How would you convert these powerful feats / abilities from 3.0 to Pathfinder?

[Derron42]

1. "Battle Dance"
Source: Dragon #297

You are so graceful and nimble in combat that you gain bonuses to Reflex saving throws, attack rolls, and Armor Class.
Prerequisite: Dex 21+, Cha 21+, Perform 30+ ranks
Benefit: Whenever you are in melee combat, you gain an insight bonus to your Armor Class, attack rolls, and Reflex saving throws equal to your Charisma bonus.

I tweaked this feat and switched wisdom for charisma requirement and acrobatics for perform. Also required additional feats for qualification: whirlwind attack, spring attack, mobility, dodge, combat expertise. And will drop either the AC or save bonus. Attack bonus stays. What would y'all do? By the way, the above feat was created by one other than JAMES JACOBS!! ;)

2. "Echoes of the Edge" (from an Epic Insights-Epic Swordfighters 3.0 D&D article online): ... character gains the ability to strike at a creature an additional time as a free action, as long as she successfully damages the target on the initial strike. This additional attack is resolved at the character's highest base attack bonus and must be directed at the same creature the character's previous attack struck; the strike lands on precisely the same location as the cut before, but slices yet deeper. If this strike hits, it deals an amount of damage equal to the previous strike. If the previous strike was a critical hit, this free strike is a critical hit as well and it inflicts the same damage as the prior strike. The character may use this ability once per round.

Should Echoes of the Edge be a feat? A class ability somewhere? A mythic path ability? What say you?

3. "Diamond Nightmare Blade" (Strike)
Level: Swordsage 8, warblade 8
Prerequisite: Three Diamond Mind maneuvers
Initiation Action: 1 standard action
Range: Melee attack
Target: One creature
You spot a single fatal flaw in your opponent’s defenses. With a single attack, you put all the force of your supreme focus into a single, crippling blow. You must make a Concentration check as part of this maneuver. The DC of this check is the target creature’s AC. You then make a single melee attack against your target, also as part of the maneuver. If your Concentration check succeeds, this attack deals four times your normal melee damage. If your check fails, your attack is made with a –2 penalty and doesn’t deal any additional damage. If your strike is a critical hit, you stack the multipliers as normal.

Should one make Diamond Nightmare Blade a feat? Mythic path? Or as a class ability for a Tome of Battle conversion to Pathfinder? And NO, our group is not looking to drop this ability for Greater Vital Strike.

THANKS A TON for any constructive advice and help. Happy Holidays!

[GeneMemeScene]

This might not be too helpful, but one of the particular quirks of Diamond Mind is that it made martial classes invest in a skill that they otherwise wouldn't, Concentration.

When I discussed a Diamond Mind conversion with a GM of mine, we agreed that using spellcraft instead, which is also a skill that martial classes normally wouldn't invest in, would be the an appropriate match.

[Kalindlara]

Since we were also using the Expanded Psionics Handbook, converting Diamond Mind to use Autohypnosis seemed appropriate. As for the various epic abilities, good luck. That system was a pain back then. The Nine Swords classes fold into Pathfinder pretty well, though, in my experience.

[Saldiven]

So, was it your intention to change Battle Dance from something appropriate to a Bard to something appropriate to a Monk?

[Derron42]

The intention was to change battle dance to something for any martial character.

[Saldiven]

Relatively few martial characters will ever have a Wis score of 21, though, other than Monks and Clerics.

It's not a terrible idea, but for fluff sake, you'd want to change the name to something that reflects who would most likely use that feat.

"Battle Dance" makes sense for Cha and Perform as it targeted Bards. Changing to Wis and Acrobatics and targeting high Wis martial characters for the feat's usage makes the name not make sense.

[CalethosVB]

When I GMed for a diehard Bo9S player that wanted to convert it to PF, we sat down and looked at stuff and came to an agreement that Concentration checks for the Bo9S classes would work exactly as it does for casters in PF, d20 + initiator level + Ability modifier. This makes all your Diamond Mind maneuvers have a slight edge over 3.5, as you can afford to spend your skill points elsewhere, as well as it being keyed off your class's preferred ability modifier instead of constitution. Unfortunately Fighters and other classes that take Martial Study don't really get a chance to take Diamond Mind maneuvers because their initiator level is half that of the Bo9S classes, which is okay because there's still a lot of other good maneuvers to choose from. I prefer Iron Heart or Shadow Hand.

Take a look a DSP's Paths of War. There are feats there much like Martial Study, but better, that allow a character to pick up higher level maneuvers within one discipline.

Hell, just go pick up Paths of War. It's written to be Pathfinder's version of Bo9S, and it does a good job of it.

Battledancer is only useful to epic-level characters (dat 30 skill ranks). Unfortunately, Pathfinder is stuck with using 3.5's Epic Level Handbook, because the "Beyond Level 20" rules/guidelines in the Core Rulebook don't handle truly epic levels. There might be a case for making it a Mythic ability, but I'd lock it behind 3rd tier at the earliest and 6th tier at the safest, or break it up to a bunch of 1st tier abilities that tie together.

Your second ability, "Echoes of the Edge", is also something I'd recommend for Mythic, with it being a 1st tier ability.

[Derron42]

Thanks guys ... good stuff!

[Azoriel]

Rather than resurrecting that 3.0 epic feat (which got rewritten into a much weaker non-epic feat in 3.5), I'd suggest going with this 3rd party PF feat instead:

Quote:

Weapon Trickery (Combat)

Your fighting style is built on misdirection, hiding your true skill, and constantly concealing your true target and style of attack.

Prerequisite: Bluff as class skill, Cha 13.

Benefit: With a light or one-handed martial weapon, made for a creature of your size category, you may use your Charisma modifier instead of your Strength modifier on attack rolls.

While it may not be a one for one equivalent for the epic feat, it should meet the needs of anyone who wants to play a charisma-based melee character. (Given that there's no mythic version of weapon finesse, I think it's fine to leave this as a standard feat.)

As for Bo9S stuff, I pretty much just play it as is; it really doesn't require much adjusting to be used in Pathfinder. (The whole concentration check thing I dealt with in the same manner CalethosVB did.) I wouldn't convert Diamond Nightmare Blade into a feat, unless you meant learning it via the Martial Study feat. Even then, I'd be strict about enforcing the requirements, meaning you'd need to have an initiator level of 15+ in order to get an 8th level maneuver (effectively mandating you have at least 11+ levels in a ToB class already).