A Viking Fighter trades armor training for a specialized shield training. Thus he has to take Shield Focus in order to be able to take Shield Mastery feats (because only armor mastery lets you skip the prerequisite). As an archetype specialized towards shields, this is kind of dumb.
Would you houserule treating shield defense as armor training for that particular purpose?
Definitely not. The real question is why aren't you getting shield focus anyway?
If Armor Training and Shield Defense were more similar it might be a different story, but they're entirely different abilities. It's already pretty strong that it gives you a scaling shield bonus, so to also have it count as armor training for this prerequisite just so that you can bypass a feat that will benefit your character anyway.... that's a little iffy.
To offer a little precedent that's similar, there are a bunch of archetypes that replace weapon training with an ability that's similar, but doesn't count as weapon training... Would you allow all of those to qualify for Weapon Mastery Feats without taking Martial Focus?
Honestly yeah...those archetypes are pretty bad in the face of AWT options.
Honestly yeah...those archetypes are pretty bad in the face of AWT options.Definitely not. The real question is why aren't you getting shield focus anyway?
If Armor Training and Shield Defense were more similar it might be a different story, but they're entirely different abilities. It's already pretty strong that it gives you a scaling shield bonus, so to also have it count as armor training for this prerequisite just so that you can bypass a feat that will benefit your character anyway.... that's a little iffy.
To offer a little precedent that's similar, there are a bunch of archetypes that replace weapon training with an ability that's similar, but doesn't count as weapon training... Would you allow all of those to qualify for Weapon Mastery Feats without taking Martial Focus?
They are bad since Advanced Weapon/Armor Training came out, but it's the rules.
Personally I am not inclined to let someone count it, unless it includes verbiage like "this counts as weapon training".
Weapon mastery feats aren't good enough to warrant a +1 damage with a specific kind of weapon feat as a prereq, nor do any fighter archetypes offer much opportunity for 'wonky s*$!'.
Cut From the Air/Smash From the Air are absolutely worth it... especially for enemy NPC's. Nothing deflates the ego of an archer faster than having every arrow he shoots in the round chopped to pieces before they reach their target.
But I had Rapid Shot, AND Manyshot... sad face.
Cut From the Air/Smash From the Air are absolutely worth it... especially for enemy NPC's. Nothing deflates the ego of an archer faster than having every arrow he shoots in the round chopped to pieces before they reach their target.
But I had Rapid Shot, AND Manyshot... sad face.
Yeah but from a disrupting the games balance perspective thats just a limited wind wall that eats your attacks of opportunity and can fail. There are good feats in there sure, but they aren't so good that i think a feat as dead as the prereq needs to exist. Cut/Smash from the air already needs combat reflexes and a good dex to outperform deflect arrows.
Yeah but from a disrupting the games balance perspective thats just a limited wind wall that eats your attacks of opportunity and can fail. There are good feats in there sure, but they aren't so good that i think a feat as dead as the prereq needs to exist. Cut/Smash from the air already needs combat reflexes and a good dex to outperform deflect arrows.Cut From the Air/Smash From the Air are absolutely worth it... especially for enemy NPC's. Nothing deflates the ego of an archer faster than having every arrow he shoots in the round chopped to pieces before they reach their target.
But I had Rapid Shot, AND Manyshot... sad face.
A Wind Wall won't stop Enervation or Disintegrate, and Smash from the air should be 95% effective against attacks like this.
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I don't see why it's a problem to spend the feat on shield focus.
Fighters get plenty of feats.