New Feat Suggestion - Improved Arcane Strike


New Rules Suggestions

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This feat idea specifically builds off of the Arcane Strike feat presented in the Alpha rules and is geared towards Gish Fighter/Arcane Casters.

Feat - Improved Arcane Strike
Prerequisites - Arcane Strike, Able to cast 2nd level arcane spells, Base attack bonus +5
Benefit - A character with this feat may channel their arcane spells to increase the power of their melee attacks. As a swift action, the character may expend one spell to add +1 to all melee attacks and damage rolls per 2 levels of the spell expended. This bonus lasts until the end of the round. This ability stacks with the benefit from Arcane Strike.

The basic idea here is that in the SRD, there aren't many good options for allowing a Gish character improve their melee attacks by channeling their spells. The premise of this feat is the same as 3.5's arcane strike, but is considerably less powerful. Even in a fighter/sorcerer/eldritch knight build the absolute best bonus to melee attacks and damage obtainable with this feat is +4 (by expending an 8th or 9th level spell slot). Since it stacks with Arcane Strike from the Alpha, a character could get a +5 to attacks and damage on their melee attacks by expending an 8th or 9th level spell slot. In practice most Gish classes will never be channeling spells of that power. Most Gish builds will never see Greater Weapon Specialization (do to taking Eldritch Knight, or simply not taking enough levels in fighter as 12th level is needed) so there needs to be a mechanism for them to use their spells to improve their melee capability other than pure buffing.

Just an idea and one I am sure there are variations of floating around. The swift action limitation and specific wording of the feat prevent the sort of "drop every spell I have into channeling for one attack" that happened with arcane strike in 3.5. What do you guys think?

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