Hello,
I'm wondering how useful can be Strike Back. Is it even worth taking it? How often will you encounter an ennemy with reach?
Wouldn't the mobility feat be more effective overall?
It's an incredibly situational and weak feat, yes. Anyone can ready an action to do whatever in response to almost anything, so anyone can ready an action to attack someone who strikes them with a melee weapon, without a feat. Literally the only use of Strike Back is to do this against someone who has reach, and let you hit them without having reach yourself. It's essentially worthless.
Mobility feats which let you negate attacks of opportunity or even provide higher AC are going going to be superior to Strike Back. Strike Back can be defeated by an intelligent opponent simply not attacking you in melee and doing something else useful. Mobility and then Spring Attack is probably a superior option. It costs more in terms of feats, stat requirements and levels, but also has other applications.
If you want a character that has an easy time of getting close to melee range on enemies, Operative's have an exploit that allows them to ignore attacks of opportunity from their trick attack target.
Making the target flat footed for a round also allows you to avoid attacks of opportunity while moving into melee. At 4th level and higher,an operative can do so. A soldier with a sonic weapon at 7th could as well. Envoys can get clever feint at 1st to make targets flat footed for a round. Greater Feint can also make a target flat footed for a round.
I've always felt Strike Back would have been much more useful if it had removed the requirement to ready an action in Pathfinder and in Starfinder.
For example if I were to homebrew it: For 1 round after being attacked in melee you are considered to have reach to that specific attacker while you are within its reach. Your reach to targets which have not attacked you in melee in the last round remains as normal.
Example: Monster with 10 foot reach standard action attacks you and then moves away 30 feet. It now provokes an attack of opportunity as it moves away as its within your reach at the time of movement. You move up 30 feet towards it and are within its reach again, but did not get adjacent or provoke an attack of opportunity while moving. You take a standard action to attack it, as you are within its reach, and thus have reach to it. At the start of its turn, it moves away without attacking, but does not provoke, as you no longer have reach to it with the 1 round being up since its last melee attack on you.
It still can be ignored by enemies if they don't attack you in melee, but on the other hand, you're not sacrificing an entire round to even try. The cost benefit analysis actually comes out positive to use (i.e. you lose nothing or actually gain a benefit when you try to use it), where as the original Strike Back has potentially a negative cost/benefit analysis to use in some situations (you lose an action to gain a benefit that has an obvious counter).
Situational, but not totally worthless.
Let's say you're fighting an enemy with 10-foot reach, you have a more typical 5-foot reach, and the two of you are only targeting each other.
Without Strike Back:
First you need to get within melee range, which means you enter and then leave a threatened square. Before you even attack, you risk an AoO. After that, you trade blow-for-blow. But what if you need to disengage? Either you (a) risk eating an AoO and possibly going down, or you (b) take two guarded steps in a round to move out of the threatened area (a withdraw action, in this situation, would still provoke). Most creatures have a speed of at least 10 feet, so your opponent can catch up with you. You can't disengage safely unless they let you.
With Strike Back:
You enter the edge of your opponent's range (no AoO) and ready an action to strike at any incoming melee attacks. You get to strike first, and trade blow-for-blow. If you need to disengage, you can take a guarded step and then book it.
Now, there are some downsides to strike back. If the opponent does something with their turn other than make a melee attack against you specifically, you've wasted your turn. Because you've readied an action, you can't make full attacks. Those are both pretty big cons.
Is strike back very situational? Yes. Is mobility a better feat for dealing with large threatened reaches? yes. Is strike back totally useless? No - especially at higher levels, when you've taken the dozen best feats already and creatures with longer and longer reach are more common, it can have some use.
You can't hit someone with reach, even with a readied action, if you can't reach their space. That's what the feat is for.
That being said, I agree that it is a weak feat, and that people should be able to do this without said feat.
A feat free alternative would be to grab a gun and start shooting if you can't reach the monster. If your dexterity is low thrown weapons are strenght based so everybody can shoot resonnably well now.
For avoiding attack of opportinity:
- If the ennemy have a reach of 10 feet, you can take a guarded step.
- If the ennemy have 15 feet of reach or more you can invest in acrobatics and it would do a better job than wasting a feat and an action by hoping that the ennemy strike you so you can strike back.
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Strike Back makes more sense as a feat if instead of requiring you to ready an action, it would let you counterattack against melee as your reaction. This version would be balanced by having the counterattack happen /after/ the provoking attack, instead of before. Otherwise, as mentioned anyone can ready an action to respond to a melee attack without needing this feat, and its only use is to interact with reach.
I hate to break it to people but how you're describing readied actions in Starfinder is incorrect. The Strike Back readied action comes after the attack of the NPC with reach. Its the same reason why you can't disrupt a standard action spell with a readied action.
If the readied action is not a purely defensive action, such as shooting a foe if he shoots you, it takes place immediate after the triggering event.
On top of that a readied action changes your initiative count to the same as the opponent.
You can take the action you chose when the trigger happens. This changes your initiative count to the current initiative count for the remainder of the combat.
Emphasis mine. If you're on the same initiative count, then you act in intiative modifier order when it comes back around.
If two or more combatants have the same initiative count, the order in which they act is determined by their total initiative modifiers (the character with the highest modifier acts first).
So if you're up against a reach monster with better initiative than you, using this feat is a trap. It goes something like:
1) You move up to it, 10 feet away and ready your action on initiative count 10 (say with a +5 initiative modifier). This turn 1.
2) It acts on initiative count 20 (with a modifier of +10 say) of the new turn. It standard attacks you. This is turn 2.
3) You now attack back. Your initiative count is now 20. You've acted for this turn. This is still turn 2.
4) Next turn the creature attacks again on initiative 20, before you act again because its modifier is higher than yours. This is turn 3.
5) You ready an action to Strike Back after the NPC has taken its turn. This is still turn 3. Note you do not actually attack on turn 3.
6) It attacks on initiative count 20 of turn 4.
7) You attack back again, setting your initiative to 20 again. This is still turn 4.
It has attacked you 3 times to your 2 readied actions to attack back. This will continue with you attacking once for every two turns the enemy attacks you. You are literally better off walking up to it, suffering the single AoO, and standard attacking. You never get an attack off before the reach enemy with this feat, so you might as well just take the AoO and allow yourself to possibly full attack when it full attacks in later rounds.
Even against a reach monster with lower initiative than you, you never actually get an attack in first. Simply eating the AoO will wind up with the same ratio of attacks between the two sides.
No feat:
1) Walk up, reach enemy takes AoO first, now you attack on initiative 10 on turn 1.
2) Enemy attacks you on initiative count of 20 of turn 2.
3) Attack on initiative count of 10 on turn 2.
4) Enemy attacks you on initiative count of 20 of turn 3.
5) You attack on initiative count of 10 of turn 3.
6) It attacks on initiative count of 20 of turn 4.
7) You attack on initiative count of 10 of turn 4.
Both sides made 4 attacks at the end of turn 4.
With the Strike back feat, but higher initiative bonus for you with the feat:
1) You walk up and ready action on turn 1.
2) It attacks on round 2, you attack back.
3) On turn 3 you ready to attack, because your initiative modifier is higher.
4) It attacks and you attack back on turn 3.
5) You ready an attack on turn 4.
6) It attacks on turn 4, and you attack back.
In 4 turns, you've both made 3 attacks. The order of attacks is exactly the same as without the feat.
Admittedly, the withdraw options are slightly better with the Strike back feat, but that really only applies to a 5 foot reach difference. With a 10 foot difference (i.e. 15 foot reach vs 5 foot reach), it can stick you in the middle of that reach if it wants with a move action. Or if it looks like its winning the exchange, it can move up adjacent to you.
I see most of us agree that the feat is almost unusable.
But what about colossal creatures? Would this feat be amazing for fighting a creature who has.. says 40 ft. reach?
I never fought a colossal creature, but maybe in special campaigns the feat could be useful?
I guess it could be useful if you're deep into difficult terrain, and you can't properly close in, but still at that level you should have mean of flying so i'd say no it's never amazing.
The real killer here is that you can't even full attack with it, and your enemy will be able to. So it's better to take ab attack of opportunity so you can close in and then full attack, or force your enemy to take guarded step if he doesn't want you to full attack.
I still think that the best way to circumvent unreachable enemy is to bring a big gun and start shooting, every body can be decent at range now.
So, that means we can just put that feat in the sh;t tier category, I guess.
Thank you all.