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View Full Version : Feats that can count as other feats



DaTedinator
2010-07-22, 11:05 AM
So, I was thinking about feats like Shadow Blade recently, and how that's actually a really fun idea, that allows for a lot more variation in what would otherwise be similar builds! So I made these.

{table="head"] General Feats | Prerequisites | Benefit
Battlefield Agility | Dex 13, Dodge, Mobility, Tumble 8 ranks | Take a standard action the middle of a move action
Battle Casting | -- | Cast spells while holding the charge of other spells
Careful Retreat | Dex 13, Dodge | Take the withdraw action as a move action
Channel Ki | Wis 13, Concentration 10 ranks | Make a concentration check instead of a saving throw
Combat Flair | Cha 13 | Add your Charisma bonus to combat maneuvers
Combat Instincts | Wis 13 | Take a penalty on Will saves to gain a bonus to AC
Crack Shot | Dex 13, BAB +1 | Ignore soft cover
Expert Throw | Dex 13 | Add your dexterity modifier to damage with ranged weapons
Martial Artist | Combat Expertise | Your unarmed strikes are considered one-handed or two-handed weapons
Mounted Defense | Ride 1 rank | Take hits for your mount
Reckless Attack | Str 13 | Take a penalty to AC to gain a bonus to damage with two-handed weapons
[/table]

Battlefield Agility [Fighter]
You can act while on the move.
Prerequisites: Dex 13, Dodge, Mobility, Tumble 8 ranks
Benefit: When walking on the ground, you can take a move action, and take a standard action at any point during the move.
Special: Battlefield Agility can be used in place of the Spring Attack feat to qualify for a feat, prestige class, or other special ability.

Battle Casting
You can charge your hand with magical energy that’s as dangerous as any weapon.
Benefit: When holding the charge of a touch attack spell, you can attempt a concentration check (DC 15 + held spell level, or increase the Casting Defensively DC by the level of the held spell) to cast another spell and not lose the held spell. If you fail the concentration check, you lose the held charge. Even if successful, you may not use both spells with a single touch, and you may not hold the charge of more than one spell.
Special: Battle Casting can be used in place of the Combat Casting feat to qualify for a feat, prestige class, or other special ability.

Careful Retreat [Fighter]
You can cross the battlefield without letting your guard down.
Prerequisites: Dex 13, Dodge
Benefit: You can take the withdraw (”http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#withdraw”) action as a move action; in this case, you move up to your speed (rather than up to double your speed). If you take the withdraw action as a full-round action, you gain a +4 dodge bonus to AC against attacks of opportunity provoked by moving out of a threatened area during that movement.
Special: Careful Retreat can be used in place of the Mobility feat to qualify for a feat, prestige class, or other special ability.

Channel Ki [Fighter]
You can withstand attacks by harnessing your inner ki flow.
Prerequisites: Wis 13, Concentration 10 ranks
Benefit: Whenever you need to make a saving throw, you can instead make a Concentration check. Unlike a normal skill check, but like a normal saving throw, a natural 1 is an automatic failure, while a natural 20 is an automatic success. You may channel your ki once per day for every four levels you have attained, but no more than once per round.
Special: A monk may select Channel Ki as a bonus feat at 1st level, even if she does not meet the prerequisites. A monk who selects this feat may channel her ki a number of times per day equal to her monk level, plus one more time per day for every four levels she has in classes other than monk.
Channel Ki can be used in place of the Stunning Fist feat to qualify for a feat, prestige class, or other special ability. You may spend Channel Ki uses the same way you can spend Stunning Fist uses, and any feat that grants you additional Stunning Fist uses instead grants you additional Channel Ki uses.

Combat Flair [Fighter]
You love showing off in combat.
Prerequisite: Cha 13
Benefit: You may add your Charisma bonus to any attack or ability roll related to combat maneuvers (disarm, trip, and the like). Note that while this would apply to the touch attack required to start a grapple, it wouldn’t apply to subsequent grapple checks.
Special: Combat Flair can be used in place of the Combat Expertise feat to qualify for a feat, prestige class, or other special ability. In such cases, replace any “Int 13” prerequisite with “Cha 13.”

Combat Instincts [Fighter]
You’re capable of giving into your instincts in combat, granting yourself better defense at the cost of self-control.
Prerequisite: Wis 13
Benefit: You may take a penalty of up to -5 to your Will saves and add the same number (+5 or less) your AC as a dodge bonus. This number may not exceed your base attack bonus or your base Will save.
Special: Combat Instincts can be used in place of the Combat Expertise feat to qualify for a feat, prestige class, or other special ability. In such cases, replace any “Int 13” prerequisite with “Wis 13.”

Crack Shot [Fighter]
You can shoot through a melee and still hit your target
Prerequisites: Dex 13, BAB +1.
Benefit: You may ignore soft cover (”http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatModifiers.htm#cover”) granted by your allies when using ranged attacks. If your BAB is at least +6, you may ignore all soft cover when making ranged attacks.
Special: Crack Shot can be used in place of the Point Blank Shot feat to qualify for a feat, prestige class, or other special ability.

Expert Throw [Fighter]
You can throw weapons with surgical precision.
Prerequisite: Dex 13
Benefit: You may add your Dexterity modifier to damage with thrown weapons instead of your Strength modifier.
Special: Expert Throw can be used in place of the Point Blank Shot feat to qualify for a feat, prestige class, or other special ability.

Martial Artist [Fighter]
You’re good with your hands.
Prerequisite: Combat Expertise
Benefit: You are considered to be armed even when unarmed —that is, you do not provoke attacks or opportunity from armed opponents when you attack them while unarmed. However, you still get an attack of opportunity against any opponent who makes an unarmed attack on you.
In addition, if you have at least one hand free, your unarmed strike is counted as a one-handed weapon in situations where it would be advantageous to you. If you have at least two hands free, your unarmed strike is counted as a two-handed weapon in situations where it would be advantageous to you. If you’re two-weapon fighting with unarmed strikes, you are not considered to have two hands free.
Special: Martial Artist can be used in place of the Improved Unarmed Strike feat to qualify for a feat, prestige class, or other special ability.

Mounted Defense [Fighter]
You can deflect and absorb attacks that would otherwise damage your mount.
Prerequisite: Ride 1 rank
Benefit: Whenever your mount is hit by an attack, you may attempt a Ride check to negate the hit. The hit is negated if your Ride check result is greater than the opponent’s attack roll. If your Ride check result equals or is less than the attack roll, you are hit instead of your mount.
Special: Mounted Defense can be used in place of the Mounted Combat feat to qualify for a feat, prestige class, or other special ability.

Reckless Attack [Fighter]
You can sacrifice defense to put more power behind your blows.
Prerequisite: Str 13
Benefit: On your action, before making attack rolls for a round, you may choose to subtract a number from your AC and add the same number to all melee damage rolls made with two-handed weapons, or one-handed weapons wielded in two hands. This number may not exceed your base attack bonus. The penalty to AC and bonus on damage apply until your next turn.
Special: This feat may not be used in conjunction with the Power Attack feat.
Reckless Attack can be used in place of the Power Attack feat to qualify for a feat, prestige class, or other special ability. Abilities that modify Power Attack (such as the Leap Attack feat, or a Frenzied Berserker’s Supreme Power Attack) modify Reckless Attack in a similar manner.

---

Thoughts? Comments? Ideas for more?

Peregrine
2010-07-22, 12:34 PM
I like these a lot. :smallsmile: And by and large they all seem quite nicely balanced against existing feats; they give more options than some feats that may be considered weak, but without being so compelling that nobody would ever take the original feat any more.

Except maybe Battlefield Agility, which overcomes Spring Attack's main flaw: it's strictly less useful than equivalents like Fly-by Attack. Since it's such an improvement, the Tumble 8 ranks prerequisite is a good idea but might be a bit low. (On the other hand, Spring Attack avoids AoOs...)

Battle Casting looks interesting, but can't you already make AoOs with a held touch spell?

Love Channel Ki. :smallcool:

Combat Flair seems like possibly the most powerful of these feats, since it's an extra bonus rather than replacing one ability score with another. But it can afford to be, since it gives Charisma a good use and only applies to certain underused combat manoeuvres.

I don't really "get" the flavour of Combat Instincts, but it's definitely a clever idea.

Crack Shot is a really good idea. It's obsoleted by Improved Precise Shot, for those who qualify at higher levels; but I guess anyone who takes that feat could retrain or otherwise negotiate replacing Crack Shot with Point Blank Shot.

I'm a bit dubious about the Mounted Defense feat... let's see, it's "whenever" rather than "once per round", but only usable against "an attack roll that wouldn’t have hit you", and you rather than your mount take the hit if you fail. That last part would make a good feat by itself, I think; the "whenever" part throws my sense of balance into a spin (how does this affect it? is it better? but it means you might take a lot more attacks!), while the "wouldn’t have hit you" part just seems to add complexity.

Reckless Attack has the wrong descriptive text.

Nam Animus
2010-07-22, 03:15 PM
Battlefield Agility would be nicer as a simple game mechanic than a feat...

but most of these guys are really nice, and make excellent alternatives to their compatriots. And I swear I've seen Expert Throw somewhere before...

- Animus

DracoDei
2010-07-22, 03:24 PM
So the only disadvantage that Martial Artist has compared to Improved Unarmed Strike is that you would have to take -4 to hit to deal lethal damage? Sounds like it is much better for anyone except maybe a monk, since you can TWF with it. Especially good for Tiger-claw builds with a dip of Shadow Hand for the stance that gives you 2d6 sneak attack.

Vaynor
2010-07-22, 03:26 PM
I like these a lot, 3.5 has had this problem for a while, the early material simply doesn't match up with the later material, but all of the later material still requires the early stuff. Options like these will really help out a lot of feat-dependent characters by not requiring them to take useless feats.

Fizban
2010-07-23, 01:10 AM
Well, if nothing else you've certainly got the spirit of the things, since each of these is either strictly better or completely different than the feat they can replace.

Battlefield Agility: still has crap prerequisistes, allows any action but can't be used in the air. I wouldn't be surprised if some people thought this was less useful since you should be flying all the time at high levels. I think it's fine.

Battle Casting: It doesn't matter what action you use to take the touch attack to discharge a spell, so the first line is redundant. The second part I think has a skill trick already, but I hate how those are 1/encounter only, so a feat version is welcome.

Careful Retreat: depends on how Mobility is really meant to be used. Since tumble can already negate AoOs from movement for a small price, I don't think this is unreasonable at all. While it looks like Mobility++, it doesn't help when you're on the advance, which of course is usually better than the retreat.

Channel Ki: interesting. Useful, not unbalanced, but qualifies you for a bunch of Stunning Fist upgrade feats that you can't actually use. This showcases one of the problems with the replacer feats.

Combat Flair: makes no sense replacing Combat Expertise. While I like feats that do "charisma to X BECASUE I SAID SO!", Expertise shifts attack into AC. It's more useful as a prerequisite for Improved Disarm/etc, but that's because Expertise doesn't make sense as a prerequisite for those feats. So I guess I'm saying that if you want to give those feats a proper prerequisite, it shouldn't be able to replace Expertise for everything. Also: why the heck not on grapple checks? It's not like it's going to overbalance anything, and if it works on Trip and Bull Rush then it should work on Grapple.

Combat Instincts: now this is a replacer feat. Same mechanic, different targets. It's a pretty good tradeoff too: you can have it on max all the time without reducing your ability to kill things, but the second a caster or boogey man appears you'd be screwed, so you have to be careful. It reminds me of the Complete Champion alternate fighter feature, which I think did just about the same thing.

Crack Shot: clearly better than Point Blank Shot in every way (because Point Blank Shot blows), but mostly awesome because it means archers don't have an extra feat tax just to use their basic stuff. Helps out with what could be a big problem at level 1 as well.

Expert Throw: same as Crack Shot. I like it because it's actually useful, and also because it's some actual bonus for dex based throwers (when all the throwing feats are geared for strength). Of course, we still don't have dex to damage for projectile weapons, except for Crossbow Sinper (seriously 1/2 dex bonus? Nothing else does that, ever).

Martial Artist: I like it, although as DracoDei pointed out, there's almost no downside. Except that you can't hurt undead or constructs without the -4 I guess.

Mounted Defense: I don't think it needs the "that wouldn't have hit you" line. You're still taking an attack that wouldn't have hit you, which is one of the whole reasons you want extra bodies in a fight, so that should be penalty enough. Otherwise, a great alternative.

Reckless Attack: I'm hesitant to allow this on general principle, but when the op-fu assumes you'll be ubercharging anyway, it's hard to argue with this when it doesn't get multipliers. I'd actually feel bad if you couldn't increase it at all, so I'd hope it works with leap attack. It's a lot easier to draw up comparisons though, that much is very nice. I'd feel a lot better in combat saying "okay, I'll just Reckless Attack away my shield and pretend I'm two handing it", rather than trying to run all the different ubercharger numbers through my head. And of course you can always use Expertise to turn it into normal Power Attack again.

Twin Weapon Fighting: on the one hand, rolling all the TWF feats into one is a very common houserule (and this actually included Oversized and Dual Strike as well). On the other hand, doing so alongside the normal feats seems unfair. I've always thought the "you get all these feats, but only with this specific weapon" feats were just cheating, because they were obviously made just because someone wanted to use those weapons and didn't want to pay for all the feats. I also don't want to double all attacks with a single feat: I'd really make it two feats, dunno where to put the break.

DaTedinator
2010-07-23, 01:51 AM
Peregrine: I'm glad you like them! I looked all over for a rule stating you could make AoOs with touch spells, but couldn't find it; looking again, though, with Fizban's comments in mind, I noticed that "If you touch anything or anyone while holding a charge, even unintentionally, the spell discharges." So, I cut that part of the feat out.

As for Mounted Defense, I feel like it's not at all unreasonable to let a player attempt to defend their mount. I always thought it was a little limiting that Mounted Combat only worked once per round, as that pretty much meant that past a certain point you pretty much couldn't have a mount that wasn't an animal companion or somesuch. Of course, with area spells, I guess you still can't, but oh well. That's my reasoning.

DracoDei:I worried that it was a little much... what if I had them only count as one-handed weapons at best? But see, I feel like then it would be silly to take it, and people would only take Improved Unarmed Strike. I dunno. Maybe I should just make up something completely different. Or give this one stricter requirements? Make people be a higher level?

Vaynor: That's the idea! :smallbiggrin: I'm glad you like them.

Fizban:

Well, if nothing else you've certainly got the spirit of the things, since each of these is either strictly better or completely different than the feat they can replace.

That was the plan! Either make crappy feats unnecessary, or provide alternatives for feats that have a huge variety of things they open up, allowing for more variety in builds that require them.


Battle Casting: It doesn't matter what action you use to take the touch attack to discharge a spell, so the first line is redundant. The second part I think has a skill trick already, but I hate how those are 1/encounter only, so a feat version is welcome.

As noted above, I changed it, thanks for pointing that out. I am a fan of the idea of skill tricks, but I don't own Complete Scoundrel, so, I wouldn't know! Good to know it's not redundant if there is a skill trick, though.


Channel Ki: interesting. Useful, not unbalanced, but qualifies you for a bunch of Stunning Fist upgrade feats that you can't actually use. This showcases one of the problems with the replacer feats.

There aren't actually oodles of feats that only upgrade stunning fist, are there? Plenty that grant alternate uses for stunning fist attempts - which you could use channel ki attempts for - but what ones are there that actually improve stunning fist?

Regardless, in such a case, just don't take those feats! :smalltongue:


Combat Flair: makes no sense replacing Combat Expertise. While I like feats that do "charisma to X BECASUE I SAID SO!", Expertise shifts attack into AC. It's more useful as a prerequisite for Improved Disarm/etc, but that's because Expertise doesn't make sense as a prerequisite for those feats. So I guess I'm saying that if you want to give those feats a proper prerequisite, it shouldn't be able to replace Expertise for everything. Also: why the heck not on grapple checks? It's not like it's going to overbalance anything, and if it works on Trip and Bull Rush then it should work on Grapple.

I thought this one was fine specifically because Combat Expertise doesn't make oodles of sense as a prerequisite for all those feats. And really, I looked through a pretty exhaustive list of feats requiring Combat Expertise, and of them all, there's only two or three that don't completely fit a showboaty fighter.

As for why not grapple checks: Well, they're a whole 'nother mechanic; the example I listed was more to note that technically, as written, it doesn't affect grapple checks, rather than to list a specific exception. Plus, actually being in a grapple doesn't seem particularly showy to me.


Martial Artist: I like it, although as DracoDei pointed out, there's almost no downside. Except that you can't hurt undead or constructs without the -4 I guess.

Yeah... I'm thinking.


Mounted Defense: I don't think it needs the "that wouldn't have hit you" line. You're still taking an attack that wouldn't have hit you, which is one of the whole reasons you want extra bodies in a fight, so that should be penalty enough. Otherwise, a great alternative.

I guess you're right. It doesn't add much to the feat but complexity. I'll take that clause out.


Reckless Attack: I'm hesitant to allow this on general principle, but when the op-fu assumes you'll be ubercharging anyway, it's hard to argue with this when it doesn't get multipliers. I'd actually feel bad if you couldn't increase it at all, so I'd hope it works with leap attack. It's a lot easier to draw up comparisons though, that much is very nice. I'd feel a lot better in combat saying "okay, I'll just Reckless Attack away my shield and pretend I'm two handing it", rather than trying to run all the different ubercharger numbers through my head. And of course you can always use Expertise to turn it into normal Power Attack again.

It was Shock Trooper that really inspired this one. It's a little worse than power attack (read: it's not as easy to blow the damage through the roof), but it's still plenty useful.


Twin Weapon Fighting: on the one hand, rolling all the TWF feats into one is a very common houserule (and this actually included Oversized and Dual Strike as well). On the other hand, doing so alongside the normal feats seems unfair. I've always thought the "you get all these feats, but only with this specific weapon" feats were just cheating, because they were obviously made just because someone wanted to use those weapons and didn't want to pay for all the feats. I also don't want to double all attacks with a single feat: I'd really make it two feats, dunno where to put the break.

This one, I'm not entirely certain what you're talking about. The only feat other than TWF that it really includes is Dual Strike. I considered a version like what you seem to think it does, but I don't think I posted it. If I did, it was edited away in about five minutes.

Prime32
2010-07-23, 06:07 AM
Very nice stuff here. The usefulness of Channel Ki is limited a little by monks' already high saves. Maybe a version of Stunning Fist which ignores immunity and applies to every target struck in the round (or even every attack in the round) but reduces damage? Or a feat which lets you throw energy blasts?


Battle Casting
You can charge your hand with magical energy that’s as dangerous as any weapon.
Benefit: When holding the charge of a touch attack spell, you can attempt a concentration check (DC 15 + held spell level, or increase the Casting Defensively DC by the level of the held spell) to cast another spell and not lose the held spell. If you fail the concentration check, you lose the held charge. Even if successful, you may not use both spells with a single touch, and you may not hold the charge of more than one spell.
Special: Battle Casting can be used in place of the Combat Casting feat to qualify for a feat, prestige class, or other special ability.
Ras tel ma scrir magister. Dextra emittam! Sinistra emittam!


EDIT: If I can make a submission... (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=8790)

Draz74
2010-07-23, 10:53 AM
These are a cool idea. I give my stamp of approval.