| Nettah |
So several people are currently playing with playtest rules in their custom setting or have converted existing APs into the playtest rules, so I thought it might be fun to try and implement more class feats to make more playstyles from the different classes viable. Maybe it could also inspire Paizo to include feats that are similar if they aren't already planned for the final version. Good ideas for adjusting the current class feats are also welcome in this thread (I know people like Edge93 has already merged several class feats in his current campaign).
Personally I really want most play styles to be viable for the different classes, but I do prefer that they have different methods of doing this (like Double Slice for fighter and Twin Takedown for ranger) so i'll attempt to support new play styles for the different classes primarily to begin with.
I haven't done a lot of math on the feats yet, so they might be a bit unbalanced or there could be some OP combos between several classes I haven't thought about, so any constructive criticism is more than welcome.
Barbarian:
Mighty Throw
Two Actions; Feat Level 1
Traits: Barbarian, Rage
Requirements: Your are wielding a weapon with the thrown trait
You throw your weapon with a mighty force at the enemy staggering or knocking it down.
Make a ranged attack with your weapon, if it's within it's first range increment add the following enchantment.
Enchantment: The target is sluggish 1 until the start of your next turn. If the attack was a critical hit the target is also knocked prone. This only affects creatures that are large or smaller; if you are using a large weapon this can affect creatures that are huge.
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Double Strike
Two Actions; Feat Level 1
Traits: Barbarian
Requirements: Your are wielding a weapon in each hand, neither is agile.
You make two strikes in rapid succession with such force the target is loosing it's footing
Make two Strikes against the target, once with each weapon (MAP is applicable as normal) they get the following enchantment.
Enchantment: The target is flat-footed until the start of your next turn. If both attacks hit, the target is flat-footed until the end of your next turn.
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Paldin:
Judgement of the Crossbow:
One action; Feat Level 2
Traits: Paladin, Open
Prerequisite: Ranged Reprisal
Requirements: Your are wielding a crossbow
Your crossbow strikes true against enemies hurting the innocent or your allies
You make a ranged attack against an enemy that has harmed the innocent or your allies. Add half your wisdom modifier to the damage roll. If you are level 10 add your full wisdom modifier instead.
[Special]: If you use retributive strike add the effect of Judgement of the Crossbow to the attack. If you weapon is currently unloaded you can instead reload in place of the Strike of your retributive strike; you will gain the effect of Judgement of the Crossbow on the next ranged attack against the enemy if you attack before the end of your next turn.
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Rogue:
Precise follow-up:
One action; Feat Level 1
Traits: Rogue
Frequency: Once per round
Requirements: Your last action was a Strike that dealt sneak attack damage to a flat-footed target. The target is flat-footed. You're wielding a light and agile weapon in the other hand than you used for the previous Strike.
You quickly attack your target while it's guard is down
Make a Strike against the target, you can the following failure effect:
Failure: You deal your sneak attack damage to the target.
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I plan on adding more later, but comments or suggestion to the first ones are quite welcome.
| Edge93 |
These are pretty nice, I do have a couple things to say.
Mighty Throw, I really don't have anything to add. It's just cool. Especially having a large weapon increase the size cap, that's clever. It does act similarly to the Fighter's Intimidating Strike feat, though the condition from that effects more things but ends at the end of their next turn instead of the start of your next turn. Though maybe it would be fair to make them Sluggish through the end of your next turn instead of the start.
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Double Strike, I think this one does need a bit of work. It doesn't have an action economy advantage like Twin Takedown, and it doesn't have an accuracy advantage like Double Slice. The only thing it actually does over just attacking twice is potentially flat footed, and honestly ways to invoke that condition are kind of a dime a dozen. I think the feat needs something to set it apart, in particular to make it potentially worth using TWF over a 2 handed weapon on a Barbarian.
I have 2 ideas on this, one or both of which could be worthwhile.
First is turning Double Strike into a Stance with the following effects:
If wielding two non-agile weapons you treat your MAP as if they were agile (This does not reduce your Rage damage).
You gain the Rend ability (If you hit twice in a round, you can spend one action to automatically deal the damage of a single strike. So essentially if you land two strikes the third one auto-hits).
This does kind of encourage just spending the whole round swinging though, and taking the actions to set up Rage AND Stance at the start of a round is kinda rough.
The other idea is to have Double Strike as you have it now, but with the addition (Shamelessly stolen from Monk) that if you land both strikes then the damage die increases one size. Maybe also add to the enhancement an ability to shove the foe back after the attacks, I feel like that could be more flavorful and fitting for the Barbarian, plus it forces your foe to waste actions closing in again. Maybe 5 feet if one hits and 10 feet if both hit?
I think that does enough to make TWF worth considering over 2-H, though I'm not entirely sure. It's a tricky beast to balance as you don't want to make TWF objectively superior either.
On the subject of Barbarian TWF, I just had an idea for a feat called Twin Swipe. It has Swipe as a prerequisite and is a 3-action attack. It requires wielding 2 weapons and essentially allows you to make a strike with each weapon as if using the Swipe feat with each (Each strike targets 2 adjacent foes, roll once and compare to AC of both), one at full accuracy and the other at second attack MAP. Maybe if you take that damage die increase idea then say that the damage die increases for any foe hit twice by the move if you have that feat too. It seems fairly fun, a good way to really jack up a pair of enemies.
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I like the idea of Judgement of the Crossbow, though I feel like making it Cha mod instead of Wis might make sense. It would be fitting, like your holy aura or righteous wrath empowers your shot or something, plus I feel like using Wis just pulls in too many directions where you want one stat for accuracy, one for magic-y DCs, another for damage, and probably still Con for HP too.
Also I feel like having the feat allow you to Reload as a free action before a Retributive Strike is altogether fair, another thing of like being empowered to act rapidly against your foe. It might even make Heavy Crossbows more viable for them. Slow as heck in normal combat but you can pop that d12 shot right off if someone jacks with your friends.
As an aside I have toyed with the idea of making Ranged Reprisal's effect automatic and having Ranged Reprisal instead increase range to 20 or 30 feet and allow a melee attacker to Stride half speed instead of Step for their strike. Unsure about it though, the new version of the feat might be just as much of a no-brainer choice as Ranged Reprisal is now which is kinda what I try to stray away from. Maybe if it were higher level when there are more competitive choices.
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Precise Follow Up, another one I definitely like. It is a clever idea. One thing I would make note of, it is generally stronger than the Fighter feat Certain Strike, which is generally considered a very strong (If somewhat bland) ability. And is also a level TEN feat. Precise Follow Up is limited to once per round though, requires TWF, and requires a hit on the previous attack though, all of which are decent factors.
Level 1-4 it deals 1d6 (3.5) on a miss, 5-10 it deals 2d6 (7), 11-16 deals 3d6 (10.5), 17-20 deals 4d6 (14). Certain Strike, if not cheesed with Forceful weapons or Weakness and if not hampered by Resistance, at level 10-11 deals 8 damage, 12-13 deals 9, 14-15 deals 10, 16-19 deals 11, 20 deals 13. However as mentioned your feat has certain limitations, plus it can't exploit weapon traits or weakness unless a creature somehow has weakness to precision damage. So it honestly might be a little strong for a level 1 feat, I really don't know, but overall I think it's in a good place. Though I will say this definitely provides marks for Rogue TWF, Free-hand might need something to keep up now. XD
As an aside IDK if this is intentional but there is nothing stopping this feat from being used at range with thrown weapons.
Oh, and I meant to add that the requirement of "Light and Agile" weapon is redundant within itself. IIRC every Agile weapon is Light bulk, and I think every Light bulk weapon is Agile. So "Weapon with the Agile trait" is probably fine.
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All in all I really like these ideas! I had a fair bit to say to hopefully help refine these ideas but I really like the concept and a lot of the mechanics. Good work, and I might steal modified versions of some of these for my own games! XD
| Nettah |
Changing the duration on Mighty throw might be reasonable to buff. My first draft of it was having the knockdown effect happen on a success, but I realized that then it was basically the effect of Knockdown a level 14 fighter feat, and that seemed a tad too strong, but I might have backpedalled a bit too far.
I had several different versions of Double Strike in my mind. My first instinct was going toward a brutish shove type effect mixed in (to give it the action economy advantage) but I started to question the use of shoving like that for the barbarian, and the feat started to look very complicated for a first level feat. All in all I think that's the one I'm the least happy about. I considered making the base duel-wield barbarian feat a 3 action ordeal, but I was concerned how often you would actually get to use that, since your first action would almost always be rage and/or movement. However I really like the idea of a 3-action feat for duel-wielding barbarians but thought it might be a later level class feat.
My reasoning for making judgement of the crossbow use Wis, was actually to avoid charisma being the go-to stat for paladin and not having the scenario where you get +cha to dmg from both Blade of Justice and this at the same time. I haven't played or seen a paladin in play since the 1.6 update so I am actually unaware of how strong ranged reprisal is, therefore I was being cautious about given too much of a bonus to the feat and also it might make bows too bad in comparison.
I have had a fascination with an Abadar worshipping paladin wielding a crossbow for quite a while, and the original plan for that character was to get Crossbow Ace from the ranger dedication, so I always imagined a high wis paladin with a crossbow (The character concept was discarded after I realized that the dice increase from crossbow ace and diefic weapon didn't stack)
You are completely right about light and agile always being on the same weapons, I did not realize that. Maybe Precise follow-up should be limited to a weapon in the knife category in the off-hand instead. That seems pretty thematic and this might also balance it better against certain strike, since any successful attack is limited in damage. I do share the concern that all of a sudden every rogue would want to be duel-wielding (unless they were a brute rogue with either a spear or sword/board, which is another character concept of mine).