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View Full Version : D&D 3.x Other [Feats, PEACH] Metacombat feats



Flickerdart
2016-07-30, 11:36 PM
We have all heard those old bearded men in their towers, bragging about their ability to twist spells into slightly different spells. The psions, the warlocks, even the dragons all lay claim to this power, modifying their magic on the fly to coax some additional effect out of it. As if setting half the city block on fire wasn't enough of an effect! The lowest of the shadowcaster, the most tongue-tied truenamer, learn these skills and think they are better than gods-fearing men and women who go out there and put in an honest day's work with shield and lance and bow. And don't think the kids don't see this! They get ideas, you know, and now they're mucking about with kicks and flips and moves I've never even heard of. From some kind of book made out of swords, they say. Harrumph!


Metacombat feats
As a warrior's skill with her weapon grows, she can learn to do more than just swing and hope she strikes flesh. She can activate one or more metacombat feats each time she begins a full attack, and must forego a certain number of attacks to which she would normally be entitled, starting with attacks at her highest attack bonus. In exchange, she is able to take certain special actions or apply a bonus to her remaining attacks for that round. Attacks so sacrificed cannot be foregone for other abilities that require you to forego attacks.

Characters who receive bonus attacks beyond their base attack bonus during a full attack (from Flurry of Blows, haste, or simply dual-wielding) may sacrifice these bonus attacks for meta-attack feats. Characters may not sacrifice natural attacks in this manner.

All [Meta-attack] feats are considered to be [Fighter] feats.


Utility Belt [Metacombat]
A beginner brings everything he owns on an adventure, because he doesn't know what he might need. You bring everything you own on an adventure because you know you'll need all of it.
Prerequisites: Quick Draw, Base Attack Bonus +5
Benefits: For every attack sacrificed, you may perform one of the following actions:

Retrieve and drink a potion, or retrieve and apply an oil
Activate a non-consumable magic item with an activation time of one standard action or less
Draw a concealed weapon, or attempt to conceal a weapon
Retrieve an item from a container such as a pouch or backpack
Ready or loose a shield
Pick up an item on the ground


Speed Demon [Metacombat]
You can chase down your enemies with supernatural speed - and slip away if you chase down too many to handle.
Benefits: For every attack sacrificed, you may immediately move up to your movement speed.

Inquisitor Style [Metacombat]
Your blade sunders enchantments, and your shield turns away curses. You can tear down magic and lay bare the reality underneath.
Prerequisites: Mage Slayer
Benefits: For every attack sacrificed, you may perform one of the following actions:

Activate a targeted dispel magic effect, except the range is Touch, and you use your base attack bonus plus your weapon's enhancement bonus instead of caster level when calculating whether or not an effect is dispelled. You may only use this ability once per round. Regardless of the outcome, the target is immune to your further uses of this ability for 8 hours.
Make a regular attack, applying the damage dealt as a penalty to the target's Spell Resistance. Spell Resistance cannot be lowered to less than 0, and returns in 1d10 minutes. Regardless of the outcome, the target is immune to your further uses of this ability for 8 hours.
Charge your remaining attacks with draining energy. For the remainder of the round, every time you successfully deal damage with an attack, the target loses a prepared spell, spell per day, power points, or similar resource, as if it used its highest level available spell, power, or similar ability. At the end of the round, the target is immune to your further uses of this ability for 8 hours.


Patient Opportunism [Metacombat]
A true master of the sword does not hurry to swing it.
Prerequisite: Combat Reflexes
Benefits: For every attack sacrificed, you may make an additional attack of opportunity before the start of your next turn.




The idea behind these feats was to turn attack actions into "real" actions, and help leverage the action economy into the mundanes' favour while giving them cool stuff to do. Thoughts?

Jormengand
2016-07-31, 12:02 AM
If you use Inquisitor Style's third option on a second-level truenamer, with 2 1st-level utterances, which takes the law of resistance? If you use it on a wizard with two 1st-level spells, which prepared spell does the wizard lose? Isn't it slightly silly that speed demon lets you move faster if you're wielding two weapons than if you're using 1? Given that you haven't defined "Consumable" and wands can't be consumed in a literal sense, can't someone dual-wielding wands fire off 7 fireballs in one turn (which, actually, makes wand-monk seem fairly reasonable, as you can flurry with UAS and offhand monk weapon and then convert all your attacks to spells cast from the wand in your mainhand for 9 spells in a round)? What's the point in turning your full attack action into glorified combat reflexes, let alone wasting a feat on the ability to do so? And why would a creature with a CL penalty and probably levels in a class that doesn't grant CL want to reduce a creature's spell resistance anyway?

nikkoli
2016-07-31, 08:50 PM
Speed Demon [Metacombat]
You can chase down your enemies with supernatural speed - and slip away if you chase down too many to handle.
Benefits: For every attack sacrificed, you may immediately move up to your movement speed.


Does this apply to attacks you would get from haste or from a monks flurry or TWF, or only you BAB granted attacks?

Jormengand
2016-08-01, 11:51 AM
Does this apply to attacks you would get from haste or from a monks flurry or TWF, or only you BAB granted attacks?

He does specify that it applies to all of those things, which means that yes, you can run faster with a weapon in your offhand for no good reason.

Flickerdart
2016-08-01, 02:10 PM
Does this apply to attacks you would get from haste or from a monks flurry or TWF, or only you BAB granted attacks?
All the attacks. The design space seems more interesting when it's not just a number from one to four, I think.

Gildedragon
2016-08-02, 04:08 PM
The 8hr restrictions are meh
Either go for whole day (which 8 hrs effectively does) or Rest of the Encounter

OldTrees1
2016-08-03, 01:08 PM
1) You should tighten up the wording under Metacombat feats. It is unclear when the attacks are chosen and when the feats trigger. For example if I have 3 attacks can I "attack, activate Speed Demon to move, & attack again"?

2) Why limited to attacks during a Full Attack? What about using AoOs to fuel Speed Demon? The Evasive Reflexes feat comes to mind so I guess your balance point might be relevant.

3) I don't know if Patient Opportunism having Combat Reflexes makes sense (unlike Quick Draw for Utility Belt). They have no interaction beyond both being ways to get more AoOs per round. Sure Combat Reflexes is generally stronger so most will take it before Patient Opportunism,

4) Inquisitor's Style has 3 benefits and an arbitrary limit as a drawback. Sounds like you could split the feat up for more elegant design.

bjj8383
2016-08-03, 08:34 PM
Definitely some interesting options to consider.

Godskook
2016-08-10, 12:16 AM
Love the general idea/theme. Its AMAZING. I'm going to be brutal on the specifics, but they're within that context of a unique new amazing theme for feats.


Utility Belt [Metacombat]
A beginner brings everything he owns on an adventure, because he doesn't know what he might need. You bring everything you own on an adventure because you know you'll need all of it.
Prerequisites: Quick Draw, Base Attack Bonus +5
Benefits: For every attack sacrificed, you may perform one of the following actions:

Retrieve and drink a potion, or retrieve and apply an oil
Activate a non-consumable magic item with an activation time of one standard action or less
Draw a concealed weapon, or attempt to conceal a weapon
Retrieve an item from a container such as a pouch or backpack
Ready or loose a shield
Pick up an item on the ground


This is, imho, bad because you're giving up your most premium resource(attacks at highest BAB) for actions that're usually going to be closer to on-par with a lesser resource(lowest BAB attacks) if that.


[SIZE=3]Speed Demon [Metacombat]
You can chase down your enemies with supernatural speed - and slip away if you chase down too many to handle.
Benefits: For every attack sacrificed, you may immediately move up to your movement speed.

I think it'd be closer to balanced if you sacrificed attacks from the bottom, instead of the top.


[SIZE=3]Inquisitor Style [Metacombat]
Your blade sunders enchantments, and your shield turns away curses. You can tear down magic and lay bare the reality underneath.
Prerequisites: Mage Slayer
Benefits: For every attack sacrificed, you may perform one of the following actions:

Activate a targeted dispel magic effect, except the range is Touch, and you use your base attack bonus plus your weapon's enhancement bonus instead of caster level when calculating whether or not an effect is dispelled. You may only use this ability once per round. Regardless of the outcome, the target is immune to your further uses of this ability for 8 hours.
Make a regular attack, applying the damage dealt as a penalty to the target's Spell Resistance. Spell Resistance cannot be lowered to less than 0, and returns in 1d10 minutes. Regardless of the outcome, the target is immune to your further uses of this ability for 8 hours.
Charge your remaining attacks with draining energy. For the remainder of the round, every time you successfully deal damage with an attack, the target loses a prepared spell, spell per day, power points, or similar resource, as if it used its highest level available spell, power, or similar ability. At the end of the round, the target is immune to your further uses of this ability for 8 hours.


1.8 hour limitation is weird, unwieldy, and is going to be largely irrelevant for PCs. Why do you want it over say.... "once per target per combat"?

2.Does this do a full and proper targeted dispel, or dispel a single spell? Cause a targeted dispel is worth more than 1 attack at d20+HD+Enhancement_Bonus. If you made it "single random spell", that's a significant enough nerf to remove the "once per combat" restriction, imho. Actually, at that point, it could be its own feat.

3.Sacrifice an attack to make an attack that damages SR instead of HP? This isn't a "fighter" effect, its a spellthief's effect. Your theme seems to be ~almost~ antimagic, so I"m going to say this is out of theme. Also, sacrificing your best attack's damage for SR damage is probably going to be useless to fighters in most situations because of how valuable the attack your giving up for this effect.

4.Last option is "a negative level", except without the -1 on rolls or -5 HP or alternate death scenario. Ennervating is a +2 weapon enchantment and is probably a stronger effect than what you're offering as-is. Personally, the dispel-effect is something I think should be pulled out into a stand-alone feat, although maybe this could be too, along the lines of "Sacrifice an attack, deal 1 negative level on next successful attack this round. Works only once per target per round."

Generally, this feat violates what I feel is core to good feat design. Good feats should aim towards generalistic design, at least within their purpose. Feats that feel overly restrictive, even when you're "using them right" are generally not very well loved. For instance: Devotion feats without a source of turning or incarnum feats without optimization(Totem Rager, for instance). Otoh, I think you've got the raw materials for 1-2 better feats hidden in this one's gullet, and thus, my suggestion is to cut it open, rip it apart, and build anew.


[SIZE=3]Patient Opportunism [Metacombat]
A true master of the sword does not hurry to swing it.
Prerequisite: Combat Reflexes
Benefits: For every attack sacrificed, you may make an additional attack of opportunity before the start of your next turn.

Give up my best attack -now- for the possibility that I -might- get more than Dex-mod AoOs before my next turn? That's...dumb. You're straightup losing on the action economy. Ask yourself: Why is Celerity so good. Then realize this feat is doing the same trade, in reverse, trading certain value now for uncertain value later at "even exchange". Worse, you get the highest probable benefit from this at +0 Dex, which is also when you get the _lowest_ probable value from Combat Reflexes, which is a pre-req. I....

The only way I could see this feat being valuable is if you can sacrifice attacks you couldn't actually take, which, while mechanically sound and strategically potent, is just dumb still, from a versimilitude perspective.