Zulu Fighting Feat and Gear

[TheYell]

Something I'm considering for homebrew barbarians to mimic the fighting pattern of the traditional Zulu warriors.

First, two pieces of equipment:

Isihlangu Cowhide Shield
+3 AC
Max Dex Bonus +4
Armor Check Penalty -2
Arcane Spell Failure 40%
disarm ability
Shield bash damage 1d3 Medium
weight 6 pounds
Hardness 4

Five feet long and two feet wide, this boiled hide shield provides deflection and coverage while being portable.


Iklwa Assegai
Range 10 feet
1d8 piercing damage Medium
Critical 18-20 x2
Hardness 5
Weight 3 lbs
Light Martial Weapon
deadly ability

An eighteen-inch blade tops this short spear.

I've reworked the proposed feat into a new fighting style, the Leopard Style:


Leopard Style

Prerequisites: Two Weapon Fighting

While bearing a isihlunga and iklwa, your penalty for primary hand fighting is reduced by 3 and your penalty for using an off-hand weapon is reduced by 7. Your penalty for primary attacks is -1 and your penalty for offhand attacks is -1.

Normal: With Two Weapon Fighting with an light offhand weapon your penalty for primary attacks is -2 and your penalty for offhand attacks is -2.


Leopard Flurry

Prerequisites: Leopard Style, Combat Expertise

While bearing an isihlangu and iklwa, you may make a disarm attempt against your opponent at your highest attack bonus. If successful, your opponent does not get an attack of opportunity, and you make an attack with the iklwa at your best attack bonus. This counts as a full-round action.


Leopard Pounce

Prerequisites: Leopard Style, Leopard Flurry, Run

While bearing an isihlangu and iklwa, as a full-round action, you may charge your opponent, make a disarm attack at your highest attack bonus. Your opponent does not get an attack of opportunity. If successful, you may make an attack with the iklwa at your best attack bonus. You must be at least 10 feet away from the opponent at the start of this maneuver.


My proposed barbarians would bear the isihlangu, two iklwas, a heavy mace, leather armor.

[BWR]

First off, are you familiar with Nyambe, a d20 setting based on various African cultures?
If not, you might be interested in looking it up.





Isihlangu Cowhide Shield

Is there any reason this shouldn't be a normal Heavy Shield? 'cause right now it is better, and that isn't particularly true to real life (if you are interested in that at all).





Iklwa Assegai


Is there any reason this shouldn't be a normal short spear?






Leopard Style

Prerequisites: Two Weapon Fighting

While bearing a isihlunga and iklwa, your penalty for primary hand fighting is reduced by 3 and your penalty for using an off-hand weapon is reduced by 7. Your penalty for primary attacks is -1 and your penalty for offhand attacks is -1.

Normal: With Two Weapon Fighting with an light offhand weapon your penalty for primary attacks is -2 and your penalty for offhand attacks is -2.


You might want to reword this. As it is, you need merely have the spear and shield on you and still gain benefits while dual wielding other weapons. Use 'wielding' instead of 'bearing'. If you are going to restrict it to a single set of weapons, I don't really see the need to add TWF as a prerequisite. This is already limited enough.
There's already a Leopard Style in PF, btw. You might want to rename this to avoid confusion.





Leopard Flurry

Prerequisites: Leopard Style, Combat Expertise

While bearing an isihlangu and iklwa, you may make a disarm attempt against your opponent at your highest attack bonus. If successful, your opponent does not get an attack of opportunity, and you make an attack with the iklwa at your best attack bonus. This counts as a full-round action.


Same problem with wording. This is basically a more limited version of normal disarming. Since disarming is a normal attack, you could disarm someone and make all your other attacks as part of a full attack. Your first feat is trying to make this a dual-wielding style, but this feat works directly against that concept. You add a new prerequisite that does nothing to work off of the previous one. Additionally, if you fail to disarm the target you take an AoO, unlike Improved Disarm which removes the AoO entirely. This version is better if you have no more than two attacks, but can easily become a worse option than just picking up Improved Disarm. Now if you remove Combat Expertise as a prereq, maybe it might be worth it.





Leopard Pounce

Prerequisites: Leopard Style, Leopard Flurry, Run

While bearing an isihlangu and iklwa, as a full-round action, you may charge your opponent, make a disarm attack at your highest attack bonus. Your opponent does not get an attack of opportunity. If successful, you may make an attack with the iklwa at your best attack bonus. You must be at least 10 feet away from the opponent at the start of this maneuver.


Same wording problem. This adds almost nothing to the existing rules. Charging, barring partial charging, is already full-round actions, you can already disarm as your attack at the end of a charge, you need to be at least 10 feet away, and if you have Leopard Flurry, you avoid the AoO in any case. The only difference is being able to move a bit, first. In most cases you are better served simply picking up Improved Disarm. It needs a bit more oomph to be worth it. Like removing Run as a prereq (does nothing thematically or mechanically for the feat).


On the whole, the style doesn't fit together. The first feat indicates it's supposed to be a dual wielding style, but the other two want it to be a disarming style. The prerequisites aren't necessary for the first feat or the last feat. I would rework the entire chain to have a coherent vision of what it's trying to do, and avoid trying to mix them up.

Now, was Zulu fighting really that focused on what 3.x calls dual wielding? Remember that many shields were used as more than simply blocking tools, and we wouldn't consider them being dual wielded. To keep with the disarming theme (was that really their focus?) I would do something like this (names aside):

Zulu Style I
Prereq: Dexterity 13+
Benefit: You gain the benefit of Improved Disarm while wielding the isihlangu and any of your traditional weapons, either separately or together.
[note that this partially replaces two feats. however, it is restricted to a limited set of weapon and one shield, so your SOL if you don't get to use them.]

Zulu Style II
Prereq: Zulu Style I, BAB +4
Benefit: When you successfully disarm a target, you may immediately make an attack at that target, using the same attack bonus as you disarmed him with.
[yes, you could conceivably disarm and attack several people around you in one round, but this is unlikely to occur regularly, and if it does, so much the better for a player who takes this feat]

Zulu Style III
Prereq: Zulu Style II, BAB +7,
Benefit: If you successfully disarm a target at the end of a charge, you may make a second combat maneuver against him in addition to the attack from Zulu Style II. This maneuver does not provoke an attack of opportunity, and may be performed before or after the normal attack.

If you want to base this entirely off of CE/Imp. Disarm/Gt. Disarm, I would change the first feat to something else and add CE/ID as prereqs to the first feat in the chain and GD as a prereq for the the third.
Zulu Style I would be more like

ZSI
Prerequisite: Combat Expertise, Improved Disarm, BAB +1
Benefit: When wielding your traditional arms and armor, you gain a +2 bonus on disarm checks and never lose your weapons if you fail to disarm an opponent.

[TheYell]

First off, are you familiar with Nyambe, a d20 setting based on various African cultures?
If not, you might be interested in looking it up.

No I'll look into it, thanks.

I wanted a better AC than comes with Heavy Shield, and a higher damage than short spear.

Thank you for taking the time to reword my feats. Your versions are clearer and more coherent. I searched but did not find a Leopard Style, so if there is one already, scrap the name of course.

I think the Zulu use for the shield was more aggressive than our game tendency to hang there passively and boost AC. If you look at Shaka's vision of combat, they tend to lead with the shield, catch the enemy's weapon in it, pull his arm out of the way, and then disembowel him with the iklwa. Now we don't have a mechanic for that kind of devastating one-two kill, so I chose easier disarm for an alternative. An Improved Critical chain would be used too rarely to be impressive. I think your revised feat chain provides something really useful.

Yes you're out of luck if you can't wield the traditional weapons, that's why the iklwa is a Martial not Exotic weapon, so barbarians get it out of the gate.

[BWR]

I think the Zulu use for the shield was more aggressive than our game tendency to hang there passively and boost AC. If you look at Shaka's vision of combat, they tend to lead with the shield, catch the enemy's weapon in it, pull his arm out of the way, and then disembowel him with the iklwa. Now we don't have a mechanic for that kind of devastating one-two kill, so I chose easier disarm for an alternative. An Improved Critical chain would be used too rarely to be impressive. I think your revised feat chain provides something really useful.
.

Eh, the shield rules are pretty whacked in any case. Most people IRL used shields as more than just a passive defense and the rules don't reflect this. Also, your current shield is far better than others, and IRL the cowhide shield is no bigger or better than European heavy shields. If realism and/or sticking to establkished design doesn't appeal to you, or you want to make better rules, go right ahead. I've been toying with alternate shield rules myself.

Double-checked and PF has Panther Style, not Leopard. Understandable mistake, I hope. :smalleek:

[TheYell]

Well we could argue it in the Real Life Weapons thread for days :P

Personally I think the cowhide shield has something over the heavy shield, since the Brits met the Scots broadsword and shield with the bayonet and didn't change a thing, and then met with the cowhide shield and spear and decided to form square and shoot them down at range rather than try to get close in (Battle of Ulundi) Numbers have something to do with it of course.

Maybe compromise with same stats as a heavy shield but higher Arcane Spell Failure, and the disarm ability? I really think a isihlangu ought to be distinguished from the usual European shield.


Yes we need some aggressive shield fighting rules, it doesn't just sit there for those in the know.

PS what if we agreed the stats for Zulu weapons should be a bit higher, but make them Exotic and have people take the Exotic Weapons Proficiency : Zulu Weapons to learn their use? Then they are better used but the average barbarian can't use them immediately without training.