[PF/3.5] Feint as a regular Combat Maneuver

[Mighty_Chicken]

So, I always thought that actually there is no Improved Feint feat. What we have is the Feint feat, because non-rogues without Improved Feint have no reason, ever, to Feint instead of doing a regular attack.

(This is a thing that enerves me about D&D: if you don't have a feat, you can't do anything other than swinging)

I'm thinking about house ruling that, if you don't have the feat, you can Feint the classic way if you will, or instead you can use feint in a way that works more like Grapple of Trip.

In Pathfinder it would be like this: you may choose to Feint a target as a move action. He gets an AoO against you. If he hits, you take the damage as a penalty to your Bluff test. The DC is 10+opponent's BAB+Wis modifier or 10+opponent's Sense Motive bonus. If you overcome the DC, the opponent loses his Dex bonu to AC etc. The Improved Feint feat avoids the AoO and gives you a +2 bonus to the Bluff test.

In 3.5 it would be even less powerful. If the target hits you, the Feint fails. Then... what? I'm not sure about his here. Do you lose your next attack too? Does the feat gives you a +4 bonus or not?


What do you think?

[Aasimar]

I don't think it's necessary to take the damage as a penalty to bluff. Just taking the chance of getting hit for the possibility is costly enough IMO.

[Mighty_Chicken]

But all other combat maneuvers add the damage taken as a penalty... you mean that Feint is underpowered compared to other maneuvers, hence should operate by different rules?

I don't know, I think that negating a creature's/character's Dex (and dodge) bonus to AC is a big thing. It may not be much against armored fighters, but might be a killer against light armored types like rogues, bards and monks. Am I wrong?

Maybe the penalty could happen only when the attacker is attempting to cause precision damage (Sneak Attack).

[Aasimar]

Maybe,

Thing is, from everything I've seen, rogues absolutely HATE having to do anything that prevents them from full-attacking, so the proportion of them who see taking feint as a move action as worthwhile is pretty small to begin with.

[eggs]

When I read the thread title, I thought it was going to be about turning Feint into an attack action, which could actually be pretty interesting.

But Improved Feint is usually a bad option, even once a character's taken the feat. I have a hard time seeing anyone deliberately using this.

[Mighty_Chicken]

When I read the thread title, I thought it was going to be about turning Feint into an attack action, which could actually be pretty interesting.

Why not? Even better.

How could it be? Feinting+attack is an attack action, or feinting+attack is an standart action?

Both are good to me. My games never go high-level anyway. But some may be worried about breaking Sneak Attack (I'm not).

Maybe its a move action if un-improved, but part of an attack action with the feat? Come on, help me over here! The intent is to actually give a buff to characters who took the feat, but let everyone use it if they have to, to add options to battles.

[Ormur]

Improved feint stacks with the beguiler class feature and makes it a swift action which enable TWF and iteratives. I've been playing a gestalt rogue//beguiler which is pretty much the only viable way of getting that and it's in no way overpowered.

I'd recommend making improved feint a swift action thus.