Wave Strike seems like a bit of a troll

[CountMRVHS]

Wave Strike:

You present a serene facade until you unsheathe your weapon and strike in one fluid motion.

Prerequisite: Weapon expertise class feature or Quick Draw, Bluff 1 rank.

Benefit: If on your first turn of combat you draw a melee weapon to attack an opponent within your reach, you can spend a swift action to make a Bluff check to feint against that opponent.

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Weapon expertise is a class feature of the samurai, so this was clearly made with samurai in mind.

But another rather important class feature of the samurai is challenge - which also requires a swift action, meaning you can't challenge on the same turn as you Wave Strike.

And because Wave Strike specifies "your first turn of combat", you can't challenge *prior* (unless you do so outside of combat somehow).

I suppose you could Wave Strike and then challenge on the following turn, but it seems a bit silly.

What's really unfortunate is that this feat seems intended as a kind of Iaijutsu Strike - but it can't be combined with the sword saint's Iaijutsu Strike, due to the aforementioned conflict with swift actions, and the fact that Iaijutsu Strike can only be performed on the target of a challenge. So again, if you wanted to use both, you'd have to Wave Strike on your first turn, sheathe your sword, challenge, and then Iaijutsu Strike.

Regardless of all that, it's unclear to me how a samurai of any archetype would make good use of this feat. If you're feinting on your first turn of combat, the benefit will be that you get to deny the foe his Dex bonus to AC.

But if it's the first turn of combat, isn't there a chance that the foe will be flat-footed anyway? I mean, if you beat their initiative, they're flat-footed.

OK, so it's useful if you lost initiative. But denying Dex to AC seems like more of a rogue move. Apart from a potentially easier chance to hit, can you think of any other way a samurai could make use of Wave Strike, considering its limitations (first turn, swift action)?

[SheepishEidolon]

CountMRVHS wrote:

OK, so it's useful if you lost initiative. But denying Dex to AC seems like more of a rogue move. Apart from a potentially easier chance to hit, can you think of any other way a samurai could make use of Wave Strike, considering its limitations (first turn, swift action)?

Samurai has no accuracy boost from a class feature (the order might help or not), so the increased chance to hit has higher value than for a fighter or barbarian. You probably want to pick a target which acted already and is within reach - it might not exist, but every combat feat is situational to some degree. Speaking of situational: The few targets who have uncanny dodge are still vulnerable to feint, too.

And your first target is not necessarily the one you want to spend your challenge on. Maybe the goblin chieftain sends a distraction creature first - which is no match but must be removed to get to the chieftain. Maybe you don't want to use challenge at all, because you are low on daily uses and the encounter seems rather easy. Maybe you can do something special on your first strike (poison, disease, sneak attack etc.), so you want to maximize your chance to hit (challenge doesn't help you with that, by default).

Finally, Greater Feint helps everyone in the party who uses attack rolls (even a ray caster). So depending on party composition, you could gang a certain creature to remove it quickly - the others could delay their turn after you. Note that Greater Feint might be ruled to just help the feinting creature - the common interpretation seems to be otherwise, but in doubt check with your GM.