Requirements To qualify to become a weapon master, a character must fulfill all of the following criteria: Base Attack Bonus: +5 Intimidate: 4 ranks Proficiency: With your weapon of choice. Weapon: Masterwork weapon (unless unarmed). Feats: Dodge, Mobility, Combat Reflexes, Expertise, Weapon Focus, Whirlwind Attack, DEX 13+. Class Skills [Omitted] Class Features [Descriptions, which were purely mechanical, are omitted.] Ki Damage Increased Multiplier Superior Weapon Focus Superior Combat Reflexes Ki Critical Ki Whirlwind Multiclass note: Monk characters can freely multiclass with this class. In other words, you can give your monk PC a weapon master level, then return to the monk class for your next level, take a weapon master level after that, and so on.

My omissions are in straight brackets. []

Note that monk multiclassing on FRC is by monastic order so the free multiclassing note is not actually applicable.

[tbone]

I stand corrected. I was under the impression that Weapon Master as originally written up in Sword and Fist actually required a melee "Weapon" focus to count as the Weapon of Choice - I did not remember that Unarmed Strike would suffice. Wonder why NWN decided to make the change?

Regardless, unfortunately, NWN(1...not sure about 2) definitely does not allow WF: Unarmed Strike to count toward WM levels.

[helaman]

Probably because the resulting character at about 27-30th level (20th Monk + WM) would be pure death.

Still, I wonder if it could be patched if someone knew the scripting for it or if its one of these hard scripting rules that cant be changed...

[tleilaxughola]

helaman said:

Probably because the resulting character at about 27-30th level (20th Monk + WM) would be pure death.

Works out about like that in NWN with the kama monk/WM, if your kamas are nasty enough. Typically the realm of Local Vault, that.