What do you think about this feat?
Half Move
You have optimized you movement.
Benefit: You can move half your speed during any of your rounds as a free action. Taking this movement can provoke an attack of opportunity.
You can't make more than one half speed move in a round, and if you make an half speed move you can't move any more distance in the same round.
You can take an half speed move only before your other actions in the round.
You may not take an half speed move using a form of movement for which you do not have a listed speed.
EDIT: I've just found another feat very similar to this one in the house rules section...
The Barbarian tribes' Shamans have been praying for such a feat. This boon of the gods would allow them to dance around the battlefield making full, raging iterative attacks! No foe will be safe with their action economy finally assured.
What Aldin is saying without saying it is that this feat is broken.
If you compare to existing feats, Fleet for instance increases your move speed by 5ft. End result: at best you gain 10ft of movement, at no cost, and without changing the nature of the action economy.
Your feat scales, allowing a monk with speed 60ft to gain 30ft of movement in the round. Further it changes the nature of the action economy because it is a free action instead of adjusting existing movement rates. That - as Aldin says - would allow a character to move then use a full attack.
This one feat severely breaks several game mechanics. To a certain degree it breaks the withdraw action, for instance. I take a full-round action to get away from you... you follow and take a full attack. To a certain degree it breaks Acrobatics tactics. I attack then tumble away to prevent your AoO. You Half-Move up to me and full attack. To a certain degree it breaks every Close ranged spell in the book. My caster is required to stay reasonably close to your melee type to use certain spells. In turn you'd normally be limited to moving to me, then using a single attack. With this feat you may well be able to Half-Move to me then full attack.
Throw in the haste spell. Again this is designed so you only get an extra attack when you sacrifice all movement. Same for Rapid Shot. How about a monk's flurry of blows?
All of that is a problem. What I'm pointing out is that a huge number of mechanics in the game predicate on the economy of action such that you don't get to use certain things if you've moved. Changing that requires great care.
The fix: make this a once-per-day ability. That would be reasonably balanced.
What Aldin is saying without saying it is that this feat is broken.
If you compare to existing feats, Fleet for instance increases your move speed by 5ft. End result: at best you gain 10ft of movement, at no cost, and without changing the nature of the action economy.
Your feat scales, allowing a monk with speed 60ft to gain 30ft of movement in the round. Further it changes the nature of the action economy because it is a free action instead of adjusting existing movement rates. That - as Aldin says - would allow a character to move then use a full attack.
This one feat severely breaks several game mechanics. To a certain degree it breaks the withdraw action, for instance. I take a full-round action to get away from you... you follow and take a full attack. To a certain degree it breaks Acrobatics tactics. I attack then tumble away to prevent your AoO. You Half-Move up to me and full attack. To a certain degree it breaks every Close ranged spell in the book. My caster is required to stay reasonably close to your melee type to use certain spells. In turn you'd normally be limited to moving to me, then using a single attack. With this feat you may well be able to Half-Move to me then full attack.
Throw in the haste spell. Again this is designed so you only get an extra attack when you sacrifice all movement. Same for Rapid Shot. How about a monk's flurry of blows?
All of that is a problem. What I'm pointing out is that a huge number of mechanics in the game predicate on the economy of action such that you don't get to use certain things if you've moved. Changing that requires great care.
The fix: make this a once-per-day ability. That would be reasonably balanced.
Still with 12.000 gp you could make a pair of "Boots of Accelerate" with continuous effect to gain and additional move action every round for all the day for... (way better than the feat)
"Accelerate" is a wizards word-spell of 2nd level...
Beside this, the feat does not break the withdraw action. If you withdraw for your Move x 2, it's very difficult that I can catch you with my Move / 2...
I was searching for a "foot substitute" of the feat "Mounted Skirmisher" (that grants you the ability to full attack while on a mount after a move).
Still with 12.000 gp you could make a pair of "Boots of Accelerate" with continuous effect to gain and additional move action every round for all the day for... (way better than the feat)
"Accelerate" is a wizards word-spell of 2nd level...
No you couldn't. You can only make potions, scrolls and wands using wordspells.
No you couldn't. You can only make potions, scrolls and wands using wordspells.Still with 12.000 gp you could make a pair of "Boots of Accelerate" with continuous effect to gain and additional move action every round for all the day for... (way better than the feat)
"Accelerate" is a wizards word-spell of 2nd level...
And even if you could, basing a feat's balance off of an experimental optional rule that the designers themselves said needs much more work is pretty weak.
Also, even assuming it is balanced (it's not. The whole point of full-attack is to exchange mobility for power. This gets rid of that.) if you're basing it off mounted skirmisher, you should at least make it have the high Ranks MS needs as well as the feats before it.
14 Acrobatics and Mobility are a good start for that.
Beside this, the feat does not break the withdraw action. If you withdraw for your Move x 2, it's very difficult that I can catch you with my Move / 2.
'Fraid it does. If I withdraw, I'm by definition moving 10ft or more, but no less than 10ft. Why? Because if I was willing to accept a mere 5ft of movement, I'd just take a 5ft step then I could still retain all of my actions. Instead if I've declared I'm withdrawing (a full-round action), I'm going more than 5ft. So 10ft... or more.
At the 10ft mark, I've made it so you cannot follow me with a mere 5ft step. You must take a move action in order to engage me. At that moment, the most you're going to get is a single attack.
My point isn't that there is no circumstance under which someone can successfully withdraw against someone with your feat. My point is that there are circumstances where your feat defeats (part of) the point of a withdraw. I may have withdrawn a few squares to place myself strategically... so you closing with me forces you to be where I want to be. Increasing the cost of such movement by allowing an unexpected full-attack is... serious.
The point remains... while I completely understand your desire for such a feat, it outright breaks an assumption that a lot of game mechanics hold dear... you don't get a full attack after movement*. I'm absolutely not trying to shoot you down, but to illustrate that this feat isn't balanced... it's game-changing in a huge way.
*Use of dimension door or similar by someone other than you sort of kind of gets around this sort of kind of, but requires two characters acting in tandem... itself a large cost.
Many low cost items from the Magic Items Compendium grant the ability to Pounce various times per day.
So, what about a feat that gives you the Pounce ability, but:
- with a -2 to hit instead of a +2 (remains the -2 to AC)
- with only a move instead of a double move
- requires a swift action to activate for one round
- deals 5 hit points of nonlethal damage every time it's activated
- sneak attack damage during this action is only applied for the first successful attack
This way you have the restriction to move in a straight line, so the target can try to use a terrain/obstacle advantage to protect himself.