Dreadful Carnage requires power attack and furious Focus, but I can't see why. What does making an intimidate check after killing someone have to do with power attack or furious focus? Neither of these have anything to do with intimidation, and one of them requires a particular weapon style that dreadful carnage doesn't even mention, and dreadful carnage doesn't require using power attack. Am I missing something?
Dreadful Carnage (Combat)
Slaying an enemy demoralizes your other nearby foes.
Prerequisites: Str 15, Power Attack, Furious Focus, base attack bonus +11.
Benefit: Whenever you reduce an enemy to 0 or fewer hit points, you can make an Intimidate check to demoralize all enemies within 30 feet as a free action. Enemies that cannot see both you and the enemy you reduced to 0 or fewer hit points are unaffected.
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Because there weren't enough pointless prereqs in the game as-is, you know?
But with it being a requirement:
During the fury of my powerful attack, after I feel the warm blood splattered across not only my blade, but my face, I take the moment to snarl at my nearby enemies, making quick use of my Dreadful Carnage feat, in hopes to not only demoralize, but to strike fear into their hearts of what awaits them as I continue to wage war upon them with my mighty sword.
Well, that's how it is without my requirement actually, though personally I wouldn't use the word dreadful carnage myself. There's a bit of a bias in both of your statements, no matter what I can always say that I felt their warm blood, made a powerful attack, or I wage war after all.
Because there weren't enough pointless prereqs in the game as-is, you know?
That was my first thought to be honest, always a pet peeve of mine when prereqs have nothing to do with a feat. It makes sense for me to need power attack to benefit from furious focus, but I don't need either of those feats to benefit from Dreadful Carnage.
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But with it being a requirement:
During the fury of my powerful attack, after I feel the warm blood splattered across not only my blade, but my face, I take the moment to snarl at my nearby enemies, making quick use of my Dreadful Carnage feat, in hopes to not only demoralize, but to strike fear into their hearts of what awaits them as I continue to wage war upon them with my mighty sword.
With a fierce swing of my axe I slice open my enemy's ribcage and with a slick pop his bloody entrails burst out over me. I take a moment to adjust my Hello Kitty! tiara and laugh out loud, grinning madly at those about to face my wrath.
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Because there weren't enough pointless prereqs in the game as-is, you know?
This. No other reason than this.
Cornugon Smash would be a better prerequisite.
It would but I give it a pass on this one since Cornugon Smash was released after Dreadful Carnage (which is a CRB Feat unless I'm very mistaken). =)
With a fierce swing of my axe I slice open my enemy's ribcage and with a slick pop his bloody entrails burst out over me. I take a moment to adjust my Hello Kitty! tiara and laugh out loud, grinning madly at those about to face my wrath.
Hello Kitty! tiara, a masterwork intimidate tool of choice!
Cornugon Smash would be a better prerequisite.
Power Attack is fine though. You're going to have it anyway aside from some rare Dex fencers.
Cornugan Smash came out later, and you can do some real damage and make a big mess with some dex builds(dervish dancing magus, you didn't just slice him up, you blew him up with magic!)
The fluff text reads as follows:
Even in the midst of fierce and furious blows, you can find focus in the carnage and your seemingly wild blows strike home.
Flavor text is mutable, non-binding, not-rules, and really doesn't amount to much of an argument in a rules debate.
Flavor text is mutable, non-binding, not-rules, and really doesn't amount to much of an argument in a rules debate.The fluff text reads as follows:
Even in the midst of fierce and furious blows, you can find focus in the carnage and your seemingly wild blows strike home.
Sort of, ideally rules are built off of fluff and vice versa a bit. Its reasonable that something might help because fluff, however, imo its a bit of a stretch to say that you need to focus to be intimidating(in fact dreadful carnage infers it isn't about you, but the carnage you cause). There's nothing built up in dreadful carnage to suggest being focused or furious or power attacking has anything to do with it. Just that you kill people, which tbh anyone with +11 BAB probably well versed in.
If you cannot smush someone into pulp are you really that intimidating??Not really!
Probably an oversight that you don't need to be power attacking however!
No offense, but that comes across as having an incredibly narrow definition of how people are intimidated. There are plenty of ways to scare people beyond "Hurr hurr, I haz bigger muscles!"
Personally, I'd be just as scared of someone who's carving people in half using divine smiting (Paladin) or a magically empowered weapon (Magus) as I would if they were just using pure muscle power. At the end of the day, it's still causing ... dreadful carnage.
For the same reason that Dervish Dance requires Weapon Finesse as a prereq; Feat Tax.
I actually understand that better because dervish dance actually has something to do with weapon finesse. Its essentially a kind of improved weapon finesse. You not only get to use dex to attack, you use dex to strength now too!(under conditions, mostly arbitrary, but its a splatbook feat). Can you tell me what Dreadful Carnage has in common with Power Attack or Furious Focus?
For the same reason that Dervish Dance requires Weapon Finesse as a prereq; Feat Tax.I actually understand that better because dervish dance actually has something to do with weapon finesse. Its essentially a kind of improved weapon finesse. You not only get to use dex to attack, you use dex to strength now too!(under conditions, mostly arbitrary, but its a splatbook feat). Can you tell me what Dreadful Carnage has in common with Power Attack or Furious Focus?
Furious Focus has Power Attack as a prerequisite so Power Attack is already part of the feat chain that leads to Dreadful Carnage.
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Furious Focus has Power Attack as a prerequisite so Power Attack is already part of the feat chain that leads to Dreadful Carnage.
What is, "spectacularly missing the point", Alex?
Furious Focus has Power Attack as a prerequisite so Power Attack is already part of the feat chain that leads to Dreadful Carnage.What is, "spectacularly missing the point", Alex?
Sorry - I read it differently than it was written. In my defense, if he had written what I'd read it as then my reply was brilliant.
Except that Scimitar isn't a finesseable weapon.
Totally overlooked that! Weird. That seems like something totally involving finesse.
Furious Focus is used as a feat tax since it doesn't directly lead into the use of Dreadful Carnage except by flavor. It's similar to how Combat Expertise is used as a prereq for the "smart" improved maneuver feats (disarm, trip, grapple, etc). It's flavorfully related, but you don't need to be using CE in order to use your improved maneuvers. Likewise, Power Attack qualifies you for the "dumb" maneuvers (Sunder, Bull Rush, etc). You don't need to be using PA to qualify for using the improved maneuvers. They're just logical lead-ins more for balance than anything else.
If that's how it works I think that's a problem to be honest. It really doesn't make that much sense unless you really try to push flavor into it. It forces the player to take feats they'll never use, which is the opposite of what you want to do to people. Worse, you really only punish martial classes... Who are probably not the ones that need that. Its great to have a reward at the end of the road, but likely that's easier done by creating chains that matter and do nice things that are attractive rather than forcing you to take unattractive options. Keep in mind that it doesn't actually add balance, you could just as easily put a level requirement or break up the feat into one or two(which again, only hurts martials...)
So more on topic and less about ranting, what flavor do you think power attack and furious focus adds then, eh? Neither of them are about intimidation.
These types will typically have Power Attack and furious focus anyway,
No. Furious Focus has diminishing returns and isn't the best feat. Its actually skipped over in some builds. All you need to do to tell someone that a melee character should use this feat, is put in a bit of text saying the killing blow needs to be a melee attack. In fact by not having that you allow people without that to use it, which makes less sense and fights the logic that its meant for a certain kind of character or to be used in a certain way.
Sort of, ideally rules are built off of fluff and vice versa a bit.Flavor text is mutable, non-binding, not-rules, and really doesn't amount to much of an argument in a rules debate.The fluff text reads as follows:
Even in the midst of fierce and furious blows, you can find focus in the carnage and your seemingly wild blows strike home.
Whether or not this is ideal varies from person to person.
Sort of, ideally rules are built off of fluff and vice versa a bit.Whether or not this is ideal varies from person to person.
Whether or not its met also varies.
This. No other reason than this.Because there weren't enough pointless prereqs in the game as-is, you know?
Don't overlook that they both have evocative adjectives in their names. Dreadful and Furious. That's probably enough to justify charging a martial character an extra feat.