SangoProduction
2023-11-05, 08:12 PM
Preamble: Master of Many Stances is a monk archetype that focuses on the use of Stances, which are a type of martial talent. They were introduced in the Youxia Handbook, and you can normally only have 1 stance active at once, and you either spend a swift action for the round, and martial focus to extend it for a number of rounds = to your practitioner modifier.
It got me wondering how good the stances really are.
Post Review Analysis: Neat. Stances can be found in every sphere, and they certainly run the gamut of stupidly good to totally worthless, they have an incredibly good spread. I did not remember that being the case, from the sphere reviews themselves.
(1) Superb: You always want this if it's relevant to you. And it probably is.
(1.5) Really Good: Particularly useful bits of kit, but aren't quite must-haves. (Kept it decimal, because spreading out Good so far from Superb felt unrepresentative. But I needed a step between)
(2) Good: These make useful additions to the right builds. Among your first picks.
(3) Mediocre: Doesn't hurt to have. Wouldn't go out of your way for it.
(4) No: It technically has a use, but the cost to take simply doesn't outweigh the benefit.
(5) Never: There’s no non-trivial reason to pick it up, from its mechanics.
(6+) Harmful: Taking/using this is actively detrimental to your character.
<Angle brackets> around a rating indicates situational usefulness, and how good it is in that favorable situation.
[Square brackets] indicate a reliance on the group (players or DM) or campaign you’re playing in, and how well it does in those select groups.
Special Ratings:
(C) Cheese: A talent so broken that it will be instantly banned if you use it as you could.
(?) Unrated: I choose not to rate it. Often because it is just so far out of my wheelhouse, or it’s far too ambiguous.
(F) Flavor: This indicates that the main draw to the talent is going to be its inherent fluff or flavor, rather than raw power or utility.
(D) D***bag: Used for when your character wants to be a D***bag.
[OpenHand] Featherlight Positioning (1 / C): A bonus 5 ft step on attack action is... neither here nor there. a 5 ft step on AoO, however... Well, suddenly we're talking here. Given enough AoOs, you can be, quite literally infinitely mobile and impossible to approach. And given that there is a legendary talent or feat somewhere that gives infinite AoOs... Wait, I think that's a mythic feat. Regardless! Just getting to make 5 such 5ft steps in a round eats up the majority of most creatures' movements, if they only use 1 move action to reach you. Even Cheetahs. Charging and such is different. But that's basically a forced commitment you put on them. Plus most chargers can't make infinite turns while charging. You can.
Of all the stances here, I think this has the highest likelihood of actually being banned if brought to a table, and at all reasonably utilized. (This is just such a lower bar, as you become virtually immune to the majority of melee fighters. And guess what makes up the vast, vast majority of the monster manual. Say what you will about 4e, but they actually had reasonable tactical variety in their monsters.)
[Fencing] Sequestering Facade (1 / C): Lets you force a 1v1 with the target of your feint. Incidentally, this is stronger as a supportive Safe Haven than it is an offensive effect. No one can interact with either you or the target, so long as the stance persists, and they willingly fail their save.
Depending on how far "interact" is defined (and illusionists will tell you, that is a pain point), you effectively have slow, mind-affecting-based teleportation with one passenger.
[Alchemy] Virulent Basilisk’s Cloak (1+): You will always spend martial focus to extend it, for several reasons, but most notably is that you get to create the poison you have to expend in order to use it, if you do so - and thus you avoid the action tax there in not just that one time, but every other round that you would otherwise activate this.
Surrounds yourself in a poison aura that also retaliates against melee attacks, in addition to reducing the saves against poison. Given that Alchemy sphere poisons tend to be three-check kills, this substantially amps up your rate of affliction, to potentially multiple times per person outside of your turn, in addition to some good area, if you can boost your natural reach. So... granted, I guess this power is more a result of the poison than the talent itself.
[Equipment] Cloth Snake Puppetry [1+]: Although magic, by and large, can do what this enables, but better and with less investment... that's just the nature of magic What magic doesn't do is let you AoO dirty trick blinds within 25 feet (without considering Guardian sphere) by level 8. Well, 20 reach from the talent. If you rule that's in addition to your normal reach, then that's 25 for medium. If you rule it is exclusive to your normal reach, despite you literally holding the rope you are controlling, then you could well have reach with this less than your normal reach.
[Warleader] Marauding Monkey (1): On successfully damaging opponents with an attack action or AoO, extend the duration of warleader effects by 1 round. This is effectively bonus action economy, as a rider effect for dealing damage... assuming there are any warleader effects you want to have. And if there aren't, you wouldn't be in the Warleader sphere anyway. Besides, new talents can always be printed eventually.
[Wrestling] Embracing Bear (1): Let an attack automatically hit you, and then grapple as an AoO. Given that grappling is a 3-check kill, getting to add a check while it's not even your turn is pretty potent, and all it costs is taking some attack that you might have possibly taken any way.
[Lancer] Defensive Leverage (1.5): You not only get 20% miss chance, any such misses granted by the chance is redirected to an impale target as an AoO. This brilliantly not only turns it into a miss for them, but an effective hit for you, for no real additional effort.
[Shield / Legendary] Perfect Turtle Mimicry (1.5): Gets to gain total cover from one side of your token. Neat. Also gain the ability to get a 40% effective miss chance worth of AC from all directions for a round, plus reflex bonus and improved evasion. It does technically cost their martial focus, and immediate action (and thus the swift action of next round), while lasting a singular round, but that's fairly potent. How good is it as an action *stance*? Difficult question.
[Dual Wield] Gemini Dancer (1.5): On barely missing with dual attack, you instead deal minimum damage. If you stack flat damage, or large numbers of variable damages (like in the case of having an Enhancement mage on your team, and DM ruling that Energy Enhancement can be cast multiple times on the same weapon), then this is nearly the same as getting +5 to hit.
But, if you're not maxing your min damage, then this is likely totally piddly and inconsequential at best, and needless accounting at worst.
[Scoundrel] Crouching Tiger (1.5): On being missed with an attack, you do an AoO dirty trick. This is leagues better than an attack, because this can result in a condition (other than death) that actually, effective ends their turn, like Blind.
[Dual Wielding / Legendary] Spinning Reflection (2): Interrupt attacks made against you during the stance as an AoO. Roll an attack for main and offhand (with dual wield penalty), and reduce damage of said attack by 50% per attack you make that's higher than the attacker's roll.
This means that not even criticals are no longer guaranteed to hit you. Barring DM fiat.
[Athletics] Stable Positioning [2]: AC penalties that you inflict on yourself, have the penalty reduced by 2, +1 per 5 lvls. The list of self-AC penalty-inflicting actions are very limited. And much of the time that AC penalty is hardly the highest on your list of priorities. But if you regularly engage in stuff like charging and running, and berserk sphere, then it has value. And even moreso if you have more.
[Athletics] Lashing Serpent (2): Automatic AoOs on enemy missing you. Cool.
[Athletics] Friction Manipulation (2, F): You can climb without using your hands. You literally just walk up the wall. How useful is that? Well, if you're in a classic dungeon crawl, and you are a bow user, it's probably more useful than you'd expect. Even if you're in a more modern campaign, and are a bow user, it's still got use as a more limited flight, so long as the DM remembers to give the terrain more definition than being a blank battle map.
[Barroom] Improvised Martial Arts (2): Makes improvised weapons deal unarmed damage, and are treated as unarmed. Unironically useful, given that this effectively gives Barroom +2 damage dice size for improvised weapons used this way. Also lets you break said weapon on attack, and AoO the target with an unarmed strike.
Still unarmed strikes. But, it's a real build that really exists.
[Shield] Snapping Turtle (2):: Any creature who misses a creature you are defending then has to make a fortitude save, the net time you hit them with an attack action, regardless of when it is, or else fall prone.
[Scout] Hidden Dragon <2>: If you're facing a singular foe, and have an ability to move with your combat maneuver, then you do get an opportunity to stealth mid-combat, with relative ease. Which does make it easier to perform combat maneuvers. This is thanks to stealth not being an action, and instead happening on movement.
[Guardian] Defiant Boar (3): Heal up to your BAB damage from your delayed damage pool when you make an attack action, capped by your damage dealt. That's actually really not great. But it helps you to be even tankier than before.
[Beastmastery] Two As One (3): Relatively minor stance that lets you freely defend your animal ally (so long as they are in your square, which can be done without penalty), and gives said ally your BAB (up to their HD).
This gets more interesting if you have PCs who are animals. But that might be misreading the rules, and it's hard to imagine a particularly potent means of making use of this. Maybe a self-shapeshifting mage?
[Gladiator]Murderous Intent (3): Does very little of particular worth. But it does effectively stop someone from 5ft stepping into your reach weapon dead zone. Which is neat.
[Berserker] Sword Eater (3): Sunder AoO on being targetted by a melee weapon attack. It's sunder. Eh. But free AoO. Have fun.
[Duelist] Vengeful Scorpion (3): On bleeding a creature with a weapon you draw in that round, its next attack against you provokes AoO. Doesn't rely on the opponent missing, but has the same (deflect) talent statement, implying that it won't proc allow any such talents, if you use this.
[Brute] Giant Physique (3, F): +1 effective size category, +1 per 5 BAB, for the purpose of CMB and CMD, and ability to even make combat maneuvers against targets. In 3.5, this would have been massive. In PF, it's really rather minor, maxing out at +2 from Huge to Garg and +4 from Garg to Col size, for a total of +6 size mod, relative to being Huge. And then, you can keep getting a bonus +1 per size category you would exceed colossal, per the talent.
Nothing to sniff at, if you are at least level 5, and have another means of getting to Huge effective size, before this talent. But also not anything that's going to be super game changing if you're not truly maxing your effective size. Still, who doesn't want to be known as the gnome that can grapple literal giants to submission?
[Sniper] Retaliating Fire (3): On a ranged attack missing you, take AoO on them.
[Equipment] Cloth Snake Puppetry (3): Yet another Attack on being attacked talent. But it doesn't require them hitting/missing. Just attacking.
[OpenHand] Leopard’s Gambit (3): Give an attack against you advantage. But the attack provokes an attack of opportunity.
[Dual Wield] Snapping Crab (4): On missing an enemy with a melee attack, their next melee attack against you that misses provokes an AoO, at the same penalties it had during the original attack. So many points of failure. But hey, if you want it, you can have it.
[Alchemy] Dynamite Throwing Form (4): Adds unarmed damage, plus strength to the formulae throw. Incredibly pointless.
[Athletics] Aerial Hang (4, F): You can float 5 feet above solid ground for one round. And get free, automatic 5 ft steps on hitting in melee. We will ignore that sitting 5 ft above the ground makes your feet a very easy target, and makes whoever is below you a very difficult one. (Most people don't have 5-ft arms, in addition to the normal distance to the enemy.) But it's kinda fun to imagine. And there are no mechanical penalties for this. Very little actual point to it either though. Like maybe the high ground rules apply.
[Boxing] Elongated Step (4): +5 ft reach with counter punch. Basically lunge, except that you are pseudo-threatening thanks to the preparation portion of counter punch.
But you are marginally less likely totally whiff your melee counter punch. Ought to stack with Gazelle Punch for +10 reach. Then combine with patrol, size increases, and actual reach weapons, and you might as well have a bow equipped. (Of course, with a bow, you wouldn't even need to go through those hoops.)
[Boxing] Floating Butterfly (4): Give up the +2 Counter punch damage for +1 dodge. And free 5 ft step at the end of a melee attack against you. Absolutely trivial.
[Boxing (Legendary)] Wiggling Kitten, Lunging Lion (4): If it was a jump, as part of the punch, rather than readying the counter punch, this would be substantially higher, as it would effectively let melee boxers actually get onto their targets that they simply allowed to take their turn. Instead, this is just bonus combat movement.
[Equipment] Versatile Fighter (4): Basically Power Attack, if Power Attack didn't let you pick any other stances. There are lots of good stances. And this can be emulated with the associated Feat(s), if you really cared about them.
[Scoundrel] Vagabond Nick (4): Barring some shenanigans with snipe tricking, where you're using your full round action to trick twice a round from range, and thus would appreciate getting *some* (let alone all) of your movement back, this really doesn't add much. But it does let you deal some tiny bit of chip damage to make it feel like you are also directly contributing to taking down the monster.
[Brute] Ornery Ox (5): Lets you overrun one creature when using move action shove (which lets you move as part of the shove). This is so particularly pointless. Even ignoring that you can just do that normally, without the target limitation. This doesn't even give you a bonus to the check.
[Barrage] 100,000 Arrows (5): You can take a -2 to hit, but the first hit counts as two (for purpose of barrage talents... So Walking fire would net you a -1 to hit after that penalty. Double tap would grant an additional +1 to each attack after the first. And arguably, you would increase Suppressing Fire's attack penalty from -3 to -4.
So... garbage. But if there were a hypothetical talent that actually got any real benefit from that, it would be cool. Just... doesn't exist. Yet.
[Fencing] Darting Crane (5): On creature missing you, use AoO to free action feint. I think I'll rate this worthless for any good feint build.
[Gladiator/Legendary] Final Stand (5): Trigger boasts on allies going down. And potentially heal said allies by 1 point... woo.
[Gladiator/Legendary] Draining Despair (5): On a demoralized creature missing you with an attack, they take [level] damage. No more than once per round. Wow that is absolutely pathetic.
[Trap] Fool’s Retreat (?): On taking the unusual Withdraw action, you force threatening creatures to make will saves or follow you on their turn. This can get them to provoke attacks of opportunities from your friends. At, of course, the cost of you basically spending your entire turn to give a chance that they do that. It can also draw them into the traps you laid earlier.
Ultimately, I am unsure of this talent, even to this day.
It got me wondering how good the stances really are.
Post Review Analysis: Neat. Stances can be found in every sphere, and they certainly run the gamut of stupidly good to totally worthless, they have an incredibly good spread. I did not remember that being the case, from the sphere reviews themselves.
(1) Superb: You always want this if it's relevant to you. And it probably is.
(1.5) Really Good: Particularly useful bits of kit, but aren't quite must-haves. (Kept it decimal, because spreading out Good so far from Superb felt unrepresentative. But I needed a step between)
(2) Good: These make useful additions to the right builds. Among your first picks.
(3) Mediocre: Doesn't hurt to have. Wouldn't go out of your way for it.
(4) No: It technically has a use, but the cost to take simply doesn't outweigh the benefit.
(5) Never: There’s no non-trivial reason to pick it up, from its mechanics.
(6+) Harmful: Taking/using this is actively detrimental to your character.
<Angle brackets> around a rating indicates situational usefulness, and how good it is in that favorable situation.
[Square brackets] indicate a reliance on the group (players or DM) or campaign you’re playing in, and how well it does in those select groups.
Special Ratings:
(C) Cheese: A talent so broken that it will be instantly banned if you use it as you could.
(?) Unrated: I choose not to rate it. Often because it is just so far out of my wheelhouse, or it’s far too ambiguous.
(F) Flavor: This indicates that the main draw to the talent is going to be its inherent fluff or flavor, rather than raw power or utility.
(D) D***bag: Used for when your character wants to be a D***bag.
[OpenHand] Featherlight Positioning (1 / C): A bonus 5 ft step on attack action is... neither here nor there. a 5 ft step on AoO, however... Well, suddenly we're talking here. Given enough AoOs, you can be, quite literally infinitely mobile and impossible to approach. And given that there is a legendary talent or feat somewhere that gives infinite AoOs... Wait, I think that's a mythic feat. Regardless! Just getting to make 5 such 5ft steps in a round eats up the majority of most creatures' movements, if they only use 1 move action to reach you. Even Cheetahs. Charging and such is different. But that's basically a forced commitment you put on them. Plus most chargers can't make infinite turns while charging. You can.
Of all the stances here, I think this has the highest likelihood of actually being banned if brought to a table, and at all reasonably utilized. (This is just such a lower bar, as you become virtually immune to the majority of melee fighters. And guess what makes up the vast, vast majority of the monster manual. Say what you will about 4e, but they actually had reasonable tactical variety in their monsters.)
[Fencing] Sequestering Facade (1 / C): Lets you force a 1v1 with the target of your feint. Incidentally, this is stronger as a supportive Safe Haven than it is an offensive effect. No one can interact with either you or the target, so long as the stance persists, and they willingly fail their save.
Depending on how far "interact" is defined (and illusionists will tell you, that is a pain point), you effectively have slow, mind-affecting-based teleportation with one passenger.
[Alchemy] Virulent Basilisk’s Cloak (1+): You will always spend martial focus to extend it, for several reasons, but most notably is that you get to create the poison you have to expend in order to use it, if you do so - and thus you avoid the action tax there in not just that one time, but every other round that you would otherwise activate this.
Surrounds yourself in a poison aura that also retaliates against melee attacks, in addition to reducing the saves against poison. Given that Alchemy sphere poisons tend to be three-check kills, this substantially amps up your rate of affliction, to potentially multiple times per person outside of your turn, in addition to some good area, if you can boost your natural reach. So... granted, I guess this power is more a result of the poison than the talent itself.
[Equipment] Cloth Snake Puppetry [1+]: Although magic, by and large, can do what this enables, but better and with less investment... that's just the nature of magic What magic doesn't do is let you AoO dirty trick blinds within 25 feet (without considering Guardian sphere) by level 8. Well, 20 reach from the talent. If you rule that's in addition to your normal reach, then that's 25 for medium. If you rule it is exclusive to your normal reach, despite you literally holding the rope you are controlling, then you could well have reach with this less than your normal reach.
[Warleader] Marauding Monkey (1): On successfully damaging opponents with an attack action or AoO, extend the duration of warleader effects by 1 round. This is effectively bonus action economy, as a rider effect for dealing damage... assuming there are any warleader effects you want to have. And if there aren't, you wouldn't be in the Warleader sphere anyway. Besides, new talents can always be printed eventually.
[Wrestling] Embracing Bear (1): Let an attack automatically hit you, and then grapple as an AoO. Given that grappling is a 3-check kill, getting to add a check while it's not even your turn is pretty potent, and all it costs is taking some attack that you might have possibly taken any way.
[Lancer] Defensive Leverage (1.5): You not only get 20% miss chance, any such misses granted by the chance is redirected to an impale target as an AoO. This brilliantly not only turns it into a miss for them, but an effective hit for you, for no real additional effort.
[Shield / Legendary] Perfect Turtle Mimicry (1.5): Gets to gain total cover from one side of your token. Neat. Also gain the ability to get a 40% effective miss chance worth of AC from all directions for a round, plus reflex bonus and improved evasion. It does technically cost their martial focus, and immediate action (and thus the swift action of next round), while lasting a singular round, but that's fairly potent. How good is it as an action *stance*? Difficult question.
[Dual Wield] Gemini Dancer (1.5): On barely missing with dual attack, you instead deal minimum damage. If you stack flat damage, or large numbers of variable damages (like in the case of having an Enhancement mage on your team, and DM ruling that Energy Enhancement can be cast multiple times on the same weapon), then this is nearly the same as getting +5 to hit.
But, if you're not maxing your min damage, then this is likely totally piddly and inconsequential at best, and needless accounting at worst.
[Scoundrel] Crouching Tiger (1.5): On being missed with an attack, you do an AoO dirty trick. This is leagues better than an attack, because this can result in a condition (other than death) that actually, effective ends their turn, like Blind.
[Dual Wielding / Legendary] Spinning Reflection (2): Interrupt attacks made against you during the stance as an AoO. Roll an attack for main and offhand (with dual wield penalty), and reduce damage of said attack by 50% per attack you make that's higher than the attacker's roll.
This means that not even criticals are no longer guaranteed to hit you. Barring DM fiat.
[Athletics] Stable Positioning [2]: AC penalties that you inflict on yourself, have the penalty reduced by 2, +1 per 5 lvls. The list of self-AC penalty-inflicting actions are very limited. And much of the time that AC penalty is hardly the highest on your list of priorities. But if you regularly engage in stuff like charging and running, and berserk sphere, then it has value. And even moreso if you have more.
[Athletics] Lashing Serpent (2): Automatic AoOs on enemy missing you. Cool.
[Athletics] Friction Manipulation (2, F): You can climb without using your hands. You literally just walk up the wall. How useful is that? Well, if you're in a classic dungeon crawl, and you are a bow user, it's probably more useful than you'd expect. Even if you're in a more modern campaign, and are a bow user, it's still got use as a more limited flight, so long as the DM remembers to give the terrain more definition than being a blank battle map.
[Barroom] Improvised Martial Arts (2): Makes improvised weapons deal unarmed damage, and are treated as unarmed. Unironically useful, given that this effectively gives Barroom +2 damage dice size for improvised weapons used this way. Also lets you break said weapon on attack, and AoO the target with an unarmed strike.
Still unarmed strikes. But, it's a real build that really exists.
[Shield] Snapping Turtle (2):: Any creature who misses a creature you are defending then has to make a fortitude save, the net time you hit them with an attack action, regardless of when it is, or else fall prone.
[Scout] Hidden Dragon <2>: If you're facing a singular foe, and have an ability to move with your combat maneuver, then you do get an opportunity to stealth mid-combat, with relative ease. Which does make it easier to perform combat maneuvers. This is thanks to stealth not being an action, and instead happening on movement.
[Guardian] Defiant Boar (3): Heal up to your BAB damage from your delayed damage pool when you make an attack action, capped by your damage dealt. That's actually really not great. But it helps you to be even tankier than before.
[Beastmastery] Two As One (3): Relatively minor stance that lets you freely defend your animal ally (so long as they are in your square, which can be done without penalty), and gives said ally your BAB (up to their HD).
This gets more interesting if you have PCs who are animals. But that might be misreading the rules, and it's hard to imagine a particularly potent means of making use of this. Maybe a self-shapeshifting mage?
[Gladiator]Murderous Intent (3): Does very little of particular worth. But it does effectively stop someone from 5ft stepping into your reach weapon dead zone. Which is neat.
[Berserker] Sword Eater (3): Sunder AoO on being targetted by a melee weapon attack. It's sunder. Eh. But free AoO. Have fun.
[Duelist] Vengeful Scorpion (3): On bleeding a creature with a weapon you draw in that round, its next attack against you provokes AoO. Doesn't rely on the opponent missing, but has the same (deflect) talent statement, implying that it won't proc allow any such talents, if you use this.
[Brute] Giant Physique (3, F): +1 effective size category, +1 per 5 BAB, for the purpose of CMB and CMD, and ability to even make combat maneuvers against targets. In 3.5, this would have been massive. In PF, it's really rather minor, maxing out at +2 from Huge to Garg and +4 from Garg to Col size, for a total of +6 size mod, relative to being Huge. And then, you can keep getting a bonus +1 per size category you would exceed colossal, per the talent.
Nothing to sniff at, if you are at least level 5, and have another means of getting to Huge effective size, before this talent. But also not anything that's going to be super game changing if you're not truly maxing your effective size. Still, who doesn't want to be known as the gnome that can grapple literal giants to submission?
[Sniper] Retaliating Fire (3): On a ranged attack missing you, take AoO on them.
[Equipment] Cloth Snake Puppetry (3): Yet another Attack on being attacked talent. But it doesn't require them hitting/missing. Just attacking.
[OpenHand] Leopard’s Gambit (3): Give an attack against you advantage. But the attack provokes an attack of opportunity.
[Dual Wield] Snapping Crab (4): On missing an enemy with a melee attack, their next melee attack against you that misses provokes an AoO, at the same penalties it had during the original attack. So many points of failure. But hey, if you want it, you can have it.
[Alchemy] Dynamite Throwing Form (4): Adds unarmed damage, plus strength to the formulae throw. Incredibly pointless.
[Athletics] Aerial Hang (4, F): You can float 5 feet above solid ground for one round. And get free, automatic 5 ft steps on hitting in melee. We will ignore that sitting 5 ft above the ground makes your feet a very easy target, and makes whoever is below you a very difficult one. (Most people don't have 5-ft arms, in addition to the normal distance to the enemy.) But it's kinda fun to imagine. And there are no mechanical penalties for this. Very little actual point to it either though. Like maybe the high ground rules apply.
[Boxing] Elongated Step (4): +5 ft reach with counter punch. Basically lunge, except that you are pseudo-threatening thanks to the preparation portion of counter punch.
But you are marginally less likely totally whiff your melee counter punch. Ought to stack with Gazelle Punch for +10 reach. Then combine with patrol, size increases, and actual reach weapons, and you might as well have a bow equipped. (Of course, with a bow, you wouldn't even need to go through those hoops.)
[Boxing] Floating Butterfly (4): Give up the +2 Counter punch damage for +1 dodge. And free 5 ft step at the end of a melee attack against you. Absolutely trivial.
[Boxing (Legendary)] Wiggling Kitten, Lunging Lion (4): If it was a jump, as part of the punch, rather than readying the counter punch, this would be substantially higher, as it would effectively let melee boxers actually get onto their targets that they simply allowed to take their turn. Instead, this is just bonus combat movement.
[Equipment] Versatile Fighter (4): Basically Power Attack, if Power Attack didn't let you pick any other stances. There are lots of good stances. And this can be emulated with the associated Feat(s), if you really cared about them.
[Scoundrel] Vagabond Nick (4): Barring some shenanigans with snipe tricking, where you're using your full round action to trick twice a round from range, and thus would appreciate getting *some* (let alone all) of your movement back, this really doesn't add much. But it does let you deal some tiny bit of chip damage to make it feel like you are also directly contributing to taking down the monster.
[Brute] Ornery Ox (5): Lets you overrun one creature when using move action shove (which lets you move as part of the shove). This is so particularly pointless. Even ignoring that you can just do that normally, without the target limitation. This doesn't even give you a bonus to the check.
[Barrage] 100,000 Arrows (5): You can take a -2 to hit, but the first hit counts as two (for purpose of barrage talents... So Walking fire would net you a -1 to hit after that penalty. Double tap would grant an additional +1 to each attack after the first. And arguably, you would increase Suppressing Fire's attack penalty from -3 to -4.
So... garbage. But if there were a hypothetical talent that actually got any real benefit from that, it would be cool. Just... doesn't exist. Yet.
[Fencing] Darting Crane (5): On creature missing you, use AoO to free action feint. I think I'll rate this worthless for any good feint build.
[Gladiator/Legendary] Final Stand (5): Trigger boasts on allies going down. And potentially heal said allies by 1 point... woo.
[Gladiator/Legendary] Draining Despair (5): On a demoralized creature missing you with an attack, they take [level] damage. No more than once per round. Wow that is absolutely pathetic.
[Trap] Fool’s Retreat (?): On taking the unusual Withdraw action, you force threatening creatures to make will saves or follow you on their turn. This can get them to provoke attacks of opportunities from your friends. At, of course, the cost of you basically spending your entire turn to give a chance that they do that. It can also draw them into the traps you laid earlier.
Ultimately, I am unsure of this talent, even to this day.