Combat 'stances

[Triskavanski]

Been messing around with working on some rules.


Stances are like when you fight defensively, or total defense. They require no feats, they're just options you can take in combat. There would be three feats that are further training in that regard, Power Attack, Combat Expertise and Combat Precision.


New combat 'stances' You can only choose one of the Fighting Aggressively/Defensively. Precise

Fighting Aggressively - Sacrifice AC to increase Damage -4 to AC for +2 to damage. This damage is increased to +3 for two handed weapons and reduced to +1 for off hand weapons. Increasing Perception to 3 ranks, get +1 to damage for 1h, and off handed, +2 for damage for two handed. Stacks with Power attack

Precise Fighting - Sacrifice damage to increase attack bonus deal 2 less damage (Minimum 1 dmg) for a +1 to hit. Increasing Sense motive to 3 ranks, increases the bonus to a +2 to hit.

[Tohsaka Rin]

There's already a whole lot of stances in Pathfinder.

Stances that take feats, stances from the Path of War styles. Lots of them.

[Sacrieur]

The problem is that you're just manipulating AC, to hit, and damage.

There's so much more than that in the game. For instance, there are stances in Path of War that permit you to fly or teleport.

[NomGarret]

The problem is that you're just manipulating AC, to hit, and damage.

There's so much more than that in the game. For instance, there are stances in Path of War that permit you to fly or teleport.

And ones that manipulate AC, to hit, and damage.

[Sacrieur]

And ones that manipulate AC, to hit, and damage.

Right, which has been done over and over a million times.

[Triskavanski]

The problem is that you're just manipulating AC, to hit, and damage.

There's so much more than that in the game. For instance, there are stances in Path of War that permit you to fly or teleport.

And?

That is the point of these. They're not stances from 3rd party material. They're based on Fighting Defensively addressing as a second party (Myself) development the complaint that "Why is power attack a feat? Why can't i just say I hit harder?".

What I'm doing here you need absolutely no feats, classes, races or whatever Its something that would be built into my homebrewed combat system. Your wizard could fight aggressively if they wanted with their staff.


Why do people treat Path of War like its first party material?

[Tohsaka Rin]

Nobody is treating it as 1st party.

We're treating it as something that takes investment to get returns, but not something you have to rack skills up, in addition to feats, to get oddly unrelated benefits.

Perception prereqs to gain melee damage at the cost of AC? That is all sorts of strange.

[Triskavanski]

There is no 'Pre-req' to get damage at the cost of ac. A handful of skill points in a skill that is somewhat a little bit related to what the combat option is trying to do enhances the combat option.

Like Acrobatics is to Fighting Defensively/Total Defense. Maybe no one ever uses it or doesn't even know it exists, would explain why I'm the only one who ever uses the option in all the differenter 3.5/pathfinder games I've ever played.

Perception was to be for "You can see where to hit them for extra damage!" Of course I suppose that really only works fluff wise for things you can do Precision Dmg on.


Sense motive "Your combat training has honed your skills of reading an enemies movement to know just how they'll move." Thus an increase in Accuracy.


The feats are not even pre-reqs. Where Fighting Defensively has combat expertise, Fighting aggressively would have power attack, and fighting accurately would have combat precision.

[Tohsaka Rin]

Fighting Aggressively - Sacrifice AC to increase Damage

Literally requiring you to give up AC for damage. I will admit I shouldn't have used the term 'pre-req'. This was part of the Shock Trooper style feat from... Complete Warrior, I believe?

[Triskavanski]

Fighting Defensively has you sacrifice AB for AC.

[Psyren]

I agree that things like Power Attack and Combat Expertise don't need to be feats. They should just be tactical options in combat that anyone can do.

There are other feats I think should be on that list as well - Weapon Finesse should just be an intrinsic property of light weapons for instance, and anyone strong enough should be able to attempt an Awesome Blow.

There were threads in the past where we attempted to compile needless feats like these - I'll see if I can dig one up.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Mutants and Masterminds has options like this: trade off attack for damage, damage for attack, AC for attack or attack for AC. You could do a few points' worth without a pseudo-feat, or more with the pseudo-feat. I suggest something like that. I'd also tie the improvement to BAB, not skills-- BAB already serves as a numerical representation of combat prowess, and warrior-types tend to get the short end of the skill stick as it is.

[Triskavanski]

There should still be somethings for Rogue in combat too, who's main stick these days is being a skilled character with lots of skill points to go around and nothing to really show for it, (Since total value is king, Ranks themselves provide very little bonus)


Like how MnM had it is what I want to do most with this. Untrained pleb (featless) can do X, but Trained pleb (with feat) can do X better.

Combat is one of the first things I'm looking at as it tends to make up a lot of the games I've played where mechanics play a huge role. I'm working on options one could do that don't involve getting AoOs on you.

Fighting Defensively is one of my most favorite options to use in combat, but like I said, most games still people rarely use it. I've used it successfully most of the time and still the others don't use it.


Weapon Finesse will be something that is gonna get looked at on how to make the feat something else, while the property would be applied to the weapon itself, if I decide to do that. A Lot of feats when I start going through those for my house rules are going get smooshed together to reduce the number of feats, But thats for a different thread


Wouldn't Awesome Blow just be a Bull Rush like attack?

[Psyren]

There should still be somethings for Rogue in combat too, who's main stick these days is being a skilled character with lots of skill points to go around and nothing to really show for it, (Since total value is king, Ranks themselves provide very little bonus)

Have you read Unchained Rogue? (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/unchained-classes/rogue-unchained) They get more skill love than just bonuses/ranks thanks to skill unlocks, and Dex to damage + Debilitating Injury makes them powerhouses in combat as well.