[Insert catchy captivating title about new feats]

Tell me what you think of the following feats. Good, bad, nice, crappy, wonderful? No seriously, I've been staring at a screen for the past 3 weeks so I don't really know what I was writing about after a while.

Note: All the following feats can be taken as fighter bonus feats.

Mageslayer
Through much training you have developed an effectice technique to harass spellcasters.
Prerequisites: Int 13, Bab +4, Spellcraft 4 ranks
Benefit: When you threaten a caster (any caster) who is trying to cast defensively, you add your base attack bonus to the Concentration check DC. Additionally if you identify the spell being cast you add 2 to the DC. You also gain a +1 on Will saves against spells and spell-like abilities.

Tower Shield Expert
You wield the Tower Shield as easily as you would any other shield.
Prerequisites: Str 15, Bab +6, Tower Shield Proficiency.
Benefit: You ignore the -2 penalty on attacks because of the encumbrance of the Tower Shield. Additionally, you ignore 1 point of Armor Check Penalty for every 4 points of Bab.

Tower Shield Master
You are a master in the use of the Tower Shield. Your skill has reached such heights that you can take full advantage of the defensive capabilites of the shield whilst still being a threat to your opponents.
Prerequisites: Str 17, Dex 13, Bab +11, Tower Shield Proficiency, Tower Shield Expert.
Benefit: When employing the shield as cover, you can still make a single attack at -5 penalty. Also, you still threaten and are able to to make attacks of opportunity whereas your opponents cannot do the same against you because of cover.

Shield of the Occult Slayer
You have trained yourself or been trained to use the Tower Shield against spellcasters in such a way that you can deflect their spells away from you.
Prerequisites: Str 17, Int 13, Bab +11, Mageslayer, Tower Shield Proficiency, Tower Shield Expert, Spellcraft 6 ranks.
Benefit: Once per day, when using a Tower Shield as cover you can deflect a targeted spell or ray in a random direction. Roll d8 to determine in which direction the spell goes (or d26 if you want to do it in 3D). Additionally, you gain a quarter (rounded down) of the shield's bonus on reflex saves against area-effect spells. You gain the full bonus on reflex saves if you employ the shield as cover.
Special: You can only use this feat if you are employing a Tower Shield of +1 or better enhancement.

Tower Shield Specialization
You are skilled in the use of the Tower Shield, gaining greater defensive benefits from it.
Prerequisites: Str 13, Tower Shield Proficiency.
Benefit: When using the Tower Shield, you increase it's Shield bonus by +1.

Tower Shield Ward
You use your Tower Shield like a wall of steel and wood. When an opponents attempts to draw in close to you, your shield forces him away or foils his attacks.
Prerequisites: Str 15, Bab +8, Tower Shield Proficiency, Tower Shield Expert, Tower Shield Specialization.
Benefit: You apply your Tower Shield shield bonus to your Touch AC and on checks or rolls to resist bull rush, disarms, grappls, overrun or trip attempts against you.

Instant Tower Shield. (just add water)
During a fight, you can instantly call upon the full defensive benefits of your Tower Shield.
Prerequisites: Str 19, Dex 15, Bab +13, Tower Shield Proficiency and Tower Shield Expert and either Tower Shield Master or Shield of the Occult Slayer.
Benefit: Once per day (with an additional daily use for every 8 points of base attack bonus), you can use the shield as cover as an immediate action.

I don't know about these feats...

...I guess they're tactical feats but they don't seem in line in terms of power with other tactical feats. But as I said, I can't really think clear now.

Battlefield Controller
You own the battlefield. You have created technique's which inhibit, if not completely stump your opponents' mobility.
Prerequisites: Dex 15, Int 13, Combat Reflexes, Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, Base Attack bonus +8.
Benefits:
Benefit 1 (name yet to be decided, i.e Need help): If an opponent attempts to tumble through your threatened area, you add your base attack bonus to the Tumble check DC. If he fails by 5 or more you can initiate a trip attempt. You add +1 to the Tumble DC for every 5 ranks in Tumble you have, showing that you can anticipate that which you have trained in yourself.
Knockdown: If you trip an opponent (in whichever way, shape or form) you can forego the follow-up attack in favor of making it harder for him to get up. If you use the knockdown ability, it takes the opponent a full-round action to get up instead of a move-action. An opponent who normally can stand up as a free action, instead, reduces the time to get up to a move-action.

Magebane Warrior
Whether it's because of an instilled hatred of magic users or simply a desire to be an effective threat against said magic-users, you have developed a set of skills in dealing with fighting against spellcasters.
Prerequisites: Int 13, Magebane, Spellcraft 7 ranks, base attack bonus +12.
Absorb Spell Power: With a readied action, you can absorb a targeted spell cast on you. You must make a special Absorb check which is like a dispel check except you use your base attack bonus plus your Int or Cha modifier against a DC of 11+caster level. If you fail, you suffer the consequences of the spell but if you succeed you have aborbed the spell's power. You now have a Spell Power Cache which you need to fuel the other abilities of this feat. Your Spell Power Cache is equal to the amount of spell levels you have absorbed up to a maximum of half your base attack bonus + your Int or Cha modifier. Your Spell Power Cache last up to 1 hour per point of Int or Cha modifier (minimum 1 hour). Friendly casters can cast spells on you for you to put in your cache. However, beneficial spells do not confer their abilities if succesfully absorbed.
Pierce Magical Concealment: As a swift action you can expend some of your cached spell levels to disregard the miss chance granted by spells and spell-like abiltiies such as darkness, blur, invisibility and spells which are used to create concealment effects (such as a wizard using permanent image to fill a corridor with illusory fire and smoke). In addition, when facing a creature protected by mirror image, you can immediately pick out the real creature from it's figments. This ability lasts 1 round per spell level expended.
Dispelling Strike: As a standard action or as a charge attack you can expend 5 spell levels from your Cache to make a Dispelling Strike. A Dispelling Strike is a normal melee attack which ignores the bonusses to AC granted by spells and spell-like abilities (including spell trigger or spell completion effects created by magic items). If you hit, you create the effect of a targeted dispel against your opponent. Your effective caster level for this abitity is equal to your base attack bonus.

I would bump this thread but I'm above that.

Just so you know.

Joker said:

I would bump this thread but I'm above that.

Just so you know.

Click to expand...

I lied .

Mageslayer is fantastic. Maybe a bit too powerful, but the idea is great. I miss 2e when mage's had a hard time staying clear of melee opponents. It's far too easy in 3e, IMO, to cast defensively every round.

In our campaign we made this houserule where casting defensively was an opposed role. But seeing as the Attack modifier's are much higher than skill mod's it became nearly impossible to cast defensively, in our campaign.
That's why I made this feat to give caster's at least a chance against well-trained opponents (albeit a small one).

Though I can easily see how this would be too powerful if you start out with the normal rules.

Someone a while ago suggested adding half the Bab (instead of full Bab) to the DC? How would that work? It seems a bit easy to beat then but I haven't run any numbers or playtested it, so I can't really tell.

Just use BAB vs Concentration Skill levels, as contested roll. The skill starts out higher and will stay that way if they put a point in it every level, if you use modified to hit rolls it will even out better, combat casting =+4 same as 18 str. Skill focus gives +3 and it already is 3 higher so that balances out with another +6 the fighter can come up with.

What Praxis is proposing here is a variant <i've seen used (without need of a feat) in more than one game (in one of them I played... and didn't feel Spellcasters were "crippled" or anything).

lets see the DC of casting defensively for a wizard lvl 10 vs a ftr lvl 10 (with Combat Casting and Mage Slayer respectively... and lets say the Fighter knows the spell)

DC = 15 + 5 (spell level) + 10 (Bab) + 2 (Knows the spell) => 32

Check: d20 + 0 (Con) + 4 (Combat Casting) + 13 (Ranks) => +17

30% of beating the DC... (Assuming the Ftr knows the spell, no Skill Focus, and Con 10-11)

To me it looks fair enough. Its not like the Wizard will be always threatened by the Mage Slayer.

I like TS expert, but I think TS master is too good. You are taking a -5 to attacks and giving yourself INFINITE AC. That's way better than combat expertise.

TS spec and TS ward seem to be based on the PHBII feats. Are these even necessary, does the PHBII feats not include tower shields?

Instant TS I'd have to think about. Its basically an automatic miss against one attack, but it is a higher prereq feat. I'd suggest comparing it to melee evasion from PHBII, you'll realize that Instant TS is much much much better than that feat.

Here's what I think...

Mage Slayer: Seems really powerful, I'd at least remove the +1 to will saves. It's still a powerful feat withou it.

Tower Shield Expert: I really like it, someone might actually use a tower shield with this available...

Tower Shield Mastery: Also cool, though you might add combat reflexes as a prereq.

Shield of the Occult Slayer: Neat idea, I like the deflection part, but the reflex save part just doesn't work for me, and it makes it too powerful.

Tower Shield Specialization: This is in PHBII...I think...cool...

Tower Shield Ward: This is too...with the same name....maybe they didn't cover tower shields...I like it

Instant Tower Shield: Ok, but I don't know that I'd take a once per day feat...you could say that they can use the shield for cover as an immediate action but that they then give up all thier actions on thier next turn, then it could be a whenever feat I think.

Battlefield Controller: ok...but I think the knockdown portion could be a separate feat with improved trip as a prereq.

Magebane warrior: I don't know...I just don't know... I think you should put in a line that on a failed absorb roll the character is allowed no saves which the spell normally offers. I think that's what was implied but clarification is good...the true seeing function is a little too good but I don't know how I'd fix it. The dispel function mimics a sixth level spell because as written it isn't dispel magic but greater dispel magic, I think this is way too good. At the very least it should be dispel magic with a bonus equal to (the characters will save without items) max +10...I don't know... just seems too much...

Drexes