Regional Barbarian Feat

[Strormer]

I'm working on a regional feat for a northern region full of barbarian tribes. Their culture believes that dodging is a sign of a weak spirit, so they cultivate skills associated with taking a blow and shrugging it off rather than avoiding. So far I'm thinking something like this:

Grass-Skin [Regional]
Prerequisites: Forvanni Tribes Region, Dexterity 12+, Constitution 13+, Base Attack Bonus +1
Benefit: You may, as a swift action, lose your Dexterity bonus to your AC, as well as any dodge bonus you may have, until the beginning of your next turn. If you do so you gain Damage Reduction 1/- until the beginning of your next turn. This bonus increases to 2/- at 10th level and 3/- at 20th level.

It has the feel that I want, but I don't think it's a good feat. Does anyone have a better way to exemplify a warrior that is better at taking a punch than dodging?

[AugustNights]

Well... it's a fine feat, I suppose, for a Dex 10 or less character, but it isn't really a great exchange. DR /- is nice, but at such low amounts it probably won't really counter not having a good armor score.

Then again the Natural Armor, Heavy Plate, Magic Buffed Tank would probably like this feat a lot.

Perhaps the Feat could grant Natural Armor equal to Con mod in exchange for Dex to Armor class.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Take it Like a Man
Prerequisites: Constitution 13+, Base Attack Bonus +1
Benefit: At any time prior to an enemy rolling an attack roll against you, you may choose to take a penalty to your Armor Class until the beginning of your next turn. This penalty can be any number you choose, up to a maximum of 2 + your Base Attack Bonus

Until the beginning of your next turn, you gain damage reduction X/-, where X is the penalty taken to your armor class, and you gain temporary hit points equal to the penalty taken. These temporary hit points stack with all other temporary hit points, and vanish at the start of your next turn.

Special: The damage reduction granted by this feat stacks with (and only with) damage reduction X/-. It stacks with an amount of damage reduction up to 1 + 1/4 your character level (rounded down, minimum 1). In effect, this means that a 20th level Barbarian gets his 5/- damage reduction in addition to the benefits of this feat, while a Golem with 20 Hit Dice, DR 10/-, and this feat only gains +6/- of his innate damage reduction when using this feat (effectively requiring at least a -5 penalty and the 5/- DR granted for the Golem to surpass his natural damage reduction).

So a level 1 Barbarian could eat a -3 penalty to AC for DR 3/- and 3 temporary hit points. A level 20 Barbarian could eat a -22 penalty to AC for DR 27/- (22/- + his normal 5/-) and 22 temporary hit points.

[AugustNights]

That is a wonderful feat, Djinn.
Consider it stolen.

[Chronos]

Does it stack with the DR a barbarian gets from his class? The default rule would be no, but I think it'd be better if it did: Flavor-wise, I can see this feat appealing mostly to barbarians, but it'd be useless to them if it doesn't stack.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Does it stack with the DR a barbarian gets from his class? The default rule would be no, but I think it'd be better if it did: Flavor-wise, I can see this feat appealing mostly to barbarians, but it'd be useless to them if it doesn't stack.

I'm not sure about stacking...it could get out of hand entirely.

Perhaps it stacks *only* with a Barbarian's damage reduction, and not with the damage reduction granted by any other feat, racial ability, or class feature.

[AugustNights]

Damage reduction doesn't stack unless it explicitly says so.

[Fearan]

Yet another musthave feat for ubercharger?

[Chronos]

Damage reduction doesn't stack unless it explicitly says so.

Right, that's why I think the OP should explicitly say so, because the feat isn't worth much if it doesn't.

[Strormer]

Djinn, that looks awesome, but is it too good? I don't know a barbarian that wouldn't take that. What if I limited the penalty to dex mod rather thhan level+2? Just worried about homebrew overpower.

[NeoSeraphi]

Djinn, that looks awesome, but is it too good? I don't know a barbarian that wouldn't take that. What if I limited the penalty to dex mod rather thhan level+2? Just worried about homebrew overpower.

No no no. First of all, it's not limited to Level+2. It's limited to BAB+2. That does translate to level+2 if you stay straight barbarian, but if you dip into the higher powered classes like cleric or psion, you'll lose BAB, and therefore, lose the boost. So it actually gives you a nice reason to stay in barbarian and barbarian-flavored PrCs like bear warrior or frenzied berserker.

Secondly, the reason that the barbarian's damage reduction class feature is considered so poor is because it scales horribly and ends up only offering you a pitiful DR 5/- at 20th level. Making it dependent on a stat that is not relevant to the class at all is a bad idea and will result in the feat largely becoming useless, only "useful" for archererians, who won't be taking damage anyway because they'll be fighting at range.

The feat itself is very nicely balanced, and it stacks with Stone Power, which means that if you combine the two, you can make a barbarian who will probably never go down (from hit point damage, anyway)

[Strormer]

Cool. I see what you mean. So it won't overpower because the barbarian dr was way underpowered to begin with which makes stacking appropriate. Very cool.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

I still wouldn't allow stacking, actually. On a Barbarian, you'd just have to take a greater penalty to see a bonus greater than you'd normally get. Allowing stacking opens up some nasty windows with 1-2 of the stacking DR effects in the game, which I'm loathe to do.

[NeoSeraphi]

I understand you being hesitant to let it stack with unspecified types of damage reduction, but I see no reason to prevent it from stacking with the barbarian's Damage Reduction class feature. That only serves to make the feat better, and help it scale better with a single-classed barbarian. It only adds 5 points to the feat, and otherwise the barbarian wouldn't be able to get as much out of his feat as a barbarian who prestiged or multiclassed.

[Strormer]

It would only stack with the barbarian dr. Just so as to not negate a class feature like that. Any other dr wouldn't stack.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

I understand you being hesitant to let it stack with unspecified types of damage reduction, but I see no reason to prevent it from stacking with the barbarian's Damage Reduction class feature. That only serves to make the feat better, and help it scale better with a single-classed barbarian. It only adds 5 points to the feat, and otherwise the barbarian wouldn't be able to get as much out of his feat as a barbarian who prestiged or multiclassed.

I suppose that's fair. I'll add a clause to allow that while limiting other possible avenues of exploitation.

[Strormer]

Precisely, so add something like:

Special: The damage reduction gained from this feat stacks with the damage reduction gained from the Barbarian class feature, but not with any other form of damage reduction.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Precisely, so add something like:

Special: The damage reduction gained from this feat stacks with the damage reduction gained from the Barbarian class feature, but not with any other form of damage reduction.

Already added. It actually stacks with ALL Damage Reduction X/- (since there are other ways of getting it) up to a total value that I thought fair, and that allows the Barbarian the full benefit of his DR.