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View Full Version : Alternate Looks at some Feats [PEACH, 3.5]



Amechra
2013-04-17, 07:14 PM
Note: These are not a fix; this is just me sitting down and hashing out things that I think would have been cool.

New System Term: [Paired] Feats
If a feat is paired to another feat, both feats can be substituted for one another when it comes to prerequisites, and any feat that modifies the effects of one also modifies the other in an analogous way.

Each [Paired] feat specifies which feat it is paired with as part of its special line.

Power Attack [Fighter][Paired]
Sacrificing accuracy for power, you strike with considerable force.
Prerequisites: Str 13
Benefits: Whenever you make an attack with a one-handed or two-handed melee weapon, you may forgo adding your Strength bonus to attack roll to instead add it to your damage rolls.
Special: Power Attack is paired with Deadeye Shot

Combat Expertise [Fighter][Paired]
You are adept for batting aside the attacks of others.
Prerequisites: Str 13
Benefits: At the beginning of each round, you may choose to forgo adding your Strength bonus to your melee attack rolls this round; if you do so, you instead gain your Strength bonus as a Shield bonus to your AC.
Special: Combat Expertise is paired with Dodge.

Weapon Finesse [Fighter]
You fight more with your reflexes than your strength.
Prerequisites: Dex 13
Benefits: When attacking with a light weapon, you may use your Dexterity modifier instead of your Strength modifier on attack and damage rolls.

Deadeye Shot [Fighter][Paired]
You can tighten your aim to get wonderful results.
Prerequisites: Dex 13
Benefits: Whenever you make an attack roll with a ranged weapon, you may forgo adding your Dexterity bonus to attack roll to instead add it to your damage roll.

In addition, you may perform Trip and Bull Rush attempts with your ranged attacks, forgoing any bonus that you might get from your size. If you fail your attempt, your target may not attempt to trip you in turn.
Special: Deadeye Shot is paired with Power Attack.

Dodge [Fighter][Paired]
You excel at twisting out of the way of attacks.
Prerequisites: Dex 13
Benefits: At the beginning of each round, you may choose to forgo adding your Strength bonus to your melee attack rolls this round; if you do so, you instead gain your Dexterity bonus as a Dodge bonus to your AC.
Special: If you have Weapon Finesse, you may forgo adding your Dexterity bonus instead of your Strength bonus. In addition, Dodge is paired with Combat Expertise.

Mobility [Fighter]
You are good at defending yourself when you are on the move.
Prerequisites: Dodge
Benefits: You always gain the benefit of your Dodge feat against attacks of opportunity, even if you haven't forgone your ability score bonus to attack rolls this round.
Special: The bonus you gain when using your Dodge feat is increased by 1.

Felling Blow [Fighter]
You are good at knocking people off their feet.
Prerequisites: Power Attack
Benefits: Whenever you make an attack enhanced by Power Attack, you can make a trip attempt as a free action without making a touch attack or provoking an attack of opportunity.

For the purposes of this trip attempt, apply your bonus to damage from Power Attack to your trip attempt in place of your strength bonus, and you gain your full size bonus to the opposed check.

Finally, if you fail to trip your target, they cannot react to trip you.
Special: The bonus you gain when using your Power Attack feat is increased by 2.

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Anyway, you get the premise. I can see feats that let you get rid of your bonus to AC in place of your bonus to attack rolls for Power Attack/Deadeye Shot, or which give you some other benefits with Dodge/Combat Expertise.

These are a bit rough; I feel I need to polish them a bit (I think I might add some houserules for mundane combat, so that feats like Deadeye Shot and Felling Blow flow better.)

bobthe6th
2013-04-17, 07:24 PM
Non scaling is bad.

to put it better, this makes lower levels more dangerous and abilaty focused, and higher levels it makes the feats less worthwhile.

Amechra
2013-04-17, 07:37 PM
See the note where I said this was not a fix? I'm aware that these are not particularly powerful feats in the grand scheme of 3.5e.

In my (newly developing) opinion, feats should be more-or-less static, while classes supply the scaling. Alternatively, feats should not natively scale, but should get better as more feats that develop off of them come about.

I'm aware that they make early levels more ability focused; however, the idea is less that they give numerical bonuses (they give a solid base bonus), but that they give extra benefits.

Look at Power Attack/Felling Blow for an example; I'd extend that by adding a feat that allowed you to, say, trip flying creatures (through Deadeye Shot), thus making them stall.

Or look at Dodge/Mobility; I can see Fortification while you are benefiting from Dodge, since you are twisting out of the way of the attacks.

But, hey, you know what? If it makes the crowds happy, I'll put in a bit of scaling in the amounts.

bobthe6th
2013-04-17, 07:49 PM
In my (newly developing) opinion, feats should be more-or-less static, while classes supply the scaling. Alternatively, feats should not natively scale, but should get better as more feats that develop off of them come about.


hmm... Then I would have to see the later feats to judge.



Look at Power Attack/Felling Blow for an example; I'd extend that by adding a feat that allowed you to, say, trip flying creatures (through Deadeye Shot), thus making them stall.

Or look at Dodge/Mobility; I can see Fortification while you are benefiting from Dodge, since you are twisting out of the way of the attacks.


So these are just a feat tax for cool things? Why not just let people chose cool things at all levels?

Amechra
2013-04-17, 08:00 PM
I wouldn't call them a feat tax; a +10 or so to AC is pretty potent, due to how attack rolls work out.

And I'm going to have Power Attack scale fast enough that you aren't getting just +10 to damage at higher levels...

Also, I would suggest this kind of thing to be mixed with this. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=270865)

bobthe6th
2013-04-17, 08:10 PM
+10, if you have a 30 in the score... which is possible but also stupid expensive, and not likely for more then one score.

so now we are again flooded with more feats making them worth even less... yay?

Amechra
2013-04-17, 08:14 PM
Don't think of this as "oh no, more feats; they are even less valuable now, due to options paralysis. Even if each individual feat gives a meaningful bonus."

Think of this more as "what if the feats were originally more like this, with feats at the root giving the numerical bonuses, while later feats built off them, so things were set up into tight-ish trees."

And if you are focusing on one ability score, a 30 is kind of expected by higher levels.

EDIT: I'm adding an example of how I'm thinking of handling the scaling; each later feat gives a boost to the numeric bonus, on top of cool new ability.

bobthe6th
2013-04-17, 08:20 PM
Don't think of this as "oh no, more feats; they are even less valuable now, due to options paralysis. Even if each individual feat gives a meaningful bonus."

Think of this more as "what if the feats were originally more like this, with feats at the root giving the numerical bonuses, while later feats built off them, so things were set up into tight-ish trees."


The issue i now a barbarian gets 11 of these options... and you have to get them to be level appropriate for all those levels, and at the same time not break the game.



And if you are focusing on one ability score, a 30 is kind of expected by higher levels.

true, but it is only the one generally...

Amechra
2013-04-17, 08:30 PM
I can kind of see why Barbarians would be broken with this. Forgot about them and their silly +4 to Strength 1/day at 1st level. Then again, while Power Attacking their attack bonus drops from +8 (assuming base Strength 20, Rage, and their +1 BAB) to +1, meaning that, while they get +7 damage, they are much less likely to hit.

I will have to run math on it.

Idea for Weapon Focus replacement: Weapon Focus no longer gives bonuses to attack rolls; instead, it counts as every "special weapon category".

So having Weapon Focus (Greatsword) means that you can use it with Weapon Finesse, and it's a Monk Weapon.

Vadskye
2013-04-17, 08:35 PM
Are common militia incapable of trying to strike more accurately to deal more damage (or, for that matter, of using any of these maneuvers)?

Or let's look at it from another perspective. I'm a trained fighter who happens to be personally weak. Does this mean I cannot understand or use techniques like "strike more powerfully but less accurately" or "fight more defensively but less accurately" simply because I lack a Strength modifier? I think BAB is a perfect representation of one's ability to make these tradeoffs, not ability scores.

Just to Browse
2013-04-17, 08:41 PM
I agree with Bob that some feats need scaling. Power Attack takes a nerf under this system, which is bad because melee types need that damage boost to kill things with (weapon finesse users get especially ruined). Going down the line:
There's no reason to make feats [Paired]. You can just put the text in the special line--keywords make things messy.
Power Attack should just be what it used to be. I don't see the benefit of changing it.
Combat Expertise is OK since it's providing a bigger bonus at low levels and I like that. It falls out of favor around the same time that AC stops mattering so I think it's fine, but I'd rather spare complications and just keep it as it was.
Deadeye Shot is the best archer feat in the entire game, including the history of ever. Ranged trip and bullrush attacks? Yes please, someone get my barbarian a longbow.

This could use to be nerfed.
Dodge is like Combat Expertise, except it's a much bigger buff considering the original Dodge is pretty much worthless. I'd prefer to have this over the original, but I'm still not a bit fan of the mechanic.
Mobility is a weak feat, and on most characters it will probably be worse than it used to be (the previous +4 bonus probably equals or outdoes most character's DexMod+1)
Felling Blow is weird. First, it might as well be paired with Improved Trip since it's so similar. Second, replacing the Strength bonus with your PA damage bonus is basically just replacing your Strength bonus with your Strength bonus + 2, so why not just say "Add 2 to your trip attempt and 2 to your power attack damage"? The PA-boost also doesn't need to be in the Special section.

Pairing is a good idea and needs to exist in more places, but the current feat implementation could use some work. If you really want to keep the Ability Modifier to AC/damage/etc, then you should look into providing static penalties to use the abilities instead of totally removing an ability modifier from a roll.

EDIT: Weapon Focus (Greatsword) will be the monk dip every day forever if you make it that way. I don't know any alternatives off the top of my head, but that specific implementation should be avoided.

Garryl
2013-04-17, 09:07 PM
Dodge: You're adding Dex to AC twice! Plus, if you don't care about Strength to attack rolls (ranged attacks, spellcasting, etc.) you're negating the cost.

You can probably do interesting things with the Paired feat descriptor, but just the basic thing you have here (modifying one feat modifies them both) isn't enough to justify learning a new keyword.