stoneheart- wrote: ↑Wed Aug 03, 2022 8:12 pm
This is a cool way to represent the specialty kits of priests of gods of stealth and thievery in 2e, but I find the monk synergy to be weird thematically. It's also worrying to me that the olden days of mandatory monk dips for clerics might return; especially as Seekers with a monk dip will have dramatically more AC than non-monk Seekers. How will this be addressed, if at all? Most (if not all?) gods of thievery and sneaking are non-lawful, so it would feel bad from an aesthetic standpoint to take monk, whilst not taking it would feel like mechanically shooting myself in the foot. My thought is if you really want to preserve the monk synergy with unarmed attacking/stunning fist/whatever is to deny them monk AC from wisdom so that it becomes more of an "if you want to" thing rather than an "if you want to be relevant" thing.
This is a valid concern and one I would like to address and discuss further.
I have plans to finish and release both Vigilante and Liberator along with the Seeker path, where the two PrCs would cater to non-lawful and chaotic characters who want access to Wis to AC and Div Dip without being shoehorned into the monk, paladin, or blackguard class.
While the introduction of Vigilante and Liberator should address the alignment restriction aspect of the building process, this doesn't necessarily address a meta-defining feature such as Wis to AC being enabled by dipping a class.
My thought on the matter is that Wisdom to AC is meta-defining, so much so that, for the classes that wish to obtain them, they will need to give up something in return. In this case, it is a single class slot and 3 levels worth of CL spent for that particular ability. I believe this is a necessary tradeoff for any cleric, path or vanilla, builds to obtain.
A counter-argument that can be made is that we do have precedence of Clerics getting Haste as a general spell instead of a domain spell only available to Travel. If Clerics are no longer sacrificing 1 domain for haste, can't clerics, specifically seeker path, obtain Wis to AC (even as dodge AC) for free as a feature, as well?
The difference to be recognized here is that most domain choices are designed to be thematic, and each of them should have a select few powerful spells or combinations that will allow clerics to become distinct in terms of flavor and mechanics. While building clerics is no exception to the rule where it should take theme and RP into consideration, there do exist a wide variety of build lines for players to choose from in the case of the Seeker path.
Allow me to elaborate.
The conventional sneak attack builds often utilize as many Flat-Footing methods as possible and deal a maximum number of sneak attacks within the shortest timeframe possible. If the sneak attack build loses its advantage of proc'ing sneak attacks, it should then not fight a losing skirmish as sneak builds aren't designed to fight elongated, toe-to-toe battles like many of the martial classes are. This is where AC from dex, Epic Dodge, and/or HiPS come in to play. They allow the sneak attacker to escape an unfavorable matchup and return again with full force (sneak attack). At least that is how one usually engages with a sneak attack build.
That said, Seeker path can not obtain Epic Dodge but enjoys a far higher AB than the conventional sneak attack builds. The ways for a Seeker path to obtain AC also varied in three different ways:
- Str/Cha Div build with Magic Vestment on both Armor and Shield
- Dex build with Magic Vestment on both Armor and Shield
- Wis build with Magic Vestment on Armor and Monk/Vig's Wisdom to AC
Note that all of the above can use Str, Dex, or Wis for the attack rolls. Wisdom is slightly trickier as it does spend a feat on Zen Archery, but, in return, it also has the highest DC on spells.
The Epic Dodge variants of sneak attack builds are often shoehorned into dex because of Epic Dodge's requirement. Seekers, on the other hand, have plenty of different ways to flat-foot, obtain high AC, high AB, and have escape utilities: prime examples are the access to Hellball and Greater Sanctuary.
stoneheart- wrote: ↑Wed Aug 03, 2022 8:12 pm
My thought is if you really want to preserve the monk synergy with unarmed attacking/stunning fist/whatever is to deny them monk AC from wisdom so that it becomes more of an "if you want to" thing rather than an "if you want to be relevant" thing.
To reiterate and answer this particular concern, one doesn't necessarily have to build into the monk class to be relevant for Seekers, as there are other ways to build Seekers, pending more number-crunching to showcase and compare the differences between the different builds.
Edens_Fall wrote: ↑Mon Aug 01, 2022 5:23 pm
A stealth cleric . . . very interesting.
I know nothing of builds though, but I look forward to trying the one Master Kenji thinks up!
I already have 3 in mind, might get to doing some spreadsheets and see how it all goes
Kaeladin wrote: ↑Mon Aug 01, 2022 5:43 pm
The real question is...when can get we our hands on this?! This looks delicious to start tinkering with!
Soon™