How balanced is this feat from AEG's Swashbuckling Adventures?

[TBoarder]

I've just finished with a two hour debate with another player in my group concerning this feat, and would like some outside opinions on it.

Dashing and Daring

Prereqs - BAB +4, Dexterity 13+, Charisma 13+

Benefit - You recieve your charisma bonus to your armor class in addition to your dexterity modifier while wearing no armor. Furthermore, any members of the opposite sex who see you fighting are predispoded to like you. Any Charisma based skills or checks made recieve a +2 bonus, but only for those who have seen you in action.

Basically, I see the feat as a "you get into a fight, throw your opponent off-guard with your wit and daring, then sweep the maiden who sees the fight off her feet" feat.

I don't see it being too powerful or abusable, even when stacked with the Duelist's ability to add his Int modifier to his AC. My argument for this feat is the fact that for the feat to be useful, the character will be sacrificing ability scores that are more beneficial for a standard fight, Strength and/or Constitution.

Here are the benefits I'm looking to gain -

An Armor Class on par with that of an armored fighter of equal level.

A lack of armor penalties for skills such as Balance, Jump, and Tumble.

The "balancing" sacrifices that are made due to this feat I see are -

In putting all of your Ability score bonuses into Dex, Cha, and Int (for a duelist), you're neglecting the all-important scores for a fighter, Strength and Constitution, meaning lesser average damage/round and fewer hit points than the average fighter.

I've also suggested the possibility of making this into a two-feat tree, Dashing, which gives the character the AC bonus from Charisma, and Daring, which gives +2 bonus to your Cha related skills for anybody of the opposite sex who sees the fight. The only problem I see with that is that the Daring feat seems far too focused for a feat, making it very weak, compared to other feats.

I'm not sure if the other player is concerned about that, or if his main concern (which he brought up) is that an all other things being equal, an armored character should always win against an unarmored character, while I think and unarmored front-line fighter should be a viable character concept, as long as it's not easy to abuse, as long as every, single character doesn't see this as a "must have" feat.

If anybody can give additional pros and cons for this feat, I'd greatly appreciate the help. Thanks!

 

[Crothian]

The prequites are very low. The "while wearing no armor" is really not that much of a hindrance considering that bracers of armor, rings of protection, amulets of natural armor, and all the other non armor ways to increase one's AC (Bucklers may be included in that).

Strength is not that important as an unarmed fighter will have a good dex and weapon finesse feat will make strength not needed. But the whole attribute arguemnt really only matters you use point buy.

What this feat really does is make cha much more powerful an attribute. While many think cha is still the dump stat I disagree. This would be a must have feat for a Bard, a Sorcerer, and paladins.

Abusing this would not be hard with the Stat boosting spells. You can easily get +1d4+1 to each your Dex and Cha which improves your AC by anywhere from 2 to 6. Permaenant magical items like the cloak of Charisma and then using wishes and other great using magics can also make this much better. Of course then there are the non standard templates and races that do get Cha bonuses.

Edit: And the name just reminds be to much of

Dashing and daring,
Courageous and caring,
Faithful and friendly,
With stories to share.
All through the forest,
They sing out in chorus,
Marching along,
As their song fills the air.

You know the song, sing along at home

 

[TBoarder]

The prequites are very low. The "while wearing no armor" is really not that much of a hindrance considering that bracers of armor, rings of protection, amulets of natural armor, and all the other non armor ways to increase one's AC (Bucklers may be included in that).

I thought the prerequisites were pretty fair. I used the default array as my baseline to see if the feat was fair, and if your character wants to concentrate on AC, he'd be stuck with both his Str and Dex at being 12 or under.

Strength is not that important as an unarmed fighter will have a good dex and weapon finesse feat will make strength not needed. But the whole attribute arguemnt really only matters you use point buy.

Strength still has its importance due to the extra damage that it causes. I've decided that the feat from Swashbuckling Adventures that allows you to use your dex bonus for damage was too powerful for that very reason.

What this feat really does is make cha much more powerful an attribute. While many think cha is still the dump stat I disagree. This would be a must have feat for a Bard, a Sorcerer, and paladins.

Probably mostly for a bard. I wouldn't ever see a paladin take the feat because it only works when the character is unarmored (not that you can't have a paladin who specializes in fighting unarmored...). It would be 50/50 for a Sorcerer, depending on how willing he is to even get close to melee combat.

Abusing this would not be hard with the Stat boosting spells. You can easily get +1d4+1 to each your Dex and Cha which improves your AC by anywhere from 2 to 6. Permaenant magical items like the cloak of Charisma and then using wishes and other great using magics can also make this much better. Of course then there are the non standard templates and races that do get Cha bonuses.

You only have so many spells and can afford only so many items though.

I've been comparing this with the Canny Defence ability that the Duelist from Sword & Fist recieves at 1st level. The player I've been debating this with has no problem with that ability, but thinks that including this feat in the mix would throw everything out of whack, while I believe that it actually gives the character a comparable AC to a normal, armored fighter of equal level.

Edit: And the name just reminds be to much of

Dashing and daring,
Courageous and caring,
Faithful and friendly,
With stories to share.
All through the forest,
They sing out in chorus,
Marching along,
As their song fills the air.

You know the song, sing along at home

Never heard of it.

Since I'm trying to create a viable low-strength, high dex fighter who doesn't wear armor, do you have any suggestions for alternatives if this feat is shot down completely? Thanks for your reply.

 

[hong]

You only have so many spells and can afford only so many items though.

Eh. You want to go and look again at the gp tables for high-level characters.

I've been comparing this with the Canny Defence ability that the Duelist from Sword & Fist recieves at 1st level. The player I've been debating this with has no problem with that ability, but thinks that including this feat in the mix would throw everything out of whack, while I believe that it actually gives the character a comparable AC to a normal, armored fighter of equal level.

Everything I've seen indicates that characters like duelists and monks can easily get competitive ACs at high levels. Throwing in another way to get a stat bonus to AC would thus probably be overpowering in a standard D&D setting. It might work okay in the Swashbuckling Adventures setting, if there are fewer ways to get magic items.

 

[Crothian]

It really depends on your stats and what books are allowed. I feel expertise is a must. Dodge is also very good. In FFG's Path of the Sword is a good parrying feat.

 

[Chun-tzu]

Dashing and daring,
Courageous and caring,
Faithful and friendly,
With stories to share.
All through the forest,
They sing out in chorus,
Marching along,
As their song fills the air.

You know the song, sing along at home

You know, those freaking bears had an amazing AC once they drank their Gummi Berry juice, and some of them definitely had poor Dexterity. They must have gotten a Cha bonus to AC for "cuteness."

 

[Tagnik]

GUMMI BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAARS!!!
BOUNCING HERE AND THERE AND EVERYWHERE!!

 

[Fenes 2]

In my campaigns this feat would be grossly overpowered. Almsot every PC has an above Charisma, and often combat takes place in situations where no one is wearing armor (in the bedroom/bathroom, at balls or in an inn). The paladin with her charisma of 20 would have a decent AC without her plate mail, but the swashbuckler and the bard... ugh. Another campaign is set in the south, where heavy armor is very unpractical and most rely on the sorcerer's extended mage armor.

As far as a decent AC goes, a duelist, especially at higher levels, can often give any plate-wearing fighter a run for his money. Our current duelist will recieve the elaborate parry ability next level, at which point she will, when fighting defensively (-4 to attack), have an AC of 10+5(Dex) +4(Fighting defensively with 15 ranks tumble, according to OA) +3(Canny Defense) +7(Elaborate parry) +1(Dodge). That makes 30 even without magical items.
Add natural armor and bracers of armor and stat enhancing items for dex and Int and you will easily reach 40+.
Now imagine Charisma adding to that as well...

 

[The Souljourner]

I don't think it's right for it to be a feat. As part of a prestige class? Yeah, sure, go for it. Prestige classes have difficult requirements and generally require you to sacrifice something in order to get them. But as a feat, it's just way too easy to get. I agree with the guys who said it's useless for a paladin... I mean, +4-5 AC from the feat OR +10 from full plate and shield, which can only get better with magic. Hmm. Great for bards and sorcerers though.

Make it a prestige class, require one or two crap feats, and you're good. As it is, BAB +4 and 13 dex/cha is the same as no prerequisites at all. Either you can get it, and it didn't cost you anything but a feat, or you didn't really want it in the first place (otherwise you would have put that 13 in dex).

So umm... yeah. No.

-The Souljourner

 

[smetzger]

The prereqs are way too low. Its a very good feat and as its written almost every Bard and Sorcerer would qualify as soon as they get a BAB of +4.

I would suggest Dodge as a Prereq and Bluff of 5 or 6 ranks, maybe more.

I also think the AC bonus should be limited to melee weapons, why would it effect the archer who is 200 ft away?