Difference between holy knight and sword saint?

[Fatal Rose]

I love your take on the FF characters for pathfinder. As soon as I learn how to properly play Im going to DM a FF themed campaign.

Onto my question... I found this online while browsing for a sword saint FFT class for path finder and stumbled upon this http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthrea...-s-TG-Cid)

I was super amped about this until I read your holy Knight class I noticed many similarities in names skills.

One is a prestige class and the other is a full 20 level class. Is it even worth using the sword saint class now?

I'm a total n00b and know very little about the rules. I'm going to play a game this weekend with some friends and hopefully can learn more.

[Viladin]

I'm not sure what you mean... that Sword Saint class isn't even apart of my system.

[Fatal Rose]

I'm not sure what you mean... that Sword Saint class isn't even apart of my system.

I mean is their any benifit to using that sword saint if I use your holy knight?

Does it offer well balanced/interesting options or am I better off using your holy knight?

[Viladin]

I'm not sure what you mean... that Sword Saint class isn't even apart of my system.

I mean is their any benifit to using that sword saint if I use your holy knight?

Does it offer well balanced/interesting options or am I better off using your holy knight?

I have no idea, I barely glanced at Sword Saint.

[dairius_chi]

From the brief look I took Sword Saint and Holy Knight feel like vastly different classes. If you wanted to play a Sword Saint, play a Sword Saint- if you wanted to be a healy tank with varying degrees of damage output, play a Holy Knight (Smite Evil is pretty awesome).

The few abilities that do share names aren't really enough to make them the same class- Sword Saint looks fun but is very much a combat class while Holy Knight is Combat/Support.

[Fatal Rose]

From the brief look I took Sword Saint and Holy Knight feel like vastly different classes. If you wanted to play a Sword Saint, play a Sword Saint- if you wanted to be a healy tank with varying degrees of damage output, play a Holy Knight (Smite Evil is pretty awesome).

The few abilities that do share names aren't really enough to make them the same class- Sword Saint looks fun but is very much a combat class while Holy Knight is Combat/Support.

Thanks.

I'm addicted to this site. My current DM won't allow us to play any of these classes. He says he's not familiar enough. Need to find someone open minded. Difficult to while living/teaching in china.

[dairius_chi]

Well the game is built using a lot of Pathfinder material with FF flavor thrown in. I haven't tested it myself but someone in a game I'm in has apparently played an FFd20 Black Mage in a standard Pathfinder game, alongside standard Pathfinder characters and it worked out rather well. Wasn't a huge shift in power or any unbalancing points compared to the other players.

Maybe not every class would work for it, but if it worked for them you could always try getting your GM to allow it on a probationary period. 'Just give it a few sessions, then decide if you want it to stay or not' sort of deal.

[TheFrozenMoogle]

Do you mean to remove the Limit breaks from the FFd20 campaigns all together? Or do you mean when just merged with pathfinder. Because let me tell you now, those limit breaks are in there for a reason. In all the campaigns I've been in, I've had a DM who tries to compensate damage (we had a cavalier..) with throwing CL levels ten to twenty ahead of the party. He decided that it was time we died, and we never did. All he did was rush us far levels ahead, furthering unbalancing his plans. (Our Chocobo Knight had some very lucky vorpal critical charges..x16 damage..) And I easily became a tarutaru nightmare by being a Saphire Magister/Beastmaster who morphed into his bear, with bonus AC feats, to gain a total of unhittable AC of 47. Eventually the monsters had to use limit breaks to give us a challenege. Of course our DM has realized since then, his job isn't to kill us, but to challenge us, he still punishes you for picking a class. So you have to have every advantage you can get. (Don't play a bomb chemist with him..he says no treasure. It blew up. Should have picked a diffrent class for wealth.)

[Fatal Rose]

Going to try to play a Holy Knight and level into a Sword saint. DM said it was ok.

[kenki]

Limit breaks when used in conjunction with original pathfinder material can easily throw balance out the window, especially with the Ruby Magister. Though if your GM is cool with it, feel free to use the limit breaks.
Also, that DM makes it sound like all of the players had to do heavy optimization, which, while good in some games, may not be fun in others. I'm personally not the most optimization heavy, but I expect my players to at least build to what they want, if it's OP, I'll tell them to tone it down a bit.

>.> Unforntatly I didn't but they did, and then I gave them cold iron... which made it worse...

However I couldn't find good scaling due to pathfinders mobs being so weak. (Their aoes and their normal attacks makes anything their level die in 1 move.) However I did put in special encounters and stuff later on. It was my first time with the system and with pathfinder and I do find some scaling rather hard as they optimize a LOT.

That 30 min mp regen was a killer on me.

However yeah charge skills still rather smarted. We found some homebrew rules to tone it down a bit to theres some classes with scale problems. Not all though but some.

Also I still do the OP fights just I do it as a gimmic fight for a end of dungeon for bonus. (X2 the xp they would of gotten for the dungeon + chance at a goody bag, or their xp gotten is 1/2ed)

That keeps their power levels a bit more reasonable but at the same time doesn't cause the xp or campaign to become to stagnant.

It's much nicer to not be able to make levels because of artistic reasons instead of balance reasons.

[TheFrozenMoogle]

Yes. But in every campaign, I try not to make a super powerful charactor on, you try to kill off your party..and ruin treasure because of the fact that throwing a bomb and doing damage, should mean you suffer for it. You really did punish myself, and others, for the party playing the classes they are. Bomb speced chemist? You shouldnt have treasure. Blue Mage? Gotta prevent you from learning spells now...So I decided to become your nightmare, due to you throwing such ridulous challenges at us....Have you seen my bear tibbers?

[kenki]

Yes. But in every campaign, I try not to make a super powerful charactor on, you try to kill off your party..and ruin treasure because of the fact that throwing a bomb and doing damage, should mean you suffer for it. You really did punish myself, and others, for the party playing the classes they are. Bomb speced chemist? You shouldnt have treasure. Blue Mage? Gotta prevent you from learning spells now...So I decided to become your nightmare, due to you throwing such ridulous challenges at us....Have you seen my bear tibbers?

>.> Your bombs were doing like 25+ so much damage and acidic.

[dairius_chi]

25+ damage on a bomb is not that bad... hell, I made an Engineer that for a while functioned as a Sniper using the Archetype that gave bombs, Explosive Missile, Explosives Expert(?), and Focused Shot.

Single shot, but dealt 2d6 + 3(Enh) + 5(Int, Focused Shot) + 4d6+5(bomb)+5(Explosives Expert). That averaged at 39 damage per shot(before materia) plus some splash damage, but it's only 1/round- and doing it every round ensures they're gonna lose yer bombs pretty quick.

So yeah... 25+ Acid damage bombs is not really that bad >.> I mean the party fighter, holy knight, or beastmaster can typically deal that much damage per strike with minimal investments.

[Gizmo]

"25+ damage on a bomb is not that bad... hell, I made an Engineer that for a while functioned as a Sniper using the Archetype that gave bombs, Explosive Missile, Explosives Expert(?), and Focused Shot.

Single shot, but dealt 2d6 + 3(Enh) + 5(Int, Focused Shot) + 4d6+5(bomb)+5(Explosives Expert). That averaged at 39 damage per shot(before materia) plus some splash damage, but it's only 1/round- and doing it every round ensures they're gonna lose yer bombs pretty quick.

So yeah... 25+ Acid damage bombs is not really that bad >.> I mean the party fighter, holy knight, or beastmaster can typically deal that much damage per strike with minimal investments.
(This post was last modified: Today 03:34 AM by dairius_chi.)"

You mean simply Power Attack while wielding a two handed weapon? What is also important to this forum squabble, is the character level in question.

[TheFrozenMoogle]

I was..like level 4. Kenki just wants you to not use aoe, not use magic, not used ranged attacks, not use pet based classes, not use feats, not use power attack, not use charges, or not use criticals. So yes. He just prefers you not dealing damage at all..which is why he made my party fight things with DR 15 or DR 20, where my bombs and a friends magic, were the only things that could hit.

[dairius_chi]

Well, if it was 25 damage on a critical that still seems plausible I guess... sure it's a lot but that relies on high stats, can only be used once per round, and has limited uses per day. But yeah, 25+ damage is a bit for a single attack at level 4 if it's something they can do every round.

DR 15 or 20? At level 4? This doesn't sound like a healthy GM/Player relationship. Just an impartial opinion from someone not connected to the situation. Could be other factors I'm not getting but... if a party is strong sending stuff specifically designed to beat them down isn't how a good GM handles it, you just have to face them with challenges that can't be overcome by raw damage.

Apparently they like to smash their way through puzzles, not a lot of easy ways to counteract that I guess, but you guys really need to have a sit down and address this stuff before it ends up killing your gaming experience... I've played under a GM like that before, who thinks being good at what you do shouldn't be allowed, the game was the GM trying to kill us and us having to survive the ordeals. It wasn't fun, it didn't make anyone feel good besides the sadistic GM, it is not how games are supposed to go.

Just to note: Not sure if the Chemist in question(Moogle) has feats meant to increase bomb damage, but a commonly overlooked ruling is that Deadly Aim would in fact not work for Bombs as they are ranged touch attacks- I don't know how your character is built but if that was how you got some of your damage it wouldn't work. Only mentioned it because I've made that mistake before.

[TheFrozenMoogle]

(Just to note: Not sure if the Chemist in question(Moogle) has feats meant to increase bomb damage, but a commonly overlooked ruling is that Deadly Aim would in fact not work for Bombs as they are ranged touch attacks- I don't know how your character is built but if that was how you got some of your damage it wouldn't work. Only mentioned it because I've made that mistake before.)

I did not have many feats. But I had a couple. But my DM has gotten better. And yes. I got tired of having to try to solve puzzles about stupid pies, and it started to bore me. So I just decided to blow up the entire world. Problem?

[Viladin]

I did not have many feats. But I had a couple. But my DM has gotten better. And yes. I got tired of having to try to solve puzzles about stupid pies, and it started to bore me. So I just decided to blow up the entire world. Problem?

[dairius_chi]

I did not have many feats. But I had a couple. But my DM has gotten better. And yes. I got tired of having to try to solve puzzles about stupid pies, and it started to bore me. So I just decided to blow up the entire world. Problem?

Not really no, and I'm not sure why you got so defensive... you also didn't say whether you had taken Deadly Aim or not- only reason I pointed it out is because I get the impression your GM is somewhat new to the system or d20 in general, and I didn't know if his players were the same. Deadly Aim on Bombs is a mistake many people have made, so much so that there was an FAQ and Errata made to point out it doesn't work.

While it is his responsibility as GM to not send you into nonsensical 'pie puzzles' it's also your responsibility as a player to try and power through it- or stop the game for a serious OOC discussion to get past the issue at hand.

Also, Kenki mentioned you critical-ing a wall, not sure if that was your insistence or his but that can't happen, walls are inanimate objects and cannot be critical'd or Sneak Attacked. What's more, 25 acid(or fire, or cold, or electric... or anything really) damage isn't enough to break through anything beyond weak wood walls since all energy damage is halved *before* applying Hardness, so even against wood (HP 7/inch, Hardness 5) 25 damage would only be able to break through a 1-inch wall. If this was stone (HP 15/inch, Hardness 8), there'd be no chance of it working at all.

[TheFrozenMoogle]

This would normally be true, except, he ruled them to be constructs, aka metallic in nature and a marvel of machinery..(Yes walls.) So, the moogle's construct familiarity took place. An no, I was defensive, I was asking if there was a problem with be blasting my way through a sex dungeon all involving pie. Needless to say that campaign didn't last too long at all, just due to the nature of how I took care of everything. But no, I didn't have deadly aim. I did have a few classes of fighter though, so I was able to boost my bombs through that, I was also building a flying charger. From the air, my bombs did on normal, a nice x16 on a critical. (x4 for flying charge. x8 When critical, and an additional x16 due to critical feats of pathfinder)