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I still think Monkey Lunge allows you to attack, because it says it lets you "use Lunge" as a standard action. If you activate Lunge but don't attack at least once, you still haven't yet "used" the benefits of Lunge. It's poor wording and a lame benefit, but I do think it lets you attack.
Benefit: You can increase the reach of your melee attacks by 5 feet until the end of your turn by taking a –2 penalty to your AC until your next turn. You must decide to use this ability before any attacks are made.
It doesn't actually let you make any attacks.
I don't understand how using Elephant stop is a worse option than what you had?The only reason to activate Elephant Stomp is if you want to attack the person.
But if you use Elephant Stomp, you first have to beat the overrun DC by 5 in order to do that, plus you only get to use a limited selection of weapons.
If you don't use Elephant Stomp, then you're able to attack without needing to beat any overrun DC, plus you can do so with any weapon.
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I think that the original intent of Elephant Stomp might have been a very different one: If it was instead intended to let you have an attack as an immediate action if you failed the overrun attempt by 5 or less, then it would be a quite useful feat.
From the flavor text i think that the orginal intent of the feat was to allow an extra stomp attack as an immediate action if you successfully knocked them prone with an overrun.
From the flavor text i think that the orginal intent of the feat was to allow an extra stomp attack as an immediate action if you successfully knocked them prone with an overrun.
I agree with you, its just a poorly worded feat. Most DM's would give you the extra attack as an immediate action vs a prone enemy.
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I think it's easy to see that Monkey Lunge and Elephant Stomp are supposed to be beneficial, and it's not too hard to fix them (you get an attack with the lunge, you get an attack in addition to overrunning).
Prone Shooter, on the other hand, is just exceedingly dumb. It is intended to remove non-existent penalties. It is designed to be useless, making it irredeemable.
Does a caster who is casting a one-round long spell provoke on your turn? Because then Monkey Lunge could actually do something as it would allow you to take an attack of opportunity on a caster 10 feet away.
Monkey's Lunge a Quickened Shocking Grasp (or any melee touch spell). Could be useful if that works, though still not feat-worthy.
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I think it's easy to see that Monkey Lunge and Elephant Stomp are supposed to be beneficial, and it's not too hard to fix them (you get an attack with the lunge, you get an attack in addition to overrunning).
Prone Shooter, on the other hand, is just exceedingly dumb. It is intended to remove non-existent penalties. It is designed to be useless, making it irredeemable.
Blame the Editer, the original has a Hit bonus while using them from Prone (+3 I think), the editor decided that was too high and removed it.
Cooperative Crafting
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From the 3.5 Sandstorm book (which was in most other regards a great book), there is a feat called Blessed of Tem Et Nu...
Prerequisite: must have defeated a hippopotamus in single combat, Patron deity Tem-Et-NuBenefit: Hippopotami cannot attack you unless they are magically compelled.
In addition, if you possess the turn or rebuke undead class feature, you can rebuke and command hippopotami as an evil cleric rebukes or commands undead.
You gain a +2 sacred bonus to your Armor Class against chaotic-aligned creatures with the fire subtype.Special: If you ever lose favor with Tem-Et-Nu, or change your patron deity to another deity, you lose all benefits of this feat and take damage as if you were bitten by a hippopotamus. You do not gain a replacement feat. If you later return to Tem-Et-Nu's faithful and receive an atonement spell, you regain the benefit of this feat.
Hippos are nasty buggers so it could help.
Death or Glory would be better if the bonus damage/crit chance for the target's response was removed and reduced to a single attack roll.
Strike Back is a horrible feat just for that reason, yeah. It effectively banned a common sense option IME basically any DM allowed before PF came out. Now you need a feat and BAB +FOUR-FREAKING-TEEN, iirc. What the hell?!
Strike Back is a horrible feat just for that reason, yeah. It effectively banned a common sense option IME basically any DM allowed before PF came out. Now you need a feat and BAB +FOUR-FREAKING-TEEN, iirc. What the hell?!
+11, actually... Not that it makes the feat any less stupid or restrictive.
And let's not forget Water Skinned. It does have an actual effect and doesn't make you worse (except for the feat loss), so I guess it can't be classified as "worst feat ever", but it can at least compete for a Top 10 position.
You spend a feat and congratulations, you got the power of a bucket of water. Actually, the bucket would be better, as that can possibly put out magical fire.
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I agree about Strike Back. I made a big stink about it a ways back only to be brushed off by the developers and a few of their more loyal forum lackies.
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Yeah, I'll add my voice to those claiming Strike Back as the worst feat ever. That's awful design. Why not just put a line in the Combat section saying you can do that instead? Poor PFS.
I believe all these feats come about due to a 'Must have new 'x' in the books and modules. I've seen some pretty bizzare creatures pop up that look like someone just squished a couple monsters together.
im reading strikeback as " hold your action to make a melee attack against the target, even if you cant reach them" a free grapple (if you're playing a MM monk), trip, or disarm if you are playing a fighter. i can see it having a use, unlike other feats that have been listed in this thread.
a monster with a 20 foot reach gets tripped by the unarmed fighter lol, wierd, but it would work.
So, what Houserules would you propose?
Lunge: Normal Attack can be done.
Elephant Stomp: Prone+Attack
Prone Shooter: +2 to Hit?
Those sound like reasonable fixes :)
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For those of you saying Strike Back should just be a combat option, do you really want every fight against a reach creature to consist of all the melee guys readying to attack when the creature strikes? Why ever provoke an AoO? It's a simplified scenario, but if a player had asked to do this before the feat was printed, I would have limited it to retaliating against unarmed/natural attacks and given about a -4 to hit. Is it worth a feat to avoid those penalties?
Plus, Strike Back does let you somehow hit a storm giant wielding a huge longspear from 30 feet away. The giant never comes near you but you can still take a swipe at it. That's not bad and is probably the thinking behind the high BAB requirement.
The hippo feat is awesome. No feat that make me laugh that hard was a waste of space.
I don't see strike back as a bad feat at all. It's not a great one, but it's definitely not something I would allow my players to do without the feat. The BAB requirement seems high, but whatever.
So, we have Monkey Lunge to Strike Back and do an Elephant Stomp while Shooting Prone!
That's four. Only 18 more feats to go to get the 20th level "Make the OptoWeenies whimper!" fighter build.
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There are worse feats. Honestly, there are a lot of feats that should be traits, because the only way anyone is ever going to purchase them is at 1/2 price.
I'm thinking of feats like "Childlike" and "Pass for Human".
There are worse feats. Honestly, there are a lot of feats that should be traits, because the only way anyone is ever going to purchase them is at 1/2 price.
I'm thinking of feats like "Childlike" and "Pass for Human".
At least Childlike and Pass for Human are better than having no feat at all.
Good for more roleplaying focused games. In Chelix for example, you could pass as a human child and avoid all that nasty racism.
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It's not technically a feat, but the rogue talent Powerful Sneak should be in the running.
How...i just don't see it. Assuming you have a 20th level rogue with 10 dice of sneak attack. If he rolled a 1, then a 2, then a 3, and so on until he was out of dice we would have.
1 =22
3
4
5
6
1=2
2
3
4
- for a total increase of at least 2 damage. Not that bad considering that weapon specialization only does 2 damage. But lets say best case scenario roll all 1's. That's an increase of 10 damage. Not to mention your making a full attack action which means best case scenario that's 10 additional damage per attack (min of 3 attacks by 20th level) not assume two-weapon fighting or haste (possible 7 attacks for a possible 70 damage increase). AND...its not even a feat, its a class feature.
HOW is this class feature bad at all. Not to mention the higher level version (Deadly Sneak). This one treats all 1's and 2's as 3's. That another potential 70 damage for a potential 140 damage (or 60 if your not using TWF or haste).
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While I can't think of any feats as useless as Prone Shooter, I do nominate Cockatrice Strike for a waste of feat and action to use it.
Turn a target to stone with a critical hit
Prerequisitites: Medusa's Wrath, base attack bonus +14
Benefit: As a full-round action, you can make a single unarmed strike against a dazed, flat-footed, paralyzed, staggered, stunned, or unconscious foe. If that attack is a critical hit, the target is petrified unless it succeeds on a Fortitude saving throw with a DC of 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Wisdom modifier. This is a supernatural polymorph effect.
So, here's a feat which has prerequisites consisting of:
Improved Unarmed Strike, Scorpion Style, Gorgon's Fist, Medusa's Wrath and BAB+14 that lets you as a FULL-ROUND action (meaning you'd have to within 5 ft of him in the first place), ATTEMPT to petrify an already disabled (or in worst-case, penalized) opponent with a really lousy DC.
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Death or Glory is pretty bad.... You give up all of your iterative attacks for a single attack with relatively minor bonuses and allow your size large or larger opponent (who will invariably have more hit points) to attack you as an immediate action with the same bonuses? That's dumb.
Also, many of these feats were judged too powerful by editors who trimmed them down, but due to using out-dated rules information and not verifying the current ruleset to ensure there is still a reason to keep the feat in the book.
All that being said, maybe someone designing Elephant Stomp missed the part of the Improved Overrun feat that says "Targets of your overrun attempt may not chose to avoid you." and intended it to be a backup so that you didn't waste your attack on an Overrun attempt that the enemy was going to avoid anyways? Either way, pretty terrible feat.
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While I can't think of any feats as useless as Prone Shooter, I do nominate Cockatrice Strike for a waste of feat and action to use it.
Turn a target to stone with a critical hit
Prerequisitites: Medusa's Wrath, base attack bonus +14
Benefit: As a full-round action, you can make a single unarmed strike against a dazed, flat-footed, paralyzed, staggered, stunned, or unconscious foe. If that attack is a critical hit, the target is petrified unless it succeeds on a Fortitude saving throw with a DC of 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Wisdom modifier. This is a supernatural polymorph effect.So, here's a feat which has prerequisites consisting of:
Improved Unarmed Strike, Scorpion Style, Gorgon's Fist, Medusa's Wrath and BAB+14 that lets you as a FULL-ROUND action (meaning you'd have to within 5 ft of him in the first place), ATTEMPT to petrify an already disabled (or in worst-case, penalized) opponent with a really lousy DC.
No kidding right? "If the attack is a critical hit (at best a 10% chance of that happening with an Unarmed Strike) and if the target is already disabled in some way, and if the target fails a Fort save after you've confirmed your critical hit..."
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...a few of their more loyal forum lackies.Come on man, was that necessary? Regardless of it being true?
No. It absolutely wasn't necessary.
New feats, spells and other "options" that restrict what you can do rather than expand upon it have always been a soar spot for me. Drives me crazy, sometimes causing me to say things.
Particular examples include Strike Back (which anyone could do sans feat had it not existed) and interplanetary teleport (which greater teleport could do prior to its release).
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Not in my game, dear Sir! My players couldn't do it before.
...and considering how little benefit Strike Back gives you and how high-level you need to be to take it, they probably still can't.
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HOW is this class feature bad at all. Not to mention the higher level version (Deadly Sneak). This one treats all 1's and 2's as 3's. That another potential 70 damage for a potential 140 damage (or 60 if your not using TWF or haste).
The talent raises your average damage from sneak attack from 3.5/die to 3.67 per die. But, it reduces your chance of hitting (and thus your average damage) by 10%, making your de facto average damage drop to 3.3 per die, which is worse than if you hadn't used the talent. So powerful sneak by itself is a trap. Deadly sneak makes the averages 4.0 which becomes 3.6, which is technically better, but you did just spend two rogue talents for a <3% increase in dpr from sneak attack. You still lose damage overall if your non-sneak attack damage exceeds 1 point/SA die, because you lose 10% of that damage as well.
Over any adventuring career, the rogue with the sneak attack talents will lose more damage due to the hit penalty than they will gain due to the better sneak attack rolls.
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Over any adventuring career, the rogue with the sneak attack talents will lose more damage due to the hit penalty than they will gain due to the better sneak attack rolls.
But if you happen to hit with every single attack and then you happen to roll 1's on every single sneak attack die, then those talents make you turn a profit! So provided you're using d20's loaded toward you and d6's loaded against you, they're useful.