Question Regarding Improved Shield Bash/Overrun

[Scorponok]

I was looking at this tonight, and looking back on players who have played my campaigns as well as optimal builds for Fighters, I don't think I've ever seen anyone take these feats.

When someone does this, I am assuming they can either try to overrun their opponent or shield bash them. Overrun appears to run them over so they are prone, while Shield Bash appears to give the sword & board fighter an option for doing damage with their shield.

I am wondering if a player should be allowed to do both as a standard action. When someone charges into an opponent, it makes sense that before they hit them, they would probably brace themselves before moving violently into them. The effect of this would be the opponent on the receiving end get hurt as well as throwing them down onto the ground.

From RAW, it seems Mr. Sword & Board has the option of either knocking their opponent prone, or using their shield to knock their opponent for HP damage with the shield.

Knocking them prone with Overrun seems cool, but the opponent does not lose any actions and at best, makes them waste a move action to get up off the ground and then a standard action to come at you again. It would be a good tactic if you needed to keep an opponent occupied while the rest of your party deals with other things, but that is sort of negated by the fact that they also get an AoO against you once you move into your space.

Shield Bashing them doesn't really make sense because not only does something like a Bastard Sword or even Longsword do more damage, but your character loses their shield bonus AC without taking the feat.

Should a shield bash then overrun be allowed? Unless I'm overlooking some sort of tactic that makes it advantageous or a book that improves upon this (I'm only going by SRD here), these seem like wastes of feats the way they are written now.

Edit: This is about 3.5

[rockdeworld]

They're a waste of feats, and that's why they're never taken.

Overrun isn't as good as tripping, which can be done as an attack action and thus multiple times or in addition to a move.

Your bonus to AC from a shield is only 1-2 unless you really pimp it out. Spending a feat for +1-2 AC is generally a bad idea (I prefer Law Devotion for my sometimes AC and more often to-hit needs).

[Darrin]

Improved Shield Bash shows up in some sword-and-board builds, but that fighting style isn't very popular. There are also some Captain America builds floating around that only attack with shields.

Anyone using Overrun is extremely rare. I thought my DM was nuts when he had a hobgoblin use it against us, but we've since found a use for it: it's essentially a "Tumble past opponent" check for larger creatures that either don't have Tumble ranks or would never pass the DC 25 Tumble check to move through an opponent.

I myself wound up using it with a barbarian, trying to get past a Worg in a 5' corridor, hoping to get past it so I could attack the Worg's owner. The party's monk was clogging up the corridor, and was completely incapable of hitting the Worg, so the rest of the party was stuck there for way too long with nothing to do but watch the monk miss. I had some ranks in Tumble, but not enough to hit a DC 25, so I tried Overrun. Unfortunately, I failed the check and fell prone, but fortunately, I remembered you could attack from prone with a -4 penalty, and managed to dispatch the Worg that way.

Still, it hardly ever gets used because even Improved Overrun requires a standard action to use. In almost all cases, you're better off moving through your opponent the old fashioned way: move + attack, reduce HP to zero, step over corpse.