3.5 Feat: Focused Attack (TWF)

[Talanic]

Focused Attack [General]
Prerequisites

Dex 17, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Two-Weapon Fighting, base attack bonus +6.
Benefit

As part of your attack action when fighting with penalties for two-weapon fighting, you can choose to sacrifice an attack at your highest attack modifier to add 1/2 the attack's base attack bonus to attack rolls OR damage of all other attacks made after this attack and before the start of your next round. You can only sacrifice one attack per iterative set, starting with attacks that have the highest base attack bonus; at the time of sacrifice, you choose whether this attack's benefit goes into attack or damage. For example, an eighteenth-level fighter lacking Greater Two-Weapon Fighting has five attacks at 16/16/11/11/6, and can sacrifice an attack with either weapon at 16 to add 8 to attack bonus or damage to the remaining attacks.

He could also sacrifice one +16 attack and one +11 attack to add +8 to his other +16 attack and +13 to all remaining attacks in the round; as the +16 attack occurs before the +11 attack is sacrificed, there is no benefit given. He can't sacrifice both +16 attacks to add +16 to all other attacks, nor can he sacrifice the third attack at +6 without having Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, as it is not a part of the iterative set.

Edit:
If he chose, he could sacrifice a +16 attack and a +11 attack to add +8 to attack bonus and +5 to damage, or vise versa, to all remaining iterative attacks.

If you use the Power Attack feat or similar effects during the same round, the bonus attack or damage is calculated after the power attack penalty has been applied to base attack bonus; if the aforementioned fighter had applied ten points of to-hit penalty, the first attack sacrificed would add +3 to all other attacks, rather than +8.

Special

A fighter may select Focused Attack as one of his fighter bonus feats.

An 11th-level ranger who has chosen the two-weapon combat style is eligible to take the Focused Attack feat, regardless of other prerequisites.



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This feat will hopefully help a little with the two-weapon fighter's biggest problem: heavy hits and penetration of damage reduction. I'm not sure if it's right though; I suspect that adding to attack rolls as well as damage is excessive, but I figured I'd let people take a gander at it first.

It's kind of an attempt to make a two-weapon version of power attack.

Keep in mind:
Power attack can only be done with one-handed and two-handed weapons; light weapons gain no benefit. If a character wants to power attack effectively with two weapons, add another -2 to all attacks.

Edit:
Changed to either attack or damage per sacrifice, but not both from one. Both from one is too powerful, but separated? Probably fine.

[Siosilvar]

Umm... no.

Consider the example you give (attacks +16/+16/+11/+11/+6).

Give up your 2 offhand dagger (normally d4 damage) attacks and gain +13 to all other attacks and damage.

You just gave up a chance to get 2d4 damage + your strength modifier (off-hand strength bonus is halved!) + whatever the enchancement bonus was x2 for a +13 bonus to attack and damage.

It just is too much.

[CaffWriter]

Typed this whole thing out and realized I was on my girlfriend's account. Just putting this disclaimer at the start to let you know: this is from original poster.

+13 to attack might be a bit much. I won't argue about it.

+13 to damage wouldn't - not at the level we're talking about. Assume weapons in question are +5 total bonus; not that big of a stretch at level 18. Other assumption is an 18 strength after modifiers are applied. And, since I admit that chance to hit might be a problem, I'm only going to argue about damage.

So, +13 damage to 3 attacks. What was given up, first?
Two attacks; who uses a dagger at that level? For the purpose of the argument, though, leaving it as you said. Dagger. +3 Flaming Shocking dagger, how about; I'm not going to spend time optimizing it, we'll go from there. 2d4 + 4d6 + 6 + 4 damage sacrificed. Max: 42. Min: 16. Average: ~32.

In exchange for this about 30 damage lost, we added 8 to damage on one attack and 13 to the remaining two attacks. Maximum POSSIBLE gain is 34: Less than the max loss, but more than the average. That is the point of feats after all; increase a character's versatility and power.

While the attack bonus increase might be too much, the damage boost is hardly something to point at, especially when compared to Power Attack.

[erikun]

Okay, let's see here.

+16/+16/+11/+11/+6

+5 shocking shortsword in each hand
26 Str (16 base, +4 levels, +6 Belt of Giant Strength), Greater Weapon Focus (Shortsword), Weapon Specialization (Swortsword)

without feat
+26/+21/+16 @ 2d6+15 damage
+26/+21 @ 2d6+11 damage

with feat (+8 to all attacks)
+34/+29/+24 @ 2d6+15 damage
+29 @ 2d6+11 damage

Now, I hope I don't need to point out that this is a bad idea. Assuming that a +26 bonus will hit around 50% of the time, the +21 hits around 25% and the +16 almost never... then +34 virtually always hits, +29 is around 70% and +24 is just under 50%. So you can give up one attack in exchange for your other 4 attacks hitting. Yeah, a bit overpowered.

As for the damage exchange, you're dealing around 18 damage on a hit with the secondary weapon, or you could add +8 to damage on all attacks. Not a good tradeoff, unless you're using a weak (possibly unenchanted) weapon in your off-hand, or your second weapon doesn't work against whatever you're fighting. (If you need Cold Iron and your second weapon is Mithril, for example.) I don't know if that was the intent of the suggestion, though.

[Baron Corm]

Make the feat just add the damage of your offhand weapon to the damage of your main weapon (at equal iterative attack levels), and drop the offhand attacks. Something like that, at least. No change in damage or attack, but penetrates damage reduction better, and is a lot less confusing.

[ericgrau]

The feat undoes the TWF feat and gives you a bonus instead. See a problem here, even if that bonus weren't ridiculous?

[tsuuga]

This feat will hopefully help a little with the two-weapon fighter's biggest problem: heavy hits and penetration of damage reduction.

My own solution to this issue would be something like this:

The Same Cut Twice [General]

Prerequisites: Dex 17, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Two-Weapon Fighting, base attack bonus +6.

Benefit:On your action, before making attack rolls for a round, you may choose to subtract a two from all melee attack rolls. Instead of applying the damage from all your attacks separately, total up the damage to each target and apply it as if it were the damage from a single attack.