Changing feats into rules

Has anyone tried any of the following, or otherwise what do you think about it? The idea is to allow effectively everyone who meets the prerequisites to do what these feats allow, without actually needing to "purchase" the feat. At least I heard someone did this with Weapon Finesse.

The concept stems from the fact that many feats have a double cost, once to take it and second to use it. Also some of these feats are either the root of a feat chain (in which case they tend to be quite low-powered) or the end of a feat chain (in which case they are indirectly costly).

The following feats came to my mind, each of which is an issue by itself...

Weapon Finesse
As a rule it would become that anyone wielding a light weapon (or a rapier, whip or spikd chain) can either use Str or Dex for attack rolls.

Power Attack / Combat Expertise
Anyone with Str 13+ can trade a penalty to attack rolls for a bonus to damage up to BAB (depending on weapon size, see PHB); anyone with Int 13+ can trade a penalty to attack rolls for a bonus to AC up to BAB or 5.
In my experience these 2 feats are mostly taken because they are requisite for something better, and then they are used only occasionally.

Two-Weapon Fighting / Improved Two-Weapon Fighting / Greater Two-Weapon Fighting
A character with Dex 15+ automatically has 2WF, a character with 17+ and BAB 6+ automatically has I2WF, and a character with Dex 19+ and BAB 11+ automatically has G2WF.
In my exp. it's rare to take I2WF and G2WF because of the penalties.
Alternatively, only the 1st feat might be taken normally and grant all the benefits given time.

Spring Attack / Shot on the Run / Ride-by Attack
The first 2 could become a general rule that you can take an attack in the middle of a move, as long as you have Dex 13+, BAB 4+, Dodge and Mobility - plus Point Blank Shot for ranged attacks.
In my exp. these feats have too many (low-powered) requisites for the benefit they grant.
Ride-by Attack is a separate issue because its requisite are very low, and basically it would become an extra benefit of Mounted Combat.

What good/bad consequences do you think this would have on the game?

Off the top of my head...

The general idea would make stats have a larger impact on the game. Higher stats = more free feats.

From those specific ones, rogues would become a very 'strong' character choice. Most have high dex, so would qualify for 'free' weapon finesse and all 2 weapon feats... Which, IME, are things melee rogues would probably have bought anyway. In fact, anything with high dex would benefit. Archers would pick up a nice slew of bonus feats, allowing them to focus more on archery.

Overall, I think it's interesting! Could work very well for certain types of campaigns - 'Swashbuckly' style springs to mind.


I'd disagree about spring attack, I find that a very poweful fighter feat at higher levels... Particularly combined with other abilities to make for '1 big hit', power attack, etc... The ignoring Aoo to close on targets is very useful and avoiding full round attacks from larger monsters is an absolute must? Let the summoned muck get beaten up instead!

Shot on the run, 2 bits of cover, multishot and a holy axiomatic flaming bow is also rather lethal. If a bit specific.

I wouldn't be averse to allowing everyone to semi-Power Attack, say at -2 attack/+1 damage, or -1/+1 for a 2-handed weapon. After all, everyone can semi-Expertise by fighting defensively already; it just becomes another tactical option.

Inconsequenti-AL said:

I'd disagree about spring attack, I find that a very poweful fighter feat at higher levels... Particularly combined with other abilities to make for '1 big hit', power attack, etc... The ignoring Aoo to close on targets is very useful and avoiding full round attacks from larger monsters is an absolute must? Let the summoned muck get beaten up instead!

Shot on the run, 2 bits of cover, multishot and a holy axiomatic flaming bow is also rather lethal. If a bit specific.

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Yes, in fact I was particularly shy of proposing Spring Attack and Shot on the Run, I know that they are good feats. On the other hand it is also true that they require Dodge and Mobility both of which in my opinion are quite weak: Dodge is often house ruled into flat +1 to AC (altho it's rather because of bookkeeping than power) and Mobility is most useful for characters which cannot afford a high Tumble. IOW, Spring Attack and Shot on the Run (if you have PBS) would become extra benefits of Mobility.

It's true that Spring Attack lets you avoid a full attack, but also prevents you to do the same.

Finally, in early games of 3.0 I used to get many complaints from the players about the fact that in their opinion it was of little sense not to be able to "split" the move since the start.

However, I agree that those 3 feats (including Ride-by Attack) are more troublesome than the others above

Li Shenron
I see what you mean... neither dodge or mobility are fantastic feats. I've seen dodge houseruled that way and mobility as a + to AC for 1 round if you move more than 10' - at +4 it was too strong. OK at +2 perhaps?

It does seem that spring attack/shot on the run would mobility a better feat and make it 'worth' the dodge feat.

I like Hong's idea - 1/2 power power attack/expertise makes a lot sense to me. Keeps the original feats useful... but makes somewhat them less 'essential' for melee fighters.

Ride By is indeed a tricky one. The mounted combat feats seem lethal when they can be used, but just sit around doing nothing most of the time, IME.

I haven't done what you've asked about, but if I did, here are some things I'd pay careful attention to.

1) Power Attack is extremely powerful in the hands of someone with a high BAB and a high Str. So, I'd probably limit it to +5 and I'd probably change the name of the existing feat to Improved Power Attack and have it work as Power Attack currently does.

2) I might go through all the feats and put them into two categories. In one category would be "two-for-one" feats, the rest wouldn't. In the "two-for-one" feats category would be all the feats that are weak enough that, in my opinion, taking two is not imbalancing compared to any one of the feats in the other category. If I did this, I wouldn't use your idea as it is, but I'd probably be handing out a lot more feats that start feat chains.

3) There are problems with what this does for monsters. Really strong, really dumb monsters might always use power attack, for example. So making it free might be troublesome. In that case, I might have other requirements as well.

4) I don't really see the two-weapon fighting option working. I find that many arcane spellcasters benefit from a high Dex, but I don't see them wielding two daggers, or both ends of a quarterstaff, with the kind of proficiency that I imagine of a ranger or a very capable rogue or fighter.

5) Mobility is more about not getting hit when moving through dangerous territory than it is about taking attacks in the middle of a move, so I'm not sure that giving Spring Attack away as a freebie is a good idea. I think that taking Spring Attack definitely represents a certain kind of training.

6) On the other hand, (from 5 above), it's possible to pull this off with skills. Maybe making an attack during a move is more like combative tumbling and so with enough ranks in Tumble, and a good enough check, it's possible for any sufficiently skilled tumbler with a high enough BAB to pull this off.


Dave

Speaking of which (inspired by Hong's reply), a new option:

Fighting Aggressively
During an attack action, before you roll, you may try to swing harder to do more damage. Doing so can be unwieldy and in nonproficient hands is likely to fail. You apply a -4 penalty to all your melee attack rolls (including any attacks of opportunity you may get) for the remainer of your turn, and gain a +2 to any damage rolls that you score from melee attacks. If you have the Power Attack feat, you'll have no reason to Fight Offensively as Power Attack is better.

Dave

Similarly, anyone can fight with two hands already. But, the penalties are a bit stiff. So, here's another house rule option:

Fighting Ambidextrously
When fighting with two weapons (without the Two-Weapon Fighting feat), you add one-half of your Dex modifier (if positive) to your attacks with your primary hand, and one-quarter of your Dex modifier (if positive) to your attacks with your off hand. (If you have an 18 Dex, you add +2 to your primary and +1 to your secondary.) Any modifiers added in this way cannot result in lower penalties than those which result from having the Two-Weapon Fighting feat. However, if your Dex is high enough, you could, theoretically, end up with the same penalties (i.e. -2/-2 for having a light off-hand weapon; of course, that's an incredibly high Dex). Then again, for almost everyone this means no change to the off-hand weapon, and at best a +1 to the primary weapon.

Dave

Vrecknidj said:

Speaking of which (inspired by Hong's reply), a new option:

Fighting Aggressively
During an attack action, before you roll, you may try to swing harder to do more damage. Doing so can be unwieldy and in nonproficient hands is likely to fail. You apply a -4 penalty to all your melee attack rolls (including any attacks of opportunity you may get) for the remainer of your turn, and gain a +2 to any damage rolls that you score from melee attacks. If you have the Power Attack feat, you'll have no reason to Fight Offensively as Power Attack is better.

Dave

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Another version of this would be Fighting Offensively, the mirror image of Fighting Defensively. You suffer a -4 to AC but gain +2 to attack.

I suppose if you had Power Attack the AC penalty might lessen just as having 5+ tumble ranks improves Fighting Defensively and Full Defense.

Currently this is represented as the Reckless Offensive feat. I saw somewhere that this had been house ruled in a game as an option rather than a feat and that seems about right.

The question I see this raising is if one could combine charging and fighting offensively (much like how there was the fighting defensively + combat expertise question). It would be a crazy thing to do to one's AC, but it's great for a last ditch heroic surge.

I think if you made weapon finesse a 'non-feat' you could have all light waepons not need it and others like spiked chain, rapier and possible things like the flail need the feat.

It could work the same with others although I'm not sure of any that that idea could be aplied to.