I have a character that is pretty much the living persona of the Grim Reaper. In case you wanted or needed to know, he's a cleric who specializes in channeling negative energy and even dresses the part. He even custom made a skeletal mask that gives him a +5 to Intimidate. His best skill is, of course, Intimidation and I wanted to do more with it.
The Dazzling Display feat has the perfect mechanic attached to it but the flavor is all wrong. I'm looking more for a frightful presence type thing as opposed to a weapon display in which I'm not even any good with anymore. What's worse, it's part of the Weapon Focus feat chain which totally doesn't make any sense if I just changed the flavor text of the Dazzling Display feat to fit my needs.
So the question is, is Dazzling Display really that good that it needs to be part of a feat chain and if so, what could I substitute in Weapon Focus' place that makes more sense (with DM approval, of course)?
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Well, for amusement you could take weapon focus (scythe) and then take dazzling display. Another fun one would be weapon focus (ray) - as a cleric, your ray spells are more limited (searing light, maybe others), but it's not a weapon, exactly. Or talk with your DM - maybe you can take some channel enhancing feat and then this associated with it (Channel Smite attaches channeling to a weapon. Improved Channel increases the save DC, much like Weapon Focus increases your chance to hit with a weapon.).
I have a character that is pretty much the living persona of the Grim Reaper. In case you wanted or needed to know, he's a cleric who specializes in channeling negative energy and even dresses the part. He even custom made a skeletal mask that gives him a +5 to Intimidate. His best skill is, of course, Intimidation and I wanted to do more with it.
The Dazzling Display feat has the perfect mechanic attached to it but the flavor is all wrong. I'm looking more for a frightful presence type thing as opposed to a weapon display in which I'm not even any good with anymore. What's worse, it's part of the Weapon Focus feat chain which totally doesn't make any sense if I just changed the flavor text of the Dazzling Display feat to fit my needs.
So the question is, is Dazzling Display really that good that it needs to be part of a feat chain and if so, what could I substitute in Weapon Focus' place that makes more sense (with DM approval, of course)?
Well two options I see for you both require DM approval.
Research a fear aura spell.homebrew feat chain
Skill focus(intimidate) -> Frightful presence (dazzling display without the weapon requirements)
from shaken a cleric should be able to find a way to make someone panic'd :) shaken also gives you greater spell focus(everything) so this would be a worthwhile chain.
Skill Focus?
Needs to be something that would be generally helpful anyway; most warrior types will have Weapon Focus eventually.
Not everyone who wants to scare people uses a weapon to do it :) This is an alternative to the weapon focus -> dazzling display chain that fighters already have access to.
heh. my reply was to the original post, not yours.
your post didn't exist for me when I wrote mine.
Things move fast on these boards. we need a "this post has received additional replies since you began composing a reply. Would you like to review them?" notification.
Aha! That would actually be nice :) no more Ninja'd posts or at least less of them
Skill focus(intimidate) -> Frightful presence (dazzling display without the weapon requirements)
Skill Focus?
Needs to be something that would be generally helpful anyway; most warrior types will have Weapon Focus eventually.
I was thinking this myself but was afraid that it might be overkill. An extra +6 to my Intimidate certainly wouldn't hurt though. :)
Skill focus(intimidate) -> Frightful presence (dazzling display without the weapon requirements)I was thinking this myself but was afraid that it might be overkill. An extra +6 to my Intimidate certainly wouldn't hurt though. :)Skill Focus?
Needs to be something that would be generally helpful anyway; most warrior types will have Weapon Focus eventually.
I really don't think it's overkill. Shaken is a set -2 penalty. Rolling a higher intimidate check only increases the duration. Combine that with fear spells and you have a nice 2 round combo, but for 2 full rounds it should be nice, because the fighter already took out 2 guys you were going to scare.
Keep in mind many enemies will be immune esp. at higher levels
I really don't think it's overkill. Shaken is a set -2 penalty. Rolling a higher intimidate check only increases the duration. Combine that with fear spells and you have a nice 2 round combo, but for 2 full rounds it should be nice, because the fighter already took out 2 guys you were going to scare.
You're right. A +6 is pretty much a +1 round of Intimidation for each target. Well, a little better than that but certainly nothing major.
You might use the Frightful Presence feat from Draconomicon or the Daunting Presence feat from Libris Mortis (or the Miniatures Handbook) for some (3.5) inspiration.
What about using the turn/command feats with alignment channel plus an extra homebrew feat to allow it to affect non-outsiders too?