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View Full Version : Fixing Some Paradoxes [Feats]



Quellian-dyrae
2007-01-15, 09:04 PM
I love D&D. I really do. But some of their rules...really, they just make me wonder. I present some feats to fix a few of these paradoxes.

First, consider the 20th level two-weapon fighter.

Greater Two Weapon Fighting. Paired weapons of speed. Haste. This warrior can attack nine times per round, one and a half attacks per second. Hasted, its speed is 60', allowing it to cover ten feet in a single second.

A fighter who has to move ten feet to get to its foe has taken a move action. It is denied its ability to full attack. It spends one second covering the distance and less than a second making its strike. What is the char doing for those other four seconds?

Mobile Attack [General, Fighter]:
You can attack swiftly even on the move.

Prerequisites: Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, Combat Reflexes, Base Attack +6 or higher.

Benefit: You may take a full attack action in the same round as a move action. However, every attack you make lowers your speed for the round by 5’, and you cannot make attacks you do not have speed remaining for. You may not make a full attack after taking a double move, charge, or run action. You still provoke attacks of opportunity for this movement.

Mobile Attack, Improved [General, Fighter]:
You are incredibly focused on the attack, even on the move.

Prerequisites: Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, Combat Reflexes, Mobile Attack, Base Attack +9 or higher.

Benefit: You can make a single move and a full attack in a single full-round action. While doing so, you may move before or after any attack in your attack sequence. You pay 5’ of movement per attack made. For example, a 16th level fighter with two weapons, greater two weapon fighting, and haste, has the following attack routine: +16/+16/+16/+11/+11/+6/+6/+1, and a speed of 60’. It might move ten feet, attack three times (costing fifteen feet of movement), move ten feet to a new foe, attack four more times (20’ of movement), and then move a final five feet.


In other news, unless I'm mistaken, a feint is basically going for an attack, and then pulling back at the last moment when the foe tries to defend, before quickly striking another spot. How does attacking and not completing the attack prevent you from making more than one additional attack? Not to mention the characters who don't have improved feint; anyone else find it odd that they feint, wait six seconds, and then take advantage of the opening...and that there's still an opening to take advantage of?

Fluid Feint [General, Fighter]:
You don’t waste time feinting in combat.

Prerequisites: Combat Expertise, Improved Feint.

Benefit: You may feint in combat at the cost of an attack, rather than as a move action. This allows you to make multiple feints in one round, with each denying the opponent its Dex bonus to AC against the next attack you make. If you feint again before making an attack, the old feint expires. Feints still expire at the end of your next turn. Additionally, any penalty you are taking on your attack rolls as a result of the attack you use for the feint applies to your Bluff check. For example, if an 11th level fighter attacks, feints, and attacks, the feint is made with a -5 penalty on the check, just as the fighter’s second attack would have been.

Fluid Feint, Improved [General, Fighter]:
You don’t have to waste your best openings to make a feint.

Prerequisites: Combat Expertise, Improved Feint, Fluid Feint.

Benefit: When making a fluid feint, you may spend your attacks “out of order”. For example, a level 11 fighter could with a base attack of +11/+6/+1 could spend its +1 attack bonus to feint, and then make an attack at its +11 bonus, denying its foe’s Dexterity bonus to AC. The penalty for the Bluff check for using low attack bonuses still applies, so the fighter would take a -10 penalty on its Bluff check to perform that feint.


My final nit to pick. I can imagine a zombie not caring much if you thrust a skinny little rapier into its heart. But cleaving through its skull with a greatsword seems like a good excuse to deal double damage:

Dire Critical [General, Fighter]:
You measure how “critical” a hit is by how much of the opponent’s body is severed from the rest (or crushed beyond recognition, as suits you).

Prerequisites: Str 13+, Power Attack, Cleave, Improved Sunder.

Benefit: When you are wielding a melee weapon in both hands, you ignore a creature’s immunity or resistance to critical hits (but not to sneak attacks or other precision-based damage).

Dire Strike [General, Fighter]:
You find it much easier to cut away large portions of the opponent’s body when the opponent is unable to defend effectively.

Prerequisites: Str 13+, Power Attack, Cleave, Improved Sunder, Dire Critical.

Benefit: When you are wielding a melee weapon in both hands, any “precision-based” damage you deal is no longer precision based; your opponent's inability to defend itself simply offers you an opening to land a more solid blow (rather than one where the enemy dodges or deflects the brunt of an attack). As such, your foe's immunities to critical hits don't apply against this sort of damage.

Matthew
2007-01-15, 09:13 PM
Weapons of Speed sadly do not stack, nor do they stack with Haste. Mobile Two Weapon Fighting (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1798151#post1798151) is a fairly common solution, whether by way of House Rules or Feats. This, though, is considerably more powerful, probably too powerful. Allowing Iterative Attacks outside of a Full Attack Action sounds like it should be done through multiple Feats of it's own, such as through Improved, Greater and Perfect Mobile Attack.

Feints I'm not too sure about. That mechanic always left me a little confused as to its usefulness.

Overcoming restrictions on precision and critical immunities is similarly potentially very powerful and should probably have a much higher prerequisite.

Quellian-dyrae
2007-01-15, 09:19 PM
Knew they didn't stack with haste (only put haste in my example for the speed boost). Did NOT know they don't stack with each other. Huh. I don't know if I should thank you for telling me that or not...::grin::

Matthew
2007-01-15, 09:21 PM
Yeah it sucks. I would House Rule it away if I were you, but watch out for abuse!

Peregrine
2007-01-16, 01:11 AM
I've come up with enough justification in my head to support the standard action/move action rule, but that doesn't mean I'm not open to alternatives. I think Matthew might be right about its power, though.

I've written something basically the same as Fluid Feint myself (I called it Fast Feint). So of course I think that's a good idea. :smallsmile:

Zombies get DR/slashing, explaining the rapier/greatsword distinction. Since the rules really don't account for chopping bits off, and the idea is that a zombie wouldn't care much more about a crushed head than anything else, I don't think these feats work, as far as flavour goes; they're really too powerful, mechanically.

Quellian-dyrae
2007-01-16, 01:34 AM
Fair enough. I run high-powered games, so there ya go. I'm kind of surprised the current consensus is that the dire feats are overpowered, considering they're only useful against certain opponents, and even then, they don't actually grant the character anything, they just remove a foe's advantage. I don't know that I'd take them unless I knew it was going to be an undead (or other crit-resistant foe) heavy campaign, and even then, only if I were using either a rogue with a two-handed weapon, or a falchion or scythe or similar weapon.

I do have to differ on zombies. If chopping (or crushing, or whatever) more didn't matter, then why would a great axe damage them more than a hand axe?

Mobile attack and improved mobile attack, they're pretty powerful. I mean, I'll be honest, I wouldn't want to be facing opponents with them. At the same time, in a high-level battle, it's sometimes almost detrimental to get the first attack. Sure, you strike first, but a single attack is probably not going to drop a high level foe unless you've put in some solid power attack and you get lucky. Even then, it might take a crit. And then, unless you have spring attack or really good reach, your foe gets to full attack you in response. That makes sense--I believe standard tactics do insist that the best move is to let the foe comes to you--but it's irksome all the same.

In any case, thanks for the input!

Peregrine
2007-01-16, 02:02 AM
I do have to differ on zombies. If chopping (or crushing, or whatever) more didn't matter, then why would a great axe damage them more than a hand axe?

I didn't say it doesn't matter if you chop more. I meant that chopping Body Part A doesn't matter more than chopping Part B, even where Part A is the head. The thing's not alive, so its whole body is just kind of a framework, it has no 'vitals'. But even so, if you chop Part A (or B) harder than your friend with the handaxe did, you'll do more damage.

And because of the DR/slashing, chopping is always better than poking or thwacking. (Chopping, poking, thwacking: The rejected damage type names.)

Quellian-dyrae
2007-01-16, 03:37 AM
I get you. That's actually the point of the dire feats. A normal critical hit is that you hit them in the head or the heart or whatever, and just as you say, that doesn't matter. With the feats, a crit means you're actually destroying/severing more of the body.

Typically I'd place an example here, but considering the subject matter...maybe it's best that I don't.

Mewtarthio
2007-01-16, 10:35 AM
Sorry, it just doesn't make much sense to me. Why is it that you have a random chance to just swing your weapon harder? Normal crits make sense because you're attempting to hit them in a vital spot, but these crits have a flavor that looks more like an ordinary power attack. If someone's denied Dex to AC, you power attack them with all your might to take advantage of the opening.

Quellian-dyrae
2007-01-16, 01:24 PM
I hear you. Actually, making them more like power attack was kinda my intention...or, more accurately I guess would be to say more like damage rolls. If I had to give an analogy it would be that, making critical hits follow similar rules as damage rolls.

But I can see your point. I mean, that's what damage rolls are there for, and what power attack is there for.

::Shrugs::It won't work for everyone. Myself, I just like the idea of an "executioner" style rogue, so that's who these sorts of feats were intended for. To each their own, eh?

Were-Sandwich
2007-01-16, 01:37 PM
You do realsie that Mobile Attack is just a wierdly worded Dervish Dance, right? It makes Dervish obsolete.