| Kazaan |
Had a brainstorm for a mechanic and a few feats to go along with it that could potentially make charisma (a common go-to dumpstat) more viable even for non-charisma based characters.
Premise: Charisma governs your force of personality and sense of self-confidence. It's a relatively common trope for a hero to hit a "limit-break" point at which they gain extreme power for a period of time. The base mechanic will be intended to be a "death save" that kicks in when a character is in imminent danger of hitting "dying" status.
Fighting Spirit: If an attack would bring you into negative hitpoints, you have a chance to get a burst of spirit and confidence that allows you to keep going for a time. When any damage would result in you having negative hitpoints, roll d% and add your Charisma score. If the total is over 100, regardless of how much damage was dealt, you are only brought down to 1 hit point and gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma score as well as a +3 morale bonus to AC and all saves. This lasts for (3 + Charisma Bonus) rounds (minimum 1 round, after which you become exhausted for 10 minutes. This effect cannot be triggered if you are exhausted, but it will remove the fatigued status if you have it.
Improved Fighting Spirit
Prerequisites: lvl 4, 13 Cha
Benefit: You gain 50% more temporary hit points from triggering Fighting Spirit and the bonus to AC and saves increases to +5. The exhaustion at the end of the effect is reduced to 5 minutes.
Explosion of Fighting Spirit
Prerequisites: lvl 8, 15 Cha, Improved Fighting Spirit
Benefit: If your current HP is less than the lower of half your max HP or your Charisma score, you may attempt to trigger Fighting Spirit as a standard action. The exhaustion at the end of the effect is replaced by 5 minutes of fatigue unless you were already fatigued before it triggered.
Resilient Fighting Spirit
Prerequisites: lvl 8, 15 Cha, Improved Fighting Spirit
Benefit: The bonus to temporary hit points given by Improved Fighting Spirit is increased to 100%. You are also immune to fatigue for the duration of the Fighting Spirit effect.
Lively Fighting Spirit
Prerequisites: lvl 8, 15 Cha, Improved Fighting Spirit
Benefit: When Fighting Spirit takes effect, you are left at 3 HP. If you still have temporary HP remaining at the end of the effect, you are healed for an amount equal to your temporary HP and all temporary HP are lost.
Special: If you are at least middle-aged, use your Charisma modifier to determine your bonus Hit Points instead of Constitution. The penalty to ability scores from Old and Venerable age categories are reduced by 1 point
Fighting Spirit of the Ages
Prerequisites: lvl 12, 17 Cha, Improved Fighting Spirit, Lively Fighting Spirit, middle-aged or older
Benefit: Use your Charisma modifier to calculate your Fortitude Save instead of Constitution. The penalty to ability scores for all age categories is reduced by 1 (stacks with Lively Fighting Spirit).
Indomitable Fighting Spirit
Prerequisites: lvl 12, 17 Cha, Improved Fighting Spirit, Resilient Fighting Spirit
Benefit: The bonus to AC and Saves increases to +8. You are immune to both fatigue and exhaustion for the duration of the Fighting Spirit effect and will be fatigued when it ends, even if you were fatigued when it came into effect.
Mighty Fighting Spirit
Prerequisites: Lvl 12, 17 Cha, Improved Fighting Spirit, Explosion of Fighting Spirit
Benefit: While under the effect of Fighting Spirit, you gain a +4 morale bonus to attack and damage rolls as well as the save DCs for any abilities or spells you use.
Heroic Fighting Spirit
Prerequisites: lvl 16, 19 Cha, Explosion of Fighting Spirit, Indomitable Fighting Spirit
Benefit: While under the effect of Fighting Spirit, you gain a +4 morale bonus to all ability scores and DR 5/--. You can also use Explosion of Fighting Spirit as a move action and, when triggered, you deal 3d6+Cha Bonus as force damage (calculated before +4 bonus to ability scores).
Any critique or suggestions on the mechanic and/or feats? Anything that should be changed? Do any of the prerequisites come off as overly steep or do they fit the potential of the feats?