There has been alot of talk on combat feats, and (from what I have seen) most people aren't against the idea but rather how its done now. Myself included. As I thought about it I came back to an old idea that I had tossed around similar to combat feats and thought that I may as well toss it out here.
Take Combat feats and split them into 2 groups. Style feats and another group called Combat feats.
Style feats are various fighting styles, stances, and strategies that the character can take to gain ongoing benefits and penalties. Rules: You declare what style feat(if any) that you are using at the beginning of you turn. You gain all benefits and penalties as long as the feat is active. Once activated, it remains active until you declare that you are deactivating it, switch to a new one, you fall incapacitated, or combat ends. Declaring a style feat is a free action.
Examples: Wind stance, Lighting Stance, Careful targeting from the Alpha release.
Combat feats (My version) are templates that can be added to any attack. They represent various strikes, maneuvers, and specific attacks like one would find in a real-life sword fight. You can use as many combat feat as you want in a given round. However you can use only 1 combat feat on any one attack.
Examples:
Piercing Strike: You use your knowledge of piercing weapons and the qualities of armor to render armor less effective.
Requirements: BAB +3 or higher, Must be using a piercing weapon.
Effect: On this attack, your target adds only half their Armor Bonus and Natural Armor Bonus to their AC.
Lethal Blow: Using skill, you set-up a far more devastating blow.
Requirements: BAB of +10 or higher
Effect: You take a -10 penalty on this attack. If you hit, it is considered an automatic critical. Special abilities that active on a critical such as vorpal, don't active.
I know I don't have many examples but any thoughts? Ideas? Love? Hate?
