There is a lot of talk going around about how fighter attacking three times in one turn is rolling waaay too much dice (I don't agree completely with that) and how melee classes are limited and barbarian rage system is overcomplicated (I smell conflicting thoughts here) and so on.
I'm also less than satisfied with the Overhand Chop feat in Alpha 3. Sure it was nice at lower levels, bus it started to lose it's sheen as the melee combatant gains additional attacks as the damage output laged behind (It took a full round action to use the feat. Beta changed that to standard action, which turned the feat from somewhat weak to useful).
I was thinking about it a little and altered the feat the other way around. Adding another 1/2 Str bonus per iterative attack lost in order to perform the Overhand Chop.
Why am I posting this all? Well, to be honest I think that feats or class features allowing the melee classes to drop some of their attacks and do something special (not necessarily much weaker than magic, the limit here is not in spell slots, but in number of full round attacks the melee combatant can make - not always an option) would serve several purposes.
- Full attack would be an option, but the lazy people would get something else to do.
- People asking for special fighter maneuvers / stances could get them.
- Possibility to improve fighting classes and get them more flavour.
- No tracking of points or any other new mechanics (nothing new here IMO, just using the old in a different way).
- Possibility for some weapon specific thingies.
- Classes better at fighting would stay better, feats would also be able to scale with melee combatants.
- One mechanic to rule them all? (technically these could be additional combat maneuvers accessible through feats and costing more than one attack)
Some examples (not necessarily ballanced)
Combat Expertise
Adding this.
If you are making a full attack you can add your Int bonus or BAB as a dodge bonus to your AC for every attack you chose not to perform after the first.
Deflect Arrows
Instead of making an attack you can deflect an arrow. Snatching arrows would would cost two attacks (or you'd need to have another feat as in standard rules...)
- typical monkish thing. A monk already moves fast enough, I don't think that he needs to be able to deflest arrows while charging or running like mad. On the other hand a monk moving his speed may be able to deflect an arrow coming his way or, if making a stand he could be deflecting up to six of them. the level of wuxia is high enough for me in this. It actually sounds better.
These are just a few ideas I'm throwing around. Maybe I'm overcomplicating it, it probably needs a lot of balancing, but I'd like to hear some oppinions on this.
Let's hope that I didn't screw this too much ^^