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This bothers me too. I think it mainly comes up with weapon and armor enhancements that are priced equivalent to an enhancement bonus: these should have about the same utility throughout a character's life, the way an attack or damage bonus does. As you point out, fixed DC enhancements obviously...

One approach (and probably, I think, the best one) is just to treat blade locks at a higher level of abstaction -- you can simply say that part of why Strength helps you in combat, in the form of providing attack and damage bonuses, is that it helps you win blade locks when they come up. I've...

I'm curious why you want to. I think Improved Initiative is fine as it is (though I could be convinced that taking the bonus down to +3 might be a good idea), but in general think that too many feats that add stacking, mechanical bonuses are, ceteris paribus, worth avoiding. Too many of those...

Shilsen and Scarlata are correct. Normally, a spot check is a move action (at least when you actively try to spot something); the most plausible reading of Quick Reconnoiter is that it affects this and only this use of Spot. Using Spot with Deft Strike is a wholly different application of the...

Here's a simplified answer; assume for now that you're really just interested in situations where you're up agains things you can actually crit. If you use a weapon with a 19-20 or x3 crit, take Improved Critical if you do more than 20 points of damage on average. Otherwise, take Weapon...

Exactly. The combat style feat has a lot of prerequisites and applies to a very weak weapon, and, in general, increases to multiplier are much more powerful if applied to a high-threat weapon. If you do the math, you'll find that an unlimited-use tempest strike is probably too good.

The more I think about it, the more I think you're right: tempest strike should only be usable once per round and a limited number of times per day, though I think once is too few. Since I don't want all of the sword saint's limited-use abilities to be based on Wisdom, and Dexterity is...

Thanks! By the last ability, do you mean Tempest Strike (where you get an extra attack on a threat)? If so, our instincts differ, but you might be right. (This is the sort of thing that might be best settled by playtesting.) Tempest Strike is a really great ability: in effect, it's like a +1...

Yep. It's just like normal movement, except you can attack during it.

(Ain't got nothin'?)

I don't like the UA Prestige Paladin, partly because it's too close to the cleric -- paladins should be drawn from all walks of life; they shouldn't all be warrior priests (nor should they get to prepare and cast all of the sixth-level cleric spells!). Here's a version that sticks closer to what...

Below are a pair of prestige classes designed for monks who want to use spears or swords rather than unarmed strikes. They're fit to Eberron, but can be adapted to most other settings. Specific flavor text for each of the classes is omitted, but will be added eventually. Note that what follows...

Of course you can win an RPG! You kill things, take their stuff, and use that stuff to kill bigger things until there is nothing bigger than you. In such a case, you would have nothing left to kill and, therefore, nothing left to do, and, therefore, might as well end the boredom by retiring the...

The rules don't say anthing about this, so, technically, they do stack. However, this is not true for the ranger's favored enemy bonuses (which don't stack for creatures who fall into multiple favored categories), so it's plausible that bane stacking was just an oversight and counter to the...

Knowing Strike is too good. +2 for every five ranks in Crippler class skills yields potentially massive bonuses -- why not just let them choose a favored enemy or two? (And why are things like knowledge (arcana), (nature), and (the planes) class skills for Cripplers anyway? Do they like magic...

I think +1 is a bit too good. A shortsword that looks and deals damage like a longsword is, more or less, a shortsword that deals another point of damage, on average, and +1 average damage is too weak for a +1 enhancement. I'd price it at a flat increase, probably somewhere like +4000 gp.

I've been thinking about an approach on just these lines, too -- how about having feat synergies like OA martial arts styles, but also require fighter levels as prerequisites?

What about having the fighter's feat progression just accelerate to one feat per level after 10th?

I disagree with Sean on math. It turns out that increases to threat range can be modeled as multiplying your weapon's base damage by an amount equal to 1 + ((the increase in the probability of a threat) * your multiplier)): for a scimitar or falchion, keen increase expected weapon damage by 15%...

My method is a version of this broad approach, but a bit more complicated. I like it a lot. Characters have an incentive to add ranks in Tumble throughout their career, even after they can reliably beat the base DC's. Experienced tumblers can make themselves all but invulnerable to attacks of...