two-handed feats

[showzilla]

hey, I'd like some critique on this.

I was looking through the feats and found that two-handed was quite lacking in feats geared towards it, so I tried to help it out a bit.

1. Powerful Grip

you are exceptionally deadly with massive weapons.

Prerequisites:Str 13

Benefits: when wielding a two-handed weapon or a one handed weapon in two hands, apply double your strength modifier instead of one and half times.

Normal: you may only apply 1-1/2 times your strength modifier to damage rolls with two-handed weapons.

2.improved power attack

you wild swings are more devastating

Prereqs: str 15, Powerful grip, power attack, BAB+1

Benefits: when wielding a weapon in two hands, you power attack bonus is +4 instead of +3.

3.Momentum
you've learned to allow weight of you strikes to help you follow through with your attacks

prereqs:Powerful grip, BAB+16

Benefits:if you are wielding a two-handed weapon and you use a full-attack action, you gain a bonus to damage equal to 1/4 your BAB(round down)

4.circular assault

the momentum carried in your strikes can be harnessed for quicker recoveries and swifter onslaughts

Prereqs:Powerful grip,Momentum, BAB+18
Benefits:when using a full attack action with a weapon wielding in two hands, you may make one extra attack at your highest BAB, but all attacks this round take a -4 penalty.

[master_marshmallow]

These feats invalidate certain class abilities (two-handed fighter) which makes them a bad start.

Powerful Grip is the same ability as overhand chop and backswing all in one feat, really bad start.

Improved Power Attack is a really bad idea, honestly doing more damage is the last thing power attack needs to care about, it gets plenty of damage going as is, that is the entire point of the feat after all, and it even scales as you level up rather than having to take another feat.

Momentum has the same problem, just creating bloat to add to damage doesn't really add much to the game.

Circular Assault already exists in a better form, it is called Cleave, and get this, it has Power Attack as a prerequisite. It also doesn't force your other attacks to take that penalty for seemingly no reason. Great Cleave exists also.

In fact, there are plenty of feats that one could take for two handed combat, the only thing is that none of them are necessary to making combat work which is a good thing. Inventing feat tax in order to optimize an already optimized combat style is poor game design.

[Dasrak]

All of these feats do nothing except increase the damage output of the character. Two-handed weapon fighters are already really good at doing this; I see no purpose for any of these feats to exist, and agree with master marshmallow that the lack of mandatory feats (other than the ubiquitous power-attack) is a good thing.

[showzilla]

master_marshmallow wrote:

These feats invalidate certain class abilities (two-handed fighter) which makes them a bad start.

Powerful Grip is the same ability as overhand chop and backswing all in one feat, really bad start.

Improved Power Attack is a really bad idea, honestly doing more damage is the last thing power attack needs to care about, it gets plenty of damage going as is, that is the entire point of the feat after all, and it even scales as you level up rather than having to take another feat.

Momentum has the same problem, just creating bloat to add to damage doesn't really add much to the game.

Circular Assault already exists in a better form, it is called Cleave, and get this, it has Power Attack as a prerequisite. It also doesn't force your other attacks to take that penalty for seemingly no reason. Great Cleave exists also.

In fact, there are plenty of feats that one could take for two handed combat, the only thing is that none of them are necessary to making combat work which is a good thing. Inventing feat tax in order to optimize an already optimized combat style is poor game design.

a comment!!! JAWESOME!!!

1. The two-handed fighter doesn't get much love over here with me or my friends/DM's/Players. the complaints against it are that it gives up too much for what is considered not enough. Overhead chop works on very specific attacks and backswing misses out on it's first attack, we've asked why the two-handed fight didn't just get a simply ability to use double his strength mod on damage rolls, basically, he gave up too much defense for not enough offense. I had someone ask me what the point of the two-handed fighter or a two-handed build was when compared to TWF, looked it over and decided to simply run these feats (from memory, first time typing them down), at first it was only the double strength mod feat...then I took a look to find more feats specifically for a two-hander and came up far too short.

2. again, with overhead chop and backswing, they could have been covered in a simple feat like Powerful grip, just like they did with Double slice.

3. as for the power attack feat...it was originally supposed to come with powerful grip but one of my roommates suggested I break it off into a separate feat.

4. I picked Momentum's name and bounced some ideas off other people, this is what we got. I came here, got any ideas for a name like that?

5. Circular assault just gives you one extra attack for a -2 to all attacks, I took it straight out of the Dervish of Dawn archetype. the idea was based on the cirlular shapes made by users of heavy weapons to conserve energy on multiple strikes, this feat shows that your better at it then others. Though it's should probably have a prereq of BAB+15 and nothing else, just make sure your two-handed for that extra attack.

[BadBird]

Considering that two-handed warriors are generally among the deadliest and most elite historically, I would love to see them get some (well, to be honest, more) love through some actual zweihander abilities:

Lunge: You've got a big weapon - should there be a special kind of more effective two-hander "lunge?" Maybe on a charge or something?

Felling Smash: I always loved the idea of this feat and hated the execution - what does skill in cleverly tripping someone have to do with bashing them to the ground? I'd love to see a feat that caused a knockdown with a power-attacking two-handed weapon along other lines - maybe something like requiring multiple hits from a full-attack to run your attack roll against their CMD or something.

Pommel-Bash: Not sure how you would run this, but its one of the more awesome two-hander tricks - recovering from a big swing with a fast bash from the haft or pommel of the weapon. Probably impractical, but a swift-action attack with the 'other side' of a two-hander on a charge or a big hit or something, with a penalty to ab? Just a thought.

[Durngrun Stonebreaker]

Wouldn't it be easier to just modify the two handed archetype?

[showzilla]

Durngrun Stonebreaker wrote:

Wouldn't it be easier to just modify the two handed archetype?

The point was that Two-handed only feats are lacking in comparison to other combat styles and the fact that most of what was done for the two-handed fighter was done for other weapon types as a series of feats, not an archetype.

Powerful grip= double slice

Powerful grip

prereqs: str 13, power attack

benefits: use double your strength mod for damage rolls with a two-handed weapon. When using power attack,you gain +4 bonuses instead of +3.

Momentum might get changed to a CMB bonus or something other, any ideas? the reasoning is that the impact of a two-handed attack hits harder so you should be able to throw people around better than with just one handed attacks.