alternative to charging

[limejuicepowder]

What are some good feats for a melee character to take that don't involve charging? Literally every melee character I make ends up taking power attack/imp bullrush/shock trooper, and that's getting boring.

Before it's even suggested I don't like tripping; even with a good check the chance of loosing my weapon just doesn't appeal.

[Keegan__D]

Monk tripping?

[AmberVael]

There are a lot of different melee characters out there. Iaijutsu, sneak attackers, glaive and claw warlocks, horizon trippers, natural attack totemists, attack of opportunity exploiters, Tome of Battle meleers, skirmish based fighters, persist clerics, wild shaping druids, snowflake wardancing bards...

...a lot of these can be combined, too.

So really, asking "what's a good feat for a melee character" is far too broad a question. Care to narrow it down a bit?

[Ekul]

What are some good feats for a melee character to take that don't involve charging? Literally every melee character I make ends up taking power attack/imp bullrush/shock trooper, and that's getting boring.

Before it's even suggested I don't like tripping; even with a good check the chance of loosing my weapon just doesn't appeal.

Knockback's swell, if you're willing to have Level adjustment (unless of course, you can find some other way to get powerful build/large size). It turns an otherwise routine character into an enemy trebuchet. Once, my goliath got poisoned 16 str damage and I still launched this guy like, 20 feet.

Otherwise you could try your hand at getting tons of attacks through attacks of opportunity or lots of natural weapons. Many methods elude me, because they involve items or getting your mage to cast a spell on you.

[limejuicepowder]

hmm I guess I'll change my question to "What are some good non-class based feats for melee characters?"

I love the ToB classes, but what feats should my warblade be taking? Charging is great, but that can't be the only option. Tripping is out. AoE is interesting, but too feat intensive to splash.

I might be looking for something that doesn't exist - good feats for melee characters that don't necessarily rely on class abilities or entire builds to be useful.

[Aegis013]

Improved Grapple, Improved Trip.
Shock Trooper is just incredible though... it's really hard to find anything strong enough to justify not getting it on a damage-dealing melee character.

[AmberVael]

I might be looking for something that doesn't exist - good feats for melee characters that don't necessarily rely on class abilities or entire builds to be useful.
What is good, great, or awful will vary wildly depending on the rest of your build. Like, if you're a Swordsage, Adaptive Style is a must- but a Totemist can't even take it. An evil totemist can get a lot of mileage out of Shape Soulmeld (Incarnate Avatar), but basically no other class can really use it. An iaijutsu focused Factotum or a Cloistered Cleric might benefit greatly from Knowledge Devotion, but a Barbarian won't at all.

Heck, a number of my examples might not even benefit from power attack, and that's a really broadly applicable feat.

[hex0]

Monk tripping?

Factotum Tripping and/or Knight Tripping.

Edit: Grappling has a bit of support as well, like Scorpion's Grasp or Bear Fang.

[Con_Brio1993]

Improved Grapple, Improved Trip.
Shock Trooper is just incredible though... it's really hard to find anything strong enough to justify not getting it on a damage-dealing melee character.

Yeah. I almost wonder what the heck they were thinking when they came up with that feat. Power Attack penalty to my AC instead of BAB? YES PLEASE!

And combined with Leap Attack and a two handed weapon... :drool

[limejuicepowder]

well the build I'm working on right now is binder 4, and the next few levels as fighter and/or warblade. Originally I was going to get power attack, bullrush, and shock trooper, smashing it up in melee and using binder abilities for support. But then I decided I was sick of taking the shock trooper line in every melee build, and started looking for other feats to take.

there has got to be other ways to do damage (or other useful things) in melee without charging.

[Aegis013]

well the build I'm working on right now is binder 4, and the next few levels as fighter and/or warblade. Originally I was going to get power attack, bullrush, and shock trooper, smashing it up in melee and using binder abilities for support. But then I decided I was sick of taking the shock trooper line in every melee build, and started looking for other feats to take.

there has got to be other ways to do damage (or other useful things) in melee without charging.

Grappling and *Tripping* or other forms of lock-down are your best bet. Outside of that, just beat on things with non-charge maneuvers.

A Crusader with a Guisarme, and Thicket of Blades + Imp Trip makes a fantastic lockdown character. You gotta add some size enhancers like Enlarge Person buffs and what not, but it's a completely valid and potent method. (though sometimes less satisfying than doing a bajillion damage with shock trooper)

[limejuicepowder]

Grappling and *Tripping* or other forms of lock-down are your best bet. Outside of that, just beat on things with non-charge maneuvers.

A Crusader with a Guisarme, and Thicket of Blades + Imp Trip makes a fantastic lockdown character. You gotta add some size enhancers like Enlarge Person buffs and what not, but it's a completely valid and potent method. (though sometimes less satisfying than doing a bajillion damage with shock trooper)

I am not a fan of improved trip. One bad roll is all it takes for me to loose my weapon - plus, to be good at it, I need access to enlarge person. I don't like that either. Finally, tripping is only good against bipedal creatures of similar size; maybe 50% of enemies in the overall scheme of things.

Grapple is fun but even more limited, and less damaging. Plus it only locks down one person at a time.

Basically, it comes down to this: what ways can melee characters do damage besides sneak attack or charging?

[hex0]

No one ever seems to optomize disarm...and we all know why.

But there is Crescent Mooooon style feat!

[Aegis013]

Basically, it comes down to this: what ways can melee characters do damage besides sneak attack or charging?

Magic and Sword-Magic. That's basically it.
You could try a Duskblade Gish, you can do a good chunk of damage in melee by channeling damage spells through your swings.

[hex0]

Magic and Sword-Magic. That's basically it.
You could try a Duskblade Gish, you can do a good chunk of damage in melee by channeling damage spells through your swings.

The same goes (to a much lesser extend) to Dagger Spell Mage.

Duskblade 13/Wizard 1/Abjurant Champion 2/Ultimate Magus 4 gives you some more low level spells to channel. Does Sublime Chord have a lot of touch spells? Can't remember at the moment...

[Aegis013]

Does Sublime Chord have a lot of touch spells? Can't remember at the moment...

4th to 9th level Sor/Wiz or Bard spells? There's probably something good in there.

[Metahuman1]

Build an unarmed Character with Improved Grapple and get your base unarmed damage up to at least 1d10. Fist of the Forest is the easyiest way to do that.

Now Cast Greater Mighty Wallop on yourself every time you go into battle, and grapple a target, then punch the snot out of it for 8d8 or better damage every hit.

Now Power attack required.


Or


Play a Bard with snowflake Wardance. Optimize your inspire courage, even though you need an exalted feat for this. Take Dragon Fire Inspiration and laugh as you hit for 1d8 + 14d6 at 6th lvl.

Take Boots of Battle and look for a way to get a few circumstance bonuses to allow you to sacrifice some BAB for Damage with out having to particularly risk missing your target.

A dip of cleric is good for adding Travel devotion so you can full attack and move.




There you go, two builds that don't require charging at all.

[Namfuak]

I am not a fan of improved trip. One bad roll is all it takes for me to loose my weapon - plus, to be good at it, I need access to enlarge person. I don't like that either. Finally, tripping is only good against bipedal creatures of similar size; maybe 50% of enemies in the overall scheme of things.

Grapple is fun but even more limited, and less damaging. Plus it only locks down one person at a time.

Basically, it comes down to this: what ways can melee characters do damage besides sneak attack or charging?

What if you dual-wield with a whip? Take two-weapon fighting and ambidexterity and you don't take any penalties for dual-wielding, so you can take a light weapon in your off-hand to do damage with (whips are not light, unfortunately). And you can just drop the whip to avoid the opposed trip check. Plus it's a 15-foot reach weapon.

Also, if you take the Justicar prestige class (CW), you can do +xd6 damage when the target is denied dexterity to AC and you are dealing non-lethal damage (you can deal non-lethal damage with any weapon with no penalties if you take this class as well, so no weapon restriction).

[Fax Celestis]

The same goes (to a much lesser extend) to Dagger Spell Mage.

You can combine the two.

Duskblade 5/Spellthief 1/Daggerspell Mage 10/Something Else (more duskblade? Eldritch Knight?) 4, with Master Spellthief.

[Ifni]

Basically, it comes down to this: what ways can melee characters do damage besides sneak attack or charging?

I don't think it's what you're looking for, but for purely non-magical melee characters, I've had good success with the Dervish PrC from Complete Warrior. It doesn't get the sheer damage numbers of an ubercharger, but that damage is usually overkill anyway, and dance-in-full-attack-dance-out is much more flexible than charging (especially since the PrC also makes it pretty trivial to get Tumble to the point where you can move at full speed through occupied squares). I went the Power-Attack-with-a-falchion route, but if you have access to Revenant Blade from Eberron you can build a very nasty TWFer with it. Swift Hunter+Improved Skirmish also synergizes fairly well.

The reason I don't think it's what you're after is that it's a PrC, not a feat, and a PrC that tends to want you to take 7-10 levels, at that - it doesn't reward dipping very much (it has a lot of feat prereqs, and both the bonuses of the dance and how frequently you can use it are based on levels in the class), so it tends to define builds rather than supplement them.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I am not a fan of improved trip. One bad roll is all it takes for me to loose my weapon - plus, to be good at it, I need access to enlarge person. I don't like that either. Finally, tripping is only good against bipedal creatures of similar size; maybe 50% of enemies in the overall scheme of things.

Jotunbrud.

And every melee lockdown build is both a tripper and has Stand Still.