Light Weapon Fighter feats

[Zom B]

Created a few feats in my attempt at making "duelist-style" fighting (light weapon in the main hand, nothing or a parrying dagger in the off hand) more viable, and wanted to run them by you.

Parry [General]
With quick, precise motions, your weapon swats away the strikes of your attacker.
Prerequisite: Base attack bonus +6
Benefit: You may forgo any of your attacks with a light weapon in a round and declare one attacker. Until your next action, whenever that attacker attempts to hit you with a melee weapon, you make an attack roll at the attack bonus for the attack you skipped, and use the result in place of your Armor Class. You may only parry one attack per attack you skipped.
Special: A fighter may select this feat as one of their bonus feats.

Swift Blade [General]
Your movements blur as your strike and slash with an alacrity that rivals florentine-style fighters.
Prerequisite: Two-Weapon Fighting, base attack bonus +1
Benefit: If you are wielding a light melee weapon in your main hand, you may fight as if you are wielding it as both your main and off-hand weapon. You apply full strength damage as normal to any "off-hand" attacks you make with the weapon. If you are wielding a weapon in your off-hand, you can choose to forgo any of these attacks with your light weapon in order to use it instead.
Special: A fighter may select this feat as one of their bonus feats.

Thousand Cuts [General]
Wounds from your blades aggregate to become more severe.
Prerequisite: Weapon Focus with any light weapon
Benefit: Your attacks with light weapons add up over the course of a round in order to overcome damage reduction. For instance, if you deal 4 damage to a creature with damage reduction 5/-, and your next attack that round also deals 4 damage, the creature suffers 3 damage.
Special: A fighter may select this feat as one of their bonus feats.

[gkathellar]

Hey, guy, these are nice things that fighters can get! Good job!

I especially like Swift Blade - finally, single weapon melee that isn't completely terrible.

[Mulletmanalive]

Parry...well, I've seen this mechanic used before and i've used it in game. It slows play and rarely actually works when you're up against something that you need it to deal with. I don't recommend using it; I'm not going to tell you how to work your own designs but I have several other options that we've found more satisfactory in the past.

I'm not entirely clear how Swift Blade is supposed to work: you basically use your primary hand weapon to make all your attacks with Two Weapon Fighting? Is that it? The way it's written sounds more like you're wielding the thing as a two-handed weapon... Does it work with Rapiers, Whips and anything else that Finesse works with?

I think I'd be more inclined to go with a Power Attack analogue that depletes DR for Thousand Cuts because it's simpler but your version is solid enough. Slightly fiddly but it works.

[Fizban]

No time for anything more than: Swift Blade looks awesome, even though it's another feat tax. In some ways better than the last thing I homebrewed. Will link later.

Edit: huh, I figured someone else would have posted by now so I could bump when I got home, but I guess not.

Parry: I too, have read many different versions of this feat. I think the one I liked best required Dodge (le gasp!), and worked for free once per round against your dodge target at full BAB for the opposed roll. The variability of this version is useful, but requiring them to give up an attack on top of having to take the feat makes it seems very expensive. If you only use your lowest attack rolls, then it's unlikely to work very often and the feat ends up feeling wasted.

Swift Blade: this is similar to the One-Weapon Fighting (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=156935) feats I was working on a while back. I really like the simplicity of your version, but it again feels a little too expensive. Comparing to the "traditional" power attack fighter, you have to take all the same feats as a TWFer, and another one on top of that to use one hand. Spending a feat on an extra attack is good, but spending two feats for the same thing is not, since that feat tax never goes away. In order to keep the simplicity of linking it to the TWFing line and still give a benefit for the feat, I would suggest removing the TWF penalties when using Swift Blade. This should amount to removing a -2 penalty from your attacks, or a comparative +2 bonus against TWF. Also: I don't know if you wanted it to apply to rapiers, but if so then you'll need a weapon finesse clause.

Thousand Cuts: another good idea, but like the others it feels more like a feat to just let you do something rather than gain an awesome ability. If your individual attacks aren't doing enough damage to penetrate DR, then you've probably got bigger problems then just stacking them in order to do so. I'd either let then just ignore DR with the chosen focus weapon, or do something like ignore several points per attack. Neither of these match the name at all, but they're more useful.

[chando]

How about this for Thousand Cuts: Each time you hit a foe, you gain a cummulative +5 bonus to damage rolls against that foe until the beigining of your next turn.

So you hit once, weather you deal damage or not you gain no bonus, you gain +5 dmg on next attack that conects, and +10 on the third and so on. But only in the ones that conect. attacking 7 times and only hiting twice would still be one attack with no bonus and other with a +5 bonus.
even if you fifith attack only hits on a 20, having a +20 on damage makes the times it does hit a real pain, and makes Thousand Cuts an actually a damage dealer.
plus, its good with the name.

I agree with Fizban on the Parry and Swift Blade stuff. If swift balde allowed for rapier and to take no TWF penaly, then it would be good, even if you still need to get 3+ feats for TWF on top of that.
An alternative would be not requiring TWF at all, just fighting with a one-handed weapon and nothing on the other ang gain the extra attacks, flurry like.

Swift Blade
Benefit: Whenever you make an melee attack during your turn, you can make one additional attack, but this attack and all other attacks this round take a -2 penalty.
(works like snap kick from ToB, so it wold work on standard actions/maneuvers/charges as well and you would need to use a light or finessable weapon)

an Improved Swift Blade feat would had a BBA+6 requeriment and would reduce the penalty to 0, and could scale to gain another attack if your BBA is +11 or more.

EDIT:
Alright, not to step on anybody toes, but i just had to organize my ideas about this feats. Then I tought i'd share.

Swift Blade
Your movements blur as your strike and slash with an alacrity that rivals florentine-style fighters.
Benefit: You can only use this feat benefit while wielding a one-handed or light weapon on one hand and nothing on the other.
During your turn, when you make a melee attack with a weapon (including a standard attack, full attack, or even a strike maneuver, but not an attack of opportunity), you can make an additional attack with that weapon. If you do so, you take a -2 penalty on all attack rolls you make this round.

Improved Swift Blade
Fluff
Prerequisite: Swift Blade, BBA+6
Benefit: You can only use this feat benefit while wielding a one-handed or light weapon on one hand and nothing on the other. You don't take a penalty to attack rolls when using the Swift Blade feat benefit.
Additionally, whenever you make an attack of opportunity, you can make one additional attack against the opponent who provoked it, but both the attack of opportunity and the extra attack take a -2 penalty the attack roll.

Greater Swift Blade
Fluff
Prerequisite: Swift Blade, Improved Swift Blade, BBA+11
Benefit: You can only use this feat benefit while wielding a one-handed or light weapon on one hand and nothing on the other. You gain one additional attack when using the Swift Balde feat benefit.
Additionally, when using the Improved Swift Blade feat to gain an extra attack against a foe who provokes an attack of opportunity, you take no penaly.

Thousand Cuts
Wounds from your blades aggregate to become more severe.
Prerequisite: Two Weapon Fighthing or Swift Blade
Benefit: You can only use this feat benefit while wielding a one-handed or light weapon on one hand and nothing on the other or when using the two weapon fighthing feat.
Whenever you hit a foe and deal damage, you deal additional 5 points of damage for each time you have already hit that foe previously since the start of your turn.

OR

Whenever you succesfully hit a foe, you gain a +5 bonus on damage rolls you make against the same foe before the begining of your next turn. This bonus is is cumulative and it stacks for each time you have previously hit a foe during the same round.


... Sooooooooo, what do you guys think?

[flabort]

Directed @ the OP, not the suggested revisions
When I first read swift blade, I thought "Hey, twice as many attacks, with one weapon? count me in!".
Then I read the comments, and saw them saying it's a feat tax, so I looked up TWF in the srd.
You only gain 1 attack from TWF, and the TWF feat only lessens the penalty.
Swift blade is useful, in that you get to apply all your strength to the extra attack, and you only need one weapon... and since you have TWF, you can use it for prerequisites, BUT:
all it really does is gives you +half strength mod on a single attack, for two feats.
I assume it works with Improved TWF, and greater TWF, and other feats requiring TWF, making it less worthless, and it's less worthless for a 2nd, 6th, or 11th level ranger, but it's still pretty useless.
It's not a feat I'd take. I might convince the first-timer beside me to take it, but that feat itself is not very nice.

[Cieyrin]

chando's new versions seem like a good start, though I'd possibly make it count as Two-Weapon Fighting for purposes of meeting prereqs in feats and PrCs, which open up more possibilities for our blossoming single weapon fighter. :smallwink:

[chando]

I'm not sure on making it count as TWF for the prerequisites, as it will probably open up a lot of strange interations (such as Expeditious Dodge counting for Dodge and letting you take Evasive Reflexes(that one from complete warrior).
With twf it could become ungly since it has feats that require you to hit with both your weapons (two weapon rend) and stuff like that... probably not the biggest headache to house-rule these interations out, but it feels unecessary, unless there are some spesific classes that require TWF but have no direct benefit that aplies especifically when using two weapons.


Anyone else has a comment on these feats? I thinking of allowing them on my home game... They are a bit better then TWF for maneuver users since they allow one(later two) extra attacks even when using maneuvers (ala Snap Kick), but since TWF has a feat that lets them attack twice on AoO and attack as a swift action with a off-hand weapon when using a strike with its main hand, and they get more attacks in general (and with no BBA penalties on my game).
So, any more comments? Also, wicth version of Thousand Cuts is better worded?
-----------------
Swift Blade
Your movements blur as your strike and slash with an alacrity that rivals florentine-style fighters.
Benefit: You can only use this feat benefit while wielding a one-handed or light weapon on one hand and nothing on the other.
During your turn, when you make a melee attack with a weapon (including a standard attack, full attack, or even a strike maneuver, but not an attack of opportunity), you can make an additional attack with that weapon. If you do so, you take a -2 penalty on all attack rolls you make this round.

Improved Swift Blade
Fluff
Prerequisite: Swift Blade, BBA+6
Benefit: You can only use this feat benefit while wielding a one-handed or light weapon on one hand and nothing on the other. You don't take a penalty to attack rolls when using the Swift Blade feat benefit.
Additionally, whenever you make an attack of opportunity, you can make one additional attack against the opponent who provoked it, but both the attack of opportunity and the extra attack take a -2 penalty the attack roll.

Greater Swift Blade
Fluff
Prerequisite: Swift Blade, Improved Swift Blade, BBA+11
Benefit: You can only use this feat benefit while wielding a one-handed or light weapon on one hand and nothing on the other. You gain one additional attack when using the Swift Balde feat benefit.
Additionally, when using the Improved Swift Blade feat to gain an extra attack against a foe who provokes an attack of opportunity, you take no penaly.

Thousand Cuts
Wounds from your blades aggregate to become more severe.
Prerequisite: Two Weapon Fighthing or Swift Blade
Benefit: You can only use this feat benefit while wielding a one-handed or light weapon on one hand and nothing on the other or when using the two weapon fighthing feat.
Whenever you hit a foe and deal damage, you deal additional 5 points of damage for each time you have already hit that foe previously since the start of your turn.

OR

Whenever you succesfully hit a foe, you gain a +5 bonus on damage rolls you make against the same foe before the begining of your next turn. This bonus is is cumulative and it stacks for each time you have previously hit a foe during the same round.

[Cieyrin]

2 things jump out at me: 1) There should still probably be a Dex requirement, as you need a certain amount of coordination to make extra attacks and keep them reasonably accurate so it's just not a flurry of misses. Florentine Duelists are agile to do what they do, so should you. 2) Thousand Cuts is a mini-Storm Warrior, now that I look at it. Take that as you will in terms of power, considering it's one part of a tactical feat, so perhaps powering it up would be good.