I submit these two feats I wrote up to the Paizo community for review. Are they balanced?
Insightful Strike
You have a knack for figuring out expecially damageing places to hit an opponent.
Prerequisites: Combat Expertise, Base Attack Bonus +4
Description: When you make a successful melee attack you can add your Intelligence bonus to damage in addition to your Strength bonus. You do not gain this bonus against foes that are immune to critical hits or extra damage from sneak attacks.
Wrathful Strike
You channel your anger to add power to your melee attacks
Prerequisites: Base Attack Bonus +2, Power Attack
Description: A number of times per day equal to you Charisma modifier (minimum 1/day) you can make a wrathful strike. You must use the Power Attack feat to make this attack. This melee attack gains a bonus equal to your Charisma modifier on the attack roll and a bonus equal to your Charisma bonus x2 on the damage roll. Wrathful Strike is a full round action.
I would recommend the following as being more true to the flavor of the original class feature; I use this feat in my homebrew campaign:
Insightful Strike
You have a knack for placing blows where they will deal more damage.
Prerequisites: Lightning Reflexes or grace class feature, Base Attack Bonus +3, Weapon Finesse.
Benefit: When you make a successful melee attack with a slashing or piercing weapon for which the Weapon Finesse feat applies, you can add your Intelligence bonus to damage in addition to your Strength bonus. You do not gain this bonus against foes that are immune to critical hits or extra damage from sneak attacks.
Also be aware that the Paizo and WotC submissions boards both are VERY anti-feats-that-replicate-class-features. I like the idea myself, but be aware that I'm in a minority here; most of the gaming community seems to be of the opinion that only classes can grant class features, never feats.
Finally, be aware that the following was posted as free online content by WotC in the "Epic Insights" column; it's weaker than the feat we're proposing, has much stricter prerequisites, and yet is an EPIC-only feat! So, if we're worried about game balance, this is definitely something to factor into our thinking:
Combat Insight (Epic)
Your keen intellect allows you to place melee attacks where they will inflict the most damage.
Prerequisites: Int 19, Epic Prowess, Expertise, base attack bonus +15.
Benefit: When wielding a melee weapon, add your Intelligence modifier rather than your Strength modifier to the weapon's damage rolls.
Wrathful strike seems a bit fuzzy; if you think about it, in essence I'm turning my Charisma bonus into bonus damage, and then adding double my Charisma bonus as a damage bonus on top of that? It also comes suspiciously close to stealing the paladin's smite class feature (and see disclaimer above with regards to that). I'd recommend the following instead:
WRATHFUL STRIKE
You channel your anger to add power to your melee attacks
Prerequisites: Base Attack Bonus +2, Power Attack
Benefit: A number of times per day equal to you Charisma modifier (minimum 1/day) you can make a wrathful strike. To use this feat, you must use the Power Attack feat, with a maximum penalty to attack equal to your Charisma bonus. For each -1 on the attack roll from your use of Power Attack, you gain +2 to weapon damage (+3 if you are using a two-handed weapon).
Normal: Power Attack adds +1 to damage per -1 to attack rolls (+2 when using a 2-handed weapon).
Finally, be aware that the following was posted as free online content by WotC in the "Epic Insights" column; it's weaker than the feat we're proposing, has much stricter prerequisites, and yet is an EPIC-only feat!Combat Insight (Epic)
...
I think this would be fairly well balanced, similar to the epic one.
Insightful Strike
You have a knack for figuring out expecially damageing places to hit an opponent.
Prerequisites: Combat Expertise, Base Attack Bonus +4
Description: When using Combat Expertise, you may apply the penalty you take to attack rolls to damage in place of your strength modifier, up to a maximum of your intelligence modifier.
I don't plan to submit these to anyone, I just want them in my homebrew game.
Your modifications to to Wrathful Strike make sense.
About the Epic Insight thing; this is replicating a class feature that's gained at 3rd level so it shouldn't be overpowered. Giving Grace as a prereq to Insightful Strike doesn't make sense since I believe that the Swashbuckler is the only class that gets Grace and since they get it at 3rd level there wouldn't be much point to getting it. I like having Lightning Reflexes as a prepreq.
how about
Prerequisites:Base Attack Bonus +3 Lightning Relfexes Int 13+
Giving Grace as a prereq to Insightful Strike doesn't make sense since I believe that the Swashbuckler is the only class that gets Grace and since they get it at 3rd level there wouldn't be much point to getting it. I like having Lightning Reflexes as a prepreq.
how about
Prerequisites:Base Attack Bonus +3 Lightning Relfexes Int 13+
The duelist PrC gets grace as well. Having grace OR Lightning Reflexes allows a character to come at it either way. I set the prerequisites so that Swashbucklers are essentially getting a bonus feat at 3rd level, with the same mechanics as anyone else taking the feat--after all, Swashbucklers are essentially just Thug-variant fighters (UA) with their bonus feats chosen for them.
I'd also stick with the Weapon Finesse, or people will be using this feat in conjunction with their greataxe Power Attacks--serious abuse of the intent.
Insightful Strike
You have a knack for figuring out expecially damageing places to hit an opponent.
Prerequisites: Combat Expertise, Base Attack Bonus +4
Description: When using Combat Expertise, you may apply the penalty you take to attack rolls to damage in place of your strength modifier, up to a maximum of your intelligence modifier.
This one is good, too. I'd maybe provide it as a separate option:
Expert Strike [General, Fighter]
Prerequisites: Combat Expertise, Base Attack Bonus +4
Benefit: When using the Combat Expertise feat, you also gain a bonus to melee damage rolls equal to the AC bonus received from Combat Expertise. This additional damage is a competence bonus that supercedes (does not stack with) your strength modifier to damage rolls.
Note: Combat Expertise already provides a cap; not sure if we need another one, although your max = Int mod makes sense. Dunno.