New Basic Combat Feats - PEACH

[Halrax]

Prelude: I'm the sort of person who spends hundreds of hours making homebrew without any realistic intention of ever seeing it played. Figured I should start posting some of it to get some evaluations and reality checks, and maybe some people could find it interesting enough to use.

These feats are intended to be somewhat high-powered, and sometimes reference other changes. I'll try to clarify anything misleading. It may be useful for you to check out my BAB changes (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?650288-Making-BAB-more-relevant-and-interesting-PEACH).

Blind-Fight: Awareness, BAB +1: The blindsense from Awareness becomes blindsight

Canny Fighter: BAB +1: You count as having Defensive Expertise, Offensive Expertise, and Int 13 for qualifying for feats

Combat Reflexes: Dex 13: You may make AoO when flat-footed, and you gain an additional number of AoO per round equal to your Dex bonus

Defensive Expertise: Int 13, BAB +1: When fighting defensively, the penalty to attacks equals the dodge bonus to AC, the penalty is limited to BAB instead of the bonus, and the dodge bonus to AC becomes 1x/2x/3x/etc. the penalty at BAB +1/+8/+15/etc.

Dodge: Dex 13, BAB +1: You gain a +2/3/4/etc. dodge bonus to AC at BAB +1/+6/+11/etc. (dodge bonuses don’t apply when off-guard)

Endurance: Con 13: Whenever you fail a Fortitude save, you can make another save 1 round later, if successful gain the benefit of a successful save. If you succeed on a Fortitude save and succeeding only gives a partial benefit, you can make another save 1 round later to ignore the effect entirely.

Improved Unarmed Strike: BAB +1: You are considered armed even without a weapon, your unarmed strike counts as a natural weapon for the purposes of spells and other effects, your unarmed strike deals damage as if one size larger, your unarmed strike deals either lethal or nonlethal damage and either bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage (chosen when you attack), you can deal unarmed strikes even when your hands are full (up to your normal number of attacks), and you can treat these unarmed strikes as an off-hand weapon

Offensive Expertise: Int 13, BAB +1: When fighting offensively, the penalty to AC equals the bonus to attacks, the penalty is limited to BAB instead of the bonus, and the bonus to attacks becomes 1x/2x/3x/etc. the penalty at BAB +1/+8/+15/etc.

Power Attack: Str 13, BAB +1: At the beginning of each round, you may choose to take a penalty on attacks in exchange for a bonus to weapon damage. This penalty cannot exceed your BAB. The bonus on damage is none for light weapons, same as the penalty for one handed weapons, natural weapons, or thrown weapons, and twice the penalty for two handed weapons or a one-handed weapon wielded in two hands

Quick Attacks: BAB +2: Your BAB is considered four points higher when determining number of iteratives on a full attack, standard attack, or swift attack, as well as number of AoO per round and any feat that relies on BAB thresholds (such as Weapon Focus, but not Power Attack)

Quick Draw: BAB +1: You can draw a weapon or retrieve a stored item as a free action, even when not your turn. You can draw a hidden weapon as a move action. You can sheathe a weapon as a free action once per round. Iajitsu is a class skill. You gain +2 to initiative.

Weapon Finesse: Dex 13, BAB +1: When wielding a light or finesse melee or thrown weapon, you add your Dex bonus to damage, to a maximum of twice your Str bonus and in addition to your Str bonus, modified by off-hand weapons or two-handed fighting as normal.

Weapon Focus: BAB +1: Choose a weapon you’re proficient with. You gain a +2/+3/+4/etc. bonus to attacks with the weapon at BAB +1/+6/+11/etc. You can take this feat more than once, each time applying it to a different weapon.

Awareness is part of a whole other thing (I'll post that next), as is the retooling of blindsense and blindsight to give +20 and +40 to Listen within range instead of being an automatic win. But that's a tangent into stealth and detection that's not relevant here.
Canny Fighter allows for low Int characters to spend a feat to get access to maneuver feats (Improved Trip/Disarm/Bull Rush/etc.) but not the benefits of the feats in between.
Combat Reflexes is unchanged.
Defensive Expertise/Offensive Expertise rely on the mechanic of fighting defensively/offensively, where one gains a bonus of up to their BAB to AC (dodge)/attacks and takes twice the bonus as a penalty on attacks/AC.
Dodge is just a genuinely good feat now, part of an effort to make AC scale more with level (since all iteratives are at -5, the question of having lower level iteratives miss or hit is no longer there).
Endurance took way longer to come up with than the others, but it's essentially a Fortitude version of Slippery Mind.
Improved Unarmed Strike incorporates a few feats and abilities, having to take a feat just to use a fighting style always seemed a little bit weird to me and so now you're actually decent at it once you take it.
Power Attack is unchanged except for also applying to thrown weapons.
Quick Attacks uses the new BAB rules.
Quick Draw is slightly more powerful, though I think a lot of it was implied, and it now provides a benefit even when not using thrown weapons or Iajitsu.
Weapon Finesse comes from a change for all light or finesse weapons being able to use Dex to attack, but still wanting a place for the feat within the rules, but not wanting Dex to completely outshine Str. So now Str is still used for damage, and is needed to add Dex to damage. A straight substitution would have Str 6 Dex 20 rapier wielders at no cost, which doesn't make any sense at all.
Weapon Focus scales the same way Dodge does, and provides a big enough incentive to stick with a weapon type throughout your career, or just makes the feat more useful for certain monsters, though most monsters have fairly low BAB so it's not that big an issue.


Any thoughts? I'm trying to gradually port any of the things I feel finished fiddling with onto GITP so I have something to point to when people ask for context for a particular ability. The joy is in creation anyhow, and having these sorts of rules are less important to a game than rules for chases/research/businesses/political factions/etc., I just enjoy making them.

[Metastachydium]

Blind-Fight: Awareness, BAB +1: The blindsense from Awareness becomes blindsight

(…)

Awareness is part of a whole other thing (I'll post that next), as is the retooling of blindsense and blindsight to give +20 and +40 to Listen within range instead of being an automatic win. But that's a tangent into stealth and detection that's not relevant here.

I don't like this, to be honest. The nice thing about blindsense/blindsight is partly that it models certain forms of perception the skill system doesn't cover (e.g. electroreception or pit organs).


Dodge: Dex 13, BAB +1: You gain a +2/3/4/etc. dodge bonus to AC at BAB +1/+6/+11/etc. (dodge bonuses don’t apply when off-guard)

Yes, please! (Do you subscribe to the line of thought that Mobility might as well be rolled into Dodge, by the way?)


Endurance: Con 13: Whenever you fail a Fortitude save, you can make another save 1 round later, if successful gain the benefit of a successful save. If you succeed on a Fortitude save and succeeding only gives a partial benefit, you can make another save 1 round later to ignore the effect entirely.

Slippery Mind is not a perfectly apt comparison. That one only works on Enchantment effects, is way harder to acquire and doesn't essentially replicate the WIS half of Mettle. This is crazy strong for something any half-decently built character can just pick up on level 1.


Improved Unarmed Strike: BAB +1: You are considered armed even without a weapon, your unarmed strike counts as a natural weapon for the purposes of spells and other effects, your unarmed strike deals damage as if one size larger, your unarmed strike deals either lethal or nonlethal damage and either bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage (chosen when you attack), you can deal unarmed strikes even when your hands are full (up to your normal number of attacks), and you can treat these unarmed strikes as an off-hand weapon

Hm. If I were to roll two unarmed strikje feats together, it would have been IUS and SUS (or maybe SUS and VUS); IUS engulfing VUS feels off.


Quick Attacks: BAB +2: Your BAB is considered four points higher when determining number of iteratives on a full attack, standard attack, or swift attack, as well as number of AoO per round and any feat that relies on BAB thresholds (such as Weapon Focus, but not Power Attack)

Nice one.


Quick Draw: BAB +1: You can draw a weapon or retrieve a stored item as a free action, even when not your turn. You can draw a hidden weapon as a move action. You can sheathe a weapon as a free action once per round. Iajitsu is a class skill. You gain +2 to initiative.

Oh, dear.


Weapon Finesse: Dex 13, BAB +1: When wielding a light or finesse melee or thrown weapon, you add your Dex bonus to damage, to a maximum of twice your Str bonus and in addition to your Str bonus, modified by off-hand weapons or two-handed fighting as normal.

DEX is the stat as is; I'm all for DEX to damage, nonetheless, but DEX to STR(×1.5) to damage (or is it DEX×1.5 plus STR×1.5 on an elven courtblade?)…


Weapon Focus: BAB +1: Choose a weapon you’re proficient with. You gain a +2/+3/+4/etc. bonus to attacks with the weapon at BAB +1/+6/+11/etc. You can take this feat more than once, each time applying it to a different weapon.

Another yes, please, of course.


Weapon Finesse comes from a change for all light or finesse weapons being able to use Dex to attack, but still wanting a place for the feat within the rules, but not wanting Dex to completely outshine Str. So now Str is still used for damage, and is needed to add Dex to damage. A straight substitution would have Str 6 Dex 20 rapier wielders at no cost, which doesn't make any sense at all.

Like I said, I beg to disagree. This makes STR an annoying stat tax while making DEX the real damage stat. (What do you think about Crossbow Sniper-style DEX/2 to damage, by the way?)

[Halrax]

I don't like this, to be honest. The nice thing about blindsense/blindsight is partly that it models certain forms of perception the skill system doesn't cover (e.g. electroreception or pit organs).
I was trying to make Darkstalker less of a feat tax, and might replace those abilities with lifesense or something. But that's for another post to debate about.


Yes, please! (Do you subscribe to the line of thought that Mobility might as well be rolled into Dodge, by the way?)
That's in the "feats based on Dodge" section, but Mobility is now +4 dodge to AC vs all AoO rather than just AoO from moving. Not my idea, I've seen it in a few places.


Slippery Mind is not a perfectly apt comparison. That one only works on Enchantment effects, is way harder to acquire and doesn't essentially replicate the WIS half of Mettle. This is crazy strong for something any half-decently built character can just pick up on level 1.
Yeah, I couldn't figure out Endurance for a few months and wanted to put something before crossposting it. The 1-round delay means it's not quite as good as advantage. Maybe get rid of the Mettle-like part and/or require a move action for the reroll?


Hm. If I were to roll two unarmed strikje feats together, it would have been IUS and SUS (or maybe SUS and VUS); IUS engulfing VUS feels off.
It's the base monk unarmed strike ability but only one size larger instead of two, plus VUS. Enough that a feat gets unarmed fighting to be as good as, say, Power Attack + Greatsword, or TWF + kukris.


Nice one.
Yeah, this idea is referenced a lot in my class writeups.


Oh, dear.
To clarify, all class skills do is increase the max ranks, but ranks are always bought at one rank per skill point (again, not my idea). And Iajitsu will probably have to be reworked at some point to make it less about jumping through hoops but with less damage. There are also other feats that give Iajitsu as a class skill.


DEX is the stat as is; I'm all for DEX to damage, nonetheless, but DEX to STR(×1.5) to damage (or is it DEX×1.5 plus STR×1.5 on an elven courtblade?)…
Dex 20, Str 14, = +6 damage (2 from Str, 4 from Dex). Off-hand weapons (fairly common due to Dex requirements for TWF) get .5x Str so only +3, Courtblades get 1.5x so +9. This is expected, since Exotic weapons are also changed to make EWP an actual worthwhile feat. Contrast this to something like Dex 22, Str 8, straight Dex to damage which gives the same result but with no investment in Str and +1 to all other Dex things.


Another yes, please, of course.
I'll post "feats based on Weapon Focus" at some point, since that's more or less complete.


Like I said, I beg to disagree. This makes STR an annoying stat tax while making DEX the real damage stat. (What do you think about Crossbow Sniper-style DEX/2 to damage, by the way?)
I don't really consider Str to be a stat tax, since it still goes to damage (and carrying capacity, and certain prerequisites). I had an earlier draft with Dex/2 to damage to a maximum of an in addition to Str, but that seemed too weak compared to the new Weapon Specialization (even if it applies to all light/finesse weapons) so I doubled the bonus and limit.

Dex is already (especially with other changes) a really good stat, good enough that my sample character builds tend not to go for this feat so they could dump Str. For the most part it gives a bonus to TWF and Sword and Board, since THF isn't using finesse weapons without EWP and gets damage from Power Attack anyway.

If Dex was truly the damage stat (and this only applies to certain melee weapons, not the majority of melee weapons and bows) then you would see characters trying to get Dex 30 at high levels to boost it, and with the limit they can't do that without spending resources to get Str to 20 (resources that could be better spent on raising Con or whatever mental stat is relevant to their class).

[Metastachydium]

I was trying to make Darkstalker less of a feat tax, and might replace those abilities with lifesense or something. But that's for another post to debate about.

Fair; I'd recommend that you do so; and fair again.


That's in the "feats based on Dodge" section, but Mobility is now +4 dodge to AC vs all AoO rather than just AoO from moving. Not my idea, I've seen it in a few places.

I can live with that.


Yeah, I couldn't figure out Endurance for a few months and wanted to put something before crossposting it. The 1-round delay means it's not quite as good as advantage. Maybe get rid of the Mettle-like part and/or require a move action for the reroll?

Honestly, I'd probably reconsider the whole thing, but the semi-Mettle should indeed go.


To clarify, all class skills do is increase the max ranks, but ranks are always bought at one rank per skill point (again, not my idea).

That's almost the PF1 approach (which I'm very fond of). Did you consider upgrading to that one?


And Iajitsu will probably have to be reworked at some point to make it less about jumping through hoops but with less damage.

Sounds reasonable.


Dex 20, Str 14, = +6 damage (2 from Str, 4 from Dex). Off-hand weapons (fairly common due to Dex requirements for TWF) get .5x Str so only +3, Courtblades get 1.5x so +9. This is expected, since Exotic weapons are also changed to make EWP an actual worthwhile feat. Contrast this to something like Dex 22, Str 8, straight Dex to damage which gives the same result but with no investment in Str and +1 to all other Dex things.

Pumping stats above 20 is in itself an investment until one hits a certain level, but okay. (Anyhow, looking forward to peeking a look at the new exotics.)


I'll post "feats based on Weapon Focus" at some point, since that's more or less complete.

Please do.


I don't really consider Str to be a stat tax, since it still goes to damage (and carrying capacity, and certain prerequisites). I had an earlier draft with Dex/2 to damage to a maximum of an in addition to Str, but that seemed too weak compared to the new Weapon Specialization (even if it applies to all light/finesse weapons) so I doubled the bonus and limit.

I mean, STR is a lot less useful in general. But yeah, I should go run my own calculations without engaging in further speculation.