Marko Westerlund's page

You can certainly use one ability first, and the other after that, making one opponent frightened if both intimidations are successful. That in itself is pretty great.

IMO, the attack roll part of dazzling display means just what it says. It's the bonus at which you make your normal attacks. You add base attack bonus, strength(or dex if finesse'd melee weapon or ranged weapon) modifier, weapon focus, enchancement bonus (from a masterwork or magic weapon) and other modifiers that modify your attack roll.

Intimidating glare can't be combined with dazzling display. Dazzling display is an action in itself (note that it requires a full round action to perform). So is Intimidating glare(note that it requires a free action to perform).

Contrast this with Backswing(page 83 PFRPGBeta), which does not in itself require a specific action, but is only allowed when a specific action is used(in this case, the required action is a full-attack with a two-handed melee weapon). Not that Backswing has anything to do with intimidate. I'm just using that as an example of an ability that can be stacked on top of other abilities.

Spiked chain is one of the only exotic weapons that are actually worth the feat. By itself, exotic double weapons grant +1 damage (longsword/shortsword vs two bladed sword, or +2 damage if you'd be using two shortswords for weapon focus synergy). Also, if you're using an exotic weapon you might have trouble finding a magical version of one if your DM decides exotic weapons should be rare.

But back to firearms.

Firearms obviously aren't as good as bows. If rapid reload worked with them they could come close, but currently they shouldn't be exotic weapons. Martial or simple would be a better option from a mechanical point of view.

Abraham mentioned an intimidation factor with firearms. I'm not finding one in their descriptions, could you please specify where it can be found in the rules?

Some posters have said firearms are supposed to be weaker than bows. If they are supposed to be weaker, why do they require a feat to use? Why should a character have to spend a feat to suck in combat? Why should a character have to choose between being awesome and being effective?

Actually, I think the last question applies to most exotic weapons. The really cool ones aren't mechanically much greater than their martial counterparts and some are even worse. Deussu already mentioned repeating crossbow, and splatbooks are filled with exotic weapons that feel awesome but fail mechanically except in very specific circumstances.

The way grapple works you're doing a creature a favour getting out of its grapple. It no longer has the grappled condition and is no longer vulnerable to everyone else in the party.

This makes on sense. If the creature does not want to be grappled, why did it grapple in the first place?

If a creature has initiated a grapple with a PC, it's because it wants to grapple them.

A few feet are enough to get through a locked door or out of grapple.

The cleric can do that at as early as level one. I'd like to see a 1st level fighter with an adamantine weapon or a 1st level wizard who can cast disintegrate.

And sonic damage is nice because (a) its rarely resisted and (b) it ignores hardness.

Where is this hardness ignoring rule? The closest rule I can find only says that sonic & acid attacks deal normal damage to objects, which is not the same as ignoring hardness.

I disagree. Everyone flies at level 15. Celestial sorcerer's wings are more than just a nice fluff ability, because they're available before flight becomes common. Then again, everyone flies at level nine if it's absolutely necessary.

First off, I may be overreacting (or I've just missed some critical rule and feel really embarrassed once someone points it out) and this might never come up in play, but I made an interesting observation in the Guide to Pathfinder Society organized play.

Experience is granted for every character who participates in an adventure. However, the party has to find gold. This means, that if a character (or party, for that matter) has to run away from battles they will not get gold from that battle. If this happens often, a character gets less powerful in comparison to the party he adventures with (unless they're poor as well), and in comparison to the monsters the character must face.

Then again, a character might lose their gear and be just as poor as the guy with bad luck in combat. For example, if a 4th level wizard loses his gear, he will be no better than a 4th level commoner until he can at least get a new spellbook. That's at least one, possibly a few adventures of tagging along the party, running away at the first sign of trouble and generally feeling useless.

If this happens, I can think of only one way the character has of getting back where he's supposed to be in the gold/experience ratio, and that might not work depending on how campaign grants gold. That way is to die, get raised and lose a level in the process. This works only if characters get more than 950 gold per level.

Another way would be to discard the character and make a new one, but that shouldn't be necessary.

The fact I'm even considering getting a character killed (repeatedly, I might add) in case of a huge monetary loss suggests that this system could use a bit of work.

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PS. I find it amusing that under "Death, Dying and Dismemberment" section of GtPFSOP, regenerate is not on the list of spells a character can purchase, nor is there any other spell that can regrow dismembered limbs.

Get the Rogue!

It isn't between every encounter. If characters are in a hurry, they don't have time to heal themselves. If they aren't, they would use wands of cure light wounds anyway to heal up. Besides, in my model the "no reesource cost" is an illusion. Characters paid the resource cost by having less wealth than their level would allow them in 3e.

Regarding the dangers of farming. In real life, perhaps. In D&D, not so much. Dropping something on your toe is dangerous for a commoner even with unlimited cure minor wounds. A commoner has 1d4 hit points. A falling object that deals damage causes at least 1d6 points of damage. This will knock a commoner unconcious more often than not. If they're alone, they'll most likely bleed to death if unconcious. If they have someone to stabilize them, they might survive the injury.

At this point, if my idea is used, the commoners fetch a cleric or a druid to heal the injured person. Under Alpha 3 rules, the commoners sohuld drag the injured commoner to a church or a temple so he can be healed during the next sermon's positive energy channeling.

Now that hit point damage has been dealt with, we can assume the peasant has been diseased from his injury. This is the second deadly threat on his life from that falling object.

Now, the point of this is explanation is twofold. First, unlimited cure minor wounds does not affect the lethality of farming. Second, D&D is not a simulation of millde ages. The fact that D&D has magic means it does not even try to be.

That would be true if your palyers never used any resources in a fight. The paladin has used his smite, barbarian has a few rage points less, spellcasters have used spells and monks have used Ki. someone might be poisoned, have a broken weapon or a shield, have taken some ability drain or damage, or have caught a disease. They may have been cursed or have another long duration spell hindering them after battle has ended.

Hit point damage is only one thing that makes characters feel they're been roughed up.

6 rounds to a minute = 6 hp.

60 minutes to an hour = 360 hp.

Your math is a bit off, unless you're using a house rule for round length. One round takes 6 seconds, not 10. You have 10 rounds in a minute, and 60 minutes in an hour, so it really is 10 * 60 = 600hp. (Edit:Ninja'd)

As for the scar issue, where does it say that cure spells heal scars? The SRD is quiet about that, so healing spells won't actually heal scars unless your DM says so.

The "cleric pawing you" issue would be best settled in game, where either other characters tend to ask the cleric to heal them or cleric asks if anyone requires healing. And as far as constant touching goes, you don't even have to describe healing as cleric poking wounded characters every six seconds. You could describe it like this, for example (I don't pretend to be a good writer, but please bear with me):

Father Patrick sat on the ground after a violent battle, with his trusted companion Sir Frederic by his side. Sir Frederics wounds were serious, and he had trouble breathing. Father Patrick took Sir Frederic's hand into his own, and begun to pray. The mighty sun god Pelor heard Patrick's plea, and granted him a small trickle of healing energy. Patrick channeled this energy into Sir Frederic, who began to feel a kind of warmth enter him through Father Patrick. Minutes later he was well again.

The point of this is, that you can describe healing however you feel like. It doesn't have to be poking at wounds and injuries. As long as there is enough physical contact for cure minor wounds' range requirement (touch) to be fullfilled then anything goes. You don't even have to have to touch the wounded person at all, because the gear they wear are considered part of their self for touch effects.

From a roleplaying standpoint, it would irk me, after every battle for a cleric to sit for hours and heal everyone up free of charge. However, we've been playing with the at will orisons and cantrips rule well before Paizo came up with it, and I've yet to see Cure Minor Wounds get abused. (But that's my group only.)

You're grossly overestimating the amount of time it takes for a cleric to heal the party. In an hour, a cleric spamming cure minor wounds would heal 600 hit points. This is more than enough to heal even a high level party. This healing would be used if the party wasn't in a hurry to get anywhere. If a villain had escaped only moments before the party had a fight, I wouldn't expect them to heal with cure minor. I'd expect them to chase after the villain and throw a cure spell if it didn't slow them down.

If the party wasn't in a hurry, after clearing a dungeon of monsters for example, I don't see any reason why the party shouldn't be allowed to heal with cure minor.

I like the idea of giving minimum hit points and fixed damage to mooks.

I've yet to see a good way to build a challenging encounter with mooks against a party of 6th or 7th level characters. Mobs don't work well if I want the mooks to use ranged attacks, and using higher level warriors might not make sense from story's standpoint.

For example, a charismatic marshal with a bunch of fresh recruits are defending a guard tower against attacking PCs. If I used 1st level warriors to represent the recruits, they might only hit PC's when they rolled natural twenties. If I instead use 4th level warriors with minimum hit points, I can have them die pretty fast, but they can still hit PC's with their attacks.

Another way of making mooks from monsters is taking standard monsters and increasing their attack bonus to the level where they should be able to hit PCs. This might work if you have a Fire Giant with a bunch of enslaved Azer mooks.

As others have pointed out, the current DR system breaks from a single casting of greater magic weapon, and unless that spell is either removed or altered this system has no chance of working.

I don't see anything wrong with 3.5 version of doing things, and I don't quite get this golfbag of weapons I keep hearing about. It sounds like you need six or seven different weapons with you to fight effectively, when two weapons are more than enough for melee and a third for ranged. You don't need to go through all the DR types all the time in 3.5. It's enough that you can go through them when fighting against a monster who actually has some sort of DR.

The easiest way to go about this is to have a slashing weapon made of cold iron or adamantine (I'll go with adamantine in this example) and a morningstar made of the other material. Then you carry silversheen in case you run into DR x/silver. Getting both your weapons enchanted to +1 gets you through the common DR/magic, and when you can afford an adamantium weapon you should have no problem enchanting your weapons. Getting through DR x/alignment is easy as oil of align weapon, and costs 300 a fight. Oils of bless and curse weapon reduce this to 100gp per fight for good and evil alignments. Now you have a character with two weapons, who can pierce most types of damage reduction when he needs to. The only types of DR he can't pierce are (slashing and cold iron), (piercing and adamantium) and (bludgeoning and adamantium). As you can see, DRs like these aren't exactly common. You can't get through DR x/epic, but that DR shouldn't come into play that often and can be gotten through with the right bane enhancement and greater magic weapon.

No, but HPs are a major resource, and are the only resource Fighters have, for instance.

Yes, I believe it to be a problem built within the fighter class.

The problems with adjusting wealth by level, as you suggest are:

1) Backward compatibility. The Wealth-by-level table might not actually be OGL, but if I want to try to use a 3.5 adventure, I shouldn't have to remember to dial back all the treasure by 10%.

These guidelines are only that, guidelines. I've yet to see a single campaign that handed characters exactly the right amount of loot to get them to exactly where the guidelines suggested. Instead, the usual way to use these guidelines is to look at wether or not characters have more or less than they should, and adjust treasure accordingly in the future. It's okay to have characters be more wealthy than they should for an adventure or so and then give them less treasure in the following adventure.

2) Poor decision making. There is no 'expected damage by level' table. If the characters make dumb decisions that lead to taking more damage, it costs them more resources. Under your model, that's not really true.

If players have a stroke of bad luck or are playing against enemies tactically out of their league they shouldn't be punished too much. I see this sort of punishment the same way as I see punishing the shy player who tries to play a charismatic bard but just isn't comfortable enough speaking like the bard. If you refer to obviously stupid things like sticking a hand to a fire just because it can be healed by the cleric, then that is a problem with the player, not the system.

3) Hoarders. This is sort of the inverse of the problem above. I've run groups that never used potions or wands for healing. They kept them on hand, for emergencies, but never used them unless it was a life-or-death issue. They thought it was a waste of lootgold. They were rewarded for their efforts with more wealth, at the cost of running higher risks. Under your model, this doesn't work.

I'll admit this is a real concern, although hoarders playing under my healing method would keep from using their daily spells that often so they could squeeze just one more encounter for the day. That way they get to have monetary benefits from concerving their resources, but don't actually get more gold than they're entitled to based on their level.

I do not believe in free lunches.

Me neither. Glad we agree on something.

In terms of mechanics, it changes the entire focus of the cleric which may or may not be a problem depending on your style of play. Clerics won't burn those other spell slots for small scale healing, they'll just wait and 1hp heal till the parties all good. While this may be what you're after, to me it takes away some of the teactical thinking of the game which my group enjoy. A cleric sometimes needs to weigh up casting an offensive spell vs a healing spell in combat, and those tense situations are what improves gameplay for us.

The slow healing of one hit point per round shouldn't effect the usage of combat healing spells. Mostly healing in combat is done for one of two reasons. To keep a damaged character from dying or to provide a hit point buffer for a character because the healer can't think of anything better to do with his round. If characters are in bad shape a healers should heal them with combat spells, because it keeps those characters from dying in the battle.

Let me put this in another way. A raging 6th level orc barbarian hit the fighter for 20 points of damage on his turn. The fighter is donwn to 10 hit points. Would you risk not healing the fighter on your turn if you were the healer even if you could heal the fighter for free after the barbarian and his allies are defeated?

Can anyone imagine a battleground with the inlimited ability to heal.

Yes, I can. It'd actually have less of an effect on battles than wands of cure light wounds already have. Going by the basic D&D 3e rules (or PFRPG A3 for that matter), Armies should consist of many low level warriors, conscripts and some elite units. Elites function mostly like adventuring parties, in that the healing they recieve from a cleric casting cure minor wounds over and over again is minimal to their hit point totals. Conscripts are commoners who have been handed weapons and cheap armor. These guys go down in one hit and pretend to be dead even if it does not kill them, because they should be scared to death just from being on a battlefield. This leaves the basic warriors(1st or 2nd level I'd guess), who'd benefit the most from light battlefield healing. A charge from a wand of cure light wounds is not enough to bring a warrior to max hit points if he's been knocked unconcious, and healing one hit point per round will take about five and a half times as long to get a single warrior to the max. If he was knocked at -5, it even takes half a minute just to get him concious again.

Quotes are done either with the reply button found all the way to the right of poster's name or with simple

to begin the quote and a to end it, where you replace * with the word quote.

The point of unlimited healing is that even unlimited healing at 1st level is limited. It ends when characters hit level 2. 2nd level's unlimited healing ends when characters reach level 3. And so on. If you track how much gold you used on non rechargable healing (per charge), you can get the exact cost of healing that level. Do this for many characters and you'll even get statistical average of how much healing costs at each level.

As for the one wand of cure light wounds healing only about 450hp, you can carry more than one. Indeed, many such cheap items should be taken for extended periods of travel in the wilderness.

Oh, and Duncan. My point really is less about cure minor wounds than it is about seemingly unlimited healing being a good idea.

Adventuring parties don't rest because cleric is out of healing. They rest because cleric and wizard are out of spells, barbarian is out of rages and paladin is out of smites. Hit points are not the only resource characters have. I'm not arguing for free unlimited healing. I'm arguing for unlimited healing in exchange for some gold the characters don't get to see.

Giving hit points at will and reducing expected wealth by level gudelines is not unbalanced. Giving unlimited spells is like granting access to many many pearls of power. If you could reduce expected wealth by level of characters by the amount those pearls cost it wouldn't be unbalanced either. Then again, pearls of power cost about thousands more than hit points, so your expected wealth by level guidelines would be negative.

[Edit] Also, here's the mathematical part. Let's assume that a melee character of level n has about n*10 hit points. Let's also assume he'll get knocked to half his hit points by the end of the fight. Other characters take about the same damage together as he by himself. The Party has to heal about n*10 hit points per fight. I calculated the cost of healing one hit point with a wand of cure light wounds to be 2.727 gp, so healing the party after one day costs about n*27,27*f gp, where f is the number of encounters the party faces during the day. In contrast, casting a single highest level spell of choise more during the combat costs [(n/2)round up]^2*1000*f. That formula comes from the cost of buying a pearl of power for each encounter of the day.Even if the party healed one hundred times the damage I assumed they healed, the cost for one extra highest level spell per day would be drastically higher than healing of the entire party. I think this explanation shows clearly that hit points should not be compared to spell slots as resources.[/Edit]

I'll try to explain my logic more clearly.

Let's consider a basic stat booster item, like belt of giant strength and the like. This item costs 4000gp. If we reduce 4000gp from each characters wealth by level guideline table at some level and beyond and add a +2 enchancement bonus to an ability score of their choise to all characters from that level onwards it won't be unbalanced, or if it is, it will be because some characters don't need this bonus. I'm applying this thinking into healing, which every character needs.

P.S
Please don't nitpick about the lack of a body slot for enchancement bonus in the example above. If you feel like doing it, imagine that example was about ioun stones or other non slotted items of your choise.

There are reasons for wands of cure light wounds to exist if it is the cheapest healing available. Gods of currency, merchants and trade would encourage their worshippers to make and sell items that people want.
Benevolent gods of healing should encourage their priesthood to make items that heal even when the clerics themselves can't be present or when the clerics have exhausted their own spells.
Other gods might encourage their clerics to make wands of cure light wounds in order to attract powerful believers. When the adventurers are in the temple, they can be told of clerics patron deity and why that deity is the best deity to worship.

Paul, I'd encourage a player to either play a class from tome of magic or ask the party to rest, or deal with it. Hit points are not the same as spells or n/day abilities. When hit points are gone, the character is dead. When spells and special abilities are gone, characters are still alive.

When characters heal between battles, there is rarely a time when they can't heal to full hit points if they so choose using only wands of cure light wounds and other healing items like healing belt. This gold drain is a fraction of the income a party should recieve when adventuring. That's why this drain should be reduced from income before it's given to characters. It makes bookkeeping more clean and simple.

SirUrza, after daily channel energy usage has been expended, the cleric has to resort to poking partymembers with sticks to heal them. One thing I'm not quite sure I understand is why unlimited cause minor wounds would be problematic?

Draco Bahamut, 3rd edition players know what cure minor wounds does, but you'd have to explain Healing Aura(su) to them. It's more backwards compatible :P
(also, auras are usually passive things that happen on their own, but casting spells require some kind of action. Hanging around a holy man to heal yourself is less heroic than having said holy man pray for you.)

For those that don't like unlimited healing in the game, you do realize that it has existed in the form of wands of cure light wounds since 3rd edition was released, right? Yes, those wands cost 750 per wand or 15 gp per charge, but that is a mere pocket change for all but the lowest level characters. My suggestion was only to put this flow of gold pieces to the background of the game mechanics instead of requiring players to keep track of this gold.

Something to think about regarding [combat] feats.

Alpha 1 release had a good idea of chaining combat feats. This was good, because it added variety to nonspellcasting classes. There are only so many times I could say "I take a 5ft step and full attack." and not find it boring. Combat feats changed this until alpha 2, where you'd only use the best combat feat available to you.

Now, combat feats don't require other feats to use them, but it might be a good idea to encourage using different feats in different rounds, by granting a bonus or other special effect if two combat feats are used on the same opponent succesfully. Here's an example of how this might work. My edit of feat is in italic. These are only to illustrate the point of how this mechanic could work.

Dazzling Display (Combat)
Your skill with your favored weapon can frighten enemies.
Prerequisite: Weapon Focus.
Benef it: While wielding the weapon in which you
have Weapon Focus, you can perform a dazzling display
as a full-round action. Make an Intimidate check
against all foes within 30 feet who can see you. You can
substitute an attack roll in place of your Intimidate
check if it is higher. You gain +2 on feinting when used against an opponent intimidated by your dazzling display in the previous round.

Stunned Defense (Combat)
Your skill with your chosen weapon leaves opponents
unable to defend themselves.
Prerequisites: Weapon Focus, Dazzling Display, base
attack bonus +6.
Benefit: Any shaken, frightened, or panicked opponent
hit by you this round is f lat-footed to your attacks until the
end of your next turn. This includes any additional attacks
you make this round. If you succesfully used Dazzling Display on the previous round on an opponent attacked with Stunned Defense on this round, the opponent is dazzled for rounds equal to the number of successful attacks made on said opponent while using Stunned Defense.

The Problem with cheap healing that The Black Bard proposes, is that it'll only replace happysticks. Happysticks aren't used in combat after first few levels, so players will opt for the most cost effective method of healing available.

In mathematical terms, a charge from a wand of cure light wounds heals 1d8+1 hp for 15gp, or one hp for 2.727gp on average
A charge from a wand of lesser vigor heals 11 hp for 15gp, or one hp for 1.363 gp.
A charge from a wand of The Black Bard's restore health would restore 40 hit points for 15 gp, or one hp for 0,375 gp.

This route will only lessen the problem, but the problem stays.

I find Wraith's concern about world balance questionable. Firstly, every cleric who channels positive energy already can heal vast amounts of common folk. Secondly, I don't think commoners deal with hit point damage that often. They have to deal with diseases and exhaustion from hard labour, perhaps the threat of injury and/or death from local bandits, but actual injury shouldn't be that common a problem.

When I ask why cure minor wounds is removed from Pathfinder PRG the response I usually get is that cure minor wounds creates an unlimited suply of healing. I'd like to know why this is bad.

While playing D&D 3.5 I've noticed that after each combat characters heal themselves to max hit points using wands of cure light wounds(referred to as happysticks from now on). This is good, because going to a fight with less than full hit points is an invitation for character death. This usage of happysticks is ultimately bad in my opinion, because it adds bookkeeping in the form of keeping track of money spent on happysticks and the charges remaining. I'd like to see overall character wealth by level guidelines reduced by some amount, but give the characters a free supply of healing.

The second reason why this change would be a good thing is that it's more heroic to see a cleric praying at the side of a companion for minutes than watch a cleric poke said companion with a stick.

Yeah, that might be hilarious to me, but Deussu suffered for my amusement.

Besides, if I find it amusing, imagine what young sorcerers, wizard students and every other young spellcaster would feel. They actually get to cast these spells instead of just claiming to do so while sitting around a table with their friends.

If their reaction to this infinite supply of magical energy is even remotely similar to mine, nobody will take spellcasters seriously.

I suppose my message wasn't clear enough. (Mental note to self. Practice writing english more often.)

A light spell slugging contest goes like this.

- I cast light at you.
- Then I cast light at *you*.
- Well, I'll just cast light at you.
- Now you've done it. I cast light at you!

Repeat ad. infinitum or until DM snaps.

The main problem here is silly players. However, there's relly no drawback in doing this. (Edit: Unless you consider DM's snapping as a drawback.)

I played the sorcerer in this playtest. Here are a few thoughts.

A wight is a lot different from a typical CR 3 monster. If Deussu had used ogres instead, the fight would have been more difficult. I don't think this fight was easy because pathfinder's encounter building rules, but because wights are not really tough for CR 3 monsters. Well, they are if they can hit you, but +3 melee attacks hit rarely.

On the unlimited cantrips, we found that things easily degenerate into light spell slugging contests. This is bad, but instead of removing unlimited cantrips / day, there could be some kind of limit on the number of cantrips cast by a caster at any given time. For example, if a caster casts a second light spell while the first is still active, the first spell ends.

Edit: I think I should clarify, that I wrote this with alpha version's feats in mind, not seekerofshadowlight's changes.

I studied the combat feats. Here's what I think about them without trying them out.

Arcane Strike: +1 To damage is pretty low, this ability is useful by itself before magic weapons become common. As a fighter/wizard or bard I can see this being used whenever some other (combat) feat is not used.

Conduit Spell: This ability is a bit strange. A fighter/wizard could use this, because a pure wizard would most likely not wear armor and not use weapons. However, a fighter/wizard usually uses her spells for buffing instead of damaging or hampering his enemies.

Arcane Buildup: This might be worth a feat for any arcane caster, but arcane strike as a requirement pretty much makes this feat useless. Fighter/wizards could buff up with this, but even they have to wait three rounds for this. As most combats are over after a few rounds, buffing at round three is a waste of a spell.

Feat Chain: This feat chain seems to be suited for a duskblade or a similar character, who uses both weapons and spells offensively. Such characters are rare in my experience. This feat chain also tries to addresss the issue of arcane spell failure for fighter/wizards. In this regard it would be better, if counduit spell was changed so it could be used on spells that target the caster and targets hit with arcane strike on previous rounds. Frankly, I find the idea of a fighter/wizard stabbing himself and his allies before buffing them to be stupid.

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Cleave: This feat loses its usefullness after multiple attacks are gained. Two attacks against one enemy is usually a better strategy than one attack against two enemies. If this feat was changed into a standard action, it might see some use after level six when full attack is not possible.

Great Cleave: This feat suffers from the same problem as cleave. At low levels, before multiple attacks are common this feat is useful. When multiple attacks are gained however, this feat will rarely be used. As with cleave, standard action might let this feat see more use.

Feat Chain: Before iterative attacks are gained, these feats are great, essentially doubling the number of attacks one can make. When iterative attacks come into play these feats cease to be useful.

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Overhand Chop: This has the same problem as cleave. When iterative attacks become common nobody wants to spend a full round action on a single attack. Standard action activation time would fix this problem.

Backswing: An extra attack on a full attack looks like a nice ability, but if overhand chop isn't fixed this'll rarely see use. If a character has three attacks on a full attack (let's say a 6th level fighter with haste cast on him.) he could make two full attacks (at +0/+0/-5) or one attack at +0 and one full attack at (+0/+0/+0/-5). Both make four attacks at +0, but backswing user adds only half his strength bonus on one of those. Backswing user also makes one less attack at -5. If Overhand Chop is changed into a standard action this problem is averted. It's still not smart to use overhand chop & Backswing if you can use two normal full attacks instead, but if you have to move to your enemy fist you can't use full attack on first round, and Overhand Chop & Backswing combo is deadlier than basic attacks.

Devastating Blow: I think this feat works well as written. Up to now, I've been advocating single attacks be standard actions, but this feat is deadly enough to replace a full attack action. For example, let's take a look at scythe. With a crt x4, you'd need four hits to deal as much damage. More, if enemy has damage reduction. I think this makes devastating blow worth about five normal attacks. Devastating blow is powerful, but as it can only be used every three rounds it is balanced.

Feat Chain: If overhand chop is changed to a standard action, this seems balanced. If not, this chain is worse than full attacks after iterative attacks are gained.

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Careful Targeting: Works, nothing to complain about.

Exact Targeting: Works, if this seems powerful, remember that this can only be used on targets hit with exact targeting.

Pinpoint Targeting: This might be broken, but it can only used every three rounds at most and only if enemies don't die after two rounds' worth of attacks.The only thing I'm concerned about this is, that power attack, deadly aim and similar abilities will be powerful when used with this attack.

Feat Chain: This works.

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Caught Off-Guard: If nothing else, this feat is stylish. However, this feat feels more like exotic weapon proficiency(weird and unconventional weapons) than (combat) feat. As this feat is (combat) feat, it can't ve used in conjunction with other (combat) feats. Even more, tools used with this rarely have the right material to bypass DR or have magical bonuses like real weapons. These reasons make me believe this feat to be underpowered.

Throw Anything: Everything said about caught off-guard applies here as well.

Razor Sharp Chair Leg: This feat is the only feat in this chain I think should be a (combat) feat, as it noticeably raises the damage potential of an improvised weapon. Then again, improvised weapons aren't likely to have magical bonuses and materials to bypass DR, so it evens out.

Feat Chain: Without actually playing with these feats, I can't say my opinion is right, but I'd make Caught off-guard and throw anything a basic feat, maybe fighter bonus.

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Dazzling Display: The feat works pretty well, considering demoralize can affect a creature for more than one round..

Stunned Defense: This feat actually feels like a follow up for dazzling display, instead of a mechanical balancing method to keep it from being used too often. I'd like to see more feat chains work like this.

Deadly Stroke: Do Not Want. As using this feat is a standard action, this feat might see some use, but compared to stunned defense this feels like an add-on to complete this feat chain with a third feat. This would be fine, but this feat feels out of place here. It requires greater weapon focus, a fighter only feat, when the previous feats best work with a rogue or other sneak attacker.

Feat Chain: The first two feats are made for rogues in mind, but the third feat is not even selectable for them. Most problems I see in this chain are in the third feat.

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Deft Shield: Why does this feat require two weaoin fighting, when some characters might want to wield the shield as a primary weapon?

Shield Slam: Again with the two weapon fighting. The feat obviously synergizes well with shield fighting, but it shouldn't be neccesary. Some charactrs might even prefer to fight only with a shield to ensure success of bull rushing.

Shield Master: Here I can see the two weapon fighting as a requirement, but I still don't like it.

Feat Chain: This Chain looks like it'll work pretty well, but [insert whining about two weapon fighting here].

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Dodge: This feat might work better as a basic feat, with effect unchanged. It seems boring to gain +1 AC for one round when one can do so much more exciting things with other (combat) feats.

Mobility: This works. Simple and effective.

Spring Attack: Let's see. Only useable every three rounds, doesn't evade AoO's like 3.5 version (although this is propably just an oversight in feat text, as fluff suggests it does.). I didn't think spring attack was that useful in 3.5, it certainly doesn't deserve a nerf like this.

Feat Chain: If I played a lightly armored melee fighter, I might take this. Still, I'd wish I could take 3.5 version of these feats.

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Dodge: Only added here because it's a prequisite for wind stance.

Wind Stance: An ability like this was seen in tome of Battle, and it didn't break the game then. It propably won't break the game now. Only thing I'd like to see, is a requirment to use one's own move action for moving, so that riding a horse, getting bull rushed or teleporting won't grant the benefit.

Lightning Stance: This feat might be problematic. Particularly if true sight and/or blindsight won't penetrate the concealment. I'll have to try this out before shouting 'broken'.

Feat Chain: This feat chain could be combined with dodge/mobility/spring attack chain so, that dodge and spring attack became normal feats, and (combat) feat chain would be mobility/wind stance/lightning stance. This would prevent spring attack from being nerfed into oblivion and ensure that (combat) feats would be used for exciting manouvers.

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Point Blank Shot: This isn't much of a (combat) feat, bonus is pretty small and not that exciting.

Precise Shot: I'm wondering, was archery overpowered in 3.5? Why can't one use this with Rapid shot anymore?

Rapid Shot: Same query as with precise shot.

Manyshot: Interesting. This feat is essentially +2 to attack compared to Rapid shot. If the character does precision damage (e.g. sneak attack), this is worse than rapid shot.

Shot On The Run: This feat didn't see use in 3.5, I'm not seeing it being used now either.

Feat Chain: What feat chain? Except manyshot, these feats can be used without first using other, less powerful feats like in every other chain. The only feat that requires another feat to be used on the previous round is almost identical to that feat. This chain needs more work.

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Scorpion Style: Slowing down quick enemies is tactically sound. I like this feat.

Gorgon's Fist: Unless there'll be a save versus daze, this feat is broken. As it is written, I could make a fighter who only used Gorgon's Fist to daze enemies and Scorpion Style to power up Gorgon's fist. I'd do this even with a character who doesn't do any damage unarmed.

Medusa's Wrath: As written, this feat is balanced since you can't use Gorgon's Fist on the following round. If Gorgon's fist is fixed, this is still balanced and worth using.

Feat Chain: Broken because of Gorgon's Fist.

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Turning Smite: This works.

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Weapon Swap: I'll have to try these TWF feats out before saying anything concrete. Still, Two Weapon fighting requires many feats, and even though more feats are gained the style might still be feat starving.

Two-Weapon Rend: Same thing applies here as in weapon swap.

Feat Chain: Yeah, I'll comment this more after I've tried it out.