Feint, page 43

[Zebeyana]

I read the Feint rule and got a little confused as to what you intend to oppose this maneuver to.

No less than three different ablities interfere :

• If my opponent is wise, he has a better chance to detect a feint since base DC is 10 + opponent's BAB + opponent's Wisdom modifier.
• Wait now, if he is trained in detecting such attempts, we don't care anymore how wise he is, it's a matter of Charisma, since DC is 10 + opponent's Deception modifier.
• Then again, if my opponent is really, really dumb, meaning animal or lower intelligence, Feint is harder (+8 to DC) or impossible…

Note that under this rule, a Fighter who chooses Deception as one of his skill at 1st level, and has the same score in Widsom and Charisma, will oppose a feint with his skill at low level, then with his BAB + Wisdom from 4th level on. If Charisma exceed Wisdom by 2, 4 or 6, then the shift will be delayed by the same amount of levels but wil nevertheless occur.
Sad way of being better trained to detect such attempts than any average guy with +1 BAB/level.

Whether it's Intelligence, Widsom or Charisma I don't really care, but please do make a choice.

Also : DC to feint a dog is 12 higher than DC to feint a trained human fighter ?
4 because the dog ain't humanoid, 8 because he's not to bright…
I don't think so ! Get rid of it :)

[Kruelaid]

Yah, I've had a dog for 12 years of my life and used feint for about 17 in karate tournaments (longer in classes) and it was always a hell of a lot easier to feint against my dog. And the dog never learned.

Plus it's got some cinematic backing. Dinosaurs watching that thrown stone or stick, monsters, etc...

When fencing or sparring, feinting against something intelligent requires some guile: you might repeat an attack, watching your opponents eyes, and so encourage him to follow the pattern, exploiting his reaction a little later.

Feinting an attacking animal requires much less guile. A dog attacks you and you offer your arm as bite fodder, maybe he takes it, maybe not, but at the least he will try to bite the proffered arm while you bring you dagger around into his neck with your other hand. I knew a jujitsu teacher that trained dogs and he swore that you could trick any large animal like this.... bullfighters anyone?

So I just_don't_buy this stuff where feinting against stupid creatures is harder. It has no basis in reality whatsoever.

NOW the totally non-intelligent penalties make more sense.

With non-humanoids it would seem to depend if that being is familiar with attacks from humanoids or not (bulls and attack dogs would be familiar with humans - easy to feint). As for non-humanoids that are not familiar, I just don't know. I can thinks of rationales both ways so I really don't understand why you have ruled te way you did.

Deception and wisdom seem to have some basis in reality, so I guess you guys need to decide how complex this should be. I have no problem with the complexity, just the low intelligence and non-humanoid rules.