[3.5/Pathfinder]Some melee buffing feats (PEACH)

[Faulty]

I think one thing that would mend some of the inequities between melee and magic at higher levels would be allowing melee characters to make more than a single attack with a standard action. A caster can use a move action, cast a spell, and then cast a quickened spell; a melee fighter can't use a move action and then use their comparable high level "ability", iterative attacks. This is a bit of an attempt to fix that. The ideas aren't completely original and spawned from a discussion on the Pathfinder beta testing forums, but they hadn't been crafted into feats, so I figure I'd get around to doing that.

Swift Strike
Through great strength or deft finesse, you're capable of striking more quickly than most.
Prerequisites: Str 15 and/or Dex 15, Power Attack and/or Combat Expertise, base attack bonus +6
Benefit: When making a melee attack as a standard action, you can opt to make two attacks with your main hand weapon rather than one, both at your highest base attack bonus. All attacks most be made on the same target. If you choose to do this, you suffer a -2 penalty to all attack rolls you make that round.
Special: A Fighter may select this as one of his or her bonus feats.

Improved Swift Strike
As your might or dexterity has grown, so has the speed of your blows. You can rain many blows on your chosen foe in a short amount of time.
Prerequisites: Str 19 and/or Dex 19, Power Attack and/or Combat Expertise, Swift Strike, base attack bonus +16
Benefit: When making a melee attack as a standard action, you can opt to make three attacks with your main hand weapon rather than one, all at your highest base attack bonus. All attacks most be made on the same target. If you choose to do this, you suffer a -4 penalty to all attack rolls you make that round.
Special: A Fighter may select this as one of his or her bonus feats.

Precise Swift Strike
The precision of your Swift Strike has increased with practice.
Prerequisites: Str 16 and/or Dex 16, Power Attack and/or Combat Expertise, Swift Strike and/or Improved Swift Strike, base attack bonus +11
Benefit: When using Swift Strike or Improved Swift Strike, the penalty you take to attack rolls is reduce by 1.
Special: A Fighter may select this as one of his or her bonus feats.
This feat may only be taken once.

Whirling Combo
You wield your melee weapon with such ferocity that each blow you land on a foe gives you the strength and will to strike another.
Prerequisites: Str 15, Power Attack, base attack bonus +10
Benefit: As a standard action you can make one melee attack with your main or off hand weapon at your highest base attack bonus. If the blow hits, you may immediately strike another enemy, using the same weapon and your highest base attack bonus.
Special: A Fighter may select this as one of his or her bonus feats.


Greater Whirling Combo
You wield your melee weapon with such strength and ferocity that you can rain blow upon consecutive blow upon your enemies.
Prerequisites: Str 17, Power Attack, Whirling Combo, base attack bonus +15
Benefit: This feat functions as Whirling Combo, however, if your second attack hits, you may make a third attack in the same manner, and if that hits, a fourth, and so on. You may only attack an individual foe in this manner once per round. If you miss an attack, the combo ceases.
Special: A Fighter may select this as one of his or her bonus feats.

A little deviation of those two which I have in mind takes into account Pathfinder's changes to Cleave/Great Cleave (you can use a full round action to make a melee attack against a foe, if you hit, you can attack another/Great Cleave allows you to hit as many targets as you can reach, but you can't hit one more than once). The new feats would work the same, though both would require Cleave and Great Cleave.

***

So, what do you think? Any ideas for changes? Could it do more? Does it do too much?

Thanks in advance for any input. :smallbiggrin:

[Kylarra]

Fluffwise, swift strike doesn't functionally make sense with a STR based requirement. The fluff all reference speed and precision, which tends to be related to DEX.

Mechanically I realize that STR is the attribute associated with melee attacks, but speed and quickness is DEX.

[Faulty]

I guess I'll change the fluff tomorrow then. I want to make the feat availible to both strength heavy and dexterity heavy melee fighters. Any ideas on how to change the fluff?

[Zaknir]

Well for an heavy STR character, you may say something

"Your attack is SO powerfull that the enemy is shocked right the time to allow you to make a second attack right after the first!"

[Faulty]

I fiddled with the fluff for the Swift strikes, specified that they can only be used on a single target and made Precise Swift Strike easier to get by reducing the ability score requirement by one.

So, no complaints about it mechanically? Just the fluff?

[Godskook]

Fluffwise, swift strike doesn't functionally make sense with a STR based requirement. The fluff all reference speed and precision, which tends to be related to DEX.

Mechanically I realize that STR is the attribute associated with melee attacks, but speed and quickness is DEX.

Right, and the amount of strength required to make swift strikes makes the dex requirement a little confusing... However, since dex is kinda speed based, I suppose it isn't too bad.

[Knaight]

The issue here is that the attacks are still just extra damage. You might want to work in a way to add in other effects. Take a look at my Shift system in my signature for example, it makes tripping, sundering, etc. easier, as well as dealing extra damage. I haven't worked in stuff like stun yet, but it allows for that fairly easily.

[Faulty]

Right, and the amount of strength required to make swift strikes makes the dex requirement a little confusing... However, since dex is kinda speed based, I suppose it isn't too bad.

It's Dex and/or Str because I want the capability to be availible to both characters who have higher Dex and those who have higher Str. Basically, it leaves for a more flexibly taken feat. I might make Weapon Finesse rather than Combat Expertise the prereq...


The issue here is that the attacks are still just extra damage. You might want to work in a way to add in other effects. Take a look at my Shift system in my signature for example, it makes tripping, sundering, etc. easier, as well as dealing extra damage. I haven't worked in stuff like stun yet, but it allows for that fairly easily.

Well, yes and no. The purpose of the feat is to deal with one of the issues melee fighters face that places a gap between them and casters. One of the key abilities of melee fighters as they level is their increase in BAB and multiple attacks they gain. Casters gain new, more powerful spells. For a caster to be able to use this capability, all they (generally) need to do is use a standard action. Sometimes they can get multiple spells out, such as with quickened spells using metamagic/divine metamagic. These are mainly ranged. Melee classes, on the other hand, have to use a full round action to get off their high level ability (iterative attacks) and have to be adjacent or near adjacent to their enemy. This limits a melee fighters ability to do their full capability of damage and still be mobile like a caster can be. These feats are just a way of fixing that.

It's not extra damage, it's giving a fighter some of their damage back by allowing them to do more in a turn where they have to use a move action.

I really do like the Shifts idea. I might house rule that into a class feature for the Fighter, rather than a feat.

[Godskook]

It's Dex and/or Str because I want the capability to be availible to both characters who have higher Dex and those who have higher Str. Basically, it leaves for a more flexibly taken feat. I might make Weapon Finesse rather than Combat Expertise the prereq...

:facepalm:

You've successfully missed my point entirely.

I was replying to the "the fluff is only dex-based" comment made by Kylarra. My point was that the fluff works just fine for a str pre-req. As far as the feat is actually concerned, my comment meant nothing more. I think the alternative dex pre-req is fine too.

Although, I do think a str-based swift strike would look distinctly different from a dex-based one. A dex-based character would be more of a slave to his/her weapon's momentum, and thus the bonus attack would probably come from the direction opposite the initiating strike. With a str-based character, they lack the flexibility to 'reload' their strikes as quickly, but are also strong enough to overpower their weapon's momentum, allowing the second strike to flow through the same arc as the first strike.

Actually, that gives me an idea...

Backstroke
Through great strength, you can reverse your swing, catching your opponent in the opening he thought you opened to him.
Prerequisites: Swift Strike, Str 16?
Benefit: When making a Swift Strike, if the first strike fails to hit, you get a +4 circumstance bonus on the second strike. If you have Improved Swift Strike, this bonus may only be applied once per swift strike.
Special:A fighter may select this as a bonus feat.
Special:Must be wielding a reversible weapon to receive the bonus(A double-edged sword qualifies, while a katana does not).

[Faulty]

Sorry for the misunderstanding there! That Backstroke feat is excellent, though. I think 16 Str would work for that.

[Cieyrin]

My question is why not draw some of this inspiration from the Manyshot feat? I'm fairly sure there is a published version of a melee Manyshot, aptly named Manystrike, in Arcana Evolved. Now, I know that is a 3rd party book but I think it works well. It also naturally leads to extra attacks as a standard action at greater penalties (since you're effectively doing a full attack in a standard action, accuracy naturally suffers), making it redundant and silly to require extra feats there.

In any case, for your feats, my first issue is with the prereqs. My god, is that hard to read @_@. I have the impression that you want Strength tagged with Pow and Dex w/ Exp, so it should say so, coming out as Strength 15 and Power Attack OR Dexterity 15 and Combat Expertise. The same should apply to the rest, I would say. Plus, why bother mentioning having both Strength and Dexterity at a given score? You only need one to qualify, so making it an and/or statement makes no logical sense. Kudos to you if you have both but you don't NEED both to qualify.

Also, for feat prereqs, it's traditional to have stat requirements at odd ability scores, as otherwise you see no benefit for having an odd score. I.E. why have a strength of 17 when 16 hits as hard? Oh, that's right, b/c i can qualify for Precise Swift Swing that way. The same goes for Backstroke, which I think should be Strength 17.

After that, I think Precise Swift Strike should reduce penalties by 2, like Improved Rapid Shot before it did. -1 is insignificant for the feat, not really making it worth the slot, since you're still at a penalty. Reducing the penalty by 2 means you can do 2 strikes at NO penalty. That is a tempting carrot if I ever saw one, since you can do your Swift Strike all the time. Also, again drop the text for having Improved Swift Strike, since you don't need it to get this feat, as you need Swift Strike to get Improved Swift Strike, anyways, so mentioning is unnecessary.

Finally, the one hole in your logic is that for most melee fighters, if you need to move to your target to hit him, you're probably going to charge his pansy ass and drive him into the ground. We also already have our answer on how they do a full attack while they're at it, which is Pounce. Getting your fighter to have Pounce is an issue I'm not going to go into, since that's not really relevant.

Them's my 2 coppers. Take as you will.

[Godskook]

Sorry for the misunderstanding there! That Backstroke feat is excellent, though. I think 16 Str would work for that.

Glad you like it. Its based on a move I use in Dagorhir. I've killed dag players far more experienced than I using it too. One guy, who was incredibly more skillful than I was, was so surprised that I nailed him on the backstroke, he stopped in awe. Partly because he had actually jumped my first strike(something that is actually rather hard to do, but usually works by those skilled enough to do it), and was expecting me to die.

I had some more ideas, but I don't want to step on your toes, so would these also work?


Greater Swift Strike
Through rigorous training, your speed with your weapon has improved even farther.
Prerequisites: Improved Swift Strike, Dex 16, BAB +19
Benefit: When making a melee attack as a standard action, you can opt to make three attacks with your main hand weapon rather than one, all at your highest base attack bonus. All attacks most be made on the same target. If you choose to do this, you suffer a -5 penalty to all attack rolls you make that round.
Special: A fighter may take this as a bonus feat

Improved Back Stroke
As your might and skill has grown, so has your ability to catch you foes off-guard with your strikes.
Prerequisites: Back Stroke, Greater Swift Strike, Str 17, BAB +20
Benefit: When making a Greater Swift Strike, if the first strike fails to hit, you get a +4 circumstance bonus on the second strike. If the third strike fails, and is not a back stroke, you get a +4 circumstance bonus on the fourth strike. The penalty for any swift strike is reduced by 1, and the penalty for a Greater Swift Strike is reduced by 2(Note: This ability can not reduce the penalty below 0).
Special: A fighter may take this as a bonus feat
Special: Must be wielding a reversible weapon to receive the bonus(A double-edged sword qualifies, while a katana does not).
May only be taken once.
Stacks with Precise Swift Strike.


I'll admit, I'm shooting from the hip on these, especially since I'm not a D&D player(avid gamer, just never had the chance).

Also, if they don't fit your direction for the feat tree, I don't really want to muscle in or anything. If you like them enough to include them, feel free to insert them into the first post, just give props.