TOPIC: Benrow's Elder Drake Necklace question

Benrow's Elder Drake Necklace provides +7 sacred damage on all Flurry of Blows attacks. However, it also allows all Flurry of Blows compatible weapons to be thrown, so my question is whether the +7 sacred damage should be included on the Ranged Attack bonuses, or just the Melee Attack bonuses?

The QTR that was under discussion says that shurikens do not get Flurry of Blows benefits, so I assume that means they do not get the +7 sacred damage.

I am thinking the bonus should just go into the Melee Attack, and if the melee weapon is used for Ranged Attacks, the DM will use the Melee bonuses. Just trying to get this right for the Character Generators.

Necklace of the Spirit Drake appears more straight forward, in that it only applies to Flurry of Blows, and the +4 Sacred damage will only apply to the Melee bonuses.

BTW: What happened to the thread for the 2020 QTR? I can't find it any more.

Just check the website for the 2020 qtr. It's already been updated


truedungeon.com/files/QTR.pdf

Cranston wrote: [Should] the +7 sacred damage...be included on the Ranged Attack bonuses, or just the Melee Attack bonuses?

Great question. It applies to all flurry of blows attacks the wearer makes, be they melee or missile.

Cranston wrote: The QTR that was under discussion says that shurikens do not get Flurry of Blows benefits, so I assume that means they do not get the +7 sacred damage.

Correct

Cranston wrote: I am thinking the bonus should just go into the Melee Attack, and if the melee weapon is used for Ranged Attacks, the DM will use the Melee bonuses.

Correct

Cranston wrote: Just trying to get this right for the Character Generators.

I appreciate you asking.

Cranston wrote: What happened to the thread for the 2020 QTR?

It's here , but it's locked because that was the thread for the beta. You're welcome to start a new one for the production version.

Thank you!

I have a few follow-up questions.

When Benrow's is equipped:

• Does it allow for two thrown FoB-compatible weapons thrown per round or one FoB weapon thrown per round?
• Should range-to-hit or melee-to-hit numbers be used for thrown FoB weapon calculations? I know it says "using melee combat stats" but I wanted to clarify if DMs should be reading from the (melee-to-hit and melee-damage) columns of the character sheet or the (range-to-hit and melee-damage) columns of the character sheet when calculating combat stats.
• If thrown FoB weapons use the monk's range-to-hit, should the character sheet and character builder apps allow for the weapon to-hit AC modifier to contribute to the range-to-hit? For example, should an Asher's +5 contribute +5 to the AC calculation of the thrown weapon? Another way of phrasing this question is: Should Benrow's allow for FoB-compatible melee weapons to be equipped in the Ranged Weapon slots so ranged-to-hit calculations correctly include the to-hit bonus from the weapons?
• Do monks suffer from retribution damage when throwing FoB-compatible weapons and the enemy has melee retribution damage?
• Can monks choose to throw FoB-compatible melee weapons at an enemy even if they could attack the enemy in melee?
• Can Dazing fist and/or Stunning fist trigger from thrown FoB-compatible weapon attacks?

Thanks for reading!

Bumping in hopes of getting a response, as the next token season is drawing near...

Official responses in blue

• Does it allow for two thrown FoB-compatible weapons thrown per round or one?
  Two
• Should range-to-hit or melee-to-hit numbers be used for thrown FoB weapon calculations?
  Melee
• Do monks suffer from retribution damage when throwing FoB-compatible weapons and the enemy has melee retribution damage?
  Yes, see Gloves of the Flying Fists for precedent
• Can monks choose to throw FoB-compatible melee weapons at an enemy even if they could attack the enemy in melee?
  Yes*
• Can Dazing/Stunning fist trigger from thrown FoB-compatible weapon attacks?
  Yes

*Because the attacks use melee modifiers and you can't sleaze out of RD, what's the point?

Druegar wrote: *Because the attacks use melee modifiers and you can't sleaze out of RD, what's the point?

Personally I was attacking...

Thank you for answering my questions.

Druegar wrote: Official responses in blue

• Should range-to-hit or melee-to-hit numbers be used for thrown FoB weapon calculations?
  Melee

Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa hol' up.

There was extensive discussion about the function of Benrow's, and how it relates to the Gloves of the Flying Fist ability in design.

Non-final iterations of Benrow's granted the GoFF effect, which is what you're describing above.

Benrow's was mindfully and intentionally changed to not have the GoFF effect, and instead to grant the "thrown" and "returning" properties to all FoB weapons in its final iteration.

We have game rules for the "thrown weapons," and game rules for "returning" weapons, those rules are different from several of the clarifications issued above.

It looks like Benrow's is now being ruled to function the same as GoFF (which it was intentionally changed away from during design, as can be seen by following the text on the token and the associated discussion).

If Benrow's grants Thrown and Returning to FoB attacks, the answers to the questions on this thread should be:

To-hit score for thrown weapons: Ranged To-hit box on the party card

Damage score for thrown weapons: Ranged damage box on the party card (but this box will include STR bonus in the ranged damage if a FoB weapon is equipped in the ranged slot during character build)

Retribution damage: Immune when making a ranged/thrown attack.

Druegar - are you absolutely certain that melee to hit stats will be used when one throws weapons with Benrow's?

If so that’s a huge upgrade to the power of this token - as you won't have to split DEX and STR to have a good to-hit when making ranged attacks - you just plow everything into STR.

Here you can see the penultimate, non-final version of this token, which said 'may hit Ranged target w/FoB':
truedungeon.com/forum?view=topic&catid=615&id=250015
In other words Benrow's duplicates the effect of GoFF in this non-final version of the token.

It was then changed to say: 'all FoB weapons may be thrown & gain Returning'
truedungeon.com/forum?view=topic&catid=615&id=250061

You can follow the discussion in those threads, but a big part of it was about whether this token obsoletes GoFF, and the change was put in place so it wouldn't.

Please reconsider this ruling.

If this ruling sticks, please consider errating all Thrown weapons to just use the melee stats, including Thor's hammer, so we don't have two different definitions of what thrown weapons do.

Matthew, if you can link to the exact posts (not the thread, the specific posts) where either Jeff or I made those statements, I'll take a look.

For those who may not know, the white "#X" in the upper right of each post links directly to that post. Right-clicking on the "#X" should give you the option to copy the link.

Matthew Hayward wrote:
If this ruling sticks, please consider errating all Thrown weapons to just use the melee stats, including Thor's hammer, so we don't have two different definitions of what thrown weapons do.

Disagree. Don't need retroactive changes to a more commonly employed token.