The Sap Feat

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So I was flipping through the NWN manual looking for interesting new ideas to make a henchman and I came across Sap.

according to the manual:

Sap, General Feat:
Prerequisite: BAB +1, Called Shot
Required for: Stunning Fist
Specifics(abridged): you make an attack at -4, successful hit deals normal damage and forces opponent to make a discipline check against your attack roll. A failed check means he's dazed for 12 seconds.

So I'm thinking, "Wow! This is great, its like a poor man's Stunning Blow, only you can use it as many times as you want. How did I ever miss this?"

See the thing is, in a test run with a leveller mod, I've been unable to select Sap as a feat when I had definately fit the prereqs. I *know* its in the game, because in the toolset you can choose it for NPC feats.

Has anyone ever taken this feat? I'd think it would be perfect for rogues.

 

I thought that Sap was disabled from the begining due to game balance issues?

 

It didn't actually make it into the game, for characters at least. I guess they never took it out of the toolset, but it cannot be selected for a character.

 

Ah, it all makes sense now, I thought it did seem better than the feat it was used as a pre-req for.

I'll have to slap that onto the NPC Henchie I was building and see if he uses it.

Sidenote: Given that Sap is a prereq for the non-Monk "Stunning Blow" feat, can a non-Monk get stunning blow at all? I've really been getting into the idea of a fighter specialized in unarmed attacks (I realize its goofy), and I'm trying to push it as far as it can go. I think with the proper feat selection it could be fun.

 

I believe that any character can take the Stunning Fist feat as long as they have the pre-reqs. Sap is not a requirement since it was (mostly) removed from the game.

You could just take a single level of Monk to gain the unarmed attack feats for free. It would be quicker than taking them singly as a Fighter.

 

Well, the idea was a chaotic scrapper type character, drunk and swinging. I'd rather keep him pure fighter.

So... Grapplin' Graham McGum is born! I might start a new thread on this one. At second level, he's doing great, and dishing out much harder than a monk could, hysterical.

 

Sounds like a Professional Wrasler!

You might have some trouble in a few levels without having any enhancement or elemental damage to your fists...plus, not being able to use monk gloves.


Are you playing the OC or some other module?

Good Luck

 

Ok, so I gave an NPC (a big half-orc body with a "hak"ed human head and one arm, his name: The Arm!) an assortment of unarmed (and other general feats), including sap, knockdown, power attack, etc... and he didn't use a single one of them in my test combat.

I may try another test with him actually functioning as a henchman (as that was the reason I was building him for anyway).

As far as Grapplin' Graham goes, he's doing ok so far. I ran him around in the OC a bit, just as a testing ground, and he stomped the guts out of most things straight away. Of course he's set up in sort of bizarro mode. His strength is maxed to the teeth, so his high damage isn't really that good, but he has *no* low damage. With weapon specialization: unarmed strike, he now does something in the realm of 12-14 damage on a hit (at 5th level! Beat that monk!) because power attack is eternally on.

With regard to the lack of monk gloves (which does suck...), I'll eventually just be outfitting him with strength enhancers. Gloves of ogre power stack with belts of giant strength, and both stack with potions of bull's might. He'll just be going for sheer bludgeoning damage. If he runs into monsters with any serious damage resistance, he can switch to a magic weapon - don't forget, fighters can use lots of toys.

The best part is watching a fully armored guy with a *tower shield* punching people, chests, doors, anything. Unlike the monk's unarmed strike, he doesn't kick - ever. He only has two moves, an upper cut and a roundhouse! I already have a dozen great screen shots of him doing this ballerina move on various things around the game.

 

Well, there is actually a workaround for the gloves. It's called Use Magic Device. With enough points in that you can wear them. This would normally not be usefull since nobody except a Monk uses unarmed attack, but in your case, it might prove usefull. And use Bard for it, so you can take RDD levels and use the RDD only Monk gloves in HotU.

Now before anyone flames me for this, I know Shifters use unarmed attacks in most of their shifted forms, but unfortunately, bracers and gloves don't get their bonusses added to the shifted form.