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View Full Version : Some Feat Addendums and Rewrites - [3.5, PEACH]



Pechvarry
2010-05-10, 08:50 PM
I have a few design philosophies at work here. The first is to bring up the lower levels of optimization. Which is to say, the weaker abilities are getting some juice to become more appealing. The other is to implement some nice stuff for roles that are typically heavily feat-taxed just to stay decent at their job (two weapon fighters and tanks being my foci today).

Endurance
Benefits: As normal, plus: You may ignore the speed penalty from wearing armor on a number of move actions equal to (Con Mod) per encounter.

NotesTrying to power up armored characters in a realistic manner. I've seen CON and VIT as balancing methods in assorted tabletop systems before, and I think it makes sense. As stated, a double-move costs 2 of your per-encounter uses. So what about charge actions and run actions? Should I even bother allowing it to work with those full round tricks? If I don't, then for heavy armor fighters, the Run action is strictly inferior to 2 con-boosted move actions (while supplies last, of course). Is this fine and acceptable? Would people use Endurance more if this were part of it? As a side note: this should makes Steadfast Determination (PH2) a much easier decision.

Toughness
Benefits: HD+3 additional HP. Basically, normal Toughness + Improved Toughness (CW).


Improved Shield Bash
Benefits: When you perform a shield bash, you may choose to either still apply the shield’s shield bonus to your AC or, if the attack is successful, you may choose to give up your shield bonus to AC to impose a penalty on your struck foe equal to your shield bonus. The change to AC and penalty to opponent's attacks lasts until the start of your next turn.

NotesAs you can probably tell, the idea is to make even a non-optimized, Core-only heavy melee a decent tank. Shield bashing for extra damage is asinine; giving it a property to trade in your defense against all targets to make a single target less deadly to the whole party is... well, it's a start. And with only the most basic of feat expenditures.

Two Weapon Fighting
Prerequisites: Dex 13 <---see what I did, there? hah!
Benefits: If you wield a second weapon in your off hand, you can get one extra attack per round with that weapon, even when making a standard attack action. When fighting in this way you suffer a -6 penalty with your regular attack or attacks with your primary hand and a -10 penalty to the attack with your off hand. If your off-hand weapon is light the penalties are reduced by 2 each. (An unarmed strike is always considered light.)

Improved Two Weapon Fighting
Prerequisites: as normal
Benefits: Whenever you are entitled to an iterative attack from BAB, you may make another attack at the same BAB with your off-hand weapon.

NotesThis is just improved and greater TWF rolled into one feat. It also allows a 4th attack for BAB 16+ folk. It could probably use some stronger wording for countering ruleslawyer abuse.

Two Weapon Offense
Your familiarity with fighting with two weapons affords you a number of offensive advantages.
Prerequisites: Two Weapon Fighting, BAB +2, Dex 15
Benefits:
You may add full strength to your offhand weapon's damage. You may also attack with both weapons at the end of a charge, accepting normal two-weapon fighting penalties.

NotesI've reduced this down to just the offensive (and mostly brute strength) functions. This isn't a necessary feat, but it creates room for a more STR-oriented two-weapon fighter. I still have it laid out in my mind that a charge-focused character could choose to grab only 2 feats - TWF and TW Offense for a 1-2-pow charge build. Meanwhile, a dex-y, Shadow Blade type character that cares about neither charging or STR-to-damage could avoid this feat and simply grab TWF and Improved TWF.

Probably needs more.

I've had some ideas for the Run feat, but nothing's stuck yet. Anyway, feel free to critique. I'd like to get these polished and as simple as possible.

Apalala
2010-05-10, 09:50 PM
Endurance seems of limited use, but others might have had issues with their fighter weezing along the battlefield.

Toughness is nice, and almost identical to the PF version, seen here:

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/toughness---final

I'm assuming that the shield bash feat imposes a penalty to their attack that lasts until the start of your next turn? That can get pretty powerful with enhancement bonuses placed on the shield, especially if it can stack with itself.

Two weapon fighting is worded a bit oddly. How about

"Benefit: Your penalties on attack rolls for fighting with two weapons are reduced. The penalty for your primary hand lessens by 2 and the one for your off hand lessens by 6. See Two-Weapon Fighting. As a standard action, you may make an attack with both weapons at your full attack bonus, albeit with a -4 penalty on both attacks. This penalty is reduced by 1 for every 5 total BAB you have."

ITWF looks okay.

Two Weapon Tactics is really loaded. Probably best to narrow its focus a bit. First off, combining this with Spirited Charge can get into some serious hijinks. Second, never really thought of two weapon fighters as being charge focused. For a charging character, maybe something like

"Benefit: When you charge with two weapons, you may forgo the +2 attack bonus to deal both weapon's damage and 1.5 times your strength modifier damage on a successful attack. You still take the -2 penalty to AC. In addition, attacks with your offhand deal your add your entire strength modifier."

And the AC bonus needs to be toned down a bit. As it is, a character wielding a single weapon gets +2 AC off the bat, with another +2 at BAB 6, 11, and 16. +8 untyped AC that's always "on" for a single feat is ridiculous.

Instead

Two Weapon Defense

Benefit: When you make a full attack action, you may forgo any number of attacks with your offhand weapon. For each attack you forgo, you gain a +2 bonus to AC until the end of your next turn. You still take the normal penalties for two weapon fighting with your main hand.

Pechvarry
2010-05-11, 02:09 AM
Thanks for the input.

Endurance is just icing, and something to help armored melee fight an uphill battle (quite literally, if it's costing you additional movement). Toughness, I guess I had the same thought process as the PF folk: Improved Toughness is what it should be, but that doesn't help low level characters out. But my way's easy to figure: you get exactly as much extra HP as you have max ranks in a skill your level.

Improved Shield Bash - rewritten to include the full SRD text with my changes. Thanks for pointing out the duration bit. I know the ability is potent, but I can't think of how to actually break it. Please tell me if you do. Also note that as an untyped penalty, it does not stack with penalties from the same source.

A -7 or so penalty to attacks is about the best I can come up with. Probably more with the Knight class. But let's face it, Knights and other dedicated tanks could use it. Moreover, as far as I can tell, it doesn't actually make all-out shielding defender builds better. For instance, every round you choose to use this function, you're losing the benefit of the very juicy Shield Ward feat. Presumably, such a character will use other means of keeping monsters on them or at least far away from party squishies. Ostensibly, having a shield at the ready but not having a shield bonus would make Shield Block from Tome of Battle a lot less potent -- giving an ally an AC of 4 instead of a potential 11+. Though I admit, it does work very well with Shield Counter and the makes the Agile Shield Fighter feat more appealing.

Unlazified Two Weapon Fighting and copy/pasted in the full SRD text, making my changes in bold. In my old version, I wanted to say "you can make 2 attacks during a standard action, using standard two weapon fighting rules". But in the very feat that alters those standard rules, it kept looking like I was saying "you don't get the reduction in penalties during a standard action." Icky. Hopefully, it's more clear now.

Two Weapon Tactics: Simplified to Two Weapon Offense with all mention of AC benefits removed. The reason no one thinks of 2-weapon charge builds is because the rules are unkind to such character concepts. Half of this feat is to remove that. The other half is to make STR-focused TWFers more appealing (it's a start, anyway).

Dual wielding lances is still a huge problem and I don't know how to fix it w/out specific exceptions. The best I can think of is to house rule changes around it, but that's hardly satisfying. But as far as other 2-weapon chargers are concerned: you can get Pounce with a despicable level 1 ACF. I think a level 3 feat with a decent DEX req to give something inferior is fine and dandy.

Finally, I'm considering rolling Two-Weapon Rend into Two Weapon Offense. Too much?

I'll worry about Two Weapon Defense another time.

Thanks again for the input!

Apalala
2010-05-11, 02:16 AM
Well, assuming it stacks with itself, you could--I think--dual wield some +5 shields and go to town on a guy. Maybe not though.