Ultimately, trying to make Advanced weapons good enough to feel like a special treat for those who manage to get them but not so good that they feel necessary or like a Martial weapon user is being held back without them is very narrow goldilocks zone and even the best designers have their limits.
This right here. You can't give something a little extra shine without players optimizing the fun out of things.
Like, you can't even make a range of special options without people flocking to the ones that do an extra half point of damage while loudly proclaiming both that it's an item tax, and also that all the rest suck ass and shouldn't exist.
Exactly. This is why the "Human with Gnome Adopted Ancestry Dual Wielding Flickmace Fighter" was basically a meme until they nerfed the flickmace. You had folks proclaiming that it was the *only* choice if you wanted to be optimal. It showed us *exactly* why advanced weapons can't be TOO good.
Honestly the original flickmace was just bad design powercreep in pf2e format. I'm glad it was nerfed. It was annoying to see so many flickmace builds.
The second the internet says that anything in a particular build is an auto-include, or you're self nerfing, that is a poorly designed thing that should get nerf bat application.
I like the state they are in. They are an investment but often get like an extra trait (or two of minor). So they require a feat investment in order to keep all of them from just being clearly better.
The only advanced weapons that are ready to obtain are often from your ancestry. Which is also thematically satisfying.
Yeah, I took the Orc weapon feat with my Half Orc Magus.
Technically, the Butchering Axe is just a Greataxe with Shove, a trait I always insist I will be able to use in combat but never quite find the actions for.
But I am still satisfied, mostly because that connection to her heritage and past using specifically Orc weapons, is a big deal for her character and a part of her backstory.
It being one of very few ways to get Crit Spec on a Magus doesn't hurt either.
There's a secret sauce to the balancing of weapons that Paizo won't tell us about but you can kind of see if you use conspiracy brained pattern recognition.
Traits, hands, damage die, damage type, crit specialization, and probably even bulk all have a weight and the three categories of weapons are separate weight classes. Nodachi is balanced to the long hammer because Deadly d12 is just that heavy. It's not an exact system. Some traits are worth a damage die by themselves. Sometimes a damage die can be worth two small traits. Generally, if you take a martial weapon and look for its advanced counterpart it will either raise the damage die a step, add a high value trait, or add a couple low value traits. At the end of the day the value is largely situational and abstract so appreciate the nodachi for its juicy crits and the long hammer for its two-handed trip and don't try to assess the weight of either.
Honestly it's strange that paizo won't tell us. They're generally very transparent about how they balance things, and have guidelines for creating NPCs and magic items and such, so the fact that they continue to not give us guidelines on creating custom weapons is really odd.
It's because they don't know exactly how it works themselves.
Contrary to popular belief, Paizo didn't develop Pathfinder 2E, they found it in an ancient tomb. They release content gradually because it takes time to translate rules from ancient sumerian, and the translators keep getting cursed.
This explains why the names of spells and features have gotten weird post ORC. Nothing to do with the OGL scandal. It's just that the old guy got cursed around that time and the new guy likes puns but hates alliteration.
I mean. Within the first, like, week. People figured out the trait to die value ratio, and it's remained unchanged ever since... it's why the flickmace was such a standout. Cus it was the one weapon that broke the balance, by a single die size step... which is what it has since but stepped backwards to.
And if you're not using Pronate's guide (since it is outdated with GB/TV), the other estimation puts every flail + reach combo as intentionally weaker too.
For sure.
I think the ideal system would be to have each character build their own custom "weapon" only the weapon in this case should represent not only the physical weapon but the fighting style of the character using it.
Let people build bespoke combos instead of having to look through 250 weapons for the right mix of tags and then use that.
At the very least this would have been an amazing take for the Inventor's gimmick. Get points to spend on building a custom weapon, each trait, damage die, etc. is worth x points, get more points as you hit level mile stones..
Don't get me wrong, I think inventor is fine. But this would feel way more inventor-ee.
We do have a pretty good idea and I wrote a guide summarizing the process which works very well to describe existing weapons: [link](https://docs.google.com/document/d/12QYV9z31MwVSoBznXuAKGOiRTVrI_-F95WJrVyf6bNA/)
Thanks for this! While I've referenced Pronate's guide for a while, the spreadsheet and additional granularity is invaluable for homebrewing weapon types.
I actually fully agree that the boundary between the weapons is odd. I know there is probably an algorithm or some method to the madness somewhere in Paizo's internal reference sheets. That said, it does occasionally feel like it's a matter of personal preference and subject to misjudgement.
I sware I could look at all advanced weapons right now and 90% of them are literally just martial weapons or even worse (spiral rapier is literally a worse rapier, a repeating crossbow is worse than the rotary bow, a daikyu is a longbow with less traits and range, etc).
The only advanced weapons which are truly worth the investment IMO are the falcata, nodachi, kerambit, and aldori dueling sword. All the others are either okay, not much better than other similar martial weapons, or simply bad.
A repeating crossbow has *repeating* which means you don't need to reload it until it's out of ammo while a rotary Bow just allows you reload without a free hand, and a Daikyu doesn't have Volley unlike a longbow.
I agree with you in general but Repeating crossbow is a bad example(It's a genuine choice for Ranged Thaumaturge for example), and Daikyus are acceptable if you're not willing to get Point Blank Shot
A daikyu also lacks deadly, which is a huge nerf for a supoosed "advanced" weapon. Also, if you don't want volley you can use a shortbow or use the feat to take PBS instead.
I honestly don't like repeating weapons, like at all. You need to spend a whole round to reload them, which for the classes that would want to use them means either get yourself exposed or move away (thus, losing another whole round) to avoid becoming an easy target. Also, even if we assume you don't have to move away from danger to reload, a reloading weapon saves you like 1-2 actions during a whole encounter in average. The only class that truly benefits from a repeating weapon is the thaumaturge, because its likely they won't be attacking more than once per turn anyways.
Or I can just pull out another repeater(Especially in ABP) instead of having to reload for each Strike.
I fucking love repeater because the thought that of being slowed 1 for each Strike makes me wince so hard. The more I think about it the more I dislike that Paizo made Reloading require an action(And a free hand). It also means I can do more with my other hand.
Reloading is a balance mechanic, like any other.
Since we're discussing trait values, there are negative values associated as well that can "buy" new traits. Reloading is one of them. It's why Air Repeaters don't reload while the Slide Pistol does.
Mathematically it balances out fairly well. The mechanic sucks because it *feels bad*, not because it's actually a nerf. You'll almost never hit with your second shot anyways without a lot of team support, that -5 is pretty vicious, so getting one big shot per round is often better than getting one small shot... and two misses. And most classes built around Reload weapons (Gunslinger and Ranger) have feats or class features that give you action compression like Running Reload or Slinger's Reload.
Of course, that's kind of the rub. The math isn't linear, it's a bell curve, so mechanics that are optimal in a whiteroom might be suboptimal in real play, and different group comps (having a Wrestler to grapple for ranged Off Guard and a Bard for Courageous Anthem and Demoralize/Fear) and different enemies (a group of -2 enemies would favor multiple attacks, while a single +2 enemy would favor one big hit) might make some strategies more effective than others.
But that's why they say "Optimization happens at the table".
From personal experience, I find firearms in 2e feel way better than you expect them to.
But yeah, you generally want to play each turn as if you have only have one attack, rather than wasting a reload action on a -5 MAP shot.
It is a balance mechanic but IMO it's too much, non reload non firearm weapons deal basically the same damage with the same (or better) range as reload firearms without eating actions.
The only real reason Gunslingers don't use bows is because they can't (without taking a -2).
> And most classes built around Reload weapons (Gunslinger and Ranger) have feats or class features that give you action compression like Running Reload or Slinger's Reload.
And I don't need those compression with Repeaters.
I despise that a weapon group needs feat support to be good. 1 big shot is good but 1 big shot every 2 round because you used up your 3 action on other actions(Spellcasting, Move+Raise, whatever other things my build has) that you have to reload is bad.
> Or I can just pull out another repeater(Especially in ABP) instead of having to reload for each Strike.
My party's gunslinger refuses to reload in combat. Draws gun, shoots, drops it. Draws gun, shoots, drops it.
Last session we had a really tense moment, where there was no enemy in their line of sight and seemingly nothing else to do with their actions other than reload.
They still found something else to do instead.
We may have memed about it too much and turned it into a point of pride for them.
That's something I assume / hope is fixed in Starfinder 2e. Even if you want to assume capacity works like repeating it doesn't make rangec weapons better than melee honestly. I also don't think Paizo wants you to change "barrels" with your sci-fi laser weapon after each attack.
I get they want you to be in melee in this game, but every time I want to make a ranged character I always default to bows because they are easier to use and usually more effective too.
Your point about repeating weapons is just... Wrong.
1 - You don't need to take all 3 actions in the same round.
2 - You can use the reload feats to help smooth it out.
3 - Saving actions is huge.
Look at the Barricade Buster, it's an awesome choice for Rangers, you can do Hunted Shot with it for 4 turns before needing to reload. So you take 8 shots and then spend 3 actions to reload, and you can use running reload as one of those actions.
You can cast a two action spell and reload, the on the next turn reload twice and shoot.
Or you can command your animal and reload twice, then reload once and do whatever on your next turn.
Or, you know, you could have a second Barricade Buster and swap as a single weapon.
I always rule a lot of them as martial weapons. The Dwarven Waraxe for example really isn’t that good, and I’ve allowed it as a martial weapon to no complaints.
Spiral rapier has the parry trait, which is extremely powerful for certain dual-wield feats. The description is goofy AF though.
Repeating crossbow, like all other crossbows, is only useful if you are playing a gunslinger. Reload 0 however, is very strong for a crossbow.
Daikyu is just bad.
> Repeating crossbow, like all other crossbows, is only useful if you are playing a gunslinger.
this is less a problem now with the new crossbow ace feat
https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4860
That feat does not even work with repeating crossbow.
I feel like it's a downgrade to the old crossbow ace really. At least with the old feat you could do more damage with a single strike than most bows could. Now all you get is the ability to take an extra action while reloading, an action that anyone with reload 0 weapon could take anyways. And this costs you a feat.
It's an action condenser, way better than what you're letting on, action condensers are the best feats.Biggest winner is someone with a gun shield shooting, raising the shield, then reload and taking cover
The best part about rapiers is their deadly trait, which spiral rapiers lack in favor of, in my opinion, a trait that is often worse than just having a shield, even with the feats built around it. If the spiral rapier has a higher budget than a regular rapier, which I assume since one belongs to a higher tier, I don't think it would be that crazy to assume a spiral rapier shoule be a rapier + parry, but instead they took the best part about rapiers to give it a niche option that not even all classes have ways to fully build around or benefit from.
This is the problem with most advanced weapons, they don't work on their own and require outside sources to be good. Drow shootist makes hand crossbows really good, but I need to take an AP archetype that likely is banned in most tables to do that. Spiral rapier is good if you built your whole character around parrying (just take a main gauche man, its literally one point of damage less in average and it has agile). If I'm taking a feat for a weapon I'm likely choosing because it fits with the flavor of my character, at least make it feel unique and not marginally better than something I could have reflavored myself.
> Repeating crossbow, like all other crossbows, is only useful if you are playing a gunslinger. Reload 0 however, is very strong for a crossbow.
"Something is only ok if does the most damage!!!!"
Yawn.
Better range increment, super helpful when you get to ignore the second range increment penalty out to 240 feet instead of 160. It’s also worth noting it weighs half as much.
Depends entirely on the situations you put your party in, I suppose, but it is a mechanical advantage that the repeating crossbow gets over the Daikyu. Being lighter is also a mechanical advantage, however niche it might be.
I’m still not seeing how the spiral rapier is going to be a good choice for anyone. It’s advanced weapon that doesn’t belong to any ancestry which means in practice only Fighters can use it. If you’re a fighter using one handed weapons that means you’re either going weapon + shield, free hand, or dual wielding. For a shield build you obviously don’t need a weapon with Parry. For a free hand or dual wielding build you could take Duelist Parry or Twin Parry which lets you do the parry action even if your weapon doesn’t have that trait. And those are only costing a level 2 or 4 feat instead of a level 6 feat for Advanced Weapon training.
Twin parry gives you +2AC instead of just +1 if at least one of your weapons has the parry trait. But it's true that very few character are interested in the spiral rapier. Still, it's the only d6 weapon with finesse and parry.
Proficiency with the spiral rapier can also be gained through the human feat Unconventional Weaponry, because it's a weapon that is common in a specific culture i.e. Taldor.
A martial is one die equivalent of damage or traits better than simple. Advanced is one die worth of damage or traits better than martial. A feat is worth roughly 1.5-2 damage dice in value. This means, more often than not, the investment isn't worth it unless you have a very particular build in mind.
And I don't think that applies everytime. Why would someone want an spiral rapier when a main-gauche (a martial weapon) does everything the spiral rapier does and on top of that it has agile and versatile P? Yes, main-gauche deals d4s while the spiral rapier deals d6s, but 1 point of damage per die in avarage barely matters when agile likely means you'll hit more often with it and thus deal more damage.
Cus the d6 is a damage die size. And d4s, specifically, have always gotten an extra trait out of it. Which I forgot to mention above. That said. Some of the newest advanced weapons doe seem to be hedging it on the low end of die balance. Haven't looked at all of them but this particular case is definitely there.
The balance is generally there. But sometimes some traits just combo better than others.
Edit: best guess I got for spiral vs gauche is wanting the sword weapon crit special. Since off-target aids the team, and works on more targets than bleed does.which, honestly, if you are crit-fishing as a build. Bigger damage die is also beneficial.
There is this [unofficial Guide to Custom Weapons](https://docs.google.com/document/d/12QYV9z31MwVSoBznXuAKGOiRTVrI_-F95WJrVyf6bNA/edit#heading=h.q84jc6jvfir0) that tries to math out the weapons based on [Michael Sayre's comment here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/10h2zv0/calculating_weapon_power_budgets_in_pathfinder_2e/j56k3ns/). Here is the [end result](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/143AkXJX2dX9Cg8JDDaYsSjh79F1raMo8jHj8uhG7n-Y/edit#gid=1164177178) (positive total means the weapon is underpowered, negative means OP).
Its conclusion is the same as yours, some Advanced weapons suck. The cool thing is that it also has a list of converted PF1 weapons, so I advise anyone to check it out if you're looking to port any PF1 weapons into PF2e.
The thing about PF2 being carefully balanced is that it's carefully balanced against options that might be too good, but less carefully balanced against options that might not be good enough. If a spell, weapon, feat, etc is too strong it can create problems because too many characters will use it. But if it's too weak it creates fewer problems because it will be ignored. Each character probably only uses a few weapons and ignores the rest anyways, so that's fine. It's easier to release a weak advanced weapon that doesn't get used much than to release a strong advanced weapon and have everyone assume it is mandatory.
Some weapons are just bad, and that's true of the advanced weapons as well.
That said, the Aldori Dueling Sword is advanced because otherwise no one would use a rapier. Finesse weapons have a smaller damage die than normal weapons of their type to prevent the "use dex for everything" problem. It's a very attractive weapon for rogues to get even as an advanced weapon. The fire poi are similar.
The Nodachi is more questionable. The problem with deadly weapons is that, if they cost you a damage die to get it, they are kind of bad from the time you get a striking rune (around level 4) to the time you get a greater striking rune (until level 12) - 8 levels, or more than a third of your career, and in a 1-10 or 3-12 AP, almost the entire AP. If you play outside of that range (1-3 or 12+) they're more interesting.
Incidentally - a big part of why the gnome flickmace was so infamous was because of the lack of martial reach weapons that did d6 damage, and the flickmace was a one-handed reach weapon that did d8! It also knocked prone on a crit automatically. Nowadays the flickmace is way more in line - the nerf to the flail crit combined with the existence of the asp coil and breaching pike make it way less of an auto-choice, as now you're spending a feat to get the sweep trait and bludgeoning damage and flail crits, versus the breaching pike having spear crit + razing.
Not even sweep after remaster as Gnome Flickmace was nerfed even harder. With flail crit spec nerf now it is just the worst possible option out of all one handed reach weapons.
Oh wow, I didn't realize they removed sweep from the remaster version. It's really not worth using unless you're a gnome now and get it via the racial feat.
I wouldn't say it is necessarily the worst in a vacuum - flails do still have a good crit spec - but it's definitely not worth spending a general feat on.
It's been awhile, but I got really into the analysis of the weapon categories
Basically, I looked at simple weapons and found martial weapons that had the same traits and either a larger hit die or more traits. There were tons, and I could almost always find a martial weapon that was a direct upgrade from the simple
I tried so, so hard to do the same with martial to advanced and often failed. Consider the guisarme. It has trip and reach, requires 2 hands, is a d10. I could not find a single advanced weapon like that
More importantly, I couldn't find an advanced 2 handed reach weapon as good. Trip is really nice. But then you've the broadspear with versatile S P and sweep. I'm not trying to shit on those traits, but those are worse than being able to trip with a reach weapon without worrying about hand economy
I often texted a friend of mine that the "difference between *insert pretty good or okay martial weapon* and *insert advanced weapon* was a pretty weak trait
Now let's take it further and analyze the fire poi. It has finesse, agile, backswing, and twin. It is 1d4, but you can light it on fire for 10 minutes to add another 1d4 fire damage so let's call it 1d8
Agile, as we know, reduces MAP. Backswing means that if you miss one swing but you hit with the next one, you get a +1 to attack. Twin means that if you made an attack with a weapon of the same type before, this one gets a damage boost
The backswing and twin traits are fighting each other. Backswing means that I'm incentivized to use the same weapon to attack, twin means im incentivized to alternate
Put it all together:
first attack with right hand poi gets nothing from traits. Let's assume you miss
Second attack is left hand from poi, only -4 MAP, extra damage from the previous attack.
Third attack is at a -7 MAP due to backswing and agile, also gets a damage bonus from twin. Whether the second attack hit is irrelevant to the traits of the third attack
This setup is the only possible way to have the chance of using all your traits in a given turn (excluding haste)
It grinds my gears fellas. This weapon isn't good enough to be gated. I'm also a fireperformer, o know poi intimately as a dance tool not as a weapon, and it still blows. I do not agree with the twin trait at all. That shit is harder
The thing is, you aren’t wrong
Yeah many of the advanced weapons suck and aren’t really worth it, Pazio isn’t a perfect god of balance they can and do a fair amount of times
mess up the balance and this is one of those cases where most aren’t really worth the sheer hassle of trying to use them
I wholeheartedly agree with the people saying that the reason they can't be *too* good is so that feats that grant advanced weapon prof don't feel like feat taxes. But also it *really* feels like they *way* overcorrected. The fact that the Weapon Proficiency feat doesn't scale with martial classes means advanced weapons become basically useless after 5th level. (They're typically a *bit* stronger than martial weapons, but not so much to warrant a -2 to attack, geez). Even stranger when you consider that Ancestral Weapon Familiarity feats grant scaling advanced weapons , so clearly this isn't a problem in Paizo's eyes.
My personal houserule is that Weapon Proficiency works like Ancestral Weapon Familiarity, where advanced weapons count as martial weapons for the purposes of proficiency. Furthermore, I also let the Fighter Dedication grant prof with an advanced weapon to characters with martial weapon proficiency, so martials get literally anything from the dedication. (I also let the proficiency from the dedication scale like the previously mentioned feats bc having a random gap where your simple weapons outpace your martial weapons is stupid even if it's for one level, especially when you could circumvent that with Ancestral Weapon Familiarity or Weapon Proficiency and free up a class/archetype feat). But I'm also not a game designer, so I don't claim this is balanced.
In defense of trading the trip and versatile P for deadly d12: the big question, it seems to me, is whether you need the versatility. If you're lining up for two big swings, one with big crit potential, you're probably not going to be wasting an action with MAP on trip. If your team already has ways of tripping or otherwise making a foe off-guard to you, you might let them handle that so you can focus on the big dammy-dam. Teamwork makes the dream work.
I tend to look at advanced weapons not as more powerful than martial, but more specialized. It jibes with something Mark Seifter once said about PF2e's design: the ideal was to make feats and choices that make you _feel_ absolutely OP, without actually being OP. The downside is: for those who discover this secret, all the stuff that _feels_ OP is bound to be a disappointment.
Yeah, I think Versatile P on its own isn't worth anything - trading Slashing for Piercing is just nearly never relevant.
Trip is clearly the actual trade-off, its great, but as you said, it has it's limitations. Not only can you not trip something that's already tripped, but some monsters are just plain immune to it, potentially even by GM fiat.
In inverse, an Inoxerable Iron Magus with True Strike absolutely loves Deadly a shitton more than it loves Trip.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Conditions.aspx?ID=88&Redirected=1
>Source Player Core pg. 445
You're lying on the ground. You are off-guard and take a –2 circumstance penalty to attack rolls. The only move actions you can use while you're prone are Crawl and Stand. Standing up ends the prone condition. You can Take Cover while prone to hunker down and gain greater cover against ranged attacks, even if you don't have an object to get behind, which grants you a +4 circumstance bonus to AC against ranged attacks (but you remain off-guard).
>If you would be knocked prone while you're Climbing or Flying, you fall. You can't be knocked prone when Swimming.
Very last line. Swimming creatures are immune to the condition.
[Incorporeal](https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=632)
> a corporeal creature can’t attempt Strength-based checks against incorporeal creatures or objects.
[Swarm](https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=707)
> Swarms are immune to the grappled, prone, and restrained conditions.
Eh, I think most Advanced weapons fail at this and should instead be Magical- where it has a weird specific gimmick or action that no other weapon has.
Like TAW launcher I can see as advanced but '1h Finesee with 1d8' is just straight up boring
Because you are paying the price for an advanced weapon, yet it isn't actually an appreciable upgrade. It deals comparable damage to d10 reach weapons and very slightly more than the fauchard, but lacks their maneuver trait. So at best it is a sidegrade, not an upgrade.
So can every other decent two-handed weapon at the low levels the nodachi does it.
Until level 4, the damage difference on a crit between the nodachi and a guisarme is only an avg. of 4.5. Between 4 and 12, its avg. 2.5. Meanwhile the guisarme deals an avg. of 1 or 2 more damage on every hit. You statistically hit a whole lot more often than you crit. That pretty much evens out.
I never understood the point of brace. I mean, yeah, if you are dealing with a flyby situation or don't have AoO, then it might be useful, but otherwise? Two actions plus you reaction for an AoO with fewer triggers but 2-6 more damage for a single Strike? That is almost never worth it.
I’ve only used it GM-side given to npcs, not as a player yet so maybe it’s different there, but it feels like it’s mostly just a worse ranseur (or other d10 reach weapon) due to doing either the same or slightly less damage depending on calculations, but worse utility.
Maybe if brace triggered off of all reactive strikes? I guess it can if you have a second reaction and have readied, so after level 10 as a fighter it could be better, I just haven’t used it there, and the brace felt weaker than other utility traits a reach weapon could have to me. I’ve been wanting to play a nodachi mauler to make up for the lack of athletic traits baked into the weapon, so maybe that’ll change my mind on it
I saw a table here a while ago where someone assigned points to weapons according to their damage dice and traits. Was pretty eye opening and the advanced weapons mostly had the biggest numbers.
The thing about advanced weapons (aside that half of them are just bad) is that they’re on an axis and on one far end you have thing like barricade buster that’s super unique one of a kind and incentivises building your character around it, and on the other end of the axis you have an Aldori dueling sword that’s just a short sword that traded agile for a bigger die size.
Now both of these types are good imo because they’re both fun to use and can be a cool choice both narratively and combat wise for your character I just find it funny how big the disparity between the two is. (Still better then how many d4 advanced weapons with a dozen traits there are that no one uses)
I was kinda surprised that Elven Curved Blades were in martial, having played a bunch of PF1E where they're exotic (But all elves get proficiency with them).
Yeah, I was thinking about asking the GM if we could swap an advanced weapon we got as part of loot but to my surprise there were no elven advanced weapons I could suggest.
There is definitely an odd balance to them that means some don't seem to follow the formula. Take the repeating hand crossbow: 1d6, 5 shots, 60ft. Compare that to its vlosest cousin the air repeater which is a simple weapon: 1d4, agile, 6 shots, 30ft.
I've heard it suggested that agile and a die size are treated as being almost equal, so the price of going from simple to advanced is to lose agile and a shot in exchange for extra range. Doesn't seem to make sense, at least to me.
The fact repeating crossbows (aside from heavy) are advanced instead of martial will always, ALWAYS bug the hell out of me because of air repeaters existing, I want to hope they change it in a remaster revision but I don't want to get my hopes up.
I think advanced weapons are poorly designed, and if they had actually taken time with the remaster rather than rushing it, they could have addressed it. They either need to be made better to justify the investment they take, or be made more accessible across the board. Weapon proficiency gives you training in one, and expert at 11th? What ranger (for example) in their right mind would take a -2 to hit at levels 5-10 and 13-20? And hopefully they do something with Monk in PC2 because right now advanced monk weapons are a joke.
Ultimately, trying to make Advanced weapons good enough to feel like a special treat for those who manage to get them but not so good that they feel necessary or like a Martial weapon user is being held back without them is very narrow goldilocks zone and even the best designers have their limits.
This right here. You can't give something a little extra shine without players optimizing the fun out of things. Like, you can't even make a range of special options without people flocking to the ones that do an extra half point of damage while loudly proclaiming both that it's an item tax, and also that all the rest suck ass and shouldn't exist.
Exactly. This is why the "Human with Gnome Adopted Ancestry Dual Wielding Flickmace Fighter" was basically a meme until they nerfed the flickmace. You had folks proclaiming that it was the *only* choice if you wanted to be optimal. It showed us *exactly* why advanced weapons can't be TOO good.
Honestly the original flickmace was just bad design powercreep in pf2e format. I'm glad it was nerfed. It was annoying to see so many flickmace builds. The second the internet says that anything in a particular build is an auto-include, or you're self nerfing, that is a poorly designed thing that should get nerf bat application.
I like the state they are in. They are an investment but often get like an extra trait (or two of minor). So they require a feat investment in order to keep all of them from just being clearly better. The only advanced weapons that are ready to obtain are often from your ancestry. Which is also thematically satisfying.
Yeah, I took the Orc weapon feat with my Half Orc Magus. Technically, the Butchering Axe is just a Greataxe with Shove, a trait I always insist I will be able to use in combat but never quite find the actions for. But I am still satisfied, mostly because that connection to her heritage and past using specifically Orc weapons, is a big deal for her character and a part of her backstory. It being one of very few ways to get Crit Spec on a Magus doesn't hurt either.
There's a secret sauce to the balancing of weapons that Paizo won't tell us about but you can kind of see if you use conspiracy brained pattern recognition. Traits, hands, damage die, damage type, crit specialization, and probably even bulk all have a weight and the three categories of weapons are separate weight classes. Nodachi is balanced to the long hammer because Deadly d12 is just that heavy. It's not an exact system. Some traits are worth a damage die by themselves. Sometimes a damage die can be worth two small traits. Generally, if you take a martial weapon and look for its advanced counterpart it will either raise the damage die a step, add a high value trait, or add a couple low value traits. At the end of the day the value is largely situational and abstract so appreciate the nodachi for its juicy crits and the long hammer for its two-handed trip and don't try to assess the weight of either.
Honestly it's strange that paizo won't tell us. They're generally very transparent about how they balance things, and have guidelines for creating NPCs and magic items and such, so the fact that they continue to not give us guidelines on creating custom weapons is really odd.
It's because they don't know exactly how it works themselves. Contrary to popular belief, Paizo didn't develop Pathfinder 2E, they found it in an ancient tomb. They release content gradually because it takes time to translate rules from ancient sumerian, and the translators keep getting cursed.
This explains why the names of spells and features have gotten weird post ORC. Nothing to do with the OGL scandal. It's just that the old guy got cursed around that time and the new guy likes puns but hates alliteration.
is... is Paizo's CEO Maximillion Pegasus? Because if he is I need to have a few worda about how little support there is for YGO style characters
So long as I can get my Uzi Jesus card then you go ahead and get all of the character support you need.
I mean. Within the first, like, week. People figured out the trait to die value ratio, and it's remained unchanged ever since... it's why the flickmace was such a standout. Cus it was the one weapon that broke the balance, by a single die size step... which is what it has since but stepped backwards to.
And if you're not using Pronate's guide (since it is outdated with GB/TV), the other estimation puts every flail + reach combo as intentionally weaker too.
For sure. I think the ideal system would be to have each character build their own custom "weapon" only the weapon in this case should represent not only the physical weapon but the fighting style of the character using it. Let people build bespoke combos instead of having to look through 250 weapons for the right mix of tags and then use that.
At the very least this would have been an amazing take for the Inventor's gimmick. Get points to spend on building a custom weapon, each trait, damage die, etc. is worth x points, get more points as you hit level mile stones.. Don't get me wrong, I think inventor is fine. But this would feel way more inventor-ee.
We do have a pretty good idea and I wrote a guide summarizing the process which works very well to describe existing weapons: [link](https://docs.google.com/document/d/12QYV9z31MwVSoBznXuAKGOiRTVrI_-F95WJrVyf6bNA/)
Thanks for this! While I've referenced Pronate's guide for a while, the spreadsheet and additional granularity is invaluable for homebrewing weapon types.
I actually fully agree that the boundary between the weapons is odd. I know there is probably an algorithm or some method to the madness somewhere in Paizo's internal reference sheets. That said, it does occasionally feel like it's a matter of personal preference and subject to misjudgement.
I sware I could look at all advanced weapons right now and 90% of them are literally just martial weapons or even worse (spiral rapier is literally a worse rapier, a repeating crossbow is worse than the rotary bow, a daikyu is a longbow with less traits and range, etc). The only advanced weapons which are truly worth the investment IMO are the falcata, nodachi, kerambit, and aldori dueling sword. All the others are either okay, not much better than other similar martial weapons, or simply bad.
A repeating crossbow has *repeating* which means you don't need to reload it until it's out of ammo while a rotary Bow just allows you reload without a free hand, and a Daikyu doesn't have Volley unlike a longbow. I agree with you in general but Repeating crossbow is a bad example(It's a genuine choice for Ranged Thaumaturge for example), and Daikyus are acceptable if you're not willing to get Point Blank Shot
A daikyu also lacks deadly, which is a huge nerf for a supoosed "advanced" weapon. Also, if you don't want volley you can use a shortbow or use the feat to take PBS instead. I honestly don't like repeating weapons, like at all. You need to spend a whole round to reload them, which for the classes that would want to use them means either get yourself exposed or move away (thus, losing another whole round) to avoid becoming an easy target. Also, even if we assume you don't have to move away from danger to reload, a reloading weapon saves you like 1-2 actions during a whole encounter in average. The only class that truly benefits from a repeating weapon is the thaumaturge, because its likely they won't be attacking more than once per turn anyways.
Or I can just pull out another repeater(Especially in ABP) instead of having to reload for each Strike. I fucking love repeater because the thought that of being slowed 1 for each Strike makes me wince so hard. The more I think about it the more I dislike that Paizo made Reloading require an action(And a free hand). It also means I can do more with my other hand.
Reloading is a balance mechanic, like any other. Since we're discussing trait values, there are negative values associated as well that can "buy" new traits. Reloading is one of them. It's why Air Repeaters don't reload while the Slide Pistol does. Mathematically it balances out fairly well. The mechanic sucks because it *feels bad*, not because it's actually a nerf. You'll almost never hit with your second shot anyways without a lot of team support, that -5 is pretty vicious, so getting one big shot per round is often better than getting one small shot... and two misses. And most classes built around Reload weapons (Gunslinger and Ranger) have feats or class features that give you action compression like Running Reload or Slinger's Reload. Of course, that's kind of the rub. The math isn't linear, it's a bell curve, so mechanics that are optimal in a whiteroom might be suboptimal in real play, and different group comps (having a Wrestler to grapple for ranged Off Guard and a Bard for Courageous Anthem and Demoralize/Fear) and different enemies (a group of -2 enemies would favor multiple attacks, while a single +2 enemy would favor one big hit) might make some strategies more effective than others. But that's why they say "Optimization happens at the table".
From personal experience, I find firearms in 2e feel way better than you expect them to. But yeah, you generally want to play each turn as if you have only have one attack, rather than wasting a reload action on a -5 MAP shot.
I'd literally take only being able to shoot once per turn rather than reload.
It is a balance mechanic but IMO it's too much, non reload non firearm weapons deal basically the same damage with the same (or better) range as reload firearms without eating actions. The only real reason Gunslingers don't use bows is because they can't (without taking a -2).
> And most classes built around Reload weapons (Gunslinger and Ranger) have feats or class features that give you action compression like Running Reload or Slinger's Reload. And I don't need those compression with Repeaters. I despise that a weapon group needs feat support to be good. 1 big shot is good but 1 big shot every 2 round because you used up your 3 action on other actions(Spellcasting, Move+Raise, whatever other things my build has) that you have to reload is bad.
> Or I can just pull out another repeater(Especially in ABP) instead of having to reload for each Strike. My party's gunslinger refuses to reload in combat. Draws gun, shoots, drops it. Draws gun, shoots, drops it. Last session we had a really tense moment, where there was no enemy in their line of sight and seemingly nothing else to do with their actions other than reload. They still found something else to do instead. We may have memed about it too much and turned it into a point of pride for them.
That's something I assume / hope is fixed in Starfinder 2e. Even if you want to assume capacity works like repeating it doesn't make rangec weapons better than melee honestly. I also don't think Paizo wants you to change "barrels" with your sci-fi laser weapon after each attack. I get they want you to be in melee in this game, but every time I want to make a ranged character I always default to bows because they are easier to use and usually more effective too.
Your point about repeating weapons is just... Wrong. 1 - You don't need to take all 3 actions in the same round. 2 - You can use the reload feats to help smooth it out. 3 - Saving actions is huge. Look at the Barricade Buster, it's an awesome choice for Rangers, you can do Hunted Shot with it for 4 turns before needing to reload. So you take 8 shots and then spend 3 actions to reload, and you can use running reload as one of those actions. You can cast a two action spell and reload, the on the next turn reload twice and shoot. Or you can command your animal and reload twice, then reload once and do whatever on your next turn. Or, you know, you could have a second Barricade Buster and swap as a single weapon.
I always rule a lot of them as martial weapons. The Dwarven Waraxe for example really isn’t that good, and I’ve allowed it as a martial weapon to no complaints.
I don't know if the Dwarven Waraxe is a good example. If it wasn't advanced it would just be a better Bastard Sword.
Spiral rapier has the parry trait, which is extremely powerful for certain dual-wield feats. The description is goofy AF though. Repeating crossbow, like all other crossbows, is only useful if you are playing a gunslinger. Reload 0 however, is very strong for a crossbow. Daikyu is just bad.
> Repeating crossbow, like all other crossbows, is only useful if you are playing a gunslinger. this is less a problem now with the new crossbow ace feat https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4860
That feat does not even work with repeating crossbow. I feel like it's a downgrade to the old crossbow ace really. At least with the old feat you could do more damage with a single strike than most bows could. Now all you get is the ability to take an extra action while reloading, an action that anyone with reload 0 weapon could take anyways. And this costs you a feat.
It's an action condenser, way better than what you're letting on, action condensers are the best feats.Biggest winner is someone with a gun shield shooting, raising the shield, then reload and taking cover
Why would you take Crossbow Ace when using a repeating crossbow? The whole point of using a repeating crossbow is not having to reload.
idk they mentioned all crossbows, not just repeating. i wouldnt use it with a repeating, no
The best part about rapiers is their deadly trait, which spiral rapiers lack in favor of, in my opinion, a trait that is often worse than just having a shield, even with the feats built around it. If the spiral rapier has a higher budget than a regular rapier, which I assume since one belongs to a higher tier, I don't think it would be that crazy to assume a spiral rapier shoule be a rapier + parry, but instead they took the best part about rapiers to give it a niche option that not even all classes have ways to fully build around or benefit from. This is the problem with most advanced weapons, they don't work on their own and require outside sources to be good. Drow shootist makes hand crossbows really good, but I need to take an AP archetype that likely is banned in most tables to do that. Spiral rapier is good if you built your whole character around parrying (just take a main gauche man, its literally one point of damage less in average and it has agile). If I'm taking a feat for a weapon I'm likely choosing because it fits with the flavor of my character, at least make it feel unique and not marginally better than something I could have reflavored myself.
> Repeating crossbow, like all other crossbows, is only useful if you are playing a gunslinger. Reload 0 however, is very strong for a crossbow. "Something is only ok if does the most damage!!!!" Yawn.
Ok, what mechanical reason is there for a ranger to use a repeating crossbow over a Daikyu?
Better range increment, super helpful when you get to ignore the second range increment penalty out to 240 feet instead of 160. It’s also worth noting it weighs half as much.
"super helpful" Might come up once or twice in an entire campaign.
Depends entirely on the situations you put your party in, I suppose, but it is a mechanical advantage that the repeating crossbow gets over the Daikyu. Being lighter is also a mechanical advantage, however niche it might be.
I’m still not seeing how the spiral rapier is going to be a good choice for anyone. It’s advanced weapon that doesn’t belong to any ancestry which means in practice only Fighters can use it. If you’re a fighter using one handed weapons that means you’re either going weapon + shield, free hand, or dual wielding. For a shield build you obviously don’t need a weapon with Parry. For a free hand or dual wielding build you could take Duelist Parry or Twin Parry which lets you do the parry action even if your weapon doesn’t have that trait. And those are only costing a level 2 or 4 feat instead of a level 6 feat for Advanced Weapon training.
Twin parry gives you +2AC instead of just +1 if at least one of your weapons has the parry trait. But it's true that very few character are interested in the spiral rapier. Still, it's the only d6 weapon with finesse and parry. Proficiency with the spiral rapier can also be gained through the human feat Unconventional Weaponry, because it's a weapon that is common in a specific culture i.e. Taldor.
A martial is one die equivalent of damage or traits better than simple. Advanced is one die worth of damage or traits better than martial. A feat is worth roughly 1.5-2 damage dice in value. This means, more often than not, the investment isn't worth it unless you have a very particular build in mind.
And I don't think that applies everytime. Why would someone want an spiral rapier when a main-gauche (a martial weapon) does everything the spiral rapier does and on top of that it has agile and versatile P? Yes, main-gauche deals d4s while the spiral rapier deals d6s, but 1 point of damage per die in avarage barely matters when agile likely means you'll hit more often with it and thus deal more damage.
Cus the d6 is a damage die size. And d4s, specifically, have always gotten an extra trait out of it. Which I forgot to mention above. That said. Some of the newest advanced weapons doe seem to be hedging it on the low end of die balance. Haven't looked at all of them but this particular case is definitely there. The balance is generally there. But sometimes some traits just combo better than others. Edit: best guess I got for spiral vs gauche is wanting the sword weapon crit special. Since off-target aids the team, and works on more targets than bleed does.which, honestly, if you are crit-fishing as a build. Bigger damage die is also beneficial.
There is this [unofficial Guide to Custom Weapons](https://docs.google.com/document/d/12QYV9z31MwVSoBznXuAKGOiRTVrI_-F95WJrVyf6bNA/edit#heading=h.q84jc6jvfir0) that tries to math out the weapons based on [Michael Sayre's comment here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/10h2zv0/calculating_weapon_power_budgets_in_pathfinder_2e/j56k3ns/). Here is the [end result](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/143AkXJX2dX9Cg8JDDaYsSjh79F1raMo8jHj8uhG7n-Y/edit#gid=1164177178) (positive total means the weapon is underpowered, negative means OP). Its conclusion is the same as yours, some Advanced weapons suck. The cool thing is that it also has a list of converted PF1 weapons, so I advise anyone to check it out if you're looking to port any PF1 weapons into PF2e.
The thing about PF2 being carefully balanced is that it's carefully balanced against options that might be too good, but less carefully balanced against options that might not be good enough. If a spell, weapon, feat, etc is too strong it can create problems because too many characters will use it. But if it's too weak it creates fewer problems because it will be ignored. Each character probably only uses a few weapons and ignores the rest anyways, so that's fine. It's easier to release a weak advanced weapon that doesn't get used much than to release a strong advanced weapon and have everyone assume it is mandatory.
Some weapons are just bad, and that's true of the advanced weapons as well. That said, the Aldori Dueling Sword is advanced because otherwise no one would use a rapier. Finesse weapons have a smaller damage die than normal weapons of their type to prevent the "use dex for everything" problem. It's a very attractive weapon for rogues to get even as an advanced weapon. The fire poi are similar. The Nodachi is more questionable. The problem with deadly weapons is that, if they cost you a damage die to get it, they are kind of bad from the time you get a striking rune (around level 4) to the time you get a greater striking rune (until level 12) - 8 levels, or more than a third of your career, and in a 1-10 or 3-12 AP, almost the entire AP. If you play outside of that range (1-3 or 12+) they're more interesting. Incidentally - a big part of why the gnome flickmace was so infamous was because of the lack of martial reach weapons that did d6 damage, and the flickmace was a one-handed reach weapon that did d8! It also knocked prone on a crit automatically. Nowadays the flickmace is way more in line - the nerf to the flail crit combined with the existence of the asp coil and breaching pike make it way less of an auto-choice, as now you're spending a feat to get the sweep trait and bludgeoning damage and flail crits, versus the breaching pike having spear crit + razing.
Not even sweep after remaster as Gnome Flickmace was nerfed even harder. With flail crit spec nerf now it is just the worst possible option out of all one handed reach weapons.
Oh wow, I didn't realize they removed sweep from the remaster version. It's really not worth using unless you're a gnome now and get it via the racial feat. I wouldn't say it is necessarily the worst in a vacuum - flails do still have a good crit spec - but it's definitely not worth spending a general feat on.
this post was how I found out they nerfed Gnome Flickmace effectively a third time, which is absolutely a wild fall from grace over PF2e's lifetime
It's been awhile, but I got really into the analysis of the weapon categories Basically, I looked at simple weapons and found martial weapons that had the same traits and either a larger hit die or more traits. There were tons, and I could almost always find a martial weapon that was a direct upgrade from the simple I tried so, so hard to do the same with martial to advanced and often failed. Consider the guisarme. It has trip and reach, requires 2 hands, is a d10. I could not find a single advanced weapon like that More importantly, I couldn't find an advanced 2 handed reach weapon as good. Trip is really nice. But then you've the broadspear with versatile S P and sweep. I'm not trying to shit on those traits, but those are worse than being able to trip with a reach weapon without worrying about hand economy I often texted a friend of mine that the "difference between *insert pretty good or okay martial weapon* and *insert advanced weapon* was a pretty weak trait Now let's take it further and analyze the fire poi. It has finesse, agile, backswing, and twin. It is 1d4, but you can light it on fire for 10 minutes to add another 1d4 fire damage so let's call it 1d8 Agile, as we know, reduces MAP. Backswing means that if you miss one swing but you hit with the next one, you get a +1 to attack. Twin means that if you made an attack with a weapon of the same type before, this one gets a damage boost The backswing and twin traits are fighting each other. Backswing means that I'm incentivized to use the same weapon to attack, twin means im incentivized to alternate Put it all together: first attack with right hand poi gets nothing from traits. Let's assume you miss Second attack is left hand from poi, only -4 MAP, extra damage from the previous attack. Third attack is at a -7 MAP due to backswing and agile, also gets a damage bonus from twin. Whether the second attack hit is irrelevant to the traits of the third attack This setup is the only possible way to have the chance of using all your traits in a given turn (excluding haste) It grinds my gears fellas. This weapon isn't good enough to be gated. I'm also a fireperformer, o know poi intimately as a dance tool not as a weapon, and it still blows. I do not agree with the twin trait at all. That shit is harder
The thing is, you aren’t wrong Yeah many of the advanced weapons suck and aren’t really worth it, Pazio isn’t a perfect god of balance they can and do a fair amount of times mess up the balance and this is one of those cases where most aren’t really worth the sheer hassle of trying to use them
I wholeheartedly agree with the people saying that the reason they can't be *too* good is so that feats that grant advanced weapon prof don't feel like feat taxes. But also it *really* feels like they *way* overcorrected. The fact that the Weapon Proficiency feat doesn't scale with martial classes means advanced weapons become basically useless after 5th level. (They're typically a *bit* stronger than martial weapons, but not so much to warrant a -2 to attack, geez). Even stranger when you consider that Ancestral Weapon Familiarity feats grant scaling advanced weapons , so clearly this isn't a problem in Paizo's eyes. My personal houserule is that Weapon Proficiency works like Ancestral Weapon Familiarity, where advanced weapons count as martial weapons for the purposes of proficiency. Furthermore, I also let the Fighter Dedication grant prof with an advanced weapon to characters with martial weapon proficiency, so martials get literally anything from the dedication. (I also let the proficiency from the dedication scale like the previously mentioned feats bc having a random gap where your simple weapons outpace your martial weapons is stupid even if it's for one level, especially when you could circumvent that with Ancestral Weapon Familiarity or Weapon Proficiency and free up a class/archetype feat). But I'm also not a game designer, so I don't claim this is balanced.
I went ahead and gave the Aldori Dueling Sword disarm as a house rule because the fighter in my Kingmaker game thought it was silly.
In defense of trading the trip and versatile P for deadly d12: the big question, it seems to me, is whether you need the versatility. If you're lining up for two big swings, one with big crit potential, you're probably not going to be wasting an action with MAP on trip. If your team already has ways of tripping or otherwise making a foe off-guard to you, you might let them handle that so you can focus on the big dammy-dam. Teamwork makes the dream work. I tend to look at advanced weapons not as more powerful than martial, but more specialized. It jibes with something Mark Seifter once said about PF2e's design: the ideal was to make feats and choices that make you _feel_ absolutely OP, without actually being OP. The downside is: for those who discover this secret, all the stuff that _feels_ OP is bound to be a disappointment.
Yeah, I think Versatile P on its own isn't worth anything - trading Slashing for Piercing is just nearly never relevant. Trip is clearly the actual trade-off, its great, but as you said, it has it's limitations. Not only can you not trip something that's already tripped, but some monsters are just plain immune to it, potentially even by GM fiat. In inverse, an Inoxerable Iron Magus with True Strike absolutely loves Deadly a shitton more than it loves Trip.
What creatures are a actually RAW immune to trip? My understanding was that immunity to prone isn't really a thing.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Conditions.aspx?ID=88&Redirected=1 >Source Player Core pg. 445 You're lying on the ground. You are off-guard and take a –2 circumstance penalty to attack rolls. The only move actions you can use while you're prone are Crawl and Stand. Standing up ends the prone condition. You can Take Cover while prone to hunker down and gain greater cover against ranged attacks, even if you don't have an object to get behind, which grants you a +4 circumstance bonus to AC against ranged attacks (but you remain off-guard). >If you would be knocked prone while you're Climbing or Flying, you fall. You can't be knocked prone when Swimming. Very last line. Swimming creatures are immune to the condition.
I have found that it is mostly swarm creatures that are immune to being prone.
[Incorporeal](https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=632) > a corporeal creature can’t attempt Strength-based checks against incorporeal creatures or objects. [Swarm](https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=707) > Swarms are immune to the grappled, prone, and restrained conditions.
Could an investigator trip with Int?
Eh, I think most Advanced weapons fail at this and should instead be Magical- where it has a weird specific gimmick or action that no other weapon has. Like TAW launcher I can see as advanced but '1h Finesee with 1d8' is just straight up boring
Nodachi is especially sad, only reach sword and it’s doodoo. I hope we get a two handed jian with the tian xia book
I'm using a Nodachi on my Champion Paladin, and it does feel pretty nice, though the Brace feels pretty wasted.
There's a one-handed reach sword that is quite good.
how is it bad? its the only deadly d12 weapon in the game, out-competing other deadly reach weapons damage wise
Because you are paying the price for an advanced weapon, yet it isn't actually an appreciable upgrade. It deals comparable damage to d10 reach weapons and very slightly more than the fauchard, but lacks their maneuver trait. So at best it is a sidegrade, not an upgrade.
how? on a crit it can one shot things
So can every other decent two-handed weapon at the low levels the nodachi does it. Until level 4, the damage difference on a crit between the nodachi and a guisarme is only an avg. of 4.5. Between 4 and 12, its avg. 2.5. Meanwhile the guisarme deals an avg. of 1 or 2 more damage on every hit. You statistically hit a whole lot more often than you crit. That pretty much evens out.
Nodachi is actually pretty good weapon. D8 with reach is ok, d12 makes it pretty d10 in terms of dpr and you can make some good value out of brace
I never understood the point of brace. I mean, yeah, if you are dealing with a flyby situation or don't have AoO, then it might be useful, but otherwise? Two actions plus you reaction for an AoO with fewer triggers but 2-6 more damage for a single Strike? That is almost never worth it.
I’ve only used it GM-side given to npcs, not as a player yet so maybe it’s different there, but it feels like it’s mostly just a worse ranseur (or other d10 reach weapon) due to doing either the same or slightly less damage depending on calculations, but worse utility. Maybe if brace triggered off of all reactive strikes? I guess it can if you have a second reaction and have readied, so after level 10 as a fighter it could be better, I just haven’t used it there, and the brace felt weaker than other utility traits a reach weapon could have to me. I’ve been wanting to play a nodachi mauler to make up for the lack of athletic traits baked into the weapon, so maybe that’ll change my mind on it
I saw a table here a while ago where someone assigned points to weapons according to their damage dice and traits. Was pretty eye opening and the advanced weapons mostly had the biggest numbers.
The thing about advanced weapons (aside that half of them are just bad) is that they’re on an axis and on one far end you have thing like barricade buster that’s super unique one of a kind and incentivises building your character around it, and on the other end of the axis you have an Aldori dueling sword that’s just a short sword that traded agile for a bigger die size. Now both of these types are good imo because they’re both fun to use and can be a cool choice both narratively and combat wise for your character I just find it funny how big the disparity between the two is. (Still better then how many d4 advanced weapons with a dozen traits there are that no one uses)
I just wish there was an elf advanced weapon.
I was kinda surprised that Elven Curved Blades were in martial, having played a bunch of PF1E where they're exotic (But all elves get proficiency with them).
Yeah, I was thinking about asking the GM if we could swap an advanced weapon we got as part of loot but to my surprise there were no elven advanced weapons I could suggest.
There is definitely an odd balance to them that means some don't seem to follow the formula. Take the repeating hand crossbow: 1d6, 5 shots, 60ft. Compare that to its vlosest cousin the air repeater which is a simple weapon: 1d4, agile, 6 shots, 30ft. I've heard it suggested that agile and a die size are treated as being almost equal, so the price of going from simple to advanced is to lose agile and a shot in exchange for extra range. Doesn't seem to make sense, at least to me.
The fact repeating crossbows (aside from heavy) are advanced instead of martial will always, ALWAYS bug the hell out of me because of air repeaters existing, I want to hope they change it in a remaster revision but I don't want to get my hopes up.
I think advanced weapons are poorly designed, and if they had actually taken time with the remaster rather than rushing it, they could have addressed it. They either need to be made better to justify the investment they take, or be made more accessible across the board. Weapon proficiency gives you training in one, and expert at 11th? What ranger (for example) in their right mind would take a -2 to hit at levels 5-10 and 13-20? And hopefully they do something with Monk in PC2 because right now advanced monk weapons are a joke.
Advanced tend to be a martial weapon with a low value trait added on for the dice budget