Heedless Charge

[Rift_Wolf]

Which book is this from?

[Rift_Wolf]

Does the blasted thing even exist?

[Wordmiser]

It's one use of the Shock Trooper feat in Complete Warrior.

[Emperor Tippy]

It's part of the Shock Trooper Tactical feat from CWar IIRC.

[Rift_Wolf]

Found it *temporary feat blindness*
Wanted to check to make sure the team fighter is using it properly, as it seems insanely overpowered in his hands when combined with Momentum Swings.

[kpenguin]

Found it *temporary feat blindness*
Wanted to check to make sure the team fighter is using it properly, as it seems insanely overpowered in his hands when combined with Momentum Swings.

*breaks down in laughter*

[Chronos]

*breaks down in laughter*Well, in fairness, Heedless Charge is insanely overpowered compared to what a fighter can do in core. In the land of the blind, and all that.

[Nebo_]

Just be glad he doesn't have leap attack.

[leperkhaun]

Just be glad he doesn't have leap attack.

or has valourus weapons and was half orc

[Yeril]

or has valourus weapons and was half orc

And using mounted spirted charge and lance for tripple damage.

[Frosty]

Make him pay for it occasionally by having multiple enemies with Power Attack who can now PA against him for free thanks to his abyssmal AC. Or, have some of your enemies have Elusive Target.

[Gorbash]

And using mounted spirted charge and lance for tripple damage.

And being a ranger or paladin and casting rhino rush for quarduple damage.

[Crimson Avenger]

Make him pay for it occasionally by having multiple enemies with Power Attack who can now PA against him for free thanks to his abyssmal AC. Or, have some of your enemies have Elusive Target.

Ohhhh..that's just evil. I like it! I just did that to my party. Their main line melee combatant is a rogue (go figure), the dwarven cleric flanking buddy was not a happy camper. I laughed my self silly, and they threw things at me.

[Deepblue706]

And being a ranger or paladin and casting rhino rush for quarduple damage.

or take the Cavalier PrC and make his lance do quintuple damage

[ChaosDefender24]

It could get a LOT worse than it is (FB! FB!)

[F.L.]

I think my eyes are shot. When I first saw this thread, I thought it was about HEADLESS charge, and wondered why you were playing with pc undead characters.

[Frosty]

Well, your opponent is usually headless AFTER you've charged him.

[Douglas]

See, this is where a high level fighter's abundance of feats can actually come in handy - when you add Robilar's Gambit, Elusive Target, and a Wrathful Healing weapon to the mix on top of your standard Shock Trooper/Leap Attack, then it really gets crazy - anyone who takes advantage of your low AC gets hit just as hard as your first target, and you heal yourself of damage equal to half of what you're dishing out.

Robilar's Gambit is from PHBII. Elusive Target is from Complete Warrior. Wrathful Healing is from Enemies and Allies, costs +3.

[RTGoodman]

I think my eyes are shot. When I first saw this thread, I thought it was about HEADLESS charge, and wondered why you were playing with pc undead characters.

Or he's an unarmed strike Kensai with a +1 Throwing Returning head or something like that. :smallsmile:

[F.L.]

Or he's an unarmed strike Kensai with a +1 Throwing Returning head or something like that. :smallsmile:

That is perhaps the most awesome thing I've heard of in weeks.

[Rift_Wolf]

And being a ranger or paladin and casting rhino rush for quarduple damage.

I'll give you two guesses what the Paladin does when he has room to use his mount. He killed a CR9 outsider with one hit (Did 65 odd damage)
Luckily dungeons are too small for him to have enough room to get his Deinonychus in.

[Rift_Wolf]

Or he's an unarmed strike Kensai with a +1 Throwing Returning head or something like that. :smallsmile:

This is awesome. Is anybody else thinking of the Wild Bunch from Labyrinth?

[SurlySeraph]

65 damage on a charge? Oh, it could be worse. It could be much, much worse. (http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=6428790&postcount=130)

[Irreverent Fool]

I'll give you two guesses what the Paladin does when he has room to use his mount. He killed a CR9 outsider with one hit (Did 65 odd damage)
Luckily dungeons are too small for him to have enough room to get his Deinonychus in.

Hm. Don't tell him about small-sized characters and medium-sized mounts.

[Wordmiser]

65 damage on a charge? Oh, it could be worse. It could be much, much worse. A level 20 character doing more damage than a level 6 character? Thats preposterous!

But 65 on a mounted Charge? That's ~16 damage without the spell, feat and lance?
That is rather low for his level...

[Rift_Wolf]

I can't recall the exact figure off the top of my head from his insane Rhino Rush mounted charge lance smite evil bastardry. I think it got to about 55-65hp when the dm just shouted 'fine, it's dead'. It would've been more to beat the outsiders DR (Nobody had aligned weapons before the fight).

[Reel On, Love]

Frankly, yes--Shock Trooper's Heedless Charge combined with Combat Brute's Momentum Swing is somewhat overpowered. Especially when also combined with Leap Attack. It deals damage that is complete disproportionate for the level. However, it has a big drawback if anything survives--it's when that drawback starts getting negated (elusive target, Knockback) or turned into an advantage (Combat Reflexes + Karmic Strike/Robilar's Gambit) that this really breaks.

It's not uncounterable--the player hasn't been able to (or hasn't thought of) piling on, say, Elusive Target, Karmic Strike (or Robilar's Gambit), Knockback/Pushback, and so on.

There are a whole bunch of counters you can use, though--enough that they won't be repetitive, even. Here's the ones that come to mind immediately:

-Difficult terrain. Can't charge, no Heedless Charge for you.
-Enemies who win initiative and engage the character in melee.
-Enemies with a miss chance--Displacement, Mirror Image, &etc. Heck, enemies drinking potions is standard fare in a lot of modules. Potion of Displacement will give 50% odds of missing entirely.
-Enemies with reach and Combat Reflexes; they can take AoOs even if they're flatfooted--and then use tripping or, better yet, Stand Still on the AoO.
-Enemies with the Elusive Target tactical feat who designate their character as their dodge target, negating Power Attack damage.
-High-HP enemies with Power Attack, who survive the hit and the full-power-attack the character's nonexistent AC.

There's at least a few more out there--Spellcasters go without saying.

Also, keep in mind that a character has to charge *to the closest square he can attack his target from*. This is actually kind of a big deal, as it sometimes affects whether you can charge, whether you provoke AoOs, and so on.

ETA: a paladin and his... Deinonychus? I'm amused.
...Clearly, he worships Raptor Jesus:
http://www.elevateyourpulse.com/forums/Uploads/Images/53c58f7a-2b75-44e7-a87a-b9f0.jpg

[Rift_Wolf]

That Deinonychus... I argued with him about that, as it isn't built like a mount, it wouldn't be able to balance properly with someone on its back. Then again, I fully accept Chocobos as viable mounts, and I guess there's little difference between a Deinonychus and Celestial Ostrich.
I got Complete Warrior today and found the perfect PrC to put him in his place; Reaping Mauler. Basically either win initiative and grapple, or lose initiative, he charges and attacks, grapple him to the ground. If you survive the first hit (Which isn't really the killer hit; it's the 2d8+12+27 or whatever momentum swing after which is the real hurter), his touch AC is pitiful, and even with his boosted strength he won't win many grapple checks against a grapple build (As was proved when he heedlessly charged a four-tentacled statue in the temple we just cleared. We were lucky the DM hadn't read the description correctly, or it would've been tpk)

[Reel On, Love]

That Deinonychus... I argued with him about that, as it isn't built like a mount, it wouldn't be able to balance properly with someone on its back. Then again, I fully accept Chocobos as viable mounts, and I guess there's little difference between a Deinonychus and Celestial Ostrich.
I got Complete Warrior today and found the perfect PrC to put him in his place; Reaping Mauler. Basically either win initiative and grapple, or lose initiative, he charges and attacks, grapple him to the ground. If you survive the first hit (Which isn't really the killer hit; it's the 2d8+12+27 or whatever momentum swing after which is the real hurter), his touch AC is pitiful, and even with his boosted strength he won't win many grapple checks against a grapple build (As was proved when he heedlessly charged a four-tentacled statue in the temple we just cleared. We were lucky the DM hadn't read the description correctly, or it would've been tpk)
Reaping Mauler is a trap--if you become larger than Medium, you lose the prestige class. A Reaping Mauler's grapple check *won't* be prohibitively high--monsters are much better at grappling than humanoids--and while the Mauler grapples him, the party rogue will amputate the Mauler's kidneys.
I'd recommend one or more of the methods I listed above, instead.

[Irreverent Fool]

That Deinonychus... I argued with him about that, as it isn't built like a mount, it wouldn't be able to balance properly with someone on its back. Then again, I fully accept Chocobos as viable mounts, and I guess there's little difference between a Deinonychus and Celestial Ostrich.
I got Complete Warrior today and found the perfect PrC to put him in his place; Reaping Mauler. Basically either win initiative and grapple, or lose initiative, he charges and attacks, grapple him to the ground. If you survive the first hit (Which isn't really the killer hit; it's the 2d8+12+27 or whatever momentum swing after which is the real hurter), his touch AC is pitiful, and even with his boosted strength he won't win many grapple checks against a grapple build (As was proved when he heedlessly charged a four-tentacled statue in the temple we just cleared. We were lucky the DM hadn't read the description correctly, or it would've been tpk)

Well, as a bipedal mount I'd say it would be perfectly fair to impose the -5 penalty for riding a creature ill-suited to serve as a mount. Not that that's really a big deal. You could trip it or calculate out how much weight it can carry on those two legs based on its strength and figure out if Mr. Paladin is encumbering it or not.

[Frosty]

none of the DMs I have ever played with will allow you to make AoOs before you've had the chance to act in combat. If you don't know someone is coming, you can't react. So, Flat-footed at beginning of combat = no AoOs.

[The_Snark]

Combat Reflexes [General]
Benefit
You may make a number of additional attacks of opportunity equal to your Dexterity bonus.

With this feat, you may also make attacks of opportunity while flat-footed.

Normal
A character without this feat can make only one attack of opportunity per round and can’t make attacks of opportunity while flat-footed.

A character with Combat Reflexes can, as long as they have their weapon drawn and aren't helpless.

[Reel On, Love]

none of the DMs I have ever played with will allow you to make AoOs before you've had the chance to act in combat. If you don't know someone is coming, you can't react. So, Flat-footed at beginning of combat = no AoOs.

"Don't know someone's coming" is different from "flat-footed". As Snark said, Combat Reflexes lets you make flat-footed AoOs. You see something and you lash out.

[Frosty]

Right. Buyt the previous example involved the beginning of combat, and with the enemies should try to win initiative. Well, if they didn't win, and the fighter charges, the enemies do not get AoOs. that's all I'm saying.

[SurlySeraph]

A level 20 character doing more damage than a level 6 character? Thats preposterous!

But 65 on a mounted Charge? That's ~16 damage without the spell, feat and lance?
That is rather low for his level...

Yes, I'm comparing a level 20 character to a level 6 character, but the level 20 character is doing 35,748 more damage than the damage that Rift_Wolf thinks is excessive. A level 6 version of that build would obviously be much less ridiculous, but my point stands: it could be much worse.

[Reel On, Love]

Right. Buyt the previous example involved the beginning of combat, and with the enemies should try to win initiative. Well, if they didn't win, and the fighter charges, the enemies do not get AoOs. that's all I'm saying.

What? Yes, they do, if they have Combat Reflexes! That's one of the two things that the feat DOES!

[Fizban]

On the raptor debate:

Eberron supports deinonychus and megaraptors as perfectly normal mounts with no penalties.

However, the MM has been errata'd: the deinonychus is now medium sized, and the megaraptor is large. Which doesn't really change much, they just dropped the size and strength a bit, but it matters if they're being used as say, a mount. (Link (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dinosaur.htm#deinonychus) with errata. I never would have noticed otherwise).

[its_all_ogre]

as a two legged mount their carrying capacity is hugely reduced though.
reading the rulebook would tell you this mind:smallamused:

[Cuddly]

And being a ranger or paladin and casting rhino rush for quarduple damage.

And taking levels in cavalier.

[its_all_ogre]

typical deino-whatsit has a str of 19 enabling it to carry 232 pounds as a light load, without reducing its speed in other words.(cause of size large)
this means a small creature or an elf who has little weighty gear, wizard then!
could handle a human who is light and not a warrior arguably though.
my group consist of 2 hobgoblins and a dwarf in full plate, no go for them!
they got 2 mega raptors between them.
both dead now though...