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DracoDei
2012-08-28, 05:51 PM
Diving Evasion [Fighter] [Grace-Gift]
Prerequisites: Tumble 1 rank, Dexterity 13, must be capable of being both standing and prone (not at the same time of course).
Benefits: When this feat is active, there is a direction that you could take a 5' step in without squeezing (regardless of other factors that might effect your ability to take 5' steps), and you are standing, you gain a +3 dodge bonus to your AC and a +3 bonus to reflex saves, however, any reflex save you make by less than 5 or any attack that misses you by less than 5 points causes you to become prone, and moves you 5 feet in a random direction that you could fit without squeezing. This movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

You may activate or deactivate this feat at any time provided you are aware of the source of the attack before the attack itself, and the dice have not been rolled yet. During your turn this is a free action, at any other time it is an immediate action.
Normal: You can't dive out of the way of attacks.
Special: A Fighter or Grace-Gift may take this feat as one of their class bonus feats.

EDIT January 2013: Increased it from +2 to +3 and allowed it to be activated and deactivated more selectively. Now a bit kludgy on that second count, but it will do for the moment while I think about it. This was based on the following conversation (in the DnD-wiki IRC chat):
19:44 <DanielDraco >Hrm. 5 might be too wide a margin. If there's a 50% success rate on the save or attack, then that means half of all successful saves or unsuccessful attacks will make you fall prone.
19:45 <DanielDraco >Actually, no matter what, that's a 25% overall chance of falling. Which is hefty.
19:47 <DanielDraco >And being unable to deactivate/activate during the process of an attack or save makes little sense -- why wouldn't I be able to see a particularly devastating attack coming, and as it comes decide to dive?
19:48 <DracoDei >I supposed I could change it to "After the attack is declared, but before anything is rolled."
19:48 <DanielDraco >That might be more appropriate, yeah.
19:49 <DracoDei >As for the 25% chance, I think it ends up being more of a wizard thing than a rogue thing, let alone fighter.
19:49 <DanielDraco >With those prereqs, it's almost exclusively a rogue thing.
19:50 <DracoDei >It gives you MUCH better than Dodge to your AC, and Lightning Reflexes worth to your Reflex. Both those feats are underpowered, but putting them together and it being against all attacks and 2 AC rather than 1 makes up for it.
19:51 <DanielDraco >I wouldn't actually call Dodge terribly underpowered. A little, but not much.
19:51 DracoDei shrugs.
19:51 <DanielDraco >It's just boring.
19:51 <DracoDei >Most people I hear think it is underpowered.
19:51 <DracoDei >But if it isn't that only makes my case stronger.
19:52 <DanielDraco >You might be underestimating how devastating it is to be prone.
19:52 <DracoDei >Anyway, 2 skillpoints for a cross-class skill is not so much, especially since it is "Trained Only" meaning you now can actually USE it.
19:53 <DracoDei >Oh, prone is pretty bad, but if all you need is to buy one round...
19:53 <DanielDraco >Then you've already wasted half of it and gotten an AoO by becoming prone.
19:55 <DanielDraco >I just can't think of a situation when I'd use that. Going prone is a large price to pay, no matter what the role in battle, if you're under attack.
19:55 <DanielDraco >And I still say it's almost exclusive to rogues and similar. More because of the Dex than the Tumble
19:55 <TarkIsAround >Haven't read the feat, but perhaps a next round move penalty instead of prone maybe?
19:56 <DracoDei >No, "prone" is pretty central to the concept.
19:57 <DanielDraco >I'd reduce the span to the same bonus it gives -- 2
19:57 <DracoDei >DanielDraco: Really not liking that idea.
19:57 <DanielDraco >Why not?
19:58 <DracoDei >Because then it is "occasionally turns a hit into Prone" rather than something that actually has a down-side.
19:58 <DanielDraco >It's also "occasionally turns a hit into a miss"
19:58 <DanielDraco >in fact, exactly the same degree of "occasionally"
19:58 <DracoDei >No.
19:59 <DracoDei >Any hit it would have prevented also means you end up prone.
19:59 <DracoDei >The point we are disagreeing on is if you should ever end up prone on something that would have missed if you weren't using the feat.
20:00 <DanielDraco >Er...is it?
20:00 <DracoDei >Yes.
20:00 <DracoDei >Re-read it.
20:00 <DanielDraco >Because what /I'm/ objecting to is a 25% prone chance. I don't care if that's a hit or a miss or what.
20:01 <DracoDei >So you just think that scaling down the prone chance is good, regardless of what that does to the AC and Reflex bonuses?
20:02 <DanielDraco >a 10% chance of being prone is, IMO a far more appropriate price for a 10% better chance of evading
20:02 <DracoDei >You would rather see "Margin 2/+1AC,+1Reflex" than "Margin 5(or maybe 4)/+2AC,+2Reflex"
20:02 <DracoDei >?
20:03 <DanielDraco >Yes. There's much less discrepancy in the first one
20:03 <DracoDei >I'm pretty set on the person ending up prone on a few things they would have saved against/been missed by.
20:03 <DanielDraco >Reducing it to a span of 3 wouldn't be bad either. IMO still pushing it as far as usefulness goes, though.
20:04 <DracoDei >In the original case before I made my recent edit, you have a 15% chance of it being a situaton where you end up prone, but the attack would have missed anyway (or you would have saved for half or whatever), plus another 10% where you go prone by that creates a miss/save.
20:05 <DanielDraco >One side note -- I would remove the movement of 5 feet. That can easily cause a weird situation where you /want/ a low roll, for the free movement.
20:05 <DracoDei >Now it is 10% of prone with no incremental benefit, and 15% of prone with a benefit.
20:06 <DracoDei >Eh, that would be pretty rare, since you are ending up prone, which means you can't move as well next turn.
20:07 <DanielDraco >Think of a full attack. You hope that the first attack triggers this feat, because then you have a 50% chance of moving away from them and out of their reach. You should never /want/ a close miss.
20:08 <DanielDraco >But your breakdown actually helps my point. 15% chance of prone with no upsides, 10% chance of prone with upsides. There is actually a greater chance of it being an objectively worse situation.
20:08 <DracoDei >Eh... they can just 5' step and continue the full attack.
20:08 <DanielDraco >Unless they already have.
20:08 <DanielDraco >It's a degenerate case perhaps, but it's worth considering.
20:09 <DanielDraco >Certainly not going to ruin the feat.
20:09 <DracoDei >Hmm... I'll need some time to mull it over.
20:09 <DracoDei >I already changed it to 10% of prone with no upsides, 15% of prone with upsides.
20:10 *** Cid joined #dnd
20:10 *** Cid is now known as HockeyCid
20:10 <HockeyCid >hello to all again
20:10 <DanielDraco >You changed it? Wait, what's the bonus and span now?
20:10 <DanielDraco >hi
20:11 <DracoDei >DanielDraco: Reload the page and you should see...
20:11 <DracoDei >It is still Span 5, but the bonuses are +3's now.
20:11 <DanielDraco >Hrm. I suppose that works. +3 bonus verges on "huge", so it might be more appropriate to have that large price.


So... is this feat balanced? I could increase the bonus, but in that case I would also have to increase the range that triggers the unnecessary dive I THINK.

What sort of characters would take it? Obviously it synergizes well with the "free stand" type class abilities such as that of the Thief Acrobat, or feats if those exist. Also obviously it is much more valuable against enemies that only get one attack, which is anything without pounce if you don't close on them and they don't get two rounds in a row near you.

(Thanks to havocfett for the following idea) Should the character get to pick the direction of the dive rather than it being random?

What would be a better name for this?

havocfett
2012-08-28, 11:55 PM
Dodging is active, it should probably be a direction of your choice.

DracoDei
2012-08-29, 08:54 AM
Dodging is active, it should probably be a direction of your choice.
Your argument has merit, but I can also see the argument that you can't pick what direction is the best for avoiding a particular attack. What that says to me is "go with whichever makes the game balance work the best".

I will edit your idea into the list of questions in the original feat.